Paper Moon (7 page)

“I've been lucky enough to find reliable help, so that I can get away from time to time.”

Blaine smirked. Even so, it was a charming smirk.

“By the time one finds out the help is unreliable, one can be bankrupt.”

Her confidence faltered. “Of course I've worked alongside my staff, so I've learned their strengths and weaknesses. And I realize that no one is perfect, including me.”

No, she was not perfect, but the God she leaned upon was. She hesitated, succumbing to her old insecurities. Would she downplay His work, His blessings of success? A wave of shame washed over Caroline as she realized her past fears were intimidating her. Frank almost had Caroline believing the day care she'd run from her home was nothing. Even though she'd built it into a successful enterprise, the old hurt and insecurity still raised their ugly heads—especially in the company of professionals like her ex-husband and Blaine Madison.

Blaine wasn't even paying attention to her at the moment. With his gaze narrowed like that of a hawk spotting a mouse, he watched as a fair-haired young man from a nearby table asked Karen to dance.

“Relax, they're just kids,” Caroline assured him.

“With raging hormones,” Blaine countered. “And the way she dresses and dances—”

“Is normal.” There wasn't anything seductive about Karen's dancing. Like Annie's, her movements were somewhere between a bounce, a flail, and a wiggle without the curves to define it. “It's a hard age. She's becoming a woman.”

“Not tonight.” Blaine's words sounded more like a prayer than a declaration.

“Let her be Cinderella for the night. She's on cloud nine.”

“Have you seen Annie's prince?” Blaine nodded to where a tall, lanky young man with red, as in patriotic red, hair talked to her daughter. It looked as if he'd been shot-gunned with studs. They lined his ears, brow, lips—Caroline refused to think beyond that.

“Relax, they're just talking,” he said, the square of his jaw softening with his “gotcha” grin. Blaine slung a casual arm over the bentwood back of his chair in an attempt to do just that. “You seem to know all these kids pretty well.”

“Most of them since grade school,” Caroline answered. Christie had cried on her shoulder when her parents got divorced. Caroline had carried casseroles over to Eddie's house while his mom was treated for cancer. And the number of trips she'd chaperoned couldn't be counted on her combined fingers and toes—the zoos, the camps, the ball games and band competitions, the state and nation's capitals. “They're all my kids.”

“Lucky you.” He didn't sound envious.

“Yeah,” she conceded, “but Scripture says go to all nations and lead them. These kids are my little nation.”

With a thoughtful nod, Blaine looked away, losing himself in his surroundings.

Had she blundered? Some people retreated at the mention of faith as though it were catching.

All she'd done was to say what she felt and why. It wasn't as if she were judging him for not being at ease with the kids, or flaunting her faith in his face.

“You know, their culture is different,” he told her without diverting his attention from the young man who had begun a slow dance with his daughter. “I'm afraid he might take the American girls' friendliness for looseness, if you know what I mean.”

Caroline observed the couple without reply. Karen wasn't exactly dirty dancing. It was more like chatty dancing. Rigid compared to her partner's ease on the floor, the teen talked nonstop.

At the music's end, Karen led her debonair partner back to the tables and introduced him to her father and Caroline.

“Señor y Señora Madison, el gusto es mío
.”

“No, silly.” Karen's giggle bubbled from the toes up. “This is my dad. Miz C is Annie's mom.”

Tall, tan, and fair-featured, the obviously American youth stood out in the nightclub. His impeccable manners, as he introduced himself as John Scott Chandler, made him extraordinary in any setting.

“Where are you from, John?”

There was a guard-dog edge nipping at Blaine's show of cordiality. Or perhaps it was just fatherly instinct. Caroline's father had passed away before she had reached the age of sixteen.

“Chicago, sir.”

“You look older than a high school student,” Blaine observed.

“Actually, I was an exchange student in my senior year. Now I'm a senior at the University of California here in Mexico City.”

“What part of Chicago are you from? What does your father do?

What's your major? ” Blaine barely gave the kid the time to reply to one question before he fired another.

Was this overkill, or should she be asking questions too? Her mother radar on full alert, Caroline looked across the room where Annie and a young Mexican boy were going over the DJ's music list.

Karen had reached the end of her endurance. “For heaven's sake, Dad, are you writing a book?”

White smile gleaming, John brushed her protest aside. “Hey, it's okay. He's a parent. It's what good parents do.” He extended his hand to Blaine. “Nice meeting you, sir. You too, Miz C.”

His undaunted “It's okay” would have done, but “That's what good parents do”? A little too much icing on the proverbial cake.

“Nice meeting you too, John,” she answered.

As John led Karen out to the dance floor, her voice wafted back to the table.
“Now
he decides to be a parent!”

“There goes a con artist, if I ever saw one,” Blaine observed in a sawmill whisper.

“So what set off your fatherly red alert?”

“He wouldn't look me in the eye. Tells me he's hiding something.”

Where fatherly suspicion had been, a mix of hurt and confusion now ruled his expression. Caroline could almost see the one emotion trying to squeeze the other out of his heart.

“If only I were as adept at reading my daughter as I am others. Talk about mixed signals. One minute I'm the dad of the year; the next, I'm the worst thing that's happened to her since her mom died.” He clenched his fists. “I don't pay enough attention to her. Then I'm too intrusive. How's a parent to know?”

Blaine could hardly believe he was asking a stranger advice on his daughter, but a fish out of water is a desperate fish. He had learned to handle diapers and training wheels, bring the anticipated presents when he returned from a trip, attend the annual Parents' Day at school. He'd been king in his daughter's eyes, and Karen was his little princess. Then things fell apart at the castle.

After Ellie died in a car accident, the drinking that led to it left him with a hovel of cracked walls and a broken rule. His mom said Karen was angry, that time would heal . . . all the right Christian platitudes.

He'd done all he knew to help Karen through the ordeal, but sometimes she acted as if her mother's death was his fault. It wasn't as if he'd abandoned Ellie and her problem. He'd been through many a hellish night helping his wife through withdrawal from alcohol. He'd hired the best doctors and sent her to the best clinics. He'd read so much about dealing with the problem that he could have opened a clinic himself. But in the end, he couldn't fix it. So he'd retreated into his business, where he did have control.

Now Karen obviously found something wrong with him, or something was wrong with her. And once again, he felt powerless to fix it.

“Nothing is tried and true when it comes to raising kids.” Caroline made a rueful grimace. “It's a shame babies don't come with instructions.”

“Maybe Mark Twain had the answer. Something about putting them in a barrel when they're little and feeding them through the bunghole. And when they become teens, plug the hole.”

Although at the moment, he'd prefer to put John Scott Chandler in one.

Blaine reached for his drink and looked at Caroline. As a single mother, she must have had her share of problems, although Annie appeared to be the wholesome girl-next-door type. That was it. The mother was a mature version of the same type—not the kind to catch a man's eye at the first pass, but the kind a guy might confide in. The kind with whom a guy could follow more than one train of thought.

“Actually, I take that back.”

He gave himself a mental shake. “Take what back?”

“Babies
do
come with instructions, actually.” Her gaze lit up like the glass ball over the dance floor. “The Bible, silly.”

“Oh.” Out of politeness, he held back a “Been there, done that.” Didn't work then. Didn't work now.

Tonight he'd acted on an urge evoked by the pink tract the lady at the airport had given him. It had fallen out of his pocket when he hung up his sports coat. As he put it on the top of the TV, he'd read it again.
Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in
vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard
in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat,
for he grants sleep to those he loves.

The straw that broke his back was the mental picture of Karen's disappointment when he'd told her that he wasn't going to Banditos with the group. Her initial surprised welcome gave him heart, but the stay was becoming miserable, save present company.

“And in addition to raising kids with the Word, the Bible says we shouldn't provoke our children, and they need to honor us. It's an exchange of respect that has to be earned on both sides.”

Blaine didn't want to go there . . . not into a biblical debate. Politics and religion were taboo subjects if one was enjoying the company of others. And he was. A glow of realization emanated from his brain to the rest of him, warm and pleasant.

The music slowed again. He didn't recognize the song, but it gave him an out. “What do you say we show these youngsters a thing or two on the dance floor?”

Her surprise gave way to delight. “I'd love to.”

“Want to leave the jacket here? It's probably warmer out there away from that air vent over our table.”

With a glance at it, as if she hadn't noticed the air-conditioning outlet before, Caroline drew his coat closer around her. “Now I know why I'm so cold-natured tonight, but I'll keep this, if you don't mind.”

“Suit yourself.” Blaine took her hand and led her out onto the dance floor.

As he took her into his arms, he doubted that Caroline Spencer had a cold-natured cell in her body. She was sunshine and warmth from the soul out. Distracted by the wildflower scent of her hair, he hardly noticed when she scuffed his freshly shined shoes until she glanced up with a wide-eyed apology.

“Sorry. I . . . I haven't danced in—” She shrugged, her shoulders lost in his jacket. “In I don't know how long.”

“Me neither.”
Not since Ellie was killed.
Blaine filed the thought in the back of his mind. He was supposed to be relaxing.

“And I have a second left foot,” she babbled on nervously.

“That's in addition to the right, which has a mind of its own.”

Blaine smiled, not his usual polite smile, but one that came straight from his heart. This woman had a way of making him laugh, ready or not.

“And you're so good, it's disconcerting, which puts your toes at even more risk.”

He laughed. “My mother was from Atlanta. Every Southern mother worth her magnolias insisted on dance lessons for her children. I hated them at twelve, but they have come in handy later.”

He pulled a little closer. There was that heady scent again. It reduced his voice to a throaty whisper. “Just follow my lead.”

She stumbled against him, raising her gaze to his face. “It's been a while.”

But the determination in her tone and brightness in her gaze told him she was bent on making the best of it. Her eyes reflected the spinning light over the room, telling of a part of Caroline Spencer that remained forever young. Blaine found himself envying it. Not that he'd ever been a fraction as daring as the woman in his arms. Somewhere, deep inside, there was a part of him that longed to let go as well. And it was pleased that he'd heeded its voice to ask the lady to dance. The realization took him by surprise. When he'd found out he was headed for Mexico, this was the last thing he'd imagined on the agenda. When the music changed to a faster number with a beat he'd not learned, Blaine fretted himself into being relieved. He should have stuck to chaperoning, or better yet, remained at the hotel and gone over the contracts that his brother had let slide. But as he started to escort Caroline from the dance floor, she tugged back.

“I thought we were going to show the kids how to do this.”

Disconcerted, Blaine looked at the dancers, or rather thrashers around them. “Do what?” he shouted. “Dislocate something?”

Caroline laughed. “It's easy. Just let the music move your feet.”

“It's scientifically impossible for music to move feet,” he pointed out. But whether he was inclined to dance or not, he was too polite to leave a lady on the dance floor alone. Not wanting to look like a statue, he began to mimic Caroline's movements when he heard Karen squeal from across the room.