Elli (A Second Chance Novel Book 1) Read online

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  Ben was waist-deep in the chilly bayou in front of the plantation training the two Newfie puppies with Lucky, when he saw Tante Izzy’s truck pull into the driveway and Elli get out. He had to shade his eyes with his hands to watch her walk along the side of the house in the bright afternoon sunshine. He wasn’t wearing sunglasses, so the pups could see his eyes while he was training them. He noticed she was carrying two one-gallon paint cans, one in each hand, as she walked toward the bayou side of the house. Ben hoped the paint didn’t mean she was planning to paint or decorate the house. If that was her intent, then she planned to stick around awhile. Like hell, he’d let her do that.

  Elli reached the porch, put the cans down, and turned to where she heard one of the puppies playfully barking at Lucky. She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked toward the bayou. “Hello,” she called and walked toward Ben. “Aren’t you afraid of alligators,” she asked when she got to the edge of the bayou.

  “Nah. Not with these tough guys.” One of the puppies paddled to the edge of the bayou, raced to Elli, and turned in silly circles at her feet.

  “Oh, I can see how he would frighten any gator who dared come near him.” She laughed, and the wet puppy jumped on Elli’s cream-colored, expensive-looking pants. She didn’t seem to notice that there were wide puppy prints on them. He suspected she wouldn’t be happy when she did. “How’s Donna?”

  “Temp’s down and she seems to like her new food,” he said, looking at his mischievous pup playing with Elli. “She’s in her kennel in your room. She seems to be having fewer accidents already.”

  “That’s great news.” She smiled, and her eyes twinkled with it.

  Those eyes were damn alluring, he thought, as he watched them slowly slide down to look at his naked chest. He instantly went hard. Oh, no. He wasn’t playing this game with her again. He had no idea why this woman made him think about hot sex and cool sheets when he should have been thinking about her packed bags and backside leaving. He had to stay focused on seeing that happen. “What’s up with the paint cans?” He nodded to the porch before refocusing on putting the retrieving float in front of the puppies for them to scent. He tossed it across the bayou. Lucky darted after it, and the puppies swam after him.

  She stabbed her fancy, pointed shoe into a patch of grass, looked at him for a few seconds, then tossed her shoulders back and jabbed her fists against her hips. She went from timid and awkward to bold and challenging in a few blinks of the eye. Ben knew he wasn’t going to like her answer.

  “It’s for the shoot tomorrow,” she said, her tone firm. “I tried to tell you about it. It’s what I wanted to meet with you to discuss last night.”

  “I suppose we aren’t talking about a turkey shoot or a skeet competition, are we?” She shook her head no. Ben felt his ears begin to burn. “Elli, what in the hell have you done?” Lucky paddled up to him with the float in his mouth, giving Ben a moment to get hold of his anger. He took the float and automatically repeated the routine of having the puppies scent it before tossing it into the middle of the bayou. All three dogs swam after it. Ben thought for a moment about tossing Elli into the bayou as he had the float.

  “I’m making us a lot of money.” She stepped closer to the bayou’s edge. “It’s only for a couple of days, Ben. The film was in a pinch and needed a country location for their exterior shoots. The place they had scheduled didn’t work out. Sugar Mill did. It’s perfect for what they need, so I negotiated a rate that’s eighteen percent higher than the industry standard. We couldn’t seem to meet about it, so I took the initiative and hired out the plantation for the filming. It’s really a no-brainer. They’ll be in and out of here before you even notice them. Your wallet will be fatter, and you won’t be bothered at all.”

  “I’m already bothered, Elli.” He shook his head. “You had no damn right to do this. You overstepped, big-time. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  She squatted to look him straight in the eyes. As pissed as he was, he had to give it to her: She had the balls to look at him straight in the eyes. “I get it. I didn’t have the right to make a business decision for both of us. I admit that. I probably would be upset if the tables were turned. But I did.” She bit her lower lip and pointed to the dogs that he hadn’t noticed were swimming around him and whimpering, waiting for him to toss the float again. When he did, she continued. “The bottom line is this: I did it for the money. If I hadn’t given them an answer straightaway, we wouldn’t have gotten the deal.”

  “Then we shouldn’t have gotten the deal.” He shook his head. He felt the muscles in jaws cramp. “There isn’t a ‘we’ here, Elli. You and I aren’t real business partners. We are some kind of temporary, awful anomaly. We should just be me, making decisions and owning Sugar Mill. Don’t fool yourself into thinking this thing is permanent.”

  “I’m not the one who is delusional.” She stood. “The film crew is coming tomorrow at eight a.m. Unless you want to get a court order to stop them, or if you want to turn your back on enough money to build that air-conditioned kennel Doug said you wanted to add near the training gym, then get over yourself.”

  “Get over myself?” Ben wanted to wring her neck. He wanted to laugh at her, too. The woman’s backbone and fight surprised him and seemed oddly out of character for her. She acted smarter than he figured her to be. Her standing up to him made him want to smile. So did her goofy word choice. He was angry and amused at the same time. Damn, crazy, confusing woman. “Get over myself. What in the hell does that mean?” He grabbed the float from Lucky, let the Newfies scent it, and tossed it onto the bank near Elli’s feet. He knew they would come charging out of the water and wet everything within four feet of them. “How much money?”

  Elli shouted a crazy number at him as she darted away from the leaping, waterlogged dogs. The puppies thought it was a game and chased after her.

  “Tell me about the paint?” he called out to her, and she immediately stopped running. She turned and walked in five quick strides to the bayou. Her eyes bright and hopeful, her cheeks flushed with excitement.

  “We…I just need to paint the front exterior of the main house.” She smiled, ignoring the puppies who were tugging on her pant legs. “Even with just one coat to even out the chipping paint and to fit the scene as the director wants, I’m sure it will be an improvement to the place.” She bent down to pet the excited, wet Newfies and wipe her soiled pants. “It needs painting anyway.”

  “And who’s going to do the painting?” Ben took the float from his dog.

  “I am.” She shrugged again and the bad feeling that hadn’t quite left deepened in Ben’s gut. “I’m just going to put a single gloss over the imperfections for tomorrow’s shoot. We can change it back after that, if we decide it isn’t a market improvement.”

  “Not we, cher. You will change it if I decide it needs changing.”

  She chuckled and stood. “I personally will paint it on both ends. We’ll get to keep more of the money if we don’t hire painters.” When she looked at him, he knew she saw the doubt in his eyes. “I can do this, you know. I’ve got skills. It’s not like I’m a virgin at it, you know?”

  Ben lifted his brows. Had her choice of words been meant to tease him? Was she playing him? Had she played him to get him to agree to the filming on the plantation? What in the hell was going on? Had he lost his mind? No, he didn’t like her hiring out the plantation without his approval, but he wasn’t going to cut off his nose to spite his face. He could use the ready cash to add the new kennels and expand his business. He wasn’t illogical and hot-headed enough not to see she was right. Still, how she got him to agree so quickly had him questioning his fortitude with this woman. He had to make sure he kept his guard up with her. He wasn’t about to be manipulated into doing something he didn’t want to do because of the temptation of great sex.

  Huh, great sex? Where did that thought come from? Shit. Why in the hell did he know with certainty that he and
Elli would have great sex together? Probably because the woman didn’t do things by halves. Shit. No. No sex with Elli, great or otherwise. He wouldn’t let his pecker get in the way of sound reasoning. Been there, done that. He was older and wiser now. No woman, especially one who was a heat-seeking missile, searching for big bucks, was going to toss his life around again. He had a son and a business to protect.

  One of the puppies, who chased after Lucky as he was retrieving the float, ran out of the water to Elli. She bent down to pet him and Ben noticed that she handled the puppy a hell of lot better than she’d handled her designer dog when it wandered into the bayou the day Elli arrived.

  “I love these webbed paws,” she said, lifting the puppy’s soggy paw and spreading its pads. “It’s amazing, really. Where in the evolutionary process did this happen?” She patted him on his head. “And this fur. It’s crazy how it doesn’t absorb water.”

  “Actually, he has double coats. Both are flat, oily, and water-resistant. His breed’s coats, webbed paws, strong muscles, and natural swimming abilities make them excellent water rescue dogs.” He started to walk out of the bayou. “Of course, you know that from producing Newfies.”

  “And the adult dogs are excellent droolers,” she laughed. “I had hand towels sent in for all of our Newfie crew. I had Drool Here embroidered on all of them. The crew wore their towels tucked in their waistbands in case they encountered one of the larger slobberers.” She smiled, looking at the black, button-nose pup. “You adorable thing. Are you going to grow to have a leaky mouth?”

  She stood and her eyes went right to Ben’s abdomen. He wasn’t a conceited man, but he was confident in the knowledge that he wasn’t soft and fleshy. In fact, Beau always said, with a thump on both of their abs, that they each had good six-pack genes. Of course, that was usually when they were sharing a six-pack of beer.

  “Go play with your paint, Elli,” he said, feeling himself getting hard with the way she was looking at him, like she wanted to slide over his naked skin. “Keep the film crew the hell away from my dogs and kennel. I don’t want to know they are here. And, Elli, don’t you ever negotiate a deal for the use of my plantation again. Understood?” She nodded, but he didn’t see a lot of conviction in her eyes. He whistled once for the dogs to follow as he walked away. The Newfies sniffed around a bit but didn’t take long to bounce after him and his loyal dog.

  * * * *

  “I appreciate you telling Envision Investments about Sugar Mill,” Elli told Abby as she sat on the third rung of the ladder to talk on her cell phone. She had carried the ladder and all of her supplies up to the second floor balcony, planning to start painting there. “But I’m not ready for them to come here, yet. More accurately, Ben isn’t ready for them to come here. Yet. I’ll e-mail you a real estate sales prospectus tomorrow night. You can show them that to keep them interested.”

  “Send it to me tonight,” Abby insisted. “I don’t know if they’ll be interested the day after tomorrow.”

  “I have the narrative I did before coming here, but I need to change it up a bit since seeing the place.” She swatted a fly buzzing around her. “I also need to take some more pictures. The pictures from the appraisal that were included with Aunt Rosa’s will doesn’t do the place justice. And the ones I took with my camera were lost in the fire. I bought a camera when I went into town for the paint. I’ll take whatever pictures I can before sunset, add graphics, and slick it up.” She pulled the cell phone away from her ear to look at the time. “I’ll get you what I can tonight, Abby. Right now, I have to paint the front of this huge plantation house.”

  “Make it a priority.” Abby cleared her throat. “Our financial situation is worse than we thought. The bank called to tell me the foundation account is overdrawn.”

  Elli’s stomach pinched. She felt bile rising in her throat. “How? We had enough to cover the next two months.”

  “Our evil fundraiser planner has stolen from us, too. It looks like he altered the check we cut him for the event and gave himself a raise.”

  “Oh, God.” Elli sighed. “We have to have that money. We have clients counting on us helping them pay their bills.” She inhaled deeply. “I’ll sell my car. It could maybe get us through a week. The money from the filming here will help a little bit, but it isn’t enough to carry us over.”

  “I’ve put some of my personal money into the account to cover this week,” Abby said, her tone as defeated as Elli felt. “I don’t have a huge savings stash to draw from, so I can’t do more. I’m afraid we might be tumbling into a black hole. We can take care of our commitments, sort of, for the next few weeks, but Elli, it looks bad. I also got a call from the caterer for the Griffith Park event. She is threatening to sue us if we don’t pay what is owed her.”

  “I did pay what was owed,” Elli said, her voice growing louder. “With a check to our planner. I suppose we’ll be getting calls from the florist, valet service, musicians…everyone we thought we already paid.”

  “I expect we will. We need a plan B, Elli. What if you can’t get the plantation sold and at least some of the money in the bank within three weeks? We may have to declare bankruptcy.”

  Elli’s throat tightened. “That would protect the foundation from creditors but do nothing to help the people we’ve asked to trust us to help them. Failure isn’t an option.” She ran her hand absently over her chest. She remembered another time in her life when failure wasn’t an option. “I need you to talk to Veronica. We hired her because she was the most creative, empathetic, and effective social worker around. See if she can start researching possible programs available for our clients who can’t be without our help if the worst happens.”

  “Okay, but you should know that Veronica came to me in tears this morning. She informed me that it’s killing her, but she can’t stay on if we can’t pay her. She is the sole earner taking care of her grandmother and niece. She did offer to take a pay cut for a month, if that helps.” Abby sighed. “I hate this.”

  “Me, too.” Elli shifted on the ladder, making it wobble, but she ignored it. “I hate all this pressure. I wish we had a long-term plan that had time to mature and unfurl. We don’t. We have an impossible deadline to sell a multimillion-dollar plantation in a state with Napoleonic laws, to capitalists I’ve yet to meet. Not to mention,” she said, knowing she was almost shouting now, “that I have to do this with a partner who doesn’t want me to do it.”

  “Elli, I need to know. Is this task impossible? Will the sale happen?”

  “Impossible? Yes, it’s impossible,” she shouted, dropping the long paint roller extension to the ground. “It can’t be impossible. I will make this possible. Oh, God, Abby, Walt Disney was so wrong.”

  “What are you talking about?” Abby snapped. “What does Walt Disney have to do with our problems? Another movie reference, Elli? Really? Do you have to do this now?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help it. They pop into my head.” She was now feeling overstressed and short-tempered. “I just thought of the quote by Walt Disney: It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. I don’t think this is fun. Not one little bit.” Her voice started to rise. “I’ve got to paint the front of a nine-thousand-square-foot shingled plantation house, put together a professional-looking prospectus, walk a pack of hyperactive dogs, and nurse a prissy Bolonoodle with an UTI, all before sunrise tomorrow.” She threw her shoulders back.

  Elli turned and spotted Ben looking at her through his open floor-to-ceiling bedroom window. Great. She hung up her phone without telling Abby good-bye. How much of her conversation had he heard?

  “You also have to meet with the fire marshal at seven,” Ben said, leaning halfway through the window. When she glared at him with eyes that spoke of the fire burning in her gut, he raised his hands in surrender. “Don’t kill the messenger. Beau called and asked me to tell you.”

  “Perfect,” She mumbled in a control voice when she wanted to scream. She turned and spread the drop cloth on the wooden balcony f
loor. By the smug look on his face, she figured he hadn’t heard the part of her conversation about selling the plantation or he would have blown a gasket. Thank God for small favors.

  “Beau will be here at six thirty.” He stepped through his window onto the balcony, looking too blasted happy about her rotten mood. Yeah, no doubt about it, he was there to gloat about her overextending herself with this painting project. “Nice shirt.” He motioned to the tattered, New Orleans Saints Super Bowl Champions T-shirt she wore over her running shorts like a mini dress.

  “I found it in the rag pile in the laundry room.” She picked up the long-handled paint roller and leaned it against the ladder.

  “Rag pile?” He shook his head and walked to the balcony railing with casual ease. “That’s my favorite, Sunday afternoon football watching shirt.” He turned to face Elli, resting his bottom on the railing. “It was in the wash pile, not the rag pile.”

  She shrugged. “Who knew?”

  “I hate when you do that.”

  “What?”

  “That.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a sign you have more to say but decided not to say it.”

  “Oh.” She shrugged her shoulders with intentional exaggeration and pasted a fake grin on her face.

  “Very funny.”

  She smiled, surprised she had one in her after hearing the awful news from Abby. As frustrating as the situation was between her and Ben, she enjoyed his intelligent humor and easy manner. It was an odd thing, she thought, considering how desperate and stressed she felt about saving the foundation. Who knew there could be something akin to a near-functioning release valve for her overstressed boiler brain? She settled onto her knees and looked at Ben. “You might not want to hear this, but I don’t think you are a jerk all the time.”

  He burst out laughing. “Too bad.”

  She leaned back onto her heels and started to open the paint can with the opener from the hardware store. She glanced at his worn Saints jersey and pushed the fabric away from the paint can. “I’ll try not to get paint on it.”