Authors: Rita Rainville
Kara felt as if she were drowning in his shimmering green eyes. "Darling?" she repeated faintly.
He drew her closer, and neither of them heard Juanito's softly voiced words to the terrified brothers.
Neither of them noticed the boys racing through the door, or that a moaning Jaime had poked his aching head back through the window.
"Kara, my love, will you answer a simple question?" He lifted her off her feet in an embrace that once again threatened her ribs.
"I haven't finished answering the first one yet," she whispered, brushing her lips across his cheek where his dimple would be if only he smiled more often.
He looked down at her. "Do you love me?"
"Of course I do!"
He almost dropped her. "Then why didn't you ever tell me?"
"You never asked me."
He looked astounded. "I didn't? Are you sure?"
"Positive," she said firmly. "From the day we met, you've been too busy telling me things to ask me anything. You've given me orders about the locks on my doors, orders about trips I will or will not take, orders about betting at the track, but never have you asked me anything of any importance."
She wiggled until her feet touched the ground.
"Can we get question one out of the way, so we can concentrate on number two?"
He released her with obvious reluctance. "Where were we?" he asked in a distracted voice.
"I was coming into the shack with the brothers."
"Bandits," he muttered.
"Who's telling this story?" she demanded.
"I'm beginning to wonder if anyone is," he said with mounting impatience.
"First of all, and most important, they didn't hurt me. They've been perfect gentlemen."
"Except for abducting you," he said with justifiable sarcasm.
"Well," she admitted, "they did do that. But they had a reason."
"Do I get to hear about it?"
"Well, of course," she said in amazement. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. But you keep interrupting and bringing in all sorts of irrelevant matters."
She watched in fascination as a red flush mounted under his dark tan.
"Kara," he spoke with commendable restraint, "you have exactly one minute to tell me about the bandits."
"Thirty seconds will do it." She ignored his irritated snort. "But first, let's agree on what to call them. They're not bandits. They are five brothers. Brothers," she said slowly, easing into it, "who happen to be construction workers, but who are temporarily out of work.
"Brothers," she said in a rush, "who I am hiring to rebuild the dormitories."
She took a deep breath and held it, waiting for the explosion.
It wasn't long in coming.
"Like hell you will!" he shouted over the noise of five voluble brothers, three whooping boys and one groaning cab driver. "I've put up with your aunt, your uncle, your antics at the racetrack and your bull-headed resistance to advice, but I'll be damned if I'll watch you hire a bunch of two-bit hoods to work at the orphanage. Think of the kids, for God's sake!"
"I am thinking of them." She did a swift sum in her head. "Forty-two of them."
Surprise rendered him silent for a moment. "I wasn't even gone for two weeks," he said in wonder.
"How did they manage to get ..."
"Juanito and Carmella just have fifteen," she clarified. "They ..." she pointed to the brothers " ... have twenty-seven."
"Does everyone this side of the border have an orphanage?" he asked bitterly.
"That's their family." At his disbelieving look, she nodded. "That's right. Each one has a wife, and between them they have twenty-seven children."
She turned the full blast of her beseeching eyes on him. "And they're hungry. Can you imagine what it's like to wake up in the morning knowing that you have no food for your children? No, I don't suppose you can," she added, answering her own question.
He couldn't bear to see the pensive look in her eyes.
He had told her to face facts, to be realistic, but he hadn't known that reality would be so shattering. He hadn't known it would hurt so much when she realized that the line had to be drawn somewhere. That she couldn't make the world a safer, better place for everyone. He felt as if he had just taken deliberate aim and shot Tinkerbell.
"That's why they brought me here," she said, looking over his shoulder at a distant, sad place.
"They thought that I could share some marvelous secret about the way I pick my horses. The winnings would tide them over until they found work again. And you know what? Suddenly I knew you were right. I had no secret of success to share, and I couldn't start taking them to the races, too."
She blinked and slowly focused on him. "I told them that I didn't know how to help them. I explained how the whole thing had happened to me, and somehow they latched on to the idea of meditation. When I said that I didn't think it had anything to do with the horses, they told me that they had no other hope."
Her eyes mirrored the sadness of those words, and suddenly he realized that whatever it took he wanted to see the sparkle return to her dark eyes, to bring back the animation to her expressive face. He wanted her ardently embracing a cause, even if it drove him crazy. He wanted her spilling over with enthusiasm and calling him darling again.
"Do you think they really know anything about building?" he asked mildly. Not that it mattered. He knew he was prepared to hire or train them, even if they were total incompetents.
"I don't know," she said absently, her mind elsewhere. "It sounded like it. Domingo said he was a plumber, and Gold Tooth is a carpenter. One lays bricks, one puts in doors and windows and one does plastering."
She shook her head reminiscently. "They were really determined to get the hang of meditating. Even if their legs fell asleep and their throats got sore."
"Oh, yeah," he remarked casually. "I heard that caterwauling."
"Caterwauling?" lndignant eyes met his.
"If you were teaching them to sing, you're going to have a problem. I think at least two of them are tone deaf."
"They weren't singing," she said protectively.
He was obviously relieved. "That's good. Because I noticed that they just sort of droned along, churning out the same note over and over."
Her back stiffened. "That just shows how much you know about meditating. They were repeating a mantra. And they were doing very well, too."
"To each his own," he said carelessly. "If they want to sit on their backsides moaning while others are out working for a living, that's up to them, but I don't see how it's helping their kids."
"Moaning?" Kara prodded him in the chest with a slim finger. "Listen, you blockhead, if anyone has a right to moan, it would be those men! They've lived a hand-to-mouth existence for years. They've picked up odd jobs, looked for work when there was none to be found and somehow managed to keep their families together."
Dane leaned against the wall, arms crossed on his chest, his face expressionless. Only his eyes gleamed as he watched his furious little love stride back and forth as she castigated him.
"They weren't born with silver spoons in their mouths, like someone I could mention. But in spite of all they've faced they are persevering, patient and honorable men."
She veered to face him. "And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to hire them! Without your approval or permission! We started this whole thing without you and if we have to we'll carry on the same way. First, they can rebuild the dormitories. When they're done with that we'll get them to do some of the other things that Juanito doesn't have time for. All I have to do is pay them." She faced Dane defiantly. "And we both know that I can get all the money I need."
Dane jerked as if the wall had suddenly become a sheet of flame. Spirit was one thing, but she was getting completely out of hand!
Kara spun on her heel and walked over to the group of gesticulating men. "Domingo?"
The men broke off an impassioned conversation and turned to her.
"Two buildings on Juanito's farm collapsed during the earthquake. Can you and your brothers build new ones?"
A smile split his face. "Sure, sure. We do everything." He tapped his chest. "I am fontanero," he reminded.
"I remember," she said hastily. "How much do you charge?"
"By the hour or the job?"
She looked frantically at Juanito.
"The job." Dane spoke from behind her in a clipped voice. "And I'll be supervising you every step of the way."
"Just a darn minute," she said, turning to glare at him.
"How much do you know about construction?" he demanded.
"Not much," she admitted.
Juanito spoke for the first time. "It is best this way, Kara."
"Good, that's taken care of," Dane said. He looked at Juanito. "If you'll make the arrangements with this talkative quintet, Kara and I have a few things to settle." He looked down at her mutinous face, clasped her hand in his and led her outside.
"I want to finish the interesting conversation we were having earlier," he said.
"About what?" she hedged.
"You told me that you loved me."
Direct and to the point, as usual, she thought in disgust. "I've changed my mind."
"Why?"
Hadn't he an ounce of tact or finesse? Talk about rough diamonds! "Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't?" she demanded. "Why should I love a man who spends his time delivering orders and ultimatums? A man who always has a better way to do whatever I want to do? A man who has never had the decency to tell me that he loves me?"
His eyes shimmered with unspoken words.
"Do you love me?" she asked, deciding that his direct approach wasn't all that bad.
He shifted uneasily. "Can you think of any other reason why I'd put up with your peculiar uncle?"
"Do you love me?" she repeated.
"Or your aunt?"
"Do you love me?" she persevered.
"Do you think I make a habit of rescuing women and following them around to keep them out of trouble?"
"I haven't the foggiest idea. I'm asking a plain and simple question. I'd like an answer. Do you love me?"
"Damn it, Kara," he snarled in a most unloverlike way, "of course I do. And you know I do. Now are you satisfied?"
"Not quite," she said, watching with enjoyment as he squirmed. "A little tenderness might make it more convincing."
"I'm a little rusty," he admitted, as he bent his head and kissed her softly on the lips. "I've never said that to another woman."
"Good," she said promptly. "I'm glad to be the first, and I intend to be the last. Now that you've broken the ice, feel free to practice whenever I'm around. I'll need to hear it every now and then, and it'll sound better if I don't have to drag it out of you."
His mustache curved as he grinned. "Anything else?" he asked, as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. He groaned as her soft curves melted into his aching frame.
"Hm-hmm," she whispered against his lips. "If we could get everyone out of here, we could go home and do some intensive practicing."
Reluctantly, he set her on her feet. "God, Kara, are we ever going to be alone?"
"Dane," she whispered, as Jaime staggered around the corner, groaning and holding his head, "who is that man?"
He laughed involuntarily. "Just someone who decided to join the rescue party."
"Does he have a job?"
A familiar frown replaced his smile. "Kara," he threatened, "don't start. In fact, before we go anywhere I want you to promise me something."
"What?" she asked cautiously.
"That you'll stop all this philanthropic nonsense, that you'll quit doing these harebrained, impulsive things and that you'll marry me."
Her smile blinded him as she flew into his arms.
"Oh, Dane, more than anything else in the world I want to marry you!"
Later, with Kara still nestled in his arms, her lips still soft and sweet on his, it suddenly hit him. Oh, well, he decided philosophically, drawing her even closer to his taut frame, one out of three isn't bad.