Fiesta Moon (35 page)

“Well, thanks to Enrique”—Mark motioned the timid boy for-ward—“ I'm fine.”

“But how—?” Corinne started.

Mark put a finger to her lips. “We'll tell you everything, but right now, we both are exhausted and starved.”

“We'll go to my grandmother's.” Corinne framed Mark's jaw in gentle hands. “She is going to be almost as happy as I am.” She unleashed the love that sparkled in her eyes in a soulful kiss that ended in a sigh. “Almost.”

The patio of Doña Violeta Quintana de la Vega was populated with well-wishers coming and going, as the news of Señor
del Cerdito's
homecoming spread through the small town. Soledad was as tearful with joy as she'd been with grief the night before.

After Mark retired to the guest room to shower and change, the housekeeper bustled about with full intentions of helping Gaspar and her sister put together a buffet of deli meats from the market and food that came in from all parts of the village for the impromptu celebration. But at the slightest snag, she broke down in a fresh torrent of emotion.

“Soledad,” Corinne said, giving her a gentle hug. “You must try to celebrate God's goodness, not focus on the bad that could have happened.”

With a loud sniff that sent her digging into the pocket of her bright yellow apron for a tissue, the emotional housekeeper agreed.
“Pues . . .”
She withdrew an embroidered handkerchief and blew her nose loud enough to put the church bells to shame. “I will make the struggle.”

“Go check on Toto, wash your face and hands, and then see what you can do,” Corinne ordered gently.

Front legs bandaged and nose smeared with aloe from the damage that his foraging for Mark in the ruins had done, Toto had been relegated to Doña Violeta's pantry. That was as much leeway as Corinne's grandmother would allow the animal in her elegant villa, despite his exemplary dedication to the search
.

Later Dr. Flynn checked out Enrique, amazed that the boy had survived so well in the maze of mine shafts. After a bath and a joyful reunion with Antonio, he proudly regaled them all with tales of hunting, trapping, and roasting his kill over an open flame kindled with matches he'd found in the storage rooms hidden behind the hacienda fireplace.

“
Tío
Lorenzo, he looked for me, but I know how to walk like a ghost and hide in the darkness.”

Antonio took in his brother's every word with nothing less than sheer adoration. “How I wish I could have been there too.”

At this, Enrique's bright gaze sobered. “I am glad that you were not, 'Tonio. It is fun to hunt, but not so fun to be hunted.”

Corinne's heart felt squeezed as she imagined what the boy must have gone through emotionally. Granted, Enrique had survived like a man, but he was still a child, with all a child's fears and insecurities. She hoped the authorities put Lorenzo Pozas behind bars forever.

Since Enrique was so wired with excitement, Vincente Aquino opted to take Mark's statement while the boys ate their fill in Doña Violeta's kitchen under Soledad's doting eye. Freshly showered, shaved, and dressed in clothes borrowed from Diego, Mark sat very much alive and warm next to Corinne on the sofa in the salon and shared what he knew regarding the burning of Hacienda Ortiz.

“Lorenzo Pozas and some guy named Sergio, whose elevator doesn't go all the way to the top, knocked me up the side of the head, hogtied me in a chair, soaked the hacienda in gasoline, lit a match, and left through a hidden opening in the fireplace. The last thing I remember before blacking out was falling over in an attempt to break the chair.”

“And that is when the boy found you?” Vincente Aquino inquired.

Prayer availeth much,
Corinne paraphrased, overwhelmed that she'd received more than she'd asked for. Not only had God delivered Mark, but Enrique as well.

Enrique told Mark how his uncle had imprisoned him in the mine shaft without food and forced him to show Lorenzo where other fossils had been discovered. But Enrique escaped, relying on the hunting and survival skills that his father had taught him and on the items that he found in a chamber beneath Hacienda Ortiz. It sounded like an underground museum filled with mementos from the past.

“Just in time,” Mark told him. “I'd run out of the Twenty-third Psalm.”

He squeezed Corinne's hand, and her heart swelled with even more thanksgiving for the spiritual connection they now shared.

“It is incredible that a child of nine could survive in the mines,” Vincente marveled. “But the Indios know the ways of the land.”

“As Enrique said, he and his father spent a lot of time hunting and trapping,” Corinne reminded him. “But whose body is buried in the boy's place? We went to the funeral.”

“The government will exhume the body,” Vincente informed her, “although I feel certain that Pozas will tell us, once we are through interrogating him. Don Rafael really thought Enrique was dead.”

“I was lucky that Enrique followed his uncle and Sergio into the tunnel last night and saw what they were up to, or I'd have been a goner.” Mark turned to Corinne. “I want to do something for him . . . get him a mountain bike, something.”

“That would be up to his new parents,” she pointed out.

Father Menasco had promised to call the London couple as soon as he heard the news about Enrique and Mark, and they were overjoyed to be able to bring Enrique home too.

“And now that Pozas is going to jail, the adoption should go through without a hitch.”

“Can you tell me more about what is in this underground chamber you and the boy talk about?” Carlos Aquinos asked. He glanced at his cousin. “That is, if your official interview is over.”

Vincente eased against the high back of one of the matching chairs across from the sofa. “With Señor Madison's testimony and that of the boy, we have enough to send them all to prison.”

“Even Don Rafael?” Corinne asked. “He didn't try to kill anyone . . . and he called the authorities on his own.”

“But he covered for the ones who did try to kill me,” Mark reminded her.

“But—”

“As I assured your grandmother, great consideration will be given in the matter,” Vincente said, helping himself to a bowl of chili-spiced crackers and nuts.

“Don Diego Ortiz's secret chamber—you say it was connected to the Hacienda Ortiz by a secret passage,” Carlos Aquino intervened to bring the conversation back to his original question. “But neither I nor the previous owners ever found it. How was it built into the fireplace?”

“Shades of Zorro,” Mark said with a chuckle. “I never looked closely inside the hearth, and when Enrique pulled me through, I was unconscious . . . but I'd like to have another gander at it after the roof is pulled away.”

Behind them, a telephone rang, almost as loud as the church bell. As Corinne recovered from the start it gave her, Gaspar appeared, heading straight for a massive writing desk under her mother's portrait, and answered it.

“I always thought that the measurements of the fireplace and hearth were overdone,” Mark went on. “Too much space for—”

“Pardon me, Señor Mark, but your brother wishes to speak to you,” Gaspar announced. “There is another phone in Doña Violeta's room, if you wish to speak in quiet.”

“I'll show you.” Corinne jumped to her feet, glad for the interruption. Mark was tired, despite his can-do show for everyone. “I really think, since the interview is over, that you gentlemen should let Mark rest awhile . . . although you're welcome to stay and partake of my grandmother's hospitality,” she added, every inch the hostess she had observed her grandmother to be.

“As you can see from the activity on the patio . . .” Corinne glanced to where Diego and Violeta sat at a table, conversing with the guests. “She is holding court.”

Although Carlos Aquino looked disappointed not to hear more of Hacienda Ortiz's secrets, he was gracious. “But of course, you are tired,” he told Mark.

“I will return tomorrow to take the boy's official statement after he has calmed down a bit,” Vincente chimed in, rising to take his leave. “If I think of anything else, perhaps I can ask you then.” He shook Mark's hand. “
Adiós
, señor
,
señorita
.”

“We'll take the call in the other room,” Corinne told Gaspar, who passed the message along to Blaine on the other end of the line and put down the handset to show the Aquino brothers out.

The moment Corinne and Mark entered the privacy of her grandmother's bedroom, Mark pulled Corinne into his arms with a rejuvenated vigor, backing her against the closed door. “Alone at last.”

“Mark.”

He kissed his name from her lips, letter by letter, and when he drew away, his breath was shallow and fast as her own. “Did I tell you that I loved you?”

“Yes, but I want to hear it again and again . . . after you speak to Blaine.” Although duty first was the last thing she really cared about. He gave her a wicked wink. “Come on.” Grabbing her hand, he led her,
twickled
to the tips of her toes, to the antique black phone by Violeta's high poster bed. With his free hand, he picked up the receiver, tucking her into the curve of his arm with the other.

She nuzzled the curve of his neck with her head.

“Hello, Blaine.” Moving the mouthpiece aside, he whispered behind her ear. “Think Grandmother would object to our honeymooning in this?”

Honeymooning?
Was she hearing right? Corinne looked up at him.

“It's been quite a night,” he admitted, all business for Blaine. “I'm afraid the hacienda is lost.”

“I don't recall being proposed to,” Corinne said, sidling closer.

“Yeah, I know there's insurance.” He stole a quick kiss from her earlobe and whispered, “If I did, would you?”

His words tickled, stirring Corinne's confusion. “What? The wedding or the bed?” She tried to wriggle around to face him, but his arm locked her waist against him.

“Frankly, I haven't had time to think about it.”

“What?” she hissed in impatience. Was he talking to her or Blaine? Somehow the idea of sharing a proposal with her future brother-in-law didn't ring her romantic bell.

Mark covered the mouthpiece. “Did you know the insurance money plus what we already have will build exactly what the orphanage needs?”

It was great news. But at the moment, her reactions were skewed with an urge to snatch the phone from Mark and beat him with it.

“Blaine wants me to draw up the plans and see the project through.”

“That . . . that's good,” she managed, still hung up on
honeymoon.
Honeymoon meant marriage. Corinne made a face. She didn't want to honeymoon in her grandmother's bed.

“Caroline wants to know about the honeymoon.”

“Caroline is on there too?” Corinne gasped. Her proposal, such as it was, was being broadcast all the way to Pennsylvania.

“She's running on about colors.”

Colors? She hadn't said yes yet. Heat shot up Corinne's neck, fueled by anger and embarrassment. “Have you lost your mind?”

“And about how lucky you are to have a guy like me.” Mark grinned.

Glaring at him, Corinne tried to grab the phone, but he held it out of her reach, laughing.

“Easy, Muffet . . .” Switching it to the other hand, he spoke. “Blaine, Caroline, I have to go. I think this woman is trying to say yes to my marriage proposal, and she means business.”

Corinne gaped. “Oh!” If he was for real . . . if they were in on this . . . she . . . she'd . . .

“They want to say congratulations,” he told her, handing her the phone.

Corinne jerked it to her ear. “I haven't said yes, and after this stunt, I may have to think about it.” When Blaine made no reply, a cloud of suspicion gathered in her mind. “Blaine, are you there?”

Mark hopped up on the raised mattress without the aid of the antique steps kept by the bedside. “Will you marry me, Miss Muffet?”

Corinne slammed the handle into the cradle. “Before or after I strangle you?”

“I love a woman with fire.”

She winced. “Don't say that word.”

“Right.” Mark sobered. “But I am serious.” He motioned her closer with his finger. “I promised myself that if I ever got out of that inferno, I'd make you my wife and soul mate.”

“Soul mate?” It made her heart ring.

“I know I'm not perfect,” he said, “but knowing you has changed me for the better.” Mark slid off the bed, folding her hands to his chest. “Corinne Diaz Quintana Vega, et cetera, et cetera . . . will you marry me and be one with my heart . . .” He brushed the knuckles of one hand with his lips and placed it behind his neck. “My body . . .” he said, doing the same with the other. “And my soul?”

His gaze reached into hers, kindling the light of a million stars within. “With this kiss,” he whispered, cupping her chin and raising it so that their breath mingled between them, “I vow to make the struggle too.”

He covered the twitch of Corinne's smile with his mouth, dissolving her amusement over the Indio turn of phrase with an infectious fervor that lifted her off her feet—or was that the strong arms around her, molding her to him so that their hearts beat in counterpoint?

Her heart and body shouted yes a thousand times over, but it was Corinne's spirit that penetrated the dizzying storm with its calm affirmation. God asks no more of anyone but to make the struggle. To do so with the man she loved was a no-brainer.

EPILOGUE

Red peonies of fireworks burst in gay profusion against the background of a fiesta moon over Mexicalli's new orphanage. From the windows of the structure, the little round faces of the younger orphans watched with wide-eyed delight. On the grounds, the villagers murmured in approval while Corinne applauded with the local dignitaries and other gringos from Pennsylvania, who'd gathered for the official opening day ceremonies. Blaine and his family sat on the other side of the stage with Father Menasco, while Neta Madison and her daugher, Jeanne, sat behind Corinne and Mark.