by Ruth Wind
Eli hesitated. "Probably not the best idea." He couldn't help smiling over that. "She knows we're here, but it sticks in her throat."
Some of the radiance faded from her face at this news. "I'm sorry to hear that." She shook her head. "But I'm also not going to let it bother me. What do you say, Teresa, do we have a deal?"
"Oh, yes!"
"Good."
Eli said, "Do you have the contact sheets? I'd like to see the rest of the shots."
"Sure. In here." She moved toward a door that stood open, and for the most fleeting seconds, the light shone through her skirt. Eli saw the neat outline of her legs, all the way up her thighs, before she moved into the doorway.
Teresa followed, and after a moment Eli moved toward the door. He'd never seen a darkroom, but imagined it would be a small space. He halted just outside, letting the two of them exclaim over the work. Sarah's back was to him, and he found his gaze on the skin exposed between her shoulder-length hair and the scoop of her top in back. She turned, as if feeling his touch. "It's a pretty tight squeeze in here. I'll bring them out."
She handed him a sheet of paper with tiny pictures on it. "You'll need the loupe," she said, and put it in his hand. "This group is particularly nice." She pointed to a series near the bottom of the page, and Eli dutifully bent his head to look at them.
But at the edge of his peripheral vision was a far more compelling view. She was half a foot shorter than he, and she stood rather close to point at the shots. Near his elbow was the loose neckline of her blouse. He caught a glimpse of breasts restrained only by a breath of gauze and lace, breasts tanned as far as he could see.
He imagined there was no tan line, anywhere, and the image caused an instant, deeply painful arousal.
You're a fool, his brother's voice said in his head.
A fool. He nodded curtly and gave her back the prints, moving away to look out the window at the serene view of blue hills and green fields.
It was so easy, when he was away from her, to think in objective terms. To tell himself he wanted to have her to get revenge. But when he was with her, he forgot all that. He forgot everything except the way she made him feel, the things she roused in him.
"Elias!" Teresa said. "Look at yourself, tío!"
He turned in time to see Sarah turn bright red. Not a little girlish flush, but a deep, painful red that burned on her chest and chin and forehead. She murmured a protest, and lifted a hand as if to confiscate the photos from Teresa, then firmly clenched her hands together behind her back. Her chin lifted and she tossed her hair back from her face in a gesture he remembered as defensive.
He met her gaze for a moment, then smiled faintly. "Did you take pictures of me, Sarita?"
She lifted a shoulder. "You were there." As if this explanation eased her, the bright color began to fade.
"Do you mind if I see them?"
She did mind. He could see that much, but after a fleeting hesitation, she said, "Go ahead."
Teresa leapt toward him with the grace of an airborne scarf, landing as lightly as a cat. Her mouth held a secretive little smile, and he lifted a brow in censure. She thought it was romantic; he would have to set her straight about that.
Still, he took the pictures, curious what could be in them that would so embarrass Sarah. At first he saw nothing to account for that flush – he even saw why she had snapped it, maybe impulsively. It showed him standing against a post, staring straight at the camera. The light was good, his pose strong.
The next was a close-up of his face, and he did not like what he saw in his eyes. Too much emotion. Too much of what he'd been thinking at that moment.
In a slightly defensive tone, she said, "My father destroyed all my pictures of you."
He raised his head. "So you wanted one to remember me by?"
The flush returned, but the pale gray eyes met his with a kind of honesty that had been missing till now. "I … don't know," she said. Then, "Yes."
He swallowed, and gave the sheaf back to Teresa without looking at the rest. "You should be more sensitive, hija."
Teresa's grin only deepened as she nodded. "Okay." She whirled around to face Sarah. "So when can we get started? Will we shoot a whole book? Will some of these shots go in it? I can hardly wait to show Yvonne! She'll just die of envy."
Sarah chuckled, and Eli could tell she was glad of the distraction as she moved to the board. "Bring her with you one day, if you like. Most girls seem to enjoy it." She took the photos down. "These copies are yours, to show your friends – and your mother, so she'll know what you're getting into."
"Really?" Teresa squeaked, and flung her arms around Sarah's shoulders. "Thank you so much! I'm so happy!" She put the pictures against her chest. "We aren't going to work today, are we?"
"No," Sarah said. "But there's no reason we can't get moving very soon."
"Tío, it's up to you – I don't have a job, so we can come whenever you want." Teresa looked at Sarah. "My mom won't let me come without him."
"Sounds like she wants to take good care of you."
"I guess. Tío, can I go? Yvonne only lives up the street. I want to show her."
Impossible not to be drawn into that exuberance. He grinned. "Sure. I'll call you later and let you know what we worked out."
* * *
Sarah watched Teresa dance through the courtyard on her way up the hill. "She's like a gazelle. I've never seen a young girl who was so graceful."
"You were," Eli said. He didn't look at her.
Oddly pierced, she said, "I'm flattered you think so." To change the subject, she gestured toward the patio. "Let's go get something to drink and we can work this out."
He glanced at his watch. "I have a meeting in a half hour, with the graphic designer for our new boxes, but it's just right around the corner."
Sarah remembered the beautiful woman he'd been with the night they'd danced, and a pang of jealousy bit her. Brushing it away with annoyance, she nodded briskly. "It shouldn't take long."
She led the way across the hot courtyard and into the main room on the other side. A swamp cooler pumped moist, cool air into the rooms. "I am really not used to the heat here yet," she said, smiling. "Do you mind if we do it in here?"
A faintly ribald grin turned his mouth into a seductive masterpiece; the effect trebled when he lifted one dark brow. "I wouldn't mind."
She shook her head, chuckling. "You know what I mean."
"This is fine," he said, and settled in a chair by the table. "It's nice in here. How long are you staying?"
"I rented it for a month, but Mrs. Gray said I can stay as long as I want." She opened the fridge. "Do you want tea or pop?"
"Tea would be great – if it has sugar."
Sarah grinned. "One of my weaknesses, I'm afraid. No fake sweeteners for this girl." She took tall blue glasses from the shelf, filled them with ice and poured tea for both of them. Eli simply sat there, his hands resting on his thighs. Afraid the silence would get awkward, she said, "I haven't decided if I'm going to actually stay here or go back to New York."
"Really?" The word was polite, uninterested.
Sarah carried the glasses to the table and set them down. "Are you hungry? I have some chips or fruit or—"
"This is fine, Sarah."
"Okay." She sat down, right on the edge of her chair, and leaned her elbows on the table. "My schedule is very flexible, so I guess we need to just work out what's best for you."
He did not answer right away, and Sarah looked up to find his luminous eyes moving on her, over her face, down her throat, lower still. And as if his gaze were a touch, she became urgently aware of her flesh, all of it, her bare arms and the skin along her shoulder and the part of her chest above her tank top.
"What?" he said. "I wasn't listening."
But when he met her gaze, Sarah found it was her turn to be lost, lost in a velvety depth of fathomless eyes. She imagined simply leaning forward to kiss him, and the vision caused a bolt of hunger to press th
rough her body, unwanted and impossible. "Eli, can we do this?" she asked suddenly.
"I don't know," he said quietly. "Maybe not. Maybe there is too much history."
She lowered her head. "Maybe there is."
"I didn't know where you had gone, you know. They locked me up for almost eight weeks before they threw the charges out – and by then, you were gone."
"I didn't know. Joanna told me the other night. I had no idea it went on that long." She raised her head. "I'm so sorry. You don't know how many times I've gone back in time and not called my mother to let her know we were coming home."
"Me, too."
Their hands lay on the table, separated by mere inches, and Eli moved his suddenly, putting his index finger against her ring finger. "But once done, nothing can be undone."
A vision of a small red face flashed over her imagination and with a breathless sense of panic she straightened, pulling away from his touch, and the depth of communion between them. Too dangerous. She tossed hair from her face. "You're right. It's all water under the bridge now."
"No use crying over spilt milk." His eyes glittered.
She let herself find a faint smile. "May as well let bygones be bygones."
"Lo que paso, voló," he recited with a grin.
"No fair," she protested, as she had always done. "What does it mean?"
"'What happened flew by.'"
"Ah."
For the smallest moment, neither the past nor the future meant anything to Sarah, only now, with Eli before her, playing an old game with her. And she saw in his eyes the same grateful ease.
Before it could shatter, Sarah reached behind her and took a calendar from the counter. "Let's get this figured out so you aren't late to your meeting. I have several ideas about this – the best way to build her portfolio – and some of them will require different times of day. Are there times that are better for you?"
He shrugged. "Unless I have meetings, there are not too many bad times. You spend the mornings with your mother, yes?"
Her mother, not her father. Sarah let it slide. "Most of the time. She likes me to have dinner with them as often as possible, too, but I don't always want to."
"So, you tell me. What's best for you, Sarah, in terms of light and your vision of this work?"
Forced to decide, Sarah said, "Let's just play it by ear. Maybe come tomorrow in the morning, and we'll shoot some sweet shots. I'll see if I can rent the studio lights I need around here somewhere. Once I get them, we can do a long session maybe on the weekend or something." She made notes to herself as she talked. "I think," she said, musing aloud, "that I'd like to do a series at the pueblo if we can get permission, and at the Martinez hacienda. The Southwest is very popular, and she has a great ethnic look that might be a huge boon to her."
"Okay. You let me know. Sunday is better than Saturday. I have meetings all day Saturday." He stood up. "Tomorrow, then? What time?"
Sarah remembered her wish that the light had gone golden the other night. "Let's do it in the late afternoon. Bring her over about four-thirty, and plan to be here for a few hours. I'll feed you."
"No," Eli said. "I'll bring food. You shouldn't have to cook."
"Oh, I don't cook. I would have fed you pizza."
"You don't cook at all?" He seemed amazed.
"No," she said, unapologetically. "I've never had to learn, and I don't like it much."
"Did you just eat out all the time?"
She laughed. "You seem to find this incomprehensible."
"I don't know any adult women who can't cook."
"Now you do."
He inclined his head, smiling. "I guess so. So, anyway, I'll bring food. What else do you need? Clothes, film? Let me pay you for your time."
"Thank you, but no. This is my way of repaying my own mentor. Just bring food and Teresa, and I'll take care of the rest."
He spread his hands in acquiescence. Sarah's mental camera snagged on the frame of his palm, cupped as if to receive a blessing. She imagined putting a kiss in it, or a flower, as people did in the hands of saints. The foolishness made her smile, and shaking it away, she got up to walk him to the door, following him out into the white-hot sun beyond.
He stopped next to the tall cosmos and turned to say, "Tomorrow, then."
Irresistible, Sarah thought. "Wait one minute." She bent over to pluck a perfect white cosmos, leaving a long stem with a ferny leaf. Her nails were short and she couldn't quite sever the stem, and she made a little noise, embarrassed again.
She felt him move closer, and a moment later a touch lit on her spine, just above the top of her tank top. Two fingers, maybe three, that brushed over a single bone of her back, once, then again before they were gone, so fast she wondered if it might have been a cabbage moth.
Plucking the flower free in a rush, she straightened to give it to him, but he had come closer, and her bare arms brushed his chest as she stood up. It was a simple touch, her arm across his shirt, but it somehow lit a flurry of tiny lights through her body.
She forgot the flower as she looked up at him, his black hair shining, the harsh sunlight making deep shadows of his eyes, but illuminating every centimeter of his mouth. He swayed even closer, and she stared at that mouth, her heart pounding. She went utterly still, waiting, poised, wondering if he would kiss her.
A harsh, soft breath whooshed from him and he took a step back, his eyes unreadable.
Sarah swallowed, and held out the flower. "For your buttonhole," she said, and realized he didn't have one.
But he gravely accepted it, and lifted it to his nose to smell it. The delicate white petals brushed his hard brown cheeks, and his lush black lashes swept down, lending another softness to balance the hawkish nose.
Sarah caught her breath, feeling sunlight on her crown and heat on her arms and a rush of yearning for Elias Santiago that had nothing to do with who either of them had been. It was the mature, knowing hunger of a woman for a man she felt instinctively could please her.
It had been so long since she'd felt such a thing that she took one moment to let it move in her, let it awaken those long-numb places that had given up on desire. She let her gaze stroke the feathery lashes and sweep down the arch of his cheekbone, and imagined softly kissing all of those places.
He lifted his eyes, and their eyes locked over the petals of white flower.
"Thank you," he said, and his voice spoke a thousand volumes. Sarah could not bear to look at him for another second. "See you tomorrow," she managed to say in a far breathier voice than she would have wanted, and headed back to the house.
"Thanks," he repeated, but she only lifted a hand as if he were just a friendly acquaintance. In a moment she heard his boots on the stones as he left.
Inside, she closed the door and put her back against it, as if to keep out a demon. The only trouble was, the demons were all inside her.
* * *
Chapter 7
«^»
A routine developed over the next few days. It wasn't much different for Sarah than what she'd been doing since she returned home. She spent part of each day with her parents, part of it alone – sometimes reading, sometimes walking out on the backroads, sometimes simply sitting without movement or thought in the shadows of her porch, gazing at the mountains. Usually the cat sat with her, as if he lived with her now. He was a good companion.
The photo sessions simply gave a small new dimension to the days. Teresa was a good subject and so overjoyed to be participating that it would have been impossible not to enjoy the work. Sarah looked forward to the sessions each day.
This morning as she sat eating chunks of watermelon from a bowl – a substance the cat had approved most heartily, to Sarah's amusement – she let herself think of Eli's presence at those sessions. He stayed out of the way, often bringing a book that he read sitting on the porch, his long legs stretched out before him. By unspoken agreement, they had settled into an oddly formal, courteous relationship that protected them both again
st a breach from the past that might make the sessions unbearable for one or the other.
She plucked a cube of red fruit from the bowl, broke it in two and gave the cat under the table half of it. Teresa and Eli would be coming over in just a little while, and she supposed she needed to get up and get ready, but it was pleasant to sit here lazily in her robe. She had thought she might miss the hustle and bustle of her old life, but she didn't yet. Her agent had called the day before, agitated and hurried, to urge her to settle her affairs and get back to work. She had mildly refused, and didn't feel a twinge of regret. From the other side, her parents were hoping she'd move back, but she wasn't ready to commit to that, either.
Licking sweet juice from her thumb, she wondered if she was going through some kind of early midlife crisis. People often did at thirty, didn't they? She needed to know what she really wanted.
But maybe in order to know what the future held, she would have to first deal with the past. The thought whispered through, the most gentle of suggestions, but Sarah recoiled violently. She swung her feet down and stood, briskly dropping another bit of watermelon for the cat, and bustled inside.
The past could just stay buried.
In the cool, dim bedroom with its multipaned windows and thick walls, she picked out a simple sundress to wear for the day, and shed her robe. For one instant, as she stood there dressed only in her panties, she felt suddenly awash in the awareness of her body. Her skin. Her breasts, touched by cool air. Her stomach, bare only to her. Her thighs. It was a startling sensation and she paused, closing her eyes to see if she could locate the source of it.
Bubbling up from the well of her subconscious came the memory of a fresh and vivid dream. She stood with Elias in a vast field of sage that scented the air. It was night, with a moon spilling a half cup of light over them. They were both naked, facing each other without touching, and in her dream, Sarah had ached for his hands to stroke her the way his eyes did, ached to reach out her own palms and press them to his lean limbs, to his hard brown belly.
Standing nearly naked in her cool bedroom, Sarah felt herself brimming with the bone-deep yearning she'd felt in the dream. She imagined him standing before her, those luminous eyes touching her—
