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  Footsteps sounded on the deck above, and Laurel snapped out of her reverie and rushed to the foot of the steps.

  'Dad? Where have you been? I hope you haven't been out buying things for dinner, because I—'

  Abruptly she stopped, her widened gaze staring bewilderedly up into Diego Ramirez's eyes. Her peripheral vision noted that he looked as nautical as any sailor on the pier in dark blazer-jacket and white slacks, a casually knotted silk scarf giving him a more elegant look than most.

  Instantly she froze. 'What are you doing here?' she demanded coldly. 'I'm really getting quite sick and tired of you following me wherever I go, Senor Ramirez! My father will be here at any minute, so I'd advise you to leave right now!

  He made no immediate reply to her accusation, gesturing instead to the lower portion of the boat. 'May I come down?' he enquired politely, then, disregarding her vehement negative, his highly polished black shoes descended the narrow stairway and he stood be-

  tore her, far too close for her comfort.

  'My father,' she gritted through her teeth, 'will be back any minute now, and I warn you he won't be one bit pleased to see you here on his boat!'

  Far from being cowed by the threat, Diego glanced round the saloon before indicating one of the broad couches with an olive-skinned hand.

  'I think you should sit down, Laurel. I have something important to tell you.'

  'Really! Well, you'd better make it snappy, whatever it is you have to say,' she told him imperiously, 'because I'm just about to start cooking dinner for my father and myself.'

  The slight, regretful shake of his head irritated her beyond measure, yet sent an odd stab of apprehension along her nerve ends. But what could Diego Ramirez possibly have to tell her that would give her cause for alarm? In another moment she found out.

  'I am afraid that your father will not be joining you - for dinner tonight,' he informed her, his eyes intensely dark as they rested on the suddenly apprehensive green of hers.

  'Not—?'

  'No,' he said regretfully, then sighed. 'Your father has unfortunately been detained by the policia.'

  `Pol—?' Laurel stared at him speechlessly, her heart beginning an unsteady thrum at his next words.

  'I have a berth on this same pier,' he went on tonelessly, 'and noticed some agitation at this boat when I docked late this afternoon. I recognised the man who was being led away by police as the one who escorted you to El Mirador last night.' His eyes gleamed momentarily. 'The man I thought must be your fiancé.'

  Ignoring the last part, Laurel jumped agitatedly to

  her feet. 'But why would the police come for my father? He's never done anything illegal in his whole life! There must be some terrible mistake—I have to go to him, tell them ...'

  Diego raised a detaining hand and rested it on her forearm. 'Later, perhaps. I was able to find out from the arresting officers that your father is involved in the smuggling of drugs. As you may know, this is a serious offence in Mexico.'

  'Drug smuggling?' she repeated stupidly, her mind a sea of cotton suddenly. 'My father? That's crazy ... crazy!'

  'Sit down, Laurel,' Diego commanded in such a way that her knees folded automatically. He remained standing himself, braced against the dark wood of the dining table. 'You must realise that this is a serious charge against your father. From the evidence found on this boat, he could be detained indefinitely—even before any trial takes place.'

  Laurel's hands went up to cover her face, and her voice was a muffled thread when she said: 'Trial? Dad? I can't believe this is happening!'

  'Even so, it is happening. I went to the police station and was able to talk with your father very briefly. He told me that the men who chartered his boat in Los Angeles returned early this morning, but left again almost immediately, saying they would return tonight and sail early tomorrow.'

  'The men—that's it!' Laurel cried wildly, jumping to her feet again. 'Dad told me they'd hired the boat for a fishing trip, but they didn't know the first thing about fishing!' She made a dash for the companionway. 'I have to tell the police—'

  'Don't be ridiculous!' Diego snapped with such

  force that her feet halted in their tracks. Coming to her, he grabbed her shoulders fiercely. 'Do you think they will listen to you, his daughter?'

  'Don't you see, I have to do something?' Strangely, at that moment Laurel questioned not at all his right to interfere with her movements, with her wish to visit her father in a foreign prison. Her eyes clung in desperation to the penetrating darkness of his, and she saw there the quick change from impersonal solicitude to hardness of purpose.

  'There is nothing you can do, Laurel—not, in any case,' he emphasised heavily, 'with the authorities.'

  'Then where?' she cried desperately, no longer feeling the dry heat of his hands on her shoulders. 'Is there an American consul in Acapulco?'

  'In Mexico City there is a consular office, but I can assure you that the consul's hands are tied in such matters.'

  'But you seemed to think there's something I can do! Just tell me and I'll do it.'

  For the space of a few moments he stared into the sea green of her eyes, then his lids dropped and he turned from her.

  'I am not without power in certain circles,' he told her, his voice huskily subdued.

  'Then you'll do something to help my father?' Laurel asked with sudden eagerness, taking a step towards him but flinching when he turned back to face her, his eyes intense black orbs raking her face.

  'My influence would be much greater if—' His pregnant pause unaccountably sent her pulses racing, but she stared fixedly at him. 'If you were my wife, Laurel.'

  Still Laurel stared at him, noting despite her shock the long curve of his black lashes, the faint shadow on his leanly moulded jaw, the male firmness of mouth which she suspected would compress into cruelty if occasion demanded.

  'Wife?' The word was a mere whisper as her eyes clung to his. 'But you already have a wife.'

  His shake of the head held a hint of impatience. 'No, I have never been married. The woman you think of as my wife is my younger brother's widow. Jaime was killed last year competing in a motor boat race.'

  'But you let me think—I believed that—' Laurel broke off, her mind whirling with this added knowledge.

  'Yes, I admit I let you think that Consuelo was my wife,' he conceded stiffly. 'That was not my intention in the beginning, but when you assumed that the woman with me at the fashion show was married to me, I wanted to find out how far you would resist the advances of a man you took to be married.' His expression softened somewhat. 'And you did reject me on those grounds.'

  As far from enlightenment as ever, Laurel shook her head to clear it. Her mind was still experiencing shock waves from the news of her father's predicament, and Diego's words meant little to her.

  'I still don't understand. Are you saying that you were testing me in some way?'

  'In a manner of speaking, yes.' Diego half turned from her and took a cigar case from his pocket, his long olive-toned fingers extracting a thin cheroot and applying an expensive gold lighter to it. Feeling the trembling of her knees, Laurel sank back on the divan and stared numbly up at his smoothly formed body. 'It

  is very important to me that my wife should be above reproach in such matters:

  Something about the arrogantly proud lift of his head as he stood gazing from a porthole, the sun-kissed waters reflecting shimmering lights over his brown skin, started Laurel's reflexes into clearer motion.

  'You must be loco,' she said in sudden wrath. 'Even if I wanted to marry you—which I don't! —you seem to forget that I have a fiancé, a man I'm going to marry on my return to Los Angeles:

  Diego slanted a narrowed look down at her indignantly flushed face. 'You are in love with this man?'

  `Of course I am!' Laurel got to her feet and paced back towards the galley before turning to face him again, pinpoints of anger flashing in her eyes. 'Would I be marrying him if I wasn't?'


  'Perhaps,' he shrugged, and flicked the narrow band of white ash from his cigar into the receptacle behind him. 'Women marry for different reasons—money, position, security, as well as for love. He is a wealthy man, this fiancé of yours?'

  'No, he isn't,' Laurel snapped. 'He's a struggling young lawyer, so you can rule out the first two of your conditions.'

  'So it must be the third, security,' he mused, leaning back to perch on one corner of the dining table. 'Is that what he offers you? A home in a "good" subdivision, thoughtfully spaced children, Saturday night at the country club?' His words held all the derision of a super-wealthy man for the masses, as well as revealing his knowledge about the American middle class way of life.

  'What's wrong with those things?' she demanded, advancing a step or two to add sarcastically: 'Not

  everybody can afford a winter home in Acapulco and a no doubt palatial town house in Mexico City ! '

  Diego took a deep drag on his cigar. 'Nothing is wrong with those things,' he returned evenly, 'as long as the woman wants them for the right reason. Namely, that she loves passionately the man who provides them.'

  'And that brings us to the fourth condition, which is—' Laurel stopped abruptly and pressed her fingers to her temples. 'Why are we talking about these nonsensical things when my father is rotting in one of your Mexican jails? You:re making me as crazy as you are!'

  'Not crazy—expedient.' Diego straightened fluidly from the table, stubbing out his cigar in the ashtray. 'I admit that our prisons leave a lot to be desired, particularly where drug cases are concerned, but your father has not yet started to rot, as you call it. I was able to arrange to have a meal brought to him and some other small comforts.'

  'Thank you,' she choked bitterly. 'Money speaks, doesn't it?'

  'In this case, not entirely.' When he paused fractionally, Laurel lifted her eyes searchingly to his. 'The officials were influenced more by my relationship to your father than in money.'

  She stared blankly into the darkness of his eyes. 'Relationship? There is no relationship between—' Her eyes widened in disbelief. 'You told them that—that—'

  'I told them that you were to become my wife,' he informed her crisply, his eyes meeting hers boldly, 'and that it would not be expedient for me to have my future father-in-law treated like a common criminal.'

  'How dared you! ' Laurel breathed, her skin paling to alabaster.

  'You object to your father receiving good treatment?' he asked, one well-marked eyebrow lifting high on his brow.

  'I object to you securing it for him under false pretences,' she flared angrily, clasping her hands and wringing them before her. 'Did you also lie to my father?'

  'Lie? No. I told him of my wish to marry you, and that this could be accomplished sooner than expected because of the circumstances.' Diego moved forward and caught at her sleeveless arms, forcing her to look up into his sober expression. 'I had intended a more leisurely courtship, querida, but—'

  'Don't call me that!' Laurel jerked away from his imprisoning hands. 'I'm not your darling, and never will be!'

  'So.' Diego moved abruptly past her and paused with one foot on the bottom step of the companionway. His eyes held a fiery contempt as he turned his head to look at her. 'If you should change your mind, senorita, you may telephone to my villa.' Taking a small pad from his pocket, he scribbled some figures on it before tearing off the sheet and handing it to her. 'This is an unlisted number, so don't lose it. Adios.'

  Laurel's nerveless fingers clutched the scrap of paper as her eyes dully watched his white slacks and polished shoes disappear to the upper deck. Then, feeling suddenly bereft, she turned back into the saloon, dropping the paper on the table before subsiding once more into the cushioned upholstery.

  The clearly defined telephone number seemed to

  leap from the table and become immediately engraved on her heart. But there must be some way, some means, of having her father released without Diego Ramirez's solution of her marriage to a powerful Mexican national.

  `May I help you, senorita?'

  Used as she was to male admiration while she demonstrated Madeleine Creations, Laurel flinched under the lascivious stare of the unranked policeman who lounged outside the station, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

  `I — I want to see my father, Daniel Trent.'

  `You are norteamericana?' he asked inquisitively, his eyes dropping appreciatively to the pencil-slim dress in pale green which Laurel had hurriedly changed into at the hotel. The outline of her figure was clearly visible under the brief white shawl covering her shoulders, and she pulled it closer round her neck.

  Just tell me where I can find the officer in charge,' she commanded frostily.

  si, senorita, but maybe he is busy for a while, eh?'

  His lewd expression spoke volumes as to how he himself would like to spend the intervening time, and Laurel brushed past him into the hall.

  To her right a door stood open to reveal a bulky uniformed man seated at a desk, a half-finished bottle of Coke by his hand. His head lifted from the papers before him when Laurel tapped on the door and approached the desk. For a big man, he moved surprisingly quickly to his feet and lifted his brows enquiringly.

  `Senorita?'

  `I—I want to visit my father, Daniel Trent. He was

  —brought here late this afternoon.'

  The brows lowered suddenly in a frown. 'This is not a good time to visit the prisoners, senorita. If you come back tomorrow—'

  Laurel lifted an impatient hand to brush her hair back from her face, and saw his expression change as his eyes followed the movement.

  'Senor Trent, you said? Then you are—'

  'His daughter,' Laurel inserted drily.

  `—Senor Ramirez's betrothed,' he finished as if she had not spoken. His eyes were still fixed on the ring adorning her third finger ... Brent's ring. Surprise registered briefly in his close-set eyes, as if he found it hard to believe that his rich compatriot would put such paltry jewels on his beloved's finger.

  Laurel fumed as she followed the stocky figure out of the room and along a passage lined with heavy dark doors. At the last one on the left, the police officer inserted a large key and turned it noisily.

  `Gracias, senor,' she murmured as she stepped past him into the small adobe-walled room, her eyes skimming over the bare furnishings of simple cot with a rough shelf above it, to the battered table where her father sat on a slatted wood chair.

  `Laurel!' He started up, and she ran to throw her arms round him.

  'Dad! ... oh, Dad,' she murmured brokenly against his sea tanned neck, and clung to his muscular shoulders under navy knit shirt.

  'I—I didn't want you coming here,' he said huskily, then pushed her away to arm's length. 'Ramirez didn't come with you?'

  'Ram—? Oh. No, he—he doesn't know I'm here.'

  - 'I'd have been surprised if he let you come to a place

  like this alone.' Dan, frowning, indicated the chair he

  had just risen from. 'Sit down, honey, I'll take the cot.'

  When Laurel was seated, he sat on the rickety cot and stretched out his long legs before him. Seeing her disdainful glance round his new abode, he smiled wryly.

  'This may not be much, sweetheart, but it's a hundred per cent better than where they put me to begin with.'

  'But you shouldn't be here at all!' Laurel burst out in a spurt of frustrated anger that covered her more urgent need to burst into inadequate tears. She couldn't bear to see the father she adored, the man whose every breath had to be drawn in the freedom of sea breezes, confided in a miserable prison cell.

  'I know, honey, I know,' he soothed, lifting a hand as if to stem the tide of her anger. 'I felt that way too when they first brought me in, but after seeing how some of the other people have to live here—' He broke off and leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. 'Would you believe that there are Americans and other nationalities who've been here for months or even years before they have
a chance of a trial? Their families, lawyers—nobody can do anything for them.'

  'Well, maybe they're guilty,' Laurel cried wildly, 'but you're not! There must be some way we can persuade them to let you go!'

  'Influence is all that matters around here, baby,' Dan told her, getting up to pace restlessly round the small room. 'They haven't found those two guys who chartered my boat yet.'

  'But when they do you'll be free, once they tell the authorities that you had nothing to do with it.'

  Dan shook his head. 'Why should they help me? From the little I know of them, they wouldn't lift a finger to help their own grandmothers. We have to face it, Laurel—they'll probably say I was in it up to the neck with them.'

  'But you weren't!'

  He sighed heavily and came back to sit on the squeaky springs again. 'You know that, and I know that, but how do we convince anyone else?'

  'I'll get Brent to come down here,' she said edgily, her hand opening and closing on the clasp of the purse on her lap. 'He'll know what to do.'

  'Will he?' Dan's eyes met hers caustically, and Laurel's slid away. She knew what her father was thinking. Brent had shown an unsuspected streak of stiff-necked Puritanism when he had discovered Dan Trent's freewheeling way of life, so what chance was there of him fighting a winning case for his fiancée's father accused of drug smuggling? Laurel felt her heart sink at the thought of explaining the position to Brent.

  'Well,' she said weakly, 'maybe he could recommend someone. After all, Brent's speciality is company law, so he—'

  'Didn't you hear what I said?' Dan interrupted with unusual harshness. 'States side lawyers can't do anything down here. The law has to take its course.'

  'But we have to do something!' Laurel gasped through a tight knot in her throat.

  'Only somebody like Diego Ramirez can do anything,' Dan said savagely, beating one balled fist into the palm of his other hand. 'He has power, influence, and—' He looked directly into Laurel's eyes. 'He tells me he wants to marry you.'