As You Wish

  “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 mea
nt.

  “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.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Diego was suspicious of both of them, so for the rest of the day, he never let them out of his sight. He worried that they didn’t know what kind of rage Elise’s father was in—and what he would do to the people hiding his daughter.

  Elise worked doubly hard that afternoon. But every time she tried to pick up something like a heavy flat of geraniums, Alejandro’s arm would appear over her head. “Thanks,” she’d mumble, then get the next one off the tru
ck.

  Visiting her parents’ house had made her think about the past and what had happened to her. She kept thinking about what she was supposed to achieve. How could she change her life in just three weeks? She remembered what Kathy said. “Does it have to be about a man?” It was as though all three women had the same goal: Change the man; change your life.

  But surely there was more than that. There had to be a different way. Absently, she watched Alejandro spray water from a hose over his head and saw his sweaty T-shirt plaster itself to his magnificent body. She wanted him, yes, but then what? What happened after sexual urges were satisfied? Not that she knew from experience, but there had to be a time when even the most beautiful of men ceased to set you on fire. There had to be nights when you just wanted to go to bed and snuggle up with a book by your favorite author.

  She needed something in her life besides a man.

  When Elise heard laughter, she came out of her trance. Miguel and the other men were laughing at Alejandro. They were telling him in Spanish that he had to work harder to impress the girl because she was looking at him but she wasn’t seeing him.

  Elise had to turn away so Alejandro wouldn’t see her roll her eyes. “You idiots!” she said under her breath, and they laughed.

  That night, Elise was sweaty, dirty, and very tired, but she knew that supper had to be made and clothes run through the washer to be hung out in the morning. “The second shift” it was called and it nearly always fell to women.

  Diego nodded toward the computer. “Your boyfriend stole Carmen so you get the bookkeeping job. Tomorrow is payday.”

  “My boyfriend?” she sputtered. “I was the victim in all this! You guys should—” She saw Diego’s teasing smile. Alejandro was turned away, but he too was laughing. “Very funny.”

  The two men cooked while Elise sat at the kitchen table and tried to figure out the software to do the payroll. After she subtracted the wholesale price for all the materials, there wasn’t a lot of money left. It took a while to calculate the government’s cut, but when she did, the paychecks were appallingly small.