The corner of his mouth curved up. “Yes. The food. Tapas, paella, sangria, that sort of thing.”
“I don’t think I’ll be very good company right now.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” he said.
“Seeing them was kind of a shock. I need time to process it.” Ten years ago Simon had hurt her badly, but now he was hooked up, apparently in a serious way, with one of her oldest friends.
“Process it with me.” He caught her arm and entwined her fingers with his.
She turned, caught in his warm grasp, and felt her stomach dance like a broken sprinkler.
He was both familiar and mysterious. What would it be like to have him? Or be had…
“I can’t. You’re my client.”
“I’m much more than that.” He paused. “We’re old friends.”
She rubbed her eyes. Not exactly. Sharing a group therapist wasn’t quite the same thing as a normal friendship. “I just started working here. I can’t get involved with a client.”
“Then I’ll wait,” he said.
Her willpower wavered. It wasn’t like they paid her very much…
No. She’d just moved hundreds of miles to work here, reconnect with old friends, build a meaningful life. She wasn’t going to chuck it for a handsome guy from her past who had more sex appeal in one muscled forearm than the sum total of every other man she’d ever…
“I can’t,” she repeated.
But he didn’t release her. His thumb, strong and warm, continued to caress the racing pulse at her wrist.
Chapter 7
MELISSA thought in a wild panic that he was going to pull her into his arms and kiss her—she stopped breathing, bracing herself—but instead he released her hand and walked over to his sleek black motorcycle parked at the curb.
“All right,” he said, taking a helmet out of a case behind the seat. “Will I see you in the morning?”
Her relief wasn’t as strong as it should’ve been. “The morning?”
“To work on the garden.”
Her mind cleared. The garden. “Around eleven. Can you be there then to let me into the back? I have some errands to run.” Sunday morning she had reserved for worshiping at the coin-op laundry. Working in the earth was hell on the wardrobe.
“Eleven is good. See you then.” He pulled on his helmet, hopped on the bike, and then, before she could ask him to stay or never come back, he was gone.
To stop herself from gazing after him longingly, she marched to her own car and drove home to her sublet apartment a few blocks away. She usually walked to work, but had needed the car to get to Eduardo’s gorgeous house in Oakland.
She waited a few hours before calling Jody to clear the air. They’d been friends in high school, part of a group of five eccentric girls in their elite southern California high school that called themselves the Fab Five.
“It was shitty of me not to tell you I’d moved nearby,” Melissa declared at the start. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s OK,” Jody said warmly. “I obviously had a secret of my own.”
The line fell silent.
Melissa dunked a teabag into water she’d forgotten to heat in the microwave. “How long have you been together?”
“Two months. It just happened. He moved into the unit upstairs, one thing led to another.” Jody paused. “There’s something you need to know.”
“You’re pregnant.”
Jody laughed. “God, no. Not yet, anyway,” she said.
“Whoa,” Melissa said.
“Yeah. It’s… it’s pretty serious. But listen, about Simon… what happened back then…”
“It’s OK.” Melissa didn’t want her old friend to think she’d been obsessing over Simon all these years, and that now she was wobbling on the edge of another bout of clinical depression and self-harm. It was embarrassment, not obsessive love, that haunted her. “Don’t worry about it. You two are cute together.” If she hadn’t been so shocked, she might’ve been happy for these friends she’d had since childhood.
“Your parents talked to him,” Jody said. “They were trying to protect you.”
“Why would my parents talk to him? How would they—oh, you mean then.” For a moment she’d thought Jody was telling her that her mother had tracked down Simon recently, which she could’ve believed possible of the tenacious lady who’d brought her into the world.
The implications struck her. Back when she’d been recovering from the suicide attempt, and Simon had completely avoided her, she’d understood, feeling utterly unlovable for what she’d done. But if he’d actually stayed away from her because her parents—her mother—had asked him to…
“I’m going to kill her,” Melissa said. “She never told me.”
“They were afraid it might… you know…”
“The sight of his gorgeous, unattainable bod would drive me to finish the job,” Melissa said. “How fucking embarrassing. And he’s probably believed it all these years. Now I really do want to kill myself.”
“Melissa—”
“Just kidding. Rest easy, Simon Brodie is not the man on my mind right now.”
“Oh, I saw that for myself,” Jody said, her tone growing more cheerful. “Tell me about that guy. Eduardo, was it? Wow.”
“It’s not what it looked like. He’s a client.”
“Sure he is.”
“Seriously,” Melissa said. “I saw you and Simon, and used him for show.”
“I don’t think he minded.” The line went silent for a moment. “Melissa, I think you’re in deep trouble if you think he’s just a client.”
Melissa, not ready to tell her she’d first met Eduardo at the Center, covered her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle the pleasure that washed over her as she remembered the feel of his strong, hard body against hers. “He’s just a client.”
But he doesn’t have to be, a smoky, imaginary voice whispered in her ear, millimeters from her favorite erogenous zone. It’s a tiny garden. You could plant a dozen agapanthus in under an hour: mission accomplished.
No. She was just getting her life the way she wanted it: peaceful, organized, and no drama. A job and a small apartment, low expenses, a boring date now and then—that was more than enough. Seeing her high school ex had reminded her of how badly she overreacted to sexy guys with bedroom eyes. Of a past she didn’t want to revisit.
And Eduardo Diaz was a grown-up, fully potent version of the boy Simon had been—way, way too hot for her to handle.
“All right,” Jody said. “Just promise you’ll keep me posted.”
“Same for you,” Melissa said. “And for God’s sake, please tell Simon I’m fine, will you? So he’s not afraid to invite me to the wedding?”
When Jody didn’t immediately shoot down the possibility of marriage, Melissa wished her well, amazed but happy for her, and hung up.
It was good to clear that up. She hated to wallow in the past. Life was today.
And not, she thought as she looked at Eduardo Diaz on her morning schedule, at eleven a.m. tomorrow.
* * *
I’m an asshole.
Wallowing in self-recrimination, Eduardo watched Melissa digging and hauling dirt in his backyard. There was his dream girl, likely his soul mate, with her hair pulled back fifties-style in a red-and-white polka-dot bandana, the knees of her faded jeans stained with dirt, while he sat on his ass and sipped freshly pressed coffee.
It wasn’t like she was working in her own garden, or next door—it was his dirt she was straining to mix and rearrange, or whatever the hell she was doing.
Why couldn’t she just dig a little hole and put in the little plants? Why did she have to bring cubic feet of more dirt? She’d pulled up in a pickup and spent the first hour hauling wheelbarrows full of the stuff through the side yard. At least for that first hour she’d had help, another guy from the nursery, but he’d driven off with the truck as soon as it was unloaded.
Something about her had always felt right: the sound of
her voice over the phone, the sight of her at the nursery, the feel of her hand in his. The memory of what they’d both shared as teenagers. Not together, but separately, a trauma that others couldn’t understand.
But something had changed since yesterday. Seeing her ex had bothered her, and that bothered Eduardo. They’d been having fun, flirting, getting closer, but now she was remote, serious, and quiet. Back to business.
He watched her push the wheelbarrow over the patio, saw how it wobbled, caught in the flagstones.
He got to his feet. His parents obviously couldn’t see him from their house in Sacramento ninety miles away, but he could feel their critical gaze nonetheless. He deposited his coffee mug on the counter, strode over to the closet to put on a pair of old running shoes, and in a minute he was outside, tapping her on the shoulder.
“Tell me what to do,” he said.
Her eyes were hidden under giant sunglasses with scratched amber lenses. “You don’t do anything. That’s why you hired us.”
“I don’t see an ‘us,’” he said. “I only see a ‘you.’” And I want to go on seeing you.
“I’m fine.”
“You’ll be finer with a little assistance.” Although she was plenty fine to him in every other way.
She sighed. “Your khakis will get dirty.”
Did she really think he was the kind of guy who’d care about that? What else did she think?
Removing her sunglasses, she continued, less sure of herself now. “They look nice. Your pants.”
He glanced down at himself. Banana Republic’s clearance rack, twenty bucks, if he remembered correctly. But he liked to think she’d been checking out his lower half. He put his hands on his hips and grinned. “Thank you.”
Because she was already flushed from working, he couldn’t tell if any of the pink in her cheeks was thanks to him.
“If you have to do something, you could refill my water bottle,” she said.
“I’m not sure I can handle that. I might get my fingers wet. Spoil my manicure.”
The sunglasses went back in place. “Fine, I’ll do it.” She turned, plucked a green plastic bottle off the patio, and marched into the house.
All according to plan. He picked up the shovel she’d propped against the fence and commenced digging.
“What are you doing?” she cried behind him.
He excavated a mound of the fluffy brown stuff she’d hauled in, moving it a few feet to the right. “I’m helping.”
To his annoyance, she laughed. “You’re just randomly moving dirt around.”
“How is that different from what you were doing?”
Her smile blinded him. The dimple in her left cheek was deeper than the one in her right, giving her face an adorably lopsided charm. “I was mixing the compost into the native soil,” she said, “loosening up the clay a little bit.”
“Exactly what I was doing,” he said.
Laughing again, she wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm and took a drink from her water bottle. When she leaned her head back, the sight of her exposed throat, glistening with sweat, made him tighten his grip on the shovel.
Then she lowered the bottle and nodded. “All right, since you insist.” She pointed at the dirt. “We want to dig down about two feet here and mix in the compost.”
“That deep? Really? Doesn’t your boss have a machine for that?”
“It’s too small to bother,” she said.
“Then I’ll pay you to do the entire yard.”
Still smiling, she put down her water bottle, picked up a second shovel, and began digging a few feet from him. “First things first.”
Seeing her smile was worth the hit to his ego. Much better than the withdrawn, unhappy woman of the early morning.
With his help, she’d forget the blond surfer. It would be his pleasure.
If he could convince her to give him—them—a chance.
Chapter 8
AROUND three o’clock, Melissa stood up and stretched her arms over her head, trying to ease the cramp in her back. She had to admit: repotting perennials was a lot easier on the soft tissues than amending clay soil for four hours. The thought of a hot, tension-releasing shower was now as appealing as her client—who, to her relief, had disappeared inside the condo a half hour earlier.
Actually putting the plants in the ground and laying some drip irrigation tubing would be fast work compared to this; she’d only have to come back one more day.
And then…
In spite of herself, she’d been thinking a lot about how long this business relationship of theirs would last. Rather, how brief it would be.
Shaking her head, she dug her knuckles into her lower back, wishing the pain would drive the lustful thoughts from her mind.
No such luck.
“Time for a break,” he said directly behind her.
His rich voice melted her more effectively than an hour with a massage therapist. She turned, saw the tray in his hands, and dropped her spade.
“Oh, my God. What is that?”
“Just a little something I whipped up,” he said.
Furiously wiping her hands on her jeans, she stared. A pitcher of iced tea with lemon—nice. But also thick slices of chocolate cake. The shiny kind, with layers of something creamy. “You just whipped that up?”
“Well, yesterday. I like baking. It helps me relax.”
“You seem plenty relaxed already,” she said.
“I do a lot of baking.” Smiling, he set the tray on a small table.
Too tired to be witty, she looked at her hands—and was horrified at the thought of touching his beautiful sweet concoctions with her grubby fingers. His beautiful… sweet…
Oh, lord. “I need to clean up,” she said. Did she ever. “Be right back.” She jogged across the patio and inside to the bathroom, where she scrubbed her hands under the water and gazed at herself in the mirror. Smudges of dirt graced both her chin and her left temple. Her damp hair stuck to her cheeks.
She looked awful, but he didn’t seem to mind. If anything, the tension between them was as thick as ever.
She finished up and rejoined him outside, accepting the plate he handed her. “So, what do you call this?”
“Flourless chocolate and hazelnut cake layered with white chocolate mousse, frosted with chocolate ganache,” he said.
“You’re kidding.”
“You’ll be doing me a favor by helping me eat it.”
She slid the fork into the chocolate glaze. “You are kidding.”
“I get tired of eating alone.”
As she closed her lips over the mouthful of chocolate cake, she met his gaze, surprised to see he was dead serious.
Her heart skipped a beat.
How was any woman supposed to resist him? How could she not seriously consider grabbing the moment?
Well, not just the moment.
“Do you like it?” he asked. He actually looked unsure.
She slid the fork out of her mouth. Swallowed. “Who wouldn’t?” she asked.
* * *
Around five, Eduardo decided they’d both worked enough for the day. She’d eaten his cake, but he didn’t believe she wasn’t also craving something more substantial. He massaged his shoulder, fighting a smile.
Her behavior around the couple yesterday had convinced him she was single, which had been his first concern, even if she had some lingering feelings about Blondie.
Now he could tackle the details. Turn on the charm. Convince her to go out with him. They could talk about plants, if that’s what it was going to take.
He strode over to the patio and rested the shovel against the condo’s stucco wall. “Thanks for letting me help you today.”
Wiping her brow, she rose to her feet from where she’d been kneeling in the dirt, marking out curved garden beds with a black hose. “Who am I to argue with a helpful guy?”
He walked over to her. “I don’t know. Who are you?”
“Nob
ody special.”
He could see her pulse dancing in her throat. Working close to her all day had taught him how to read her a little better.
Good nervous.
“We’re done working for the day,” he said. “I’m taking you to lunch.”
“It’s almost five.”
“Dinner, then.”
She looked away. The wind whistled through the trees overhead. “I need to put my tools away.”
“I’ll do it.”
“No, I have to do it.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll wait.”
She took off her hat and pushed the hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. “Look, Eduardo, I’m a different person than I was then. I don’t want to be that person, you know? I don’t even like to think about it.”
He couldn’t let her turn him down now. Each moment they spent together was showing him how shallow his relationships had been with other women. Why he’d always held back, protecting a part of himself, fearing they’d never understand him.
“All the more reason to go with me to a great tapas place,” he said. “It’s on San Pablo, next door to a yoga studio with pictures of flames in the window, which doesn’t seem like such a selling point to me, but—”
“I know it. I live only two blocks away, actually,” she said, “but I can’t—”
“Please.” He took her hands in his, wanting to share that small contact again. Her hat bunched up between their fingers. “I don’t remind you of the past. You didn’t even recognize me. This is about right now.”
He stopped breathing during the long pause that followed. Finally, she said, “I have to go back to the nursery first. Then you can come by my place. I’ll text you my address. We can walk.” Her hands slipped out of his as she turned and began cleaning up the yard.
When her back was to him, he tilted his head back and let out a long breath.
Chapter 9
THIS wasn’t what Melissa had planned. Dinner with the client after a day of sweaty side-by-side laboring—no. Dressing up for a man who had known her at her weakest, craziest worst as a troubled teenager—not the plan.
Just Can't Forget You: (Oakland Hills Short Story 2) Page 3