Under Her Skin

by Lea Santos

  Iris studied her for a long moment, expelled a breath. “I don’t suppose you would let me help plant these, seeing as how they’re my namesake and all that?” She tossed a bulb from hand to hand. “It would probably cure my boredom, and then we’ll both be able to get out of this miserable heat sooner.”

  Torien pictured those slender, soft hands deep in the soil, long hair slipping over the bare skin of Iris’s back like a black satin sheet. If Moreno were here, the answer would have been a resolute no. But la patrona was in Italy. Only Torien and this ángel were here in the garden, and the scent of Iris’s skin did crazy things to Torien’s rationality.

  She should not encourage Iris’s involvement. She knew she should not. They would be working, sweating, breathing, moving, flexing, stretching side by side with their hands buried in the moist, cool soil. Gardening was the closest thing to sex Torien had ever experienced, and bringing Iris into that bubble would be a mistake. She opened her mouth to explain all these reasons and more for Iris to go back to her book, but instead heard herself say, “You are welcome to help if you wish.”

  “Really?” Excitement illuminated Iris’s eyes like sunlight through tender spring leaves.

  Torien glanced at the unblemished skin and perfect, short fingernails of Iris’s hands, instantly regretting her decision. Selfish, Toro. This isn’t the work for her.

  “If…if you’re sure.” She jerked her head toward the small potter’s shed. “I have gloves in the sotechado so you don’t damage your hands.”

  “But you don’t wear gloves.”

  Torien cocked her head to one side and bestowed a droll look. “I am a gardener, Irisíta. You are not.”

  Seeming slightly surprised by the glove suggestion—and the reminder that she didn’t truly belong in the gardens—Iris spread out her hands and stared at them. First the palms, then the backs, her expression pragmatic. “Actually, I would rather feel the earth between my fingers and to hell with the manicure, if it’s all the same to you. I’m on vacation. And there’s always airbrushing.” With a spark of mischief in her expression, she furrowed both hands into the soil up to her wrists, then raised her eyebrows playfully. “If you want to know a secret, I’m a machetona at heart.”

  “No.”

  “Really. I’m a tomboy from way back.”

  Right. Iris Lujan, a…machetona. Torien didn’t want to believe it, but part of her did. And loved the idea. “I will…ah…get the gloves in case you change your mind.” Torien got to her feet with surprising calmness and retreated to the sotechado. She didn’t need the gloves, and clearly Iris didn’t want them. What Torien really needed was a break from Iris’s heady presence, from her scent and softness, her unexpected layers. From the visual images that kept flashing in Torien’s head. She knew she was tempting fate every moment she spent in Iris’s company, and yet she could not seem to deny herself the pleasure.

  You work hard. You deserve the pleasure.

  No one will know.

  The rationalizations both soothed Torien and drew her like set traps.

  She longed to splash cold water on her body, but she didn’t dare. Though she didn’t imagine Iris would follow her to the potter’s cottage again, she would keep all her clothes on while at Moreno’s from here on out, just to be safe. She grabbed the gloves from a wall hook and caressed the fingers as if they were Iris’s. A controlled sigh eased through her lips. Giving in to her ever-blossoming weakness for Iris’s charms would be Torien’s undoing. Which could not happen. Her family—no one else—would bear the burden.

  That hammer blow of that realization nailed her to the wood slat floor on which she stood. Damnit, infatuation aside, this was not a game. She needed to set the limits of their relationship and make them very clear to Iris without hurting her feelings or snapping the tenuous strings of their new friendship. That was her challenge…and her responsibility.

  But it was fine.

  If Torien was used to one thing, it was responsibility.

  *

  Though Torien hadn’t exactly given her a blanket invitation, Iris decided she’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission. So she returned to the garden every day the following week, as if that engraved invitation sat atop her nightstand—or as if she’d been hired—and dug into whatever chore Torien happened to be tackling. If Torien wanted her to leave, she would say so. So far, much to Iris’s relief, that hadn’t happened.

  The biggest shock of this whole get-closer-to-Torien scheme, one she hadn’t anticipated whatsoever, was how quickly she grew to love working in the garden—and surprisingly, not entirely because of the time spent with Tori. Thanks to her multi-continental, less-than-grounded lifestyle, she’d never owned or tended a single potted fern, much less a garden that would need constant tender loving care. But as she toiled in the earth alongside Torien, time stilled for her. The first moment a determined but tender green shoot broke through the soil from one of the seeds she’d planted, tears sprung to her eyes. She’d planted, watered, believed.

  And it grew.

  Amazing.

  Sitting on the ground with the sun warming her back, Iris found herself transported back to any number of sunlit days from her childhood; days spent kneeling in the soil with her mom, enjoying the summer heat until her skin felt tight and gritty. She remembered eating sweet, warm snap peas straight off the stalk, sucking on the ends of super-sour rhubarb stalks with her cousins, and carrying in baskets of fresh vegetables for that night’s dinner. Those satisfying memories were punctuated by lemonade and bird calls, quiet companionship and blessed obscurity.

  How had she managed to forget all that?

  Each day, she waited impatiently on Gerri’s terrace, eyes trained on the garden, her stomach quivery with excitement for the moment when Torien would arrive. Today was no different. Iris paced the sun-warmed stone floor, awaiting the sight of Torien rounding the cottage from where she usually parked her old white pickup truck. Half an hour passed, then an hour. Two. No luck.

  This skin-tingling sense of anticipation for the arrival of another person was an old memory she had buried. When her ex, Melody, the drummer for a platinum-selling indie rock band, dumped her for some wide-eyed groupie, Iris had consciously numbed her romantic side. Never mind that Melody never looked back. Never mind that she and Iris hadn’t shared the kind of love that lasted a lifetime. Never mind the sobering fact that Iris had known, deep inside, she and Mel were an ill-matched pair from the beginning. Bottom line? Iris had opened herself up emotionally. And for all that risk, she not only got dumped, but also blown through the ensuing media shitstorm on the fire-breath of the ravenous paparazzi dragon. The tabloids ridiculed her relationship and minimized her pain, as if “getting over it” should be no big deal for a supermodel. As if she had no real human emotions—didn’t even deserve to. And that made her strive for just that—not to have any real human emotions.

  So much safer to be closed off from life.

  Months after the breakup, once the dragon had run out of fire and tabloid focus moved on to another story, Iris had thrown herself into her work and forbade anyone to mention Melody’s name in her presence. She’d begun to “show up and look pretty,” just as all her handlers had urged her to do from day one of her career. She swore off dating—at least within the semi-public circle of her friends and management—having reached her lifetime limit of being snagged by users and climbers who saw her as a commodity rather than a woman with dreams and feelings and worries of her own.

  So she couldn’t quite shake her astonishment over the fact that a certain strong, silent gardener had broken through her defenses in such a short time. That fluttery, floppy, can’t-take-a-breath feeling assailed her, and she wound her arms around her abdomen. Torien never made her feel like an object—to the extreme sometimes, she thought ruefully. But each time Iris worried that, perhaps, Tori didn’t find her the least bit attractive, Iris would remember the way she’d watched her from the door of the potting shed…and she knew.
<
br />   She knew.

  Torien was as attuned to her as she was to Torien, but something stood in the way. She meant to find out what that obstacle was. Soon. The days were rushing past, and she had a little less than a month before she left for Paris.

  She scanned the gardens again. Damn, where was she?

  Disappointment pulled a sigh from her lungs, and she decided to get started without Torien. The distinct possibility existed that Torien had a day off. God knew Iris hadn’t seen her take one yet. And Tori deserved it. But that didn’t mean Iris couldn’t get in a little gardening herself.

  She quickly changed into fitted yoga shorts and a racerback tank, then clipped her iPod into her waistband and situated the buds in her ears. She was pathetically behind in her reading, and she’d downloaded a lesbian mystery she’d missed and had been dying to read. It would be a good substitute companion while she worked. Trooping down to the garden, she chose the kidney-shaped bed of grape hyacinth and began to weed, just like Torien had taught her.

  Half an hour passed, and Iris fell into a steady working rhythm. She twisted her hand, wrapping long grassy weeds around her palm, and tugged. The solid, ripping sensation as the earth relinquished the roots gratified her unlike anything she’d done in a long time. One task…one simple, repetitive task…so satisfying. She would have to remember this the next time she wanted to yank Geraline’s head off. Her lips quirked.

  She finished the grape hyacinth section and stood back to scrutinize her work, absorbing the expanse of accomplishment through her chest. Every finished task, no matter how tiny, felt like a step toward some amorphous “better.” Calmness settled over her. Had she realized the therapeutic benefits of gardening, she’d have been out here long ago. The soil smelled rich and somehow secretive, dark and deeply moist. A balmy breeze sluiced along her skin and ruffled her hair. This recent partnership she’d forged with the earth was a purely elemental, purely simple, purely spiritual connection. Something she hadn’t had, and clearly needed.

  A warm, rough hand on her shoulder startled her. She gasped, spinning to find Torien behind her. Tucking a finger in the cords holding her earbuds in place, she tugged them out and let them dangle. “Crap. You scared me. Again.” She reached down and pressed the stop button on her iPod, then smiled up at Torien as the thrill of seeing her lifted her spirits. Her smile quickly faded when she recognized the tight, blazing look of anger on those gorgeous features.

  “What are you doing?”

  Iris stilled for a moment, then aimed a thumb over her shoulder at the tidy flower bed, her throat tightening like a child busted for lighting matches under the wooden deck. “I just thought I would get started on some weeding until you got here. I’m sorry if I overstepped my bounds. I should’ve asked…I guess?”

  “I did not mean to—” Torien stepped back, hands low on her hips, arms loose. She hung her head and shook it, then implored Iris. “I sounded harsh. Lo siento. I do appreciate all you have done to help…”

  Iris crossed her arms, a punch of nausea stealing her breath. She had annoyed Torien, when all she hoped for was a gleam of approval in those dark, serious eyes. Now Torien was going to tell her she couldn’t work in the gardens anymore. Iris could feel it, along with that deep heartbeat pounding against her back ribs. “But?���

  “But…it doesn’t look good.”

  Surprise riddling through her, Iris whipped a dismayed glance over her shoulder at the flower bed, wondering if she’d accidentally pulled up plants instead of weeds.

  “Not that, sweet Irisíta. The flower bed looks perfect.”

  “Oh. Then…what—?”

  Torien’s expression mixed equal parts apology and worry. “I know she’s not here, but if Señora Moreno saw you, her guest, doing my work, she would fire me.”

  Understanding dawned, and Iris felt sicker yet. She pressed her palms together and raised them to her lips. “I didn’t even think. But—” Torien worked harder than any woman she had ever seen. She arrived at work each afternoon looking as if she’d already put in a full day of physical labor. Iris knew Geraline, though. Image, image, image. To her, it wouldn’t matter.

  Torien was dead-center correct.

  She reached out and tentatively touched Torien’s muscle-corded forearm. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t stop to consider…it’s just, I’ve so enjoyed working out here. God…I didn’t mean to put you in a bad position, Torien. Please know that.”

  “Of course.” Torien’s expression relaxed in slow degrees. “Perhaps you will agree to work in the garden only when I am working, no? When I’m not, you just relax here. Read. Enjoy the flowers and the new growth. Be a guest.”

  Such a reasonable woman. Iris smiled, but she sort of wanted to cry. Weird. “Absolutely. Thank you for understanding.”

  The moment passed as quickly as it had arisen, morphing into something deeper, more languid, but at the same time more urgent. Desire licked up inside Iris. It felt as if the gardens were theirs alone, and no one existed outside the bubble of their entwined gazes.

  Torien broke the spell with an almost imperceptible shake of her head and a long, slow exhale. “Still up for a little work?” Her callused thumb caressed a piece of dirt from Iris’s cheekbone, ever so gently.

  The simple touch felt more intimate to Iris than sex, sending a spray of shivers across her nerve endings. Her breathing had shallowed to the point that any words she uttered would telegraph her need. So…she nodded.

  “Let’s get to it, then,” Torien said in a velvety tone.

  Two hours passed as quickly as dandelion seed blowing on the wind. Iris welcomed the silence working alongside Torien, who never spoke when there wasn’t something important to say, Iris had quickly learned. Torien’s wasn’t an angry silence. More a soul-deep respect for the work, a reverence for the earth and nature’s soundtrack around them. A companionable, comfortable, physical quiet.

  The sunset transformed the sky into a blanket of gilt-edged indigo, and their earlier discussion faded to a distant memory, much to Iris’s relief. A staccato glance showed Torien engrossed in her work, her deft hands in the earth, working magic. Iris cleared her throat, the sound louder than she’d intended, and Torien’s gaze came up.

  “Ready to quit?”

  “Not me,” Iris said. “I’d be out here all night if I could.”

  Torien laughed short and shook her head with regret. “I probably will be. I am behind in my work.”

  The perfect opening. She straightened her back for a quick break and rested her hands in her lap. “Do you work another job? Is that why you’re usually here in the afternoons?”

  Torien pressed her lips together. Weighing…always weighing how much she should share, what might be crossing a line. At last, she nodded, standing and brushing her palms on the well-worn thighs of her jeans. She held up a be right back finger.

  Iris watched Torien disappear into the tool shed, and when she returned with a bag of fertilizer on her shoulder, she said, “I work with a project…” She seemed to struggle with her words. “Not like a paid job. How do you say—?”

  “Volunteer work?”

  “Ah, yes. So very much the same word. Voluntario.” She bent her knees slightly and heaved the fertilizer bag onto the ground. “We are building community gardens in neighborhoods where there is not much beauty such as this. So the people have a place to relax.” Torien flipped a hand to encompass their surroundings. “To do what we are doing.”

  “I think I’ve heard of that group.” Iris tucked her hair behind her ears. “What’s it called?”

  “El Proyecto de Arco Iris.”

  “That’s right. The Rainbow Project.” A small, grassroots effort. Very effective, however, which was why it had garnered so much local press. “There was quite a write-up in the papers a while back.”

  Torien cocked her head to the side, pulled a clip knife from her pocket, flipped it open, and sliced open the plant food bag.

  “About how the community—I can’t reme
mber which one—pulled together to improve the quality of life.” She sat back on her haunches and watched while Torien filled a spreader with pungent, dark contents of the bag. She tried not to focus on the bunch and flex of Torien’s arm muscles, though it was difficult. Now wasn’t the time to cruise Torien’s bod.

  “We are a small group, all volunteer, but it’s a worthwhile mission, sí. We wish there could be more worksites instead of one at a time, but that takes many hands.” Torien set the half-full bag back on the ground and shrugged. “Madeira and I work together, but we must both hold other jobs to pay the bills. The way of life, no?” She jerked her head, indicating Iris should follow her if she desired. They crossed to the back of the gardens where a grassy expanse lay hidden from the mansion behind a half-circle of lilac bushes.

  “Wow. It’s gorgeous back here.” Iris spun in a small, slow circle, taking it all in. “I didn’t even know about this.”

  “A secret garden.” Torien led Iris to a small bench. “Take a break, if you wish, while I do this.”

  Iris settled in, watching Torien snake back and forth across the expanse of lawn. The fertilizer whirled from the bottom of the spreader, hitting the perfect green grass blades before sinking to the soil beneath. On Torien’s third pass, Iris sighed and stood. “I’m not in the mood to just sit. Mind if I walk with you?”

  Ever stoic, ever polite, Torien appeared puzzled. “If you wish.”

  Iris ambled alongside, arms crossed, enjoying the bird calls and the wind through the leaves and thinking about what Torien had told her. So that was where she spent her days. Volunteering what little free time she had, unmindful of how physically draining it was. What a different type of person Torien was from other women she had known. Melody, the musician ex, had once thrown a tantrum over a recording contract that was half a million dollars below what she’d expected. Iris had been taken aback then, but now, disgust overwhelmed her. Mel hadn’t donated a single moment of her precious time unless it guaranteed her coverage in the tabloids.