“What happened at the wedding?” There wasn’t much information in the journals. At that time, Carlos hadn’t been writing as though the journals were a life preserver.
“Well . . .” Natalya rubs her hands and stands. She picks up Marc’s backpack and pulls out his books. She stacks them on the coffee table. “Dad’s a womanizer and he was harassing Imelda, the woman you were told was your sister,” she adds when he frowns. “He wasn’t being too obnoxious. But she was annoyed, so you clocked him.”
James’s brows shoot to his hairline.
Natalya unzips each pocket. She shoves her hand inside and adds whatever she finds to the growing pile on the coffee table. “When you were Carlos, it didn’t take much to get you fired up. You were a very physical man.”
She ducks her head and the loose bun comes undone. Her hair falls forward, obscuring her face, but not fast enough. James caught the blush tingeing her cheeks. She’s embarrassed; nervous, too, judging by the way she’s searched each pocket more than once.
James stands and takes the pack. He wants to tell her she doesn’t have to be nervous around him, but she looks so darn uncomfortable that he’s concerned he may spook her and she’ll retreat behind her cold front again.
He sets the backpack aside. “I take it your dad doesn’t like me very much.”
“Not really.”
For some reason, the admission makes him laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
He laughs harder. He wipes the corners of his eyes. “Oh God. I can’t tell you how good it is to hear I’m not the only one with a screwed-up family. Here I thought you were perfect.” His tone is light and teasing.
“Well . . . he is your father-in-law.”
His eyes bug. “Good point. Don’t worry about him, though. I’ll do what I can to make amends. God knows what that’ll be.”
“Just be yourself. He’ll like you.”
He fights a smile as he looks down at her. He catches the scent of her lotion Carlos wrote about more than once. Warmth coils inside him as he breathes her in and his pulse quickens.
“And James?”
“Hmm?” he asks, his gaze transfixed on the line of her collarbone that disappears under her shirt’s neckline. He has the urge to kiss the dip between that bone and her shoulder.
“You stink.”
“Oh jeez. I ran twelve miles today.” His face heats. He chuckles and moves back, circling to the opposite side of the table.
“Is that for me?” She gestures at the coffee.
“Yes. I picked them up at the roasters a couple of blocks from here.” He gives her a cup.
She lifts the lid, blows across the top, and takes a cautious sip. Her eyes open wider. “How did you know the way I like my coffee?”
“It’s your favorite, right?” A touch of coconut milk with a shot of macadamia-nut syrup.
“Yes, but . . .” She traces a finger around the lip, looking uncomfortable. He can tell she’s thinking about Carlos’s journals. Maybe he shouldn’t make it obvious about how much he knows about her. The situation between them is already weird enough as it is.
“It doesn’t seem fair you know so much about me and I have to get to know you all over again,” she says, her thoughts aligning with his. But there’s an invitation in her observation.
“Do you want to, though?”
She taps the cup rim and nods.
He smiles, pleased she does. He picks up his cup, toasts hers, and sips through the lid opening. “Don’t worry about your dad. I’m looking forward to meeting him.” He grins broadly. “Again.”
While Julian surfs with his aunt, James borrows Natalya’s car and takes Marc and his mother grocery shopping. They barely make it through the produce aisle before Marc starts complaining. He’s bored. He wants to build sand castles at the beach with Tía Natalya. And he wants to color.
“Help me select the zucchini,” James suggests, bagging the squash he plans to grill.
Marc slumps, arms hanging loose. “This is booooring.”
James pushes the cart to the tropical fruit bin. Marc reluctantly follows, his flip-flops sliding along the linoleum floor. James selects two pineapples and compares their weight. “I can’t tell which one is ripe.” He had no problem selecting a cut of meat to go with potatoes and salad. Aimee always did the shopping for the other stuff. She’d been the cook in their relationship.
“Smell them.” Claire drops a bag of spiny maroon fruit in the cart. James sniffs each pineapple. “Scent or no scent?” his mother asks.
“This one smells sweet.” He bounces the pineapple balancing in his dominant left hand. “And this has no scent.”
His mother points at the unscented pineapple and he returns the sweet, overly ripe pineapple.
Marc peeks inside the cart and points at the spiny fruit. “What are those?”
“Dragon fruit,” Claire says.
“Whoa.” He pokes the fruit. “Do dragons eat them?”
“Maybe,” Claire says, playing along. “We’ll try one when we return to your aunt’s house.” She inspects the apple-bananas, a smaller, more flavorful banana varietal, as noted on the label James reads beside the price. He adds the pineapple to their groceries.
Marc swings from the cart. “Are we done yet?”
“Almost. We’ll go to the toy store next.”
“How about I take him there now?”
“What?” James tightens his grip on the cart handle.
“Sí, sí, sí!” Marc tugs Claire’s hand. “I mean, yes! Let’s go.” He tries dragging Claire away.
“I won’t wander off with him. I have no car.”
He scowls, and not because he suspects his mother will leave with her grandson like she thinks he believes. He wants to spend time with Marc.
“You don’t want to help me shop?” he asks his son.
Marc vigorously shakes his head. He tugs Claire’s hand. “Let’s go, Señora Carla.”
His mother grimaces at the name and James can’t help humming a laugh at her expense. Then he leans his forearms on the cart handle, narrowing his eyes, watching her.
She gives him a perturbed look. “I won’t say anything. Both you and Natalya have been quite clear about that. But James,” she adds, letting Marc tug her away, “grocery shopping isn’t how Marc wants to spend time with his father.”
James ducks his head and sighs. He hates to admit it, but his mother is right. “Give me twenty minutes. I’ll meet you over there.”
She finger-waves good-bye. “See you soon.”
James watches them leave, their clasped hands swinging between them, and wonders when his son will voluntarily do the same with him. Once they’re out of sight, James checks the time on his phone. Voice-mail notifications litter the screen, one from his buddy Nick and several from Thomas. He slides the phone back into his pocket, making a mental note to call Nick later. Thomas can wait. Though he is curious if Thomas knows their mother tagged along to Kauai. Probably not. Thomas might be keeping their mother updated about his whereabouts, but he doubted she returned the favor.
James shrugs. Not his problem, he thinks, pushing the cart toward the meat department. He’s dying for a steak.
Thirty minutes later, James stands in the doorway of the Spotted Frog Toy & Art Supply, a quaint nook of a store. Rows of display shelves overflow with an assortment of puzzles, games, books, and paints. His gaze darts around the shop and a brush of panic sweeps through him. There’s no sign of his mother and son. He’s ten minutes late and they’ve already come and gone. But where to?
James glances around the shopping plaza. Marc’s attention span is shorter than the colored pencils he loves to draw with. His mother promised to stick nearby so she must be wandering through the shops to keep his son occupied. His gaze strays toward the parking lot and his hand slides into his pocket to fist the keys. Could he trust her not to leave?
He wants to, but this is a woman who lied to him and his sons for five years. He reluctantly pulls himself away from the paints, brushes, and canvases and goes in search of them. After scoping out the women’s clothing boutiques, the stores where he expected to find his mother and an extremely bored son, he finds them in an empty retail space, and only because he heard Marc’s laughter.