Blue Moon (18 page)

As Gabe stepped back to allow Jeanne to precede him from the shop, the clerk called out to them. “
Gracias
, come again.”

Shopping bag in hand, he'd turned to answer when he heard Jeanne gasp. Suddenly she sprawled against him, clutching at his shirt. As Gabe dropped the shopping bag to catch her, he observed a young man running off with her purse.

Setting Jeanne upright, Gabe ran after him. Startled tourists scrambled aside at Gabe's “Out of my way!” Upon realizing that Gabe's longer stride closed the distance behind them, the thief ducked through a souvenir stand. Gabe stayed on his heels, vaulting over a clotheshorse hung with tropical sarongs that the kid had overturned in his path.

He spied Jeanne's purse, abandoned by the thief, who ducked behind a concrete building. Snagging it, Gabe sprinted around the building, but the youth had disappeared. On a hunch, Gabe doubled back. Sure enough, the thief had circled the row of buildings and likely intended to disappear through the parking lot into an area of private homes. By the time he saw Gabe, it was too late.

“I've got you!”

With instincts born of martial arts training and time spent as a bouncer, Gabe used the boy's momentum to thrust him down on the hard-packed sandy street.

He was tall for a Mayan and thin, with Spanish influence in his features. “I give you purse,” he whined, breathless.

“Tell that to the
policía
,” Gabe muttered, ushering the kid down the street toward the boutique where Jeanne waited.

“I give the purse, lady,” the young man protested as Jeanne approached them. “But I am in the oven if you call the
policía
.”

“Omigosh, he's bleeding.”

Bewildered, Gabe examined himself first as she took her purse and dug out a small packet of tissues. Slowly it dawned on him that she was concerned about the scraped elbows and knees of the kid. It also dawned on the kid, whose pain doubled with the attention.

But more to Gabe's incredulity, Jeanne's consternation seemed directed at him. “Yes, the little thief is bleeding,” he declared. “If he hadn't run, he wouldn't be. The blighter's lucky he wasn't hit by a car.” Gabe caught the eye of a shopkeeper who'd stepped outside to see what the commotion was all about. “
Llame a la policía, por
favor
,” he told the man.

“No, wait!” Jeanne looked up from where she mopped up the thief 's bloody elbows with tissues from her purse. “Don't call the police. I'll handle this.
Cómo se llama?
” she asked the young man.

The boy looked down at his knees where two wads of tissue were glued by blood and dirt. “Tito.”

“Jeanne, he stole your purse,” Gabe reminded her.

“I know, Gabe. I was there.” She lifted the youth's chin. “Tito, why did you take my purse?”

“Because he's a thief!”

Instead of listening to Gabe, Jeanne fingered the black leather thong around Tito's neck and dragged out a pewter crucifix from beneath the dingy binding of his shirt.

“There was another cross next to this one, Tito,
en
Calvary. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

The young man nodded slowly.

To Gabe's surprise, instant shame softened his hard, dark expression.

“There was a thief on that cross. Do you know what happened to him?”

Tito looked away. A tear welled over, trickling out the corner of one eye. “Jesus carry him to
paradíso
.”

This kid was good.

“Jesus”—she used the Spanish pronunciation,
heh-soos
—“forgave him. Do you understand what forgive means?
Perdone
?

” The young man nodded. “
Lo siento mucho
. I am sorry,
señorita
. Only I take money for my sick mother to pay the doctor.”

That cut it for Gabe. “You're not falling for this, are you, Jeanne?”

But he could see that she was. Compassion etched her face as she dug into her purse once more and came out with a twenty-dollar bill. A cautious wonder filled the young man's face as she handed it to him.

“Gabe, will you translate for me?” she asked. “My academic Spanish might lose something in the translation.”

“Are we about to have a sermon?” Beneath her unyielding gaze, Gabe conceded. “Well then, let's get on with it.”

“Tito, I can't offer you heaven, but I can offer you a second chance. I can offer my forgiveness.”

Grudging, Gabe repeated the words in Spanish and watched Tito's wariness slowly evaporate, at least where Jeanne was concerned. Gabe wanted the boy to be frightened of him, adding something fast and furious about what might happen to Tito's ability to procreate if Gabe saw him anywhere near Jeanne again.

“Entiende?”
Jeanne asked of the lad.

With an uneasy glance at Gabe, Tito took the money.

“I bloody can't believe this.”

As if Gabe were worlds away, Jeanne tapped Tito's cross again. “This is why I do not call the police. Tell him, Gabe.”

Gabe complied, but when he added a few words about not needing police to find Tito and make his threat good, Jeanne riveted him with suspicion in her eyes. “What did you say?”

“He say that he no need
policía
for to make Tito for to have no children.” The boy made a chopping motion with one hand upon the other in demonstration.

Shock for tinder and anger for flint sent sparks from Jeanne's eyes. “I'm beginning to think Remy is right about you. No knife,” she said to Tito. “Knife for him,” she added, making a cutting motion across her throat.

“
I
didn't steal your purse,” Gabe objected as the young man brandished a full set of teeth at him and dashed off, the twenty clutched triumphantly in his hand.

“No,
you
betrayed my trust.”

Annoyed at the boy, at her, and at himself, Gabe dug in. “Paying a thief for stealing your purse. That'll keep him off the street for sure.”

“Maybe it will, maybe it won't,” Jeanne conceded. “And maybe his mother isn't sick. But I have my purse and an opportunity to possibly help someone see the error of his ways.”

“Oh, no doubt you've done just that. And racked another star for your halo. He's probably off to light a candle and count off some beads for good measure.”

“Were you always so cynical, Gabriel Avery? Haven't you ever believed in anything with all your heart?”

All his heart? Gabe foundered in a maze of conflicting urges. “There was a time when I believed in the good of man,” he confessed. But that was so long ago . . . so long ago. Never mind that he missed his old life sometimes, especially when he woke up with a hangover and a raging case of self-disgust. Just never mind.

“I got over it,” he said, gloom spreading to the core of his being. So much for a day of fun and relaxation with a lovely lady. Now he had a spiritual hangover . . . from
her
overindulgence in the stuff.

The Feliz Pescador was a small restaurant in an all-inclusive resort just outside Akumal. Unfortunately, the maître d' didn't understand that in English the name meant Happy Fisherman—happy with or
without
a tip specifically for seating them at a seaside table. Only after Gabe handed him two crisp twenty-peso notes were Gabe and Jeanne seated where they could enjoy a view of the horizon—a magnificent silver streak painted by a dying sun, a canvas lost to eternity.

But by the time Gabe finished looking at the leather-bound menu with prices high enough to give a guy vertigo, his annoyance at forking out money just to get a table seemed moot. “I recommend the
tournedos . . .
steak fillets,” he said, willing to break the bank to save the day.

Jeanne looked over the top of her menu. “I'll have the trout
molinera
, thank you.”

“Chilled, no doubt,” he drawled, in spite of himself. This was
his
expedition. Granted, by some quirk of the feminine mind he'd flubbed it, but it was his show nonetheless. And he had one ace up his sleeve to play—if Teresa, the girl from the salon, called him back.

He stared at the lovely portion of cold shoulder presented him as Jeanne turned to watch a heron swoop down low near the water patrolling for supper. Oh bloody rats.

“I said I was sorry,” he said. “But you don't know your way around Mexico like I do. I've lived here eight years. I know the ropes.”

“I just gave him a second chance,” Jeanne snipped with a look that suggested no reprieve was coming for Gabe. “Nothing more.”

“Look, arguing over a thief is not exactly what I had in mind for this evening.”

“Then why did you start it?”

“To protect you. I saved your purse.”

“I thanked you. And I don't need protection.”

That tears it.
“Let me think,” he pretended to muse. “I recall your practically taking me down when he knocked you off balance.” Scratching his chin, he feigned contemplation. “I caught you, didn't I? Didn't I keep you from sprawling on the stone walk?”

Up went the chin. A defiant little devil. “Yes, and you retrieved it, but it didn't mean that you had the right to rough up the boy and then threaten him with bodily harm.”

“First, the
boy
was in his teens
and
putting up a struggle
and
he fell. I hadn't laid a hand on him yet, so if he was roughed up, it was
his
doing,” Gabe pointed out. “And he is probably a professional thief, kept from school as a child to beg on the street until he was promoted to bigger and better things.” He scowled at her.

“Whatever he was, he was sorry.”

“Conning sympathetic
turistas
being one such achievement. You are so naive that I wonder why
anyone
put you in charge of an expedition like this.”

Instead of lashing out at Gabe, Jeanne waited in constrained silence as a busboy filled their glasses with imported water from a bottle and added a slice of lime to each rim. The moment the young man left, she leaned forward and, to Gabe's bewilderment, smiled. Or was she baring her teeth at him?

“I've learned that there are things that I can change and others that I cannot. I cannot force you to act like a gentleman or even like a reasonable person. I cannot open your eyes to a greater power that would reveal all the goodness in you. If you'd only give God a chance, the world would know what a wonderful person you are beneath the cynicism. What I
can
control is how I react to you and that terribly low blow about the project.”

Her lips trembled, and Gabe wondered if the waterworks would begin. He knew they'd make a wimp of any man with half a heart, including himself.

She blinked, regaining control. “So . . . let's enjoy our meal.”

To his astonishment, the prayer, and tears, held.

But she did have more to say. “I will endeavor to avoid being in your company alone after today—to spare us both undue disappointment and aggravation.”

“I'm sorry.” Talk about lame. But reason was a muddy mess at this point, and his usual charm was at the bottom of it.

She held his gaze, the emotion in hers reaching out for a part of him that he kept buried along with his past. “So am I, Captain. So am I.”

“Well, well, look who's here,” a man's voice boomed from behind Gabe.

Gabe knew it instantly. His luck had just gone from bad to worse. Turning, he brandished a fake smile. “Arnauld,” he said, extending his hand. “If I'd known you were here, I'd have dined elsewhere. We thought you were in Belize.”

“Dr. Madison,” Marshall Arnauld said, skimming over Gabe's insult with charm. “Delighted to see you again. I hope you find my new establishment up to your standards.”

Jeanne blinked in surprise. “
Your
establishment?” She shot a quick, uneasy glance at Gabe. “Aren't you a man of many ventures? I'm impressed, Mr. Ar—”

“Marshall,” Arnauld objected. “After all, we are old friends now.”

“Did you buy this one with family money or the profits you stole from the
Mariposa
?” Gabe added with an accusatory glare.

“Our friend has quite an imagination, not to mention a streak of paranoia born of bad luck. So how's the expedition going?” he asked Jeanne. “Have you found anything worth donning tanks for yet?”

Anxiety seized Gabe's chest. Would she tell him about the gold coins?

“The usual.” Her voice was even, but she nervously twirled the stem of her water glass in her fingers, creating a small whirlpool inside. Poker was definitely not her forte. “Nothing newsworthy yet, and certainly nothing worth this macho volley of insults.”

What a backswing
, Gabe thought, watching with distinct pleasure as the not-so-subtle chastisement wiped the smug look off Arnauld's face, replacing it with surprise. He hid it behind the rim of the martini he was holding.

“Unfortunately, there's some bad history between Gabe and me, my dear. I don't know how much he's confided in you, but suffice it to say it wasn't my fault that Gabe hadn't crossed his t's and dotted his i's. Details are everything in this business. But I'm sure you know that. ” He paused, his attention on the modest dip of Jeanne's neckline. Gabe fisted his hands, resisting the urge to knock out the lascivious lights in the American playboy's eyes.

Jeanne switched to a safer subject. “So how
was
your trip to Belize? I gather it was a short one.”

“It doesn't take long to spend a fortune,” Arnauld replied, once again lauding his ill-gotten triumph over Gabe with a smirk. “The ladies flew home.”

At that moment, the waiter arrived, placing a tray with two cups of steaming seafood bisque on a stand next to the table. “
Señorita
,
señor
, your first course.”

Uninvited as yet, Arnauld finally took the hint. “Well then, remember, if you should need anything, just give me a call. I have a complete outfit for excavation, dive barges, the works—the best money can buy . . . And I'd be honored to throw in with you . . . at my own expense.”