CHAPTER 28A far cry from the clean-cut college boy he’d been when Caroline last saw him, a disheveled and unshaven John Chandler plowed over the gunman—and Blaine—with the luggage cart just inside the door. Caroline hunkered over Annie with her body, cringing as the gun went off. It splintered the nightstand and flew from Argon’s hand toward the pile of jackets, carry-ons, and cases by the bed.
There was no time to think, just act. Caroline pushed her daughter toward the safety of Blaine’s room. “Go, Annie. Get help.”
With Annie out of harm’s way, Caroline grabbed the teetering luggage cart as Blaine and Argon, half under it, scrambled to their feet. The cart toppled over on the bed, taking Caroline with it.
Argon lunged for the mountain of luggage and bags where the weapon had disappeared, but Blaine grabbed him, hauling him back. Cursing, the assassin reached inside his jacket.
Caroline saw the flash of metal reflecting the bright light cast in through the balcony doors. “Blaine, he has a knife!”
Holding off the luggage rack with one hand, she slung a pillow, missing Argon and striking Blaine full in the face. Not quite her intent, but it did take the brunt of the knife’s slash intended for him.
John reeled backward from the bathroom into the closet, followed by the bellman.
As John struggled to his feet, Karen leapt on the bellman’s back, beating his face with a still-spurting bottle of mousse. John dropped his adversary with a kick to the groin, followed by a sucker punch with the iron from the rack inside the closet.
“Caroline, get the gu—” Blaine fell into the other room, locked in a death dance with his armed opponent.
The gun. Caroline crawled over the pile of suitcases, tossing jackets right and left. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. As she moved aside her souvenir bag, a heavy package slid out, landing on her foot. Blinking away the stars of pain, she focused on the plastic bag containing the heavy granite dish she’d purchased at the pyramids. Taking up the weapon of chance, she rushed into the adjoining room. Argon straddled Blaine, the knife he wielded suspended over Blaine’s throat. His face red with blood rush and strain, Blaine held it at bay . . . just.
Now or never, Lord.
Feeling a sudden kindred spirit with David as he let his stone fly at Goliath, Caroline swung for all she was worth. The thud as the dish struck Argon on the back of the head made her wince. The thug rolled to the side with the blow, landing on his back like a swatted fly. The knife fell on the carpet by his hand. Blaine scrambled to retrieve it and hauled himself upright on the side of the bed with labored breath.
“The gun?”
Caroline exhaled. “No time to look for it.” She held up the cudgel still swinging in its plastic sling. At Blaine’s befuddled look, she produced the granite dish he’d teased her about. “My jewelry dish.”
“The bellman?”
“Karen blinded him with mousse and John clobbered him with the steam iron.”
Blaine’s wary expression gave way to relief. “You call the police.
I’ll look for the gun, just in case.”
The door to the room burst open. “Policía!”
Armed police spilled inside, with Hector Rodriguez at the lead.
A simultaneous echo followed in the adjoining room.
Startled by the sudden invasion, Karen shrieked, “Daddy!”
Leaving Caroline glued to the spot in the connecting doorway, Blaine rushed to where his daughter stood frozen in terror next to a wounded John Chandler. “It’s okay, baby,” he said, drawing her to him. “It’s all over.”
The officers swarmed over the rooms, taking charge. Annie was allowed in after the unconscious thugs were cuffed and medics were called.
She ran straight into Caroline’s arms. “Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, sweetie.” In spite of her assurance, she was grateful for the support of the doorjamb at her back. “And proud of you. You kept your head.”
“All of you did.” Blaine gave her a taut smile. “You don’t mess with my girls.”
Manny Santos dragged the ashen John Chandler to his feet from his sitting position on the floor.
“Do you have to cuff him?” Karen protested.
“He’s a criminal, just like the others,” the Mohawk kid told her.
The bloody towel that John had clutched to his chest fell away, revealing the hilt of a knife protruding from his shoulder.
“Daddy, do something.”
“You heard the man, baby.”
Blaine held Karen back so that Manny could help the boy over to the bed. Caroline and Annie rushed to clear it of jackets and a carry-on case.
“Just stay here till the medics arrive,” Santos told him. “Don’t try to remove it.”
“Daddy, please, say something.”
Blaine’s jaw looked about to pop from the battle waging on his face. Caroline empathized. If John hadn’t endangered them in the first place, he wouldn’t have needed to rescue them.
But he didn’t have to come back. He could have just run away.
Reluctantly Blaine must have come to the same conclusion. “If John hadn’t shown up, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. They’d have taken Karen.”
“He’s still a thief among thieves, if not the actual one who stole the stamp,” Hector reminded them. He moved to the foot of the bed, crossing his arms. “So why did you come back, Chandler? We expected you to be in the States by now.”
“Rocha would have found me, no matter where I went,” John told him. “Besides . . . I found out I had a conscience.” His eyes sunken with pain and fatigue, the young man sought out Blaine.
“Maybe it was hanging out with all these religious folks, but I couldn’t leave your daughter to Rocha’s assassin, so I tailed Argon.”
He grabbed his lower lip with his teeth to bite back the resulting pain of his half laugh. “That was the last place they’d look for me.”
Had their kindness to John saved them all? Caroline’s heart quickened with affirmation. All things were possible.
“Where’s Javier Rocha?” Manny asked, more concerned with the justice on this side of heaven than on the other.
Weakening, John closed his eyes. “In South America by now, I imagine. He headed straight for the airport and the first plane south.”
The medics arrived, preempting further questions. Argon and the bellman were promptly carried out, while John was being stabilized. Gathered in a family cluster within the scope of Blaine’s protective arms, Caroline and the girls watched. The medics left the knife in place, instead administering IV meds. As soon as they finished, John was moved to a gurney. Manny cuffed the wrist without the needle to the rail, securing the prisoner.
“I’ll go with him to the hospital,” he told Hector. “You can finish up here.”
Karen drew away from her father. “Daddy, you have to do something to help him. You know all kinds of people.”
“They’re just doing their job, kid,” John said, resigned to his fate.
“Daddy, we owe him,” Karen protested.
“For jeopardizing your life . . . and ours?” Cynical as he sounded, Caroline could see that Blaine was torn.
“But he didn’t know it was going to work like this. He said so.
He told me he was sorry.”
“Save it, Karen. Your dad is right. I conned you. ” John looked past her at Blaine. “If anything, I owe your dad . . . and the others.”
Seeing surprise claim Blaine’s face, he went on. “You reminded me that I had a conscience, man . . . and that all things are possible, even for a screwup like me. If I at least try to do the right thing.”
Gooseflesh pebbled Caroline’s arms. “What was it we read just moments ago, about things being accomplished not by might but by the Holy Spirit?” she asked no one in particular. Moved by all that transpired for their good, despite their helplessness, she squeezed John’s cuffed hand.
“Sweetie, you believe it. All things are possible with God. He loves you as much now as He ever did . . . and so do we.”
“Well, that’s good, Miz C,” Manny Santos remarked with a sardonic smile, “because he’s gonna need all the love God can give him in the hospitality of a Mexican calaboose.”
“But he’s an American.” Karen tugged on Blaine’s sleeve. “They can’t keep him here, can they?”
Forgiveness didn’t come as naturally to Blaine as it evidently did to Caroline. He wanted to see the boy who’d courted Karen’s heart and endangered her life strung up on the nearest tree. That the process didn’t work that way was becoming less of a factor than that blasted Scripture. Was John really moved by the Holy Spirit or because he figured to use his nobility to his favor? He could be conning them even now. Why should Blaine give him a second chance?
“We can and will keep this man in our prison,” Inspector Caro announced as he entered the room. Reaching the gurney, he pulled aside the towels stanching the boy’s wound. “Once he is treated, transport him to the prison,” he ordered one of his men.
“Shouldn’t he stay in the hospital?” Caroline asked as the medic replaced them. “I don’t mean to insult you, but is it clean in the prison?”
“Prison or a pig sty, señora, what does it matter to the likes of this one?”
“Would you want your son in there, wounded like this?”
Caroline squared her shoulders, reminding Blaine of a mother hen, ruffling her feathers to protect one of her chicks. He might not feel the same way toward John that she did, but Blaine had to admire her spunk—and the faith at its root. What had he done to deserve her?
To deserve a second chance . . .
The lightning clarity of the thought left no doubt in Blaine’s mind as to the source. God corralled him with the help of strangers, giving him a second chance at love and family. No way could Blaine do less.
“You said you needed a witness, Inspector,” he reminded the official. “It would do you well to see that this young man is treated and protected like a national treasure, if you want to put Rocha’s gang away.”
Caro snorted. “He is just a—how do you say—a pawn.”
“A pawn who undoubtedly knows names, places—”
“I saw Rocha and Argon beat one of the student couriers not long after I got involved. He’d taken some stolen jewelry for his own profit.” The young man lowered his head. “I don’t know what happened to him.” His chin quivered with emotion under Caro’s skeptical appraisal. “So help me God, I had no idea they’d do that kind of thing until then. I thought they were just petty thugs . . . jokes.” He swallowed, his words beginning to slur as he went on.
“By then it was too late to get out.”
“That ought to give us a little more bargaining power,” Manny Santos observed.
“He gives you Rocha and his thugs,” he said to Caro, “and you let him face trial and imprisonment in the States. We both get our man.”
One of the medics interrupted. “Perdonamé, Inspector, but we need to get this man to the hospital. He is losing much blood.”
“I’ll give my superiors a call,” Manny assured Caroline as Caro gave the nod to move John out. “Till then, I’ll stick to him like glue.”
“Promise?” Karen called after him.
Manny gave her a thumbs-up and followed the speeding cart out of the room.
Blaine would bet that the promise was more for the feather in Manny’s Mohawk than heartfelt motivation to keeping John’s hide out of a Mexican jail, but it was welcome, either way.
“I’ll make a few calls myself,” Blaine said, as much to himself as to the others. He knew the undersecretary to the president from the urban renewal project. And wasn’t Aquino’s brother-in-law some kind of wheel in the police hierarchy?
Karen threw her arms around his waist, winding him with her hug. “Thank you, Daddy. I knew you could help.”
“We will need you and your family to delay your departure until tomorrow in order that we may take depositions,” Hector said, before Blaine could revel in his reinstatement as Best Dad in the World. “At the government’s expense, of course.”
“Can’t we just phone them in?” Caroline objected. She leaned into the shoulder Blaine offered her.
“I’d feel a lot safer if we went home until you had Rocha and his men in custody,” Blaine told the agent. “If we have to, we can come back, but I see no reason they can’t be taken via a video conference, since both countries are working together and we have the technology.”
“Yeah, I want to go home,” Annie said, dropping onto the bed in despair.
Karen plopped next to her, arms crossed. “Me too.”
Hector held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, peoples, who am I to blame you? I will talk to my boss, but I think we can work it out.” He turned to the men who’d been taking pictures and collecting evidence.
“Do you have everything that you need?” he asked. At their nod, he produced a wide grin. “Bueno. Then let’s went.”
Feeling as though he were on his last leg, Blaine followed them to the door and let them out. As he turned away, he came face-to-face with Caroline. She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling wet with emotion.
“What?” Had he overlooked something, worse, hurt her inadvertently?
Her chin trembled. “I love you, Blaine Madison.”
The words filled him. If she made him feel any taller, he’d have to stoop to stand.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d started this trip feeling small, insignificant to those who mattered most. Then he’d met Caroline . . . Sweet Caroline.
“I love you too, Sweet Caroline.”
Words weren’t enough to thank this woman in his arms for all she meant to him. Nor was the love he planted on her lips. Or the gratitude with which he coveted them. She’d given him back his daughter with her wise counsel. Her love and laughter smoothed the raised and ragged scars left on his heart by Ellie’s loss, while her delight and faith in her God filled the dark void of Blaine’s soul with His light.
The first time Adam held Eve in his arms, he could have known no more joy nor want than that coursing through Blaine’s veins at this moment. Surely the first man was equally torn between the spiritual urge to worship and the primal urge to ravish this warm, soft, and yielding creature in his arms.
“Sheesh, Dad, give her a chance to catch her breath.”
“Yeah, come up for air, you two.”
Blaine caressed Caroline’s mouth once more, then backed away with a sigh.
She gazed up at him, mischief twinkling in her eyes. “Did you hear anything?”
Blaine smiled. “Come to think of it, no.” Miraculously, the room had cleared and they were alone . . . together. He pressed his forehead to hers. “Now, where were we?”
“Paradise,” she sighed, the ethereal green of her gaze inviting him back to that private place where only they existed, man and woman, made by God’s love for the purpose of love.
Only a fool would resist . . . and Blaine was no fool.