Free Fearless by Diana Palmer Page B

getting dark. He was wearing black slacks with a white cotton shirt. He looked elegant and dangerously sensuous. Glory, in a simple white peasant dress full of handmade embroidery, had let her long blond hair down and even put on a tiny amount of makeup. She knew she’d never be able to compete with other women in any physical way, but she hoped she looked nice enough not to spoil the party.
    Rodrigo came up to her at the refreshment table she and Consuelo and a couple of the workers’ wives had helped fill. He smelled clean and spicy. Glory smiled at him with the excitement of the evening making her face radiant. He stared at her for a moment. She did look so much like Sarina with her hair down. She wasn’t as pretty, but she had her own attractions just the same.
    “We’ve invited all the workers,” he told Glory. “A sort of thank-you for the hard work they’ve done this season. That goes double for the two of you, although your jobs are far from over.”
    “We like job security,” Glory said for Consuelo, who nodded, grinning.
    “Just as well,” he chuckled. “We’re picking more peaches next week.”
    There was a mutual groan.
    “What was that about liking job security?” he teased.
    Their answers were drowned out by the start up of the mariachi band. The deep, throbbing echo of the guitars and the trumpet drew everyone around to listen. It was an old Mexican folk song that they were playing, and as if on cue, everyone started singing it.
    Rarely in her life had Glory felt so much a part of anything. She’d grown fond of the workers in the time she’d spent here. They were humble, happy, compassionate people, far more concerned with the welfare and happiness of their families than with material wealth. Jason did pay them well, she knew, but they weren’t obsessed with their paychecks.
    “It makes me feel good,” she said when the song ended, “to see everyone so happy.”
    Rodrigo looked down at her. “Yes. It feels good.”
    She smiled shyly at him as the music began again. This time it was a slow dance. Couples began to gather on the wooden platform, close together against the faint chill of evening.
    She was leaning on her cane, but she was hoping Rodrigo might ask her to dance. She could, even if only for a little while. She’d always loved to dance.
    But his attention was caught by an SUV pulling up in the driveway. He went immediately to it. The driver’s side door opened, and a pretty woman in a flowing white skirt and red blouse with long blond hair jumped out and hugged him. That embrace went through Glory like knives. It was that blonde woman again, the one who’d come to see Rodrigo soon after Glory’s arrival here.
    Rodrigo gestured toward the band, took the blonde’s hand and tugged her, laughing, onto the dance floor.
    Glory hated the resentment and jealousy she felt, watching them cling to each other among the gaily clad couples. She shouldn’t be jealous of a man who managed her stepbrother’s farms and ranches. He wasn’t right for her. She refused to remember that he spoke several languages and was very intelligent. She was trying to ward off more heartache.
    The blonde woman was laughing merrily as they danced. Rodrigo looked as if he’d landed in heaven. Then the mariachis ended the slow dance and played a salsa rhythm. Rodrigo took the blonde by the waist, her hand in his, and he demonstrated that managing other men wasn’t the only thing at which he excelled. Glory had never seen a man move like that on a dance floor. He was elegant. His steps were fluid, his movements exactly with the rhythm of the band. He interpreted the music with a natural pulse of steps that the blonde followed effortlessly, as if they’d danced together many times before this. The other couples, entranced, backed away and stood clapping, laughing, as the duo danced to the music.
    All too soon, it was over. They held each other, laughing breathlessly, as the workers crowded around