Free Hemingway's Girl by Erika Robuck Page B

feigned disinterest, but she had to use her will to keep her body from
     turning toward him. She knew these feelings for him were wrong and wanted to do everything
     she could to suppress them.
    “It’s only three o’clock! What am I supposed to do until then?”
    “Don’t you have some fish to catch, or a book to write or something?”
    “I wrote for four hours this morning and I had to stop. It was getting really good.”
    “You stopped when it was getting really good?” she asked.
    “I always stop when it gets good. Then I can pick right up the next day. If I stop
     during a lull, there are no guarantees.”
    Mariella raised her eyebrows.
    “Wouldn’t that be like leaving a fish on the line before you pulled it all the way
     in?” she asked.
    “No, it’s like leaving a woman in bed before she’s—”
    A dish slammed the sink in the kitchen. Isabelle must have heard him. Mariella turned
     red.
    “She’ll want more, right?” he said.
    Mariella couldn’t look at him. She kept polishing the chandelier.
    “Sorry—that was out of line,” he said.
    Isabelle snorted from the other room.
    “Come on, daughter. Get down off that ladder. Let’s go get some lemonade and watch
     people. I’m the boss. You’re done for today.”
    Mariella looked at him. He leaned his arm on the ladder and looked up at her pleadingly.
     She badly wanted to join him, but she knew Isabelle was listening and didn’t want
     to sound too eager.
    “I need to get this done today, because I have to do the rug tomorrow, and I like
     to work from the top down. You go on. I’ll catch up later.”
    “No. I’ll wait here until you’re done. You only have a bit more to do anyway.”
    He smiled at her and walked over to the couch, where the paper that he’d been reading
     earlier lay folded over the arm. He picked it up, shook it out, and watched her over
     the top of it.
    Mariella concentrated on the chandelier so she wouldn’t be tempted to look at him.
     She knew she’d blush from head to toe if she met his gaze. She was almost finished
     and she’d already done so much. Knocking off early wouldn’t be such a sin. And he
     was the boss.
    “Who in the hell replaces fans with chandeliers in a house in the damned tropics,”
     he said.
    He had stolen the thought from Mariella’s head.
    “I’m not here to judge, just to clean,” she said.
    He made a grunting noise and shuffled the paper.
    After she finished, she stepped down the ladder. He was immediately at her side and
     had the ladder folded up, hanging fromhis hand like it weighed nothing, and out the French doors before she could blink.
     He was back in a flash.
    “Let’s go.”

    The fragrance of a great magnolia drifted past on the afternoon air. The streets were
     noisy with children who had just gotten out of school and fishermen who just finished
     at the dock. Hemingway walked her to the café, got a table, and ordered two lemonades
     and two slices of key lime pie. A cat walked up to the table and rubbed against Ernest’s
     leg while they waited. He reached down and rubbed the back of its neck.
    “She’s like you,” he said.
“Mi pequeña gata.”
    Mariella looked down at the soft black cat.
    “Your little cat?
You
are the cat. A lion.”
    He laughed. “I’ve been told that before.”
    The drinks and food came quickly, and Mariella tried not to shove the whole pie in
     her mouth in one bite so she could save some for her sisters. It was delicious and
     tangy, and the sour lemonade was the perfect complement to it.
    They watched the people walk by for a little while and then he asked her if she would
     mind if he jotted down some character ideas in his notebook. She said she didn’t and
     continued working on her pie. After a few minutes, a tall, thin man with thick glasses
     stopped on the street in front of their table.
    “Hemingway? Ernest Hemingway?”
    The lion looked up without a hint of friendliness or welcome.
    “Jesus H. Christ, it is you?”