CHAPTER 4
CARLOS
Five and a Half Years Ago
December 8
Puerto Escondido, Mexico
It was dark when I stumbled up my driveway. Fourth night this week I’d spent with Patrón, liquid gold and the only remedy that got me through the lonely evening hours. After mucking through another day teaching art classes, organizing the gallery’s next season of showings, and finalizing contracts on several commissioned works, I left my car at work and landed on a stool at La cantina de perrito, a bar down the street from my gallery. Natalya wouldn’t be happy. The boys had been asking why I hadn’t been around much.
Because your dad’s a ticking time bomb, that’s why.
Glancing up at the second floor, their bedroom windows black squares against the house’s white stucco paint, I craved a sense of normalcy. To go back to the way things were before Aimee had shown up.
Face angled toward their windows, I stepped backward and stumbled over a planter edge. My shoulder slammed hard into the adobe wall lining my property. Pain spiraled like fireworks across my deltoid, waking up the old injury. I hissed and punched the bricks. “¡Mierda!”
I needed to get myself together. ¡El pronto! If not for me, then for Julian and Marcus. I sucked the torn skin on my knuckles and shook my hand, trying to lessen the pain.
Thomas had left for California six days ago. Imelda texted me when he checked out of the hotel. True to his word, which said nothing of his character, Thomas didn’t contact me again. Imelda had tried to reach me daily. I sent her calls directly to voice mail where the number in the red notification circle on my phone app had crept up all week.
I fumbled with the lock. The front door flew open. Natalya stood there, hands on hips, scowling. She wore a fitted white tank and a tie-dyed skirt that dusted the floor. Damn, it was colorful, just like her long copper hair. Bright and lustrous with multiple shades. I blinked hard, trying to focus, and stumbled through the door. She caught me before I face-planted. My chin dipped to her sunscreen-slathered shoulder. Coconut and salt. She’d been at the beach with the boys. Heck, she practically lived on the beach, even after years spent competitive surfing. She’d been a rock star on the board, just like her father, world-class surfer Gale Hayes.
Natalya stumbled under my weight. “You smell like a dirty bar mat.”
I straightened, focusing on her head to keep the room from spinning, and gently tugged a few strands of her hair. “So pretty,” I murmured about the colors. She was fair to her sister Raquel’s dark. They shared a father, but both had taken after their mothers.
Natalya nudged my hand away. “You’re drunk. Again.”
“Yep.” I lowered my hand and swallowed, my throat drier than the hillside behind the neighborhood. “Need water.”
She followed me into the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinets. I filled a glass from the fridge water dispenser. She popped the cap on a bottle of aspirin she found next to the boys’ vitamins and dropped two tablets in my palm. “This is becoming routine.”
I smirked at her, popped the pills, and drank the water.
She watched me drink, her gaze zigzagging from the glass to my face and then to my hand. She sucked in a breath. “Carlos.” She took the glass from me, setting it aside on the counter and cradling my hand. She brushed a thumb gently over the torn flesh. “What did you do?”
I pulled my hand from her grasp. “I had a run-in with a wall.” Tonight was another low for me. I’d been punching things all week. My bedroom wall when I first told Natalya about what I’d learned from Imelda, then Thomas earlier this week, and now the bricks outside. It was time for me to dry out and do . . .
My thought tapered off. Do what?
What in God’s name could I do to make my situation better? How could I ensure my sons were taken care of should I happen to one day wake up as James?
Natalya sighed and I raised my head as though looking to her for an answer. Realization dawned like the eastern sun, bright and luminous. Maybe she was the answer.
She curved an arm around my back. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs.”
She stayed with me while I washed up and brushed my teeth. Then she went to crack open the slider to the balcony and closed the screen, giving me a moment of privacy while I shucked my clothes and pulled on boxers and a shirt.
I flopped onto the bed, arms spread wide. My head spun in the opposite direction of the ceiling fan overhead. I groaned and closed my eyes, listening to Natalya move around the bed. The jangle of the sterling-silver bracelets she always wore. The steady patter of her bare feet walking on hardwood. The wisp of cotton sheets as she yanked them out from underneath me. Grunting, I lifted my hips for her. She stood near the end of the bed. I grinned and waggled my brows. She flopped her arms, giving me a disgusted look, and the similarity in that one gesture hit me in the chest, almost killing my buzz.
“You look like her.” Her expression turned sad, and I wanted to take back the words as soon as they left my mouth. Damn alcohol. Liquor loosened my tongue.
“I’m not her.”
No. You aren’t.
Natalya pulled the sheet up, letting it float over me. She sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you always see her when you look at me?” she asked, her face searching mine.
Did I see my deceased wife when I rested my hand in the small of Natalya’s back? Did I see her when I longed to kiss Natalya? Even though I hadn’t yet tried, Natalya saw the desire to do so in the way we both knew I looked at her.
I missed Raquel, and always would. She was the mother of my sons. But it wasn’t Raquel I saw when Natalya came to visit.
“I see you.”
Her shoulders lowered and I reached for her hand. Our fingers twined and a terrible thought spilled into my head, oozing outward like watered-down oil paint until it covered me completely, making me desperate for an answer. “Was it real? Raquel and I?”
Has anything about my life here been real?
Natalya studied our joined hands. She flipped mine over and traced the lines in my palm. The pressure of her finger tickled. “Nat,” I pleaded, my heart racing faster. I squeezed her fingers. Had Thomas bribed Raquel, too?
“I think what Raquel felt for you was very real.” She folded my hand in both of hers. “I’d never seen her as happy as she was with you. She gave you both of her sons.”
Air rushed from my lungs. “Good.” I settled back on the pillow. “That’s good.”
She pressed my hand against my chest. “Get some rest, Carlos,” she said, rising to her feet. “I leave in the morning and the boys need you.”
“They need you, too.” I lifted my arm toward her. “So do I.”
“They have me.” She opened her mouth, briefly hesitated with a short intake of breath, and said, “So do you. I like you, Carlos, very much.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant.”
She blinked and averted her face, cheeks tinged with embarrassment.
“I like you, too. But listen.” I tunneled both hands into my hair.
Natalya sat back on the bed. “What is it?”
Eyes darting toward the hallway in the direction of Marcus’s and Julian’s rooms, my chest tightened. I’d told Aimee she’d never have her James back. It had already been almost two years, and I was convinced I’d be this way permanently. I’d always be Carlos. But it was nine days ago when the full impact of my condition had barely carved its hole in my chest. I understood now there were no guarantees. I could remain as Carlos for the rest of my days or wake up as James tomorrow. It all depended when my mind was ready to deal with the trauma that had triggered my condition.
“When I stop being me, you’re all they’ll have.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Natalya said.
“But it can. It’s a real possibility that it will. I don’t trust anyone in the Donato family, so how can I trust the man I should be? I don’t know what I was like. I could be just like Thomas, or that other brother he told me about—Phil. The one who’d sexually assaulted Aimee. I don’t want someone like that anywhere near my kids, let alone raising them.”
“How can you talk like that? You and James are the same person. Same body, same heart.”
“But not the same mind.”
“You have the same soul.” She rested a hand over my heart and I clamped it to my chest with my own. “I can’t believe James would do anything to hurt them. You’ll love them as James just as much as you love them as you.”
“I wish I had your faith.”
She splayed her fingers on my chest. “Maybe you will someday. Until then, how can I help? What can I do to put your mind at ease?”
“I want you to adopt my sons.”
She jerked back. “What?”
“You heard me.”
She stared hard at me. I stared back. “You’re serious.”
“Very. I want you to raise them should something happen to me.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you. You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Yes, I’m drunk, and yes, I know exactly what I’m asking. You’re their aunt. Julian is more related to you than to me, and Marcus adores you. It makes perfect sense.”
“It makes absolutely no sense,” she objected. “I live in Hawaii. You expect me to take your sons away from you, the only father they’ve known, when you’re still alive?”
“But I won’t be me.” I gripped her hand. “I won’t know who they are, and there’s a very good chance I couldn’t care less about them, not to mention the danger they might be exposed to if James takes them back to the States. I’d rather have them living with you in Hawaii than in California with the Donato family.”
Natalya slid her hand from mine and stood. “I leave early in the morning. Can I think about this?”
I groaned, frustrated. Then I nodded. “Take your time. We’ll talk in a couple weeks.” She’d be back for the holidays.
She leaned over me, her face less than a foot from mine. She cupped my cheek. “You should think about this, too. You may feel differently tomorrow.”
I doubted I would.
She kissed my forehead and I clasped the back of her neck, urging her lips to linger longer on my skin. She lifted her head a few inches and caressed my cheek with her thumb. “Take care of your boys, Carlos. And take care of yourself.”
“That hasn’t been an easy task lately.”
“I know. But try. I’ll be in my room downstairs if you need me, otherwise I’ll see you in the morning.” She moved to the door, her bare feet a whisper across the floor. “Good night,” she said.
“Good night, Nat.”