Island Affair (Keys to Love #1)(45)

Who was he kidding? The chance to spend the day with Sara was what had him jumping out of bed like his nephews on Christmas morning. Not some historical ride around the three-by-five-mile island in a yellow and black open-air train on wheels.

His mami’s Kino sandals slapped against the mottled cream tile, signaling her approach.

“I worry about you, mijo.” She covered his hand with hers on the chair’s curved backrest. “Anamaría and your papi walked me through that call. How you tried to calm the poor girl’s fears while she was trapped inside her car. Talking with her as the others struggled with the Jaws of Life.”

Her hand tightened over his and a stinging, sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach warned him what was coming.

“Having her die in your arms must have been horrible. I know you, mijo. I see the way you’ve always taken on another’s pain.”

Luis closed his eyes, trying in vain to erase the image of the college student’s mangled car. The front windshield shattered by the aluminum ladder that had poked out of the truck bed and wound up inside her front seat after she rear-ended the other vehicle. Her straight, black hair sticky with blood. The trickle oozing from her left nostril, dark red against her pale skin. Her hazel eyes pleading with him for help. Her wheezy gasps of breath as she brokenly begged him to call her parents.

“Every single one of us who answered that call was affected by her death,” he rasped. “It was senseless and stupid. Avoidable.”

“Just like Mirna’s.”

“Don’t!” Pulling his hand from under his mother’s, Luis reared back, bumping into the windowsill behind him. The cream curtains with their smattering of brown and green palm trees flapped around him. “Don’t even bring that up. It’s in the past. It’s done.”

“It will not be done until you make peace with your hermano,” his mom warned, her face pinched with maternal worry and caution.

Co?o, her refrain was a recording stuck on a never-ending loop, repeating her insistence that he clear the air with his brother. Too bad that would never happen. Luis could never forgive Enrique’s betrayal. Or the role he had played in not stopping Mirna from driving away that day.

Spinning on his sneaker, Luis stomped toward the sliding glass door leading to the back porch.

“Necesitas hablar con alguien,” his mom insisted.

Luis paused, his fingers crooked around the metal handle. No, he didn’t need to talk to anyone or rehash the past. He needed to forget. Keep himself busy. Help the next person in need.

“If not me. If not Father Miguel at St. Mary’s. If not a grief counselor. Then with your papi. He understands loss, on the job and off.”

Head bowed, Luis nodded. She made a good point. As always.

“Think about it. Now come give your mamá a kiss good-bye. You know better than to leave without one.”

Like the dutiful son he tried hard to be, Luis trudged back to his mom. Her plump face, its wrinkles a sign of a life well lived as she liked to say, softened with her benevolent smile. She angled her head for him to kiss her cheek.

“Dios te bendiga, mi vida,” she told him.

As he pushed the sliding glass door open to say good-bye to his father, Luis found comfort in the farewell his mother had said to them all for as long as he could remember.

God bless you, my life.

As screwed up as his personal and work life might be at the moment, he could always count on his parents’ love and support. Something Sara had unfortunately missed out on growing up.

It seemed as if her parents wanted to change that now, and if he could facilitate the process, help someone else’s family situation when he couldn’t help his own, that would make this forced time off work worth it.

Anxious to see Sara again, Luis hurried down the back steps. He gave his dad a quick hug and kiss on the cheek, then double-timed it to his truck.

He had plans with his enticing fake girlfriend, and they made the week ahead loom brighter.

*

Luis pulled into the parking space behind the Vances’ blue rental SUV to find Ruth, dressed in a navy and white short-sleeved dress, pacing back and forth along the verandah. She paused mid-step, her gaze peering intently through his front windshield. Seconds later, her thin shoulders slumped, and she returned his wave with a feeble one of her own.

Unease skittered down Luis’s spine.

His cell phone nested in the console cupholder, so he knew he hadn’t missed a warning call or text from Sara. But based on Ruth’s sentinel-guarding-the-door routine, he’d guess something was wrong in the Vance household this morning.

Grabbing his duffel bag off the front passenger seat, he hopped out of his truck. By the time his sneakers hit the grass, his mind shifted into problem-solving mode, his eyes assessing the premises as if he were arriving on the scene of a call.

“Good morning!” he said, shifting into the upbeat tone he used when visiting elementary schools or speaking with children about life as a firefighter. “Weather looks great for a day of island sightseeing.”

Ruth didn’t take his bait. Instead, she waited for him at the top of the stairs, her hello smile shaky, her gray eyes stormy.

“Have you heard from Sara?” she asked.

Halfway up the steps, Luis paused, suddenly leery. Was their ruse up?

“Uh, no,” he answered, ping-ponging between disappointment and unease. Trying not to let either show. “But I wasn’t expecting to. When I left last night, we arranged for me to be here at nine thirty after I met my parents for breakfast. Do you need something?”