Chapter Ten
Lane slammed out of his house for the second time that day. Luz was gone. Her clothes were gone.
He got in his car and began dialing numbers. He’d been a selfish jackass to leave her like that, but he’d been so angry, if he didn’t take it out on a bag at his gym he’d felt he was going to lose his mind. A half hour of pounding and kicking had barely taken the edge off. An hour at work, meeting with his team, had made him realize he couldn’t focus on anything until he had somehow resolved everything with Luz.
Like he could do that in one conversation.
He’d always been more of an action man than a word man, but he somehow had to find the words to apologize to Luz for all that she had suffered. He had known what his brother was like, how cruel and manipulative he was, but he hadn’t fought hard enough. He’d been too proud. Too hurt. Too angry. He’d run off to Thailand and drunk himself stupid, leaving Alex to move in for the kill.
Mia Santos was his fourth call since he remembered Luz had bought her clothes there. Perhaps she’d gone back.
“No. Not today,” Mia said. “Try Preach’s.”
“Shop or bar?” He demanded although why Luz would go either of those places completely eluded him.
“Bar. Dulcie’s there in the afternoons. Luz always liked to hang with Dulcie after school in middle school.”
Lane disconnected and told Siri to make the call.
Dulcie’s long hesitation after he barked out Luz’s name told him she was there.
“Sorry.” He dragged in a deep breath. “Visit from my mom.” He explained. “And traffic.” He swore as he saw I5 backing up. “And she hasn’t answered my text about taking her antibiotic.”
“She’s a grown woman, Lane. Always so responsible. I’m sure she can manage timing a few pills.”
So Dulcie didn’t know Luz had just been released from the hospital. And, yes, she was responsible and took care of everyone and everything except herself. He hit the steering wheel as every lane slowed to a crawl near Mission Viejo.
He’d been an idiot, locating his company in Newport Beach. Yeah, the office space was more in line with the company’s needs and easy access to the airport as well as the University of California, Irvine, full of computer science majors eager to intern and get jobs, made Newport ideal, but it was a pain in the ass commute, which was why he often stayed at the office and drove in late morning and came home late evening. He needed a helicopter.
“Why don’t you go home? Cool down.” Dulcie said.
He hadn’t remembered to disconnect the call.
“I’m very chill.” Lane lied.
“Right. Preach and the boys are probably going to hit the beach later this afternoon. Join them. That will give you the perspective you need.”
Lane huffed out a breath. “Waiting’s never been in my vocabulary.”
He’d been waiting twelve long years.
Dulcie laughed. “Show me a man who has the word in his vocabulary and free beer for life.”
“So she’s there?”
“Was. She and Cruz stepped out.”
“What the hell for?”
“She’s a grown woman. Goodbye, Lane.”
Was he really being that much of a dick? Probably. Anxiety crawled through him. Had she taken her antibiotic? And what had she had to eat today? Nothing yet, as far as he knew.
His phone rang. He didn’t even look at caller ID.
“Luz?”
“Thanks for playing, but no.” Kadan derided through the phone. “Still hangin’ tight my man?”
“I’m good.” Lane bit out.
“Liar. Thought you wanted to run another trial. Zen and I are suited up all RoboCop style and you aren’t anywhere in the break. Since when are you late? Since when do you blow off work or surfing?”
Never. Lane nearly rear-ended a Mercedes.
“I have to find Luz. She left.”
“Lane, you and Luz are not a thing. She doesn’t have to stay at your house just because you dragged her there. You’re acting like a cave man.”
“I have to make sure she takes her antibiotics.”
“Are you even listening to yourself?”
Fuck yeah, and he sounded like a possessive, irrational knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing moron.
“My mother showed up. She demanded Luz return with her.”
“Maybe she did.”
“She didn’t.” Lane felt like Kadan had hit him. He hadn’t even considered that. But she could be thinking along those lines, and he’d have to let her go. Again. “That means my brother’s coming next.”
“He is her husband,” Kadan said, sounding so reasonable that Lane wanted to knock all his perfectly straight, white teeth on his famous smile all the way down his esophagus.
“I just want to make sure she’s safe,” Lane said tightly, thinking that at least was reasonable. Kadan had a protective streak. “That returning’s her choice.
Long silence. “You need help?”
“No.”
“For what it’s worth, tech god, you might want to pull out her SIM card. I’m sure Alex has a find my phone app.” Kadan hung up.
Lane wanted to pull out his hair. How had he been so stupid? He, who’d been written up in dozens of industry online articles and blogs as an innovator, an out of the box thinker had ignored something so fundamental. Lane called Luz again. Voice mail. He thought his head was going to explode in the thirty minutes it took to hit the first exit for San Clemente where he headed over to Preach’s. He saw Luz’s car, but when he strode into the bar, no Luz. He dragged his Oakleys up on top of his head.
“Breakfast burrito, fish tacos, or salad?” Dulcie asked, coming out of the kitchen. “Sit,” she said, indicating the long, wood bar that had seen its share of action over the years.
“Not hungry,” Lane said, still scanning the room as if the two men talking in the corner and the group of guys at a round table off on a side patio would magically morph into Luz.
“Sit. Eat.”
“She’s coming back, right?”
Dulcie gave him a look. Why couldn’t his mom have been Dulcie? She and Preach were tough but fair. Honest. Nurturing. They understood how humans worked. That they’d mess up and need to try and try again. They knew encouragement worked better than shame.
He sat. “Thank you. I am hungry.” He lied.
He’d rather have a root canal. His stomach felt like toxic waste and, until he could see Luz, try to explain to her what his mother’s words and attitude had done to his brain, he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else.
“Which one?”
“Chef’s choice.”
“And Luz?”
She’d probably decline anything. Maybe he could get her to pick at a salad, but she needed protein.
“Bring it all on.” He decided. “I’ll force-feed her.”
Dulcie touched the top of his head and ran her hand over his hair like he was a little boy. “You still crazy about that girl?”
He looked up into Dulcie’s honest, sympathetic eyes and open face, still beautiful even though she must be well into her fifties.
He opened his mouth to spout the lies he’d been telling himself, Kadan, and even Luz, but they wouldn’t come.
“Yeah,” he said softly.
And then had to fight the urge to not burst into tears. The sensation shook him.
He had his own company. He was on the fast track. Owned a spot on the Top Earning 40 under 40 list in the state.
Dulcie disappeared back into the kitchen “Anyone comes in, get them a drink for me, Lane. And help yourself.”
He would have made a smart ass comment back about service or tips, but he was too choked up to speak.
He couldn’t love her. He couldn’t. And he wouldn’t, he promised himself. He would just make sure she was safe and healthy and that it was her choice to leave Alex or stay and then he would back off. Slap his own restraining order on his ass.
Then the heavy outside door swung open and he heard laughter, and then a soft, musical voice that had always reached deep inside him and wrapped around his heart, seeped into his bones. He could feel all his muscles ease. He could breathe again. All his earlier vows of keeping his distance fell around his feet, broken.
“Luz.” He stood up and wished he were on the other side of the room so he could block the door, block her escape, because if she ran, he’d have to go after her. Have to. He acknowledged, which would be wrong but as necessary to him as breathing.
She startled a bit. And then eyes on him, she walked forward. He barely noticed the woman beside her. Luz was so elegant, graceful. She moved like a whisper, and he wanted to touch her, hold her so badly he was shaking.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not sure he could hold anything of himself back from her anymore. “I’m sorry I took off. I had to get away. My mother makes me crazy.”
Massive understatement.
He advanced on her, taking in her huge eyes, sharp-cut facial features that were so beautiful she made him ache. Her body was stiff with tension.
“I should have stayed,” he said. “Talked about what happened. I never should have left you alone.”
He was close enough to touch her now. Her eyes searched his. What did she see? Could she tell how much she meant to him? Did that scare her? Make her pity him? He couldn’t tell.
“I’m not your responsibility, Lane.”
I want you to be.
The thought came out of nowhere, and he nearly blurted the words out. He wanted to, but his timing sucked. He was a masochist even being in the same room with her; still, he couldn’t resist reaching out to cup her face with his hands. He loved the way her skin felt so petal-soft, the way her bones, always so regal to him, like an Aztec priestess, who could so easily cut out his heart, fit perfectly in his palms. Then he noticed the sparkle on the side of her nose glinting in the dim light of the bar.
“Beautiful.” He stroked along the side of her nose, careful to not touch the jewel. “It suits you.”
The smile that tilted her gorgeous, voluptuous mouth splintered his heart.
“Really?”
“Absolutely. I love it.”
“I always wanted one, but it didn’t work for the network or—” She broke off, bit her lip. “I’m a bit old for it.”
“Stop.” He couldn’t help himself, he leaned forward, let his lips brush her full mouth that trembled beneath him. “It looks great.”
Although her getting a piercing, or worse, a tattoo, when her immune system was already compromised, filled him with dread. Still, he kept his big mouth shut. Luz had been told what to do for years. It was her time to make the call.
“Why are you here?” Her dark eyes searched his.
“Checking on you. Apologizing for my dick move.”
She pressed her lips together as if to hide a smile, and he felt like she’d squeezed his heart in her fist.
“Did you take your antibiotic?”
“Not yet.” She shook her head, and he loved how her hair swished side to side and the tiny diamond caught a bit of light.
“I’ll get you water. You need to take it before food. Dulcie’s fixing you lunch.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Be hungry,” he said. “No one says no to Dulcie.”
He steered her back to the bar, taking a moment to note Cruz was eyeing him warily.
“Cruz.” He nodded, noting that her blonde dreads now had streaks of pink, purple, and green. “Join us for lunch?” he asked casually, although he would have rather had Luz to himself, but perhaps having company would help keep him from imagining how beautiful she had looked in the moonlight the one night she’d slept in his bed and he watched her breathe while he tried to come to terms with all the feelings she was stirring up.
“Sure. I can always eat,” Cruz said easily. “Show him your art.”
Lane stopped midstride. Cruz’s smile mocked him. He tried to swallow his worry. He didn’t want Luz to think he wanted to control or judge her, but damn, she made it difficult.
“Is it for public consumption?” he asked, feeling heat flare through his body at the thought of Luz with a tattoo. Of her sitting so still while a needle inked her. He was a sick man, he thought as his cock instantaneously swelled and ached.
“It’s for me.”
* * *
Luz looked up at Lane, excitement jangled through her body. He was looking at her like she mattered. He had barely noticed Cruz in her crop tank and low-cut, ripped jeans. Cruz was in her mid-twenties, and she had a tight, athletic body that was curvy in all the right places, yet Lane’s eyes didn’t linger. Instead, his entire attention was back on Luz as he handed her a glass of water and then without permission he fished through her purse and found the bottle of pills. He read the instructions and shook one out, holding it in his fingers for her to take it from his hand.
“You need to take this,” he said softly. “I don’t want to go through the hospital routine again.”
She felt tears prick her eyes. She knew she shouldn’t compare the brothers, but Lane made her feel so important, desirable. Whole, not broken. And yet he knew Alex had cheated on her. And he knew her greatest sorrow that she would never have a baby. Yet he still looked at her like she was a woman who mattered to him.
“Thanks.” She took the pill from him with her fingers, not her mouth, even as the memory of how he used to share in food with her, feeding her from his fork seared her.
“Will you show me?”
“Show you what?” She had a sudden vision of her lifting up the hem of her black t-shirt and showing him the tiny incision marks that were far less swollen and tender already.
“Your artwork.”
“Ummmm, yeah.” She could have slapped her stupid self.
He didn’t want to see her body. He was just being polite, and she was a needy idiot thinking anything else. The last thing she needed right now was Lane. She couldn’t even find a lawyer willing to take on her divorce case.
So get over thinking about him.
She shrugged out of her denim jacket and twisted her arm so that she could show him the calligraphy letters.
“Wow.”
Luz bit her lip, wondering what he really thought. Maybe he thought it was childish at her age to get a tattoo. To have to remind herself that she wanted to be fearless. She must look weak, trying to be defiant at thirty-five, a way to thumb her nose at her husband like he’d been a father to her. And in a way, she realized with a cold thump of her heart, Alex had been the father she’d never had. A cold, disapproving, very authoritative father, completely unlike her own father, who had adored his three girls, but regularly lost jobs so they couldn’t afford groceries or shoes. And sometimes he would drink the rent money unless Luz hid it. And when things got too tight, he’d go work for Mia’s father, moving drugs up and down the west coast. He’d be gone for days, leaving her terrified and in charge.
“It’s beautiful.” Lane breathed.
His warm exhale ruffled her hair and brought her back to the present. He traced the calligraphy script without touching.
“I love it.” He read the words in Spanish, his accent and pronunciation perfect. “No tengo miedo.”
He held her hand in his palm, his attention riveted on the art work. “And the cluster of golden poppies at the beginning and end suits you, Luz. Beautiful work, Cruz.”
“Kinda subtle for me,” Cruz said, helping herself to a local micro brew from the tap. “Never drew the state flower for anyone before.”
“It’s evocative,” Lane said.
“Big word,” Cruz said. “Does it mean sexy?”
“Not exactly,” he said, “but on you, they’re sexy,” Lane whispered, his mouth inches from Luz’s so she wanted to close the gap. “Poppies are vibrant, strong, and thrive in hostile environments. Like you.” He nuzzled her neck, inhaling, and Luz felt dizzy with wanting him.
Her flush of pleasure was so strong she felt like she could be washed away. Lane understood. He got her in a way no one else ever had. Eyes wide, she stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.
“Okay, you two.” Cruz tipped the beer into her mouth. “Keep it PG.”
“You could always look the other way.” Lane teased.
Cruz scooted onto a bar stool and crossed her arms and stared at him.
“Okay, okay, behaving.” He laughed and took a step back. “Although I reserve the right to view any future art work.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“It’s your body,” he said, his blue eyes turned teasing. “Although, I’d love to share,” he said wickedly in her ear.
His blue eyes were almost black with desire. Luz couldn’t breathe with wanting him.
“Lane.” The word strangled in her throat. She wanted…she almost couldn’t form the thought, but her fingers drifted toward his face.
He caught her fingers. “Later.” He mouthed and, still holding her fingers, he helped her onto a barstool.
He smiled at her, and Luz felt the bottom of her world drop out and she was free-falling, but finally feeling upright and in control.
“Breakfast burrito and fish tacos are up.” Dulcie totally interrupted the moment.
Luz sprang back, nearly toppling off the barstool. Lane caught her hand and the stool, steadying her.
“So, that’s your plan to make sure she eats.” Dulcie deposited two plates of food in front of them. “So, I guess you won’t be needing a room above the bar, after all,” she said, hands on her hips as she studied Luz.
“Yes, I will,” Luz said.
“No, she won’t,” Lane answered at the same time.
“Glad that’s straightened out,” Cruz said, snagging a taco.
* * *
Luz sat in a battered, swivel chair, the stuffing poking her bottom from the broken seat, reviewing video that Paz and her crew had shot that morning at the beach. She’d looked over raw footage thousands of times over the years, and enjoyed the editing and storytelling process, but she was totally distracted by all the shots of Lane. She could tell Paz had noticed because she kept editing him out.
“So…you and Lane?” Paz asked the question that kept tormenting Luz.
“Nothing.” She lied. “Well…” She wanted to be honest with her sister, bridge the gap any way possible. “Nothing should be going on. I’m not even divorced yet and, when I am, there still shouldn’t be anything going on. But—” She broke off. There could nothing going on.
Paz unrolled another cable and plugged it into the power strip. One of her high school student interns was testing the sound on their mics. Another was setting up the lights for the taping of some interior studio shots later that day.
“You want him or you don’t,” Paz said.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Lane and I were a long time ago.”
“Time’s relative.” Paz echoed the same thought that had been playing in Luz’s head. “Look at Kadan and Hollis. Hollis walked out six years ago. Walked back in and bam”—she made a crude motion with her hands that had Luz wincing—“like the first day.”
“What, did you have a hidden camera or something?”
Paz laughed and twisted her thick rope of hair around and around the top of her head and then tucked the ends through so it stayed in a messy bun. “I can tell when people are doing it. There’s a walk. Take you and Lane.”
“No, don’t,” Luz said hastily not wanting to hear her sister’s no doubt vulgar assessment of her so-not-going-to-happen relationship with Lane.
The interns were staring at them. Jorge was giving her the thumbs up. Fantastic.
Luz opened her mouth to speak, but she didn’t really know what to say to deflect her sister’s train of thought.
Luz’s phone rang. It was a Kings of Leon song. Luz stared at her phone in dismay. She hadn’t programed any special ringtones.
Paz laughed. “Lane’s ring tone. It’s his favorite song. ‘Sex on Fire.’ Perfect for you both. You can thank me.”
Luz answered the phone, highly conscious of the four pair of eyes watching her.