“Promise you won’t get mad.”
Conversations that started with those kinds of requests were not a good sign.
“I can’t promise that.”
“Never mind then.” Daniel ducked his head and turned to walk away.
Adelaide quickly closed the distance between them and grabbed his arm. “Danny, what’s going on? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled, attempting to squeeze past her.
Adelaide blocked his escape and placed a hand on her hip. “Well, we’re going to talk about it. What don’t you want me to get upset about? Look at me.”
He lifted his gaze and his jaw settled into a firm line. He looked so much like his father then—a younger, darker version with curlier hair, but the same mouth, nose, and brown eyes.
“Nothing. I’ll figure it out myself.”
Right then, Adelaide decided that whatever the problem, she’d do her best to help him through it. Her voice gentled. “Danny, if you’re in some kind of trouble, you need to tell me so I can help.”
He blinked rapidly and then roughly wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his denim jacket.
“Please, what’s wrong, baby?” She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“I messed up, Mom.” He lifted his gaze.
He’d messed up before, and she hoped they’d be able to overcome this particular screwup—whatever it was—like they had all the others.
“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. How did you mess up?” Her stomach tightened as she waited for his answer.
“Jamie’s pregnant,” he whispered, dropping his gaze to the tiled floor.
Adelaide gasped and her heart sank. “Jamie’s what?”
“Pregnant. Please don’t tell Dad.” He looked up at her with pleading eyes.
Adelaide pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh, my goodness, Danny. Of course I have to tell your father. This isn’t exactly something I can keep from him.”
“But he’ll get upset and yell at me.”
“That’s not a reason for me to keep the news from him. He’ll find out eventually. The sooner the better.” She didn’t think it was possible, but his shoulders slumped even more, but his sadness was not enough to quell her anger and disappointment. “What were you thinking?”
He shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t.”
“No, you weren’t.” Adelaide crossed her arms and paced past him to the window overlooking the back patio. She pivoted and faced him. “You are a nineteen-year-old college sophomore who is having a baby with a girl who just graduated high school. What about your future? What about hers? How are you going to support this child? Did you think about any of this while you were being careless?”
“Mom!”
Startled out of her tirade, she saw tears in his eyes.
“Not now. Please.” Daniel swallowed hard.
She was a hypocrite, reaming him out when she and Hector had only been a year older than him and unmarried when they got pregnant with Junior and Karen. Right now he did not need her anger. He needed support. The type of support she and Hector hadn’t received when they were having their babies.
Remembering how hard that period had been, Adelaide opened her arms and Daniel rushed over. She enclosed him in her embrace. “We’ll figure it out,” she whispered.
She couldn’t hear him crying, but felt the tears where he’d pressed his face against her neck.
“But you have to tell your father.”
Daniel lifted his head and swiped at his tear-streaked face. “Would you talk to him for me, please? He’s gonna kill me.”
Nothing so dramatic would happen, but she understood why he was worried. Hector had not been pleased with Daniel the past few years. Neither had she, but her ex-husband was much more vocal. During Daniel’s last year in high school, his grades had fallen off, and he’d started getting into all sorts of trouble.
“Danny, you need to tell him yourself.”
“He’s going to be so disappointed.”
“Of course, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell him.”
“I can’t.” He shook his head vigorously.
“Honey—”
“Please, Mom, could you tell him for me? Please?”
His red-rimmed eyes made him look very young and softened her heart. She cupped his face. “Fine. Yes, I’ll tell him.”
He let out a sigh. “Thanks, Mom.”
He gave her a tight, grateful hug, but minutes later Adelaide was all alone in the kitchen, contemplating the conversation with her ex-husband. She’d only talked to Hector once in the past six months, and the conversation had been brief. This should be interesting.
She picked the School of Culinary Arts brochure and thumbed the pages. No rush. She’d have time to work on this later. Right now, her son needed his mother. Her kids were her life. She hadn’t failed them in all these years, and she was not about to start now.
She opened one of the drawers and tossed the brochure inside.
2
Hector parked his gray Jeep Cherokee in the driveway next to his son’s Nissan.
Stepping out of the vehicle, he loosened his tie, which suddenly felt restrictive. It was the end of the work day and he still wore a suit and tie after a day spent in meetings. He had rushed out of the last one so he wouldn’t be late.
The very quiet Bayview subdivision contained mostly one-story homes with three-car garages, and nothing had changed in the six months he’d been gone. All the houses were still well-maintained by their owners who had neatly trimmed lawns and bushes. Except for their house, which stood out like a sore thumb with its too-long grass. He’d have to find out what was going on. Technically, the house was no longer his business, but maybe Adelaide needed help.
He strolled to the front and let his gaze travel over the burgundy door. The original color had been gray, but Adelaide had wanted a different color, so he spent one Saturday morning painting the door and shutters the more vibrant color.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, he pushed away the memory and rang the bell. Seconds later, the door opened and he was gut-punched by Adelaide’s soft, hesitant smile.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
Damn. She looked like…his Adelaide. Often mistaken for a woman in her thirties, she was sexy and beautiful in a pretty blouse splashed with dark and light flowers all over it and dark jeans that enveloped her hips and hugged the lines of her waist. She wore her long hair in a ponytail, which perfectly displayed the beauty of her round face, bright and pretty hazel eyes, and a mouth that was wide and full and inviting.
Hector hadn’t seen her since they signed the papers in the attorney’s office and went their separate ways in the parking lot, like strangers. They talked once in the interim because she had a question about the mechanic who’d worked on her car before. He used to be in charge of taking their cars in for repair, so he had easily answered the question and wished he could have kept her on the phone longer.
Adelaide stepped back. “Come in.”
The bitter taste of irony forced a wry smile to Hector’s face at the realization that he had to get permission to enter a house he thought he’d grow old in. The home he still thought of as their home.
Inside, he was immediately hit by the inviting scent of pineapples. Adelaide believed their house should smell good, and she achieved that with air fresheners in every room.
He followed her to the bright kitchen that opened into the great room. She’d added yellow pillows to the two white sofas. The gold and white curtains covering the sliding glass door and large windows were open to give an unobstructed view of the covered patio.
A few years ago they’d added the covering. He set up a gas grill, bought a table, chairs, and a sofa, and voilà—Adelaide had an outdoor space to spend time with her friends and for the few times a year they entertained. They’d remodeled the kitchen the same year, opting for white appliances and white cabinets with nickel kno
bs. Everything looked pretty and shiny, conveying the message that all was well in the Flores home, when in reality it hadn’t been.
Hector sat on one of the backless stools at the kitchen counter. “Okay, I’m here. Care to tell me what’s going on? You were mighty secretive about why you wanted me to come over.”
Adelaide walked to the opposite side of the counter. “Would you like something to drink? Water? Lemonade?”
“I don’t want anything to drink. I want to know what’s going on, and why you needed me to come over to talk about ‘something important.’”
He wasn’t upset, but maybe a little worried. Was there something wrong with her? The kids?
“I’ll tell you in a second.”
She pulled a jug of lemonade from the refrigerator and he watched her backside in the snug fitting jeans. Erotic memories fast-tracked through his brain—his dedication to her pleasure and her cries of passion when he succeeded. Overcome by the need to touch her, his eyes dropped to his clenched fingers on the granite countertop. Before he moved out, he’d experienced the same painful need to touch her but stayed away as if she’d been wrapped in a blanket of thorns. He still wasn’t sure how they’d gotten to that point in their marriage. No touching. Barely talking.
Hector loosened his fingers. They’d done what they had to do. They’d drifted apart and divorce had been the right decision.
Adelaide placed a glass of lemonade in front of him. “I’m sorry for all the cloak-and-dagger, but this wasn’t something I thought we should discuss over the phone. It’s about Danny. He was very upset yesterday when he came home and told me what was wrong.” She took a deep breath and Hector’s abs tightened. “Jamie’s pregnant. She’s three months along, and the baby is due—”
“Pregnant!” This news was better than an illness, but not much better.
“Hector, calm down.”
He stood and braced his hands on the counter. “He’s out of control! He keeps screwing up. He made shitty grades the last year of high school, scraping by in math and science—classes he used to breeze through and could practically do in his sleep. He got in that fight and got suspended, and then the foolishness with spray-painting foul language on the outside of the school with his friends and getting caught as they left the school grounds. What’s wrong with him? Matter of fact, is he here?”
“Yes, but he asked me to talk to you,” Adelaide said, an exceptional example of calm compared to his intensely agitated reaction.
“So he couldn’t tell me himself? He let you do it?”
She gestured at him. “Look at your reaction. Do you blame him? He needs our support, not condemnation.”
Hector laughed and rested his hands on his hips. “Support. So what about school? Is he going to finish? And what about Jamie? What are her plans now that she’ll be a mother in about six months? They’re both kids, Addie.” He cursed and stalked away, too wired to stand still.
This was not the path he’d wanted for his son, to make the same mistake he and Adelaide had made decades before. The boy had been making bad decisions for a while but this—this was too much. He and Adelaide had managed—together—because they’d been older and in love and wanted their kids. Were Danny and Jamie in love? What were their plans? How were they going to support a child?
Adelaide silently watched him.
“Does he plan to get a damn job? Does he have any plans at all? Babies are expensive.”
“You and I both know that, and I think he and Jamie can learn from what happened to us. We need to help them.”
“Are you suggesting we financially support them?”
“They’re going to need help,” Adelaide said, sounding frustrated and in disbelief that he didn’t understand that point.
“I’m not parting with a dime, except a few gifts for the baby. Danny can get a job.” Hector cursed under his breath.
“So we should turn our backs on them?”
“That’s not what I said, but when you make adult decisions, you deal with the adult consequences, and come up with adult solutions.”
Adelaide stared down into her glass of lemonade on the counter.
“I’m not wrong, Addie.”
Her gaze met his. “Do you remember what it was like for us? How hard it was that first year without any help? We both had to leave school.”
When Adelaide became pregnant, she’d been frantic, but Hector had been excited and insisted they get married. She’d been hesitant and put him off, unsure if marriage was the right decision for them because they’d been together less than a year by then. Plus, she’d had her family to contend with. Her father was a workaholic and her mother found solace from her miserable marriage inside of a gin bottle. Because her father’s ambition meant getting transfers to accommodate his promotions, Adelaide lived in four states and seven cities from the age of ten until she graduated high school.
As the oldest of four, she became the default babysitter and surrogate mother who whipped up delicious meals for her younger siblings. When her parents learned she was pregnant at twenty, they had both expressed their disappointment and said they’d ‘expected more from her.’
After the kids were born, Adelaide took them to see her parents, but Junior and Karen were almost eighteen months old before they saw them again in person.
“That was a decision we made together. I promised you if you stayed home and took care of our kids, I’d make sure you didn’t have to work. Even if it meant working ten jobs, I’d do whatever I had to do to make sure we—our family—was okay.” A man took care of his family. That lesson had been drilled into his head by his father.
Adelaide placed a hand on her hip and her lips tightened. “I know you don’t want any of our kids to go through what we did. Yes, Danny has been screwing up and hasn’t exactly lived up to the ideal we set for all our kids. I get it, Hector. But I’m his mother, and this is where we are. I’m not going to throw him in the middle of the ocean and tell him figure out how to swim, and I know you won’t, either. That’s not the type of man you are.”
Dammit. Hector gritted his teeth.
Adelaide could always break him down with one of her calm, no-nonsense speeches. She was a natural caretaker, always looking out for others. Maybe because she didn’t have that type of support and love growing up.
After a resigned sigh, Hector muttered, “I do remember what it was like to be in this very situation.”
He had to admit that when he learned they were having twins, he’d experienced a moment of panic. One child would be tough, but two? His family in Mexico hadn’t been able to offer any help, and her family had offered no help.
The moment of panic was fleeting. He’d already known he would marry Adelaide, and the thought of starting a family with her only made him more determined to get started on the life he’d been planning. She’d been the one since he saw her in a crowded movie theater sitting alone.
Hector took a seat and sipped the lemonade, wishing it was a double shot of whiskey.
“What’s our next step?”
3
“How do you think that went?” Adelaide thought the conversation went well but was curious to hear Hector’s opinion.
Surprisingly, he had held his temper in check and talked calmly to their son. She believed his self-control eased Daniel’s fears, because after a hesitant start, the three of them sat around the coffee table in the living room and their son opened up. They discussed options and came to the tentative resolution that Daniel would leave school, get a job, and stay with Adelaide to save money.
They also called Jamie and talked to her grandmother, whom she had lived with since she was eleven. Hector and Adelaide let them both know they were ready and able to help Jamie, emotionally and financially.
After a few words, Daniel went to his room to continue talking to Jamie, and Adelaide walked Hector out to his car.
“Good. Definitely could have been worse,” Hector replied.
His voice sounded grim and she glance
d at him. He’d draped his jacket and tie over his arm. Over the years, he’d changed a lot and yet only changed a little.
The dress shirt hugged his tight body and the waistband of the black trousers emphasized his narrow waist. His hair was still the same midnight color it had been when they met, and his face still carried the perfect symmetry of a square jaw, an aquiline nose, and the piercing dark brown eyes of the man she’d married. But there were lines around his eyes now and a somberness in their depths that never used to be there.
He had the same physique, his body a tight mass of muscle that hadn’t softened much since their twenties. She could barely look at him without thinking about running her fingers over his hard body or climbing on top of him as his long-fingered hands gripped her hips.
Or—she swallowed as heat swept her skin—her favorite position, where she lay on her back and those same hands gripped her wrists above her head as he used masterful strokes to bring her closer to an earth-shattering climax.
She missed their lovemaking, but she also missed him. God, how she missed him. In all their years together, she’d never slept apart from Hector. Even when they were angry with each other, they shared the same bed. She never sent him to sleep on the couch, and he never went to sleep in another bedroom. Maybe it was habit, or maybe just the comfort of knowing that no matter what happened, even when they were mad, they’d still lie side by side. They were still husband and wife.
Arguments, cold shoulders, and a separation disrupted the harmony in their marriage. The divorce made the changes final. She’d be sleeping alone for the foreseeable future.
Adelaide crossed her arms and forced her thoughts into the present. “I’m a bit concerned about Danny leaving school. He doesn’t have to do that if we’re helping him.”
“I don’t like it, either, but you should be glad that he’s being so responsible.”
“He’s still a baby,” Adelaide murmured.
“Our baby is about to have a baby.”
Adelaide frowned. “Why are you so hard on him?”
Seasoned Page 11