Anchored Hearts Read online

  Also by Priscilla Oliveras

  His Perfect Partner

  Her Perfect Affair

  Their Perfect Melody

  Island Affair

  and

  “Holiday Home Run”

  in A Season to Celebrate

  (also available as a stand-alone ebook)

  Anchored Hearts

  Priscilla Oliveras

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgements

  Teaser chapter

  ISLAND AFFAIR

  HIS PERFECT PARTNER

  HER PERFECT AFFAIR

  THEIR PERFECT MELODY

  A SEASON TO CELEBRATE

  SUMMER IN THE CITY

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2021 by Priscilla Oliveras

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4201-5019-3

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-5020-9 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-978-5020-0 (ebook)

  Dedicated to those who, like Anamaría, are out there hustling, turning their dreams into goals that become reality . . . and those who love, support, and encourage them, offering a port in the storm of life where they can drop anchor and feel at home.

  My port has always been wherever my mami and papi are.

  Abrazos fuertes y amor profundo por siempre ser mi

  querido puerto.

  Chapter 1

  “Mami, you’re kidding me, right?” Anamaría Navarro slowed her Honda Pilot for the red light at the intersection of White Street and Glynn Archer Drive and gaped at the dashboard screen as if her mom could see her shock.

  “Nena, why would I joke about someone’s health and a mamá’s worry for her child? How could you think that of me?”

  Anamaría bit back a frustrated sigh. Ay Dios mío, talk about exaggeration. The Cuban mami guilt coming through the line was thicker than the humidity enveloping Key West outside. And even late-April heat in the Keys was no-joke hot.

  “We’re not talking about a generic ‘someone,’ Mami, and you know it,” Anamaría pressed. “This is—”

  “Exactamente. This is familia. So, you will go and help. Because it is what familia does,” her mami insisted.

  ¡Coño! Anamaría smacked the butt of her palm on her steering wheel as she mumbled another damn! She didn’t have to be video chatting with her mami to see the reprimand on her softly lined face. The parental disappointment and expectation were evident in the firm tone.

  The light turned green, and Anamaría checked her rearview mirror for traffic moving into the left lane next to hers. When she glanced forward again, her gaze caught on Key West Fire Department Station 3 nestled on the far corner. For a hot second she considered pulling into the station’s parking lot. Whining to her brother Luis about their mami’s unreasonable request.

  But thirty years of living with and loving a Cuban mami told her that while whining to her brother might make Anamaría feel better, nothing would change their mother’s mind.

  Frustration bubbling, Anamaría flicked her blinker down to signal her intent, then executed a smooth U-turn.

  “Mami, I already told you, I only have an hour and a half before I go into back-to-back-to-back workout sessions with clients. I was running home to make a protein shake and update something on my website. I don’t have time to go play nursemaid.”

  Especially not to him.

  Her gut clenched. Her heart fluttered the tiniest bit. Anamaría gritted her teeth, ignoring the reactions to the man she’d sworn to forget.

  On the other end of the line, the maternal guilt factor upped the ante in the form of a heavy, downtrodden sigh. “That is plenty of time, nena. Elena is worried Alejandro’s wounds may have become infected on his long trip home. You will put her fears to rest by checking his injury. This is nothing different than getting a call when you are at the station. Do you not want to help her?”

  Anamaría bit down on the not really that sprang to her tongue. It would be a partial lie anyway. “Normally, I’d do anything for Señora Miranda. Pero esto—”

  “But this, nothing. I know you and your good heart. You will go because she asked for you. Porque she needs you. Now tell me, how close are you to the Mirandas’ home now? ¿Ya casi llegas?”

  A surprised puff of air rushed from Anamaría. How the heck did her mami know to ask if she was almost there?

  Annoyed, if somewhat bemused, Anamaría glanced at the dashboard display again where La Reina scrolled across the screen. Not for the first time in her life she wondered if her mami, aka “The Queen,” had managed to implant a tracking device in her children at birth. Somehow, Lydia Quintana de Navarro had this uncanny ability of keeping close tabs on her four kids, even though they were all now adults.

  “Sí, I’m about five minutes away,” Anamaría muttered as she continued heading south on Flagler. Ahead on her left, the red-and-white electronic marquee for Key West High School flashed with end-of-the-school-year announcements.

  “Muy bien. I knew I could count on you to do the right thing,” her mom said, not even trying to hide her smugness. “Please be nice to Alejandro. Pobrecito must be in so much pain.”

  Anamaría rolled her eyes. Poor thing? The idiot should have been more careful if he planned to hike the Puerto Rican rainforest alone.

  “I’ll be polite. That’s the best I can promise.”

  The odds of her being nice to the man who had broken her heart were about as good as a snowball’s chance of surviving a Key West summer day. There was damn good reason why she hadn’t spoken to Alejandro Miranda for over ten years.

  “Por favor, dile que sigo rezando por él,” her mom insisted.

  “Mami, I’m sure he already knows that you’re praying for him.”

  In fact, prayer chains had been activated throughout their comunidad the second news had reached them of Alejandro’s scary hiking accident a couple weeks ago. Despite his asshole behavior before and in the months after their breakup all those years ago, even Anamaría had murmured a few Our Fathers for his recovery. That Catholic school guilt could be a real revenge squasher sometimes.

  Still, she had no desire to play messenger pigeon for the man
to whom she had nothing left to say.

  Fingers gripping her steering wheel, she made the left onto Bertha Street, then shortly after turned right onto Laird. Her breaths quickened the closer she drew to the house that had been her second home since eighth grade at Horace O’Bryant Middle School.

  Well . . .

  Except for those first few months after their breakup. When it’d been too painful for her to visit. To even drive down this quiet neighborhood street.

  The same way it had been with so many other places around Key West. Memories attacking her in quick succession. Sharp cross-hook-uppercut jabs delivering blows as if she were a punching bag.

  Gravel crunched underneath her car tires as she parked in front of the Mirandas’ place. Her gaze cut to the cinder-block and peach-painted stucco privacy wall edging the single-story home’s perimeter. Through the white-painted wood peep-through border at the wall’s top she stared at the front door.

  It had taken her a while, but she’d learned to deal with the sad expressions on many of the faces of the loved ones inside. The ones who, like her, had been left behind, forgotten, by the same hardheaded man whose presence, almost twelve years later, forced her visit today.

  Annoyed by her current predicament, Anamaría jerked the gearshift to park, then wiped her sweaty palms on her leggings. She sucked in a deep breath, slowly releasing it like she would instruct a victim in danger of hyperventilating. When that did nothing to slow her mid-cardio workout pulse, she reached for her water bottle and took a hefty swig.

  “¿Llegaste?” her mom’s voice cut through the hazy memories trying to push their insidious way to the surface in Anamaría’s mind.

  “Yes, I’m here. I gotta go, Mami. Te llamo más tarde.”

  She chugged another gulp, certain that her promise to call later wouldn’t stop her mom from bugging her before then. When it came to overstepping the boundaries of propriety and privacy with her children, her mom didn’t baby-step over it. She freaking leapt.

  All with good intentions of course. Lydia Quintana de Navarro lived and breathed for her husband and children, their extended familia, and their entire comunidad. That also meant when she felt she knew what was best for someone, there was no shying away from letting them know it. Or from using her wily passive-aggressive skills to get her way, particularly with her kids and grandkids.

  Like a truth teller affirming Anamaría’s thoughts about her mom’s meddling, her mom’s voice stopped Anamaría seconds before her finger hit the end call icon on the dashboard screen.

  “God has a plan for you, nena. I know He does.” Her mami’s tone softened with concern at the same time it sharpened with the conviction of her faith. “Dios te bendiga, mi vida.”

  Before she could reply to her mother’s usual “God bless you, my life” farewell, the call was disconnected.

  God has a plan for you. The sage advice replayed in Anamaría’s head as she rubbed her thumb over the AM Fitness logo imprinted on the side of her water bottle. This—AM Fitness—had to be that plan. She sure hoped so, anyway, because it was her only focus now.

  The black-and-red script in a font meticulously selected because of its strong, energetic vibe indicative of the brand she sought for her burgeoning business reminded her of how far she’d come. Sure, it had taken her awhile, but she was finally in a good place.

  Her heart had mended. Her conviction that she’d made the right decision by staying behind had solidified. Her anger at Alejandro’s mulish behavior had dissipated to mere indifference. Well, until his surprise return.

  A surprise she refused to let derail her.

  Ignoring her trembling fingers and the annoying jitters in her stomach, she tugged the keys from the ignition, grabbed her backpack, then left the safety of her vehicle.

  Like many in this older Midtown neighborhood, the Mirandas’ was a modest, single-story stucco house. Theirs was painted the same welcoming soft peach as the privacy wall, with dark gray hurricane shutters bookending the windows. Alejandro and his younger brother, Ernesto, had spent their entire lives here. Until their father, in a fit of anger Anamaría felt certain he’d never meant, threatened to ban Alejandro from their home if he chose to turn his back on running the restaurant that was their familia’s legacy.

  Despite the threat, Alejandro had boarded that plane to Spain. Off to seek fame and fortune on his own terms. Without his father’s blessing. Without her.

  As she stepped onto the sidewalk, the humid breeze snagged a few strands of hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail, blowing them across her cheek. She tucked them behind her ear and squared her shoulders, then paused in front of the wide wooden door nestled in the privacy wall’s alcove. Overhead, sprawling bougainvillea with their deep green leaves and bright fuchsia flower petals climbed the slanted overhang in a colorful canopy. The sweet-smelling vines offered shade to those who entered, but the plant’s sharp thorns were as prickly and harmful as the memories of Alejandro she had struggled to uproot from her heart.

  Shit, if she was honest with herself, she’d admit that the sweat dotting her upper lip was a nervous reaction to seeing Alejandro again after all these years, not the hot island climate. That didn’t mean anyone else needed to know.

  All she had to do was put on her game face. Channel her I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude that challenged any sexist, chauvinistic firefighters at work to question her abilities when it came to saving their asses. Treat this visit like another routine 911 call. Alejandro, another random patient she might need to load in the back of her . . . or, bueno, his mom’s sedan . . . for the short drive to the emergency room at Lower Keys Medical Center if need be.

  So what if instead of her firefighter gear she wore exercise clothes, having come directly from a private workout with a guest at the Casa Marina Resort. Her sundress from church was a balled-up, wrinkled mess inside her gym bag. No way was she wasting twenty minutes driving to her place in Stock Island, just outside of Key West, and back to freshen up. Not for him.

  She refused to care whether or not she looked her best for the man who had walked away from her so easily.

  Straightening her spine, Anamaría reached for the weathered metal door handle.

  Her plan was simple. Get in and out quickly. Keep chitchat to a minimum. Remain professional and focused on her job—not the man—while she checked Alejandro’s vitals and the pin sites of the external fixator keeping his surgically aligned tibia shaft in place while his compound fracture healed.

  No doubt Alejandro had come back kicking and screaming. Metaphorically speaking anyway. That had been the general consensus during the conversation she’d tried to tune out around the table at her familia’s mandatory weekly dinner the other night.

  Nothing short of desperation and the need for assistance with his daily care—with a heavy dose of maternal insistence, no doubt—could have finally brought the prodigal Miranda son home.

  Anamaría figured Alejandro wanted to be back in Key West about as much as she wanted him here.

  That would be . . . not at all. As in zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

  If luck was on her side, her visit now would be a quick “all’s well” checkup. With Señora Miranda’s fears for her eldest’s well-being calmed, Anamaría could be on her way having fulfilled her duty, intent on maintaining her distance until he left again.

  Because he would leave again. Everyone knew that.

  Only this time, when Alejandro Miranda boarded his flight to wherever his photography skills took him, he would not be taking her heart with him.

  After having decided almost two years ago to quit waffling and just do it—her younger brother’s wise, albeit borrowed-from-Nike advice—she was finally taking steps to make her true career dreams a reality. Thanks to social media influencer mentoring from her brother Luis’s fiancée, AM Fitness had started getting more buzz, Anamaría’s platforms were accruing more followers and subscribers, and, most recently, a talent agent had offered her representation.

  There
was absolutely no time for distractions or strolls down a memory lane plastered with Dead End signs.

  Alejandro Miranda was her past.

  Anamaría’s eyes were focused on the future.

  All she had to do was get through this one awkward meeting. Then they could go their separate ways again.

  A tiny pang of regret seared a hot trail through Anamaría’s chest.

  Stubbornly she stomped on the hurtful sparks like the dying embers of a careless fire. She didn’t have time for regrets. Instead, shoulders back, head high, she pushed through the wooden door, ready to face the man who had shattered her once tender heart.

  * * *

  Sitting on the worn floral-print sofa in his familia’s living room, Alejandro Miranda cursed the bad luck that had dragged his ass back to Key West. The island home he’d left behind over a decade ago, by choice and by force.

  His mami sat on one side of him, his abuela on the other, their dark eyes pools of concern. Across from him, his sister-in-law, Cece, and two-year-old niece, Lulu, perched on the matching love seat pushed against the opposite wall, their gazes trained on him expectantly. His brother, Ernesto, leaned against the armrest, hovering at his wife’s side, uncertainty pinching his brow.

  Trapped by their intent stares and unspoken expectations, Alejandro jabbed his fingers through his hair in frustration. Being back in his childhood home made him think about that old copy of Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again he’d found at a secondhand bookstore in London several years ago. The title had initially grabbed him, but it was the words on the pages inside that really resonated.

  According to Wolfe, you could never return to your old life, your old ways, even your old hometown, and find things the same. Ha! The guy obviously hadn’t tried going back to a Cuban familia rooted in tradition.