Luna stifled a sigh. All she wanted was to be left alone now. True, Diego Montez was attractive and charming and, although he’d made an immediate move on her, she did not feel threatened. For once, it wasn’t that.
Instead, her head was full of a darker, more charismatic man. A frustratingly bewitching one who sang to her with the tormented soul of a gypsy, who intrigued her with his words and bewitched her with eyes as deep and blue as the roaring sea. How could she think she could get him out of her head so easily?
Montez had a certain smoothness about him that she found too obvious. No doubt he could make a woman feel indulged and pampered, but he wasn’t really her type. Latin men were flirts, it was second nature to them – she should just enjoy the attention and leave it at that. Luna hesitated. Did she want to be distracted just for one evening? Her fridge was empty and she hardly relished the idea of going to a restaurant on her own that night, but she knew where this spontaneous invitation was leading.
She noticed he was still hanging on to her hand and released her own quickly.
‘I’m rather tired,’ she told him. ‘It’s been a long day and I need to get some sleep. But that’s very kind of you. Perhaps another time,’ she added, not wishing to seem rude.
He smiled and nodded. ‘No hay problema, no problem. You need your rest. Sí, sí, another time.’
‘Thank you, Diego. I do appreciate your kindness.’
He beamed and winked at her. ‘My invitation, señorita, has not been prompted by kindness. It would give me immense pleasure to take out such a beautiful lady as yourself, whenever you decide.’
Luna waved to him from inside the gate and as she closed the front door, she heard his car move off with a roar.
Finding her bag, she headed back out to her car, deciding she would stock up on groceries from the small supermarket she had seen on the main road not far from the house.
Inside the supermercado, she marvelled at the foreignness of it all: the Spanish food labels, the music playing in the background, the profusion of colourful fruit and vegetables, even in this small, local shop. But it was the particular smell of cured meats and fresh cheeses, an earthiness and something else sweet that she couldn’t identify, which instantly triggered memories of being in Granada as a young child. She had forgotten that smell and now images flashed in her mind of accompanying her mother’s round and jovial housekeeper on trips out shopping and being given an ice cream because she’d been good. As far as she recalled, her mother had never once bought Luna an ice cream anywhere. The friendly Spanish servant often looked after her when her mother was out with her sister Juliet, though where they went, Luna had no idea. She wondered where that kindly housekeeper was now.
Luna filled her basket quickly with enough food for a light supper and breakfast the next day. Tomorrow she could stock up with more for the weekend. It would be her only day before she started her new job at the Institute on Friday, and it would be lovely to spend the afternoon in town, shopping and looking around.
Half an hour later she was back at the house, sitting on the terrace with a chilled glass of wine and some bread, cheese and olives, absorbing the vast beauty of the landscape and the sounds of the sea.
The velvety light of dusk was approaching. The port of Puerto de Santa María glowed in the distance, accompanied by the steadfast wink of the lighthouse. Fishing boats were still out on the ocean and to the east, the faraway Sierra de Cádiz was edged with the fading sky, making los Pueblos Blancos dim to a soft violet.
Even though it was still early, Luna was feeling sleepy, her body clock disorientated by the time difference. Added to that, she was exhausted by the emotionally eventful day.
Yet, every time she let her eyes close, she saw him.
Ruy. The image of his unforgivably handsome face tormented her. The sound of his smoky voice, singing to her, murmuring to her, seeped through her veins. Even the memory of those bold aquamarine eyes sent a tingle down Luna’s spine now. Perhaps he wasn’t like other men, she conceded. They only took in the polished surface she chose to show, and were uninterested in what lay beneath. The way Ruy’s gaze penetrated her layers of defence was frightening and intoxicating. It was as if he could see all of her.
Had she been wrong about this particular man? Had she just pushed away the one opportunity she’d been waiting for her whole life? Other men seemed to pale by comparison beside Ruy – after all, she had just turned down dinner with a perfectly handsome and charming man – Diego Montez, a typical Spanish Romeo. Somehow, it brought home to her that the bolt of lightning she’d felt as her eyes had met Ruy’s that night when he’d sung to her meant much more than she had been prepared to accept.
When she thought of it, the impact of that first, unspoken encounter still overwhelmed her self-control, as much physically as mentally. Unsought, in the most unexpected manner, something had happened to her then, something unusual and wonderful. Something that, deep down, perhaps she needed, even if she found it hard to understand.
But what use was that now? Why should Ruy wish to seek her out after her unjustified rudeness? How petty and immature she’d been. From then on he had completely switched off – he’d made that quite plain, leaving the aircraft without a backward glance. Even though Luna knew she was being unfair and illogical, she was hurt.
She sighed. Stop dramatizing, she admonished. You’re not likely to see him again, anyway. You don’t even know his last name. Just forget him. Let’s face it, he’s probably forgotten you already, she told herself disconsolately.
This problem she had with men lay with her, not them. The dream that haunted Luna’s nights came from something deeply rooted in her psyche. She had to deal with it, she realized, before it blighted her life. Perhaps she should try hypnosis, she mused wryly. After all, according to Ruy, hypnotism cured a multitude of ailments. Still, she knew she would find it so hard to admit to anyone how vulnerable she was.
Luna sat up a while longer, looking out into the falling night, thinking about all that had happened since her arrival in Spain. Hopefully the nightmare wouldn’t return tonight. However, there was no use delaying her bedtime, she thought finally, clearing her things away. Already she was fighting sleep.
Chapter 3
When Luna woke up, the morning was blue and gold – a poem of warmth and sunshine, the atmosphere light. The first thing she did was to go out on to one of the terraces and look around her. The sky was high, pale and serene, and the bay shimmered like silver. There was not a soul in sight. Silence was deep except for the dull, rhythmic sound of the surf breaking along the shore.
There had been no nightmares, no anxiety, and no terror. Luna’s night had been peaceful in that respect and, if she had woken hot and breathless, it was not with fear. Ruy had been with her all night in her dreams. Obscurely aware of a tangle of limbs and the racing of her blood, she surfaced from sleep, needy and aching, tormented by the lingering sense of his mouth on her body. The fading memory of the dream left behind it half-echoes of whispered words and wild, untamed emotions.
Luna stared out over the glittering sea and breathed in the tangy air, letting her thoughts settle. Even if her heart was full of him, at least she could try to put him out of her mind.
She hadn’t unpacked properly and so she spent a leisurely hour or so putting her clothes away and finding a place for everything. Normally, she would have made efficient work of such a task, but she was relaxed in the house and felt like taking her time to familiarize herself with her new home. It captivated her attention so much that Luna found herself unusually distracted and reluctant to tear herself away from the mesmerizing sight and sound of the sea. Finally, she flicked through her guide to Cádiz, debating where to go shopping for the rest of the morning.
Aware that time was getting on, she showered and dressed speedily, pulling on a pair of denim shorts and a short, white, sleeveless V-neck top. Armed with her guidebook, she went into the city. It was too hot to walk so she took the car and, anyhow, she
had only bought a few provisions the night before and needed more for the next couple of days.
The many pedestrian zones of Cádiz made finding a parking space tricky at first, but Luna was finally able to leave the car in one of the long, shady streets in the centre, off Plaza de Las Flores, not far from the covered marketplace. As she turned a corner into the broad, noonday glare, her first impression was one of a radiant atmosphere in the dry heat. The intense blue sky was growing molten as the sun approached its meridian.
The heart of the city was animated by a voluble and goodhumoured crowd. There was movement everywhere as people shopped, walked and whizzed by on scooters, or sat and drank coffee in pavement cafés. The effect was kaleidoscopic and bubbling with life. As she walked further, pretty pink and yellow houses came into view, their narrow balconies decorated with hanging baskets overflowing with fuchsias and red begonias. They framed Plaza de Flores itself, which opened out into a triangle, rather than a square, and was lined with trees and ornately curling iron streetlamps. Luna ambled past the fountain at one end, stopping to look at the shops and stalls, topped by pale awnings. Most were crowded with flowers, which spilled in every direction in a riot of colour. Unable to resist such beautiful blooms, and thinking they would make the beach house look even more homely, she asked one of the stallholders to make her up a bouquet of carnations, marguerites and roses.
One street away, the covered market was also teeming. Housed in a large, Neoclassical, rectangular building, edged with Doric stone columns that provided a welcome shaded walkway, it was obviously the meeting place for local housewives and restaurant chefs, shopping for their daily needs. Luna passed through the impressive arched entrance, noticing only a handful of tourists, looking but not buying. It was brightly lit, and everybody was talking at once.
Stall after stall was heaped with fresh, colourful local produce from land and sea. Luna paused to admire the day’s catch of fish lying on slabs of ice, their silver scales glistening under the neon lights; some of which were specimens she had never heard of. She wondered how they were able to keep them looking still so appetizing in the heat.
‘We have the best red tuna in the world, fished locally in Tarifa,’ the fishmonger proudly told her. He grinned broadly. ‘Only for you, beautiful señorita, I will make it half price.’
Luna laughed. Even the fishmongers here turned on the charm. ‘I’ll come back in a few days, and you’ll have to tell me how to cook it.’
‘No problema.’ The fishmonger gesticulated enthusiastically. ‘Yo iré y cocinar para ti, si te gusta, I will come and cook it for you if you like.’
One merchant offered large white eggs – so rare, as he took pleasure in pointing out. ‘They’re fresh today from my own farm. No usamos ningún productos chemicos, we don’t use any chemicals,’ he assured her. Luna bought six, as well as some butter and a bottle of milk. She would cook an omelette for her lunch with organic red vine tomatoes, crunchy yellow peppers, and wonderful spindly green chives that she picked out from an array of colourful vegetables. These ranged from incredibly thin beans, tender spinach, young petits pois, baby carrots and globe artichokes, to large cabbages, enormous potatoes, oversized tomatoes that looked more like small pumpkins, and thick asparagus fingers, the like of which she had never seen before.
Everything smelled delicious. There were stores selling Serrano ham, chorizo sausage and the famous chicharrones – fried pork rind – from the coastal town of Chicalana. A woman nodded to Luna, gesturing at her to try a sample from a small bowl. Luna smiled and thanked her, popping a piece into her mouth. It was delicious, but rather heavy and rich. Maybe another day. Instead she chose a bunch of black grapes and a couple of juicy-looking peaches and nectarines, whose sweet fragrance filled the air.
As Luna strolled through the market, happy to browse among the huge array of stalls, soaking in the vibrant atmosphere, her mind couldn’t help straying to Ruy and speculating where in the city he might be at that moment. The notion that she might round a corner and come face-to-face with him again made her stomach flip, and she admonished herself for not pushing all thoughts of him out of her head.
She stopped at the dry foods stand that offered a vast assortment of nuts, glazed fruit and jars of cocoa and ground coffee, and bought a couple of jars and some pistachios. At the next-door counter, the region’s cheeses were on display, so she selected some queso de cabra. On the way out, she picked up a medley of olives, a bottle of olive oil, and a loaf of bread from the bakery. Delighted with her morning’s shopping, she headed back to the car, just as people were starting to fill the restaurants.
It was already two o’clock. She was looking forward to a quiet afternoon at the house, and a swim in the peacock-coloured waters of the bay once the heat had died down a little.
By the time she got home, she was ravenous. She cooked up an omelette with the ingredients she’d bought that morning, made a cup of coffee and sat in a shaded place on the terrace, looking at the view.
The small waves of the bay swept in majestically, roll after roll, gently dying out on the white sands, clear and brilliant, leaving behind long, curling lines of white foam. She could see the harbour in the distance displayed picturesquely in the afternoon haze. A liner had arrived and was waiting out at sea to enter the port. It hooted once or twice, its eerie, raucous sound breaking the pervading silence. Her gaze shifted and she spent a moment watching a woman and her dog, a black spaniel, paddling down on the beach.
Luna was happy and at home here. She loved the house. It was perfect; she could find no fault with it. Perhaps she should think about buying it. Diego Montez was right: it was a rare jewel. She could easily see herself settling down here. The more she came in contact with Spanish people, the more she felt akin to them, and that surprised her. Spain was a passionate land and its people were made in its image: colourful, volatile, flamboyant. Luna had always hidden a passionate nature beneath her ordered, fastidious exterior. It was so much easier to control the fire burning away inside her than to expose it. That way, danger lay.
Still, she couldn’t help thinking of Ruy and how much that dangerous impulse in her was drawn to him like a magnet. Even while she had been shopping he had monopolized her thoughts. He was a nagging obsession, unsettling her mind in a mass of confusion and contradiction. One minute she wished she would see him again, the next she was thinking she had done the right thing in rejecting him and was better off this way. She could not remember all of her dream but she knew that, alongside all the fevered abandon, he had been gentle and loving.
After lunch, Luna spent the next hour on the shady terrace, reading over her notes on the Institute in preparation for her first day. The Institute would have been happy for her to wait until after the weekend, but Luna had told them that she was keen to have a look round tomorrow and meet everyone. That way, she reasoned, she could use the weekend to devote some uninterrupted thinking time to how she might shape her article.
The afternoon sun was still high and hot in the sky when Luna closed her laptop and looked out over the beach. The white-gold heat of it was vibrating, the colours startling. The beach was fawn and amber with patches of white foam; the sea a deep blue, calm and silent as a lake, a few sails sprinkling its scintillating surface.
Nothing’s going to stop me from having a swim, she thought, gazing at the water lapping limpidly on the burnished sand.
In no time, she had slipped on her bikini and made her way down the dunes to the water’s edge. She stepped into the sapphire water, which, further on, shadowed to cobalt beneath the rocks of the wide bay. As she looked back, the peninsula of Cádiz appeared in all its splendour, outlined on the horizon, a white dream of domes and towers, thrusting out like a pearly hand into the dark blue Atlantic.
The sparkling water and view of the pale, climbing buildings of the city reminded her of holidays gone by. Images of playing with other children on the sand flooded back into her mind. Some had been friends of her parents, she supposed, and
others she knew were the housekeeper’s family. Those she remembered a little more distinctly: running wildly up and down the beach with her, burying each other in the sand. She was happier then than she had ever been.
As she came out of the water, the waning heat of the sun on her wet skin, Luna passed the same woman and dog she had seen earlier, paddling on the beach.
The stranger smiled at her. She was dressed simply in a black skirt and a rather garish flowery blouse; a working woman of imposing stature, with a burnt copper complexion and vivacious, but tender, dark eyes. Her hair was magnificently black and curly even though she was clearly beyond middle age. Luna couldn’t tell exactly how old she was: late fifties, early sixties perhaps.
‘Buenos días, señorita.’ The woman gestured towards La Gaviota at the top of the beach. ‘You have rented this house?’
‘Buenos días, señora. Yes, I have.’
‘I’m glad. It seems such a lovely house. You know, for two years it has been looking so sad. It has been empty, you see. Cádiz, like the rest of Andalucía, has gone through difficult times. Like people, houses need love and care.’ She sighed then smiled again, knowingly. ‘This is a quiet, isolated place. So you’re a writer, ey?’ She had a rich and powerful voice.
‘No, no, I’m just a tourist.’
‘You speak good Spanish for a tourist.’
‘I’m half Spanish.’
The woman nodded. ‘You look Scandinavian.’
Luna smiled, amused by the roundabout way she was being interrogated. She was obviously an object of interest and what struck her most was the Spanish woman’s entire absence of selfconsciousness in her curiosity.
‘No, I’m American.’
‘Americana, ey? You are staying long in Cádiz?’
‘A few months. Do you live near here?’
Legacy Page 9
