Alejandro looked at his brother in silence, but with an I Told You So expression.
Diego grimaced. “Get a hat out of the closet and cover your face.”
Elise tried to keep the triumph out of her smile.
*
That night Elise had never been so tired in her life. All day long, she’d hauled flats of plants, planted shrubs, small trees, and what seemed to be thousands of bedding plants.
Every minute, Diego and his men had watched her, all of them expecting her to refuse to go on. But she never quit.
She made only one mistake and it was a big one. It took just three hours before Diego’s six workmen saw that she spoke Spanish. But she couldn’t help it. They told a joke and she laughed. She begged them to please not tell Alejandro. Since they knew he was pretending that he couldn’t speak English, they loved lying to him. Besides, they liked the tall skinny girl who worked as hard as they did.
At lunch, she rode in the truck between Diego and Alejandro when they went to a drive-through restaurant. “I hope you know that this stuff is awful for you,” she said as she bit into a hamburger the size of a dinner plate and dripping three kinds of sauce. “Ooooh. Curly fries. What a treat.”
That night she took a shower, pulled on a huge T-shirt of Diego’s and the white yoga pants she’d worn under her wedding dress, then collapsed into bed. She slept so soundly that tornadoes wouldn’t wake her.
The next morning she awoke early. There was a bit of light coming through the bedroom curtain and she could see Alejandro asleep just a few feet from her.
In the two days she’d been there, she’d never seen him in the other bed, but now, she lay there looking at him. His eyes were closed, his whiskers dark, his lashes soft against his cheeks. The light cover was off one bare shoulder, which meant that underneath there was a lot of naked skin.
She wondered what he’d do if she slid into bed with him. She imagined saying nothing, just taking the two steps across the room, moving the sheet aside, and getting into the narrow bed with him.
What would it be like to kiss him? He had the most beautiful lips, so full and luscious looking.
When she looked down at his neck, she could almost feel her lips on his warm skin.
Yesterday he’d opened a big bottle of water and drunk half of it at once. Water had run down his chin, his neck, and onto his T-shirt. Elise had been planting some red geraniums and she’d stopped to watch him. Her mouth and hands seemed to dry out.
Miguel, one of Diego’s workmen, had seen her looking. “You better make your claim,” he said in Spanish, then nodded across the garden.
Tiffany Bellmont, a little dog in her arm, was also watching Alejandro.
Elise suppressed an urge to throw her sharp-pointed trowel at the girl. Why was Tiffany looking at Alejandro? She was married. And like her mother, she was a snob. If she wanted Alejandro, it was for only one thing.
Miguel and the two workmen beside him laughed at the expression on Elise’s face. He said she’d better be careful or her jealousy would set her hat on fire.
“I’m not—” she began, but stopped when Alejandro turned to look at her. She gave a cough as she glared at Miguel, who grinned back at her.
Now Elise was looking at what she could see of Alejandro’s body and imagining the feel of it, the taste of it, the—She quit thinking when she realized that his eyes were open. Slowly, he held out his hand to her in invitation.
Yes! she thought. She would go to him and for the first time in her life have sex with a man who wanted her. A man who desired her. Who—
She couldn’t believe what she did, but she threw back the cover and ran out of the room. In the living room, she leaned against the wall, her heart pounding, and tried to understand what she’d just done. This is what she wanted, wasn’t it? This is what she’d complained to Olivia and Kathy about. So far in her life, she’d missed out on great sex. Maybe later, after she got away from Kent and their parents, she would find someone to have it with, but right now there was this beautiful man. So why was she turning down his invitation?
Because she liked Alejandro, that’s why. To him they’d just met, but to her, she’d laughed with him, shared his hopes and dreams.
And damn it! She wanted more than just wham! Bam! Be quiet so Diego doesn’t hear.
She wanted... What she couldn’t have, she thought.
She heard the shower running in “their” bathroom. Yesterday after lunch, he’d insisted that Diego stop at a big drugstore and let her go inside to buy some toiletries. Alejandro had gone in with her and paid for everything.
Her toothbrush was in a glass with his. They used the same container of toothpaste.
His razor—which he didn’t use often—was next to her pink one.
Elise tried to calm herself—and to stop thinking. As she pushed away from the wall, she noticed the rolled-up papers on the coffee table and wondered what they were. When she unrolled them, she saw that they were a garden plan for Mrs. Bellmont.
It took Elise about two minutes to see that it was a rip-off design from an estate she’d seen in England. An elegant, tranquil English garden was the last thing someone as flamboyant as Mrs. Bellmont would want.
She looked at the bottom. Ah. Right. Designed by Leonardo. The delicate little man who was all the rage of the neighborhood. Her mother had said she wanted to get Leonardo to redesign her garden. “And put in some stainless steel sculptures?” Elise had said, but her mother’s put-down look had silenced her.
Diego came into the room, yawning.
“Are you going to do this garden?”
“If I get the job,” he said. “I hate that guy. He never tells what kind of anything he wants and I have to guess. He’ll write, Red Flowers. What does that mean? He doesn’t even tell how tall they have to be.”
“So when the client doesn’t like them it’s your fault,” Elise said.
“That’s right.” He was going into the kitchen. “You want some eggs?”
She rolled the plan back up. “I’ll make breakfast. You sit down and tell me about Alejandro.” Her face turned red. “I mean, tell me about Leonardo from your point of view.”
He knew she hadn’t made a mistake; she wanted to know about his brother. “He doesn’t have a girlfriend and nobody thought he’d stay here to do work that gets his hands dirty. But some girl in her underwear was walking around a hotel room and he hasn’t been the same since.”
It wasn’t until he got to the end that she realized he’d said it all in Spanish. His eyes were sparkling.
“Very funny,” she said. “Don’t tell him.”
“When not talking to you is making my little brother so miserable? I wouldn’t dream of it.” They heard Alejandro in the bedroom. Diego lowered his voice. “Are you going to break his heart?”
“He broke mine this morning when I had to say no to him,” she whispered back. “Besides, your sister wants him to seduce me so she can tell Kent on me. I want to be sure I’m not just a part of that plan.”
Diego gave her a look of sympathy. “Family, right?”
Elise gave a laugh, then turned and started breakfast as Alejandro entered the kitchen.
*
They went to the Kendricks’ house to weed the flower beds and put down new cedar mulch. Elise was given the job of deadheading the roses. She put on a big canvas sling bag, used some little cutters, and began clipping.
What she was really doing was watching the men. The minute they moved to the front of the house, she planned to make her escape. The Kendricks’ house was just across the back lane from her parents’ place, and the little cottage where she was to live after her marriage.
She’d promised Diego not to do anything that might get them in trouble, but if she were caught, there might be repercussions. Her father would demand to know who had helped her run away.