Best Kept Secrets (7 page)

Gloria’s hazel eyes twinkled mischievously behind the lenses of her glasses. Her brother had revealed the details of his conversation with Samuel Cole and his decision to withdraw the offer of his daughter’s hand in marriage to Pedro Acevedo in favor of her marrying the
americano.

She’d told her older brother that the attraction between M.J. and Samuel would progress more quickly without her presence.

Gloria was grateful that her mother hadn’t lived long enough to witness her only daughter’s unconventional lifestyle. Jose Luis complained about Marguerite-Josefina shaming the Diaz name when all she’d done was pose for a photographer wearing a revealing dressing gown.

When she’d traveled throughout Europe and Africa she’d done things so wicked that once she returned to Cuba she sought out a priest for absolution.

Gloria smiled. She was proud of her niece. M.J. had challenged her father’s archaic ways of thinking, and won. Gloria stole a glance at Samuel Cole, and her smile widened. Marguerite-Josefina Isabel Diaz had chosen well. And there was something
about the American that indicated he was destined for greatness. She just hoped she would live long enough to witness it.

Banana leaves obscured Samuel’s face as he leaned against the tree, puffing leisurely on a Cuban cigar. He’d grown quite fond of the taste of the smooth, fragrant tobacco. A near-full moon provided the only light in the darkened area as he inhaled the cloying scent of flowers and damp earth. He was still attempting to come to terms with conspiring with his future father-in-law.

He wanted M.J. to come to him of her own free will and not because she wanted him to rescue her. He was certain he could love M.J. After all, she was perfect in every way.

A rustling, followed by a soft crunching sound, brought him from his leaning position. Peering into the blackness he made out a flash of white; then a figure wearing a flowing white dress came into his line of vision.

“You shouldn’t be out here with me.”

“And why not?”

“It’s not proper, M.J.”

He froze, his breath catching in his throat when he saw her face. She’d let her hair down. He wanted her; he wanted to touch her, kiss her. He wanted her in his bed, her hair fanning out over his pillow, his flesh buried so deeply in hers that they would become one with each other.

“Did not my father give permission for us to be alone together?”

Samuel nodded, wondering how he hadn’t noticed the low, sensual timbre of her voice. It was soft, soothing, intoxicating.

“Then what is the problem, Samuel?”

He wanted to tell M.J. she was the problem. She’d bewitched and taunted him until there were times when he couldn’t think straight. “The problem is that you can’t come to my room again when I’m not presentable.” She moved closer and he felt her warm breath brush his throat.

“It’s not that I haven’t seen a man’s bare chest before. What’s not proper is my sharing your bed. That I would only do with my husband.”

“If that’s the case, then why don’t you wait until I’m your husband before you see my chest again?”

M.J.’s soft gasp was followed by a swollen silence, then the sound of her breathing in a hiccupping, offbeat cadence. She recovered first. “What makes you so certain that I’ll become your wife?”

Samuel put out the cigar against the bark of the tree, the ashes falling to the earth in shimmering red-orange sparks. “You didn’t invite me back to Cuba because you enjoy talking to me.”

“Why do you think I asked you to come back?”

He smiled. “Curiosity.”

Her eyebrows flickered. “Why else?”

He lowered his head, his mouth inches from her ear. “Because you want something from me you can’t get from the men in your country.”

M.J. felt trapped, and it was too late to retreat. “And what is that?”

“Freedom from what you view as a restrictive society. You admire your aunt because of her lifestyle. She has her own money, answers to no one, and is free to come and go by her leave.”

He’d discovered her ruse. He knew she was using him. Blinking back the tears, M.J. turned to run but she wasn’t quick enough as Samuel caught her upper arm.

“Let me go.”

Samuel tightened his grip and turned her around to face him. His free arm curved around her waist. “I can’t let you go, M.J. Not now. Not ever.”

Burying her face against his chest, she wept without making a sound. “I’m sorry,” she sniffled, swiping at the moisture on her cheeks.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Cradling her chin in his
hand, he forced her to look up at him. His thumb caressed her lower lip. “I don’t ever want you to apologize to me for something you felt you had to do.” He smiled. “Understand?”

“Sí,”
she whispered.

“Good.” Lowering his head, he touched his mouth to hers, increasing the pressure when she moaned softly. The kiss ended as quickly as it had begun. “Now, go back inside before there’s talk about you traipsing in the garden with your
americano.”

“What does traipsing mean?”

“Frolicking without a care.”

She wound her arms around his waist. “I don’t have a care.”

Samuel kissed her hair. “Please go, M.J.”

“I don’t want to, Sammy.” She’d sobbed out his name.

The press of her firm breasts awakened the flaccid flesh between his thighs, and Samuel knew if M.J. didn’t leave he would take her where they stood. “Either you go inside or I will.”

M.J. rested her cheek over his heart. “Kiss me again, and I’ll go.”

Samuel tightened his hold on her slender body and kissed her with all of the passion he could summon for a woman. His mouth moved to her jaw, eyes and throat before returning to her moist, parted lips.

He ended the kiss, breathing heavily. “Go! Now!”

M.J. needed no further urging. She’d felt the passion and the fire for the first time in her life. Samuel’s mouth had set hers afire and his hardness made the area between her legs moist and pulsing with a desire that frightened her.

She raced back to the house, up the staircase and into her room, closing and locking the door behind her. She peered into a wall mirror; the image staring back at her was a stranger. Her nipples were distended, her pupils dilated and her lips swollen.

Walking on trembling legs, she made it to her bed and lay facedown on the embroidered sheets. She buried her face in the pillow, smothering the soft moans as her flesh betrayed her again.

She lay motionless, long after her moans subsided and the pulsing eased. The last thought she remembered before sleep claimed her was, how long would she have to wait before she would be acknowledged as Senora Marguerite-Josefina Isabel Cole?

M
.J. walked into the small space off the
sala
and came to an abrupt halt. Sitting on the chair she always occupied when reading or doing needlework was the man whom she’d only glimpsed at the dinner table. Samuel Cole, her houseguest, had spent the past week with her father.

The two men spent hours secreted behind the door to Jose Luis’s library, many more hours away from the house, and the night before they’d driven into Havana for a night on the town.

It had become apparent to her that she hadn’t needed a chaperone because her father had monopolized all of Samuel’s time on the island.

Her gaze lingered on him as he came slowly to his feet. He wore his favored
guayabera
with a pair of off-white cot
ton slacks and sturdy boots. His face was thinner, the cheekbones more pronounced, which made him look even more like the African masks Antonio collected and included in his paintings.

“
Buenos dias
, senor.”

A hint of a smile crinkled the skin around his eyes. “Why so formal, Senorita Diaz?”

She bit back a smile, dimples winking attractively. “You think I should not be formal with you? After all, we hardly get to see each other.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You see me now.”

“That I do.”

Samuel wanted to tell M.J. that he had deliberately kept his distance from her because he didn’t want a repeat of what had happened in the garden. Although she regarded herself as a modern freethinker, Marguerite-Josefina was still a woman bound to her culture and class by virtue of birth. She was an upper-class Cuban woman who’d willingly risked her reputation and an opportunity to marry well to consort with an American.

M.J. lifted her chin and appeared to look down her delicate nose at him. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

Taking four long strides, Samuel closed the distance between them. “I was waiting for you.”

Her eyes widened. “Why?”

“I’d hoped we would spend the day together.”

“So you do remember the reason you returned to Cuba.” There was no way he could mistake her cutting sarcasm.

“I never forgot.”

A rush of color darkened her cheeks. “You come and go by your leave, then when you decide to make time for me you expect me to follow you like an obedient pet.”

Her sudden burst of anger elicited a smile from Samuel. “No, darling, I don’t.” The endearment had slipped out unbidden.

If Samuel hadn’t realized what he’d called her, M.J. did. A tremor swept over her as her pulse quickened. “I’m not your darling, Samuel.”

“Why not?”

“Because you haven’t earned the right to call me that.”

Slipping his hands into the pockets of his slacks, he rocked back on his heels. “What would I have to do to earn
that
right, darling?”

Her flush deepened. “Stop it, Samuel,” she chided between clenched teeth. “I am not a child, so don’t play games with me.”

“I know you’re not a child,” he said softly, sobering, “and I’m too old to play games.”

“You’re not old,” she countered.

“I’m twenty-six.”

“That’s not old. Thirty-six is old.”

“Too old to do what?”

M.J. shrugged a shoulder under the white cotton blouse she’d paired with tan jodhpurs and brown riding boots. “It’s too old for a man who wishes to call on me.”

“I agree. You’re barely a child yourself.”

“I’ll be twenty in four weeks.”

Samuel smiled lazily. “I guess that makes you a woman.”

M.J. tilted her chin, giving him a saucy grin. “You guess right.”

“Are you going riding?”

“No. I just came back.”

“Where do you go?”

“One of our neighbors has a stable. Papa got rid of our horses after my mother died in a riding accident.” She ran a hand over her damp hair. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to change before Papa sees me. He gets upset whenever he sees me dressed like this. It reminds him too much of Mama.”

“There’s no need to rush to change.”

“Why not?”

“Your father really tied one on last night, and I’m willing to bet he won’t get out of bed until sometime this afternoon.”

A slight frown marred M.J.’s delicate beauty. “What does it mean, ‘tie one on’?”

“He had too much to drink. I left him in Havana.”

“Where in Havana?” Fear, stark and vivid, glittered in her eyes. How could Samuel return to Pinar del Rio without her father?

“He’s staying with your aunt. She said she would drive him back tonight.”

M.J. closed her eyes and let out an audible sigh. Although she challenged her father’s authority, she loved him beyond description. She opened her eyes and saw Samuel staring at her. There was something in his penetrating gaze that made her uncomfortable. Was it because, other than the servants, she was alone in the house with him? Was it because she didn’t trust herself or the riot of emotions that assailed her whenever she and Samuel shared the same space?

She stared at his generous mouth. Closer examination revealed that his masculine features were a little off balance, yet did not detract from his overall handsomeness.

“How did you get back?”

“I drove.”

“You drove my father’s car from Havana?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You didn’t get lost?”

Samuel shook his head. “No. I stayed on the Autopista Havana Pinar del Rio.”

“You’re here for one week and already you know how to travel around Cuba. In three months no one will be able to tell that you’re not a
Cubano
. All you have to do now is learn to speak Spanish.”

There were things Samuel needed to do, and learning a foreign language wasn’t a priority. He had to conclude his business in Cuba and return to Florida before the end of January.

“Is there something you wanted to do, Samuel?”

M.J.’s soft voice shattered his reverie. “Yes. I’d like for you to show me your tobacco fields.”

“Now?”

He nodded. “Yes, now. But only if it’s not an imposition.”

She smiled sweetly up at him. “Not at all.”

Turning on her heel, she walked out of the room, Samuel following and staring at her narrow waist, hips, long legs, thinking that she looked as good from behind as she did from the front.

He is a farmer
, M.J. mused as she watched Samuel pick up a handful of soil and inhale its scent for several seconds before letting it fall back to the ground. He ran his hand over his cotton slacks, brushing off the minute particles.

Samuel pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his moist forehead. It wasn’t ten o’clock and the early-morning temperature was already eighty-seven degrees. He smiled at the slender woman at his side.

She’d retrieved her set of keys to her father’s car and driven to the
vegas
where hundreds of acres of newly transplanted
corojo
and
criollo
tobacco seedlings would mature in another three months. The finest
corojo
tobacco, intended for the outer covering of cigars, was grown under cheesecloth coverings to protect the leaves from the sun’s rays. The
criollo,
grown in full sunlight, would be harvested and used as filler.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“The soil is good, moist and rich. What other crop does your father rotate to maintain the soil’s fertility?” He knew of no other crop that depleted the soil of its nutrients faster than tobacco.

“Corn.”

He nodded, smiling. “Good choice.” Corn was good, but soybeans were even better. He’d discussed the advantages of planting soybeans with Jose Luis, telling him it was the crop of the future for the Western world.

Reaching for her hand, Samuel held it in the bend of his arm as he led her away from the fields and back to the
secaderos
where the harvested leaves were hung to dry over wooden poles to catch maximum sunlight. They entered one and he seated M.J. on a low stool before he sat on a matching one.

“How long does it take before the leaves are ready to be made into cigars?”

M.J. didn’t want to talk. She just wanted to sit and enjoy the closeness of the man with whom she was certain she was falling in love. It had been a week since her brazen exhibition; the following day she avoided Samuel until the last possible moment. After dinner he hadn’t spoken of the incident and neither did she.

Clasping her hands, she sandwiched them between her knees, and stared at the toes of her boots. “The leaves hang here in the sun for almost two months until they turn from yellow to reddish gold. The cured leaves are then bound together and stacked in piles for a first fermentation that will last about a month. This process reduces the resin in the leaves and makes for a more uniform color.”

Samuel reached over and removed her straw hat, anchoring it on a pole; he tugged gently at the braid falling the length of her straight spine. “How many fermentation processes do they go through?”

Turning her head, she smiled at him. “Two. They are moistened and the thickest parts of the stems are stripped out. Then they’re stacked again, this time in higher bales, and left for two months for a second fermentation.

“After this, they’re unpacked and dried on racks, packed again in special bales called
tercios
, which are covered with
yagua
bark from the royal palm tree. After several periods of aging, the bales are shipped to the cigar factory.”

Samuel leaned closer to M.J. “What happens there?”

M.J. shivered despite the heat as Samuel’s moist breath
feathered over her ear. “At the factory, the tobacco is shaken out, moistened and dried again in a special room….” Her words died on her tongue.

“Where’s the factory?” he whispered, placing tiny kisses along the column of her long, scented neck.

M.J. closed her eyes as her breath came in short, quick gasps. “Sammy?”

He smiled, but did not stop his assault on her dewy skin. “What is it, baby?”

It was her turn to smile. “I can’t think with you kissing me.”

His mouth lingered on her nape. “What is there to think about? You’ve been around tobacco all of your life.”

“Then…then the leaves are flattened and their central veins removed, dividing them in two. After—”

Samuel’s mouth found hers, caressing rather than kissing her. One moment she was sitting on the stool; then, without warning, she was straddling him, her arms around his neck. His lips seared a path down her throat and over her collarbone. Her skin was opalescent in the brilliant sunlight coming into the
secadero
.

“You are so incredibly beautiful.” There was no mistaking the reverence and awe in his voice. “I came to Cuba to see you, then spent the past week running away from you.”

M.J. compressed her lips, dimples deepening. “I don’t understand.”

Samuel stared at the woman on his lap, seeing her for the first time. Her innocence was so palpable it made his heart flip-flop. Under her facade of bravado, outspokenness, her plea for women’s rights for egalitarianism, emancipation and equality, was a convent-educated girl masquerading in a woman’s body.

He pressed his forehead against hers. “I want you.”

She smiled. “You have me, Samuel.”

He shook his head. “I’m not talking about holding you. I want you in my life.”

She sobered quickly, dots of confusion forming between her eyes. “Why are you talking in riddles?”

A chilled black silence surrounded them, offsetting the heat of the tropical sun. M.J. breathed in shallow, quick gasps as screams of frustration gathered in the back of her throat. If Samuel wanted her in his life, then why was he running away from her?

Anchoring a hand against his chest, she tried escaping his embrace. “Let me go.”

He tightened his hold around her waist. “I can’t do that.”

There was something in Samuel’s voice that frightened M.J. Why did it sound so ominous, threatening? She was alone with a man whom she didn’t know anything about other than what he’d disclosed to her. He was her houseguest, yet had spent more time with her father than her. The only time they saw each other for an extended period of time was over dinner.

She’d found herself drawn to Samuel Cole because of his face, soft drawling voice and exquisitely formed hands.

She’d found herself infatuated with Samuel Cole because he was worldly and ambitious.

And she’d fallen in love with Samuel Cole because he’d offered her a glimpse of the passion and fire she’d read about in the books lining the shelves in her aunt’s Havana residence.

“
Porque no?
Why not?” she repeated in English.

“Because I don’t want to.”

“That is not your decision to make.”

“Yes, it is, Marguerite-Josefina.”

She pounded his chest with a fist. “I told you before not to call me that.”

Samuel’s expression did not change. “What should I call you? Mrs. Samuel Claridge Cole?”

M.J. felt as if a hand had closed around her throat, cutting off her breath. She couldn’t speak, swallow, and a loud buzzing sound in her head escalated. Samuel’s mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear any of what he was saying.

Dios mio!

She was going to faint. The man she’d fallen in love with had just proposed marriage, and she was swooning like a silly goose.

The buzzing subsided, her pulse slowed, and by some miracle she regained her composure. “Are you asking for my hand in marriage, Samuel?”

He nodded, smiling. His deep-set eyes were mysterious. “Yes, I am, Marguerite-Josefina.”

He was calling her by the dreaded name, but this time she didn’t care. He wanted to marry her, but did he love her? And as much as she wanted to become his wife, it would not happen without love. She refused to become a participant in a loveless union.

“What about love, Samuel?”

“What about it, Marguerite-Josefina?”

“Do you love me?” There was a moment of hesitation, and she panicked, her nerves tensing. It was apparent he didn’t love her. But why propose marriage? Was it because he knew she wouldn’t share his bed unless she was his wife?

Samuel’s expression changed, dark eyebrows slanting in a frown. She didn’t know. M.J. did not know how much he loved her, had fallen in love with her the first time he saw her. Everything about her lingered with him across bodies of water: her dimpled smile; her slender, curvy body; her musical, lightly accented voice; the silken feel of her skin and her distinctive feminine scent that was the perfect complement for her perfume.