“Ay, is beautiful, Antonio,” he said, eyeing the property, the view. “Your friends, they have a good eye.”
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Nio answered with a wink at Trey. They walked their father around the back to the deck that overlooked the ocean. “So, my friends knew about your background and wanted your opinion. You know, are the plants in the right places for sunlight, that sort of thing.”
His father walked the perimeter, checking out the plants, the carefully plotted-out gardens, the ferns, agapanthus and the crimson bougainvillea climbing up the trellised veranda. He turned back to his sons. “If I had done this myself, I could not have done better. I would not change a thing,” he said with a smile. “I suppose that makes me…obsoleto.”
“You will never be obsolete.”
“Look, there,” Juan Luis told Luna, who wagged her tail excitedly at the ocean in the distance. “A view like that could make a dog like you run in her dreams.”
Luna yipped and wove around the old man’s legs.
“Laguna is a special place, no, boys? And you, Nio. How does it feel being back here again after so long?”
“It feels good, Pops. Real good.” Nio slung an arm across the old man’s shoulder. “You’ve missed it, too, haven’t you?”
Juan Luis shrugged. “But I’m old. Laguna was a good friend for many years. Now? I have my memories of her. And I can still visit, like now.”
“Maybe you could do more than visit, Pops,” Trey said.
“What if the reason this looks like a garden you would do yourself, is that you taught us everything I know?” Nio said.
Luna’s comical expression shifted from one man to the next expectantly.
“What?” Juan Luis asked. “But you said your friends…”
“The guys planted most of it themselves, Mick and Jase and Tommy,” Trey told him. “On Nio’s design.”
Juan Luis’s sun-burnished face flattened in surprise. “Your…brothers? But they are here for a reunion, no?”
“Yes. And Paul painted on the inside.”
“I do not…I do not understand. You are gardening on the side, mijo?”
Trey laughed and Nio said, “Only here. This isn’t actually my friends’ house, Pops. This is yours. This all belongs to you. It’s our surprise—mine and Trey’s.”
The old man’s dark eyes widened and instantly teared up. “What?” He stared back disbelievingly at the house, the gardens and the ocean swelling in the distance. “Noooo. That’s not… Really? For me? This place? Right here in Laguna?”
Tears welled up in his eyes as the truth struck him fully. He reached for his sons and pulled them hard up against him in a hug. They were both a half-foot taller than their father, but the old man’s hugs were legendary. After he mumbled thanks to some saint, he said, “You…you boys are too good to this old man, Antonio. Trey. But this place! It must have cost—”
“Never mind all that. You know I can afford it. And Trey bought all the furniture. We knew San Clemente wasn’t really your home and you always had your eye on this little stretch of beach.”
“Sí, but…but never to own. Never that. I cannot possibly—”
Trey grinned down at him. “Now you do. Free and clear. You want to see the inside of your new home?”
He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve, then bent down to scoop up Luna and kiss her. “Ay, sí. Yes!”
The furniture Trey had purchased was all in place and the last details had been completed. If Nio had to describe his father’s expression, he’d say he looked like a man who had finally come home. He ran his hand lovingly over the painted woodwork and along the smooth marble of the kitchen countertop, admiring the hard work that had gone into making this place what it was. “The windows. The light. See here, how it brightens la cocina?”
“And a Wolf oven for you, Pops. For all the enchiladas you will make,” Nio said.
Juan Luis just shook his head as he moved to the sprawling couch that curved around an entertainment wall. “This sofa!” he said, trying it out and sinking into it. “I could sleep here. I might sleep here!”
But they showed him the master bedroom and he changed his mind. Tears welled in his eyes again. “But all this…all this is too much for an old man.”
“About time, I say.” Trey hugged his father.
“But, Trey, mijo, how did you afford all this furniture?”
“The Canaday Law firm up in Marietta pays me very well. And I still do some work down in L.A. sometimes. You don’t need to worry about me, Pops. I’m doing fine. Might even buy a place of my own up there soon. I’ve been thinking about it. I’m getting tired of living out of a suitcase. But it’s pretty country. After you get settled in, I want you and Nio to come up and see it. The people there are good people.” He pulled a look around the bungalow. “Anyway, the guys, they all came over and helped with the outside here, with the landscaping and finishing up the final details in the last two days. They send their best.”
Juan Luis had been a frequent presence up at Nio’s house during the initial year the men had spent there recovering. There had been copious amounts of chile rellenos and enchiladas baked in Nio’s kitchen by this very man, who had brought his big heart along with his love of cooking. Not a man among them didn’t love Juan Luis. Their generous donation of time and sweat equity in his new home was not lost on him.
“They must come over for dinner before they go. I will cook for them.”
Nio said, “Well, Tommy left last night for some climbing expedition in Nepal and Paul and Jase left this morning for the airport to go home. This was a quick weekend. But they send their love.”
Disappointment filtered his expression. “Next time, then, no?”
“Yes, for sure,” Trey told him. “And there will be a next time, right, Nio?”
Nio found a fascinating gray vein in the marble countertop to study. “Yeah. Hope so.”
“And…” the old man ventured, glancing at Nio. “Rebecca?”
“Not so good, I’m afraid,” Nio admitted. “Things didn’t exactly go as I’d hoped.”
Luna stretched her front feet up Nio’s leg with a yawning whine. He scratched the top of her head. “She didn’t exactly believe the story I told her of what happened.”
“Story? You mean truth, do you not?” Juan Luis said.
Story. Truth. Such words hung simply on perspective.
Trey muttered an invective. “Maybe I should go talk to her. Tell her—”
“No,” Nio said. “I can’t push her anymore.” He hadn’t spoken to Becca since last night, though he’d driven by her apartment this morning and she hadn’t answered her door. He’d left a note there, asking her to meet him at the docks—to come with him on the boat. But his phone remained silent. “She wasn’t ready to hear the truth. Maybe she won’t ever be. And I might have to live with that.”
Trey lowered his head. What had happened so many years ago, Nio had let go, but he knew his brother felt responsible to this day for what had happened. The military had become redemption for Trey, as the tech world had, essentially, for Nio. The time they’d spent together in Nio’s home had been his olive branch to his brother, who had distanced himself from both Nio and Juan Luis. They’d managed to repair the fracture in their relationship.
It was no use holding on to what could have been. Nio learned through hard lessons that looking forward was the only path that made sense. It was how he had managed to survive. And how the brothers had survived, as well.
“I bought a boat,” he told his father. “I’m going to be taking it up the coast. Maybe you want to come for a ride today with me and Trey and Mick first?”
“A boat? Oh, no. This,” he said, patting a hand on the countertop, “this is where I should be. And sitting outside, enjoying my view. Later, is time enough for all that.”
Nio pulled a bottle of chilled champagne out of the Sub-Zero and filled three flutes he’d put in the cupboard. Luna barked and raced outside after a squirrel she’d spotted.
“So, you like it, Pops?” Trey asked as they moved out to the backyard and stared out over his new view of the Pacific.
“What fool would not? Gracias, mis hijos. But how can I ever—?”
“You already have,” Nio told him. “A thousand times. We are who we are today because of you. We survived the hard times after Mom died and what happened to our family because of you. This place is just a small thank you, Pops, for everything you’ve been for me and Trey, for all your years of hard work as a single father that allowed us to make this day possible. We’ve already arranged to have your things moved up here this week. All you need to do is stay and enjoy it. So—” he lifted his glass “—may this place give you many years of happiness, peace and flowers to tend.”
Juan Luis shook his head, overcome. “Muchas gracias, mis hijos. And don’t forget the guest room down the hall. It is always ready for you and your future wives someday, no?”
Trey smiled, but turned a distant look on the ocean.
“Right, Pops.” Nio flicked a smile at him. “Someday, maybe.”
“Perhaps it is not what you think? Perhaps she will come to her senses.”
“I don’t think so. I think I only made things worse.” He’d waited too long to come back for her. There was too much bad road behind them. She’d made up her mind about him long ago and even what had happened between them right here in this room the other night couldn’t fix it. Nor all the money he’d spent the last ten years making, or the plans he’d made.
“Con el tiempo todo se consigue,” his father said, patting his shoulder.
Nio wasn’t so sure anymore that time healed all wounds. This wound just seemed to keep bleeding.
*
Becca got clearance from the gate guard to drive down to Juan Luis’s new house, and he was sitting on the patio outside as she pulled down his driveway. He looked older than he had the last time she’d seen him, with gray hair and sun-deepened wrinkles around his eyes as he smiled at her.
And he was alone.
“Rebecca! What a surprise!” He opened his arms to her as she got out of the car and she rushed into them. Milo jumped out after her and immediately ran up to Juan Luis’s dog for a meet and greet.
“Oh!” she cried, grabbing Milo’s collar. “Who’s this?”
“This is Luna,” the old man said proudly. “She’s friendly. He’s okay.”
She let Milo loose and turned back to him. “Juan Luis, it’s been such a long, long time.”
“Too long, cariño. Still beautiful. How did you find me?”
“Nio brought me here. To show me.” She did her best to keep what they had done here from her expression.
“My new house,” he said proudly. “Do you like it?”
Everything that had been unfinished the other day now looked perfect. It was a dream house, though she doubted very much that Juan Luis had ever dreamed this big. “Very much. Your home is beautiful, Juan Luis. You must be very proud of your sons.”
“I am. I love them both, my boys.” But his dark eyes searched hers for the real reason she’d come. “You come for Antonio?”
“Forgive me,” she said, “but is he here?”
“No, amor. He was. But he left some time ago.” He gestured at the door. “Come in, please. Let me fix you something. Some coffee? Tea?” Luna and Milo had already made friends, circling each other playfully.
“I’d love to but I…Juan Luis, I need to find him first.” She reached down to scratch her dog’s head. “How long ago did he leave?”
He squinted at the sun. “An hour, maybe more. Yes, I think that’s right. The others…they have mostly gone already.”
“The others?”
“The brothers. Trey’s friends from the war. You know them?”
“No,” she said, surprised. “I never met them. But he said they’d come for a reunion?”
“Oh, sí. For the weekend. They helped to dig my garden. Is beautiful, no?”
“It is. So beautiful. But…Nio and I…we had an argument. Did he tell you?”
The old man scanned his deck, searching for a safe place to land his gaze. “Did you?”
“Does he hate me now?”
At that, a pretense vanished. “Oh, no, cariño. That is certainly not what he feels for you.”
“Where did he go? Is he leaving today, too? Did he go to the airport? Is he going back to San Francisco?”
The old man shook his head. “No, no. To the boat he bought. He’s got to get it—”
“The yacht—” Panic filtered through her. Of course, he had to get it back up to Northern California. But she’d assumed he would have someone bring the thing up to him. “He’s piloting it up himself?”
“Oh, no. Mick has stayed behind to help him. And Trey. You remember Trey?”
“Of course.” She swallowed hard. “Did he…say anything about me, Juan Luis? Anything at all?”
“Sí. He said…the two of you could not find a place to meet. In the middle, entiendes?”
Her heart took a tumble. But of course Nio would say that. She’d as much as told him that. God, she’d blown it. The whole thing. She’d as much as called him a liar when he’d told her about what her father had done.
The old man laid a gnarled hand on her shoulder. “But for me, I always think is better to…que se dice? To err on the side of hope when you talk of the heart, no? Pues, what else do we have left, cariño?”
Loneliness. That’s what. Becca walked to the edge of the garden overlooking the ocean. “I was wrong, Juan Luis. About everything. I’m stubborn and willful and I can’t even admit it when I should.”
“You are a woman,” he pointed out. “A woman must be strong. My wife—” he crossed himself “—bless her, she was like you. She had opinions. And stubbornness, too. And love. She could hold a heart in her hands as if it was—” he pointed to the monarch butterfly flitting around a purple agapanthus bloom “—a fragile thing. Her son, like his father, does not fear a woman who knows her own mind, but he also knows his own.”
“How can one person manage to screw everything up so badly?” Luna licked her bare calf and blinked up at her.
Juan Luis raised his bushy eyebrows. “Nothing was easy about what happened all those years ago. Nothing. Why would you expect it to be easy now? Life, it is wonderful and…complicado. Yes?”
“Yes,” she agreed, hugging the old man. “Complicated and terrible and…and sometimes wonderful, too. And no matter how it ends for us, for Nio and me, I have to try to make it right between us.”
With a smile, he glanced at his watch. “He said he was going right away. So…you better hurry.”
She kissed his cheek with a grateful buss. “Thank you. Put in a word to one of your saints for me, will you?”
Juan Luis folded his arms across his chest. “Always, cariño.”
*
Nio had loaded all of the supplies they’d need on the trip he’d planned and was stacking them in the galley as, up on the brig, Mick Chester prepared the engines. Luckily, the Viking’s misspent youth included many summers crewing vessels bigger than this one for wealthy yachtsmen off the Gulf Coast and he looked entirely at home and happy on this one. He’d volunteered to pilot this new vessel up to San Francisco for him tomorrow and Trey had agreed to come along for the ride.
On deck, Trey was concocting something alcoholic for Nio to drown his sorrows in, though they had unanimously concluded alcohol would do little to improve the situation. But he was just pissed off enough to try it anyway. Pissed, of course, at himself. Not her.
Lay blame where blame was due.
He checked his phone again for the twentieth time. Nothing.
He couldn’t deny that he’d hoped she’d change her mind about him, give him another chance. Especially after his talk last night with Lana. But pushing Becca past where she was ready to go was unwise, too. Maybe he’d miscalculated the timing. Maybe if he’d given her a few more months, things would have gone differently. But noth
ing had really gone as he’d expected or hoped, and now his chances with her were all shot to hell.
He wasn’t a man to wrestle much with regret; it was a waste of his time, generally. But he regretted his words to her last night. Angry words that he’d had no business saying. He could only imagine what she’d been through since he’d left all those years ago, but one thing was clear—those things had bruised her up good and maybe she’d never be able to forgive him for forcing her to go through them alone. But in his life, there were good choices and better choices, and some choices that were no choice at all.
Mick called down to him from the bridge. “Let me know when you’re ready to shove off. We’re ready at this end.”
“Thanks. I’m almost ready, too. Let’s give it another five.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Not that the delay was necessary. But both Trey and Mick knew—by Nio’s mood alone—what had gone down last night. But they were humoring him. She wasn’t coming. That much was clear.
The morning gloom over Laguna had burned away and the sun shone brightly through the cabin window. Outside, he could hear the gulls crying above the marina and the mast bell of a nearby sailboat dinging in the breeze. Maybe he would park his boat in a marina up in Marin County and live on it a while. Get a different perspective. He hadn’t made up his mind yet about work. To return full time or just part time. Ten years of plans had just gone up in smoke and that would take some reconnoitering. All the money, all the success he’d had, it meant nothing without her. She’d always been at the heart of everything he did.
Could he blame her for how she’d reacted? No. He might have done the same had the situations been reversed. After all, she couldn’t read his mind or know what he’d been thinking all that time. But whether or not keeping his end of the bargain with her father had been the right thing to do… What he wouldn’t give for—
Music.
Someone was blasting music on the docks. Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.”
He smiled slowly and shook his head as he loaded the canned peaches into the cupboard. God, he’d come to hate that song. How many times had he and Becca watched that movie, Say Anything, together while that song stirred them up? They’d sung it together in the dark. But in his mind, it had become their anthem of failure.
Unsung Hero Page 13
