A Spanish Inheritance

by Susan Stephens

  But after what had happened she had been subdued and he had been… She frowned as she hunted for the right words. Very considerate? Very considerate should have suited her down to the ground. At least she only had a serious case of embarrassment to deal with along with another item of clothing—this time a bathrobe to add to her growing collection of booty from the Crianza Perez household. But the more she saw Ramon, the more…

  The telephone was almost a welcome interruption on the route her thoughts were taking. But she sucked in a breath fast when she heard his voice.

  ‘I’m just calling to make sure you’re all right.’

  Maybe it was just a casual enquiry, but she could hear more than concern. There was warmth…and a smile.

  ‘I’m really sorry about what happened tonight,’ she said frankly, trying to corral the conversation into a safe area. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done for me…and for telephoning.’

  ‘Why are you still awake? You should be asleep…resting after what happened.’

  He was trying to sound stern, and now it was Annalisa’s turn to smile. ‘I was asleep until you called—’

  ‘Liar,’ he retorted softly.

  She had never been struck by the intimacy of the telephone before, but the familiarity of his challenge launched a firebolt through her veins.

  ‘Don’t ever do that to me again,’ he said, in a voice barely above a whisper.

  ‘I’m really sorry about your clothes…’ She heard her own voice soften in response.

  ‘Damn the clothes. You—’

  ‘Are a pain in the backside. I know,’ she broke in awkwardly, trying to force a joke out of a situation that was rapidly spiralling into a danger zone.

  ‘No. I was going to say,’ Ramon corrected her firmly, ‘that you are unique.’

  Telling herself not to read anything into it—after all, everyone was unique—she said solemnly, ‘I promise not to do anything so stupid again.’

  He gave a soft laugh. ‘Does that mean you’re agreeing I’m right for once?’

  ‘About this, perhaps.’

  ‘This is not a laughing matter,’ he warned gently. ‘How could we hold our meetings if one of us is missing?’

  ‘I managed very well on my own for the past couple of meetings,’ she said, holding her breath to see how he would respond.

  ‘Very well?’

  ‘OK, so maybe they were a bit one-sided.’

  His laugh ran through her like warm honey.

  ‘I have apologised for my absence already,’ he said cutting off her thoughts.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Not sufficiently, perhaps,’ he argued pensively.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. In fact, I will have to take you for dinner tomorrow evening to make up for the oversight.’

  ‘And what if I decline?’

  ‘You won’t.’

  A thrill ran through her. So much for being a new woman! Remembering Margarita she voiced a caveat, ‘As long as I have a reasonably early night.’

  ‘I’m sure I can build that into my plans.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it, then.’

  ‘So will I,’ Ramon said softly. ‘Goodnight, Annalisa… Sweet dreams.’

  ‘Goodnight, Ramon,’ she whispered, and then realised she was still nursing the receiver in her hands long after the line had gone dead.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ANNALISA woke with a start. And then a second yodelling screech revealed why, after a fitful night, she had suddenly been returned to full consciousness.

  ‘Damn bird!’ she groaned, casting a look at the clock. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet, but the strutting general of the chicken run was rising earlier each morning—a sure sign that spring had arrived. Even with the pillow clamped firmly over her head, his shrill alarm continued to demand her attention.

  Throwing the pillow aside, she yawned, stretched and sighed as she thought of the evening that lay ahead with Ramon. This time she wouldn’t mess up. No champagne, no troublesome outfits and definitely no midnight swims!

  After feeding the animals and clearing up the house she planned to visit the new health spa that had just opened in Mahon and buy something to wear. It was a rare treat, but she had kept some money back to buck her up when the going got tough—and after what had happened last night this was definitely the right moment! And she wanted to look sophisticated—to throw Señor Perez off balance. She was quite determined that when Ramon next saw her he would be amazed by her new image.

  By the time Annalisa made it to the yard the sun was already bathing the terracotta cobbles in a soft coral glow. At first she had been surprised to discover how quickly dawn could chase away the sultry Menorcan night. There was no lingering grey half-light as she was accustomed to in England. Each morning began early and at full tilt, and she found she liked it better that way.

  ‘You’d make delicious soup,’ she teased the cockerel, casting some seed on the ground for him. But he knew her better than that, and only crowed a little louder to join his voice to the neighbourhood chorus.

  Drawn by the sweeter sound of the birds roosting in her orange groves, Annalisa walked away from him across the yard to a point where she could survey a wide sweep of her property. She still hadn’t quite come to terms with the fact that everything she could see as far as the mist-shrouded hills in the distance belonged to her.

  Putting down the basket of feed, she climbed the first few bars of the wooden gate that divided the agricultural land from the yard and rested her head on her arms. Fresh green leaves were beginning to show on the twisted black branches of the orange trees and a light breeze carried across the fields, bringing the delicate perfume of thyme and wild myrtle to overlay the last musky scents of the Mediterranean night.

  ‘Heaven,’ she murmured, gazing around. It was hard to believe such perfection existed.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Annalisa was telling the young girl at the beauty salon confidently. ‘I can quite easily leave everything for a few hours. The animals have been fed, the house is tidy and the orange groves look after themselves.’

  She laughed happily. It was far more important to be relaxed and in control for tonight, she thought, watching the stripes of shimmering pink gradually turn her well-buffed toenails into shell-like perfection. She wriggled her toes contentedly as the beautician finished her work. Next came the seaweed treatment. Annalisa had no idea what that entailed, but it promised miracles for the skin as well as relaxation for the mind. Perfect!

  As she drove home Annalisa was smiling contentedly. She had gone straight from the beauty salon to buy a new dress. White, simple in design, and extremely chic, it had had a price tag to match. But that didn’t matter—not today. Today was a special day. A day for taking control of her life and for spoiling herself. She doubted that she had ever been so well groomed. There was not one inch of her that had not been brushed, buffed, plucked or polished. And mood wise, having been painted from neck to ankle in thick green goo and then baked in a foil blanket before finally being hosed down with an icy cold power jet, she was ready for anything…or so she thought.

  She had hardly stopped the car before she flung herself out of it.

  ‘Hey! What are you doing?’ Her voice sounded hoarse in her ears and she completely forgot the fact that she was dressed ready to go out.

  Sprinting towards the wooden gate, she didn’t wait to open it and snagged her dress as she scrambled over the top. Stumbling through the tangled shrubbery, she tripped several times as she struggled to negotiate a treacherous carpet of recently cut tree branches…so many branches! Not caring that her new shoes were getting scuffed, or that the elegant white dress was already smeared with dirt and ripped in several places, she hurried to the clearing where she had spotted the intruder.

  Her arms and legs were quickly covered in scratches and weals, but nothing mattered—nothing except stopping the carnage. Almost beyond speech, she could only fling wide her arms in a failed attempt to encompass the deva
station and gasp, ‘What have you done?’

  The man she was confronting had a face as gnarled and as brown as the tree branch he was clinging to. ‘Buenos tardes, señorita!’ he said, clearly oblivious to her distress. And, brandishing a battered greasy hat in the air, he embroidered the greeting with a tobacco-stained, gap-toothed grin.

  Annalisa’s mouth formed a circle of despair as she stared up at him. Wearing an assortment of clothes that might have been handed down through the generations and had certainly never been washed, the wiry vandal wore a garland of cutting tools around his waist and a bright, inquisitive expression in his raisin-black eyes.

  ‘So you are the daughter of Don Pedro,’ he called out in heavily accented English, tapping his chest. ‘I am Enrique Caradonda.’

  ‘Never mind who you are,’ Annalisa retorted sharply. ‘I think you’d better explain what you’re doing here…and this!’ She gestured fiercely at the piles of branches littering the ground. All that was left of her beautiful orchard as far as she could see was a forest of leafless skeletons.

  ‘I am working,’ Enrique declared with an affronted shrug. ‘Señor Perez—’

  At the sound of Ramon’s name Annalisa uttered a sharp angry sound and ordered Enrique Caradonda out of the tree.

  ‘Sí, señorita,’ Enrique agreed amiably. ‘The light will soon be fading. I’ll come back tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ll do no such—’

  But Enrique had already swung to the ground and was quickly swallowed up in the deepening shadows as he hurried back to the village.

  Slowly turning in a circle, Annalisa felt a sob rising in her throat. She was so quick to trust…too quick. How could anyone, especially Ramon, do this to her? Was he really so impatient for progress on the proposed site for his marina? If he thought he could drive her away by pulling a stunt like this he was badly mistaken. The property was hers to develop as she chose.

  She drew a ragged breath and tried to confirm the extent of the damage. The trees would never recover in time to crop. And if she had nothing to sell how could she possibly keep afloat financially for another year? To rub salt in the wound it had happened while she was at the beauty salon, congratulating herself on how well things were going! Her grubby hands balled into fists. Ramon Perez was about to get the biggest tongue-lashing of his life!

  As her old car bounced along the lane there were lots of ominous creaks and crunches, but nothing could distract Annalisa from keeping the accelerator pedal flat to the floor. As she landed with one particularly bone-crunching jolt the car stalled and refused to start again. Then, when she finally got it going, an ominous grinding noise accompanied her the rest of the way to Ramon’s.

  ‘Good,’ she muttered fiercely, seeing his unmistakable rangy figure poised beside the Porsche. He was obviously on the point of setting out to pick her up. Well, she had saved him the trouble! Stamping her foot down on the brake, she managed to slew to a halt a hair’s breadth away from his car. And then she almost fell out of the door in her rush to apprehend him.

  But he moved a lot faster than she did and, executing a clean leap past her, dived into the driver’s seat she had just vacated. Wrenching on the handbrake, he called through the open door, ‘I think you forgot something.’

  She clamped her angry mouth shut as he climbed out again and watched him shoot a wry glance at the driver’s door that refused to close until his third and most vigorous attempt.

  ‘No damage done,’ he said, patting the roof of her bargain basement car.

  ‘Save your condescension and the sarcasm,’ Annalisa warned. ‘I’ve got something to say to you.’

  ‘But there will be plenty of chance to talk over dinner,’ he reminded her in an infuriating drawl, his eyes glinting with amusement as he looked her up and down. ‘Is mud art the latest fashion, or have I missed something?’

  ‘No,’ she said clamping her hand over her bare thigh. ‘And I don’t know how you have the nerve to mention dinner.’

  ‘Wasn’t that what we arranged?’ he said mildly. ‘Dinner seems a perfectly reasonable topic of conversation to me.’

  ‘Well, that’s because you haven’t seen what I’ve seen.’

  ‘Clearly,’ he agreed, shooting a sideways look at her.

  She would find some way to extinguish that smile in his eyes. Planting her hands on her hips, she glared. ‘Don’t pretend you have no idea what I’m talking—’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he demanded, cutting over her with brutal force. ‘What exactly am I being accused of now?’

  As he prowled closer she threw up her arms to ward him off, but again he was far too quick for her. ‘Let go of me!’ Annalisa protested, shaking her arm in a fruitless attempt to throw him off. His hold only tightened.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Ramon told her in a tightly controlled voice. ‘You don’t get away so easily. You have to take responsibility for your accusations as well as your actions, Señorita Wilson. We’re taking this inside.’

  ‘I’m not setting one foot inside your house,’ she said furiously, tugging back.

  His short laugh left her in no doubt as to the outcome. ‘This is my territory and I make the decisions here.’ And, sweeping her up in one arm, he carried her into the house. Shouldering open the door to a large airy salon, he dropped her down on a cream leather sofa. ‘Explain.’

  ‘OK!’ she said, springing up again.

  ‘Whoa!’ he exclaimed, raising his hands in mock alarm. ‘Let’s talk about this calmly. I can see that you’re upset—’

  ‘Understatement of the year! My trees are destroyed—’ She had no money to replace them but he didn’t need to know that. ‘And you expect me to be calm!’

  ‘Here. Wipe your face,’ he said, dangling a spotless white handkerchief in front of her eyes.

  She hadn’t even realised that she was crying, thanks to the battering her emotions had taken, and it wasn’t anything to do with the vandal in the orange groves, she thought, avoiding his fingers as if they were red-hot.

  ‘Let me,’ Ramon suggested. ‘You look like you’ve fallen head-first into a bucket of mud. I’m sure you’ll feel better when you’ve had a chance to talk about it,’ he murmured, removing from her hands the fine lawn handkerchief she was twisting into a rope of string. Shaking it out, he began to work on the worst of the smudges.

  ‘There’s no need,’ Annalisa insisted, squaring her shoulders. Predictably, he ignored her. She tried pulling the handkerchief away from him but he only moved in closer, forcing her to push against his chest…and then her fingers softened and eased into a caress. Horrified, she snatched her hands away. ‘You can’t get out of this,’ she flared, badly shaken. ‘I want an explanation.’

  ‘Then we’re both going to get what we want if you come and sit down and we discuss things reasonably,’ he countered.

  But there was an edge to his sensible words that betrayed a very male interest in her lapse.

  ‘So,’ he began when they were both seated across a table made of some pale wood, ‘what’s your problem, Annalisa?’

  ‘You,’ she began honestly. And you can take that smile you’re trying so hard to hide off your face right now, she thought, squaring up to him. ‘Water rights, marina, and now my orange trees,’ she ticked off briskly.

  ‘Orange trees?’ he demanded. ‘What am I supposed to have done to your orange trees?’

  Annalisa gave a short, incredulous laugh. ‘If you saw them you wouldn’t need to ask.’

  ‘I’d like that very much, as it happens.’

  The speed of his capitulation threw her for a moment. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘What about right now.’

  ‘Why not?’ His expressive lips curved in a wry smile of assent. But there was a lot more going on behind his eyes as he stood up and indicated that she should too.

  ‘When we get to the finca you’ll see why I’m so upset,’ she promised.

  ‘Mud-fights?’

  She stopped dead, feeling his gaze on her back. ‘Don’t tease me,
Ramon. This is serious.’

  ‘Well, I can’t see anything that a nice warm bath won’t cure,’ he said in a deep, sultry tone that made her bristle defensively.

  ‘You might change your mind when—’

  ‘I doubt it,’ he cut in. ‘When you’re all cleaned up you can make a list of your demands and I promise to consider each one of them in turn. Come on, I’ll drive,’ he added. ‘The sooner we get to the finca, the sooner we can get all this straightened out.’

  Lifting her chin, Annalisa walked straight past him.

  He glanced at her car when they got outside. ‘I’ll get someone to look at that for you.’

  ‘There’s no need—’

  ‘You’re not taking that vehicle off my property until I’m certain it’s safe,’ he said bluntly. ‘Get in,’ he ordered when she hesitated beside his car. ‘I don’t have all day.’

  ‘There,’ Annalisa declared dramatically, standing back so that Ramon could have a clear view of her ruined orchard.

  ‘Who did this?’ he said, looking around.

  ‘Enrique Caradonda.’ She watched him relax. ‘And don’t pretend you don’t know who that is, because Enrique told me that you sent him.’

  ‘I asked Enrique if he would consider paying you a visit,’ Ramon corrected evenly. ‘No one commands Enrique Caradonda. He’s almost a legend.’

  ‘What?’ Annalisa burst out. ‘For destroying perfectly good fruit trees?’

  ‘No,’ Ramon said, going on to explain, ‘Enrique is the best tree surgeon on the island. He is always in demand—particularly now, in the spring.’

  ‘But there was nothing wrong with my trees that a little care and attention couldn’t put right.’

  ‘They might have looked all right to your untrained eye, but years of neglect were masking disease in some and a serious lack of pruning in all of them,’ he informed her. ‘If I could have warned you he was coming I would have done so, but Enrique is a law unto himself.’