“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.”
“For him or her?”
“They share them.” Laughing, Diego stopped the truck and got out. His smile showed how happy he was. “Come on, you two. Let’s get to work.”
“Tell her I’m good at riding things other than horses,” Alejandro said in Spanish.
“Tell her yourself,” Diego said. “Better yet, don’t talk, just work.” He took the bag of drawing supplies out of the truck and handed them to Elise. “Here she comes. Sell yourself.”
“I’m not sure—” Elise began, but Alejandro put his hands on her shoulders, straightened them, then gave her a shove forward.
The woman was tall, with lots of dark hair and her face was so perfectly cared for that it was hard to guess her age. But she wasn’t young. She had on tight jeans and a cotton shirt that fit her trim body well. She walked past the two men to Elise. “You must be the designer I’ve heard so much about.”
“Me?” Elise said, then caught herself. “I mean, how nice. From which of my clients?”
Diego and Alejandro were standing over her like guardians of a temple.
“Audrey Bellmont couldn’t say enough good things about you. A dance pavilion. What a clever idea! She can invite gorgeous half-naked men and call it dancing.” She looked at Alejandro. “You might get an invitation.”
The smile left Elise’s face and she took a step toward him.
The woman looked at Elise and nodded in understanding. This man was taken. “I’m Eva Foster, and as soon as I get the men settled, we’ll go inside and talk about something I’d like to do in the back. My husband’s going to hate it, but he’ll get used to it.”
Elise stood to the side as Mrs. Foster spoke to Diego in Spanish, and unless Elise missed her guess, that was her native language. Cuban, maybe?
Mrs. Foster told Diego about the wall and clearing away some brush toward the back.
Then she looked at Alejandro and asked if he knew which end of a horse to saddle.
Elise watched as he gave Mrs. Foster a slow, easy smile that made her take a step toward him.
“If I get too close, your girlfriend will tear my hair out,” Mrs. Foster said softly in Spanish.
“She’s not mine,” he replied. “I dream of it, but she says no. I think maybe she’s afraid of me. I’m too much for her.”
Elise couldn’t help it as she narrowed her eyes at him.
Alejandro smiled back at her innocently. Supposedly, Elise had no idea what he’d said.
“One of my stable hands is out today, so saddle the black for me. As soon as I’m done with young Elise here, I have to go across the river.” She spoke in Spanish to Alejandro. “Want to go with me?”
Elise was unabashedly watching him. While it was true that there was nothing between them, at the same time, it was far from true.
“I apologize, but my heart is with someone else,” Alejandro said. “I’m just waiting for her to gather her courage and accept what I offer.”
Mrs. Foster laughed. “Ah... I’ve been there. But alas, it’s your loss.” She turned to Elise and said in English, “Shall we go? I have a guest who is dying to meet you. He says he owns a huge garden and needs a designer for it. Think you can handle a big job?”
Elise was still hearing Alejandro’s words in her mind. His heart? How could that be?
To him, they’d known each other a very short time. They’d never had so much as a conversation. How could he talk of hearts when they didn’t know each other?
On the other hand, she’d known Kent since she was a child and look how that had turned out.
When Mrs. Foster walked ahead, Elise stayed where she was, standing close to Alejandro. She wanted to say something to him. Spanish, English, she didn’t care which. But no words came to her mind.
Instead, with her eyes straight ahead, she reached out and entwined her fingers with his. It wasn’t a full handhold, just fingertips.
Like her, he kept looking forward, but there was promise in their hands. It was time for them to be together.
When Mrs. Foster started to turn back, Elise dropped Alejandro’s hand and hurried forward, the shopping bag held tightly.
This is it, she thought. She was really and truly starting a new career. She’d never thought about being a garden designer, but she liked the idea. And she’d have Alejandro, Diego, and Miguel and the men. Maybe even Carmen would help.
Mrs. Foster opened the door to her house and stepped back to let Elise go in first.
On the threshold, Elise paused to look at Alejandro. He was standing exactly where she’d left him. There was an expression on his beautiful face that she’d never seen on a man before—or at least not directed at her. True, there was a look of lust, of sexual excitement, but also of... Elise took a breath. Love? Was that what she was seeing in Alejandro’s dark eyes? Was it possibly how she was looking at him too?
She wasn’t only starting a career. This was a new life!
Reluctantly, she turned away and went into the cool darkness of the interior. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust—and when they did, she didn’t believe what she saw.
Her father was standing at the end of the big living room—and coming swiftly toward her were two of his hired guards.
“Elise, I’d like you to meet—” Mrs. Foster began. But Elise was already headed for the door.
She wasn’t fast enough. The guards grabbed her, one on each arm, and pulled her back into the room.
“What the hell is this?” Mrs. Foster yelled. “I’m calling the sheriff.”
One of the guards, still holding on to Elise, took the phone from Mrs. Foster’s hand.
“Get out of here!” Elise said to Mrs. Foster in Spanish. “Get Alejandro to go after the sheriff.”
“Really, Elise,” her father said, his voice sounding long-suffering. “Such dramatics. Where did you pick up that awful language? You sound like the cleaning woman. We just want to get you some help.” He turned to Mrs. Foster. “I apologize for the subterfuge, but this is my daughter and she has some serious mental problems. I need to get her to a doctor. Immediately!”
“Oh my goodness!” Mrs. Foster said. “I had no idea. The poor thing.” She looked at Elise with sympathy. “I’ll get the bastard for you,” she said in Spanish, then turned back to the men. “Do you need a car?”
“No,” Elise’s father said. “We brought one.” In the distance they could hear sirens. “What did you do?” he yelled.
Mrs. Foster seemed genuinely puzzled.
Elise’s father look
ed at his daughter with a sneer. “If you think those illegals you’ve latched onto can get you out of your family duty, you’d better think again. Take her to the car!” he ordered the men.
As soon as they were outside, Mrs. Foster ran to the landline phone in the kitchen and called 911, but she was told that the sheriff was already on the way.
Outside, Elise was trying to keep her dignity. The two guards were holding tightly onto her arms and leading her toward a big van with a third man as a driver. Even though she could hear the sirens, they were still too far away to reach her before she was taken away by her father.
She knew that what her father was doing was illegal, but how was she going to get away? She knew from experience that telling people she wasn’t insane got her nowhere. People tended to believe the calm, well-dressed, successful man, and not the girl who was hysterical with fear, her hair, clothes, and face a mess from days of tears.
When they got within a few feet of the car, she saw Diego. He looked worse than she felt. It was as though he was watching all the hope of his life being taken away from him.
Without Elise’s planning, there would be no big, new jobs. His family wouldn’t come to live with him. And there was sadness for her, that she was being put through this ordeal.
Elise looked away from him, her eyes searching for Alejandro, but he was nowhere to be seen. With his disappearance, all hope left Elise. Like a great whoosh, the belief that all this would somehow repair itself fled. She’d been sent back in time, but her stay had accomplished nothing. She’d have to spend the two weeks she had left battling her father—and he’d win. Like he always won. This time, there’d be no Dr. Hightower or Arrieta to save her. This time—
At the sound of a horse’s hooves, Elise halted. She looked up to see Alejandro—beautiful, dark-haired Alejandro—riding an even darker horse.
In an instant, she knew what he was planning to do. She’d told him of learning how to jump onto the back of a galloping horse and he was using it.
“What the hell is that crazy bastard doing?” one of the guards yelled.
The other guard clamped down on Elise’s upper arm and tried to pull her out of the way of the animal coming toward them. He was much stronger than she was and she knew she couldn’t stand up against him. She bit his hand. She twisted and clamped down with all her might.
The man jerked his hand away. “He can have you!”
Both men jumped away as Alejandro came at them on the huge horse. He didn’t slow down but leaned far over to one side and held his arm down to Elise.
As she’d trained to do, she grabbed his arm and leaped upward.
Alejandro pulled so hard that she went sailing through the air and landed in the saddle behind him.
She flung her arms around him and buried her face in his back.
He never so much as slowed down as he urged the horse forward. They went around the side of the house, past chickens and dogs and a couple of workmen. He didn’t begin to slow down until they were on the side of a hill that looked down over the ranch.
As he halted the horse and leaned forward to stroke its sweaty neck, Elise stayed with him. She didn’t loosen her grip around his chest, or remove her face from his back, or even open her eyes.
“You can look,” he said softly in Spanish, his hands on hers. They were so tight on his stomach they were sure to leave a bruise.
“Sorry, but I can’t speak Spanish,” she murmured in Spanish.
“And I can’t speak English,” he said in English. “Look!”
Smiling, relieved that the charade of language was over, she opened her eyes and looked down the hill. There were four cars with SHERIFF printed on them, and her father was being put into the back seat of one of them. The three guards were in the other cars.
Standing to the side, angrily talking to a man in uniform, was Mrs. Foster. “You called the sheriff?” Elise asked Alejandro.
“No, I didn’t. It’s my guess that he did.”
Elise looked where he was pointing. Standing to the side, leaning against a silver car, was Kent. The sun glinted off his blond hair.
Just as her father got into the sheriff’s car, she saw him say something to Kent. Elise had an idea that her father was ordering Kent to find her.
“That’s not possible,” Elise said. “Kent would never call in the law. He worships my father. He’ll do anything for him. Marry me, give me sleeping pills, have me committed to a mental institution, chase me all over the country, threaten to—”
Alejandro turned in the saddle to look at her. The things she was saying hadn’t happened.
The cars, with their prisoners, began to slowly move down the long driveway. Mrs. Foster went to talk to Kent, then she turned and pointed up the hill to where Alejandro and Elise were sitting on the horse.
“I have to talk to him, don’t I?” Elise said.
“Yes.”
There was determination in Alejandro’s voice, but she also heard fear. She hadn’t seen Kent since she escaped their wedding. The first time around, she hadn’t known that you can’t force someone to love you. You can’t do enough good deeds or virtuous tasks to inspire love. At least not the kind of all-consuming, passionate love that was needed in a marriage.
Alejandro held her arm and helped her get down from the horse. When she looked up at him, he wouldn’t meet her eyes. He’s worried that I’ll go back to Kent, she thought—and couldn’t help smiling.
He dismounted, but gave his attention to the horse.
“I guess I better ride down,” she said, and he nodded. “I’ll talk to him and...and tell him that I’m so sorry for running away and would he please, please take me back. I’ll do anything—”
In one quick move, Alejandro whipped about, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her.
She’d spent a lot of time imagining kissing him, but the reality was much better than her fantasy. His lips on hers sent feelings that she didn’t know existed through her body.
His strong arms pulled her close and she could feel his muscles against the softness of her.
But as good as the kiss was physically, there was something else. There was an emotion that was flowing between them. It was something deeper than just touching. It was as though their inner spirits—their souls?—were speaking to each other.
His lips left hers and he held her, her cheek against the cloth of his shirt over the dip just under his collarbone. It was as though the space had been created to fit her head.
Is this what love feels like? she wondered. This union? This merging?
She couldn’t help but think of Kent. She had wailed and whined and gnashed her teeth over the question of WHY. Why had Kent chosen Carmen over her? What was wrong with her? What did Carmen have that she didn’t?
The answer was, Nothing.
Love wasn’t scientific. It was... This, she thought. It was this union between two people. This bond.
When she looked at it from a distance, she knew Kent was a better match for her than Alejandro was. He’d grown up in a different country, spoke a foreign language. His experiences had been very different from hers. Nothing was the same between her and this man. Logically, a union between them made no sense at all.
Elise pulled away to look at Alejandro. They’d never been this close before and she touched his cheek. His eyes were worried, and she knew that what happened after today was her decision. “The woman does the choosing,” she’d heard said. “The man can ask but it’s the woman who chooses.”
Part of her wanted to tease him and laugh, but the larger part didn’t want him to suffer. “I want a baby,” she said. “I’ve waited long enough to have my own family. I know the fashion is to live together first but I want—”
She broke off as he again kissed her. This time it was a kiss of sweetness, of promise.
When he broke away she thought she
saw tears glistening in his eyes.
“Okay,” she said, “help me up. I have to go straighten Kent out, then I’ll be back and we can start baby making.”
The tears left Alejandro’s eyes and that invincible attitude that made a man what he was came back to him. Now that he was sure she wasn’t going to leave him, he took charge. “Like hell!” he said. “Babies yes, but you’re not going to be alone with him.” He clasped his hands to give her a leg up into the saddle.
“Kent? You think he might harm me?”
Alejandro mounted behind her. “Carmen said—”
“Don’t talk to me about your sister! She—” Alejandro was kissing her neck. “Are you doing that so Kent sees you?”
“Why else would I do it? Certainly not for my own pleasure! Oof!”
Elise had gouged him in the ribs with her elbow. They were down the hill now and she could see Kent waiting for her. Unbidden, all the old feelings of being intimidated by him came back to her. How hard she’d tried to please him! And how completely she’d failed!
“You’ll do all right,” Alejandro whispered as he nibbled her ear. “You need this for you, not him.” She nodded because she knew he was right. “I will be close by. You’re safe.”
For a moment she leaned back against him. He did make her feel safe. And loved, she thought. She almost turned to tell him so, but now was not the time. First, she needed to cut some old ties.
When they were in front of the house, he held her arm as she got down, then he rode away.
Kent was waiting for her. He looked younger than she remembered, but then he hadn’t had years of being married to one woman while loving another.
“Did you turn me in to my father?” she asked.
He gave a curt nod. “Carmen didn’t mean to tell me where you were, but she did. I was worried about you.”
“So you told Dad to come after me with armed guards?” She didn’t try to keep the anger out of her voice.
“I didn’t know he was going to do that.”
“Did you call the sheriff on him?”
“No. Carmen did. Your dad was so angry she was afraid her brothers would be hurt.” For a moment, he looked at his feet, then up. “I want to make sure that you understand what you’re doing. If you and I don’t marry, we’ll lose everything. There’ll be no company partnership. Your father even owns the house we’re to live in.”