Julian doesn’t reply, just looks at him, then buries his face in his phone, cramming the rest of the doughnut in his mouth.
Standing beside his sons, James finishes his coffee and juggles his oatmeal, mixing in a packet of nuts and dried fruit. Flip-flops and loafers cross his line of vision while he eats. He scrapes the bottom of the bowl and takes his last bite when a pair of strappy, rhinestone slides fills his vision. They sparkle like crazy. Then he feels the owner’s presence and his entire demeanor hardens. The pulse in his neck throbs. He doesn’t have to see who’s wearing the tailored sundress with the thin leather belt tightened at a slender waist as he draws his gaze upward. He doesn’t have to look past the tiny pearl button at the neckline and into her pinched face to know who’s standing beside him.
The oatmeal he just ate lands hard in his stomach. What the hell?
“Hello, James.” His mother greets him with the closed-lipped curve of a smile.
For the second time this week, his jaw lands on the floor over her unexpected appearance. He has to stop himself from asking Marc to pick it up along with his dirty doughnut.
James gapes at the woman who lied to him and his sons for five years. The same woman who abhorred his artistic talent, so much so she’d ordered him to return the first oil-paint set Aimee had gifted him on his twelfth birthday. A frivolous talent, James, and not worth wasting your time on.
This came from the same woman who’s an artist herself. A brilliant one, too. He’d seen the piece displayed in the upstairs hallway of their house in Puerto Escondido. Carlos had also described in his journals the other works she’d painted during her extended stays in Mexico.
His pulse pounds in his ears. “Why are you here?”
Claire’s face twitches. Her barely there smile falters.
“Se?ora Carla!” Marc launches to his feet and hugs Claire, smearing sugar and sprinkles on her sundress. She doesn’t blink an eye, but her smile is back, brighter and wider.
“Are you coming to Hawaii? Will you stay with us? Tía Natalya will be very happy to see you.” Marc speaks rapid Spanish, unable to contain his excitement.
Julian looks up from where he’s sitting and stares bug-eyed at Claire, just as surprised as James to find her there. He slowly rises to his feet, sliding off his headphones to drape around his neck. He glances to James, then back to Claire, and James knows it won’t be long before his son figures out who Claire is, and what she’s been hiding from him for years.
Claire kisses Marc’s head, then does the same to Julian, who’s slowly warming up. She hugs him, then meets James’s hard gaze. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“Give us a minute,” he tells his kids. He grips Claire’s upper arm and hauls her a few seats away.
“James,” she gasps.
He stops by the trash bin and tosses the oatmeal bowl, then launches into his mother. His teeth are gritted to keep his voice low and somewhat under control. “We might have had some messed-up friendship thing going on in Mexico, but fact is fact. You took advantage of my memory loss. Do . . . not . . . expect us to pick up where we left off.”
“Watch your tone with me.” Her eyes arrow left, then right, concerned they were making a spectacle of themselves.
James loosens his grip and lets his arm fall to his side. “Why are you here?”
Her polished nails flutter to the pearl button at her neck. “Thomas told me you were leaving. He thought I’d want to know.” Her face softens. “You can use my help. The boys know me.”
“As Se?ora Carla. I thought you weren’t speaking with Thomas.”
She grimaces. “We talk only when necessary. James, darling, please. You weren’t home nearly long enough and Thomas didn’t know when you’d be back.” She glances around James. “I miss them. I haven’t seen them since last December.”
A chill rappels down his spine like a rock climber on a cliff face. “You were in Mexico last December?”
She looks surprised. “Of course I was. I went every year right after Thanksgiving. I’d stay through the Christmas holiday.”
But he hadn’t seen her. Which only meant one thing in James’s mind. She’d known he surfaced and had left the country.
Over the speaker the attendant announces boarding for first-class passengers. Claire opens her purse and retrieves her ticket. “You aren’t the only parent in this family worried about their children’s welfare.”
Since when had she cared about him? “A box of expensive paintbrushes doesn’t make up for years of ignoring something I used to be extremely passionate about.”
Claire snaps shut her purse. She frowns. “What do you mean ‘used to be’?”
“You finally got what you wanted, Mother. I stopped painting.”
She tucks her purse under her arm and averts her face. She watches the luggage being loaded onto the plane. “I’m still going. I have a ticket and a hotel reservation.”
The gate attendant announces the next boarding group and passengers mill toward the gate. Julian looks impatiently at him and mouths Let’s go. James holds up a finger, a signal he’ll be there in a second, then turns back to his mother. “I can’t stop you. I can, and I will, determine when and how you interact with my sons.”
“When do you plan to tell them about me?”
“I’m not sure I will.”
“But I’m their grandmother. You have no right keeping me from them.”
“Are you kidding me?” A short laugh rumbles from his chest. He gives his mother a look of disgust. “I have every right.” He shakes his head, still laughing at her audacity, and returns to his sons.
Their row block is announced. “Grab your stuff, kids. Time to go.”
“Where are you sitting, Se?ora Carla?” Marc asks once they’re in line.
“I’m in the very front.”
“Of course you are.” James fumbles with the zippers on his pack, searching for their tickets.
Julian gives him a weird look. “What’s your deal?”
“Life, Julian.” He gives his son his ticket. “Don’t lose it.”
“Seriously?” he balks. “What do you think I’m going to do? Drop it between here and the gate?” A woman with a toddler rushes forward, bumping Julian’s shoulder, knocking the ticket from his hand. It floats to the floor.
James snorts a laugh. He can’t help it.
“Shut up,” Julian mumbles. But his mouth twitches into a smile when he picks up the ticket.
James pats Julian’s shoulder, leaving his hand there to rest as they inch toward the gate. To his amazement, his son doesn’t shrug him off.
CHAPTER 12
CARLOS
Five Years Ago
July 8
Puerto Escondido, Mexico