Serena's Choice - Coastal Romance Series (15 page)

Jeff withdrew his hands from
Serena’s and walked over to Angela. “I need two Manhattans and a
draft,” she told Jeff concisely. “Coming right up,” he said
moving away to make the drinks. Angela stood at the bar glaring at
him, waiting on the drinks. Serena looked away. When Angela had her
drinks, she moved out to the floor and Jeff walked back over.

“
Looks like you’re in
trouble,” Serena said, trying to sound lighthearted.

Jeff looked out into the room, at
Angela she supposed, and looked back at Serena. “No trouble,” he
said.

“
I need to go,” Serena said,
sliding off the barstool. “It’s late and I’m tired.”

“
See you tomorrow,” Jeff
said. “Maybe we can go to the paint store soon.”

“
Sounds good,” Serena said.
She glanced at Angela, who was taking a drink order at the table in
the back. She could be a model, Serena thought. Why is she spending
her time as a barmaid in a backwater town like Luna Bay?

Serena slept again, but this time
she dreamed. Steven was grabbing her hand, saying “Come on, let’s
go.” He said that over and over in the dream. She didn’t know
where he wanted her to go. She kept thinking about Nonna. “What
about Nonna?” she said in the dream. But there was no answer, just,
“Come on, let’s go.” Everything in the dream felt ominous and
threatening. She felt confused and worried.

Serena woke up suddenly,
startled. She was gasping. When she realized it was a dream, she fell
back against her pillow. The feelings of the dream stayed with her
for much of the morning. When she finally went to work, she was so
busy that all thoughts of the dream fell away, and by early evening
she could barely remember it.

During the dinner rush, her phone
vibrated in her pocket. She walked to the office to answer the call
from Steven.

“
I’m finally home,” he
said. “I want to see you.”

Her heart was beating fast at the
sound of his voice. “I want to see you, too,” she said.

“
I’m not up to coming to
Rossetti’s tonight. Can you come over after work?”

“
Yes,” she said instantly.
“I’ll be there around nine-thirty.”

She couldn’t wait for dinner to
be over. At nine, she told the staff she was leaving and walked out
to her car. Her overnight bag was still in the back seat from the
other night when she thought she’d be seeing Steven. She drove to
the coast to Steven’s house. When he opened the door, she fell into
his arms. Nothing was in her mind but kissing him and making love
with him. Which they did. Twice. Her world was spinning smoothly
again.

They slept together for a while
and then woke up at about the same time in the early hours of the
morning.

“
I’m starving,” Steven
said.

“
Me too,” she responded.
“I’ll see what I can throw together.”

“
I don’t think there’s much
in there,” Steven said. “I haven’t been to the store in a
couple of weeks.”

Serena opened the refrigerator.
There were three eggs, butter, and a green shaker of Parmesan cheese.
Not her favorite, but she would make it work. She opened the cupboard
and found an unopened package of vermicelli and some garlic powder.
She started a pot to boil for the pasta. She cracked the eggs into a
bowl and whipped them with a fork. While she was waiting for the
pasta to cook, Steven’s cell phone started to ring. It was in the
living room on the coffee table. Who in the hell would be calling him
at this hour? She walked over and looked at the screen. Carlos. This
is ridiculous, she thought. Just ridiculous.

She walked to the bedroom and
told Steven that Carlos was calling.

“
How do you know?” he asked,
startled.

“
Your phone was ringing and I
walked over and looked at it,” she said.

He got out of bed and followed
her into the kitchen.

“
I’m sorry,” he said. “I
thought he’d gotten the message. I don’t know why he keeps
calling me.”

“
This is just about ready,”
she said in reply. She poured the steaming pasta into the colander,
then put it back in the pan. She added butter and salt and pepper
before pouring in the beaten eggs. She was making a carbonara, of
sorts, without any milk or cream. When the eggs were cooked, she
added Parmesan cheese and put the pasta into two large bowls. Steven
sat at the table and twirled the pasta around his fork.

“
I can’t believe you made
something this good out of nothing,” he said.

“
Are you going to call Carlos
back?” she asked, putting her own fork into the pasta and twirling
it. She put it in her mouth. Damn. It was good. Better than she
expected it to be. It would be tons better with some pancetta or
bacon, but it was still good.

“
I’ll see if he left a
message. But I don’t want to call him back at this hour. I’m
going to have to have a talk with him about calling me.”

He walked over to his phone and
checked the message that Carlos had left.

“
It’s nothing,” he said
when he got back to the table. “His girlfriend walked out on him.
Again.”

“
That doesn’t sound like
nothing,” Serena said.

“
It is,” Steven said. “It
happens every other day.”

They went back to bed with full
stomachs. “I love you, Serena,” Steven said, kissing her good
night.

She woke up the next morning
around nine and went into the kitchen to make coffee. Thankfully,
Steven did have coffee and some nondairy creamer. It would have to
do. The man had been so busy he hadn’t been able to get to the
store, so Serena gave him a pass.

Steven was still sleeping
soundly, exhausted from his trip, so Serena took her coffee to the
deck to watch the sea. Seagulls swooped into the ocean while their
smaller bird cousins walked along the shore. She watched an older
couple walk past the house and down the beach, holding hands. Serena
hoped that she would be holding hands with her husband when she was
old. A school of porpoises moved through the water rhythmically, and
Serena followed their course.

As she was watching the
porpoises, she heard the noise of a car door. She peered behind her
shoulder and saw a young man and woman walking up Steven’s steps.
She hurried inside, hoping to get there before the doorbell rang. Too
late. She ran to the bedroom to wake Steven up, but he was still
sound asleep. She jostled him and he started to come awake.

The doorbell kept ringing, then
she heard someone say, “Hey, Steven. It’s Carlos.”

Carlos. Serena left the groggy
Steven and opened the door. Curiosity had gotten the better of her. A
young Hispanic man stood there with a Hispanic woman wearing short
shorts and a tiny midriff shirt. A pink rhinestone shone from her
naval and her dark hair was pulled up messily into a comb.

Carlos looked startled when she
opened the door. He wasn’t expecting to see Serena. “Oh,” he
said. “I’m sorry. I was coming to see Steven.”

“
He’ll be right here,”
Serena said sweetly. “Won’t you come in?”

“
This is my girlfriend, Maria,”
Carlos said, grabbing Maria’s brown hand in his.

“
It’s nice to meet you,”
Serena said. “Can I get you some coffee?”

“
I love coffee,” Maria said.
“I get it at Starbucks all the time.”

“
Well, I’m afraid this won’t
be like Starbucks,” Serena said. “It’s just plain old coffee.”

She led them into the living room
where they sat on the couch. She went back to the bedroom. Steven was
putting on his jeans and a T-shirt.

“
It’s Carlos and his
girlfriend,” she said.

Steven looked at her sharply.
“You’re kidding,” he said.

“
Not kidding. They’re waiting
on you in the living room.”

While she was pouring cups of
coffee for Carlos and Maria, Steven came out into the living room.

“
Hey, man,” Carlos said.
“I’ve been trying to call you. Did you forget we’re going out
on the boat today?”

“
I did forget,” Steven said.
“That car trouble I had just threw everything out of whack.”

“
We don’t have to go,”
Carlos said, looking disappointed.

“
That sounds fun,” Serena
said, wondering what she was doing. She looked over at Steven who
just stared back at her with a blank look on his face. “Okay?”
she said to him.

“
Okay,” Steven said. He
turned to Carlos. “Sorry I forgot, man. That meeting in Tampa was
so boring and then my car went out on me. I just forgot everything.”

Carlos glanced at Serena, then
back at Steven. “It’s okay. We can do it another time,” he
said.

Steven looked at Serena and she
could tell he was hoping she would agree to do it another time. “We’d
love to go,” she said defiantly to Carlos. “It’ll take us a few
minutes to get ready.”

“
Okay,” Carlos said. “We’ll
go down and wait on you at the car.”

As Carlos and Maria were walking
out the door, Maria said, “We’ve got a cooler full of beer and I
made sandwiches.”

Serena smiled at the girl
serenely. “Thank you, Maria.”

Back in the bedroom, Steven
turned to her. It felt like he was turning on her. “Why did you
agree to go?” he asked sternly. “Couldn’t you see I didn’t
want to?”

“
I’m sorry,” she said
sweetly. “I thought you wanted to go. It sounds kind of fun.”

“
It’s okay,” Steven said
putting on his shoes. Serena put on her sundress and sandals and
together they walked out of the house and down to Carlos’ car.

“
We’ll meet you over there,”
Steven told Carlos. They followed Carlos to the Gulf Coast
Oceanography Institute’s building, where the boat was docked nearby
on the sound. Carlos and Steven carried the coolers onto the boat and
Maria and Serena followed.

Steven, with Carlos at his side,
drove the boat through the sound, under the bridge that connected the
Esmeralda Island to the mainland, and out onto the water. Serena and
Maria pulled beers out of the cooler and sat on the chairs at the
other end of the boat.

“
So how long have you known
Carlos?” Serena asked.

“
Oh, we’ve known each other
for a while. Our parents are friends in Miami. But we didn’t really
get to know each other until college. That’s when we started
dating.”

“
And you’ve been together
ever since,” Serena said more as a statement than a question.

“
Yes. When he got the job with
the institute, I came with him. I haven’t been able to get anything
in my field yet, but I hope to.”

“
What is your field?” Serena
asked.

“
Social work. It’s what I
really want to do, but right now I work as a secretary for a law firm
in Fort Walton.”

“
I guess that must be
interesting,” Serena said.

“
Not really,” Maria said.
“It’s not what I want to be doing. But Carlos is happy here, so I
make the best of it.”

Maria didn’t indicate that she
and Carlos had any problems. When she watched Carlos and Maria
together, they didn’t seem like a couple in trouble. They were easy
with each other, affectionate with each other. They looked like a
young couple in love and nothing more complicated than that.

A couple of hours later, Maria
brought out smoked turkey sandwiches and a container of chicken
salad.

“
This is Cuban chicken salad,”
she said. “My grandmother’s recipe. I’ve got tortillas we can
wrap it in.”

Serena looked at the chicken
salad. It didn’t look like any chicken salad she had ever seen. It
had corn and black beans in it, along with strips of grilled chicken.
Maria pulled out a bag of shredded lettuce. She opened a tortilla and
spooned the chicken salad and lettuce onto it before rolling it up.
Serena did the same. She crunched down into a melding of flavors she
had never tasted before. Chili and lime, cumin, corn and black beans
all came together to dance on her tongue.

“
This is so delicious,” she
told Maria. “I’ve never had anything like it.”

“
Thank you,” Maria said
shyly. “I’ve been eating this my whole life.”

“
She’s a great cook,”
Carlos said, putting his arm around Maria. “She keeps me happy.”

After they had eaten, Carlos and
Steven decided to do some fishing. Serena and Maria were alone again.

“
Did Carlos have to go to
Louisiana to the oil spill?” she asked Maria.

“
Oh, yes. He went to Louisiana
and Alabama and Mississippi. He went all over the Gulf Coast. It was
terrible what happened. Carlos was so upset about the oil in the
ocean and about those men who got killed.”

Serena realized that Maria was
talking about the BP oil spill, not a recent spill off the coast of
Louisiana.

“
Yes, that was terrible,”
Serena agreed.

“
That’s one reason I love
Carlos so much,” Maria continued. “He really cares about the
ocean and about people.”