Chapter Twenty-Four
“It’s the fault of both of you!” Diego said in Spanish as he unlocked the front door. “You and Carmen did this together. Now what am I to do with her? Hide a rich girl until the law finds us? She—” He broke off when he stepped into the little house. It smelled clean and something good was cooking.
He flipped the switch to turn on the lamp in the corner. The clothes that had been thrown on the furniture were gone. The floor was clean and there was no longer a layer of dust on everything.
Turning, Diego looked at Alejandro in question, but he shrugged. He had no idea who’d cleaned the place. Diego’s eyes said it couldn’t have been the rich girl.
In the kitchen a pot of chili bubbled and beside it was a pan of corn bread.
“Look at this,” Alejandro said. He’d opened the computer to check email and seen that that month’s bills were ready to be sent out.
Diego opened the door to the closet that held the washer. No dirty clothes.
It was dark out, but Alejandro opened the back door and turned on the light. All the trash that had come with the house had been picked up. There were two full garbage bags by the gate. He went to the clothesline and removed the three pairs of socks hanging there.
“Useless, huh?” he said, and pushed past his brother to go into the house.
He found Elise in the bedroom, stretched out on the bed, a five-year-old magazine on her chest. She was sound asleep.
He sat down beside her and gently removed the magazine. “You did a good job today,” he said softly in English. “And you showed us that you’re worth a lot—which I knew. The moment I saw you, I knew that...that you were different.”
He smoothed her hair back from her face. “I will carry the vision of you in that white underwear with me all my life.” He couldn’t help it as he ran his hand down her arm. She seemed so fragile, so beautiful—and so unattainable.
Before Alejandro came to the US, his sister had gained his sympathy with her story of being in love with a man who was being forced into a marriage with a coldhearted rich girl.
He’d arrived in the US believing every word she’d told him.
But then he’d started helping Diego, and Alejandro had seen Elise from a distance. To him, she was beautiful beyond belief. Carmen kept saying that she wasn’t womanly, but he didn’t see her that way. He’d heard her mother berate her, correct her, complain about her. All her father seemed to say was, “Get me another drink, would you, kid?”
Alejandro had made sure Elise never saw him watching her, but then she seemed to be living in a bubble of happiness about her coming wedding.
He had been torn between loyalty to his pregnant sister and wanting to warn this innocent girl of what she was getting into with her marriage. As it always did, family won out.
As he pulled the spread over her, he thought how he liked having her nearby. And he was very glad that she had cleaned and cooked today. Such things went a long way to winning over his stubborn brother. Diego took care of a lot of people and hiding his boss’s daughter was making him nervous.
* * *
Elise had wanted to be up to make breakfast, but the smell of bacon frying woke her. She had a frantic moment of fear that if she didn’t pull her weight she’d be abandoned. And what then? She had no doubt that her father still had men waiting for her at the airport. The moment she presented an ID, sirens would probably sound, and men in white coats would take her away.
She leaped out of bed, took a three-minute shower, put on her only other set of clean clothes, and went to the kitchen. Diego and Alejandro were sitting at the table digging into plates of bacon, eggs, and toast. Very American.
“I’m sorry I overslept,” she said to Diego. He was shorter than his younger brother, and heavier. He was handsome but not in the same class as Alejandro. “But then, yesterday was traumatic.” She glanced at his closed bedroom door. “Did Carmen come back?” Elise put two pieces of bread in the rickety old toaster.
“No.” Diego kept his head down, not able to meet her eyes since they all knew where his sister was.
As Elise waited for the toast, she looked at the top of Alejandro’s head. Hard to believe, but he looked even better in the early morning light. In that moment, she was pretty sure she was the only woman on earth who’d ever wished she wasn’t faithful to her husband.
When the toast popped up, she got a plate, sat down across from them, and looked at Diego. “I wanted to ask about your brother. No! Don’t look at him. I don’t want him to know we’re talking about him. Is he okay? I’ve heard him talk on the phone to Carmen, but when I’m around he’s silent. Does he hate me?”
Diego gave a bit of a grin. “He thinks you’re pretty.”
“Does he?”
“Yeah. Real pretty.”
Elise tried to keep her face straight. “But he thinks I’m useless, right? That’s what Carmen says I am.”
Diego frowned. “You did a good job here.” He nodded at the house.
“I’m glad you like it. Where are we going today?”
Diego’s frown deepened. “We’re going to the Bellmont house, but you’re staying here.”
Elise took a moment before she spoke. “I know their daughter, Tiffany. I went to school with her. Poor thing. She’s not too bright, but she married well. But then, it’s hard to understand who men will like. The man I was to marry doesn’t like me, but he does like your—Oops! Sorry to bring up the bad.”
Alejandro lowered his head, but she saw his smile.
As for Diego, he was staring at her. He’d been married for years so he knew when a woman was after something. Elise was putting guilt on him for a reason. “You can’t go. The law is after you.”
“For running away from my own wedding? I don’t think that’s an offense that can be prosecuted.” She batted her lashes. “I’ll help with the work.”
Diego snorted.
“I can plant fluffy ruffle petunias.” When he looked blank, she said, “It’s from a movie. Cross Creek? It doesn’t matter. Diego, please. I’m scared here. What if Carmen rats me out? Kent would be here in a minute. Then what? We have a threesome fight? Think I could win against Carmen? Will she—?”
“Let her go,” Alejandro said in Spanish. “She can sit in the truck and listen to music. It’s just for a few days, then I’ll take her to the airport.”
Diego glared at his brother. “I heard about what you said at that fancy hotel. You’d like to take her away to Mexico, wouldn’t you? She’s not for you! She’ll marry some other rich guy, not some teacher of horny women.”
Elise ate her toast and worked not to enter into the conversation, but it was interesting to know who was on her side.
“I want her near me so I can protect her,” Alejandro said. “Those men looking for her had guns.”
“And who do you think they wanted to shoot? Her? She’s the bait her greedy parents used to attract some guy they can control. Do you think this girl’s father will give his daughter away to some Mexican gardener?”
For a moment Elise stopped eating. This was horrible, but on the other hand, it was nice to hear that she was valuable to her father.
When she spoke, she tried not to sound as though she was shocked by what she’d just heard. “Mrs. Bellmont likes really gaudy colors, and she’s so vain she expects people to read her mind. If you’re thinking of putting in pale flowers she’ll get angry. Remember that ghastly red mulch you put on my mother’s flower beds and she made you remove it?”
She didn’t wait for Diego to answer. “My guess is that made you think all the women in the area would hate that mulch. But Mrs. Bellmont would love it. The gaudier the better. I could tell you what to buy so she’ll be happy with your job and not fire you as she did her last three gardeners.” Elise finished her toast.
“What if she sees you?” Diego asked. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“No offense, Diego, but has Mrs. Bellmont ever looked at any of you?”
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.
What Elise wanted to do was slip into her parents’ house and get some clothes. And there was cash hidden in her room. If she was to make her escape to Maine, she needed to buy a plane ticket.
It wasn’t until after lunch that she saw her chance. When she told Diego that she’d work on the bed by the back fence, he nodded. The second the men went around the corner, she made her move.
There was a wide service lane separating the houses. It was where the landscapers, cleaners, and delivery people parked their vehicles. Garbage was picked up here. No big green bins were ever put in front of the houses.
Elise knew that her parents’ house would probably be empty. Even if they had people looking for their missing daughter, she doubted if her parents would interrupt their routine. Her mother’s beauty and massage appointments took up a great deal of her time. Then there was clothes shopping and what Elise called “gossip meals,” where the women told all the salacious things they’d heard about each other. Her mother would certainly go to those to try to prevent the truth from being told about Elise and Kent.
She went out the back, crossed the lane, then slipped through the gate that was behind the house she’d lived in with Kent. As she ran past it, she paused for a moment. She’d never been happy in that house and it had never seemed like hers.
It was when she turned back that she saw Alejandro. He was standing there watching her.
Even when she rasped, “Go back!” he didn’t move. She didn’t dare speak any louder in case someone was in the house and heard her. “I need some clothes.” She was wondering when he was going to stop this lunacy of pretending that he didn’t understand her.
He made a gesture for her to go ahead, letting her know that he wasn’t leaving.
Turning away, she ran across the garden to the side door of the house. She knew where a key was hidden and she knew the alarm code. Please, she thought, don’t let them have changed it.
Alejandro stood beside her as she punched in her father’s birth date, then held her breath. No alarm sounded. When she looked around again, Alejandro was nowhere to be seen, but when she reached the big, two-story foyer, he was standing at the foot of the stairs.
How does he know his way around the house? she wondered.
When she reached her bedroom, he was already there to open the door, and she frowned. “As soon as we see Diego, you’re going to explain how you know where my bedroom is.”
With a smile, he shrugged that he had no idea what she was saying.
Frowning, as she was growing tired of the game, Elise went to her big walk-in closet. She needed to pack some things, but she didn’t want to take so much that her parents would report a burglary.
Alejandro leaned against the closet doorway. “I wish I could talk to you,” he said in Spanish. “I wish I hadn’t listened to my sister and started all this about the language. But then, I’m afraid of what I might say if I did talk to you.”
When he stopped, Elise looked at him. “Go on. Talk,” she said. “I’m nervous and your voice calms me.” She made gestures to show what she meant.
“Right now I’m very glad you can’t understand me,” he said. “Because I remember things. About us. But that’s not possible.”
For a moment, he watched her going through her clothes, her back to him. “If you could understand what I’m saying, you’d think I’m crazy. Sometimes I feel like I can see the future. But no! It’s like I can see things that have already happened—but I know they haven’t.”
He took a few breaths. “Yesterday I saw you pick a damask rose, and I also saw you cutting a dozen of them while I held a long basket. You said it was from England and it had a funny name.”
A trug, Elise thought but didn’t say. She was moving the hangers of clothes but not really looking at them. She was listening to every word he said.
“I know what you look like when you cry. I know that I wanted to hold you, but that I couldn’t. It was forbidden to get too near you, but I don’t know why. You looked like someone should hold you.”
Alejandro ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Are these dreams? Are they the imagination of a sick man? It’s just that they’re so real that I can’t get them out of my mind.”
She wanted to tell him that what he remembered hadn’t yet happened—and now never would—but then he’d think she was the insane one. She pointed to a suitcase on a top shelf. “Go on talking,” she urged.
As he pulled the suitcase down, he said, “You always did like my voice. You said so. But no, you didn’t say that because we’ve never spoken.”
When Elise put a dress with blue-and-white flowers in the case, he said, “I know that dress! It has a blue jacket to match it.”
He sat down on the hassock in the corner. “How did I know where your room is? How do I remember your wallpaper? I said it was pink and you said it was peach.”
She looked at him. It was exactly what had actually happened. He had been sprawled on the hassock, his long legs stuck out across the floor.
Just as before, she had a thought of kneeling between his legs and... Quickly, she looked away.
Alejandro put his head back and closed his eyes. “How many times have I seen that look?” he said softly. “Never, but yet I’ve seen it a thousand times.” He opened his eyes. “Want to hear something funny? In every one of these...visions, dreams, whatever they are, I’m half-naked. Maybe they’re my wishes coming alive.”
He paused, watching her put things in the suitcase. “But yet, as clear as these dreams are, I never feel your skin on mine. I’ve tried to. This morning...” He let out his breath. “This morning I wanted you. Like I wanted to live, I wanted you. When you ran away, I felt that my heart might break. I wanted to feel your flesh on mine, my lips on your skin. Me inside you.”
He took a moment to breathe. “But that vision isn’t there. It’s as though I’m condemned to wanting you but to never having you—not even in my mind.”
He gave a scoffing laugh. “Diego says that when it comes to women, I’m an idiot. He says I should marry a girl from home and have a bunch of kids, and that will calm me down. His wife has a pretty sister and...” He trailed off.
Elise turned away so he couldn’t see her. She didn’t know how it could be that he remembered what hadn’t yet happened, but then, she certainly did. But her memories were different. When she’d been near Alejandro, she’d also been married to Kent—and endlessly trying to please her husband.
But now she didn’t have that conflict. Kent didn’t rule her life—and never would. She looked back at Alejandro. His eyes, so dark, so full of desire, were pulling her to him.
Not yet, she thought. I need more. More of what, she didn’t know.
Abruptly, she left the closet and went into her bedroom. She needed to get the cash she’d saved and hidden under the top drawer. Beside the money was her passport. Since she and Kent were only going a short distance away for their honeymoon, she’d left it at home. She was glad to see that it was in her maiden name, not her married one.
As Alejandro put her suitcase on the bed, he continued speaking in Spanish. “Ah, good. You have money. Now you can get away from us. I could drive you to JFK or LaGuardia. Your dad can’t cover those airports. You can go anywhere you want to. Somewhere far away from my family who has caused you so much pain.” He smiled. “You know something? I’m glad Carmen ran off with that cowardly—and very stupid—man you were going to marry.”
Elise didn’t know when she’d heard such honesty—and if anything was missing in her life it was truthfulness. Smiling, she removed a little art case from a drawer and put it in the outside zipper compartment. Maybe she’d help Diego figure out the plans for the Bellmont job.
As she dropped a handful of necklaces in the pouch that contained the cash, they heard voices downstairs.
Immediately, Elise went into panic mode. Her mind filled with that horrible trip in the trunk of Dr. Hightower’s car. In this version of her life, that hadn’t happened but it could. All the players were there. Her parents could—
After a glance at her panicked face, Alejandro closed her suitcase, threw it out the window, put his arm around her, and led her to the window.
She looked out. The bedroom was on the second floor. “You’re kidding, right?”
He went out first, stepped sideways onto the low roof of the one-story sunroom, and held out his hand to her.
Elise didn’t hesitate when she took it—nor did she look down. When she was halfway onto the lower roof, he jerked her arm and pulled her to him. For a second he held her against him, then released her. Still holding her hand, they ran across the steep roof. At the far end was the big rose trellis. Alejandro went down first, then held his arms up to her.
As she got to the last steps, he grabbed her waist and pulled so hard that she flew backward. Smack into his arms.
When she caught her breath, he was grinning at her. She couldn’t help but put her head against his chest. How warm he felt! She could feel/hear his heart beating.
“My father has a shotgun,” she whispered, but she didn’t lift her head from his chest.
Nor did Alejandro move.
“Bang, bang,” she said, but without much energy. She was content to stay where she was. Maybe forever.
Her words finally reached him. He was holding the missing daughter of the homeowner. He was the gardener.
He dropped her feet to the ground and took her hand.
Alejandro sent her toward the back gate as he broke away to get her suitcase from below the window. When they were in the service lane, he tossed the case inside his truck. His big black truck.
Elise said, “Not a stallion but second best.”
As they went through the gate to the Kendricks’ place, Alejandro looked at her in question.
“It’s my fantasy to be rescued by a man on a big black horse. I even practiced the jump with my trainer. He rides fast toward me, then leans down and grabs my arm and pulls me up. I know how to do that.”
He gave her a blank look of not understanding what she’d said. Annoyed, she looked away.
“Where the hell have you two been?” Diego yelled as soon as he saw them.
“Breaking and entering,” Elise said. “My parole officer is going to be furious.”
Diego threw up his hands. “You want to get paid, you work.”
“I get paid?” Elise said. “Wow. Somebody give me the pruners.”