Fiesta Moon by Linda Windsor

Author:Linda Windsor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

To her surprise, Mark and Juan Pablo were busy untying ropes that secured a pickup load of furniture. Nice furniture, Corinne thought, taking note of the dark mahogany head and footboard of a bed and matching chest of drawers. There were a mattress and box spring and a large secretary. Perched on top, its back secured to the cab roof of the truck, was a leather chair.

“Buenas noches, Señorita Corina,” Juan Pablo said, peering around from the back of the vehicle.

“Buenas noches, Juan Pablo. It is good to see you.”

Corinne managed a smile, but it was thinned with disgust. Evidently Juan Pablo’s brother-in-law had made a sale. Just when she thought Mark was progressing from self-indulgence to hard work.

“Hey, look at this,” Mark called out to her. A kid-at-Christmas excitement infected him. “This must have been the surprise that Doña Violeta kept alluding to.”

“Doña Violeta?” she repeated. “You mean Doña Violeta sent this . . . for free?”

Mark, who’d climbed up on the pickup bed to untangle one of the lines, gave her an incorrigible grin. “O ye of little faith.”

Corinne wrestled between being glad for him and peeved at him. Mark’s problem was that everything came so easily for him. Whatever mess he got into, he could either buy or charm his way out. She watched as he shifted the load, his sweat-fitted T-shirt moving with him like a second skin.

Muscles had no right to ripple like that. She crossed her arms against the unbidden provocation to her senses—not unlike that of the predusk breeze catching the bougainvillea spires that spilled over the courtyard walls with its faint breath, making them quiver ever so slightly.

“Although, I was hoping it was the supplies from Cuernavaca,” Mark admitted. “They should have been here this morning.”

“Then I am sorry that is not the case for your sake, Señor,” Juan Pablo spoke up with a doleful look. “It always puts me to satisfaction to order from the local store.”

The plumber nodded to where some of the arches supporting the second-floor overhang had been removed and temporary posts of nailed-together two-by-fours put in their place. “They replace the whole arch when only part is rotten? That is much presumption, in my humble opinion.”

Glad for the distraction, Corinne pretended to study them, too, focusing on Juan Pablo’s disapproval. She’d had concerns about hiring outside the village. At least when no one showed up, Mark could track them down to find out why. But to date, things seemed to be going well.

“I wondered the same thing,” Mark answered. “But fact is, Gonzales gave us a contract price, so if he wants to put more into the project than needs be, that’s his problem.”

“Perhaps.” The plumber didn’t seem as confident as Mark. “Perhaps not.”

Mark was unruffled by the man’s doubt. “What, are you a carpenter too? Juan of all trades?” he teased.

The idiom threw the villager. “Qué?”

Not that Juan Pablo would laugh. Unlike his brother Juan Pedro, who laughed at everything, business was business.

“It’s an English saying that means you can do all kinds of work,” Corinne explained.

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