Greed (Seven Vices Series Book 1) Page 9

  I laughed and shook my head. “Come on, none of that. It’s just as much an honor to work with you—I hear you’re the de facto leader?”

  Javier shrugged modestly. “That’s only because I speak better Spanish than the rest of them,” he said, his eyes twinkling, but I knew it was something more than that. I wished I could look him up and see who he really was. I had a feeling from the way that he was expertly working to clear the road, working tirelessly and with no complaints, that this definitely wasn’t the first time he’d been involved in an aid mission.

  Of course, they wouldn’t have put him in this area if it were. I gave myself a little mental kick. What was with me these days? It was as though all of a sudden, a sexy man with muscles was enough to sidetrack my thoughts entirely.

  “So, we’re clearing the road?” I asked him, trying to focus.

  Javier nodded. “But don’t worry about making it perfect. The main goal at the moment is to be able to get Jeeps in here with water and more volunteers,” he said. He lowered his voice. “And to take out the dead. There’s no place to bury them here; the ground is too soft. The last thing we need is to have a pile of rotting corpses at the edge of town.”

  I grimaced at the grim picture and started wordlessly clearing the road alongside him, tugging aside branches and hauling off the largest of the rocks.

  “So, Sophia Boutelle,” Javier said, taking a sip of water as we took one of our rare breaks. He looked over at me, raising an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize that you still got involved on the ground-level of these sorts of things. Mud is a good look for you.”

  I laughed in surprise and self-consciously rubbed at a streak of mud that I knew was smeared across my cheek. I probably only made it worse, though, given how grubby my hands were. “If you’re not willing to do the dirty work, then how could you ever convince anyone else to work for you?” I asked him philosophically.

  Javier nodded in approval and glanced around. “This is one of the worst tragedies I’ve ever been involved in,” he admitted quietly. “When we first got here, it was like the whole village was in shock. Old women wailing about their children and their grandchildren. Children wandering around with big eyes full of horror. Even the dogs were quiet and cowering.”

  I swallowed hard, just imagining it. “This is one of the worst assignments I’ve been on too,” I told him. “Not the worst, I don’t think. But after a certain point, horror doesn’t have a magnitude, does it?”

  Javier shrugged. “I’d be here helping them even if I didn’t know their stories,” he said. “But knowing their stories, knowing their pain, that adds such a different dimension to what we’re doing here.”

  I thought back to what Oliver had said about helping people I didn’t even know, and wondered how much of those feelings of his were tied up in the same thing. But Oliver wasn’t like Javier; he didn’t come to these places to meet the people and learn their stories. I looked around at the work we’d been doing that afternoon. We’d actually managed to clear a sizeable swath of the road together, and I was impressed. But there was still a long way to go.

  The truth of it was I couldn’t imagine Oliver in this sort of environment.

  At the end of the day, when Javier invited everyone working on the project out for a meal, we all went, exhausted though we might be. The other team had managed to clear enough of the road at the far side of the village that we could get out to the next town over, which had miraculously been spared from the landslides that most of the other towns in the region had been hit with. There were sure signs of flooding and a certain somber mood about the place, but for now, at least, their food stores were holding out, at least enough to provide us with a simple dinner.

  It was good to get to know the team better too, but I could feel myself gravitating towards Javier as the night went on, and not just because he was sitting directly beside me.

  “So how did you get down here anyway?” Javier asked, turning toward me.

  I grinned. “I knew the pilot,” I admitted. “I worked with Tanner on a couple other aid missions in the past. I called him as soon as I saw the news. How about you?”

  “I happened to be in Argentina already,” Javier told me. “I was in Buenos Aires for a seminar. As soon as I heard what was happening, I cancelled the rest of my talks and found my way here.”

  “What was your seminar about?” I asked curiously.

  “In my ‘real life’ I’m an architect,” Javier said, shrugging. “But I blur the line between aid work and ‘real life,’ I suppose. I spent most of last year in Central Asia helping build cheap but sustainable buildings on the outskirts of some of the capital cities to house the major influx of people who are moving into the cities to be better connected to the rest of the world.” He frowned. “It’s actually a very interesting project because, for many of them, they don’t really want to give up the traditional style of living—in fact, they’re very proud of where they’ve come from. But they recognize the perks of cellphones and the other trappings of the Western world.”

  “Sounds really interesting,” I said. Again, not something that I could picture Oliver ever being involved in. “But you gave all of that up to come down to Argentina?”

  Javier laughed. “I wasn’t planning on staying for any length of time,” he said. “My family lives in Santiago, so I came back to visit them. While I was over here anyway, it seemed like a matter of course for me to agree to be part of the seminar in Buenos Aires. Now, I’m not sure how long I’ll be down here.” He frowned. “It’s difficult to leave projects like these. I know that I’m doing meaningful work in Asia as well. But down here, it just seems so much more tangible.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” I said. “Obviously Le Monde Ensemble does a lot of good, but it’s sometimes difficult to feel like I’m actively involved in changing lives when I’m cooped up in an office in New York City signing paperwork all day. Down here, I can see the progress that we made today and I know that the things we’ll be doing in the coming weeks—building houses, digging wells, all of that—will immediately improve these people’s lives.”

  “Exactly,” Javier said. “Obviously the people I’m building these apartment complexes for need housing too, but if I weren’t there to construct the buildings, they would find other ways. I mean, in Mongolia, there are miles and miles and miles of sprawling ger—or yurt—districts around Ulaanbaatar. There’s pollution and unhealthy living conditions—that’s why I’m there. But it’s nothing as dire as this.”

  He paused. “To be honest, I’m a little skeptical about going back to that. The company that I’ve been working for just got bought out by some bigger company—I’m sure you know what that means for us. The influx of funding will definitely be a good thing, but I’m sort of worried about what kinds of changes are going to come to the organization of things. I’ve had pretty free reign up until now, and I’ve been able to help people how I see fit. I’m not sure some corporation is going to understand things the same way.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” I said, nodding and remembering suddenly what Oliver had said about Mongolia and mining ties to Australia. I shook my head; it was probably just coincidence that the same country had come up again in conversation. It wasn’t a sign of anything.

  “I think Harrison is about to fall asleep at the table,” Javier said, bringing me back to the present and nodding at one of our colleagues.

  I laughed and stood up, clapping my hands. “All right, I think I have to go to sleep,” I announced. “Who wants to drive back with me?”

  But I couldn’t resist giving Javier a lingering, considering look as I got into one of the vehicles. He and I had a lot of common, I could already tell. On paper, he was much more my type than someone like Oliver. And he was sexy. He didn’t strike me as a bookish architect, that was for sure.

  I felt something stir in my core and hurriedly pushed it down. We were coworkers, and the last thing I needed was to make things awkward by flinging myself at h
im, especially as just a palate-cleanser. Not that I needed a palate-cleanser. Oliver and I were never in a relationship, after all.

  For a moment, I let my mind trail back to the sex in the cellar, and I felt a hot flush of shame come over me. Had I really been so unable to help myself?

  I was glad to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep nearly the moment my head touched the pillow. I didn’t have the energy to keep tossing around thoughts of romance in my head.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Javier and I worked together again the next day. Another team was dropped further down the road from us, and the hope was that by the end of the day, our teams would meet up, with the road completely passable.

  “I imagine it must be difficult, living a life like yours,” Javier mused as we took a short break.

  I glanced over at him. “What do you mean?” I asked in surprise. “You’re the one who has been living in Asia for most of the past year, when all your family is down here.”

  Javier laughed. “That is also difficult,” he agreed. “But more for my mother than for me, I think.” He paused. “But for you, being settled in New York, knowing that at any point you might have to drop everything and go rushing off to some far-flung part of the world, for an indeterminate amount of time . . . I imagine that must get difficult.”

  I frowned. “I don’t have to do this,” I pointed out. “I’m here because I want to be.”

  “Of course,” Javier murmured. He paused. “Are you seeing anyone back home?”

  I sputtered, surprised that he had been that forward but also unsure how to answer. I thought for a moment about Oliver. “No, I’m not seeing anyone,” I said quickly. It was the truth.

  Javier smiled. “How is it that someone so beautiful doesn’t have a legion of men falling at her feet?”

  I laughed and shook my head, though secretly I was flattered. “I guess I’m just too busy,” I told him, shrugging my shoulders. “Like you said, at any point, I could have to drop everything and disappear for weeks at a time. It doesn’t exactly lend itself to romantic relationships.”

  “And you’ve never met the guy to make staying at home worth it?”

  I snorted and gestured around at the work that we were doing. It was self-explanatory, really.

  Javier nodded and stood up, already getting back to work, and I followed his lead even though I wanted to put the same question to him. I imagined he couldn’t have much of a romantic life there in Central Asia—in Mongolia or Kazakhstan or wherever it was that he was based, but what did I know?

  I felt strangely jealous of whatever dark-haired beauty might have captured his attention over there. I shook my head and focused on the work, hauling rocks out of the path until I thought my arms would fall off.

  By that evening, just as the sun was starting to set, we finally managed to run into the other team, and we all started cheering. There were hugs and sloppy high-fives all around. “We have to go for drinks tonight,” Javier announced, and the others agreed.

  “So what happens next?” I asked Javier at the bar later as we sipped on some of the local beers. “We’ve cleared the road out, so they’ll be able to bring in more supplies.”

  Javier groaned. “You never forget about the work, do you?” He said it fondly and reached out to ruffle my hair playfully. “Tomorrow, I imagine you and I will get put on something a little easier on the arms and back, just for a day or two to recover. Probably helping out around the medical tent. After that, they’ll have me on the building crew, and you’ll join me unless you have something else in mind.”

  “Building crew sounds good,” I said. “But we could get started on that tomorrow, couldn’t we? I know we’ve done a lot of hard work today, but that’s what this is, isn’t it? I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t ready for it.”

  Javier laughed. “Your enthusiasm is admirable, but I don’t want anyone getting burnt out or injured,” he said, shaking his head. “And there are plenty of new volunteers ready to be brought in tomorrow now that the road is cleared. I managed to get in radio contact with some of the guys today, and it sounds like we’re going to have way more bodies than I’d expected. We might even be able to spare some of them to start manually removing water from some of the mines, if we can work out which ones are safe enough.”

  “Wonderful,” I said.

  “It is,” Javier agreed, taking a sip of his beer. He shook his head. “I can’t help but think that you’re down here to escape something back home,” he said.

  I looked over at him in surprise, wondering how I’d been so obvious. Just then, Jen came over and sat on Javier’s other side. “Come on, what are the two of you talking about?” she asked. “I see you over here whispering, and if you’re still talking about work, I swear I’m making you take shots of whatever their worst liquor is . . .”

  I held up both hands, laughing. “All right, all right, we’ll stop,” I said.

  That night, Javier and I walked home together along the moonlit road. “I think part of why this one has hit me so hard is because Peoria reminds me so much of my home,” he said suddenly. “I grew up in a village very similar to this in Chile. These people could be the same people that I knew when I was a child.” He shook his head.

  “I can imagine,” I said. I paused. “I finally had to stop volunteering to help out with wildfire situations because it just hit too close to home. Even the scent of burned houses . . . It just brought back too much.”

  Javier nodded. “The truth is, though, I never had to live through a horror like this, like you did. But I can understand what it must be like. Especially for a family who was just scraping by to begin with, rebuilding their lives will be basically impossible.” He frowned sadly.

  I shivered a little, just thinking about it. Javier glanced over at me and then shrugged out of his jacket, draping it around my shoulders. “I’m fine,” I protested.

  “It gets chilly here at night,” Javier said, as though I hadn’t already realized that. He didn’t look particularly cold himself, even in just a long-sleeved shirt, so I stopped protesting and instead thanked him for lending me his jacket.

  “Tell me more about growing up in Chile,” I asked, slowing my steps as we neared the tents that made up our makeshift camp. It was late and we should have been going to bed—it had been a long day, and we would continue to have more long days for the rest of this project. But I didn’t want to go just yet. The alcohol still buzzed in my veins along with the stillness of the night.

  Javier smiled over at me. “I have an enormous family, and we all lived together,” he told me. “Aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, grandparents. It meant that there was always someone to play with—but it also meant that there was always someone to tease me if I did anything stupid!”

  I laughed. “I never had any siblings,” I said wistfully.

  “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Javier said, shaking his head ruefully. “But one of the great things about it was my older sister Maria studied English at the local university, and I used to steal her books. Of course, I taught myself pronunciations all wrong—it took years to fix my accent, and I know I still sound very . . . Latin.”

  “It’s charming,” I assured him, even though I didn’t know where the words came from. I blushed a little, hoping he couldn’t see it in the moonlight. Charming? So much for keeping a professional relationship between the two of us.

  But Javier simply laughed and sat beside me on the bench near our tents, careful to keep his voice low so that we wouldn’t disturb the others. “Even from a young age, I didn’t understand the idea of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots.’ We went to Santiago on a family trip, and I was amazed at the large houses and the idea that some people were just born with money.” He smiled and shook his head. “That was the start of the path that led me here, I suppose.”

  “But you said your family lives in Santiago now?” I asked.

  Javier nodded. “A few of my cousins went to university and became doctors,” he said. “
And then when I became an architect as well . . . I don’t get paid millions, obviously, but I certainly make enough to live on, comfortably. I send the rest of the money back home. We’ve all managed to help our family.”

  I smiled. “They must be very proud of you.”

  “My mother thinks I’m crazy, actually,” Javier said, laughing. “But I think sometimes that if she could travel and see the work that I do, she would understand. She has a big heart.” He yawned and shook his head. “I’m sorry, I think I need to go to sleep. But we’ll talk more tomorrow, when we’re not doing the hard labor, okay?” He winked at me, and I giggled in response—actually giggled.

  I smiled shyly, wondering where that had come from. I could see Javier’s eyes dancing in the moonlight. “I like it when you’re like this, less serious,” he said, his parting comment before he disappeared into his tent for the night.

  I shook my head and went into my own tent, falling into bed. I remembered what Oliver had said—how he liked my hair when it was just messily tied back. How he liked when I didn’t look quite as professional and put-together as I normally did.

  But this was something more than just thinking about Oliver. There was definitely something drawing me to Javier as well. I wondered if he could feel it too. It was a totally different feeling than I had around Oliver, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on the difference.

  Javier was a gentleman. He hadn’t made a move on me. Sure, he’d let me know that he was interested—at least, I thought that was what he’d been hinting at when he was asking me about whether I had a boyfriend already. He’d called me beautiful. But for all I knew, he was just being friendly and Latin American.

  I frowned, suddenly second-guessing myself. Maybe Javier wasn’t even interested in me. But was I interested in him?

  Definitely, although in a less punch-in-the-gut, needing sense, compared to what I felt around Oliver. I remembered how Oliver had backed me up against the racks in my cellar, hemming me in. It had felt as though my entire being, body and soul, was responding to him, waiting to see what he would do. I didn’t feel that with Javier.