Treasure Uncovered (Bellingwood #3) (9 page)

"You're right. I don't feel as if I fit the same way I used to. It's a lot easier to show up here and get to know everyone without knowing everything about them."

Sylvie giggled, "It's easier for us, too. Trust me." She looked at her watch, "I'd better get busy. I have two deliveries showing up and I need to make sure I'm ready for them. Talk to you later!"

She was out the door before Polly could say anything more, so she took a deep breath and went back to opening envelopes and sorting paperwork.

"Knock, knock." Polly looked up when she heard Henry's voice.

"Hey there," she said.

He walked over to her and hugged her while she was still in her chair.

"Hey there, yourself." He pointed at the pile of paper on her desk. "That doesn't look fun."

Polly snarled, "It's awful. But, it's necessary, so I do what I have to do."

"Did you want to look at what I've got for Beryl's studio this morning?"

She gathered the paper into a pile, stacked it as neatly as possible, tossed the empty envelopes into the recycling bin under her desk and shoved the rest to the side.

"Yes. I do. Right now. Please!" she laughed. “I’d like to look at anything other than this mess.”

Henry handed her a flash drive and said, "Would you mind?"

She inserted it into the USB port and clicked to open it. Since the obvious file was "Beryl's Studio," she double clicked it and waited for it to open. Henry pulled his chair around to sit beside her.

"You know," she said, "We could have done this in the conference room."

"But, I wouldn't have been able to sit this close to you. You smell great this morning!"

"I'm clean. That's all it is. Clean. And I'm clean every morning by the time you see me."

He shrugged. "You still smell great."

"Back away, you mad molester or I'll have to do something heinous to you."

He laughed and backed his chair up an inch, leaving just enough room between them so he could prove a point.

"I guess that will do," she said. She reached over and took his hand in hers.

The file opened and Polly enlarged the image and began to move her mouse around the screen. Henry had taken her ideas and created a wonderful space. She pointed to a confusing space in the back storage room and asked, "What's this?"

"Aaron and I were surprised at the amount of flammable chemicals that woman has. I understand that she needs them, but that explosion could have been much worse. She's going to buy a firesafe cabinet. I'll enclose it so that it matches everything else, but she isn't going to be allowed to leave them out any longer."

"Yeah. You tell her she isn't allowed to do that and see what trouble you create," Polly said.

"Oh, I'm not telling her. That's Aaron's job. He gets to deliver all of the bad news to her. She listens to him. He might be the only man in town that gets away with that, but at least there is one."

Henry had taken her quickly sketched ideas for the studio and brought them alive in his CAD program. Polly wanted to open up the walls with more windows. Between each set of windows, there were floor to ceiling cabinets to hold finished pieces and underneath each window were cabinets and drawers to hold Beryl's supplies.

On the wall facing the garden between the studio and the house, he had designed a desk which wrapped around the front of the studio. The center of the room had a large work table as well as plenty of space for several easels and chairs. Polly had thought that a nice granite countertop on the other side of the room would double as a workspace, except that there wasn't room to put legs underneath. Oh well, that would have to do.

The back storage room would have more floor to ceiling storage. Polly had sat down and thought through the number of different mediums Beryl used to paint and draw and then talked to Henry about designing drawers for each type. Rather than digging through a deep drawer to find the right color, Beryl could sort her paints by hue and the shallow drawers would make things readily accessible.

She and Henry spent time talking through what type of wood to use and as long as Beryl approved, Polly was dying to use a knotty alder for the cabinets. She loved the look of the grain and the blemishes left by the knots in the wood. The last task was to collect options for cabinet hardware and then she could show Beryl the plans.

"This is wonderful, Henry," she said. “Now we have to get Beryl’s approval.”

“She will love it,” he responded.

“I hope so. I’m emailing this to Lydia so Beryl can see it. Thanks for all your work.”

"I didn't do anything but make your ideas real, Polly. Even though Beryl is a great artist and paints on canvas, you are an artist too. The only difference is that your medium is wood and structures."

"Hmmm," she mused. "I did spend a lot of time designing my perfect house when I was young. It changed all the time, but at night I would fall asleep putting rooms in my house together. Thank you, though. That's such a nice thing to say. I would never have known this about myself if you weren’t here to make it real."

"Then I'm glad you ended up in Bellingwood so we could find each other."

He stood up and pulled his chair back to the front of the desk.

"I'm glad we found each other, too," she replied. She copied the file to her desktop and ejected the flash drive, then reopened it. "I'm going to print out a couple of copies of this to take over to Andy's house later this afternoon."

"They're coming home?" he asked.

"Can you believe that Beryl is letting Andy take care of her? I only hope those two women don't kill each other before Beryl goes to her own house."

"Would you do me a favor?" Henry asked.

"Sure? What's up?"

"I've been talking to people around town and Len Specek is supposed to be a pretty good carpenter. I can't believe I didn't know this about him. Would you ask Andy if it would be alright if I brought him in to help with Beryl's studio?"

"Of course I will! Oh, I can't wait to have that conversation with her. She's been trying to hide him from us. I think we embarrass her. This is going to change all of that."

"Maybe I shouldn't do it, then."

"Oh no you don't! If he's who you want, then he's who you're going to get. Andy's world got toppled upside down the day she got caught having lunch with him. It's all out in the open now and she's going to have to live with it."

"You girls are very scary."

"Tell me about it. I've had to threaten those three with their lives so they don't have us married with children in the next six months."

Henry looked stricken. "Children?"

"Don't worry," Polly laughed. "I took care of it."

"Good," he said. "I'd like to be married a little while before we have kids."

Polly looked up at him in shock and he started to cackle. "That's the Polly I love. Do you want to do something tonight?"

"If I don't get through these bills today, I'm still going to be working on them," she lamented. "And since there is a reception in the auditorium, I'll be doing them upstairs."

Then she looked up at him, "But, if you wanted to come over, we could turn on a movie. I can work on my laptop."

"Why don't I bring a pizza. What time?"

"Can you give me until seven thirty? That way I'll have the animals bedded down for the night and maybe even have taken another shower."

Henry winked at her. "I'll see you later."

Done for now. Stretching her shoulders and neck, Polly glanced at the time. It was eleven o'clock. She pushed the stack of papers away from her, knowing she could do the rest tonight in front of a movie. She had enough time to go upstairs for a few minutes and play with her animals. She could tell that they missed her. Luke was more aggressive than usual and Leia had started nipping at both her and Obiwan. Crawling into bed with them each night wasn't enough time to keep everyone happy. She ran upstairs and opened the front door of her apartment.

Obiwan looked up at her in confusion and she saw that Luke and Leia were both stretching and yawning on her bed in the next room. "Hi guys," Polly said, "Have you missed having me around as much as I've missed being around?" Her dog sauntered over to greet her and followed as she went in to the bedroom. She patted the bed and he leaped up, surprising Luke, who was preparing to jump to the floor. Polly sat down and pulled Obiwan in for a hug. He gave her a large kiss on the cheek and she laughed. "Not too much of that," she said. "I still have to see people today and I don't need to be completely slobbered!"

Leia sidled up and Polly scooped her into her arms. Within moments, the cat was purring and snuggling into the crook of Polly's arm. Luke jumped on to Polly's shoulder and nuzzled her ear.

"Wow, you have missed me. I love coming up here and getting all of this attention. I don't have a lot of time, but it's all yours," she laughed. She tugged Luke down so she could carry him and they went out to the couch in the living room.

"If I stay in there on that bed, I'll lie down and fall asleep and I don't trust any of you to wake me in time for my appointment," she said to them.

Obiwan had plopped himself where she intended to sit, so she moved to the other end and got comfortable with the cats. Leia hadn't moved, except to snuggle in more tightly and Luke climbed to the back of the sofa and perched there. She rubbed his head and watched his eyes glaze over in response. His purring wasn't quite as loud as Leia's, but if Polly placed her hand on his back, she could feel him vibrating. On the other hand, Leia sounded like a rumbling freight train and at the moment was rubbing her head against Polly, claiming her territory.

"It's nice to be quiet for a few minutes with you," Polly said. She continued to rub Luke's head for a few more minutes and watched Leia's eyes close as she fell back to sleep in her arms.

The cats had both gone to sleep and Obiwan was resting his head on her lap when Polly looked at the clock and realized it was time for her to go back downstairs. She stood up and put Leia back down on the sofa where she had been sitting.

"Come on, Obiwan. You're with me. You're going to meet someone and then we'll take a short walk before I leave again for the afternoon." She picked up the leash and he stood patiently while she snapped it on his collar. They didn't use the leash much anymore. Since the fence had gone up around what was now the horse's pasture, he was pretty good about following her out to the barn. Once the gate was shut, he had all the space he needed to run. She loved watching him tear through the pasture at a full run, knowing that he finally had freedom without her worrying that he'd dash into the highway.

He followed her down the steps and looked at the front door as they passed it and then when she turned into the office he was surprised they weren't going out the side door to the barn.

"Not yet. I have a meeting. Can you hang here with me for a while?" She led him behind her desk and looked around for a place to hook his leash. She finally opened a drawer and shut it on her end of the leash, knowing that with a good tug, he'd be free in a moment. Hopefully if it were necessary, she would have enough time to grab it and stop him from lunging or leaping out of control. Obiwan was a great dog and very friendly with people, but she didn't want to take any chances. She began one last sort of the paperwork, choosing what needed to go upstairs and stuffed the rest in a drawer.

At eleven thirty, she saw someone come in the front door. He nodded at her through the window and she knew this had to be the man Jeff wanted her to meet. He was wearing a knit cap pulled down over his ears. His hands were jammed in the pockets of a dark blue pea coat and his eyes were covered by a pair of dark sunglasses. He wore loose fitting work pants and black boots. She smiled at him as he came in the main door of the office. Jeff had heard him approach and met him, then looked at Polly as if asking a question. She stood up and motioned for them to come on in.

Jeff entered her office first and said, "Polly, this is Eliseo Aquila."

She stood up from her desk and he stepped forward to shake her hand, "Thank you for taking the time to meet me this morning, Miss Giller."  She expected more of a Hispanic accent because of the name, but his was very subtle.

She motioned for them to both take a seat. Jeff moved to the inside chair and as soon as Eliseo was seated, Obiwan pulled away and rushed to greet him. Before Polly could stop him, her dog had put his paws on the man's thigh and leaned in to lick his face. She knew he was comfortable around people, but this was a little unexpected.

Eliseo leaned in to meet the dog and allowed Obiwan to lick him, then ruffled the scruff of his neck and said, "You're a good dog."

"I'm sorry!" Polly exclaimed. "I hope you like animals."

"I do and there is no reason to apologize. He's a happy, friendly dog."

Obiwan had dropped back down to the floor, but set his head on Eliseo's leg as if waiting for more attention. The man put a scarred hand on top of the dog's head and began rubbing his ears.

"Well, it looks as if you've made a friend," Polly said. "He likes you."

Eliseo nodded and Jeff interrupted. "Eliseo, Miss Giller and I talked a little this morning and I'm sure she has a few more questions before we discuss employment."

"Yes, ma'am," Eliseo said. "I'll try to answer your questions."

Polly watched as he continued to rub Obiwan's head. Any tension he had shown when walking in the door was gone. He reached up and took his sunglasses off and she was startled by the beauty and warmth in his eyes. They were soft and brown, belying the pain that he had obviously faced in his life. The right side of his body must have taken the brunt of whatever fire had hurt him, but although the left side was scarred as well, she could see traces of the original shape of his face there.

"Jeff has told me of your request to work for us for a month before asking any questions and it's only on his recommendation that I'm even considering this," she said. "I'm a little gun-shy about hiring someone without first going through background information and references. We haven't had the best of luck with the position up until this point."

"I understand," he said. "If you don't want to consider me for the job, that's truly alright."

He began to rise out of his chair, so Jeff put his hand on Eliseo's arm. "I don't think that's what she's saying."

"Tell me, Eliseo," Polly began, "Why would you be better at this job than anyone else?"

He smiled and it filled his face. "Ma'am, other than the months I spent in the hospital and in rehabilitation, I have worked hard all of my life. The one thing that got me moving again during and after rehab was being outside and forcing these muscles to become strong again. I couldn't imagine not being able to put my hands into dirt and plant things so they could grow, or spend time with animals of all sizes and watch them become comfortable with me. I had to know that I was making the world better, so I kept moving and working. It's kept me alive and healthy for these last twenty years and I'm not about to stop now."

"Do you mind cleaning rooms and working inside?"

"No ma'am. I've done it all. There is no type of hard work that a person should be ashamed of doing. Inside work or outside work is all good work." He looked at her, "I would always prefer to be outside, but wherever there is work to be done, I'll do it."

"Jeff said you had some construction background. Can you tell me about that?"

"I spent two years working for a general contractor as a foreman and I’ve worked nearly every job there is on a building site. I might not be a craftsman, but I know what I'm doing and I'm comfortable with the tools and equipment."

"What do you know about regular maintenance around a place like this?"

"I can replace the innards of a toilet, if that's what you're asking, and I can learn about most anything else. I'm not afraid to try things."

Polly smiled. "You seem a little too good to be true. I don't understand why you're here looking for a job."

"If I may, Miss Giller. I make most people nervous. They find it difficult to look at my face.” He rubbed the top of Obiwan's head again. "Maybe that's why animals are so comfortable with me. I relax around them because they don't care what I look like and they sense that."

"We have a lot of people who come and go around here. Will it bother you to work around so many different people? What if they stare at you, will that be a problem?"

"No, it won't. I've lived with that for the last twenty years. If I'm not being too forward, will it be a problem for you?"

Polly thought for a moment and said, "I've never worked closely with someone who has faced what you did and what you must face on a daily basis. It's not a problem for me, but I can't tell you that I'll never stare at you and wonder about the pain you must have been in," she said. "But, that's not a good reason not to employ you."

"Thank you ma'am. I appreciate that. Some of your guests might not feel the same way, though. I've lost more than a few jobs because customers or clients are uncomfortable with me around."

"We would deal with that," she said. "Not you. In fact, that would be a lousy reason to let you go. Now Jeff also told me you know something about horses."

Another smile lit his face, "Yes ma'am! I grew up with horses. My father worked as a farm hand in southern California and I started working with him as soon as I was big enough to crawl on a bucket to reach their heads. I'm not bragging too much to say that he became one of the best trainers in the region. Even the most skittish would soon discover that he was safe and they could trust him."

Polly nodded. "One month and then we can make this permanent?" she asked.

"It usually takes about a month for an employer to decide whether or not I'm good enough to keep around for a long time. I don't want to make your life any more difficult than it is." He pointed at his face. "I'm not unaware of how people look at me. If you can't keep me around, then neither of us will feel bad about it."

She looked at Jeff, "Work it out. I'm on board."

Jeff smiled back at her and stood up. "Come on Eliseo. I've got shirts and caps in my office and as soon as you are available, you can start. I'll show you around and help you get acquainted with the place."

"I'm here now," Eliseo responded. "If you'd like me to begin this afternoon, I'm ready." He rubbed Obiwan one more time and then followed Jeff out of the office. When the dog tried to follow him, he knelt down, looked in his eyes and said, "Obiwan, sit. Stay." The dog did as ordered and watched him walk away.

Polly wondered how long her dog would stay in place. He wasn't used to someone else giving him direction. And then she realized she wasn't sure what to do either. She giggled and said, "Obiwan, come here." He stood up and came over to sit beside her, wagging his tail.

After a quick walk with the dog and some lunch, Polly headed over to Beryl's studio. She left a note for Jason and Andrew, who would be there after school, asking them to spend some time playing with her animals and that she didn't know when she would be back. She didn't want Jason to worry about the horses, she'd beg Henry to help her if nothing else.

When she arrived at the studio, she walked in and saw that quite a bit of work had happened. Henry had his entire crew here today, pulling drywall and yanking the ceiling down. The dumpster outside was filling quickly.

"What have you done in here?" she asked.

"Check this out, Polly," Jimmy Rio said. He was up on a ladder tearing into the ceiling over what had been the inside wall to the back room. It was now nothing more than a frame.

"What's up, Jimmy?" she asked.

"Henry says this place would look great if we opened up the ceiling and put a loft area over the back room. What do you think?"