Island Affair (Keys to Love #1)(28)

Dios, he didn’t know how people did this. People like his ex, Mirna, straddling the line between truth and lie. Sweat beaded his brow. The knot in his gut twisted uncomfortably. The running list of details he and Sara had conjured up made his head throb.

So much for enjoying the relaxing atmosphere.

“I guess you and Sara have that in common then.”

Luis figured his frown matched the one puckering Sara’s brow at her sister’s strange statement.

“Bucking the family business. Going off to do your own thing. Not that dealing with the real estate market has much similarity to being some kind of internet sensation.” Robin’s foot swirled through the pool, lifting to send a splash across the water’s surface. “I’m still scratching my head at the idea that social media influencer is actually a viable career.”

Sara jerked back as if her sister had slapped her.

“Robin!” Charles’s and Ruth’s sharp cries signaled a parental warning.

“What?” she complained. “It’s the truth in this millennial-driven society.”

At the other end of the pool, Jonathan vaulted to a seated position. Carolyn put a hand on his forearm, her lips moving as she murmured something in his ear. He glared at his older sister, lips pressed together in a pissed-off line.

From the branches of a lush geiger tree in the corner of the yard, a warbler trilled in the tense silence. The bird’s sweet, high-pitched whistle was answered by another, and a tag-team harmony ensued.

Robin swished her foot in the pool water, clearly nonplussed by her blunt jab.

Hell-bent on supporting Sara, his tag-team partner in this oddly dysfunctional dynamic, Luis lifted their joined hands to press a kiss against her knuckles. “Sometimes you have to go out on your own to find your way. Find yourself. And if you’re lucky, the road home is easy to traverse. No roadblocks or danger ahead warning signs making a return more tricky.”

Sara’s wobbly smile tugged at something in his chest. At the same time, the sting of his own hypocrisy lanced his side like a sharp blade.

Shortly after Mirna’s death, when his own brother had finally decided to give up his dreams of being an artist and go to fire college instead, Luis had hoped he’d stay away. Take a job in Miami, where Enrique had friends from art school. Instead, Enrique signed on with the city of Key West. Luis had to admit, if he could have hammered a Road Closed sign where US 1 entered the Keys the day Enrique was scheduled to drive back home, he would have.

Instead, Luis forced himself to make peace with the fact that he and his brother would never be as close as they’d once been. Not after Enrique’s betrayal.

But Sara?

Unless their Twenty Questions game had been cut short too soon and she had left out an important detail when it came to her relationship with her sister, Sara had done nothing he was aware of to warrant Robin’s taunt.

“As for her business, Sara’s pretty much killing it, if you ask me. I mean, she’s easily up . . . What is it now, babe, close to five hundred thousand followers?” He tilted his head toward her in question, knowing full well the answer but wanting her to own it.

“Over,” she said, that spark of sass that drew him flickering in her ocean-water eyes. It heated him up in ways a simple look never had before.

“She may have over five hundred thousand followers,” Luis stressed the word, keeping his gaze locked with hers. “But I’m her number one fan.”

“Oh my goodness!” Sara rolled her eyes, her pale shoulders shaking with her laugh. “That is so cheesy!”

Maybe. But it wiped away the hurt clouding her expressive eyes.

He kissed her knuckles again, waggling his brows at her.

Shaking her head, she turned away, but Luis caught the pink blush climbing her cheeks.

“Suck-up!” Jonathan yelled out. Carolyn swatted his shoulder playfully.

Luis raised his beer bottle in salute. When Jonathan did the same, Luis figured he might have found an ally.

The fact that he liked that idea subdued his good mood. This was temporary, he reminded himself. Nothing more.

“You’ll have to get in line behind us for that number one fan moniker,” Ruth warned.

The older woman swung her thin legs off her lounger and set her empty smoothie glass on the low end table. Angling her head, she shot her husband a secretive smile. Charles stroked his wife’s slender back, his expression attentive and loving as he nodded at whatever question he read in her gaze.

“Your father and I recently came to a decision,” Ruth announced. “We plan to be more focused on each other, on our children and their partners.” Her gaze slid pointedly to Sara and Luis, then Robin and Edward still seated at the shallow end of the pool, then on to Jonathan and Carolyn. “And our grandchildren. Life’s too short. We have missed out on far too much. That stops right now.” She tapped her knee, emphasizing her point. “With us spending more quality time together, starting this week. Really getting to know one another better.”

Beside Luis, Sara stiffened. She shot him a sharp, slightly panicked look out of the corner of her eye.

If he guessed right, the last thing she wanted was her parents poking into their sham relationship.

He sandwiched her hand tightly with both of his, hoping she understood his we-got-this signal.

“You may want to rethink some of that togetherness when you have to sit through Susan’s dance recital. Twice!” Jonathan’s playful warning had his wife and parents chuckling.