Cinderella in Overalls (5 page)

“Oh, yes. The ones that take up less space and produce a higher yield in a shorter time.”

She nodded. He did remember. He bent over to rub some soil between his fingers. She knelt down next to him and sunk her hands into the loose, rich earth.

“Look at this. Isn’t it beautiful? I wish I could take credit for these potatoes, but anything will grow here. Put a twig in the earth, and the next week you’ve got a rosebush. Throw an apple core out the window, and the next year there’s a tree. What we wouldn’t give for two feet of this stuff in California.”

His knees next to hers in the dirt, he turned to face her. “So that’s where Tranquility is.”

“It’s in the Central Valley,” she explained. “You won’t find it on a map of the world.” She stood and walked slowly, looking for aphids between rows of plants.

“Is that why you left—to find better soil?” he asked.

“Yes. We had a drought back home for the past three years. And I’d learned a lot I wanted to try out. But we lost our farm. There was nothing to stay for.”

“No one to stay for, either?”

“No one,” she said firmly. “Do you always interview your loan applicants so thoroughly?” she asked with her hands on her hips.

“It always helps to know their background.” He walked on ahead between rows of plants, then stood with his feet wide apart in the rich black earth and looked up at the cloudless blue sky. Sun shone on his strong features. She studied the shape of his nose, his firm jaw and his mouth, remembering that he’d almost kissed her once on the Fourth of July.

“And you,” she said, “what made you want to be a banker?”

He paused only a second. “Money and security. Both of which were in short supply when I was growing up. My father was a jack-of-all-trades, and he failed at most of them. He was always looking for something. Unfortunately he never found it. I knew there had to be a better way to support a family.”

A family? Catherine’s mind reeled. She had never considered the possibility that Josh had a family to support. But, in fact, many families stayed home rather than adjust to the altitude and the language. She walked toward him slowly, her eyes on the plants.

“How is your family?” she asked. What she really meant was who are they and where are they? The words were on the tip of her tongue: are you married?

“My father died in a plane crash a few years ago,” he said.

“I’m sorry.” She dug a hole in the soil with the toe of her shoe.

“Don’t be. It was the way he wanted to go. He didn’t want to die in bed. He’d done more living in seventy years than most people do in two lifetimes. He had the most incredible stories to tell... when he was home, that is.” There was sadness and bitterness in his voice.

“Which wasn’t very often?”

“No. My mother went to work and I went to school. My father went to look for lost treasure. My mother’s family never forgave him.”

“Did you?” she asked softly.

He gave her a long look, then shrugged without answering, as if it weren’t important. But somehow Catherine knew it was.

Abruptly he changed the subject. “I can just picture your childhood. Jumping into haystacks and raising kittens in the barn.”

She studied his face, watched the taut muscles in his neck relax. “That’s right, and even though we weren’t rich, we never felt poor. There’s always enough to eat on a farm, and my mother sewed all my clothes. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be there forever, making clothes for my children, canning peaches in the summer and spinning wool in the winter...” She stopped and forced a smile. “Well, let’s get going. There’s so much I want you to see.”

They walked in silence past fields of wheat, a plot of tomatoes ripening in the sun and then the lush green of parsley. The colors seemed more intense today, the air sweeter and the earth more fertile. Catherine didn’t know if it had anything to do with the man who walked behind her. Absently she waved to Doña Blanca, who was guiding a horse pulling a plow across the field, and the two little boys riding a burro behind her.

Josh nodded to the woman and waved to the children. Then he turned his gaze back to Catherine, who took the lead down the narrow path, following her easy gait with his eyes on her firm, round bottom. He reminded himself he was here on bank business. Although he could have told her no without coming all this way. In fact, he did tell her no. Now that he was here he was more convinced than ever they had no chance of paying off a loan with their primitive farming methods.

The most he could expect out of today’s trip was to convince her to accept the truck as a gift, then convince someone to give her one. If she wouldn’t take it, maybe one of the other women would, one who wasn’t so proud. Like the one who was waving to them from the doorway of her house.

Catherine introduced Doña Jacinda to him, and she ushered than into her plain, spotless house. A small boy peeked through the window, and Jacinda shooed him away. “They are curious,” she said to Josh, “about you.” Then she poured coffee and stood back to survey Josh as if he were the answer to her prayers. Her gaze traveled to Catherine and back to him, her rapid Spanish too fast for him to follow. He looked inquiringly at Catherine, seated next to him in a hand-carved wooden chair.

“She says she remembers you,” Catherine said. “From the market.”

“Tell her I remember her, too. Does she know why I’m here?”

“I haven’t told anyone about the loan. So she’s jumped to her own conclusions.” Catherine set her coffee cup on a small table. “When a man comes calling on a woman in Aruaca, it’s for only one reason.” Catherine shifted uncomfortably. “So she wants to ask you some questions.”

Josh’s blue eyes gleamed in amusement. “Fire away.”

“She wants to know if you can support a wife.” A flush crept up Catherine’s face.

“A wife and children, too,” he assured her politely.

Catherine translated and waited for the next question. “How many?”

“Four, five, six...as many as possible. I was an only child. Let me tell you, that’s no fun at all.”

Hearing this, Jacinda raised her palms to the sky and praised God for sending this man to them just in the nick of time. Catherine seemed to have no intention of translating any longer, but Josh caught the drift of what she was saying. Explaining to Jacinda that she wanted to show Josh the farm now, Catharine stood and moved toward the door.

Jacinda insisted that it was too far to walk on such a hot day and brought a placid workhorse around from behind the house for them to ride. Josh made a stirrup with his hands and boosted Catherine onto the horse’s broad back, then pulled himself up behind her.

He put his hands on her shoulders, the sun shone on his head and everywhere he looked there were rows of orange squash, red peppers and fields of green grass. The air was clear and clean, and he was beginning to understand how terrible it would be to lose a farm, especially one you had grown up on. The horse plodded down the dirt road as Jacinda watched from her doorway, smiling and waving her approval.

“She likes you, in case you didn’t notice.” Catherine’s voice came from over her shoulder.

“She likes you, too,” Josh answered. He hoped the farm was big enough so they could ride around all day like this, swaying back and forth together with the sweet smell of her hair invading his senses.

“She likes me, but she doesn’t approve of me roaming the world without a husband. She wants me to get married before it’s too late.”

Josh moved forward to support her back with his chest. “Do you have anything against getting married?” he asked, his lips so close he could lift her braid and kiss the back of her neck.

“Nothing at all.” She inched forward to pat the horse between the ears and break the contact between them. “Just that I’m only interested in the kind that lasts forever. And that’s rare, in case you haven’t noticed. Take my sister who got married so she could move to town and get off the farm. She’s divorced now with two kids. And then Jacinda who’s always on my case. She’s been married three times, all miners and every one was arranged. It’s not her fault that she’s outlived them all. But I can’t make her understand that I’m just as self-sufficient as she is. And I’ve got plans that will keep me busy for the next five years. The funny thing is that I came here to help them with all my theories and my hybrid potato stock. But do you know what’s happened? I’ve learned more from them than in four years of agriculture school.”

He ran his hand lightly along her shoulder blades, fighting a nearly uncontrollable urge to loosen the braid to see her hair tumble down her back. Her shoulders trembled, and she dug her heels in and urged the horse forward.

“So you can see why I want to do something for them,” she said deliberately, “and leave something behind when I go.”

He tensed. “The truck?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me find a donor for you.”

She turned the horse toward a grove of mango trees. “You don’t understand. You think that will solve all our problems. But the truck is only part of it. The rest is learning what it means to take out a loan and pay it back. Accepting the responsibility is the big thing, that and the nitty-gritty, writing their names on checks, filling out deposit slips. That’s where you come in.”

“Catherine...” he began. How was he going to tell her again that the answer was no?

She twisted around on the horse’s broad, bare back and pressed her hand against his mouth so he couldn’t speak. He wanted to kiss her fingers, one by one, but she turned around quickly before he could do more than think about it.

“Don’t make up your mind yet,” she said. “You just got here.”

The horse stopped under a tree, and she slid to the ground, then stood looking up at him, her dark eyes pleading for his help. She held her hand out to help him down. He took her hand, jumped off and pulled her into his arms, holding her so tightly he could feel her heart beating against his chest. She felt the way he knew she would—warm and soft and desirable.

With one hand he reached behind her and untied the ribbon that held her braid together, and her hair fell in waves, releasing the fragrance of summer flowers. Their eyes met, and for a long moment the only sound was the birds in the branches of the trees overhead.

Finally she stumbled backward and leaned against the tree, her hands clasped behind her back. There was a slight tremor in her voice when she spoke. “I told you I’d do anything to help the people of this valley, but I didn’t mean...”

“I know you didn’t. I was just trying to change your mind about bankers.”

“There’s only one way you can do that,” she insisted.

He came toward her, his eyes a deep, penetrating blue and trapped her against the tree, his hands on either side of her shoulders. “Why are you being so stubborn about this loan? When you have a loan, you’re under a lot of pressure. What if something goes wrong, locusts or a flood, and you can’t make your payments?” He leaned forward, but she didn’t flinch under his gaze.

“Then you’d take back your truck,” she answered. “We don’t lose anything. And you keep the truck.”

“Have you ever tried to sell a used truck?” he asked.

“No, but I’m willing to try.” She ducked under his arm, trying to push away the hair that framed her face. “Let’s go back to the house,’’ she suggested stiffly.

This time Catherine sat behind Josh, being very careful not to touch him. She looked off to the mountains in the distance, but his broad shoulders, the shape of his head and the way his hair grew on the back of his neck made it impossible for her to concentrate on anything but the man in front of her. This attraction she felt for him was a problem she had to deal with. Stubborn, he called her. Yes, she was stubborn. And determined to keep their relationship all business.

Catherine tied the horse in front of her house. A delicious smell wafted through the open windows from the kitchen and she gave Josh a puzzled look. In the oven they found a torta made of fresh eggs and layered with herbs and cheese. On the table there was a loaf of Jacinda’s wheat bread and a bottle of country wine. Catherine smiled to herself. Jacinda was pulling out all the stops, convinced that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach.