flooded through her.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he ground out, pushing her hands away when she tried to help him readjust his position.
She should stop pushing.
Back away from this argument.
Leave before she said too much.
But the words she’d kept bottled inside flowed from her like water from a fire hydrant cranked open on the street. “It means, how do you think they felt that time you were nearly trampled by a bull in Spain? Or when you had that hang-gliding fiasco somewhere in South America?” She gripped the plastic kit tightly to keep herself from grabbing his shoulders and shaking some sense into him. “Or the moped accident in Thailand? Or, let me see, what else was there? Oh, the—”
“I said, I get it,” he repeated, impatience hammering his words.
“Are you sure?” She jerked her head, punctuating her question, and her ponytail swished over her shoulder.
“Yes, I’m sure.” Jaw tight, lips pressed in an angry line, he glared back at her.
“Do you really understand how your actions affect those who love you?” Those who also longed for him to come home. A group she no longer belonged to. For her own good.
Her question hung between them, challenging him with its truth.
Several tense seconds later, his shoulders slackened. His dark eyes shifted, becoming deep pools of disappointment and . . . was that regret?
No. No way would she let herself fall for that.
“Yes, I do,” he murmured. “Believe me, I understand how the people we love are often the ones who hurt us the most.”
Wait, was that some kind of dig at her? Indignation burned deep in her chest, scalding her heart. Questions screeched like bitter banshees in her head. Crying out for answers.
Why, in all these years, had there been no effort on his part to make peace with his father?
Why had he walked away and never looked back? Then stayed away for so damn long?
Why hadn’t she, their comunidad, their island, been enough as his home base? A safe port to drop anchor after his travels.
Why? Why? Why?
The question reverberated in her head, yet she refused to ask. Refused to care about the answers anymore. They didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter.
Alejandro laid a hand over one of hers. She flinched, surprise catching her breath. A rough callous on his palm scraped her skin, and prickles of awareness skittered up her forearm, arcing across her breasts.
“I didn’t mean to cause them—anyone—any distress,” he said.
His face pinched with contrition, he squeezed her hand as if willing her to believe him.
She tried. Part of her wanted to. But her sense of self-preservation wrapped around her like a force field, protecting her battered soul.
“I’m not the one you owe that apology to,” she said. “You and I were done a long time ago. We’ve both moved on. But your familia, that’s—”
“Ay, look at you two.” Señora Miranda swept into the room carrying a serving tray with two plates and bottles of water. “It makes my heart so happy to see you together again.”
Anamaría hopped off the bed as if she and Alejandro were still two teens, caught in the middle of something illicit.
“Mami, no te metas,” he cautioned.
“Don’t get in the middle of what?” His mother’s wide-eyed expression telegraphed the opposite of innocence.
As Anamaría shoved her supplies inside her backpack, she caught Alejandro’s resigned gaze in the mirror. They might not agree about the past, but it was obvious they agreed on one important point in the present: They were not happy about their mothers entertaining the idea that the two of them might reconnect.
That ship had sailed. And, like the famed Atocha Spanish galleon of centuries past, it had crashed against the Keys’ ocean reef, sinking to the sandy depths. Buried in a watery grave. Only there was no sunken treasure to recover here. Despite the gleam in Señora Miranda’s eyes.
“Come, I made you un san’wich, también, nena.” She waved Anamaría over to the bed. “Your mamá told me that you met a client right after mass this morning, then came straight here. Tienes que tener hambre.”
No, she wasn’t hungry. More like frustrated. By his presence. By her inability to remain aloof. She didn’t need to eat. What she needed was to get out of here.
And yet she couldn’t be rude and refuse his mom’s invitation. Based on the triumphant gleam in the older woman’s eyes, Señora Miranda had counted on Anamaría’s ingrained manners.
His mom patted the edge of Alejandro’s bed, indicating Anamaría should sit.
He hitched a shoulder, the twist of