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.”
