Hacienda Moon (The Path Seekers) (13 page)

“Don’t let the sadness win. I’m here for you now and always,” he mumbled so low she barely heard him.

Still willing her tears away, Tandie didn’t get a chance to utter a word before he lowered his head and kissed her gently. He pulled back after a few seconds and glanced into her eyes. His baby blues were bright and glossy, a penetrating look that worked its way deep inside her mind. Then lowering his head again, he began to kiss her harder once he realized she wasn’t about to protest or pull away. His tongue parted her lips, darting in and out and around her mouth as if seeking to consume her with his passion.

The lightness in her chest and the way his kiss stole her breath opposed one another. Part of her wanted to be touched this way, to feel normal as if she weren’t a freak hiding inside of a house and behind a novel that might never spring to life. The other half of her body screamed that all of this was happening too quickly.

It wasn’t a secret that Saul Chelby played games with females. She would be kidding herself if she thought for one second that she would be treated any differently. But it was as if she had lost all of her will power. His mouth traveled down her neck, lingering on her collarbone and gently brushing across it. Waves of heat shot through her stomach and covered her in a dizzying swoon.

But somewhere deep inside, Tandie found herself and fought whatever he was trying to do. “Saul, don’t,” she said through gasps. “Please stop!” He didn’t stop. Instead, his grip tightened around her arms, and his heated kisses became more aggressive.

Shoving his shoulders back a bit, she stepped away from Saul.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, almost pleading.

She moved away from his attempt to touch her again. “Please, just take me home.”

“What did I do wrong?” Saul asked. A pained expression ran across his face.

“I don’t want to be one of your harem girls, Saul,” Tandie said, still recovering.

“Ah, I see. The rumors about my lifestyle precede me.” He hesitated and stared at the ground beside Tandie as if he were in some kind of trance. After a long moment, he sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“I have to say this. You take me out on a beautiful date, and convince me to do something I have no desire to do, and made me enjoy every minute of it,” Tandie said, glancing at the smile creeping across Saul’s pouty lower lip. “Suddenly, I found myself hating that I believed all those things I heard about you. And then, you get all crazy, groping me and kissing me like we’ve known each other for years.”

He shrugged. “People do it all the time on a first date. Kissing that is,” he said with emphasis on the last part.

Sure that’s exactly what you meant
, Tandie thought.

“Well, it must be the country girl in me, but I don’t like being felt up like I’m in high school.”

“You forget that I’m a country boy too.”

“Then act like one, and be a gentleman. You’re so used to getting your way that you don’t even realize when you’re manipulating someone. It’s all right to take your time with a woman instead of marathon racing her to the sack.” She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

“Tandie, I certainly don’t want to make you into a harem whore,” he said with sad sarcasm, his boyishly handsome face drooping.

A touch of guilt tugged at her chest. He moved toward her. “I only wanted to help you feel better. I’ll take you home, now.”

Returning to her grandmother’s cottage had turned out to be a terrible idea. She didn’t completely blame Saul for taking her there, though. From what she could tell, he did seem somewhat interested in her past.  His soul was a lonely one just like hers. But he was a man used to having his way with women very much like her ex-husband. Was she doomed to spend the rest of her life judging and pushing people away? If so, then that was a curse she needed to break.

Just as Frieda said, Tandie had been playing the victim for far too long. Glancing over at Saul, she studied his sad but determined profile. For being such a rich man, he seemed super lonely. Without self-pity, she was losing the main reason for her dependence on anti-depressants and tears. And she was more than ready to accept something new in her life. Would love be able to find her once again?

* * *

Eric didn’t realize he’d been grasping the steering wheel the entire time Saul and Tandie had stood outside the house until his hand went numb. What he also didn’t understand was his sudden urge to approach Tandie and warn her about Saul’s reputation. Relaxing his grip on the wheel, he felt the blood rush back into his palms.

“All right, first, you turn into a stalker,” he said, thinking of the way he had followed her around since the night Virgil was killed, “and then you want to go beat the shit out of her date who happens to be your paycheck man. Real smooth, Fontalvo.”

Parked just beyond the edge of the trees lining the property’s borders, Eric watched the couple. All he needed to hear was the tiniest whimper and Saul Chelby was going to be sorry he ever touched her. But he didn’t hear anything until Saul pulled away from her. And then Tandie raised her voice a couple of times. Were they arguing?

He strained to hear what she was saying. No luck. They quieted down after a while. It was too silent, now. The whistling breeze rustling through the trees didn’t help matters either.

He had promised Abby and Shania that he would try to figure out the story behind the mystery woman people saw walking on the beach. What he didn’t realize was that it meant resorting to following innocent people around like a serial killer in training.

 
His heart sped up. If Tandie wasn’t screaming then that probably meant she was enjoying herself. He cleared away thoughts of a Chelby’s hands all over her sweet little body from his mind.

Long ago, the feud between the Fontalvos and the Chelbys turned brutal. Decades passed and as new children were born into the families, either they forgot the cause of the rivalry over time or just didn’t care. Still, the unspoken hurts and anger passed down throughout the ages lingered over the last remaining heirs of either side.

Was Saul’s bid for Eric a peace offering? Or did something sinister lurk behind his new assignment?

At one time, he would’ve thought thinking such a thing was just paranoia. But now that his friend had been murdered and the woman residing in Saul Chelby’s house just happened to be linked to his final living moment, a new fire reignited within in the dying feud between Bolivia’s two oldest families.

Instinct told him to go and confront both Tandie and Saul; but pride kept him sitting inside the car. He drummed his fingers across the steering wheel, checked his watch, and tapped his thighs. For some reason, they had pulled away from each other, Tandie looking less than pleased from the kiss they just shared. A little tingle flickered through Eric’s chest.

“I bet that’s a new one for your ego, Chelby. Rejection with a blue dress on,” he said just before Saul opened her door. With a strained expression on her face, she appeared to be more than ready to leave the half renovated house.  Relief washed over Eric and he found himself sinking down in the seat just in case one of them noticed his Jeep. But they didn’t. Instead, they made a straight path to Saul’s Mercedes and sped away into the night.
 

Glancing back at the cottage, he did a double take. At first, the light in the window to the far right side of the house made him think he was seeing things. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them. The light shone even brighter now, a vivid white that reminded him of an incident that happened one night a couple of weeks after his father died.

In his grief, he had awakened that night to a stomping noise on the steps. He was in the room with his youngest brothers, Nico and Juno, when a sulfuric odor drifted into the air. Outside the bedroom window, a bright light lit up the area and filled the room. Juno whimpered, ran over to Eric watching over Nico in his bed, and jumped under the covers. He hid his face under his brother’s pillows. The two younger boys and their older brother sat huddled together long after the light faded away.

“Was that papa’s ghost?” Nico had asked him.

“Don’t be silly. Papa wouldn’t scare his kids that way,” Eric said and pulled the boys tight into his embrace, staring at the window.

He couldn’t look away that night just as he wasn’t able to do so now. But the light coming from inside the little house moved until it was floating across the lawn.

“Damn,” he whispered, sweeping a hand across his sweaty forehead. “No fucking way.”

The light or whatever it was drifted down to the edge of the yard and lingered a moment. Eric inhaled sharply, deciding whether to sit and stare at the apparition or crank his Jeep and high-tail it in the opposite direction. The light decided for him. The blob drifted down the road in the same direction Saul Chelby had taken Tandie, until the glow disappeared around the bend.

“What the hell is going on in this place?” Eric said to himself. And for the first time in almost a decade, he was afraid of what he couldn’t understand.

12

Eric Fontalvo began Tandie’s renovations the following Monday. He arrived with an armory of tools and gadgets, setting to work with a tape measure as quietly as he did the first time he came by. Tandie’s curiosity was killing her. She wanted to know more about why this handsome stranger appeared in her novel and her dreams.

After spending Saturday night with Saul, a man who seemed to be handling quite a few issues himself, she craved something normal. One thing Frieda was right about: there wasn’t a shortage of eye candy in her life at the moment.

Dressed in ripped jean shorts, an old tee-shirt, and a blue bandana that would scream gang-girl if she were ever spotted in public, Tandie walked outside. The outfit wasn’t too New Yorker, and it had just enough grit to compliment any job a contractor might need for her to do. On the first day she arrived at Chelby Rose, she’d promised herself that she would put her own personal touches
on any renovations.

“Um, Ms. Harrison, what are you doing?” Eric’s face bore an amused smirk underneath his smile. He also had a slight accent covered up by his well-spoken English.

At first, the undertones in his voice sounded somewhat southern. But after listening to the next few sentences, Tandie thought it sounded more Puerto Rican or South Columbian.

“Isn’t that obvious? I’m going to paint. Do you have issues with that?” Tandie asked, slightly annoyed by his smirk.

“Course not. It’s your place. I just thought you’d—want to be writing.” He flipped a strand of hair away from his face. Tandie wondered if he was going to move the one beside it too.

“That’s exactly why I need to be out here. I need inspiration.” Tandie pranced over to the two five-gallon paint buckets Eric had lined up along the front porch. She pulled out her paintbrushes and counted them. One of the six that came in the pack was gone. “Crap. One is missing.”

He cleared his throat before speaking. “Far be it from me to keep a lady from her mission, Ms. Harrison. But, you’re going to paint with those?”

“What’s wrong with my paintbrushes?” Tandie asked, glancing down at her hands. She took her time picking them out at the hardware store.

“Not a thing if you’re doing a paint-by-number job, that is.” A grin was creeping across his face. “Those are touch-up paint brushes. As in, you paint little tiny sections with them. Not the best thing for covering 200-square-feet of siding.” Tandie frowned and glanced at her brushes. They were super small compared to the ones he had laid out on the ground. They glanced back at each other. He burst out laughing, and so did Tandie.

“Well why didn’t you say something before now?”

“Sorry, Ms. Harrison,” he said and tried to straighten out his face.

“And please, lay off all the Ms. Harrisons. I mean, that sounds so grandmotherly,” Tandie said. He gave her a tight smile and then turned his head toward his toolbox.

“All right, Tandie it is. At least let me help you with those.” He grabbed the buckets much to Tandie’s relief and set them down on the porch. “Painting can be trickier than it looks. The house has to be sanded first.”

Tandie was determined to not let him see her squirm in her moment of renovation stupidity. Translation, she was completely dependent on the contractor. Plus, there was something about this guy that made her feel like it was all right to be somewhat needy. “I appreciate your offer, but I suspect painting doesn’t come anywhere close to writer’s block.”

He set down two more of the heavy buckets after moving them out of the sun, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and glanced at Tandie with his intense chameleon-eyed gaze. Yeah sure, it was no secret that she had strange two-toned eyes, but Eric’s did amazing things. The pupils changed colors depending on the way and type of light that hit them.

“Somehow, I believe you can handle some pretty fierce writing issues.” His voice came out low and raspy and the tee shirt he wore stuck to his abs, all six glorious packs of them. Perfect wasn’t a word that came anywhere close to describing Eric Fontalvo.

“Thank you for that vote of confidence, Mr. Contractor.”

“Ooh, I get it. You can use old-fashioned greetings on me, but not the other way around,” he said with a smile spreading across his heart-shaped mouth.

Tandie shrugged. “It doesn’t count for work titles, only when you use someone’s last name.”

Eric smirked and made a small laugh. “How convenient.” He bent down, picked up his tool belt, and then stood up, leaving a small amount of space between their faces. He was ruggedly handsome in a subtle way minus the cockiness that made Saul Chelby so popular with females. But even with Saul’s confidence and rich boy looks, this guy held his ground with ease.

“What’s so convenient?” Tandie asked.

“That I’m stuck with an assistant who makes words and rules up for a living.” Moving around Tandie, he said, “I’m heading inside to take a look at those pipes. I’m sorry that you got all dressed up in those shorts for no reason.”
He strolled toward the house, leaving Tandie outside.

“Okay. Maybe I gave you too much praise, a little too early,” she whispered to herself and headed toward the house.

* * *

Over the next three weeks, Eric tackled Tandie’s renovations one painstaking project at a time like a true professional. He handled the mid-August heat with ease, unlike Tandie who’d gotten spoiled by New York’s slightly cooler temperatures.

The mysterious leaky plumbing wasn’t the works of a ghost in the house. Instead, loose washers on the main line leading from the ancient well sitting in the backyard caused the chaos. And the leaking roof in the kitchen was fully restored. Tandie had to use a chunk of her book advance on the materials, but the end result was beautiful. The home was beginning to shine through the rotten wood and chipped paint Tandie first saw when she arrived at Chelby Rose.

The results of Eric’s handyman skills were beautiful. The final perk was the light rose-colored paint considered original to the plantation. This time Eric didn’t say a word about her paint shorts or her small brushes. He was too busy making sure she didn’t catch him watching her while she bent over to paint the lowest boards on the house. His face flushed so badly, she couldn’t resist doing something to rub in that she caught him staring.

“Wow, it’s so hot out here today.” She stretched her arms, lifting her tee-shirt up until her belly button was exposed. Eric’s mouth fell open. Tucking her lips, she made a move toward an even more creative tease.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“What does it look like? I’m picking up my paintbrushes.” She shrugged. “Did I not use the proper technique for bending over and picking them up?”

He made a big grin and then moved closer to where she stood beside the house. Glancing down at the brushes beside her feet, he said, “They do look somewhat dirty. You sure you can handle that task? You strike me as somewhat of a nice girl. And with that much paint and dirt all in the heads, you have to get a little rough with cleaning them.” His gaze bore into hers, smoldering her under a brown sugary colored look this time.

She held his gaze. “Oh believe me; I have plenty of ways to clean dirty things.”

There was about a foot of space between them now. “Is that right?”

“Oh yeah,” she answered, hoping that the pulse line on her neck didn’t show the way her heart was thumping inside her chest.

His gaze drifted from her eyes down to her lips and finally ended at her left shoulder. “Then why don’t you start by cleaning that big red spider off of your shoulder?” An amused smile spread across his lips, but a scream shrilled out of Tandie’s.

Eric slammed his hands over his ears. “Damn it, Tandie.”

Adrenaline spiked through her. He might as well have said her breasts were hanging out. He would’ve gotten less of a response than he did with the spider statement. “Get it off me! Do you see it? Is it still there? Get it!” she shrieked, jumping around and spinning in half circles.

“I won’t help you until you stop trying to burst my eardrums,” he said, still half-way smiling. He came over and put his arms around her, pulling her into his embrace. “Calm down, Tandie. It’s gone, all right?”

Vowing to never tease Eric ever again, she waited for her heaving breaths to normalize and for her trembling limbs to steady as she was pressed against Eric’s chest.

“Wow, you’re arachnophobic,” he said after a long, but charged moment between them.

“You think?” Tandie said, still too embarrassed to glance up at him. His thumb was circling around the small of her back. That tiny gesture alone ignited several neglected parts of her body. 

“I’m sorry. I did not know that would happen,” he muttered in her hair.

This time she did look up at him. “What do you mean, Eric Fontalvo?” she said in measured words, anger quickly replacing her nervous fear. His silence said it all. She pushed back from his shoulders and glared at him. “You sneaky mean person. You tricked me.”

“I’m sorry. I know. It was a mean thing for me to do. Do you forgive me?” He made begging hands and put as much sadness into that gorgeous face as he could muster.

Are you insane? Of course I forgive you.
“Nope. I’m afraid it’s not quite that easy, Mr. Contractor.”
Tandie crossed her arms and tapped her right foot, refusing to look at him.

He took a step closer, closing the distance between them again. “What if I make you a forgive-me-offer you can’t refuse?”

“Nope. Not even then.”

“You don’t even know what it is,” he said.

“I don’t care.”
Are you insane, woman. Stop telling that Spanish Adonis that you don’t care.

“I can cook for you. One of my favorite Cajun dishes,” he teased.

“I’m listening,” Tandie said, twisting her lips to hold back her smile.

“Seriously, let me do this for you. I won’t tell you what it is unless you agree to it.”

“Okay, fine,” she said and stalked off toward the house before she lost all control of the power he seemed to have over her.

Tandie’s infatuation with her novel’s main character in the flesh blossomed to dizzying heights. It had been a long time since she’d enjoyed any genuine male company, and she savored the moments she spent painting with and then watching Eric Fontalvo from her writing room’s window.

During that time, she discovered he cooked fabulous meals. His forgive-me dish was blackened crawfish, served with cornbread and French cut green beans on the side. It was a dinner they made often in New Orleans, he said.

And the laughter. The contractor was quite the comedian at times. So there was plenty of joking at Tandie’s expense. He made fun of her paint clothes.
Annoying.
The way she attempted to put her own spin on the crawfish dish didn’t turn out well.
Rude.
The fish was burned beyond the ability to eat it. Eric laughed until he cried.
Annoying again.
But even Tandie had to admit that the crispy thing sitting in her Stove Top stuffing did look pretty ridiculous. In the end, she didn’t stay mad and laughed almost as hard as Eric.

“Okay. I don’t get out much,” Tandie admitted.