Havana Sunrise

by Kymberly Hunt

  He took a deep breath. Trey’s golden brown eyes were wide and attentive, understanding as much as a six year old could, and he was bonding for reasons that were possibly more intense than Julian even thought.

  “My father loved the ocean,” Julian murmured, his arms around the boy. “Sometimes when I’m alone, walking on the beach, I listen to the sound of the waves and it’s almost like I can still hear him. I hear him in the music from my guitar too.”

  He sat up straighter on the piano bench, bracing his back against the instrument, noting that Trey, still in his arms, showed no sign of wanting to escape.

  “All fathers don’t like the same things, though. I’ll bet your father liked…” He tried to imagine what Nicole’s late husband would have enjoyed. “How about baseball?”

  Encouraged by Trey’s smile, he ventured further. “Imagine this—you’re watching your favorite player hit a home run, and everybody’s cheering. In the roar of the crowd, you can hear your father cheering too. Better yet, suppose it’s you. Trey Evans up at bat.”

  Trey laughed at the imagery.

  “Your father’s rooting for you, Trey. He’s right there with you—cheering louder than everybody else, and you don’t have to be a baseball player. You can be whatever you choose, doctor, architect,” he noticed Trey pointing at the guitar, “or musician. He just wants you to be the best you can be, and your mother and grandparents want that too.”

  And what about you? Trey’s eyes asked him wistfully. Is that what you want me to be?

  “Me too,” Julian concluded.

  He suddenly felt deflated. Nicole would no doubt be appalled by the conversation. He was about as far from Trey’s father as anyone could get, yet the boy was clearly trying to see him as a potential substitute and he had been willingly falling for it. Breaking the spell, he reached for the guitar and placed it in Trey’s arms.

  “Okay, maestro. Let’s hear “Guantanamera” one more time so you don’t forget.”

  Obediently, Trey repeated the chords he had learned.

  “Excellent! Now it’s time for you to go home.”

  Amanda had fallen asleep on the floor in front of the television. Julian woke her up, despite her protests, and they all stepped outside, to be immediately caught up in the glare of headlights from an approaching car.

  Julian flinched in irritation as Elena and Luis stepped out, both attired in formal wear. He wondered what pretense-at-charity, high society social affair Elena had talked her husband into this time.

  “My goodness, Elena exclaimed, spotting her daughter. “Amanda, what on earth are you doing up this late?”

  “Mommy, it’s okay,” Amanda said. “Nanny said I could. We were just watching a movie.”

  “Well, into the house, right now, young lady.” Elena glared at Julian. She would have to have a talk with Amanda’s nanny.

  Amanda hurried to obey. Luis flashed Julian an apologetic look, then put his hand on his wife’s arm in an attempt to guide her inside. But Elena halted, noticing Trey for the first time. “Why, hello there. Who are you?” she asked.

  Julian opened the door of his Explorer for Trey to get in, and the little boy averted eye contact with Elena completely as he scrambled inside.

  “Julian, whose child is that?” Elena demanded, the irritation at having been snubbed, apparent in her voice.

  “He doesn’t talk, Mommy!” Amanda yelled from the doorway, before Julian could answer.

  “Doesn’t talk,” Elena repeated, then impatiently snapped at her daughter. “Amanda get inside and go to bed right now!”

  She turned her attention back to Julian who was about to get in the car. “Who’s the little boy?”

  “The son of a friend,” Julian said nonchalantly. “What’s the big deal?”

  “Your friends allow their children to stay up all night?”

  “Elena,” Luis tried to intervene. “This is not your business.”

  “He’s my brother. Don’t tell me that he’s not my business! Julian, have you lost your mind? Don’t you remember what happened to that other singer who liked hanging around children?”

  “Elena, why don’t you just…” He stopped himself, remembering that Trey was in the car. “That doesn’t deserve a reply.”

  Julian turned the key in the ignition and glared back at her through the open window. He was completely disgusted by what she had implied, although certainly not surprised. He knew that she had always considered him to be a talented, hopelessly immature person, who was also brainless and inferior, but accusing him of being a pervert was something new.

  “Julian, ignore that,” Luis said loudly. “You know how your sister is. She doesn’t mean it.”

  His words fell on the retreating headlights as the car pulled off.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Hello, Julian. This is Nicole.” She tried to control the irritation in her voice, but she couldn’t completely obliterate it.

  “Nicole,” he said, sounding pleased. “Can you hang on a few minutes? I’m in the studio.

  Hang on? I’d really like to hang you at this moment, Nicole thought as she held the phone to her ear.

  “Okay. I’m in the lobby. I can talk,” he said.

  “You let my son watch The Lion King last night after I told you not to…”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I asked him. Trey draws pictures and sometimes we communicate that way, but that’s beside the point. I told—”

  “It wasn’t intentional,” Julian interrupted. “It’s Amanda’s favorite movie. She wanted to see it and I wasn’t even thinking until—”

  “You’re the adult. You’re supposed to think,” she reminded him curtly.

  “What’s the problem? Did he seem upset by it?”

  She was taken aback. “Well, no. He didn’t seem to be.” She was the one who was upset. Trey had been quite pleased with the entire evening.

  “I didn’t think so,” Julian replied before she could get another word in. “How about coming with me to Barbados next weekend?”

  The man never ceased to amaze her. Nicole shook her head in despair. She was still annoyed by what had happened with Trey and wanted to discuss it further, but typically he’d made light of her irritation and had the audacity to throw in an invitation. Of course she couldn’t just drop everything and go to Barbados. Normal women didn’t do such things unless they were hopelessly in love.

  “I know what you’re going to say, but I won’t take no for an answer. I’m sure you can get Friday off from work. You must have a lot of unused vacation days,” Julian continued.

  She found herself taking offense. She was not some publicity-starved starlet dying to be in his presence, but her response came out like a weak excuse. “Julian, even if I could, I can’t leave Trey with my sister. She has a date.”

  “I told you I’m not going to take no for an answer. Trey can come with us.”

  Why don’t you ask Dana? she thought, but bit her lip to keep from saying it. The remark would sound just like something a jealous lover would say, and Julian was only her friend. She wasn’t above lecturing her friends when they needed it, but she never got offended over what they did with their personal lives.

  She had been to some of the other islands but never to Barbados. She desperately needed to break up the routine of her life and three days away would not hurt, especially because Trey would be with them. What harm could it possibly do?

  “But isn’t Barbados a little far to travel for just three days?” she asked haltingly.

  “No. It’s roughly a two-hour flight, and it’s one of my favorite islands, real nice and low-key. I’ll pick you up in the morning. Just bring passports or birth certificates.”

  * * *

  They arrived at the airport on Friday and Nicole was shocked to discover they were not going on a commercial airliner but a private Learjet. Julian assured her that their pilot was one of the best and was also a friend whose services he used while on tour. Another surprise wa
s that Amanda and her fiftyish au pair, Michelle, were also accompanying them. Julian explained that Michelle would look after both kids, leaving them free to pursue more adult things. His clever plotting unnerved her a bit, but it was too late to back out.

  The flight was smooth and it was around noontime that they landed at the airport in Barbados, to the tune of an obligatory welcoming steel drum band. After passport checks and customs red tape, a chauffeur picked them up for the ride to the hotel.

  Nicole would have been even more unsettled had it not been for Amanda’s persistent chattering, bringing her back to reality. Trey, who had a fascination with airplanes, continued to watch the airport’s landing strip until it vanished from sight.

  They had a suite in a first class hotel, with the largest room going to the kids and Michelle. Nicole and Julian had their own separate rooms.

  “Any complaints about the accommodations?” Julian asked.

  “No. This is more than perfect.” She wandered about, pushing open the sliding doors and stepping out onto the balcony, which overlooked gardens and a fountain. In the distance she could see the ever-present turquoise sea.

  Julian retreated to his room to make some business calls, while she checked out the large living room and dining room. The master bathroom had a Jacuzzi. She realized that after having seen his Miami home, she was no longer dazzled by opulence. This definitely was befitting a celebrity, but it paled in comparison to his place.

  Trey trailed around after her because Julian was temporarily off limits. Nicole noticed even more that her son was really getting attached to him, and she wasn’t sure it was a good thing. How was Trey going to handle it when the roar of the crowd and the glow of the spotlight took his current hero away permanently? How was she going to handle it?

  A maid served lunch in the dining room, without being obtrusive. She simply set everything up and left as quickly and quietly as she’d appeared. Amanda and Trey attacked the food ravenously, as though they’d been starving for days.

  “Hey, you two, easy,” Nicole said laughing. “Save something for the rest of us.”

  “There’s a lot,” Amanda replied, her mouth full.

  Michelle lightheartedly reprimanded Amanda for her uncivilized behavior, then announced that she would take the children out for a walk around the grounds. She told Nicole everything they planned to do. She was not the least bit uncomfortable with Trey’s silence. Nicole could tell that Michelle was a very capable woman, and she had no cause to worry about Trey being under her care.

  Trey was not so thrilled with the plans. He wanted to be with Julian. Amanda whispered something in his ear and abruptly his attitude changed and he seemed content to go. She would have to question Amanda about that later on.

  Nicole retreated to her room. What she really wanted to do was take a quick walk on the beach and wade in the water. From her open suitcase, she selected one of two bathing suits she had brought. They were both scoop-necked, one-piece styles similar to the types Warren had liked on her. In private, he had preferred her in a bikini, but in public he had always made an issue over the imagined notion that other men were looking at her. It annoyed her now when she thought back on it.

  She remembered a vacation in Bermuda. She had left Warren in the hotel room and gone walking on the beach wearing a turquoise blue bikini, her hair in long cornrow braids, searching around for exotic shells. There were other scantily clad people swimming and sunning around her but not intrusively. Warren had appeared, carrying a long cover up skirt, suggesting that she wear it. Nicole had objected.

  “I don’t see anyone else wearing cover-ups. Why should I?”

  “If all the guys gawking at you knew what I had to put up with, they wouldn’t find you so sexy.”

  The words had hurt. She remembered not speaking to him for the rest of the day and becoming even more infuriated when he seemed to have no clue what he’d done wrong.

  Why am I thinking about that? she wondered. It was an annoying flaw, but it wasn’t all his fault. Warren had been raised the oldest child in a single-parent family consisting of a mother and four whining sisters. He’d worked at a young age to support the family when his high school dropout mother couldn’t get a job. Even after his mother died and the sisters were adults, they’d always come running to him when they needed something. He’d learned to view women as indecisive and weak, always needing a man to advise them, and he had taken that attitude into their marriage.

  Resolved not to think about the past anymore, she selected the yellow-gold suit, and after showering, she slipped it on and checked herself out in the full-length mirror. Fortunately she did not see any unsightly bulges or sagging skin. Not bad for a woman who was no longer in her twenties.

  She knew that Julian was going to be observing her and it was going to feel awkward. He had never seen her in so little clothing before. She felt naked. Maybe he wouldn’t pay that much attention. After all, he was used to ethereal beauties like Dana and countless others. She was just an ordinary, tall, leggy woman with flaws—just his friend. It would be okay.

  She tied on a tropical-print wrap-around skirt with yellow patterns that matched the top of the suit. She loosened the bonds holding her ponytail and shook out her long ripples of hair. The tresses fell halfway down her back, covering the exposed skin. Methodically she slathered sun block on her face, legs and arms, recalling that Michelle had remembered to do the same for Trey and Amanda.

  “You fool,” she muttered aloud to herself as she sprayed on a lightly scented cologne and inspected herself one more time. What exactly were her reasons for all this agonizing and primping? She rarely spent more than ten minutes in front of a mirror normally.

  There was a light tap on her door. “Vacation’s officially started,” Julian said. “How about a stroll on the beach?”

  “My plans exactly. I’ll be out in a second,” she called back.

  Julian surveyed the banquet spread on the dining room table, sampled some of the hors d’oeuvres, and waited. He felt slightly agitated. Would Nicole finally drop some of her reserve? Would the beauty of the island cast a spell? They only had three days, counting this one. The awful truth was he didn’t really know if he wanted her to completely drop her reserve. It was one of the things that intrigued him. She made him feel as if he were courting a girl from another era. Even the notion of courting, if that really was what he was doing, seemed strange.

  Nicole breezed into the room and turning to look at her, he was rendered speechless by her exotic beauty. She tossed the tube of sun block at him and he caught it.

  “You look stunning,” he exclaimed.

  She pretended to ignore his comment. “The sun can be extremely damaging to skin. Why is it that most men always forget that?”

  “Elena reminds me constantly,” he replied, his eyes still glued on her.

  “This time Elena is right.” Nicole said.

  To placate her he smeared the stuff on. Nicole sampled the fruit punch on the table, watching him out of the corner of her eye. It was funny because he kind of made her think of an outrageously handsome boy in his black v-necked T-shirt and fluorescent, aqua swimming trunks that came just above the knee—Trey all grown up. He would probably be appalled if he could read her mind.

  “All done, Mom,” Julian said, handing the tube back to her.

  He took her hand and gently pulled her close to him, so close that she could feel both of their hearts beating. Instantly all of her visions of him as a young boy fled. He brushed her lip with his finger, sending tremors up her spine.

  “Let’s take that walk now,” he said.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The white sand shifted under her feet as they walked hand-in-hand, skirting the tide. The water was several surreal shades of blue. A few palm trees dotted the beach but they didn’t provide much relief from the blazing sun.

  “Julian, are there places in Cuba that look like this?”

  “I have no clue what Cuba looks like at this point,”
Julian said, squinting in the sunlight.

  “I know you haven’t been there for years, but what do you remember?”

  “There are good beaches at Varadaro. Mostly Canadian tourists go there now, but before the Soviet Union fell, it used to be a hang-out for the Russians.”

  “What about the Cuban people?”

  “They mostly work there.”

  He was not going to elaborate on that subject, she noticed. He released her hand and stripped the T-shirt off over his head, tossing it on the sand, where they had placed their towels, far from the tide’s reach.

  “I never did ask you if you can swim. Can you?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “I wouldn’t exactly call myself a good swimmer, though. I usually restrict myself to pools.”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, just don’t go in too deep. We’re on the Atlantic side of the island. The water here can be a little rough. The Caribbean side is a lot gentler.”

  Nicole undid the skirt and tossed it where he had thrown his shirt. Julian’s eyes appraised her. He gave an audible sigh of relief.

  “What was that for?” she asked nervously.

  “I’m just grateful that you’re not wearing one of those old lady suits with the skirt.”

  Instinctively she slapped him. “I’m not sixty yet.”

  “That you definitely are not.”

  His attention was more than unnerving. She tried not to blush. “Of course if you were expecting a thong, I’m not sorry to disappoint you.”

  “I did buy you one,” Julian said.

  “You better be kidding. I’m not Dana.” Ouch! I had to let that slip, she thought.

  “Dana?” Julian quizzed.

  “Dana Reid,” Nicole said wanly. That model…actress you were with in Mexico. It was in the gossip column.”

  Julian seemed amused. “It’s all just publicity. Famous people like to be seen with others who are. It attracts attention. Dana Reid means nothing to me.”

  Nicole shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. “Your hand was on her backside.”