“I think I should take riding lessons and I need an herb garden. Mrs. Beckett said she could tell that I’d used dried basil. She said she could taste the difference.” Pretentious little woman, Elise thought. She’d seen the jar on the counter and wanted them to think she was above such crass things. Elise was pleased that everyone was looking at her in surprise.
“Beckett Steel?” her father asked.
“Yes, that’s them. I thought I’d have the gardeners dig a hole or two in the back, just past the oak tree, so I could plant a few things.”
“A ‘hole’?” her mother said.
“Just so it’s deep enough for a pot or two. I don’t need much.”
Her mother shook her head. “Really, Elise, sometimes I think you were raised by the staff.”
I saw them more, she thought, but didn’t say.
“Tomorrow I’ll call Leonardo and he can design something for you,” her mother said.
Elise suppressed a grimace. She couldn’t stand the little man. He teased and flirted with the women until they were in giggles, so they hired him. She looked at Kent in wide-eyed innocence. “Isn’t he really expensive? I thought maybe I could sketch something, then have our gardeners do it.” Her father paid the gardeners but a professional designer would send the bill to Kent.
“I really don’t think—” her mother began.
“I think that’s a great idea,” Kent said, then looked at his father-in-law with pleading eyes.
We are children living in a dictatorship, Elise thought. We still have to ask our parents’ permission for everything we do.
“Yes,” her father said to his daughter. “That’s an excellent idea. Use some of that expensive education I paid for.”
“Edgar! Really,” her mother said. “Elise can’t possibly—”
Kent, who never contradicted his mother-in-law, spoke up. “I believe she can. Sweetheart, you go ahead and make your little garden. It’ll give you something to do all day.”
“And riding lessons?” Elise pressed.
“I see no reason for you to—” her mother began.
Kent’s mother, by far the quieter of the two women, said, “I took riding lessons until I went to college. I think it would be a lovely thing for you to do.”
She might be the quiet one, but she knew how to get her way. Elise smiled at her in gratitude. “Thank you,” she said softly.
Kent left right after the meal and Elise lost no time in getting started. She spent hours on the internet researching herb gardens.
By Monday morning, when Diego and his men arrived, she had a drawing she liked.
She met him as he was getting out of his truck and held out her sketch. It was a big circle, with an X of walkways, a birdbath in the middle.
“I need an herb garden,” she told him. “But I don’t know what to plant in it. My mother wants it to be beautiful and elegant and smell good.” That was a lie but she felt it was for a good cause. That she hadn’t considered where it might lead wasn’t something she wanted to think about.
Diego looked into her eyes so hard that she felt the blood rushing up her neck.
He seemed to reconcile himself that there was nothing he could do to stop this. He took out his cell and made a call. She knew enough Spanish to understand that he was warning his brother that if he so much as touched the little gringa, Alejandro would be sent back to Mexico. And further, Diego would marry him off to the girl who lived next door to their mother.
Elise had to turn away when she heard Alejandro’s cry for mercy.
Diego clicked off and told Elise that his brother would help her choose the plants she needed.
When Alejandro got there, for a moment they just stared at each other—and she knew he’d thought about her too.
“So how’s Tara?” she asked.
Alejandro’s face didn’t change. “Doing well. We’re getting married next week.”