“When Leonardo gets here, all this will have to go. Just clean it up now and he’ll oversee everything later. Whenever he bothers to get here,” she added.
When she started back toward the house, Alejandro gave Elise a push, then a glare. “Okay, okay!” she said, and took her drawings from him.
All the workmen were watching her. Miguel’s usual laughter was gone.
“How did I get the job of savior?” Elise muttered, and Alejandro grinned. When she started toward Mrs. Bellmont, he pulled her baseball cap off to let her blonde hair fall to her shoulders. She shook her head to loosen her hair, put her shoulders back, and strode forward.
“Mrs. Bellmont?”
“Yes?” She sounded angry. “What is it?” Turning, she saw Elise and her eyes widened. “You’re—Oh good heavens! Everyone is looking for you.” She glanced at the men behind her. “You haven’t been with them, have you?”
Elise didn’t answer that. “Is it true that you used to be a dancer?”
Mrs. Bellmont blinked a few times, then smiled. “Why, yes, I was.”
“I thought so. It’s in the way you move. I wonder if I could show you—”
“Why did you run away from your wedding?” Mrs. Bellmont demanded. “The rumor is that you have mental problems.”
The memory of that ride in the trunk of Dr. Hightower’s car came back to Elise. And how Kent had lied about the pills he gave her. But as she looked at Mrs. Bellmont, she knew she couldn’t tell the truth. To tell on Carmen would hurt her brothers.
“I found out that Kent is gay.”
“No!” Mrs. Bellmont said. “That gorgeous young man? But then, that should have been a giveaway. You poor thing. How did you stand it?”
“I couldn’t, so I had to run.”
“And this?” She waved at the men behind her, who were only vaguely pretending to work, and her eyes fixed on Alejandro.
“Sex,” Elise said. “Wild, never-ending sex. Alejandro doesn’t speak a word of English and I love that about him. He’s the perfect antidote to Kent and his...well, his nothing.”
Mrs. Bellmont gave Elise a speculative look. “You’re not at all how your mother describes you, are you?”
“If you mean bland, with no personality, no, I’m not like that.”
For a moment they looked at each other, then Mrs. Bellmont nodded at the big drawing pad Elise was holding. “I take it you have something you’d like to show me?”
“I do.”
“Will it enrage your father?”
“Beyond all understanding.” Elise was beginning to smile. “And my mother too.” She lowered her voice. “And it will get rid of that annoying little Leonardo and his silly little fishpond. You go with my design for your garden and you can invite students from Juilliard up for the weekend and dance with them.”
“OMG as the kids say, but you sound just like your father trying to sell something.”
“Take that back!” Elise snapped without a smile.
Mrs. Bellmont laughed. “Come inside and let’s talk.” Turning, she walked to the house.
Behind her, Elise gave a double thumbs-up to the workmen. Diego and Alejandro were smiling hugely at her.
*
It was two hours later that Elise left Mrs. Bellmont’s house. As she went back toward the men, she nodded with every step. “We got the job,” she whispered. They were all standing in front of her in silence, waiting for her to elaborate. “She liked all of it. The building, the dance floor, the sculptures, everything. It’s a six-figure contract and we’re going to need—”
Elise took a breath. “How the hell do I know what we need?” She looked at Alejandro. “I BS’d my way through all of it. I told her that what I didn’t know, you guys do. Have any of you ever built a twenty-foot-long dance pavilion?”
For a moment, they looked at her blankly. They weren’t builders! Then Alejandro jumped up on the flat top of a low wall and went into the stance of a flamenco dancer. He stamped his left heel a few times.
“We don’t need a dancer, we need a builder!” Elise said. Alejandro looked so puzzled that they all burst into laughter.
“Down!” Diego yelled at his brother. “There’s work to be done.” He stopped for a moment, then turned and put his hands on Elise’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”
It was the first time in her life that Elise had been congratulated on something she’d done. Like all the other kids in school, she’d been given trophies no matter what they achieved, but this was real. So okay, her position as her parents’ daughter got her inside the door, but it was her ideas that had won the job.
“Hold on!” she said, then stuck out her cheek and tapped it. “All of you. Now!” Grinning, one by one, the men kissed her cheek—except Alejandro.
Miguel said he didn’t think it would be good to set the garden on fire before they even began, so Alejandro better not touch her.
At that, Alejandro grabbed Elise, bent her over his arm and... And kissed her cheek. “Damn!” she said when he released her, and everyone laughed some more.
All day, as they worked, there was a sense of excitement in the air. For years, Diego and his men had put up with bad designers and inept homeowners who told them what to do and how to do it. But in just one morning they had changed status. This was going to be their job!
That night everyone piled into Diego’s rented house. Someone brought a little barbecue grill and others showed up with beer and tequila. Diego called his wife at home in Mexico and told her he was going to be hiring more people—and maybe in the fall she could come here to live.
All in all, it was a glorious party and Elise didn’t fall into bed until midnight. Alejandro stood over her smiling. “You’ve done a lot for all of us,” he said softly, his Spanish sounding beautiful in the moonlight that came through the window. He started to turn away, but looked back at her. “About that promise to just be friends... I’m ready to go back on it.”
A very sleepy, not fully sober Elise put her hands up in invitation.
Alejandro took them and kissed her palms, but then put them down and stepped away. “Only when you’re fully sober and know exactly what you’re doing. I’m concerned that once you and I start, it may never end, so you need to be really sure of what you’re doing. As for me, I know exactly what—who—I want. Good night.” He left the room.
*
The next morning, as Diego was driving to the job, he couldn’t stop grinning. All morning he’d talked endlessly about their new business. Elise sat in the middle, Alejandro beside her, both of them so sleepy they could hardly sit up—or maybe they wanted an excuse for her to lean against him.
The ride was long since Diego had a job in the country. He’d been trying to branch out from just lawn care so they were repairing a stone wall today. Earlier, he’d told Elise that she was to talk to the owner’s wife.
“And say what?” Elise asked, yawning. Diego glared at her.
“I liked it better when I was an honored guest,” she mumbled.
Diego threw all her drawing supplies into a beat-up old shopping bag and put it in the front of the truck, where it was now between Alejandro’s boots.
When they pulled off the road onto a long driveway, Elise sat up. She needed to look about the place, see what she could suggest adding, or taking away. Besides the planning, if she was going to do this, she needed to learn to sell things. Like Ray, she thought. Ray who she’d never met but actually had. The confusing idea made her smile.
It looked to be a ranch. To the right was a barn next to a pasture with a few horses. In the distance was a long, low house nearly hidden in the trees. The whole place reeked of wealth.
“Do you ride?” Elise asked Alejandro in English. She was still hoping to catch him in his lie of not speaking her language.
Diego answered. “He’s played polo.”
“Really?” She leaned back to look at him as though appraising his body—which she was doing. “For some team owned by a rich woman? What else did he do for her? Manicures? Hairdressing?” She was batting her lashes at him innocently.
Alejandro’s lips twitched as he repressed a grin and he turned away to look out the window.
“Picks out her clothes for her,” Diego said. “He likes to buy shoes.”