“Your phone! It keeps ringing. Maybe something is wrong.”
Frowning, Elise wiped her hands on her middle and picked up her cell off the towel on the grass. “It’s my mother,” she said with a groan, then accepted the call. “Yes, I’m here.” She listened. “Now? This minute?” She let out her breath. “Yes. Of course I will.” Elise’s eyes brightened. “It so happens that one of the gardeners is here. No, I’m sure he won’t mind. Yes, I’ll tell him to take off his shoes.” Elise shook her head. “Mother! He won’t get dirt on anything. If I have to, I’ll make him strip naked and when he goes up the stairs, I’ll watch his every step to make sure he touches nothing.”
Alejandro coughed to cover his laugh and Elise held the phone away as her mother bawled her out.
She turned back to the phone. “Yes, I apologize for my rude, vulgar remark. It was insensitive of me. I will make sure the gardener is clothed and clean. And yes, I’ll be there in minutes.” She clicked off. “We have to go to the house.”
Alejandro looked down at his bare chest. “I need to get a shirt.”
“No!” She blinked. “I mean, you don’t have to get one. My parents are leaving to spend the weekend in the Hamptons with some friends. I have to go back to the house and gather roses for my mother to take with her.”
“And you have to cut them for her?”
“Mother doesn’t like the thorns.”
“When do I walk up the stairs?”
“After they leave, of course.”
Alejandro looked at her with one eyebrow raised.
“I’m not old enough for you so quit hoping. Mother wants you to move a chair to my house and she’s worried you’ll get dirt all over everything. Come on, I have to go now or she’ll make my life miserable.”
“I’m not sure your mother would like to see you and me together.”
“She won’t notice, and besides, you have to take the thorns off the roses.” He was frowning. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I should get a shirt out of the truck.”
Elise narrowed her eyes. “If you want to cover up for them, does that mean you’re half-naked for me?”
“You think your bare legs are going to get burned?”
“Touché. We—” Her phone was ringing again. She looked at the ID. “It’s Mother. Race you there!”
Alejandro outran her but just as they reached Elise’s mother’s big rose garden, he faked a leg cramp and let her win.
Laughing, she went to the little shed on the far side and got out gloves, secateurs, and the wooden trough.
“Funny little basket,” Alejandro said.
“It’s an English trug.”
He said the word a couple of times. “So what do you want first? Damasks? Hybrids? Grandifloras?”
“Show-off. I want fat pink smelly ones.”
“Your mother has some nice bourbons.”
“My mother doesn’t know half what you do.”
“About roses or her daughter?”
“I’m not answering that,” she said. “Here! You hold the trug while I cut, then we’ll sit down over there and take the thorns off.”
As Alejandro followed her down the rows, he glanced back at the house. “Are you sure your parents won’t mind that I’m here? Your mother doesn’t like us getting too close to the house.”
Elise felt a pang of guilt at her mother’s callousness, at her snobbery toward most people.