Kent left right after the meal and Elise lost no time in getting started. She spent hours on the internet researching herb gardens.
By Monday morning, when Diego and his men arrived, she had a drawing she liked.
She met him as he was getting out of his truck and held out her sketch. It was a big circle, with an X of walkways, a birdbath in the middle.
“I need an herb garden,” she told him. “But I don’t know what to plant in it. My mother wants it to be beautiful and elegant and smell good.” That was a lie but she felt it was for a good cause. That she hadn’t considered where it might lead wasn’t something she wanted to think about.
Diego looked into her eyes so hard that she felt the blood rushing up her neck.
He seemed to reconcile himself that there was nothing he could do to stop this. He took out his cell and made a call. She knew enough Spanish to understand that he was warning his brother that if he so much as touched the little gringa, Alejandro would be sent back to Mexico. And further, Diego would marry him off to the girl who lived next door to their mother.
Elise had to turn away when she heard Alejandro’s cry for mercy.
Diego clicked off and told Elise that his brother would help her choose the plants she needed.
When Alejandro got there, for a moment they just stared at each other—and she knew he’d thought about her too.
“So how’s Tara?” she asked.
Alejandro’s face didn’t change. “Doing well. We’re getting married next week.”
Elise laughed. Tara had called and been quite angry because “that idiot gardener of yours” didn’t show up. “Sorry to take you away from your other job.”
“Diego had me putting in a hedge of Pyracantha—all those thorns—around some garbage cans. And he had me drive to New Jersey to pick up some bromeliads that they sell four miles from here. It was like he wanted me to stay away. I can’t think why.”
His innuendo made Elise frown. “I’m not really... I mean...”
“We’re to be friends.”
“Yes,” she said. “Amigos. How about if we speak Spanish while we do this?”
“All right. Except that if my brother gets too bossy I may have to speak to him in English curse words. They’re quite the best.”
“Are they?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then I’d be honored if you used my language.”
“Now where’s your plan and where do you want this garden put in?”
*
“You don’t have to do this,” Alejandro said.
They were digging the big circle for the garden they had marked out with string and stakes. Beside them in the shade, a garden hose nearby, were over a hundred plants they’d chosen. In the two weeks that they’d been together, their talk had gradually taken on a flirty intimacy. “It’s just my big brother showing me that he’s the boss.”
Elise jammed the shovel into the ground, and tossed the big clod into the wheelbarrow. “I’m enjoying this.”
He looked skeptical.
“Okay, so maybe not actually happy at having to dig a giant circle, but it gets me outside.” The sun was bright and she really hoped she didn’t sweat off her sunscreen. She knew she should change into pants and a long-sleeved shirt, but being near Alejandro made shorts and a tank top feel, well, right. And what was a little sunburn? She wouldn’t have to pay for the sun damage for another thirty years. Besides, Alejandro was, as always, bare from the waist up.
She looked across the widening space they were digging. Diego had declared that the whole herb bed had to be dug by hand—and he couldn’t spare any men. He’d meant to keep his little brother so busy that he wouldn’t have time to socialize with their employer’s wife. He hadn’t counted on Elise volunteering to help Alejandro dig.
“Tell me about your home,” she said.
“I did. There was a problem with—”
“I know that part,” she said quickly. “Randy older woman, beautiful young teacher. She couldn’t control herself. The end.”
Alejandro smiled as he dug deep. “Beautiful, huh?”
“So far, it seems to have caused you more problems than it’s helped.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he mumbled.
“Then tell me. Give me something to think about besides bashing your brother over the head with this shovel. Has he always been so stubborn?”
“Since he was born. He and our father used to have arguments that rocked the roof.”
Elise sighed. “I’d like to have the courage to stand up to my father.” She wiped sweat off her forehead and picked up her bottle of water. “Is that why Diego’s here in the US?”
Alejandro leaned on the shovel to watch in admiration as she drank half the bottle of water. When she finished, he went back to shoveling. “My father broke his leg.”
She could tell that he was about to start a story. “Tell me as much as possible in Spanish and please help me with the translation.”
He gave her a smile of such pleasure that Elise almost lost her balance.
They went back to digging while Alejandro started telling of his life in Mexico. When he was a child, his father broke his leg and couldn’t get to his bookkeeping job at a trucking firm. His parents were worried about how they were going to support the family. In frustration, his mother said that the only thing she knew how to do was cook.
“Is she any good?”
He rolled his eyes. “The best. Everyone said so. She pushed out a window in the kitchen and put up a sign that she was selling burritos. Everyone came running. A year later, Dad and Diego built a cover and set out four tables. The next year they rented a building with a covered terrace, and...” He shrugged.
“And you had a five-star restaurant.”
“A New York Times critic did stop by and he wrote a rather nice article.” He had to help Elise to understand all the words in that sentence.
“Wow! A New York Times restaurant review. Did you work there? Can you cook?”
“A bit. It was Diego and my brother Ricardo who got the most out of the place.” The way he was smiling made her want to know more.
“My mother hired a sixteen-year-old girl just out of school, then spent two years training her. She—”
“Let me guess. She became Diego’s wife.”
He grinned. “Right. Then my mother hired a second girl. Young, pretty, smart.” He looked at Elise.
“Your brother Ricardo took her?”
Alejandro laughed. “He did.”
“So that left you. What happened with the next girl? Or were you too young?”
“By then I was old enough, but my mother always said that I was going to university. No wife for me! To make sure I didn’t fall in love and take away her help, she hired a woman in her thirties who had two kids.”
When he stopped talking, Elise looked at him. “Are you blushing?” She drew in her breath. “You didn’t!”
Alejandro looked at her from under his lashes. “She taught me a lot.”
Elise leaned on her shovel and laughed. “Did your mother know?”
“I’m not sure. But one day I was yawning and she said, ‘At least you aren’t getting married!’”
“She knew.”
“Probably so.” He was smiling. “The next year I went to the University of Mexico.”
“And studied plants.”
“And English and literature and some other languages. All of it, according to Diego, useless.”
She suddenly realized that he hadn’t said a word about his sister. “What about Carmen? Did she fall in love with some gorgeous young man?”
“No.” He said the word in a way that showed he didn’t want to talk about that.
She lowered her voice. “Did she get into trouble and that’s why she’s now with you and Diego?”
Alejandro took a while before speaking, as though he was considering how to answer. “She just wanted to come to America. She’s like our father and good with numbers, so she does the bookkeeping for Diego.”
“I don’t mean to pry, but it seems like she’s changed. When we were teenagers, we were almost friends. I used to buy cinnamon gum and give it to Carmen because I knew she liked it. But one day she told me that she didn’t want any more of my charity. I apologized but I didn’t see it that way. I used to buy Kit Kats for my friend Lisa. It was just...” She shrugged.