Tempting Fate

by Meryl Sawyer

  View of Nothing. It fit the hotel where the red floral carpet was worn thin in numerous places and filled with the dust of countless soles. The pungent air was stagnant, heavy with humidity and the loamy smell of the tropics.

  "I'm not sure we have time to discuss over one hundred fears," Logan said. "How about prioritizing and start with what you fear the most."

  He leaned across the small table and covered her hand with his. She'd left the stunning diamond rings behind at Logan's suggestion. He'd bought her a slim gold band that wouldn't be as noticeable in a third-world country. She watched as his thumb slid over the band while his fingers encircled her hand.

  It was an oddly affectionate gesture. In the days immediately following their wedding, Logan rarely touched her unless he wanted to have sex. Then day by day he began to touch her more and more frequently.

  At first, he touched her in a way that could be considered casual. A hand on her waist to guide her into a restaurant. Taking her hand to help her out of the car.

  She remembered exactly when he'd first touched her in a truly affectionate way. They'd been having coffee on the terrace the morning the social worker was coming to certify them. Her anxiety must have been etched across her forehead. Logan had reached over and taken her hand in his, the way he had just now.

  "Kelly? Talk to me. Tell me what you're worried about."

  It flashed through her mind that she was always confiding in him, revealing her innermost feelings, yet he never shared his thoughts with her. She doubted he ever would. At first she'd been angry that he'd lied about his mother, but she'd forgiven him. How long could she be angry with a man who was being so incredibly helpful?

  "What am I afraid of? You know, parent stuff. Will I be a good enough mother? What if I do something that messes Rafi up for life? What if—"

  "Kelly, don't torment yourself. You'll do the best you can. Just be sure to give him plenty of what's important—love."

  Love. Something you never had, she thought as she gazed into his blue eyes. Again, she wondered about his youth. She wasn't sure why—certainly he hadn't confided in her—but she was convinced his childhood hadn't been happy.

  What had his mother done to him? Where had she taken him? Kelly wondered again and again. And why did he refuse to discuss it?

  "I've always wanted children. I love Rafi already."

  "I know you do." He squeezed her hand for a moment, then reached in his pocket. He tossed a few bolivars on the table.

  They'd just had coffee and arepas, tasty corn rolls, but Logan had left a generous tip. One thing she'd learned about him was his sensitivity to the poverty around them. He was never rude to people that Tyler and Alyx would have relegated to ranks of the untouchables, and he always over-tipped.

  "We better get going." He slung his backpack over one shoulder.

  They crossed the small plaza, hand in hand. Vendors were setting up their stalls in the town square that was the heart of Elorza. Normally Kelly would have been interested in their wares, but today her mind was on Rafi.

  At last she was going to be a mother.

  Of two children. She was almost positive she was pregnant. Her period was rarely late, and she was overdue by several days. She wasn't surprised. They'd had nonstop sex since their wedding night.

  Not that she minded. She discovered that she thoroughly enjoyed it. Being with Logan had released something shamefully wanton in her, a lustful side of herself she didn't wish to examine too closely.

  Her only decision was whether or not to tell Logan. Even though she'd been so angry with him that she'd felt justified in blowing him off when they returned to Sedona by keeping the baby a secret, she'd reversed her decision. When she'd confirmed she was pregnant, she would tell Logan and make it clear she expected nothing from him.

  Logan slowed down as they rounded the corner and approached a blind man sitting at a card table with a telephone on it and a cigar box of coins.

  "What's he doing?" she asked.

  "Making a living the only way he can. If you're disabled in South America, you aren't going to get any help from the state. That man lives in the building behind him. See the phone cord coming out of the window? He has telephone service, while many others do not. His neighbors pay him to use his."

  "Aren't there any telephone booths?"

  "Big cities have a few. This is how blind people support themselves in South America. The curbside division of Ma Bell." He walked toward the man. "Let's call Caracas and check on our airline reservations."

  "But we don't know if we'll get Rafi today or—"

  The light dawned, and she couldn't help smiling. Logan wanted to have an excuse to give this man money. Undoubtedly, a call to Caracas was much more expensive than local calls his neighbors usually made.

  "Buenos Días," Logan greeted the man.

  Their fast-paced conversation was difficult to follow, but Kelly did catch a word or two. He handed the man a few coins, then picked up the telephone. The blind man couldn't see, but Kelly didn't miss Logan's finger depressing the button. The call would never appear on the man's bill.

  As he rattled on and on to incur an overtime charge, Kelly couldn't help comparing Logan to Daniel. Her husband had suffered through a miserable childhood, being tossed from foster home to foster home. When they'd met, Daniel's need for love had appealed to her.

  He'd soaked up all the love she could give, and the attention of anyone who came into his orbit. A man who loved to be the center of attention, Daniel would never have noticed a blind person. Or taken the time to concern himself with his plight.

  Daniel's grip on her heart was slowly easing. Time and his betrayal had eroded her love for him. She still cared, but not as much as she once had.

  "Muchas gracias," Kelly told the man as Logan paid him for the overtime. She was certain his disability had heightened his other senses. The blind man must have detected her presence. It would be rude not to thank him the way she would anyone else.

  Logan put his arm around her as they walked to the spot where they had parked the rental car. Vista de Nada was not the type of hotel that had a parking garage or even a dirt lot. They'd parked around the corner from the plaza on a side street.

  They drove along the elevated road toward the Sister of the Holy Trinity Orphanage. Riding horses with crude looking saddles with wooden stirrups, llaneros were herding cattle nearby, waving their straw cowboy hats to direct the cattle.

  "The herd is going to market," Logan explained. "In another month this whole area will be one giant lake. That's why the road is elevated. In a heavy rain, it, too, will be underwater."

  "Have you been here before?"

  "No, but I downloaded the latest Cobra data on the area. The only time I was in Venezuela was when an oil executive was kidnapped. The oil fields don't look anything like this. That mission was a close call, but we managed to save the guy."

  This was as much as he'd ever said about any of his missions. She waited, hoping he would tell her more, but he didn't. She had learned not to press. Pop was right, slowly, a scant inch at a time, Logan was responding to her openness.

  "Stop!" she cried, spotting an animal sunning itself in the middle of the road. Whatever it was had fur and ears like a squirrel, but it's tail was more like a rat's. The creature appeared to be in the squirrel family, but it was much larger, the size of a cocker spaniel.

  Logan braked, saying, "It's a capybara. The largest rodent in the world." He tooted the horn. The capybara stood up, shook itself, and blinked myopically at them.

  "Amazing! It has webbed feet."

  The creature ambled across the road and down the embankment. At the bottom was a small pond. The capybara slid into the water and gracefully swam to the other side.

  "They're delicious," Logan informed her as he accelerated. "You find them in several countries down here."

  "Yuck! It doesn't look like a rat, but all you have to do is say rodent, and I'm not interested in eating it."

  "They were
almost hunted to extinction. The Pope ruled that since they have webbed feet and swim, capybaras could be classified as fish even though they tasted more like red meat. People who didn't like fish ate them every Friday. Later they were reclassified, but people still eat them. Rafi probably has capybara several times a week."

  Kelly gazed out across the vast savanna that stretched endlessly toward the horizon and tried to imagine what Rafi had experienced since the death of his grandmother. He'd lost his mother, too, but he'd been very young. He might not remember her.

  "Be ready to pull a cheap bottle of Scotch out of your tote." Logan told her as they drove up to the alcabala. "Just in case."

  She had a tote with Scotch and men's Levis for bribes as well as a few things for Rafi. Her hand on the cheap Scotch, she waited to see what would happen at the checkpoint. They'd used two bottles of twenty-year-old Glenlivet in Caracas to smooth along the adoption process. They had two bottles remaining.

  Half a dozen soldiers were drinking what had to be warm Polar beer. Alcabalas were common in South America, Logan had told her. But she would never become accustomed to having soldiers brandishing machineguns, constantly checking her identification.

  Logan greeted them in Spanish and the soldiers waved them through the checkpoint, obviously more interested in beer than examining their passports. She left the bottle in her tote, then pulled out the adoption folder. They rounded a bend in the road and spotted a gray bunker of a building ahead.

  "Oh, my God," she cried. "It looks like a prison."

  "It might have been a jail once. Those windows look too small for a normal building."

  They left the rental car on a pad of cracked concrete and went inside. With a sinking sensation, she looked around. Forbidding gray walls and dark hallways without a single light bulb.

  "Look at the up side," Logan told her. "It's clean and it's cool considering how hot it is today."

  She couldn't muster a response.

  Logan stopped and put his arm around her. "Look, I'm going to tell them that we want to adopt Rafael Zamora. I'll claim that he's your cousin's son. That way we won't be shown every kid here, and we'll have an excuse for knowing about Rafi."

  Sister Maria Consuelo was in charge of adoptions. She was unexpectedly young, not looking a day over twenty, and she was obviously taken with Logan from the moment they were shown into her office.

  "Buenos Días," Logan said.

  The nun actually blushed. So much for sacred vows. Sister Maria Consuelo was going to have to say a zillion Hail Marys to atone for what she was thinking right now.

  Logan introduced Kelly and she managed a cheery, "Buenos Días."

  Kelly listened silently, barely able to understand a few words of the conversation, as Logan—all smiles—explained the situation. He handed the nun their adoption file. She pored over it, examining every document.

  Kelly decided the young nun merely enjoyed talking to Logan. Unless Kelly missed her bet, the girl came from a poverty-stricken family who had forced her to join the order. One less mouth to feed.

  The minutes seemed like eons as the nun discussed each line in the file. Finally, Sister Maria Consuelo closed the folder, beaming at Logan. She said something as she rose, but the only words Kelly grasped were: Rafael Zamora.

  Logan turned to Kelly, "She's taking us to see Rafael now. Along the way, she'll give us a tour."

  Kelly lagged back while Sister Maria Consuelo showed Logan the kitchen, which was straight out of the last century, right down to wood-burning ovens, but it was clean. From there they went to the play area where inner tubes hung from trees being used by older children as swings. Off to one side was a sandbox for the younger children.

  How sad, Kelly thought, recalling her yard when she'd been a child. Pop had built a mini-amusement park. Some children had too much while other children had nothing.

  Sister Maria Consuelo came as close to outright flirting as a nun could without relinquishing her vows, but at last she ran out of things to show them. She guided them down yet another long, dark hall to the dormitory where Rafi was napping with the younger children.

  They peeked into the cavernous room. Cots lined the interior like cigars in a box. At the foot of each bed was a small wooden bin. Kelly assumed the children kept their clothes and whatever few things they possessed in the bin.

  "It's going great," Logan whispered as Sister Maria Consuelo spoke to the nun in charge of the dormitory.

  "They want us to meet Rafi out here in the hall," Logan explained. "That way we won't wake up the other children."

  They waited and waited until Kelly began to pace. At last a little boy appeared at the door, holding Sister Maria Consuelo's hand. With one balled up fist, he rubbed his sleepy eyes, then blinked.

  He looked so much like Daniel that Kelly inhaled sharply. True blue eyes and jet black hair. A vertical dimple in his chin. As he matured it would be a masculine cleft. He should have been their child, should have had a happy life and never had been in this miserable place.

  He was smaller than she expected, and much thinner. Uncertainty masked his young face as he stood there bewildered. She could almost hear him asking himself why the nuns had brought him out. Too well, she remembered being orphaned and feeling lost and vulnerable.

  Pop had rescued her, restoring the security that had been so suddenly snatched from her. Rafi had languished here without anyone to reassure him. And love him.

  She realized she was concealed by the shadows and Logan's body. Stepping forward, she called, "Rafi."

  The child's blue eyes widened, and he gazed at her for a moment as if he'd been struck dumb by a bolt of lightning. Then he sprinted across the corridor full speed, arms flailing. A gap-toothed smile lit his precious face.

  In her entire life no one had ever looked at her like that. Rafi wasn't just happy to see her, the darling little boy was thrilled beyond belief.

  He hurled himself into her skirt, grabbing her legs with his little arms. "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"

  Mommy? Obviously the nuns had told him about his new mother.

  Rafi jabbered in Spanish, but the only word she understood was "Mommy."

  She dropped to her knees to be on eye level with him. Rafi catapulted himself into her arms and smacked her on the cheek. Gripping her neck with all his might, his little fingers tangled in her hair.

  "Mommy, Mommy," He kept holding onto her as if he would never let go.

  She'd always wanted her own children, but in this moment she knew this little boy was incredibly special. She'd told Logan that she already loved Rafi, and she thought she had, but now she knew what it felt like to love a child with all her heart.

  Rafi kept talking to her, his little head tilting slightly to one side as if he expected an answer, but she didn't understand what he was saying.

  "What is Rafi trying to tell me?"

  "He thinks you're his mother. He's asking why you went away and left him here. Why didn't you come back for him when his abuela—grandmother—was called to heaven?" Logan stroked Rafi's head affectionately, but gazed into her eyes with a look she had never seen. For a second she thought she detected the sheen of tears. "He was terrified you'd never come back for him."

  * * *

  Chapter 28

  « ^ »

  Logan studied Kelly as she reacted to his words. Her brown eyes widened, a puzzled expression on her face.

  "Why on earth would Rafi think I'm his mother?"

  "I have no idea."

  Logan didn't understand what was going on. The word Rafi had used was "mami" a Spanish abbreviation of madre, which meant mother. Mami sounded almost exactly like mommy. But why would the boy say mami?

  "Señor McCord," called Sister Maria Consuelo.

  He turned and listened to her tell him that Rafi might want to take his things with him. Logan seriously doubted the child would need anything he now had once he was with Kelly. She'd been unsure of his size, so she hadn't bought him any clothes. But he had no doubt the
minute they returned to Elorza. Kelly would buy the kid a dozen outfits.

  "Rafi, está bien," crooned Kelly as Logan walked away. It's all right, she told the child. It was too bad she didn't speak better Spanish. The little boy desperately needed reassurance.

  Logan followed the nun into the dormitory, walking as quietly as possible, his pack slung over his shoulder. Several of the children were stirring, and they stared at him as he walked by. It was all he could do not to shudder. They were still young, but in another year or two, these innocent children would know the truth.

  They were going to spend their youth in prison.

  Not that they had committed any crime other than being born to a mother who died or couldn't keep them. Or didn't want them. But the orphanage was off the beaten path in a country that already had more children than it could handle. Most of these orphans never would find homes.

  They would live here until they were old enough to earn a living. Prison by any other name is still a prison, he thought, recalling some similar quote about a rose. The nuns would be kind to these children, but they were too overworked to give them any individual attention.

  Love was out-of-the-question.

  He thought about the camp where he'd grown up. It, too, had been a prison, but he'd rather have been here, taking his chances with the nuns than spend a week under Zoe's supervision.

  "Señor," the other nun whispered as she handed him a brown bag that had been used countless times.

  He took it and mouthed a gracias to her, then he followed Sister Maria Consuelo back to the area where Kelly and Rafi were waiting. The light in the dormitory was very dim, but when he reached the doorway where the light was better, he looked into the bag.

  Instantly, he understood why Rafi had mistaken Kelly for his mother.

  Ahead of him, Sister Maria Consuelo stopped in her tracks. Logan nearly plowed into her, but dodged the nun in time. They stood silently watching Kelly with Rafi.