CHAPTER 16

“Pretty in pink,” Blaine said as Annie came out on the stoop in front of her villa room.

“Thanks.”

He could imagine Annie’s freckles fading in a blush the way her mother’s did.

“I was going to save this for Banditos in Acapulco, but I changed my mind at the last minute, so I sent John and Karen ahead. I mean, why not go like rainbow triplets?” she finished in one breath.

Annie sported the same dress as the other ladies, but the pastel shade was more suited to her fairer complexion. Although she also wore hers off the shoulder, Blaine had learned his lesson and kept his mouth shut. Besides, with her hair pulled back in a cluster of matching ribbon, she still looked girlish. If John was as affected by Karen as Blaine was by Caroline, he’d wring the boy’s neck.

Caroline tugged her daughter’s ruffled neckline up to the same level as Karen’s. “Just to avoid embarrassing Blaine any more,” she explained at Annie’s disconcerted look.

Her playful wink dissolved any resulting miff on Blaine’s part.

He held up his hands in surrender, but turnabout was fair play.

“Okay, I admit it. I don’t want our daughters leading some innocent young man into temptation the way your mom is doing with me.”

Annie dissolved into a sigh. “That is so sweet.” She rose on tiptoe and gave him a big hug. “Karen doesn’t know how lucky she is to have a dad like you.”

“Thank you, Annie,” he stammered in surprise. What he wouldn’t give for his own daughter to feel that way one more time.

“And as for you,” the teen said, turning to Caroline. “Shame on you.” With a grin she adjusted Caroline’s ruffle just a little. “Just one notch above red hot chili pepper ought to snag you a husband instead of a . . .” She searched for a word. “A fling.”

“Annie—” Caroline broke off, speechless.

Delighted, not just by the exchange but by Annie’s implication of acceptance, Blaine gathered the precocious Annie under one arm and her mom under the other. “All I can say is, like mother, like daughter.”

Electric lanterns styled in the Spanish mission period softly lit the way to the hotel lobby and restaurant complex. Since both ladies wore heels, Blaine kept them from slipping or stumbling over the stones in the walk that ranged in size from jelly bean to baseball. On the left—and downhill—was a glow from the pool area where the students planned to meet after the meal.

Passing through a glass-enclosed walkway with lavish floral arrangements in handmade pottery, they entered the lobby, where an open pair of iron-strapped oak doors invited guests into the open-air restaurant.

“There you are,” Karen called from a table next to a magnificent unobstructed view of the mountainside settlement. “We’d begun to think you’d gotten lost.”

Next to her, John rose and pulled out a chair for Annie with a flourish. “Miss Pretty in Pink.”

The boy was even using Blaine’s lines, and this time Blaine could see Annie’s smattering of freckles fade into her blush.

“How gallant, sir.” Totally taken, Annie spread her skirt in dainty fashion as she settled next to him.

“Your shirt looks great, John,” Caroline observed. “Has Dana seen it?” She glanced around the room.

“Yes, ma’am. The Gearhardts are over there.” He pointed to the back of the restaurant.

With a territorial grip on Caroline’s chair, Blaine followed her gaze to Dana Gearhardt, who at that moment shook her shoulders like a salsa dancer, giving Caroline a devilish grin.

The moment Dana realized she’d been caught, she gave him a sheepish wave.

“What was that all about?” he whispered into Caroline’s ear as he tucked her chair in.

“I have no idea what that crazy woman is up to.” Caroline enunciated each syllable with precision. “You stick around her long enough, you’ll learn to expect anything.”

“Kind of like hanging out around you, huh?” he teased.

Her blush was as comely as her daughter’s. Blaine wanted to kiss her, but hesitated, lest he give John any ideas. That would have to wait until later, when the time was right.

A white-jacketed waiter presented them with a special menu of Mexican dishes priced especially for the Edenton tour. In the spirit of tasting the culture, each of them ordered a different dish from the limited menu with a promise to share. Blaine tried the carne asada, thin fillets of beef served in a chile sauce. Caroline opted for mole de guajolote, which the waiter pronounced the most ancient of Mexican dishes on record—turkey with mole sauce. Karen chose a compatriot, poached chicken with mole sauce called pollo en mole poblano.

“Hey, how can we go wrong with mole?” she quipped, handing over the menu to the waiter. “They can only mess chocolate, nuts, chiles, and onions up so much.”

“I think the heartburn has started already,” Caroline confided behind her hand to Blaine.

“I want my chocolate in dessert, not my main course.” Annie chose the Mexican version of stuffed peppers, dipped in an egg batter and fried.

“Where is your sense of adventure, girl?” her mother teased.

“In my heart, not my stomach,” Annie shot back.

“I like mole sauce, but I love peppers stuffed with farmer’s cheese.” John ordered a variation of Annie’s chiles rellenos.

While some of the dishes were hotter than others, the sharing and teasing that ensued as the company exchanged portions of their minismorgasbord proved fun and entertaining. Dessert was not quite as exotic, but no less delicious. The flan, Mexican bread pudding, and Mexican cookies with a dip of vanilla ice cream helped offset any remaining heat from the chiles.

In a courtyard below the window, a mariachi band played a mix of dance music and fun songs to involve the audience. John rose as they struck up a slow song and invited Karen to dance. On seeing Annie’s deflated look, Blaine spoke up.

“Annie, would you consider cutting the rug with an old codger like me while your mom finishes her dessert?”

“Doing what to the what?”

“Sweetie, that’s old-codger lingo for ‘do you wanna dance?’”

Caroline translated.

The sunrise of delight on the teen’s face made the risk of an embarrassing denial well worth it. “That would be lovely,” she said, offering her hand like a princess to her courtier.

Blaine escorted Annie down the steps to the dance patio.

Although nervous and awkward at first, after Blaine counted off a few steps with direction, she quickly advanced from her previous experience of rocking from one foot to the other to a two-step.

“You’re good,” Annie marveled after Blaine walked and talked her through a turn. “I think this kind of dancing is so beautiful. I mean, there’s something to it.”

“My mother made me take lessons, but I appreciate it now.”

“Me too.” Annie was a miniversion of Caroline, except that her shyness tended to cloak her sense of humor and romantic nature.

“Annie, I have a question to ask you.”

“Sure.”

“I . . .” Blaine had it all worked out, exactly what he was going to say, but her expectant look combined with wide-eyed innocence tripped his thoughts. What if she says no? “I’ve really enjoyed meeting you and your mom.”

“I think Mom’s enjoyed meeting you, too . . . and I know I have.

This trip has been such a blast.”

“It surely has.” Blaine smiled and looked at the trumpet player now taking a solo. If this were a business proposition, he’d have laid it out by now, fast and to the point.

“So,” Annie said, drawing his attention back to her, “you think we might be doing this more often?” The little devil brandished the same playful look her mother had earlier as he’d squirmed with the neckline issue.

“Would you like to?”

“What’s not to like? If we handle this right.”

The warning in her addendum gave Blaine a mental check.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Mom doesn’t make up her mind quickly about anything when it comes to me and her business. She’s got this If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it thing, ya know. Like,” she snorted in wonder, “she doesn’t even know she’s broken.”

Now he understood. “It’s a defense mechanism, my dear, called survival. You do what you have to do with what you have and make the best of it. I admire her for that. She’s raised a good, well-balanced daughter, provided for her, and remains full of life, when some would just become bitter and resentful.”

“I call her success a God thing,” Annie countered. “Her faith has pulled us through some rough times. It’s just that Mom deals better with the trials than she does with blessings sometimes. Like—”

She groped for the right words. “Like, except for dishes and cleaning,” she said with a tinge of regret, “it’s hard to do stuff for her.

She wants to do all the giving, know what I mean?”

“So you’re saying it won’t be easy to take care of her, huh?”

“Did I mention stubborn?” Annie asked.

“No, but I’m getting the picture. Time with loved ones is more appreciated than any material gifts.”

“From Mom’s lips to yours.”

The little tract he’d gotten at the airport popped up in Blaine’s mind, the thing about getting up early, sitting up late—always working to provide for his family, when all they’d wanted was him.

Had he made work his escape from the unhappy home it was responsible for? Had the tool he used to build it been the same one that brought it down?

God? Got any answers?

Or was that his answer? Caroline had built her house with faith in her toolbox. He hadn’t. He’d resented the trials, yet wanted the blessings. Somewhere along the way, he’d gotten the wrong idea that they were free, like salvation.

“You are wiser than your years, Annie Spencer,” Blaine said in earnest. “I’m glad to have you on my side.”

“So it’s a go then? You want to date my mom?”

“If I can pull it off.” Dating was good. Hard for a guy who recognized a good deal and grabbed it off the table before anyone else had the chance, but good. “And I need to talk to Karen—” Blaine hadn’t finished before Annie broke away and tapped Karen on the shoulder with more boldness than she’d ever exhibited to date.

“Mind if we cut in?” Without waiting for an answer, she edged John away from Karen.

He chuckled to himself. At least one of them was decisive.

“What’s gotten into her?” Karen complained as Blaine claimed her for a partner.

“I think the love bugs are out.”

“Annie and John?” Karen’s head pivoted around. “But he’s my date.”

“Your date?”

She quickly backtracked. “What I mean is that he likes me, not her. I mean, she’s his friend and all . . .”

“And you are . . . ?”

“Dad.” Karen glared at him in exasperation. “I am sixteen. I am not a little girl. Is it so beyond you that a boy like John could be interested in me?”

“Not at all. But you are my little girl. When you are sixty-six, you will still be my little girl. And I will still want to protect you, as I do now.”

“Protect me. You want me in a convent.”

“No, I want you to be hap—”

“Then leave me—”

“—py and safe.”

“—alone.”

“But maybe I’m going about it the wrong way.”

“What?”

For the first time in ages, Blaine had Karen’s complete attention.

“I said, maybe I’m too protective in some ways and not enough in others.” He sighed. “If you’d come with a manual like a car, I’d know exactly what to do, but you didn’t. So I’m just trying the best I know how. Obviously, I’m a failure, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you more than anything on earth.”

Karen’s rebellion softened. “I know you do, Daddy. You just don’t understand women.”

“Show me any man who does,” Blaine lamented. “Which is why I’ve appreciated Caroline’s input on this trip.”

“She is so cool. I mean, she doesn’t let us get away with everything, but she doesn’t stroke out on the little things like you do.”

Stroke out? The exaggeration pricked at him, but now was not the time to debate the issue.

“A man isn’t meant to raise a little girl alone.” Blaine let the words sink in, watching for his daughter’s reaction. “All I know is how a guy feels when he sees someone as pretty as you, and it spooks me to know some guy might be feeling that way about my daughter. A woman knows how her daughter will react or what’s going through her head. I guess every girl needs a woman’s input to keep her father in line.”

Karen gave him a pointed look. “Like Miz C?”

“Maybe.”

Karen’s squeal drew the attention of those nearby. “I think you should be dancing with her, not me.” Reaching up, she straightened his tie with a motherly tug. “And I think you’ve just made me one of the happiest girls in the world.”