AIMEE
It’s past midnight when I arrive home with Caty. My mother offered dinner when I told her I hadn’t eaten, and while I ate, my father remarked that Ian had swung by on his way to the airport to say good-bye to Caty.
“Daddy’s going to see the ponies again,” Caty said, scooting into the chair beside me with a bowl of ice cream. It was after nine p.m. and a school night. I tossed my mother an accusatory look. She shrugged a shoulder and returned the carton to the freezer.
“He’s going to take some pictures for me.” Caty dipped her spoon into her chocolate chip cookie dough.
“I can’t wait to see them,” I told her, wishing I’d made a point to have Ian show me the ones he’d taken this past summer.
By the time I’d finished eating, Caty had fallen asleep on the couch. I couldn’t call Ian as he wasn’t due to land for several more hours, and by then I’d be off in la-la land. We won’t have a chance to talk until the morning before the second leg of his flight, so I stayed and chatted with my parents about the pros and cons of the café’s expansion. They’d spent decades working in the restaurant industry and I valued their advice, even though it wasn’t anything I hadn’t already heard. What were my priorities?
Family, obviously. But more important, they told me to do what I love, not what I thought I needed to do.
Hmm. Sounds familiar.
Caty stirs in my arms when I close and lock the front door. I let her slide to her feet where she sways from weariness. Hands on her shoulders, I steer her through the house to her room. She changes into her pajamas in autopilot mode and crawls up her bed, flopping on top of the pillows. I kiss her forehead and return to the entryway where I left my purse. I need to charge my phone. I also want to respond to Ian’s messages with one of my own.
Worried about you. Miss you. Call me when you land. OK to wake me.
I collect the receipts Ian had left scattered on the table, drop some coins that hadn’t made it into the change dish, and swipe the business card that didn’t belong there, adding it to the receipts I’d leave on Ian’s desk. The name on the card catches my eye and I almost drop it.
LACY SAUNDERS
Memories scramble all over the place. They bombard me all at once. Lacy finding me at James’s funeral to tell me he’s alive. Her appearance on my doorstep with the wallet I hadn’t been aware I dropped. Her showing up unannounced at the café’s opening only to disappear before talking to me. James’s painting she’d shipped from Mexico along with the handwritten note that changed everything.
Here’s your proof . . . Come to Oaxaca.
I might have flown to Mexico to find James, but it was Ian’s arms I landed in.
Ian.
Where did he get this?
Dropping everything but my phone and Lacy’s card, I go into the other room and sink onto the leather sectional. Only one name crosses my mind.
James.
I need to talk with your husband. Do you mind if I contact him?
I roll my phone end over end, thinking about yesterday. James had called me on the café’s main line. I didn’t expect to hear from him again, let alone see him. I didn’t want to see him. But his voice carried an edge of desperation I found hard to ignore. He had a few things that needed to be said. Long, overdue, important things I deserved to hear from him. He wanted to meet face-to-face, assuming I was OK with this.
Not really, but call me curious. I met with him, anyway, at a coffee shop in Palo Alto. He was visiting with college friends from his Stanford years—friends who’d thought he was dead, he added with a short laugh—and he was staying at a hotel nearby.
“The coffee shop is neutral territory,” James said with a note of vulnerability I’d never heard in him before. It was a place we hadn’t been to together. No risk of stirring up old memories.
But stir up they did.
Being in James’s presence alone, even from across the café, was enough to slice open the old wound. I stopped just inside the entrance and waited for the familiar pain to engulf me that arose whenever I thought of James. The sensation came, but it felt duller, weaker, and it didn’t arise from a longing that things might have turned out differently between us. It never had. The pain clenching my chest and holding on to my breath stemmed from the old hurt over the way we ended. The secrets, the lies, the betrayal. And finally, my forgiveness.
I took a meditative breath and the sensation faded almost as quickly as it had appeared. Unlike when I saw James earlier in the summer, I was determined to remain in control.
I made my way over to him. He stood when I approached, even pulled out my chair. I noticed that when he did so, he kept his distance. He also didn’t attempt to hug me before I sat down.
“Can I get you something? I ordered when I got here.” He pointed at his coffee when he returned to his seat.
I eyed the murky liquid. “It’s not black with no cream.”
“No, it’s not.” One side of his mouth lifted into a half smile. “I now take it with cream and a shot of coconut.”
“Kauai’s rubbing off on you.”
He tapped his chest. “This old dog can learn new tricks.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve all changed.”
James frowned slightly. I looked away. I hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic. It just came out that way. Inhaling deeply, I took a moment to collect myself. Stay in control of your emotions, Aimee.
I wasn’t in love with James, but sitting across from him reminded me of what it felt like to be in love with him. It reminded me of the person I used to be with him. Naive, timid, and immature.
We had so much history together. He was my childhood.
But he wasn’t my future, and it had taken me months and plenty of counseling to come to terms with my own ineptitude during my relationship with him. I’d been so down on myself.
At my invitation, Ian had attended some of my therapy sessions with me. He’d held my hand and listened attentively as I explained how I didn’t want to be that woman again—one with her ears covered and blinders on—while I was in a relationship with him. Ian had held me and fallen more deeply in love with me as I learned to love myself again.
I apologized to James. “What I was trying to say is—”
He held up his hand. “Don’t worry about it. I get it.” He pointed at his cup. “Can I order you a coffee?”
I regarded the menu on the wall. The selections were bland and ordinary compared with Aimee’s Café. “No, thanks. I’ve had my share today.”
“That’s right. You’ve got an unlimited supply at your fingertips.” James leaned on his forearms and peered at the contents of his cup. “I never had the chance to tell you, but I’m proud of you.” He lifted his gaze to mine. “For opening your own restaurant.”
I nodded, absorbing the compliment. James had been the one who’d encouraged me, but at the time, I’d been afraid of venturing out on my own.
“Thank you,” I said. “That means a lot to me. Did you notice my logo?”
“I did. That was a rush sketch. I didn’t mean—” He abruptly stopped and took a long drink of coffee. He set down his cup, his expression turning sad and regretful. James had been in a hurry to leave for Mexico.
“I can draw you a better logo.”
“I like the one I have.” I didn’t want to change it. The logo with the coffee cup and swirl of steam represented everything I’d been through to get where I was today. From making the decision to go out on my own to opening the additional locations. If I opened them.
But there was something I should change about the Los Gatos location.
“I’m thinking about taking down your paintings. Do you want them?”
He shook his head. “Keep them. They’re yours.”
“I can’t.”
His brows lifted. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.” I had to do more than tell Ian I’d moved on from James.
He smirked. “Send them to my mother.”
“Your mother? She hated your paintings.”
“Why do you think I told you to send them to her?”
I laughed, shaking my head. “You’re terrible.”
“Would you believe she used to be an artist?”
“No way.”
“She was. Is.”
“She paints?”
James nodded.
“I can’t picture that.” But his talent had to have come from someone.
“I couldn’t either at first.” His gaze turned inward, but he didn’t elaborate. I knew there was a story somewhere in there, but it wasn’t mine to hear. Not today.
“Do you really want me to send them to her?” I asked, double-checking.
“No, I’m kidding. Box them up and ship them COD to me.” He took out his phone. “What’s your number? I’ll text you my address.”
I hesitated. Did I want James to have direct access to me? Did I want that with him?
Grow up, Aimee, I silently admonished. I’d block his number should he text me about anything other than shipping his art.
“Let me see your phone.” He gave me his device and I added my cell number to my contact. James had the café’s number. I gave him back the phone and he immediately sent a text. My phone pinged.
“Give me a heads-up when you ship them.” He placed his phone facedown on the table. “You look good. You cut your hair.”
I absently touched the wave on the side of my head. “Do you really want to do this? Small talk?”
He shook his head once. “No.”
“Why did you ask me here?”
“This isn’t easy for me to say.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then let his arm fall back on the table. “I want to apologize for the way I acted that last year after . . . after . . .”
“After Phil assaulted me?” I supplied in an even tone.
“Yes. That.”
I swallowed the knot that formed in my throat and momentarily looked out the window. We were in a crowded shopping mall across the road from the Stanford campus. The high school next door had just let out. A line at the order counter was steadily growing as we talked.
Phil had attacked me moments after James proposed. His way of getting back at James for the Donato family’s ousting of Phil from the family business. Stunned, scared, and demoralized, I’d agreed with James’s plea not to speak a word of what happened with Phil. According to James, something big was going down at Donato Enterprises that involved Phil and, as I later learned, the DEA.
I thought of last June. “You’ve apologized, and I’ve forgiven you.”
“I want to explain why I did what I did.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Please. Let me say this,” he said, his voice a dry husk.
I didn’t owe him anything, but if he wanted closure, the least I could do was give him that.
I nodded slowly.
James cleared his throat behind his fist and steeled himself. “Phil had been using Donato Enterprises as a cover for trade laundering. I didn’t know Thomas was working with the DEA, or that the feds were going after Phil’s broker, not just Phil. I hadn’t been privy to that information,” he added, derisively. “I believed if you had filed charges against Phil, he would have run. And if the feds couldn’t have Phil, they would have gone after Donato Enterprises. The company would have had to forfeit its assets and most likely fold.
“Had that happened, I wouldn’t have the funds to open my gallery, or to help you launch Aimee’s Café, which I really wanted to do. I wouldn’t have had any money left to provide you the life I wanted to give you. I thought I would have lost everything. I thought I would have lost you.”
“James.” My heart ached for him and everything he had lost. For in the end, his mistake had cost him everything. He’d lost the life he had. He’d lost me.
James leaned back in his chair and his hands fell into his lap. “I sometimes think you should file charges against me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I insisted you pretend it never happened.”
I had pretended, for more than two years, until I found James as Carlos and I acknowledged how much I’d been hurt. We’d both been hurt. And James had suffered enough.
“James, no. I won’t do that to you. We need to move on. And your sons need you.”
I caught the glimmer of moisture in the corners of his eyes. “Yes, they do. Thank you for understanding.”
I rested my hand over his and took on a serious expression so that he understood I meant every word. “I’m not going to press charges. I forgive you. Now, forgive yourself. It’s OK to go forward.”
“I’m trying. But Aimee, about Phil.”
My blood ran cold. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Neither do I. But if you want to press charges, I’ll help you. Use me as a witness.”
I shook my head hard. “I’m not filing charges. I don’t want to invite your family back into my life. I don’t want anything to do with them.”
“Including me.”
“James . . .”
He held up both hands. “No, you’re right. It’s best this way.” Then he smiled, the first genuine smile I’d seen on him since he left for Mexico before our wedding. My throat tightened with emotion.
“I met someone. I knew her from when I was Carlos, but I got to know her as me. Her name’s Natalya. I’m falling in love with her.”
I’d be lying if I said his words didn’t hurt. But the happiness I felt on his behalf was stronger. I congratulated him; then we talked about his sons and how Carlos came to be in Mexico. He explained that Thomas had hidden him by having him placed in that country’s witness protection program. Then the time came to say good-bye, and in this instance, James did hug me. He told me to take care of myself and I said the same to him. I turned to leave, but then he called my name.
“I need to talk with your husband. Do you mind if I contact him?”
I hadn’t given him an answer because the weight of our conversation was starting to hit me. But he obviously had spoken to Ian this afternoon, I think, holding Lacy’s card. And Ian hadn’t mentioned it.
I’d deal with my husband about that later.
I text James.
You met with Ian. Where did you get Lacy’s card?
It’s late, almost twelve thirty. I have no idea if he’s back in Hawaii or still in California. I don’t care. I send the text, not expecting a response until morning. I toss the phone aside and start to rise when it pings.
He didn’t tell you?
No, he didn’t. But I’m not going to tell James that.
Another text pings.
Lacy gave it to me.
He met Lacy? My thumbs tap-dance across the keyboard.
When? Where? What did she want?
Last month. She found me on a beach in Kauai.
My body feels freezer-box cold. I shiver. OK, that’s creepy.
She said I knew someone who’d need her card. That he’d been looking for her. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to make you more uncomfortable than our conversation yesterday had.
I have no idea how James deduced Lacy wanted him to pass along her card to Ian, but here we are. Lacy’s back and there’s a good chance she has information about Sarah, which explains Ian’s renewed interest in finding his mother.
Dammit, Ian, why didn’t you tell me?
Another text comes through.
Aimee?
Yes?
Good night.
I let him have the last word. Despite the hour, I call Lacy’s number. It rings once before a recording answers. “The number you have reached—”
I end the call, not at all surprised. Ian wouldn’t have reached her either. The number on the card is more than a month old. We’ll never learn what she knows about Sarah or how she can help Ian find his mom.
But I do know of one person who might be able to. Lord, help me.