Love in the Air: Lopez Island Series #2

by Jamie E. Matthews

  “Thanks, cariño.” Agata kissed him on the cheek when he handed her the drink.

  “Yeah, thanks, querido.” Nell kissed him on the other cheek, and laughed at his bemused expression.

  “I like this one,” Agata said, elbowing him. “You should keep her.”

  “No man can keep me,” Nell laughed.

  Agata raised her eyebrows. “Oh, I’ll put money on my son any day.”

  “Mama. It’s not like that.” Adrian gently turned her around so she was facing the lawn. “Look, Marcelo is flirting with Emma. Go tell him to stop.”

  “What?” She narrowed her eyes, studied. “Hmm.” And, then she was off, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Finally.” Adrian moved in, rested his hands on Nell’s waist. “We’re alone.”

  Nell surveyed the crowd around them. “For the moment. Everyone seems to be having a good time.”

  “I’m going to have a better time in a minute,” Adrian murmured, brushing his lips over hers. Feeling the slight tension in her body and knowing she was skittish about PDAs, he kept his kiss feather light, coming back again for another gentle taste. Then another, then another, each time increasing the pressure until she let out a sigh and melted into him, opening her mouth and meeting his tongue with eager strokes. Adrian drank her in, savoring the taste of tequila on her tongue, the spicy scent she wore, the warmth of the arm she’d draped around his neck.

  “That’s better,” he said softly when he pulled away, noting that while she’d had the wherewithal to hold onto her drink, her body swayed slightly against his and her eyes were dark with desire.

  Nell stepped away a little, glancing around to see who had noticed. Adrian was quite sure all of his family had spotted them but was also quite sure they were sneaky as hell and pretending to look elsewhere. She took a sip of her drink, smiled. “You taste just as good as I remember. Sorry I haven’t been around much the last few weeks.”

  “Sweetie, your dad died.” He rubbed her arm. “I wasn’t expecting you to entertain me.”

  She shrugged. “We weren’t close. But, my mom was married to him for a few years and still has a soft spot for him, even though she’ll deny it. I wanted to make sure she’s okay.”

  “And, are you? Okay, that is?”

  “Yep.” She toasted him with her glass, gave him a bright smile. “Like I said, he wasn’t a part of my life.”

  Adrian noted the way she scanned the crowd rather than meet his eyes, the way she white-knuckled her glass. He put a gentle hand on her chin, tilted it up so she was forced to meet his eyes. He spotted the vulnerability, there for just a moment and gone in a flash. “Paul told me about your dad, what he was like.”

  Nell narrowed her eyes, tried to bat away his hand, but he just slid it up to her cheek and cradled her face. “It’s okay to be sad, or angry or indifferent. But, you don’t have to hide it from me. It’s one of the perks of the job description—margarita fixer, witty companion, sex god and a willing ear. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who isn’t family.”

  She smiled a little at the “sex god” part, then stared off into space for a long moment, before meeting his eyes. “You know what?” she said quietly. “I don’t want to talk about it tonight. You’re having this great party, all your family is here—which is already mildly freaking me out, as you probably already know—and I just want to have fun.”

  “Okay,” Adrian said easily. “Fun it is. You wanna get really drunk and stay over?”

  She leaned against him for just a moment, then tilted her head up, gave him a quick, hard kiss. “You know what? I really do.”

  Chapter 13

  On the day of her father’s wake, Nell lay snuggled under the covers. Out the window, early morning mist hugged the ground, and the deep green of the trees blew gently while clouds amassed, turning the sky slate gray. Unbidden, she was hit by the memory of bouncing up and down in a rubber raft over waters that same gray, her knuckles white on the handles but her face turned up to the spray while her dad laughed as they shot down the rapids. She’d been what, eight? Try as she might, she couldn’t remember where he’d taken her, only that they’d traveled through twists and turns of a heavily forested road to get there and that he’d lied about her age when they met some fellow rafters at the launch point.

  “She’s thirteen, just looks young for her age.” With a wink at Nell, he’d laughed off their concerns that she was too young for the Class IV rapids.

  Nell sighed and swung her legs out of bed. Knowing what she knew now, her dad had been irresponsible as hell to take her out on the river and expose her to that danger—and she fully sided with her mom for hitting the roof when they got home, and Nell explained where he’d taken her. Still, under her terror as they hit rapid after rapid, she’d felt a joyful thrill, a vibrant sense of being alive that she remembered now, clear as a bell.

  She would not attend her father’s wake.

  Nell shuffled into the bathroom, yawning, and pulled up the weather forecast on her phone while she brushed her teeth. The forecast called for the clouds to lift by 10 a.m., with sun and a light spring breeze the rest of the day. She would shake off this melancholy just like the clouds, she decided as she stepped into the shower and let the hot water beat into her shoulders.

  When Adrian asked her last week if he could take her up on her offer to fly him on a tour, and unwittingly suggested today, Nell hadn’t hesitated. Go to the wake and see the grandfather she’d never met, cut from the same cloth as her dad? Or Tate’s other ex-wife and her half-sister and half-brother, who she’d also never met? She could tell stories about how he’d disappointed her time and time again, how he’d left her mom to raise a child alone with no support, financial or otherwise. Or hey, here’s a fun one, she could tell them how she hadn’t spoken to him in five years because after telling her for months that he’d changed, that he wanted to mend fences, crying on the phone with her, begging for her to give him yet another chance, she’d caved and agreed to meet him in San Francisco for a sailing adventure. Only he’d never shown. Just like so many other times. Thank god she hadn’t told her mom and Brooke, or anyone else. In the ensuing five years, she’d blocked his number, thrown out his letters unopened, deleted his emails unread.

  Nell selected soft, comfortable jeans, a snug v-neck t-shirt and a light jacket. Adrian wanted to take her to an adventure park for some ziplining after they flew into Seattle. Her heart wasn’t really into it, but Brooke, who’d been urging her to go to the wake for “closure,” had gently suggested this was a good alternative to honor her father’s life. Of course, the irony was that her dad would have scoffed at such a place—the park offered corporate team building retreats and insisted on a safety orientation. And the hell of it was, Nell kind of agreed with him, but she stuffed those thoughts into the corner of her mind.

  Over coffee and breakfast, she answered emails and IM’d with Anna Sue about the day’s to-do list. On that front, at least, all was going well. Marcelo had pegged her so accurately it was a bit scary. While she’d resisted creating a business plan because she liked to keep her options open and found the idea of a rigid plan boring, the big audacious goal part of the exercise was exciting enough that she finally connected the dots—if she wanted to achieve those big goals, maybe even expand her little empire to Seattle someday—then she needed to follow a more structured plan. She’d promoted Anna Sue to business operations manager. Anna Sue reached out to her network of fellow moms and found a woman who could job share with her. Pre-kids, Kelly had been an office manager at Microsoft, wielded a laser sharp wit and was as scarily efficient as Anna Sue. In contrast to Anna Sue’s Southern belle look, Kelly was a newly-forty tall brunette with bright green eyes who tended more toward what Nell had come to think of as “professional tomboy”—her nearly shoulder length hair pulled back into a stubby ponytail, dark jeans, sleek boots, a button down shirt over a tank top and only her wedding ring for jewelry. While Nell had origina
lly doubted she’d like anyone as much as Anna Sue, she had to admit that she now looked forward to seeing Kelly on Mondays through Wednesdays.

  Both of them had been invaluable helping her hire a new office manager and a reservations/front desk clerk for the San Juan office, as well as a front desk assistant for the home base office. Sometimes when she woke up at 3 a.m., Nell squirmed over the fact she’d just hired four people all at once, but so far, she’d made payroll and then some. And, not a moment too soon—thanks to her newly-oiled machine of an office, she’d been able to actually take time off and be with her mom when Tate passed away. Not that Jan was hung up on him or anything, but he was her first love, after all, and the father of her child, even if he was an asshole. Nell hung out more on the pretext that they needed to ramp up wedding planning efforts, and her mom had seemed grateful she was around.

  Just as she was finishing up her coffee, a tiny knock sounded at the door, followed by loud banging. Nell’s lips twitched up in a grin—Mellie had recently taken to sneaking out of the house and toddling over the lawn to visit her. Sure enough, when she opened the door, there stood Mellie, her silky, wispy light brown curls mashed on one side from sleeping, her brown eyes big and full of mischief.

  “I sneak!” she announced proudly to Nell, bouncing on the balls of her feet, bursting with pride.

  “I see that.” Nell folded her arms and tried to give her a stern look, but it was pretty hard. Mellie wore pink pajamas with a big panda on the shirt, and she held up her very well-loved panda stuffed animal for Nell to see.

  “P-Bear sneak too!” She peered around Nell, hopefully, towards the direction of the kitchen. “Pancakes?”

  “We’ll see,” said Nell, grabbing her hand and guiding her into the house. “Aren’t your feet cold?”

  “Yes,” Mellie said, looking down at her feet. Immediately, her lower lip popped out and began wobbling.

  Nell rolled her eyes. “Girl, save the drama. It don’t work on this mama.”

  A sucker for anything that rhymed, Mellie giggled. Nell grabbed her phone, texted Zane and Ryan: Houdini is at my place. Again. Hungry. Bare feet. You are terrible parents.

  She headed up to the loft, calling over her shoulder, “I’m going to get you some socks, baby doll.”

  Her phone pinged as she came back down. She ignored it momentarily, swinging Mellie up onto the couch, and plopping the little girl’s feet onto her lap.

  “Big girl socks. Wait…are these too small?” Nell asked her, and Mellie went into peals of laugher at the sight of Nell’s socks swimming on her feet. She giggled more when Nell, having been through this before, slid rubber bands over her little feet, creating makeshift sock booties.

  She checked her phone, which was now pinging repeatedly.

  Zane: Fuck me! That little terror.

  Ryan: I was trying to take a shower, you were supposed to watch her.

  Zane: I was! I was in the garage for just a second.

  Ryan: When are they installing the alarm?

  Zane: Tomorrow, thank baby Jesus.

  Ryan: Nell, I’ll come get her.

  Zane: Oh, don’t act all put out. I’ll get her.

  Ryan: I’m not all put out, but I’m just saying she doesn’t escape on my watch.

  For fuck’s sake. Nell rolled her eyes, texted back.

  Nell: Boys! Stop it.

  Nell: I will watch her.

  Nell: Unlike both of you.

  Nell looked up in time to see Mellie halfway out the front door.

  “Mellie!” she said sharply, and the girl froze. “Get back in here!”

  Mellie turned and gave a winning smile, flashing her dimples.

  “Trouble,” Nell said, shaking her head. “With a capital T.” She decided not to mention that slip to the boys.

  Nell: You two kiss and make up. I’ll get the girl some pancakes. Come get her by 9:30.

  She put the phone down, herded Mellie over to the kitchen table and sat her down. Before the toddler could get distracted again, Nell pulled out her “Mellie box” and set a box of fat crayons down.

  “Guess what I got?” She held up the Frozen coloring book with a flourish.

  “Oooooohhhh! Fwozen!” Mellie clapped her hands, bounced in the chair.

  “Sit here and color while I make your breakfast.”

  Nell got to work, listening to Mellie’s chatter and responding when needed. In short order, she set down a small plate of pancakes, cut up and drowning in syrup and butter. From painful past experience, she knew that juice triggered some sort of inner whirling dervish in the girl, so she opted for milk. While Mellie inhaled the pancakes like she hadn’t eaten in a week, she made a second batch. When Zane showed up a while later, Mellie was nearly done with her second plate, and was intently drawing circles in the syrup with her fork while Nell finished scrolling through her work emails.

  “I hate you.” Zane sat down with a thump in the kitchen chair and glared at Nell. “And you, Miss Melinda, are grounded until you’re 40.”

  “Hi Daddy!” Mellie beamed at him, her dimples in full force.

  Nell closed down her laptop and eyed Zane, who was unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes. “Why do you hate me for taking care of your kid and feeding her?”

  “Because your kitchen is still clean and you’re peacefully sitting here getting work done while she entertains herself. That. Never. Happens.” He gave a dramatic sigh, and Mellie giggled and mimicked him perfectly.

  Nell laughed. “Auntie privilege.”

  “How about you watch her tonight so Ryan and I can have a date night?”

  “No can do. How about next weekend? Or, wait. You should ask Amy and Ben, so they can practice.”

  “Brilliant.” Zane had already pulled out his phone and started texting. “We need an evening away. Speaking of which…” he looked up, raised one eyebrow. “What’ve you got going on tonight?”

  Nell shrugged. “I don’t really know, but Adrian’s taking me out to this adventure park, which is why I have to leave by 9:30. We’ll probably come back to the Island and have dinner and hang out.”

  “Oh, realllly?” Zane scooted closer to her. “You, Nell Stewart, she-who-does-not-date, are spending an entire day and night with a guy?”

  “It’s not a big deal.” Nell shifted uneasily.

  Okay.” Zane just looked at her.

  “It’s not.”

  “If you say so. Mellie, we need to go.”

  “NO.” She kept coloring calmly.

  Just to irritate Zane, Nell leaned across the table, touched Mellie’s hand. When the girl looked up, Nell smiled.

  “Honey, Nell has to leave. Time to go home.”

  Mellie stuck her lower lip out and sighed heavily. “Okay,” she said, her voice sulky, but she began putting her crayons back in the box one by one.

  “You’re never moving out,” Zane said, leaning in and resting his head on Nell’s shoulder. “Please don’t ever leave us alone with her.”

  Nell laughed. “She’s got your number, for sure.”

  When Mellie got up and ran to the door, Zane lifted his head, and looked right into Nell’s eyes.

  “You doing okay today, sweetie?”

  When she nodded, he cupped her chin, met her gaze for a long moment, then nodded, pulling her in for a brief hug.

  “Call me if that changes. And have fun with,” he leaned in and whispered, “Mr. Sex on a Stick.”

  After they left, Nell sat for a moment, grateful that her friend knew her well enough to know she didn’t want to talk about her dad’s wake, but was kind enough to check in and make sure she was okay. Throwing a few things into her overnight bag, she headed out.

  On the drive to the airport, her thoughts drifted to last week and the Cinco de Mayo party. The combination of wanting to blow off some steam and forget about her dad and her nervousness at meeting all of Adrian’s family, who clearly were delighted to see him dating someone, led her to down a few shots with Hannah and keep up a steady progres
sion of margaritas. While the party had been going, this worked just fine, to the point where somehow she’d ended up volunteering to take refugee kids on plane rides for the El Refugio annual picnic.

  By the time everyone had finally cleared out, and his family was settled in their guest rooms, it was 1 a.m., and Adrian had to help Nell up the stairs to bed. She was nearly 100 percent certain she may have talked about Tate and cried. Cried! Even now her cheeks flamed with heat at the memory. Of course, there’d been none of the hot sex she’d been counting on after that, although if she was being completely honest, she’d probably been too drunk to do much but lay there anyway. Instead, he’d gathered her close—this she remembered clear as a bell—and snuggled her, stroking her hair until she passed out. When she woke up the next morning, she had her leg hooked over his hip, and her arm draped around his chest, holding him close.

  She was not a cuddler. She barely even liked spending the night with her lovers, and there she was, holding onto him for dear life. To make matters worse, she couldn’t even pass it off with a bout of morning sex to distract both of them from that unexpected intimacy, because her head throbbed like a mother, and her stomach roiled. She’d been lying there, trying to extricate herself without waking him, wondering if she could slip out quietly but wanting a shower and a bottle of ibuprofen almost as much as she wanted to get away—which was saying something. Then Adrian had shifted, nuzzled her neck, and glided his hand up and down her bare back in long, soothing caresses before reaching up and massaging her neck, then her temples. It soothed the ache in her head a bit, and she found herself relaxing in his arms, kissing him back when he leaned in for a gentle kiss.

  “Feeling the pain today?” he’d asked with an understanding smile.

  “I’d like a new body, please,” she’d responded.

  “Mmmm, I’m pretty fond of this one.” He’d grinned, seeming none the worse for the wear. “How about I get you some ibuprofen and point you toward the shower?”