As soon as they entered the home’s cool interior, Luis heard a loud clamor of voices coming from the living room.
“I don’t understand?” Ruth’s distressed cry meshed with Robin’s worried, “Mother, calm down,” and Jonathan’s firm, “You should leave!”
“Enough!” Charles’s deep baritone, stiff with authority, cut through the bedlam, silencing everyone. “I am sure Sara has a valid explanation for all of this.”
Sara sent Luis a confused frown.
Before he could say anything, she hurried down the hall. The slap-slap-slap of her black flip-flops against the hardwood floor galvanized him into action. Tossing his truck keys in the shell-shaped bowl on the hutch, he followed quickly behind her.
“An explanation for what?” she asked seconds before they reached the living room. “Oh!”
She gasped, rearing back and bumping into Luis. Her arms went slack at her sides, the big beach bag dropping onto the floor at her feet.
Luis grabbed her hips to steady her, peering down with concern when she went slack in his arms, her complexion suddenly pale. He ran his gaze from her parents and Robin seated on the sand-colored chenille sofa. To Edward, propped on the sofa arm near his wife. To Jonathan and Carolyn, squashed together on the matching oversized ottoman. And finally, to a clean-shaven, slick-looking pretty boy wearing a pinstriped suit and a polished, whitened-teeth smile.
The stranger rose from his seat in the overstuffed chair angled to the left of the sofa. He tugged the bottom of his suit coat sharply, his too-large smile confident. It reminded Luis of a smarmy salesman ready to sweet-talk you into a deal on a piece of swampy, mosquito-infested property in the Everglades.
Luis’s hands tightened on Sara’s hips. Dread oozed through him, thick and suffocating.
“Hello, Sara, it’s good to see you,” the stranger said.
“Ric, what the hell are you doing here?”
Sara’s harsh, horrified question confirmed Luis’s worst nightmare.
And just like that, the steel-toed boot he’d been anticipating swung hard and fast. With dead-on accuracy.
* * *
Ric’s schmoozy smile, the fake one that had grated on her nerves once she learned to spot its insincerity, slipped the tiniest bit at Sara’s blunt question. Good, she hoped the jerk was sweating underneath his sports coat.
“You invited me, remember?” he had the audacity to say. He spread his arms as if expecting her to give him a welcome hug. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
She actually laughed, surprised by his narcissism. “I’m not sure why. The last thing I said to you was, ‘Go to hell.’ ”
“Sara?” Her father rose from the sofa, his impervious Chief Cardiothoracic Surgeon regal bearing firmly in place. Even in khaki shorts and a tropical print shirt rather than his white lab coat and stethoscope.
“It’s okay, Dad. I’ve got this.” She held up a hand to stop her father and anyone else from stepping in. Although, based on Ruth’s shocked expression and the splayed hand on her chest, Sara’s mother was incapable of speaking at the moment. The rest of her family ran the gamut from pissed off: Jonathan, glaring at Ric, to haughty superiority juxtaposed with concern: Robin, her gaze skittering between Ric and their mom.
Ric had the gall to open his arms wider, still awaiting her welcome hug. “Come on, you didn’t really mean it, did you?”
“You should go, Ric,” Sara said firmly.
“Don’t you—”
“Please don’t make this any more awkward than it already is,” she interrupted, trying to remember what about him had appealed to her in the first place. “We were finished before you bailed on me. We’ve both known it.”
“But we’re good together,” he reasoned.
“On paper, maybe.” Sara shook her head, resigned to a truth she had ignored far too long. “But the reality is, no, we’re not. And I deserve better. We both do.”
It had taken her this week, the difficult steps paired with the amazing highs, to reach this important milestone in her recovery.
Having the first heart-to-heart with her sister.
Joking with her brother and sharing tight hugs with her parents.
Meeting and falling in love with Luis.
Her heart stuttered at the truth she hadn’t fully admitted to herself, and she pressed a hand to her chest, scared, but certain.
“Sara, I drove all the—”
“She asked you to leave, buddy.” Luis stepped close behind her.
Sara didn’t need to look over her shoulder to picture his tight-jawed, don’t-mess-with-me glare. The steel in his gruff voice warned her.
Ric’s gaze moved between her and Luis for several tense seconds.
Sara eyed him dispassionately.
“Fine, I’m out.” Ric held his hands up, as if he was doing them a favor by acquiescing.
“Thank you.” She tipped her head, determined to remain polite.
“So much for nice gestures like surprising your girlfriend,” Ric muttered as he strode toward her.
Luis swiftly moved forward, angling his large body to shield Sara from her ex. “Nice would have been not standing her up in the first place.”
“Whatever.”
Ric’s inane response to Luis’s truth exemplified the degree to which fortune had smiled on her last Friday. First with Ric’s no-show and then with Luis stepping up in his amazing way.
Moments later, the front door slammed behind Ric. Sara flinched. Framed artwork rattled on the shaking walls and a tense silence settled over the living room.
Sara faced her parents. Dread and, strangely, relief clashed inside her. She hated admitting the insecurity behind her foolish plan, but she was so very tired of the little pretenses negatively coloring her relationship with Luis when they were around her family.
She was ready for the truth to be set free.
“Mom, Dad, this is Luis Navarro.” She gestured at Luis. “Driver Engineer and master diver with the Key West Fire Department.”
It felt awkward, introducing him when they had all spent so much time together already, but he deserved to be shown that respect.
Luis gave a polite nod. “Sir, ma’am.”
His dark gaze cut to Sara, and she realized he was waiting to take his cue from her, the mastermind behind their charade. Even though it had all blown up, he gave her the power to decide how they would proceed.
“What’s going on here, Sar-bear?” Her father’s confused frown made her stomach churn.
Uncertain, Sara slid her gaze around the living room. Her mother and Jonathan stared at her with dismay. Edward’s pity and Carolyn’s compassion stung. But Robin’s stone-faced cynicism and Luis’s tight-jawed apprehension cut the deepest.
“I, uh . . . the thing is . . . well, it’s, it’s kinda funny . . .”
She trailed off, unsure where to start. But funny was definitely not it.
Pressing a hand to her temple and her whirling thoughts, she paced toward the sliding glass door that opened to the backyard oasis. The serenity of the waterfall pool called to her. Around the left side of the yard, the gate on the eight-foot-high privacy fence promised freedom, the potential to outrun the pain of her loved ones’ disillusion with her. That unhealthy escape had almost worked in the past. But she refused to go that route again.
Desperation clawed at her chest. She wanted so badly to not undo the progress she had made with her family. Certain any explanation she gave would only confirm her ineptitude in their minds.
And yet lies would only tarnish and destroy. Doubts pushed her to spit out the truth and lay claim to her foolishness.
“Ric Montez. The real one.” She jabbed a hand toward the front of the house. “Is, as I’m sure you have already noted, a self-centered jerk I should have dumped months ago. A fact that was confirmed when he decided not to show up last Friday. A decision he didn’t share until I had already arrived. I knew Mom was excited to meet my boyfriend, and Dad—”
Sara to
ok a tentative step toward her father, pleading with every cell in her body for him to understand. Instead she was met by the disappointment she had always feared from them. She spun away, shattered, to pace her agitation.
“We wanted this week to be a special celebration for Mom. No stress.” She wrung her hands, fear and shame driving her, dogging her steps back and forth in front of the sliding glass door. “The last thing I wanted was Mom worrying, thinking I can’t get my life together. I can. I am. It’s just—anyway. Rather than admit I’d been stood up and . . . and put a damper on Mom’s excitement . . . I hired Luis as my pretend boyfriend.”
“What?!”
“No shit!”
“Unbelievable.”
The cacophony of responses from her mother and siblings halted Sara’s pacing. But when Luis reared back as if she had slapped him, Sara immediately realized her blunder.
“Luis, I didn’t mean—”
He gave a brusque shake of his head and she broke off. His nostrils flared. Pain flashed in his eyes, followed quickly by disdain. A mask of stoicism slipped into place, hardening his chiseled features.
Hands fisted at his sides, back and shoulders erect as if he were facing his captain, Luis addressed her parents. “Ruth, Charles, my sincere apologies for the part I played in this fiasco. I hope you can believe me when I say that it has been a true pleasure meeting you, and the rest of your family.” He dipped his head toward the others.
“Son, it’s not clear why—”
“Excuse the interruption, sir,” Luis told her father. “The why of all this is not mine to tell. Since it doesn’t appear that my services are needed here anymore, I will grab my things and head out.” Laying a hand on his chest, he gave her mom a slight bow. “Ruth, I sincerely admire your tenacity and new outlook on life. I wish you well.”
Then, as she murmured a forlorn, “Thank you,” Luis left the room. Without sparing Sara a single glance.
He rounded the banister in the foyer, where he stopped, head bowed, his large hand squeezing the curving balustrade.
Sara waited, breath trapped in her lungs. Praying he would look at her. Give her a sliver of hope that there was a chance to make things right between them.
Instead, he disappeared up the steps.
Eyes burning with unshed tears, she buried her face in her hands.
“Oh, sweetheart,” her mother crooned. Moments later, her skinny arms were around Sara, offering comfort. “Honey, this doesn’t make any sense.”
Ashamed at how badly she had bungled her explanation, cheapening what she and Luis had shared, Sara welcomed her mother’s embrace.
“I know it doesn’t!” Tears threatening, she scrubbed at her eyes, desperate to make things right. Afraid she couldn’t.
“Why, sweetie?”
“I just, I thought—” Sara broke off on a shuddering sob. “Because—”
“Because she made a poor decision.”
Sara cringed at her sister’s blunt truth.
“Based on the fact that many of us—myself included,” Robin continued. “Have not taken her or her career seriously.”
Shocked by her sister’s support, Sara swiped at her tears, then tentatively met Robin’s gaze. Her smug, you-know-I’m-right expression had never made Sara feel particularly loved. Until now.
“Frankly,” Robin continued in her usual brusque delivery. “I don’t know why you’re still down here. You should be upstairs, working things out with the guy who spent the last five days helping all of us”—she held up her pointer finger, circling it to indicate the entire room—“feel more like a family and less like an institution. Am I right? Or am I right?”
“I don’t kno—”
“That was a rhetorical question,” Robin interrupted Sara, her lips curved in a smug grin. “We all know the answer.”
An hysterical giggle bubbled up Sara’s throat.
Her mom squeezed her arm around Sara’s shoulders with an encouraging smile. Jonathan jerked his thumb toward the front of the house. And her dad, her dad gave the wink he’d greeted her with every time he peeked into her room to say good night when she was a kid.
Relief, sweet and pure, rained over her.
“I could totally kiss you right now,” she told her sister, hands pressed over her racing heart.
“Yeah, wrong person,” Robin complained. “Now get out of here.”
Jonathan’s laughter chased Sara down the hall and up the stairs where she stopped in front of her closed bedroom door.
Her pulse pounding, she wiped her clammy palms on her beach cover-up. She sucked in a shaky breath, then counted down from ten as she slowly released it.
The technique did absolutely nothing to calm her racing pulse.
Positives. She had to focus on the positives.
The truth was out. No more subterfuge. No more pretense.
They could be open and honest with everyone. With each other. That was a good thing.
Buoyed by her reasoning, Sara opened the door and stepped inside, closing it quietly behind her.
Luis stormed out of the bathroom, his shaving cream and black toiletry bag in his hands. He gaze cut to hers, but he didn’t say anything as he continued to the bed where his duffel sat open, his clothes thrown haphazardly inside.
His drawer under the long plank desk sat open, empty. His running shoes and tan dress sneakers no longer sat in their spots next to the wardrobe. He wasn’t wasting any time getting out of here. Away from her.
“Can we please talk for a moment?” she asked, choosing to stay by the wardrobe, giving him some space.
“I don’t know what there is to say.”
He jammed the shaving cream canister into his duffel with a harsh shove. Muscles flexed and bunched in his arms and torso, on full display through the supersize armholes ripped nearly to the hem of his tank. Barely concealed anger warred with his usual self-control. It pulsed off him as if he were Bruce Banner mid-transformation into the Hulk.
Confusion bled into her remorse. Yes, she could have, should have, explained the situation better. Did that warrant this degree of reproach?
“Don’t leave like this,” she pleaded.
“I was hired to do something that’s no longer necessary.”
“Look, that came out wrong downstairs.”
“No worries. Now I know where we stand.”
Scared by his implacable demeanor, she lifted her arms in supplication. “I was freaking out and described things poorly. I’m sorry. But is that really reason enough to blow things up between us?”
“Things. Things,” he muttered under his breath. Grabbing one side of the open flap on his bag, he jerked it wider as he rummaged inside. “What things are you talking about? We had fun together. Achieved what we set out to do last Friday. I killed some time. You made progress with your family like you wanted. Missions accomplished. I mean, I’m assuming they’ll forgive you for the lie; that’s what families usually do.”
“Except for you with Enrique, right?”
“No. Nu-uh.” He backed away from the bed, shaking his finger at her as if she were one of his nephews in need of scolding. “I told you from the beginning, we’re not bringing my family into this.”
“But they already are.”
“Don’t go there.” Luis continued backing up until his hamstrings hit the shelf desk behind him. A framed photograph of the rental home’s owners standing on a sunset beach tipped over, clattering onto the desk. He ignored it.
Sara stepped toward him, gut instinct driving her to press. Make him confront the problems he brought to the table but ignored. “Your issues with the past, they’ve been in this room. On the beach, in your truck. Wherever we’ve been together, those issues have been there, too. Doing their part to hamper our chances of getting close. Truly close.”
He blew out a harsh laugh. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A derisive grimace twisted his lips, but she saw it . . . the flash of recognition in his dark eyes b
efore he turned away.
Sara prayed, harder than she’d ever prayed for anything, that he’d open up to her now. Instead, when he deigned to look back at her, it was gone. Pushed down, buried where he didn’t have to deal with the past.
Anguish knifed deep into her chest with a poison-tipped blade.
“Tell me, what did Carlos mean about you having forced time off?” she asked.
Luis glared at her with his don’t-mess-with-me scowl. He should know by now that it didn’t work on her. She wasn’t afraid of him. Only of his inability to let go of whatever kept him chained to the past.
“What did he mean?” she repeated, refusing to back down. This was too important. They were too important.
“Nothing. He’s always talking without thinking.” Luis crossed his arms, nudging a shoulder forward in an annoying whatever shrug. “Joking around. Gina complains that he—”
“Stop it!”
Luis’s mouth thinned, his jaw muscle ticcing.
Hands on her hips, she tilted her head to stare through the skylight in the angled wall above him, seeking wisdom, guidance, anything that would help her break through this wall he had suddenly erected between them.
All she found was another gorgeous Key West sunset. The ball of fire had already begun its descent, leaving its breathtaking watercolor display across the sky in its wake. Right now, tourists and locals were gathered at Mallory Square, marveling at nature’s artistic ability. Like she and Luis had done together not even a week ago.
Their relationship had skyrocketed into something amazing since then, only to dip in a nosedive set to end with a fiery crash and burn.
Sorrow clogged her throat as she stared back at his imposing figure. Legs spread in a wide stance. Impressive arms still crossed defiantly in front of his broad chest. Rugged face set in a stern mask marred by the disillusion in his dark eyes.
She swallowed, fighting the prick of hot tears.
“Please, don’t do that,” she pleaded, her voice raw with regret.
“Do what?”
“Deflect. That’s what you’re doing, right? It was our game plan. Deflect when someone asks a question we want to avoid or don’t want to lie about.”
He rolled his lips in as if holding back a response.
Island Affair Page 28
