Counterfeit Bride by Sara Craven Read Free Book Online Page B

as they had done. Nicola sighed and replaced them in her bag, arranging the crush-proof blue sundress she was going to change into on top of the papers.
    She yawned, feeling earlier tensions beginning to seep away. Her little adventure was almost over, and she could begin to relax. Her sleep last night had been fitful, which probably explained her failure to wake this morning. She put her feet up on the seat, and relaxed. Next stop Monterrey, she thought.
    It was the car slowing which woke her at last. She struggled to sit upright, putting an apprehensive hand up to touch the wig. She was stiff, and her mouth was dry, as if she had slept for several hours, but surely it couldn't be true.
    She expected to see suburbs at least, and signs of an industrial complex, but there wasn't the least indication they were approaching a city. On the contrary, it seemed as if they were in the middle of nowhere. There were vestiges of habitation—a few shacks, and a tin-roofed cantina. And the road had altered too. They were no longer on a broad public highway but on a single track dirt road.
    There were petrol pumps beside the cantina and this was clearly why Lopez was stopping. But where were they?
    Lopez came to her door and opened it. 'Do you wish for coffee, señorita? I did not wake you for a meal because I thought you would be glad to reach your destination at last.'
    'I would be glad of coffee.' She got out of the car. 'When do we reach Monterrey, Lopez? Is this a shortcut?'
    The stolid face expressed the nearest thing to amazement it was probably capable of. 'Monterrey, señorita? But surely you know—we no longer go to Monterrey. It is Don Luis' order that we should go directly to La Mariposa instead.'
    Nicola's lips parted in a soundless gasp. For a moment, she thought she was going to faint, and caught at the edge of the car door to steady herself. She saw Lopez look alarmed, and pretended she had turned her ankle slightly on Teresita's high heels.
    She managed to say, 'No—I didn't know.' This must have been the message Ramon had tried to give her, she thought frantically. 'When— when shall we arrive at the hacienda?'
    'In less than two hours, señorita.' He spoke as if expecting to be congratulated. 'You will be pleased, I think, to reach your journey's end.'
    Journey's end, Nicola thought as she negotiated with some difficulty the patch of dry and barren ground which separated the cantina from the road. Journeys end in lovers' meetings—wasn't that what they said? But there was no lover waiting for her—just a formidable and justly enraged man whose path she had dared to cross.
    Inside the cantina, a girl was frantically wiping off a table and chairs, and Nicola sank down on to one of them, trying to control her whirling frantic thoughts.
    What was she going to do? She knew from Teresita that the Montalba hacienda was miles from anywhere, with no nearby stores where she could unobtrusively perform her transformation, or crowded streets for her to fade into. And there was nowhere to hide, or means of escape here. This looked like the kind of place where there might be one bus a week to the nearest town.
    The girl brought coffee, black, hot and freshly brewed. Nicola gulped hers. It didn't quench her thirst, but at least helped to revive her a little.
    She had been mad to let herself fall asleep again, she reproached herself. If she'd been awake, she would have seen they were turning off the highway, and asked' why. She might even have put some kind of a spoke in Don Luis' plans, although it was difficult to know what.
    Lopez had come in, and was drinking his coffee at an adjacent table. Moistening her lips, Nicola asked him a little falteringly if he knew why Don Luis had changed his mind about their destination.
    'The Señor did not honour me with his reasons,' Lopez said a little repressively, then his face relaxed a little. 'But I think, señorita, it is because of the chapel. There is a beautiful chapel at La Mariposa