Nick froze, unsure how to approach her.
“I mean, it’s not like my emotions come with an on or off button,” Adrienne told the man.
“But you’re happy here, now, without him.”
“Absolutely. But this isn’t real life. This is a vacation.”
“A vacation.” The man dipped his brush into a smear of blue paint on his palette and carefully drew a streak along the upper edge of his canvas. “But why must life be more or less than a vacation? Should we not be happy all the time?”
Adrienne blinked at him. “We have to work.”
“Is that why you went to law school instead of pursuing art?”
Adrienne made a noise that coming from anyone else would be a snort. Nick edged closer and a twig snapped beneath his shoe.
Adrienne lifted her gaze and met his. Her cornflower blue eyes widened with surprise. “Nick!” She stood and launched herself into his arms.
He caught her and inhaled her vanilla-scented shampoo. But there was something different about her, too. She was thinner, brittle, breakable.
She pulled away to look into his face. “Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?”
“My Tio Jose,” he began.
The worry lines around her eyes faded. “Of course. How is he?”
“He’s good. Aging…”
The man behind the easel pointed his paintbrush at Nick. “This man is not your husband.”
“No. This is his cousin, Nicolas.”
“Ah,” the man said as if he could see what Adrienne could not. That Nick was, and always had been, completely in love with her.
