Her statements were leading, but I wasn’t sure where. “So—”
“So, I can’t figure out why you just hired us to do for you something you could very well do on your own.”
I threw an answer out there, doubting it would satisfy her. It was more of a question than a statement. “Because I need help.”
She shook her head. “I doubt you’ve needed help in a long time.” She pursed her lips. “Just curious, but how much would you have paid?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to answer her.
“Five hundred?”
I nodded, hoping it would satisfy her and end this line of questioning. It did not.
“A thousand.”
Another nod. Same hope. Same result.
She sat back and crossed her arms. “Five thousand?”
My eyes met hers. “Yes.”
She considered this. “I don’t know you well enough to say, but I can’t figure something.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t figure if you’re a good man—the likes of which we seldom see around here.” She paused.
“Or—?”
She never hesitated. “Guilty.”
An uncomfortable silence settled. She turned her chair toward me, inched forward into my personal space, spread her legs like a man, and rested her elbows on her knees—an athlete on a bench. I was not totally unprepared for this. I’d just bought them, and I had a pretty good idea that didn’t set well with her. “Charlie?”
I made eye contact but said nothing.
“I need to know…” She reached in her pocket, pulled out the wad of cash I’d just given them, and held it before me. “If we take this, are you putting us in danger? Of any kind?” She glanced at Isabella’s window, shook her head, and proffered the money. “Because if you are…”
I held out my hand like a stop sign. “I owe you more than that for taking care of me while I was sick. It’s the least I can do.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“To my knowledge, I am not putting you in any danger, but there is the possibility that Zaul is messed up with the wrong people. If in helping me, you ever get the slightest hint that I’ve put you in danger, you’re free to walk with no explanation.”
She sat back and returned the money to her pocket. Our rooms were on the second story, as was the porch. This gave us a limited aerial view of the lights of the city. She stood, dusted off her skirt, and waited several seconds. “The bakery opens at six, and that’s when everything is hot and the little chunks of chocolate are still soft. You don’t want to miss that. Almost a religious experience. Paulo will get on the phone early and make some inquiries. We’ll get moving after that.” She put her hand on my shoulder. The first time she’d touched me in tenderness. “If he’s within a hundred or so miles, Paulo will find him. We’ll do what we can.” She turned and walked to her room, stopping at the door. She weighed her head side to side and said, “For the record, we’d have done it for nothing. All you had to do is ask.”
“I figured that.”
“And yet you offered anyway?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Which you still don’t care to explain.”
“You won’t like me when I do.”
She leaned against the doorframe and nodded, finally turning and partially closing the door. “There’s a seasoned old man and an innocent little girl, both asleep in here, who find that hard to believe.”
“And you?”
“I think that may be the most revealing and truthful statement you’ve made since I met you.” With that, she shut the door and turned out the light.
And she was right. It was.
Chapter Sixteen
Colin moved his family home after that summer in Costa Rica while keeping the house, swearing that he and his family would return there for all eternity. That he and Marguerite would retire there. Colin had found a home. As had his family. Life was good.
In the coming weeks and months, I introduced Shelly to my family. To Colin, Marguerite, Zaul, and she-who-holds-my-heart-in-her-hands, Maria Luisa. Every time we saw them, Maria would run, jump up in my lap, throw her arms around my neck, and speak in a voice that could melt titanium. “Uncle Charlie, what’d you bring me?”
I’d hold her in my lap, tickle her, sing “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” And then after ignoring her long enough, I’d snap my fingers and circle back around to her question. “I knew I forgot something.”
She’d try to search my pockets, and finally I’d pull a wrapped package out of a hidden place in my shirt or shorts. A necklace or a ring or something glittery from some foreign soil. The first time Shelly met her she shook her head. “Least I know who the competition is.” She smiled. “She’s got you eating out of the palm of her hand.”
I nodded and said, “Hook, line, and sinker.”
The more time Shelly and I spent with Colin and his family, the more I could see how the absence of children in her own life was affecting her. There was a joy missing. And she knew it. She sensed its absence. She also saw that I was good with kids, that I loved them, that they loved me. Add to that her love for me, and it wasn’t tough to see that coming freight train in the tunnel.
One night, walking hand in hand in the surf along our favorite part of the beach, on the northwestern tip of Bimini, Atlantis buried in the waters over my shoulder, she asked me, “Can I ask you something?”
I had a feeling this was coming. It’d been on the tip of her tongue for weeks. “Yes.”
“You ever think about getting married?”
“No.”
She poked me in the ribs. “I’m being serious.”
This was one of those conversations with which I wasn’t entirely comfortable. The kind where we talked about things of the heart. Where we leaned over the green felt and showed the other the cards we were holding. Where the mystery, the fun and games ended and the playing stopped. Where we held our chips loosely. I swallowed. “Yes.”
She tucked her arm inside mine. “Ever think of someone you might like to do that with?”
I nodded. “Yeah…Maria.”
She punched me in the arm and pointed to the water rolling in gentle waves around our ankles. “You want to go swimming?”
I laughed.
She continued. “I’m serious.”
It was time. I’d put it off long enough. The game had brought me to this place. Either I was all in or I needed to fold. I turned, held both her hands, and knelt. As I was about to open my mouth, a wave crashed just beyond us and the whitewater rolled me over. Tumbling me. She laughed. A lot. Maybe it was an icebreaker I needed.
I stood. Soaked. And wiped the sand out of my face. She stood in front of me with her hands behind her back. “You were saying?”
“You’re really going to make me go through with this, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
Shelly had made it pretty clear in previous conversations that if and when she remarried she didn’t want the big diamond. Been there and done that. She wanted a simple gold band. Something with some history that meant something.
About two months prior, we’d been in León, Nicaragua. Shelly thought we were there to pick up rum and some raw coffee beans. Which we were. We were also there to pick up a lot of cocaine. One afternoon, while the boat was being loaded on the coast, we were walking the streets and passed a shop that advertised jewelry made from shipwrecked gold. She eyed the window and talked mostly to herself. “That’s about right. Shipwrecked gold.” The owner was a bit of a local legend, a salvage diver and a weekend shipwreck junkie. Through the years, he’d discovered several small Spanish ships off the coast and managed to sift a little gold from each. From that, he’d had a few rings made. I don’t know if his story was true, but his rings were custom and the gold as beautiful as I’d ever seen.