I shook my head. No, thank God. I was drunk, not comatose. The bottle had been less than half-full when Pedro started pouring me shots. Speaking of shots . . .
“I need another one.” I stumbled away from the tree.
Ian folded his arms. “You’re just like him, you know.”
“Of course I look like James.” You idiot.
He nodded his head in the direction of Casa del sol’s lobby. “I was talking about your brother Thomas.”
The asshole who choreographed my mess of a life. Definitely not the person I wanted to see. I couldn’t be responsible for what I’d do to him if I did. He’d find out firsthand what it was like to recover from reconstructive facial surgery and pulled shoulder ligaments.
That had been my second memory. Opening my eyes to a woman sitting beside my bed. She’d worn a white blouse and gray skirt, her shapely legs crossed and leaning to the side. Breathtakingly beautiful, that was my first thought of her. Like an exotic model from an upscale clothing catalog. Or the ones airbrushed to perfection on the glossy pages of a magazine, like the one she flipped through. I lifted my head to see what she was reading and groaned at the laser-sharp pain that exploded in my shoulder.
Her head snapped up. She tossed aside the magazine and leaned over me. Her hand found mine, soft and cool to the touch, and when she smiled, her cocoa eyes sheened. “Don’t move; you need to rest,” she said in a soothing voice. “Your nose and cheekbones had to be reset. The less you move, the less pain you’ll feel.” Her fingers fluttered over my face, drawing my attention to the bandages wrapped around my head.
She nodded toward my right shoulder. “You dislocated it.” She explained that the swelling had finally diminished enough for Dr. Mendez to pop the joint back into place. I had to keep it immobile, then I’d need therapy.
My gaze skimmed her face, the sharp angles of her cheekbones and straight line of her nose, hinting of European descent. I frowned. How could I know that when I didn’t even know who she was, let alone my own name?
“Who are you?” I whispered through chafed lips.
“Imelda.” She smoothed her palms over the front panel of her skirt. “Imelda Rodriguez. I’m your sister, and I’m going to take care of you, Carlos. Sí?”
“Sí.”
I had a sister.
I didn’t know why it was important. It was more like a feeling I had. This woman would watch over me while I healed. For the moment, I felt safe.
As I eyed Ian a few paces away, an uneasy feeling rippled through me, adding to the queasiness brought on by downing too much liquor in the span of twenty minutes. I wondered if I was any safer today than I had been before I entered my fugue state.
Pedro left his post at the bar and went around the back, probably for a smoke. He’d never know I’d slipped back into the bar for one more shot. “I’m getting a drink. Want one?”
Ian shook his head and shoved his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts. “Drinking yourselves to oblivion won’t solve your problems.”
I snorted in disgust.
“Yeah, your bro’s fairly wasted, too. He’s been a permanent fixture in the lobby bar since he arrived two days ago.”
“I don’t give a fuck. As for my problems, those shots have done a phenomenal job making me forget them.” I started to walk away.
“May I give you a word of advice?”
The warm sand under my feet and the alcohol I’d consumed were turning my body to liquid. I swayed as I stared at him. He didn’t say anything, just tilted his head and lifted both brows, waiting. I sighed, circling my hand. Come on, man, spit it out. I needed to move on.
“Talk to him,” Ian advised.
“For real?” I scoffed, and started to turn away again.
“Then go beat the crap out of him. Trust me, you’ll both feel better.”
“I don’t want to see him,” I said around a thick tongue. Maybe I shouldn’t have another drink. I didn’t need Imelda to cart my ass home.
“Suit yourself.” Ian made the briefest eye contact before touching his brow and giving me a two-fingered salute in the direction he started walking. He was probably going to go pack for his flight back to the States. Back to Aimee.
“You love her,” I said when he reached the bottom steps where the hotel’s patio kissed the sandy beach.
He swung around and leveled his gaze with mine. “Yes, I do. Very much.”
“Treat her well. Apparently, I didn’t do such a great job.”
He gave me a brief nod and jogged up the steps, taking them two at a time.
My phone buzzed. A text message from Natalya.
Will you be home for dinner?
I wiped the sweat from my eyes and texted back.
No. Not tonight.
I didn’t want to show up drunk. Not before the boys went to sleep. They didn’t need to see how messed up their father was. But Natalya . . .
Wait up for me.
Please.
She pinged back within seconds.
I will. Be careful.
I worried her. She told me as much when I laid out my tragic story like a freshly caught fish split open, skinned, and deboned. I felt like that fish out of water. Flapping around and gasping. Floundering as I tried to make sense of it all. The lies, the deceit. The abandonment. My family had left me here, like a discarded flip-flop lost in the sand. Natalya had stared at me, her eyes the size of the full moon outside my bedroom door, her jaw unhinged. Then she cried and tried to comfort me. I didn’t want her sympathy, and I especially didn’t want her pity. I punched the wall instead and went for a run. I ran hard, and fast, and for miles. Because if I stayed with her she’d see me cry, too.
Slipping the phone back into my pocket, I looked at the ocean and debated where to go next. Beside me was the beach bar. Behind me was the hotel. Ian had disappeared into the lobby and Thomas was somewhere inside. Most likely the lobby bar. You’re just like him. Ian’s words returned like waves that kept on coming. Forget the tequila. I needed to paint.
I flipped through my prefugue paintings, the ones Thomas had shipped here under the guise they were mine. I studied them as though seeing them for the first time. These were his. I mean, mine.
James’s.
Whatever.
I snapped through the canvases, leaning one after the other against my shins. Paintings of landscapes I could only assume I’d once seen. A forest of oaks in the evening light. A meadow at sunset. An ocean cast in the hues of slate and stone. Where were these places? What meaning had they held for him?
Not him. Me, I corrected. What meaning had they held for me?
Nothing. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.
I slammed the paintings back against the wall and shoved open the window. The evening breeze, heavy with salt from the ocean and smoke from the grills parked on the sidewalks below, exploded into the room. I sucked in the pungent air and a palette knife of pain sliced through my skull as though my brain were a glob of acrylic paint. I pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead. Tomorrow’s hangover would be nasty.
In the far corner of my private studio, paintings of Aimee’s likeness mocked me. I’d been painting her for over a year, the woman I reached for in my dreams. Her image morphed painting after painting until it had become almost an exact replica of the woman I’d found crying outside my studio.
That had been the ultimate mind-screw, seeing her sitting there; to touch the woman who left me baffled on the nights she came to me. Always the same dream—always my reaching for her, kissing her soft lips until she faded away, leaving my arms empty and soul wanting. Longing for something. Or, had that been that other part of me, the James me that longed for her?
Those dreams stirred a mixture of baser emotions. Joy, sadness, anger, and fear. All but the fear dissipated when I jolted awake, gasping for breath. Fear clung to me long after I woke in a sweat, damp sheets tangled around my calves. Some nights it took hours to fall back to sleep. Other nights I remained awake until the first light of dawn. I’d lace up my running shoes and hit the pavement to burn off that fear.
But it never completely went away. Now I knew. In all honesty, I’d been afraid since the day I woke in the hospital. I thought the memory loss triggered that fear, when perhaps it had been something else warning me that everything Imelda and the doctors had told me about my past had been manufactured. Some buried part of me understood it was all a lie. I was a lie.