Island Affair (Keys to Love #1)(6)
Much more involved.
She speared a hand through her hair, despair threatening to override her nervousness. Along with her common sense.
Would Luis say yes to her outlandish idea? Did she really want him to?
Yet the alternative was to disappoint her mother, when the oncologist had ordered her to remove all stressors. Finding out that Sara may have fudged a little about how serious she and Ric had gotten wouldn’t go over very well. Not at all.
Which was why Sara needed Luis to agree with her request. For her mother’s peace of mind. As much as her own.
Cuidado con lo que pides.
Mamá Alicia’s voice whispered in Sara’s ear, as if her beloved nanny stood behind her, reminding Sara to be careful what she wished for. Mamá Alicia had always known the right answer, delivered in a mix of Spanish and English to ensure Sara learned both languages. She’d always given the best advice. Usually over hot chocolate and homemade churros.
Sara pictured the diminutive woman who’d once been a tiny but influential force in Sara’s life. Jet-black hair in a tight bun high on her head, floral apron tied around her thin waist, stern yet compassionate expression as she wagged a finger and spouted sage counsel. Or a needed reprimand. No doubt Mamá Alicia stared down from heaven now doing the exact same thing.
“So, when you say everything’s a mess, define everything for me,” Luis said, pocketing his keys as he strolled toward her.
Crossing his arms, he leaned back against the shiny silver front bumper of what Sara could only think of as a he-man behemoth of a truck.
Scanning the guy’s muscular biceps, broad shoulders, and wide chest, gloriously displayed thanks to the tight gray KWFD tee hugging his upper body, Sara figured the supersize-tired vehicle fit the man. All six foot plus of the raw power and masculinity he embodied should have been intimidating. Only, when she gazed into his friendly dark brown eyes she couldn’t resist believing the open honesty softening the serious expression on his tanned face.
“You want the short or the long version?” she asked.
His lips twitched like they wanted to crack a smile. “I’m in no hurry.”
Too bad she couldn’t say the same.
“Oh-kay then.” Clasping her hands to keep them from fidgeting, she rested them on her suitcase’s extended handle. This pitch had to be as convincing as the one she’d given when she nabbed the initial sponsor for her lifestyles blog. “I’m the first of my family members to arrive for our celebratory vacation. My parents, two older siblings, and their spouses should be landing in a few hours. Only, they’re expecting to meet me at our Airbnb with my boyfriend. Or, um, potential fiancé.”
“Potential?”
“Not really,” she rushed on, worried she might be botching things before they even got started. “But my mother may have been slightly led to think otherwise . . . by me.” Luis’s raised-brow surprise had her quickly adding, “Under duress. And with good intentions.”
A low whistle blew through Luis’s lips, doing nothing to assuage her guilt over not setting her mother straight when she had leapfrogged from Sara’s would it be okay for me to bring someone? to her own Sara’s finally serious about settling down interpretation.
Sara’s therapist had had a field day with that one. It was classic approval-seeking behavior. Sara knew it. Only, she hadn’t stopped it from happening.
“And this boyfriend-fiancé would be the Ric guy you were talking to when I walked up?” Luis asked.
“Yes.”
“The same dude who, if I heard correctly, isn’t planning to show.”
“The one and only.” Irritation hardened Sara’s tone.
Luis bobbed his head slowly. The corners of his mouth tilted down in a frown at the same time a deep V wedged itself between his dark brows. “Sounds like he deserved more than the ‘go to hell’ you gave him.”
“You heard that?”
An embarrassed blush heated Sara’s cheeks at Luis’s, “Sure did.”
“Here’s the thing,” she explained, trying to lay the groundwork for her request. “No one in my family has met Ric. Or seen a picture of him. They all live back home in Phoenix. I’m the one who flew the coop, once I graduated university. Now I’m based out of New York. Ric and I met last December when I was in Miami for business, and we’ve been sort of dating long-distance since then. This trip was supposed to be his introduction to my family.”
Along with his being a buffer for her if her mother or sister’s pushy personalities risked setting off any of Sara’s disorder triggers.
She paused, letting the information she’d shared sink in. Luis scratched the light scruff on his left cheek. His hand slid around to rub the back of his neck, eyes narrowed as if he were contemplating her story. Eventually he folded his arms again and leaned against his truck. All with only a mumbled humph as his response.
Apparently, he was the living, breathing version of the strong and silent type. That could actually work in their favor. If he agreed to her admittedly bizarre plan.
Uncomfortable, Sara toed the gray chunks of gravel with her right foot as she continued. “My family’s . . . different from me. High achievers. Type A, to the extreme. All successful doctors busy saving lives. While I . . . I’m . . .”
Her ability to form words failed her as her old nemesis self-doubt poked its head out of the dark hole where she doggedly tried to keep it buried. Its beady eyes bore into her psyche like a mangy prairie dog refusing to stay underground.