Something to Talk About (24 page)

“Yes, we did.
Didn’t even spend the night.
If we had, we might have uncovered something,” he replied.

“Well, what about when you were actually making the movie?” Renee asked. “How did you manage to not meet your family when you were shooting? It had to attract a lot of attention from the community.”

Clay laughed, with Bennie joining in. “It did, Renee. Lots and lots of people turned up every day to watch. Everyone in Cassopolis, Michigan, was thrilled,” Bennie said. “We did the exterior shooting in a few weeks and we did it all in Cassopolis and Killarney Beach, which is near Bay City. Our location scout was looking for places that looked like
Idlewild
looked in the 1920s and that’s what he came up with. Most of the film was shot in Atlanta, remember, so there went another golden opportunity for our paths to cross.”

She sighed deeply and leaned into her brother’s shoulder. Andrew gave her a hug and spoke for the first time. “Yes, it’s ironic that you guys made a movie about Dad’s hometown and managed to not meet his relatives while you were doing it, but the fact that the man he claims is his long-lost son was also your therapist is the wildest freaking coincidence I’ve ever heard of. It’s so wild I’m beginning to believe it’s not a total coincidence.”

“What do you mean, Andrew?” Her face puckered in puzzlement as she asked the question.

“I’m just saying, out of all the therapists in the state of California, the one who shows up to treat you just happens to be our long-lost half brother. I just think it wasn’t so much a coincidence as a deliberate act. I mean, think about it. Pop couldn’t have pulled this off by himself. He ha
d to have had help from someone;
someone who was uncharacteristically quiet during the whole expose, someone who was with you in California after the accident and who probably knows a lot more than she’s letting on. Someone who could probably fill in a lot of gaps for us,” he said slowly.

All four people spoke at once. “Aunt Ruth,” they said in unison.

“Yep, I think Aunt Ruth can probably answer a lot of questions for us.” The others agreed, but Clay added something that no one else had considered until that moment. “I have the idea that Bump knows more than he’s saying, too.”

Andrew looked at his wife and smiled. “So, Renee, you feel like having company for dinner in a couple of days?”

***

Adam was covered in sweat and his breathing was just returning to normal. After leaving Alicia in the parking garage he’d driven home and changed clothes for a run. He’d run down Jefferson Avenue through
Harbortown
, past Indian Village, past Ojibway Island, all the way downtown to the Renaissance Center. He ran around
Cobo
Hall and headed back down Jefferson to home. By the time he neared
Harbortown
he was considerably calmer than he was when he left the loft. He still couldn’t articulate the total rage that overtook him at the thought that he had a half brother, but he wasn’t blinded by that anger anymore. Now he thought that the best course of action was for him to talk to his father, something he hadn’t had a chance to do. Seeing his father’s face and hearing his explanation would go a long way toward helping him make sense of the whole situation. But before he did that, he needed to talk to Alicia, to apologize again for his behavior.

The one thing he never intended to do in this life was to hurt her or disrespect her. And if they were going to be together for the rest of their lives, as he planned, he would have to learn how to communicate with her without resorting to his usual silent, solitary brooding. He slowed his run down to a walk for the cool-down necessary to prevent muscle strain and when he entered the loft he went for the phone immediately to call her. Frowning when he got her voice mail, he left her a brief message with a request to call him. He stripped off his wet, smelly running clothes and tossed them into the washer before going off to shower. The hot pounding water cleared his head even more than the long rim. He used lavish amounts of the
Algemarin
bath gel he’d appropriated from Alicia, lathering his hard body over and over while thinking again how very lucky he was to have Alicia in his life.

When he finally turned off the shower, he wrapped a thick towel around his waist and left the bathroom. A sound from the other part of the loft made him turn his head in surprise. He went into the living room and was surrounded by the sound of Celia Cruz coming from the stereo. With a smile on his face, he followed the aroma that was coming from the kitchen and his heart was warmed at what he
beheld
. There was Alicia, singing along with the CD and adding a bit of seasoning to the big pot on his huge six-burner range. She was wearing a short, red cotton-knit tank dress with cute red sandals and she looked wonderful.

“What’s all this? I don’t think I deserve it, whatever it is.”

Alicia turned around with a playful smile. “It’s your get-out-of jail-free card,
querida.
Everyone is entitl
ed to act like a jackass when they have earth-shattering news to deal
with. I made you
arroz
con
poll
o
and
empanadas
and I’ll have a
mojito
for you in a few minutes. You are planning to get dressed, right?”

Adam didn’t answer; he danced his way over to her and grabbed her, starting a seductive merengue right there in the kitchen. Adam was a fantastic dancer and one of the things they loved to do on Saturday nights was go dancing, especially salsa dancing. Alicia laughed but had to point out that he was hardly dressed for dancing. “Put some clothes on
so we can eat, you crazy man!
”

Adam stopped moving and dropped the towel. “We can eat naked, Allie. In fact”—he leaned over her and whispered in her ear—“having no clothes on makes it easier.”

Alicia pretended to be shocked and tried to run away from him, which only made him lock his arms around her. “Adam, if we do this now what’s going to be dessert?” She laughed.

“Good point,” he conceded and kissed her hard before departing to put something on.

She smiled at his retreating figure, knowing she’d done the right thing by coming over. All the way to the condo she kept repeating
it’s not my cat, it’s not my cat,
but she couldn’t just leave things the way they were. As Adam had told her in
Idlewild
, she was supposed to love him out of his bad moods and not let him sit around and mope. So she decided to make him dinner and take it to him. The empanadas were in the freezer and just needed to be heated up. The chicken with rice was something any Cuban cook could make in a matter of minutes and it was always tasty. She’d made enough for Marielle and the children, too, and brought it over to the loft where it just required a little reheating and serving. The look of joy on Adam’s face told her that her mission was successful.

In a few minutes they were eating at the work island in the kitchen and Adam was effusive in his praise of Alicia’s cooking. “Allie, I still haven’t figured out how you can take something as basic as chicken and some rice and make it taste so exotic. You’re an amazing woman. You turned this from the worst day of my life into one of the best,” he told her. He leaned across the island to give her a kiss on the cheek.

She turned her face so that the kiss landed on her lips, a sweet soft smack that made her smile. “I’m glad, sweetheart I want to make all your days happy,” she said artlessly. Then her eyes widened as she realized her words could be interpreted in several ways.

Adam didn’t seem to have noticed, though, he merely stood up and began clearing their dishes off the island and rinsing them to put into the dishwasher. In mi
nutes he had the kitchen as spotl
ess as it was when she arrived. He turned around to find the kitchen empty and went in search of Alicia. She had opened the French doors and was standing out on the roof garden, sipping the last of her drink. The roof garden was what made the loft spectacular. It was bordered with evergreens in pots and there were two glass-topped tables with umbrellas and matching chairs as well as a couple of comfortable chaise
longues
. Alicia made sure that the big pots of flowering plants were kept well watered and clipped and in the summer it was a magical place for stargazing and relaxing. Adam came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, rubbing his face in her hair.

“I truly am sorry about what happened this afternoon, Allie. I had no right to go storming out of there and leave you with my family. I shouldn’t have let my emotions get the best of me like that”

She turned around in his arms so she could look at him directly. “Adam, your emotions are yours and no one, even me, can tell you how to react to something. It’s your right to respond to something the way you see fit, you’re not a machine. I can handle that. You know I come from a
family who believes in expressing its feelings at the top of its collective lungs.” She laughed. “But when you won’t talk to me about it, I don’t know how to help you. Or
if
I can help you ...” Her voice trailed off and she was obviously thinking about something important. “You know before we were . . . involved I used to know what to do, I’d just leave your evil butt alone until you were over it. Now that doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. Isn’t that funny?” she mused.

Adam didn’t respond immediately, he just held her tighter. His deep voice seemed to resonate through her body as he spoke with his mouth close to her ear. “I resent that ‘evil’ comment. I may be aloof at times but I’m never evil,” he said loftily. “I do know that I’m not the easiest person to talk to at times, and I don’t mean to shut you out. But damn, Allie, for the life of me I can’t figure out how I feel about this. So much happened this weekend I’m still trying to get a handle on it. I thi
nk when I talk to Pop in person
I can sort things out better. Right now, though, I really don’t want to talk about Pop or
Idlewild
or the phantom half brother,” he whispered.

Alicia sighed with pleasure and asked him what he wanted to talk about. He turned her around in his ar
ms
and slid his big hands down her back until they were firmly around her derriere. He lifted her up and she helped him by locking her legs around his waist. “I don’t really want to talk about anything except us, Allie.”

He kissed her and they reentered the loft with their arms looped around each other and their mouths joined together by the sensuous movements of their tongues. When they reached the bedroom, Adam reluctantly let her go long enough to lower her to the bed. He took off his shirt and jeans before getting on the bed with her. When she started to remove her own clothing, he stopped her. “Let me,” he said as he reached for her and made short work of the red dress.

They lay in each other’s arms, stroking each other and reveling in the feel of their bodies pressed close together. Adam reached over to the nightstand for the inevitable condom and while he was doing so, he also picked up the remote for the stereo system. With a flick of his thumb he selected something that made Alicia smile. The incomparable voice of Marvin Gaye floated out into the bedroom. She pulled away from Adam and straddled his body, taking the foil packet from his fingers. “So this is for medicinal purposes, is that it?”

“Absolutely, baby. ‘Sexual Healing’ is just what the doctor ordered,” he agreed. The lighthearted tone soon turned passionate as Alicia deftly slid the condom over his hardened sex. Adam slid his hands up her smooth thighs to her hips
and
then
he
held he
r firmly
while he entered her, loving her soft sighs of pleasure. Alicia moved up and down slowly at first, until their rhythm was established and their ascent to ecstasy began. She looked down at Adam, not realizing how incredibly sexy she looked to him as the passion overtook her. Her skin was gleaming, her face wore a look of total abandon, and her nipples were huge and erect with fulfillment
.
Alicia braced her hands on his broad shoulders
with her eyes locked on his
and loved the profound look of love and desire he was giving her. The strong, sure thrusts brought the quivering explosion that bound them together in a powerful orgasm, so powerful that Alicia could feel hot tears coursing down her cheeks.

As she collapsed on top of Adam he stroked her over and over. “I love you, Allie. You’re mine, baby, you’re the one God intended just for me. I’m going to spend the rest of our lives m
aking you happy,” he vowed
.

Alicia sighed in repletion but before she could answer he spoke again. “You’re going to marry me, right?” She smiled against his neck and didn’t answer at first. She was too happy to speak just then and would have been content to bask in his love for a little longer, but he wasn’t having it. Adam gave her a squeeze and a little shake, repeating his question with just a hint of anxiety in his voice.

“Alicia, did you hear me? I just asked you if you were going to marry me.”

“Of course I am
,
you dope. Who else is going to love me like you do? And who else is there in the entire world I could love like I love you?” She kissed him with all the love she was feeling. “You’re mine, Adam, all mine. Of course we’re getting married.”