Island Affair (Keys to Love #1)(95)

Frustration and disbelief swarmed like bees, stingers aimed and ready to do their damage. He smacked the steering wheel with the butt of his hand, pissed at the situation and himself.

The light changed and by sheer force of will Luis carefully eased his foot onto the gas pedal. He drove without thinking about a destination. Unsure of where or with whom he belonged if not with Sara.

He crossed intersections Sara and he had biked through, passed couples walking hand in hand like the two of them had done, cruised past the zero mile marker where he had snapped her smiling picture after she had taken a selfie. Eventually he wound up at the Southernmost Point and even in the waning early evening light he imagined her standing there with her family, the sun’s rays glinting off her blond waves turning them to burnished gold.

Following the curving road, he realized where his subconscious had guided him.

South Beach.

The place where Sara had given him the safety net he needed to take that first step onto the high wire talking about what his past represented.

A baby step start to him dealing with the pain and betrayal and humiliation that had knocked him to his knees all those years ago. Burying it certainly hadn’t helped. It was still there. Rearing its vicious head like a zombie, seemingly impossible to kill. Injuring relationships with his loved ones, causing problems on the job. Keeping him staunchly in that rut Carlos had complained about.

Case in point, the way he had rebuffed Anamaría the morning she showed up for yoga with Ruth. The times he’d been short with Mami when she tried to offer comforting advice. Barking brusque orders and second-guessing his crew during calls. Distancing himself from others at the station instead of shooting hoops or hitting the weights alongside his team. Refusing to consider that Enrique’s explanations might hold up and, instead, virtually cutting off his younger brother.

Was that how he wanted to spend his life?

Walking away from emotional attachment. Beating up himself and those around him.

The Southernmost House, its peach and pastel Victorian architecture the subject of countless postcards and prints purchased by millions of the island’s tourists, loomed on his right. Luis instinctively turned down the dead end of Duval. Lured by a siren’s call he might never get out of his head. Somehow, he lucked into the last spot in front of the House.

A few people stood out on the dock extending into the Atlantic, their attention on nature’s nightly artistic swirl of purple, peach, and reds across the sky. At this end of the island, sunset watching was a more quiet, subdued affair. That suited his current mood.

Hell, who was he kidding. It suited his usual mood. Until Sara.

The beach area and café on the left were less crowded than during the day but still fairly busy. A smattering of beachgoers lingered on the blue loungers, relaxing before going out for the night or sleeping off afternoon drinks, or maybe both. Others sat at the outside café tables, enjoying the kaleidoscope of colors drizzling across the horizon and into the ocean water.

Head bowed, his thoughts heavy with self-recrimination, Luis trudged toward the dock. He tried, but probably failed, to smile a return greeting to a young couple huddled in each other’s arms where the sidewalk ended and the concrete dock began.

About halfway down, he turned his back to the setting sun’s handiwork, choosing instead the shadowy shallow water where he and Sara had progressed their relationship from friends intent on ignoring their simmering attraction to sensual, intimate lovers. Where he’d held her in his arms, her long legs wrapped around his waist, keeping him safe from the demons he hadn’t been able to slay. Where Sara had commiserated with him when he’d first told her about Mirna’s treachery and his brother’s presumed betrayal.

Presumed because, when it came down to it, Enrique had warned Mirna she needed to come clean. Sure, his guilty conscience had come a little too late, but it had come.

Luis had given Mirna a pass because comforting a dying woman had been the right thing to do. But her death had left him with no one to blame for her betrayal. Except his brother.

If Luis were truly honest, like Sara had asked him to be, it wasn’t Enrique he was angry with. It was himself. For not seeing the signs. For getting so swept up in his saving-the-world mentality, he didn’t realize that Mirna didn’t really love him. And what he felt for her had been more a sense of obligation and compassion.

Nothing like the love he felt for Sara.

Because he did love her. Dios mío, how he loved her.

The admission knocked his legs out from under him, as if one of his siblings had snuck up behind him to swipe behind his knees. Luis crumbled to the concrete dock, catching himself with a hand and wincing when several sharp pebbles gouged his palm.

His elbow buckled and he landed on his ass, his feet dangling off the edge.

He stayed there, long after the sunset had faded. The dock and beach area emptied and a purply gray night brightened by fluorescent streetlights descended. The full moon illuminated a wavery silver path across the water’s surface. And still, Luis couldn’t bring himself to leave.

His phone buzzed in his shorts pocket and he dug it out. Carlos’s name scrolled across the screen.

For a second, Luis thought about not answering it. Staying in his desolate world, apart from everyone.

Whether due to fate or God or a nerve tic, his thumb tapped the green icon to accept the call.

“Hey, ’mano, what’s going on?” Carlos’s cheerful voice sounded loud in the quiet of the empty dock.