“Leave her alone,” Carolyn chided. The couple stooped shoulder deep in the warm water, Carolyn’s arms around Jonathan’s neck. “We’re trying to have adult time here, remember?”
“Yeah, try acting like an adult, you big lug,” Sara teased her brother.
He made a silly face, their banter fueling her strokes toward the beach and the other sibling she hoped to eventually find some common ground with.
Off to the right, her parents and Edward bent over, peering at something on the sand. A shell or crab or maybe a washed-up sand dollar. Fond of beachcombing, the three of them and Robin attended a yearly medical conference in Tampa. Last year they’d flown down a day early to enjoy a day on the beach.
The pang of jealousy Sara typically felt when thinking of the trips Robin, and often Jonathan, shared with their parents for one medical conference or another failed to materialize.
Progress, her therapist would say.
Yes, it was.
Her mom straightened, putting her hand above her eyes to shield them from the sun as she stared in Sara’s direction.
Sara waved but continued swimming toward her sister.
Robin frowned as Sara neared, a fistful of wet sand drizzling through her open fingers. Behind her a piece of driftwood several feet long, battered and worn by the sun, saltwater, and sand, shifted under the tide’s pull. Wavering between staying on the shore and being swept out to sea again.
Kind of how Sara had spent the past twenty minutes since Luis dropped anchor and everyone else jumped overboard.
“What are you doing?” Robin asked.
Reminding herself that her sister’s brusque tone was the same with everyone, no need to read any slight into it, Sara slowed her swim stroke.
“Nothing. Just figured I’d join you.” She reached shallower water, where she squatted, bobbing in the light waves.
“Suit yourself.” Robin grabbed another fistful of sand, then let it slip away, aided by the lapping ocean.
“It’s been a good trip, don’t you think?” Sara tiptoed into the conversation. No use dive-bombing her sister right away with the hard questions, like why are you always annoyed with me?
“Yeah. It’s good to see Mom getting stronger.” Robin shifted to watch her husband and their parents, slowly strolling farther away, heads bent in search of the perfect shell.
“I agree. Honestly, I was pretty scared there for a while. Afraid we’d lose her. That I might not ever get a chance to—” Memories laced with fear rose to choke her and Sara rolled off the balls of her feet to plop onto her hip, cushioned by the soft sand. “Never get a chance to make her proud.”
So much for tiptoeing into emotional territory.
Robin’s face scrunched in a disbelieving scowl. “What are you talking about?” With an irritated scoff, she threw a handful of sand that landed in a series of tiny splashes across the water’s surface. “Of course she’s proud of you.”
A gray seagull squawked overhead, mimicking the screech of denial howling in Sara’s ears. The pain of rejection, the agony of how she had mistreated her body, the twisted thinking she was steadfastly working to untwist . . . they tumbled in on her like yesterday’s steel gray storm clouds, thunder rolling, lightning flashing through her.
“That’s ridiculous. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sara argued.
“Excuse you?”
Rather than deter Sara like it usually did, Robin’s condescending glare lit a fuse inside Sara. It hissed and flared and blew a powder keg on agonizing truths she had kept hidden all these years. All at once they came pouring out.
“My whole life I’ve tried so hard to live up to you and Jonathan. Knowing, because I’ve heard them say it a thousand times, how proud mom and dad are of you two. But me?”
She huffed a harsh breath and swatted away a mass of mossy green seaweed floating nearby. If only she could push away the hateful memories as easily.
“I’ve never been as academically gifted or just plain book smart or even musically-inclined. God those early piano recitals of mine were horrific, and Mom kept reminding me of how easily you had picked it up. Even Jonathan, until he switched to the guitar. Basically, I’ve always been all-around not as good as you at anything. I actually heard Mom say that to Mamá Alicia once. ‘Sometimes you have to lower your expectations for your child.’” Sara pitched her voice to sound more authoritative, copying their mother’s speech pattern. “Do you know what hearing that does to a teenager?”
The question ripped from her heart with gut-wrenching sorrow. Dully, Sara rubbed at the ache in her chest.
For the first time in Sara’s life, her sister appeared to be at a loss for words. Slack-jawed, Robin plunked her hand on her lap. Sand spread across the top of her thighs, dribbling onto her navy bathing suit bottom.
The geyser of self-revelation waned, having depleted the fight out of Sara. Spent, she slumped lower under the water. A school of tiny clear and gray fish zigzagged around her knees blissfully unaware of the monsoon of emotions and recriminations rumbling above the surface.
Robin blinked a couple times, visibly pulling herself out of her shocked stupor after Sara’s revelation.
“And yet I’m the daughter whose birth made our mother set aside a promising career,” Robin said, her astringent voice softened with self-recrimination. “Did you know she actually turned down a fellowship on the East Coast because she and Dad didn’t think it wise for one of them to single parent while they were separated?”
Robin’s shoulders sagged, ill-fitting dejection settling over them. Her brow creased as she shook her head. Then, as quickly as her mood dipped, she shook it off.
Abruptly straightening, she splashed water onto her lap to rinse away the sand. “So, I pushed myself. In high school, undergrad, med school, residency. It got worse when I started working at the hospital with Dad.” Her gaze lifted to Sara’s, empathy shone in her stormy gray eyes. “Because I used to believe I had to prove to her, and to myself, that giving up that fellowship and staying home until Jonathan and I started school wasn’t for naught.”
Used to believe.
Past tense.
“And now?” Sara asked.
“Now the only person I have to prove anything to is me. And my patients. They need to know they’re in the best hands when they come into my OR. I know for a fact that they are.”
Chin high, Robin stared at the open ocean, confidence bordering on cockiness in her tight jaw. A smattering of freckles chased each other across the bridge of her nose, trailing into her cheeks. They reminded Sara of the picture of their mom and a young Robin on her first day of kindergarten. Posture straight and stiff, their mom smiled for the camera, one hand on her eldest’s shoulder. Robin’s tiny face wore the same determined expression she normally wore.
Sara used to think that stone-faced look was a foreshadow of her sister’s surliness. Now she knew a child’s desperate desire to make her mother proud lay behind it.
“What helped you turn that corner? Relieve that pressure?” Sara asked, wondering how her sister had succeeded where Sara had failed. Horribly. Until Mamá Alicia intervened.
“Not what. Who.”
Robin tilted her head toward Edward.
“He doesn’t mind that I like working long hours, but he knows when I’ve pushed myself too far, and I need to unwind, even before I do. He gets me. The same way Luis seems to get you. And Carolyn with Jonathan.”
“Oh, I don’t know about Luis and me.”
“Well, I do. And I’m seldom wrong.”
Sara snorted a laugh. Even in the midst of their first heart-to-heart, her sister managed to insert her ego. And though Robin might be off base grouping Sara and Luis in with her siblings and their spouses, Sara had to admit Luis did have a knack for calming her when her thoughts threatened to spiral. Like he had Monday evening when they arrived at his parents’ house.
Still, who knew what would happen come Friday when she boarded her flight back to New York.
They had yet to talk about anything past this week.
Over near the Fired Up, Luis and Jonathan tossed a football. Carolyn watched, her arms looped around a bright orange float noodle. Their laughter carried on the humid breeze. A wistful smile tickled Sara’s lips. She wanted more days like this. Family time with them all together, including Luis.
Especially with Luis.
A pontoon boat motored slowly by. The passengers and boat captain waved hello. Luis called out a warning about shallow water in some of the nearby channels. The Captain tipped his ball cap before revving the engine’s throttle.
“Look, we both have issues stemming from our childhood.” Robin shrugged a shoulder, as if the troubles of their past were that easily brushed off. “I’ll admit, it bugged me to think that here I was, busting my ass to prove myself while they were coddling you. Plus, you had Mamá Alicia showering you with attention, while I’d been stuck with a bunch of college kids who were more worried about their social schedules and making an easy dollar. But I didn’t realize what you were dealing with, and that’s on me. I was an adult; you were a kid. I should have made the effort. But let’s be real. When it comes to touchy-feely crap like this”—Robin motioned between the two of them, frightening off another school of tiny fish—“I’m the first to back away.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Sara deadpanned.
Robin rolled her eyes.
Leaning forward onto her hands, Sara floated her legs behind her to alligator walk the few paces that brought her to Robin’s side. She sat next to her older sister, bumping their shoulders together.
“I appreciate you being honest with me,” Sara said. Bending her knees, she hugged them to her chest and rested her chin on top.
“Same here. It pieces things together better in my mind. Your ED. How and why it manifested. Why you moved to New York after signing with that agent, even though Mom had just been diagnosed. God, that pissed me off. It seemed so selfish. Leaving when she needed us the most.”
Guilt soured Sara’s stomach as she recalled the fight she and Robin had in the kitchen at their parents’ Scottsdale home the night before Sara left for New York. The palpable fear she’d lived with 24-7 back then. The seesaw between recovery and falling back on bad habits. The pressure to sign the sponsorship contract, thereby elevating her social media influencer status and increasing the odds of professional success.
The maelstrom of fears and pressures had driven Sara to yell hateful barbs in response to Robin’s snide, disparaging digs.
In the end, Sara had stormed up to her room, then left in the morning without telling Robin good-bye.
Sara buried her face on her raised knees, ashamed.
“I was so scared,” she murmured. “It felt like I was on borrowed time with Mom.” Swiveling her head, she stared at her sister, desperate for her understanding. “That need to prove myself before she was gone drove me insane. Sometimes it still does. But I’m working to lessen the pressure.”
And yet here she was with a fake boyfriend. Oh, the irony.
“Believe me, I get it.” Robin laid a comforting hand on Sara’s shoulder. “I’ve been there. The key to remember is where you are now. You’re in a better place, physically and mentally. Sounds like you’re kicking ass with your business. And you have time to make peace with Mom. Who is really wigging me out with her whole kumbaya movement.”
“So, I guess I shouldn’t ask if you want to hug it out then?” Sara teased.
“Oh my god, you too?!” Mock horror widened Robin’s eyes before she surprised Sara by throwing her arms around her.
The hug was tight and tender and over quickly.
Robin pushed to her feet, wiping sand from the back of her bathing suit bottom. “Now don’t get used to these heart-to-hearts. I think I’ve met my quota for at least the first half of the year. Deal?”
Sara grinned. “That’s what you think. Mom might have other ideas.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Together they turned toward their parents. The beachcombers were headed back in their direction.
Edward held something in his palm, and Sara’s dad peered down at it, their dark heads dipped close.
As if she sensed her daughters talking about her, Sara’s mom lifted her gaze from the sandy shore to them. She raised one of her talented, highly trained hands, the ones that had saved and improved the lives of countless children in her OR for decades, in a tentative wave. The hopeful smile trembling on her lips belied the concern creasing her thin face.
“What class of mollusk did you find?” Robin asked, raising her voice to be heard over a boat approaching their slice of paradise. “Any luck spotting a cephalopod?”
“No. But I discovered a few intact bivalves,” Edward called back. He held out his hand for her to investigate.
Robin traipsed through the shallow water toward her husband, their scientific identification of the shells Sara would have identified as peachy or creamy or simply pretty proving the veracity of Robin’s earlier claim—she and Edward “got” each other.
The right partner could do that for a person.
Robin assumed Luis might be the one for Sara. There’d been plenty of times over the past five days that made her believe perhaps it could be true. But . . .
But as giving and passionate as he was when they made love, despite their private, intimate conversations, she couldn’t squelch the niggling sensation that he still held part of himself back.
It was there when he deflected her question about what Carlos meant the other night when he whispered about fate and shaking things up. And the serendipitous timing of her visit coinciding with Luis’s mandated time off.
Mandated?
According to her and Luis’s game plan this entire week, they were supposed to deflect questions they didn’t want to lie about. To others. Not between them.
What was he keeping from her?
Had all they shared only been a simple distraction to Luis?
Had she set herself up for disappointment by jumping into something too fast, aga—
Stop!
The command screamed inside her head. Halting the negative thought spiral. Don’t go looking for bad, focus on the good, she repeated her therapist’s advice.
Eyes closed, Sara tipped her face to the hot sun. She listened to the singsong call of birds from the sandbar’s lush vegetation melding with a boat engine’s rumble and Luis’s excited, “I got it,” as her brother tossed him the football. Underneath her feet, the sand shifted with the tide’s pull. Warm water lapped at her legs, wrapping a piece of seaweed around her shin.
She soaked in all the details like a thirsty sea sponge. Snapped a mental picture memory she would carry with her, always.
Focus on the positive.
Today had been a great day, and there was more to come.
Chapter 20
“Today was a good one, huh?” Luis paused at the top of the steps leading to the rental home’s front porch.
Wanting one last moment with Sara before meeting back up with her family, he guided her away from the thin rectangular windows outlining the front door, toward the rattan rockers where he could steal a kiss or two without being seen from inside.
“Yeah, it was,” she said. Her smile brimmed with a joy that brightened his day like the morning sun peeking over the Atlantic’s horizon.
“I’m proud of you,” he told her, his hands on her shoulders drawing her closer.
“Me too. My talk with Robin went better than I thought. Should have done it sooner. Which I’m sure my therapist will tell me.”
But she’d done it. Faced her fear of being honest and baring her pain with her sister. Shame slithered in Luis’s chest.
Doggedly he ignored it, concentrating on Sara and the amazing progress she’d made with her family this week.
“You’re incredible, you know that?” He dipped his head to brush his lips against hers. Craving more.
The straw beach bag hanging from her left wrist knocked against his
hip when she wrapped her arms around his waist, going up on her toes to meet him stroke for stroke. Her moan of pleasure encouraged him. Hungry for all she offered, he cupped her butt, brought her lower body flush with his. Showing her exactly how quickly she aroused him.
If only her family weren’t waiting for them inside.
Reluctantly Luis pulled back to nip at her chin. Take a couple love bites of her jawline. Sara lolled her head to the side, giving him easy access to her slender neck and the sensitive spot behind her ear. She smelled of sun, surf, and sweat . . . a heady combination that had him addicted to her. For her.
“If we keep this up,” he murmured against her warm skin, “I won’t be able to walk in there without making a spectacle of myself.”
“Mmmm, but it feels so good.”
It sure as hell did.
Everything about this entire week did. Almost too good.
Which was why his doom and gloom radar had been blipping ever since her family had driven away from the boat ramp near his house in Big Coppitt, heading home to wash up and start preparing the fish they’d caught for dinner while he and Sara cleaned and stored his boat.
The whole time she toiled beside him—scrubbing the deck, cleaning the workstation behind the boat helm where he’d cut their bait and cleaned the snapper, rinsing and storing the life vests—he couldn’t stop thinking that she was the absolute perfect first mate. On the Fired Up and in his life.
He needed to tell her that. Get it out in the open.
But old insecurities refused to completely release their grip on him.
So, he had remained quiet. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hoping it wasn’t a steel-toed boot that wound up kicking him in the balls.
“We should head inside,” Sara said on a sigh.
Her hands explored his back, teased the waistband on his board shorts, driving him crazy because their foreplay couldn’t lead to the satisfaction both of them wanted.
“Mom already texted. Everything’s ready. They’re just waiting on us before putting the fish on the grill.” Sara stepped backward toward the door. Linking her fingers with his, she gave a little tug. Like he wouldn’t follow her anywhere.
Island Affair Page 27
