by Riona Kelly
“How exciting,” Michelle said. Her interest piqued, her eyes lit up, and she leaned more toward Colin. “Who all lives here?”
He laughed. “Oh, no. I’m not going to name names, young lady. I am sworn to secrecy. But if one’s initials started with CF, then maybe you could guess.”
Her forehead wrinkled as she thought about it. Then her eyes popped, and she whispered, “Colin Farrell?”
He winked at her, but didn’t confirm it, Lindy noticed. “You know Michelle is very interested in theater arts. She’s looking at majoring in it next year.”
“Are you?” Colin responded, addressing Michelle.
Her smile was shy, but it didn’t really hide her confident enthusiasm for the business. “Yes. I’ve done some acting in school, played the leads in ‘Our Town,’ and in ‘Thoroughly Modern Mille’ last year.”
“So, you sing and dance also?”
“I do. I’m a triple-threat actress.” Her lips tweaked into a smug smile.
He laughed. “I expect you will light up the theaters.”
Their tapas arrived, and the conversation shifted to the flavors of the food. Michelle took a hesitant stab at the octopus to get a portion on her fork. The pink piece of a tentacle with the suckers still on it made her grimace. Amused, Lindy watched her niece play with it, bringing it almost to her mouth, then stopping before she stabbed a piece herself, popped it between her lips and chewed.
“Quit looking at it and just eat it, Michelle,” she advised. “It is a quite pleasing taste, and mostly you will taste the olive oil and seasonings on it.”
Encouraged, Michelle did exactly as told, closed her eyes, poked it in her mouth, and chewed. Her face reflected her distaste for the task, but then it changed to surprise when it wasn’t as terrible as she thought it would be. “Okay, okay. It wasn’t bad. But I don’t think I want anymore. I’ll have some of the potato things instead.”
By the time the paella arrived, Lindy and Colin were on their third glass of wine while Michelle was still nursing her non-alcoholic variety. The main dish proved as brilliant as advertised, a delectable concoction of shellfish including clams, prawns, and lobsters plus chicken and ham with a saffron seasoned rice and pasta base with fresh peas in it. Crusty bread, warm from the oven, proved perfect for dipping in the sauce. All talk ceased as they savored the flavors.
Outside on the square, music played loud enough to be heard anywhere in the vicinity as the party geared up for the evening. The nightlife began at nine and went on until the early hours after midnight, or so the waiter informed them.
Colin leaned across the table and said, “Would you like to go to one of the dance clubs?”
“Dancing?” Lindy said. “That would be wonderful. I haven’t been out dancing in ages. What do you say, Michelle?”
She looked at her aunt, tolerantly. “I say there will be a lot of drinking, and this under-aged girl will feel somewhat out of place. You two go ahead. I’ll take a cab back to the hotel.”
“No, no,” Colin objected. “There’s a great club at the hotel. We’ll all go back together. How about it?”
“Perfect,” Lindy said.
He was perfect. The right answers, the right food, the right way to treat her. She could easily like this man. But her advice to her niece stood for her also. They could have fun, but it wouldn’t do to get serious about anyone they met on a trip abroad.
Back at the resort, Michelle started to say goodnight, but Lindy interrupted her. “Why don’t you come into the club for a while? I’m pretty sure there are sure to be other young people who also aren’t old enough to drink, so you might have a good time. If it turns out not, then you can go on to the room, but give it a try. Maybe one of those young men from the pool will be there.”
Michelle seemed reluctant but gave in to her aunt’s coaxing. “I feel like a third wheel on a bicycle,” she muttered.
The club in the hotel was situated in a wing off the lobby that housed various shops, closed now, including a high-end clothing store and an electronics store. But the arcade bustled with about a dozen or more kids playing the colorful and noisy games. Anchoring the end of the wing was the night club called El Paraiso, which translated to “the paradise.”
As soon as the trio stepped inside, they went from the well-illuminated shopping area to a subtly-lit cavern of neon and candle-wattage lights on the tables that surrounded a dance floor. Several couples were shaking it up to the loud salsa music while many more were sitting it out at the cocktail tables, drinking and chatting. Lindy staked a claim on a table a few layers back from the dance floor and sat at it while Colin borrowed a chair from an empty table and sat next to her, leaving the chair across from them for Michelle. Within a few minutes, a cocktail waitress trotted past, pausing to say she’d be back in a few minutes.
“Do you salsa?” Colin asked. He almost had to shout for Lindy to hear him.
She shook her head, “No. I can samba, but I never learned salsa. Do you?”
“Poorly. But I try.”
As promised, the waitress flitted back, took their order, and didn’t even blink when Michelle ordered a virgin margarita. Colin told her to run a tab, and she dashed off again. When the music changed to a slower rock beat, Colin offered a hand to Lindy while apologizing to Michelle. Off they went off to the dance floor to join the other gyrating bodies.
“It’s been ages since I last went dancing,” Lindy told him as she twirled in his hand. “This is a real treat.”
“I can’t believe a beautiful woman like you isn’t out every weekend.”
“Too busy with the artwork, designs, and meetings. This trip started as a business meeting, but I’m glad I decided to take some extra time while I was here.”
“Something in Spain?” Colin asked.
“No, in Paris. Michelle flew in as I ended my meetings, and we left from there to tour southern France and came on into Spain.”
“Sounds like a splendid trip. Where are you heading from here?”
“Well, we plan to stay here for almost a week, then go across to Grenada and then perhaps on to Portugal. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Oh, definitely see Portugal. It’s a beautiful place. I’m glad you’ll be here a few more days. Would you care to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
Lindy noticed the invitation didn’t include Michelle. “I’ll talk it over with my niece. Since she met those young guys here, she might want to spend the evening by the pool.”
The music changed to a slow rhythm, and they eased into an easy-flowing two-step. As Colin pulled her in close to him, Lindy felt the little zing that comes with meeting someone with whom you really connect both intellectually and physically. This man was someone she could forge a relationship with if only they had time. A wishful sighed escaped her lips, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
When they returned to the table, they found their drinks had arrived, but Michelle and her drink were elsewhere. Puzzled, Lindy gazed around the room, eyes searching the dark room until she spotted her niece at a table near the deejay booth talking to a young man who looked familiar and was not either Alan or Connor. If she wasn’t mistaken, it appeared their rescuer from earlier had found them.
Chapter 3
Feeling like an unwanted puppy, Michelle sipped her non-alcoholic drink and decided she wasn’t enjoying tagging around after her aunt and Colin. While she appreciated her aunt’s efforts to show her around Europe, several of her friends had also traveled over, unescorted. Why couldn’t she have come with them?
“Europe’s not as safe as it used to be,” her father had said. No arguments or reasoning would change his mind. “With the terrorists so close, I don’t want you going to Italy or Greece. It’s practically in the Middle East’s pocket.”
“And you think France and Spain are safer?” she’d argued.
“I do. Your aunt knows her way around the continent, and with her connections, you will be much safer than traveling with three other teenagers.”
End of discussion, subject closed. It came down to going with her aunt or not going at all. While she loved her aunt, visiting art museums and ancient ruins weren’t all she wanted to come to Europe to see and do. If Colin hadn’t invited them out to dinner tonight, they probably would have had a meal at one of the hotel restaurants, then watched a movie and gone to bed. She was glad he’d asked them to go clubbing, but honestly, she was hoping to return to the hotel and wander along the beach or even hang at the pool.
Deep in her thoughts, she barely noticed when someone walked up to the table. Glimpsing the snug-fit dark jeans, she only registered it was a man, until he said, “Senorita Michelle. Buenos noches.”
Her head popped up, and she met his eyes. “Roberto?”
“Si. I told you I would find you.” His grin was huge and irresistible.
“Come. Come with me. I have a table by the booth, and it is surprisingly quieter there than anywhere else in the room.” He held out his hand to her.
Glancing at the other two glasses on the table, Michelle hesitated. “My aunt’s drinks...?”
“They will be fine. No one will touch them.”
Putting her hand in his, she allowed him to lead her around the back and to the side of the room where the deejay booth filled the corner. Odd as it seemed, it really was quieter right next to the source of the sound than out where she had been sitting. The speakers all faced away from the booth, Roberto explained.
“So, what are your plans for here in Marbella? Go to the beach? Shopping?” Roberto asked. He leaned closer so he wouldn’t have to shout it.
“That’s up to my aunt. Sure, I’d like to walk along the beach, go into the town, and do a little shopping. But I want to see as much as I can. My aunt likes museums and ruins, so we usually do visit those. This is the first time I’ve been in a club on this trip. My aunt met an English guy this afternoon, and he took us to dinner and now here. Thank heavens.” Michelle felt like she was babbling.
Roberto shot her a knowing look. “Si. Your aunt is an artist. Architecture and ancient things interest her. They are potential subjects for a painting. I understand. But you have to have a little fun also, no?”
“Yes!” Michelle laughed. He was very cute, this Spanish boy. “You paint also, so are you interested in those things as well?”
“Of course. But I don’t get too carried away. I am young, and I like to have fun.” He raised his hands over his head and clapped along with the beat.
“I’d like to see your paintings. Do you have some displayed or for sale here? One of the people I met said there was an artists’ alley near the city center. Is it true?”
He shook his head. “Not an alley so much. Just a little group of five artists who display and sell some of their paintings along the sidewalk. It’s a couple of blocks toward the hills from the Plaza de los Naranjas. If you come by tomorrow, I will show you some of the best I’ve done. Maybe bring your aunt. But, un momento...” He paused and pulled out his smartphone and called up an image. “I have a few pictures of them. Look.” He held the phone up to her so she could see.
Michelle squinted at the small image in the darkened club. It appeared to be a street scene in this same area with two older Spanish men drinking wine at an outside café. As near as she could tell, it looked very good. “I like it.”
He slid a finger across to the next one, an indoor club and a guitarist on stage, hunched over the instrument with the intensity on his face evident in the painting. Michelle could sense the tension in the body; it done so well. “That’s great.”
He pushed again, and the image changed to a beach painting at dusk, the colors amazing and so relaxing. A smile spread across Michelle’s lips. “I feel like I could almost step into this one.”
Roberto put his phone back in his pocket as he grinned at her. “They are better when you see the real paintings. Try to come tomorrow. I’ll be there until two in the afternoon, then siesta time.”
“I’ll see if my aunt is willing. Give me the address.”
He swiped a business card from the deejay’s booth behind him and jotted the information on the back of it. Michelle tucked it into her little purse that dangled from a chain at her waist and sipped the last of her margarita.
Then the deejay put on a funky rock song, and Roberto did a twirl with his fingers, asking her dance. She nodded, following him to the floor where they broke out into individual steps, but it didn’t matter. Everyone was dancing, and no one seemed to be in sync with anyone else. It was rock music.
One dance led to another with a slightly slower beat. Taking Michelle’s hands, Roberto taught her a few steps of a sevillanas dance, which was kind of a waltz tempo flamenco. She managed to not step on his feet or stumble into anyone before she gave up. “I think I need another drink.”
While he went to get her a soft drink, Michelle went back to their table where Roberto had left a reserved marker, and it had, surprisingly, worked. Or maybe no one else wanted to sit next to the booth. Warmed by the crowded club and the dancing, she fanned herself with her hand while she waited. She glimpsed her aunt across the way and wondered if she thought she’d gone back to the room. But then she saw Lindy gaze in her direction and had her answer. Michelle waved her hand a little in acknowledgment.
Roberto returned with a cola drink, and as she sipped it, Michelle chatted with Roberto more about his work and if he sold a lot of paintings.
“Not as much as I would like, but I do okay. I have an agent who handles some sales out of the area for me, and he gets me pretty good prices for my paintings. Just last week, he sold one of my canvases for two hundred fifty euros.”
“Is it a good price?”
“Of course. I am not a known artist, so for me, that is very good. Maybe one day, I will earn five hundred per painting, but not yet.”
“My aunt makes around fifteen hundred dollars for a book cover, but it is rendered as a digital print. I watched her build a cover once. She did the initial drawing from a sketch with a live model, then added the background sketch before she scanned the whole thing and did the rest of it in an art program. It was fascinating.”
“It doesn’t seem much like painting if you do it by computer.” Roberto frowned as he thought about it. “It’s lacking the smell of the paint and the movement of your body in painting. The whole process. I don’t know if I would enjoy it as much.”
“She says she sometimes misses that part of the creating.”
Abruptly, he said, “It’s too warm in here. Let’s go for a walk on the beach.” He stood and offered his hand.
She started to tell him she should advise her aunt but changed her mind. Lindy was occupied with the Englishman, talking animatedly, and they were just going for a short walk.
As they started out of the club, a man about the same age as Roberto caught up with them and said something to Roberto in Spanish. She couldn’t understand what they said, but it soon became clear it was an argument. Roberto growled something back to the guy, who was a little smaller and very thin. In return, he fluttered his hands and shouted a response. Roberto waved an arm as if sweeping something away, then held up two fingers and waggled them at the other as his face wore an unhappy scowl.
As they had argued, Michelle had retreated several steps away from this confrontation, fearful it might turn into a fistfight or worse.
The smaller man appeared to capitulate even as he swiped his hand in a wiping-clean gesture, then turned and stalked off. Roberto glared after him before he came to join her. “I am sorry. It was a business matter. That was Arturo, my agent.”
“Your agent? And he talks to you like that?” She was surprised, first by the heated argument, then by the youthful look of his agent. He looked like another street kid.
“Ay, he’s also a friend. When I started to sell my paintings, he told me he had connections, and he could extend my sales, and it seems he did. So I give him a percentage of any sales he arranges, and we both make money. But sometimes he get
s pushy or makes a promise to a client who is unreasonable. Let’s go for our walk. I need to calm down.”
Although a warm night, the salty scent of the sea blew in on a delicate, cooling breeze. Along the beach, various lights from resorts and clubs cast a glow that reached part-way down the sand. With lights reflecting in the water, no part of the shorefront seemed too dark. The sea lapped across the sand with gently breaking waves and pounded a rhythm mellower than the music they’d left. They held hands as they walked barefoot, each holding their shoes in their unclasped hands.
Breaking the silence, Michelle asked, “Seriously, Roberto, I am curious. How did you know where to find us?”
He laughed, a sensual deep-throated sound. “It was simple deduction. You and your aunt are Americans. Your aunt rented a BMW. So, where would two American ladies who can afford to rent a BMW stay? The logical places are a well-known beach resort such as the Marianna or the Hilton. I figured it would be the Marianna, so I checked out the parking lot and spotted the serviceman changing the tire on the BMW. If I had been wrong, then I would have tried the Hilton tomorrow.”
She giggled. “Very clever, amigo.”
He dropped her hand and curved his arm around her shoulder, urging her closer to him. A little tingle ran through her at the touch of his fingers on her upper arm, and she shivered a little.
He felt it. “Are you chilled?”
“No, not at all.” Slipping her arm around his waist, she leaned more against him. “This is nice.”
“Si.”
They resumed walking, talking quietly as they made their way down the beach. Roberto pointed out the various towns showing like a string of lights along the curve of the beach. He turned her a little toward the direction they’d come. “Back up there, just at the top, is Malaga.” He eased her back around again. “And most of this big curve is Marbella, then Estepona with La Linea at the end and beyond is Gibraltar. It is beautiful, is it not?”