Mexican Fire by Martha Hix Page A

yanked away, he said, “You’re letting our lovers’ spat get in the way of reason, and—”
    â€œÂ¡Silencio, sinvergüenza!”
    â€œNow, now,” he tried to placate, “I know I’m a scoundrel. We shouldn’t air our problems in front of His Excellency,” Reece went on. “Let me make everything up to you, my darling. In private.”
    Those eyes, those bewitching cat eyes, moved to rest on Reece’s mouth. She took a tiny sip of wine, then ran the tip of her tongue across her upper lip. “Do you think you could?” was her dulcet murmur.
    â€œYeah,” he said, falling to English and leaning toward her. He yearned to do many things. All of which should be done in a very private place. “I can make everything right. And good.”
    â€œCould you now?”
    Reece had nary a moment to bask in her changed attitude. Anew, her face recaptured its rigid shield. Rising from the table, she gripped the edge of it. She looked straight down the table and said, “You might want to look into something else, Your Excellency. The evening I called on him, to invite him to dinner, I saw a rider leaving Casa Montgomery. Naturally I recognized François of Joinville.”
    She had gone too damned far! Reece scowled. What was it going to take to shut her up?
    Antonio, his brown eyes growing rounded, sucked in his breath. “Is what she charges true?”
    â€œNo need to ask him, Your Excellency. His forked tongue would form nothing but lies. I am telling you the truth. This Anglo you have taken into your trust is a foreign agent!”
    Doubt flickered in Antonio’s eyes. “Montgomery, say it isn’t so.”
    The urge to grab her, to shake her was more than Reece could contain. Collapsing like a hut of sticks was everything he had struggled to attain over the past thirty-two months.
    â€œI am not an agent for the French.” Reece stood and stepped to her. Grabbing Alejandra by the shoulders, he yanked her to him. “You are the liar, you green-eyed witch.”

Chapter Eight
    Alejandra was shaking.
    She had been for more than an hour, ever since she started lying to the vulture Santa Anna about that cobra, Reece Montgomery—whose clever, forked tongue had saved him from paying the price of her accusations, despite her ceaseless efforts.
    She had one thing to be thankful for as she paced her bedchamber and tried to ignore the knots in her stomach. Reece had rushed the other man from Campos de Palmas before the fish course could be served, thus saving her from plunging a butter knife into his rotten, black heart.
    It had been bad enough, his forcing Santa Anna on her. Then, when she had realized the Tejano snake had no intention of aiding her cause and that he was doing everything possible—outside of calling her a Federalist!—to expose her as a villainess, she had been as furious with herself as she was with him. Why hadn’t she, right from the beginning, been more cautious of his reputation and lack of principles?
    Why hadn’t she just kept her mouth shut tonight? No way could she prevail over his venomous tongue.
    â€œYou are the liar, you green-eyed witch,” he had drawled during the aborted dinner as he stomped over to grab her into his arms. His embrace both repelled and intoxicated her. “I’ll not abide any more of your shrewish tongue.”
    She wanted nothing to do with this betrayer of promises, yet he smelled of wood and leather and faintly of wine, but mostly of warm and clean man, and the bacchanalia of the evening—all the danger and forbidden excitement—did something quite strange to Alejandra. She was drunk with desire . . . with passions she had never imagined possible.
    Fight it! she told herself. Fight him!
    If only he would unhand her . . . Maybe then she could gather her wits. She couldn’t. Not with the silk of his shirt and the steel behind it plastered against her