CHAPTER 2
Adrienne laced her fingers through Nick’s, abandoned her cup of cocoa, and gazed into his eyes. “I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been getting bored and lonely. When she isn’t cooped up in her lab, Aubrey spends all her time talking to her plants.”
Nick squeezed her hands, knowing that this was his opening—where he needed to say, why not come home? But he couldn’t make himself say the words.
As if she had read his thoughts, Adrienne asked, “How is everyone at home?”
Her everyone, he knew, meant Seb. “Hmm, good.”
“And the shop?” Adrienne pressed. She had helped him navigate all the legal documentation and permits when he’d first opened Bar de Música, so she had a vested interest in it. She hadn’t let him pay her, so unbeknownst to her, he deposited a small percentage of his monthly earnings into an account Seb had set up for her for just this purpose.
Nick ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s…crazy.”
“Crazy, huh?”
So she hadn’t seen the YouTube videos. He swallowed, debating whether to show them to her.
Concern flashed in her eyes. “Is something wrong?”
“Define wrong.”
“Nick, what’s going on?” Panic tinged her voice. “Did you really come here just to visit your uncle, or is—”
“Business is booming.”
She breathed out a small laugh. “Good.”
He made a decision and dug his phone out of his pocket. “In fact, I have to show you something.” After pulling up the video of him and Lester, he scooted his chair so close that his shoulder brushed against Adrienne’s.
She watched, clearly enchanted.
“Almost a million views,” Nick said.
She laid her head on his shoulder. “I always forget how talented you are.”
Nick bit his lip to curb the urge to kiss her hair. “There’s more.”
“More?”
“It seems that Steph has been secretly recording videos of me performing for a while.”
“Whoa,” Adrienne breathed.
Nick sniffed and scrolled to the next video. “Not only did she record me, but she had the videos professionally edited.” He swallowed. “They’re actually pretty good.” He handed the phone back to her and watched her face. The sound of his songs filled the air.
She squeezed his arm and blinked back tears after the second video ended. “That was beautiful,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “There’s more?”
He nodded. “Quite a few more.” He cleared his throat. “To quote Steph, I am an ‘internet sensation.’ I had to leave.”
“Leave?” She twisted so she could see his face. Her nearness took his breath. “Why would you need to leave?”
“The tavern is…as I said, crazy. Standing room only even during the mid-day when we should have a lull. I need some guidance from my uncle. He doesn’t know I’m here. I’m going to surprise him tomorrow. Would you like to go with me?”
“I would love to, but if your business is as busy as you say, how can you afford to be gone?”
“I hired three more people. Steph and Jon can run it as well as I can.”
“So you’re hiding?”
He had come to seek advice from his uncle and to see Adrienne but he didn’t feel the need to share the latter of those things. He decided to turn the tables on her. “Are you?”
“Ah.” She pulled away from him as if he’d stung her, and then changed the subject. “How is the family ?”
Should he tell her about his conversation with Sebastian? No. “Abuelo is as crazy as ever. Tia Maria’s Sofia died.”
“I always hated that cat, but Tia Maria must be sad.”
“You would think, but within a week she replaced Sofia with a really mean chihuahua she picked up at the shelter.”
Adrienne wrinkled her eyebrows. “Why does she like mean animals?”
Nick shrugged. “Why do we love who we love? Who can say?”
The man with the paintbrush raised his eyebrows and met Nick’s gaze. Nick looked away, afraid to let his feelings show.
#
Tio Jose still lived in the apartment behind his beachfront music café. Every evening, guitarists, bands, and solo vocalists gathered for their chance to perform on his makeshift stage, but the afternoons—especially during the siesta hours—were quiet. Nick was counting on this.
He met Adrienne at her sister’s apartment the next morning. “The ferry crossing to Colonia del Sacramento is less than an hour,” he told her. “And it should be calm, given the weather. Do you get seasick?” He would rather die than admit to his own weakness in that area.
“I don’t think so.” Adrienne cast a glance at the cloudless blue sky.
Nick’s thoughts skittered back to Seattle, where it would be gray and drizzly. “Do you want to bring a sweater, just in case?”
She shook her head and wrapped her hand around his arm. “I’m loving this weather. It’s like I was so cold and lonely in Seattle, but here…I’m finally beginning to thaw.”
He put his hand over hers. “I’m glad. Come on,” he urged her to move faster down the sidewalk, “we need to be at the dock an hour before our boat leaves.”
She wore a pair of espadrilles and an embroidered sundress that skimmed the tops of her knees. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail that bounced when she walked, she looked like a different creature than the black-suited attorney she’d morphed into after she’d graduated from law school.
Nick didn’t want to talk about their life in Seattle, but curiosity drove him to it. “What’s happening at Crenshaw and Meeks?”
“I had just finished up a big case and told Crenshaw I needed a leave of absence.”
“And he just let you go?” That didn’t sound like the Crenshaw Nick knew.
“I think he knows about Seb and Therese.” She skated him a glance. “Do you know about Seb and Therese?”
Nick stopped at a flower cart and without saying a word, he purchased a bouquet of wildflowers and handed them to her.
“I don’t want your pity!” She pushed the blooms away.
“Well, if you won’t accept these, will you please just hold them?”
“Why should I?”
“Well, for one thing, they match your dress, and for another, I feel it’s a slight to my manhood to carry a floral bouquet.”
“That’s silly.” But she took the flowers while he paid the florista.
“Not as silly as Seb having an affair.” Nick draped his arm around Adrienne’s shoulders. He was wading into dangerous waters by trying to comfort her without exposing his heart. “Any man who would choose another over you would be…silly to the extreme…like Mr. Bean.” Adrienne loved British comedy, but Seb hated it. “Right now, I’m so mad at Seb, I can’t even say his name without feeling incredible rage, so I have a suggestion.”
She slid him a glance. “What’s that?” she asked, her voice full of suspicion.
“We will not say the name of…your husband, my cousin. From now on, his code name will be Mr. Bean.”
A smile tugged at Adrienne’s lips. “He would hate it if he knew.”
“Then we have to tell him!” He dug his phone out of his pocket.
Adrienne took his phone from his hand. “Hmm, not yet. Maybe when the thought of him no longer hurts.”
“Do you think you’ll get there?”
They arrived at the dock. A cluster of people crowded around the gangplank. Nick pulled his wallet from his pocket and went to purchase the tickets.
“You’re helping ,” she told him as soon as he returned. “Before you showed up, I was just hanging out at Aubrey’s watering the plants—not with my tears, but a watering can—okay, sometimes with my tears… I was beginning to hate myself. No, stop. If I’m honest, I’ll admit that I’ve been hating myself for a while.”
As if to argue, the ferry blew its horn. The sound struck a chord in Nick’s chest. He wanted to help Adrienne, but he also didn’t want to get seasick. “I can’t imagine anyone, even or especially you, hating you.”
The crowd surged up the gangplank and Nick and Adrienne moved with the tide of people.
“You’re sweet,” Adrienne said. “And you’re only saying that because you’re such a good person you can’t hate anyone.”
“Right now, I’m hating S—Mr. Bean for making you feel that way.”
She lifted a shoulder in a defeated shrug. “He fell in love with Therese.”
Everything that sprang to Nick’s mind couldn’t be said. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I can only think of profanities right now.”
They made their way to the deck and Adrienne pressed against the railing. “Would it be wrong if I just shouted out a whole bunch of naughty words at Mr. Bean?”
“Right now?”
She nodded.
“I’m not sure if it would be wrong, but I don’t know if it would help. Not really.”
“Then what would you suggest?”
“Not thinking about him. Let’s pretend he no longer exists.” He held up his finger. “I have an idea. I’ll be right back.” He went back into the cabin, pulled a napkin from the dispenser near the snack bar, and returned to the deck just as the boat pulled away from the dock. The horn sounded again. Nick took a deep breath. For the moment, the boat held steady, but he knew that soon it would leave the harbor’s protection and the rolling tide would be more pronounced. Could he travel without getting ill? He would try, for Adrienne.
“Here,” he said as he handed Adrienne the napkin and a pen from his pocket.
“What’s this?”
“Write down Mr. Bean’s real name—and any other names you want to call him.”
She looked at the napkin in her hand and hesitated.
Nick turned his back to her. “Use me as your hard surface.”
“What if the ink leaks through onto your shirt?”
“Then I’ll take off my shirt and toss it into the sea as well,” he said without looking at her.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
She held the napkin against his back and scribbled for a few minutes. When she stopped, he turned and asked, “Are you done?”
She gazed at him with tear-filled eyes. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be really done.”
He placed a finger under her chin. “You will. I promise. Now, throw him away.”
She tossed the napkin into the air. The wind picked it up and carried it toward the Argentine coast. It fluttered and swooped before hitting the water, then disappeared in the boat’s churning, foamy wake. Nick swallowed the bile rising in his throat.
#
Nick sighed and rolled his shoulders as the Uruguayan coast loomed ahead. The palm trees swayed in the warm, humid breeze. The stretch of beach welcomed him like long-lost love. He could already smell his aunt’s budín de pan even though he was still miles away from Tio Jose’s café. He gripped the railing as homesickness rocked through him.
Adrienne wrapped her hand around his arm and leaned against him. For a moment, he let his imagination carry him to a forbidden future, one that included Adrienne and their children, the beach, a warm tide, laughter. He longed to recreate for his own family the idyllic childhood that had been ripped from him with his parents’ deaths. And he wanted Adrienne to be a part of that…but she was the wife of his cousin and best friend. He edged away from her, frightened by his own hunger.
If Abuelo could read Nick’s thoughts, Nick would be hauled by his ear to see the priest.
If Abuelo could know of Seb’s infidelity, Abuelo would cut him off from the family and leave him for dead.
No matter. Nick couldn’t let Seb’s sins justify his own. He loved Adrienne as she loved him, as a friend. And nothing more. Someday, he would find a wife of his own and together they would bring their children to the beach to build sandcastles and bonfires.
“It’s such a relief to be here,” he told Adrienne.
“To see your uncle?”
“Yes,” he replied, “but mostly because no one here has seen those ridiculous videos.”
After a few toots of the horn, the ferry pulled alongside the dock. Nick guided Adrienne down the crowded gangplank and onto the sidewalk of Colonia del Sacramento. He spotted a taxi, hailed it, and placed his hand on the small of Adrienne’s back, urging her toward the yellow car.
Jose lived in a small fishing village about twenty minutes north of Colonia del Sacramento. Their driver, Manuel, a middle-aged man with a handlebar mustache, knew it well.
“Your wife is very beautiful,” Manuel told Nick in Spanish.
“Yes, she is. Although she is not my wife, but my cousin’s,” Nick replied.
“Too bad,” Manuel said.
Nick cut Adrienne a sideways glance. “And she speaks Spanish fluently.”
Manuel glanced at Adrienne in the rearview mirror and gave her a flirtatious smile.
“Gracias,” Adrienne said.
“’Tis but a truth,” Manuel said.
“Manuel, if you had millions of dollars, what would you do with it?” Adrienne asked Manuel.
“We’re back to that?” Nick asked.
“Yes,” Adrienne said. “I think that if God gives you the resources to do a tremendous amount of good, you have a responsibility to use it to make the world a better place.”
Manuel laughed. “I suppose I would send my children to the university and pray that they would do the world some good, but what if they didn’t? What if I paid for them to gain an education, but they did nothing more than become taxi drivers?”
“But would that be so bad?” Adrienne asked. “What if they really enjoy being a taxi driver? Shouldn’t they be free to choose a profession that makes them happy?”
Manuel snorted. “You’re right. I do not need a million dollars. I don’t want the responsibility.”
“That’s an interesting way to look at it,” Nick said as he watched the familiar landscape flash by his window. His thoughts drifted to Tio Jose and the life they’d shared before Tia Martha’s death, before Nick had been sent to the States. For the millionth time, he wondered if that move had been to his benefit. His aunt and uncle in Seattle had loved him and given him a good home, a wonderful education, and a stable upbringing, but maybe, like Manuel’s children, he would have been just as happy working with Tio Jose in Uruguay.
Manuel pulled the taxi alongside the curb in front of Jose’s café. After paying, Nick climbed out, and reached for Adrienne’s hand.
But once on the sidewalk, he froze. Immediately, he knew something was terribly wrong.