Paper Moon (35 page)

“It's hard to separate the crook from the charm of first love, isn't it, sweetie?”

Maybe it was a woman thing, he thought, noting the kindling of feminine understanding between the two. As far as Blaine was concerned, Chandler had been a conniving, silver-tongued devil from the start.

“Maybe John got snookered in with the bad guys like we did,”

Annie observed. “Only he can't get out.”

“I can't believe these women,” Blaine exclaimed, looking to Hector and Manny for support.

“You gotta pay to play, man.” Manny shoved the remains of the egg roll into his mouth.

“Just hope we find him before the bad guys do,” Hector said.

Later, after the agents left them to Inspector Caro's guards, Blaine held back as Caroline and the girls offered a prayer for John to be found safe and alive. Personally, Blaine wanted to snap the kid's neck with his bare hands. Instead, Blaine prayed that it was really over—that his family was safe.

Lord, just deliver us home to Pennsylvania tomorrow, as far away
from Jorge Rocha and his likes as possible. And thank You, Father, for
Caroline.

Leaving the girls to their beauty ritual, which involved the splashing and smearing of every pricey product known to womankind, Blaine followed the woman of his heart out on the balcony afterward. Instinct told him not all was well.

“What's wrong, Caroline?”

It was a balmy night, but she rubbed her arms as though chilled.

“I was just looking at the moon and thinking.” She hesitated.

“About us.”

Blaine had hoped her discomfiture was about Rocha, not him.

“I thought you'd accepted my apology.” He turned her so that he could see her face in the moonlight. Her eyes were bright . . . too bright.
God, I can't lose her now.

“Tell me what you want me to say . . . what you want me to do.

Caroline, I love you. I know I hurt you, but I was crazy with the idea of losing my daughter.”

She smiled. “I know. It's just . . .”

“Just what? Tell me. I'll fix it.”

She shook her head. “No, it's something I have to fix myself. I have to give it over to God.” Pulling away from him, she faced the tropical panorama of the bay, buffered by white sand and the hotels. “It's just that when you blew up at me, it was like a dart from the past.” She sighed. “All the insecurities my ex-husband nurtured in me came flooding back . . . how stupid and inadequate he made me feel.”

“Dear God, I am so sorry.” Blaine buried his face in the cradle of her neck and shoulder.

“I know you are.” She ran her fingers up the side of his cheek, leaning her head against his. “And I forgive you. Your reaction was perfectly understandable. Perfectly forgivable. The imperfection is with me and my own insecurities.”

“Caroline.” Blaine pulled her around, looking down into her tear-pooled gaze. “Sweet Caroline.” Her cheeks were hot and moist to his touch, confirming what he knew. She'd been crying before he joined her. He'd made her cry.

God, give me the words.

“You are a blessing, sent straight from heaven to bring this dead heart back to life. No,” Blaine stumbled. “This dead
soul
. This is going to sound corny and canned, but, sweet Caroline, I was so lost.

Lost in work, lost in fatherhood. Lost in life, lost in faith . . . until I met you. You found me, Caroline. You made me see with the laughter in your eyes, the love in your heart . . . and above all—”

Blaine's voice broke—“the light in your soul. Because of you and your wisdom so far beyond mine, God is real to me now.” He pointed to the starlit sky above them.

“He hung the moon and those stars for man to mark time and place by, to live and love by.” He moistened his lips, but his mouth was as dehydrated of water as his life had been of the living water before Caroline. “Live and love with me, Caroline, for the rest of our lifetime.”

Blaine held his breath as she cupped his jaw with her hands. Her chin trembling, she rose on tiptoe and gave him his answer—with a kiss.

CHAPTER
27

The chaos of departure matched that of the embarking eight days before. Sleep had come in scant bits and pieces, despite the guards posted outside. High on the love of the most wonderful man in the world, Caroline forgot to put in a wake-up call, so after she finally succumbed to exhaustion in the wee hours of the morning, she overslept. Fortunately, she'd showered the night before.

Now Karen commandeered Blaine's shower, while Annie bathed in Caroline's. Freshly shaven and dressed, but showing the strain of too much excitement and too little rest, Blaine held down the lid to Caroline's Pullman so she could zip it.

“Heaven help the customs official who opens this up.” Her droll comment prodded a smile from her somber companion.

“What's in those bags?” he asked, pointing to the gaping top of a fake straw bag with
Mexico
emblazoned on it.

“More souvenirs,” she replied.

With a sigh she surveyed the cases covering the unmade beds.

Each person had two cases plus a few packages. “I guess we'd better call and see if the bell captain can send up a forklift.”

“I'll call,” Blaine offered. “You put a rush on the girls.”

Half an hour later, the teens were dressed and putting the final touches on their hair. Caroline sat at the bistro table on the balcony reading her morning devotional in a weary stupor.

Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit.

Ain't that the truth,
she mused, gazing unseeing beyond the little booklet at the beach coming to life below. The helplessness she'd felt yesterday still made her tremble, but God had intervened in so many ways.

“Peso for your thoughts.” Blaine leaned over her shoulder from behind and kissed her cheek.

Caroline pointed to the highlighted verse. “Today's horoscope . . . although it really suits yesterday better.”

“Wow,” Blaine said after reading it. “I see what you mean. God was working overtime for us this time yesterday. What if the girls had been in the room when the thugs ransacked it?”

“What if they'd found the girls on the island before we did?” It never ceased to amaze Caroline how incredible the Word was. “See why I call it my horoscope? There's always something that applies to something either I, or someone I know, is going through. Like it knows before it goes to print,” she said with a mysterious wiggle of her eyebrows. She gave herself a little thump on the forehead.

“Duh, that's why it's
living
.”

When Blaine remained silent, Caroline looked up to see him lost in thought. “Peso for
your
thoughts.”

“I was just remembering . . . at the airport luggage claim, on my way to catch your plane, this lady gave me a pink slip of paper. Like something from a fortune cookie,” he explained. “It was a Bible verse that basically warned me that all my work was in vain without faith.

My house was falling apart, no matter how much time I put on it.”

Caroline remembered the high-strung, troubled man Blaine had been when they first met—such a contrast to the faith-seeking, compassionate, and passionate soul of last night. Was it only days ago? So much had changed. “Maybe that lady was an angel . . . an earth angel put in that place at that time just for you.”

Blaine scowled, not quite comfortable with that train of thought. “Does that mean those two batty sisters are angels, too? I mean, they certainly saved our girls.”

What a joy it was to see mischief light in his gaze. “Could be.”

Caroline chuckled. “I understand angels come in all shapes and sizes.”

“Then we've been traveling with a band of them.” A glaze formed over his eyes for a moment before he blinked it away. “I don't know what I'd have done yesterday without Randy. He's quite—”

A knock sounded on the door, followed by an accented “Bellman.”

“I'll get it,” Karen announced, shoving her hairbrush in her knapsack.

Instantly on guard, Blaine cut her off. “No,
I'll
get it.”

“There are guards out there, Dad,” Karen protested, relegating Blaine back to stupid-dad status.

Yes, life was returning to normal, Caroline thought, closing her devotional and heading inside to put it away.

Cautiously Blaine opened the door as far as the chain allowed and peered out.

“You call for the luggage cart,
señor?
”

“Yes,
gracias
.”

Caroline expelled the breath she'd inadvertently held.

Blaine took the chain off and stepped back to allow the uniformed man into the room. But instead of bringing in the brass luggage cart, the bellman stepped aside, allowing a second man into the room before Blaine had a chance to react. Like a sinister magician, the second man suddenly brandished a pistol with some kind of attachment on the end and leveled it at Blaine.

“Easy,
señor,”
he warned Blaine. “Keep your heads and no one will be hurt.”

“Omigosh!” Karen backed against the wall as if she'd seen a ghost. “It's the man from the cave!”

“You have a good memory,
señorita
,” the assassin acknowledged.

“Perhaps you will also remember where your boyfriend is?”

“He . . . I haven't seen John since he ditched me at the club the night before last.” Karen gave her father a plaintive look.

Blaine could hardly do anything at gunpoint, save the half-surrender, half-caution display of his raised hands.

The masquerading bellman brought a brass luggage cart inside, letting the door drift shut behind him. “All clear, Argon.”

Despite his weapon, the young man in the uniform didn't appear nearly as threatening as the man he called Argon. Caroline had never seen an assassin, but this guy fit her image of one. His narrow face was scarred, with a large hooked nose—probably broken in some mob brawl—and the ointment plastering his black hair in place most likely contributed to the psoriasis flaking on his part.

“Look,
amigos,
your card or stamp or whatever it was is gone,”

Blaine said.

The malicious glint in the gunman's eye made Caroline's blood run cold. Would he shoot them for bad news?

“
Señorita
, put the hair dryer down.”

All attention shifted to Annie, who in her frozen state held the running dryer like a pistol in her hand. “Mom?”

If the situation weren't so dire, it might have been funny. “Turn it off and do as he says, Annie,” Caroline assured her with a calm she hardly felt.

Annie snatched the cord from the wall socket and tossed the dryer onto the bed like a hot potato.

“What happened to the guards?” Blaine asked, as Caroline coaxed her daughter behind her.

“In the supply closet, sleeping off the coffee I brought them earlier,” the uniformed accomplice informed them. The manner in which he glanced at Argon for approval was akin to worship.

Maybe he really was a bellman—a greedy kid who'd been paid off by this Argon.

Caroline summoned her nerve. “Well, you've wasted time and risk for nothing, since we don't have the card. The kids had second thoughts about taking it across the border and put it in the mail in Cuernavaca.”

The devil with catching whoever was on the receiving end of the mail route. All Caroline wanted was to get these guys out of here.

“As she said, you're wasting your time here,” Blaine chimed in.

He started to reach for Karen, but Argon stopped him.

“Stay where you are,
señor.”

“Daddy?” Karen's terrified look as Argon grabbed her arm with his free hand tore at Caroline's heart.

Blaine looked as though he'd been kicked in the belly. “Why?

You already know she doesn't have the card . . . or stamp . . . or whatever it was.”

“Señor,
don't make me shoot you in front of your little girl.” The gunman held the gun steady at Blaine's chest.