The Abducted Heart (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) Read Online Free PDF

almost impossible to refuse to accompany him to his home for the night without seeming both ridiculous and ungrateful. Why had he gone to the trouble? Was it only an example of the famous Spanish hospitality, or was his reason entirely different? Was she a fool for agreeing so easily to go with him? No, surely not. A man like Señor Castillo had no need to force his attentions on a woman. Only an idiot would suppose that he might. And yet, she could not forget the kiss he had taken so effortlessly, or the helplessness she had felt in his arms. She felt a shiver over the surface of her skin, a primitive instinct of danger, one she could ignore at her own risk.
    Mexico City, even at this late hour, was far from being asleep. Cars flowed in a steady stream along the side streets, moving at incredible speeds, with taxicabs in various stages of dilapidation darting in and out, and men and boys on bicycles pedaling doggedly along in desperate danger to life and limb. At some of the intersections on the street called the Paseo de la Reforma were traffic circles like enormous revolving doors in which it seemed they might be caught forever. People strolled along the streets, the men for the most part in business suits and the women conventionally dressed, though here and there could be seen the traditional sombrero and serape against the cool night air of the mountains and an older woman with her head wrapped in a somber-colored rebozo. There were the ornate, carved fronts of old colonial-era buildings, towering skyscrapers glittering with glass and bright lights, the impressive, well-guarded portals of luxury hotels, and the bases of stone monuments whose figures were lost in the darkness above them. And then the hustle of main streets was behind them and they entered narrow, winding streets marked with small blue and white signs on the sides of buildings indicating one-way traffic. This was an older residential section with trees lining the streets and leaning over the high, whitewashed, vine-covered walls of secluded, private homes.
    Once, as they slowed to turn, Anne caught a glimpse of a church, its old, tiled domes shining blue and yellow in the glow of a fitful moon. Seeing the direction of her gaze, the señor told her, “The convent church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen.”
    Realizing that she had been craning to see everything like the most impressionable tourist, Anne sat back. “I love old buildings,” she said by way of explanation, but as he smiled without replying, she found her own mouth curving into an unabashed grin. It was tremendously exciting to be in a foreign city, a city she had never dreamed she would be able to visit. She sincerely hoped that there in the dimness of the car she did not have too much the look of the cat with canary feathers on its chin.
    The car slowed, swung wide for a turn, and came to a halt before a pair of wide, wrought-iron gates set into a stretch of whitewashed wall. The driver blew a short summons on the horn. Almost immediately an elderly man shuffled into view and, unlocking the chain that held them, threw the gates open.
    A cobblestone drive was revealed curving around the main house toward a small building that had the look of a carriage house converted to use as a garage. In the beam of the headlights the drive appeared to cut through the meticulously kept expanse of a garden. Shrubs, vines, and climbing roses swept up to the walls of the dwelling, crowding about the arched colonnade on the lower of its two floors and casting lacy shadows on its ancient plastered walls. It was a massive building formed in the shape of a hollow square around a central patio, with wrought-iron grills over the lower outside windows and closed jalousies like sleeping eyes along the top floor. An enormous oil lantern illuminated the deep carving of the heavy wooden entrance door.
    At a sign from Señor Castillo, the car drew to a stop before the stone walkway that led to the front door. Alighting,