A Price Worth Paying(16)
He turned the car into the driveway leading to the small estate and immediately knew that something was wrong. Very wrong. In September one expected the vines to be dense, the foliage protecting the fruit hanging in clusters beneath, but the vines either side of the driveway were overgrown and tangled, the supporting trellises broken in places so that the vines had collapsed onto the ground.
The small house at the end of the driveway had the same air of neglect.
‘What is Felipe doing about the harvest? The grapes will be ready in a month or so.’
‘Not a lot. Even if he cared, I don’t think he’d have the strength to do much.’
‘But he has people working for him, surely?’
She gave him a pointed look as she undid her seat belt and pushed open her door. ‘Seriously? Does it look like he has an army of people working for him?’ He wasted the time it took to curse and she was almost out of the car before he stopped her with a hand to her arm.
‘Hey!’
She swung around, cold flame erupting from her blue eyes.
‘I’ll get those trellises fixed.’
‘Whatever.’ She tugged on her arm and he tightened his grip and pulled her closer.
‘We’re supposed to be friends, right—friends who might be a little keen on each other. So get angry with me, sure, but do it on your own time. Right now we’ve got a job to do.’
‘A snow job, you mean.’
‘Do you want this? I can leave right now if you don’t. Because I can wait a few months for this place to completely fall apart and then buy you out for a rock-bottom price if you’d prefer. Or we can do it your way. It’s up to you.’
She blinked and looked up at the house, where a grizzled face craned his neck to make sense of what was going on in the driveway outside. She smiled at him and waved from inside the car before turning back to Alesander. ‘Of course I do.’
‘Okay, so share that smile with me, and look friendly.’
She turned on a smile so sickly-sweet she must have added a cup of saccharin to the mix. ‘Thank you so much for the lift, Señor Esquivel,’ she said in a voice designed not to carry, merely to convey an impression to the man sitting at the window. ‘I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure meeting you but that would be an out-and-out lie.’
He took her hand before she could get out and pressed the back of her hand to his mouth, loving the way her eyes threw heated sparks at the graze of his lips on her skin. ‘I’m beginning to think this marriage might be more entertaining than I first thought.’
Her smile widened. She even managed a little laugh. ‘Lucky you. I’m beginning to think it’s going to be a real pain in the backside. Or maybe that’s just you.’
‘I aim to please.’
She pulled her hand free as she stepped from the car.
‘Don’t forget to smile,’ he said behind her.
‘Zer egiten ari da hemen zuen?’ Felipe said from his chair near the window as she entered.
‘What did you say, Abuelo?’ Simone said, leaning over to give him a kiss first to one and then the other of his hollowed white-whiskered cheeks.
‘He wants to know what I’m doing here.’
She nodded her thanks to Alesander behind her, and turned to invite him in. She was still angry that he could be so entirely oblivious to the contribution he’d made to Felipe’s decline, but she was grateful for the translation. When her grandfather spoke in Spanish it was hard enough to keep up, but when he reverted to the regional Basque language she had no hope of understanding.
But when she looked around she had to do a double take. The room seemed to have shrunk and the modest cottage that was perfectly adequate for the two of them now seemed tiny, the roof hovering low over their visitor’s head. She blinked and turned back to her grandfather. ‘I ran into Alesander in San Sebastian,’ she said, reeling out the story they’d concocted in the car. Not too many untruths to trip over. ‘We got to talking and found out we were neighbours and he offered me a lift home so I didn’t have to catch the bus.’
Her grandfather grunted and turned back to look pointedly out of the window towards the land and the vines he’d lost, his message clear, but before he’d turned away she’d seen there was more than resentment in his eyes. There was sadness too, and hurt. Simone turned to their guest and shook her head. He shrugged, as if he’d been expecting such a lack of welcome all along.