Fiesta Moon

by Linda Windsor

  “Whoa, you’re dripping on me,” he said, drawing up his knees to avoid the drip of her wet hair.

  “I towel dried, but Juan cut the electricity, so no hair dryer.”

  “Which Juan?”

  The playful arch of his one brow stirred the names in her mind. “Electric Juan.” With a chuckle, she slung the sheet over her patient, shorts and all.

  “Are we having fun yet?”

  Corinne pulled a straight face. “I know someone who is not ever going to have fun if that fever doesn’t go away.” She retrieved a thermometer from the nightstand and stuck it in Mark’s mouth.

  He made a questioning grunt.

  “Dr. Flynn said if your temp remained elevated, you would be taken to the hospital in Cuernavaca.”

  The night-light on the desk flashed on suddenly.

  “Looks like we have pow—” Before Mark could complete his sentence, a loud pop echoed from the back of the house, followed by an excited barrage of Spanish.

  “Desconectelo! Off, off!”

  With a groan, Mark closed his eyes.

  Corinne rushed to the hall, leaving the thermometer beeping in her patient’s mouth. “Juan, todo está bien? Is everything okay?”

  “Está bien, señorita,” one of the men shouted back—which Juan, she couldn’t tell. “Just a little—how do you say … snitch.”

  Corinne frowned. “You mean snag?”

  “Sí, a snag. No worries.”

  “Easy for him to say,” Mark grumbled from the bed.

  Spinning around, Corinne rushed to take the thermometer he’d removed from his mouth, but he turned it off before she could read it. “What did it say?”

  “Just a little elevation.”

  She propped her hands on her hips. “How little?”

  “A hundred.”

  “And what?” She smelled smoke akin to burning wire.

  “Just a hundred.” Mark reached for the glass of water on the nightstand. “And by the time I drink this, it will be even lower.”

  “Juan … Electric Juan?” she called out, moving back to the hallway. “What is that burning?”

  “Es nada, señorita,” the man shouted back as the lamp came on again, this time without event. “See, no worries.”

  Lord, please let that be the truth.

  “Tell you what,” she said to Mark. It wouldn’t hurt for her to look, not that she’d really know what she was looking at. “I’ll go check on things and be back in two shakes with your breakfast.”

  At his answering grunt, she made her way to the ballroom. Juan Pedro stood on a ladder next to a hole where one of the wall lamps had hung before the previous contractors had removed and boxed them. A piece of charred wire protruded from the wall. To it, he was tying a coil of new.

  “Soon it will all be new, no?” He smiled upon seeing her approach. “What are you doing?”

  “Pues, this is old,” he said, pointing with a soot-smudged hand to the charred piece. “And it runs to that enchufe where the electricity comes.” After wiping his nose with the back of the same hand, he nodded to a gutted electrical socket a few feet away. “So, to keep from creating more plaster work for Juan Miguel, I will pull the new wire through as I pull out the old, no?”

  She’d used a similar technique to replace worn elastic in some of the children’s shorts. “That’s brilliant, Juan, but we aren’t replacing the wall lamps. This is to be a gymnasium. Aren’t you supposed to cover the hole with plaster?”

  With knitted eyebrows, the little man came down the ladder and took the set of blueprints from the tube where they’d been stored. After much rustling of paper and scrutiny, he dropped them on the floor. “Pues, if that is the way you want.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s what we have to do,” she said, leaving the man to his work.

  Corinne understood Juan Pedro’s reluctance. The ballroom was beautiful, but the orphanage did not need it, with its elegant converted Victorian gas lamps lining both walls. Nor did it need the large chandelier overhead, which had yet to be taken out. What was needed was a gymnasium with fluorescent lighting. And she’d already found a place on the Internet where they could sell the antique fixtures.

  “Soledad,” she said, marching into the kitchen. “Breakfast smells—”

  She broke off. Sitting at the kitchen table, Juan Miguel was finishing off a plate of huevos rancheros and bacon, while Soledad hovered over him with a look of adoration.

  “—delicious.”

  “It is, señorita, and I am very thankful for it.” The sculptor-mason munched the words along with his last forkful. After swallowing, he gave Soledad a wink. “But then, Señorita Corina, you must know that you have the best cook in all of Guerrero.”

  Soledad gave him a playful smack on the shoulder as he rose to leave. “You mean in all of Mexico, perro viejo.”

  Old dog? Was Soledad flirting?

  “Pues,” the housekeeper announced, all business after he exited, “I will have your breakfast and that of Señor Mark en un momento.” With that, she returned to the stove where the remainder of the cooked bacon warmed on a plate over the pilot light.

  Love must be in the air, Corinne mused, distracted by the pop and sizzle of the coffeemaker on the counter. Craving a cup, she was reaching into the cupboard when she heard someone in the bathroom. Juan Pablo, she thought, filling the mug to the brim. Just the scent snapped her taste buds to attention.

  “And how is your patient?” Soledad asked, shaking the frying pan to spread the melting butter.

  “Mark still has a little temp … if I can believe him,” she said. “Do you think I should give him some coffee?”

  “I’d love a cup.” Mark leaned against the jamb of the utility-bathroom door, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary— weak cat, small bird. As if walking on the moving blocks in a fun house, he approached the table and dropped, literally, into a chair.

  Lord, help. I’m losing patience with this patient.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Why are you out of bed?” Corinne demanded.

  “There are some things a man can’t do from the bed,” Mark said, waiting for his meaning to sink in. When it did, he was rewarded with a rose of a blush.

  “Oh.” She jumped up to get another cup. “Well, you should have called for one of us to help you to the room at least.”

  Since he felt as thought he’d just climbed the Matterhorn instead of crossing through Corinne’s room to the bathroom, Mark almost agreed with her. But he’d had to see just what this cough, or whatever it was, had done to his stamina. Now he knew.

  “Did you see what the people have brought you?” Soledad asked.

  “What people?”

  Corinne put his coffee on the table. “The ones who’ve been bringing flowers and candles into the courtyard since yesterday morning. I was going to show you, but things have gotten a little busy today.”

  “Everyone in the village is still talking about your fireworks. They were the best Mexicalli has ever seen. So many beautiful colors … And in the market this morning,” the housekeeper bragged, “I told them all that I cook for you.”

  Mark sipped the hot brew, savoring the rich flavor as Toto nosed his way into the kitchen.

  “And there is mama’s little pig this morning,” Soledad exclaimed. She promptly abandoned the eggs in the pan to give Toto some melon rind.

  “And the Sunday school class made you this get-well card.” Corinne presented him with a large card with a childlike drawing of a stick man and a pig. “Father Menasco brought it after church yesterday.”

  On the inside were fireworks and signatures. Mark thought he remembered seeing the fireworks … which made no sense, because he remembered thinking on the way to Doña Violeta’s that he would miss them. “How is Doña Violeta?”

  “Well enough to visit yesterday after church.”

  Mark watched the piglet shove the flat aluminum cake tin off its plastic placemat and across the floor in his zeal to finish off his meal
. “I don’t remember Father Menasco’s visit or hers.”

  “Pues, the doctor would allow no one in but us at first.” Soledad placed a bacon-and-cheese omelet in front of him. “Here it is … your favorite.”

  The food had as much appeal as what Toto had just wolfed down. “Aw, thank you, Soledad, but I don’t think I can eat much. I’m more thirsty.”

  “Liquids are important,” Corinne agreed. “But try to eat a couple of mouthfuls.”

  “Yes, couple mouthfuls,” Soledad echoed.

  Two were all Mark could force down. He couldn’t even finish the coffee. All he wanted to do was lie down. As Corinne walked him back to the salon, he gave in to a pity party. “This is the worst luck yet. I can’t be sick now.”

  “I don’t think the choice is yours to make.”

  “It was just a little cough and headache,” he complained.

  “They were just signs of the infection causing the fever. I would count my blessings that an American physician was on hand … and that Mexicalli is one of the upland villages that actually has a pharmacy with antibiotics and a blood kit.”

  “Blood kit?”

  “Dr. Flynn took some blood yesterday and sent it to Cuernavaca for testing.”

  On reaching the salon entrance, Mark wanted more than anything to make a rush for the bed and collapse. But Corinne’s gentle reminder of his blessings made him think better of it. Instead of going inside, he nodded toward the open front door.

  “I’d like to count a blessing or two before I collapse. To see the flowers,” he explained at her bewildered expression. “If the people were good enough to bring them up the hill, I can at least walk a few extra feet to see them.”

  The burning he recalled from the night of his collapse threatened again, but he forced himself to the front door. Candles, mostly burned down, and flowers, a majority wilting from their overnight exposure, were scattered on the patio. He couldn’t recall ever feeling so humbled, so at a loss for words.

  As Mark blinked away a welling of emotion from his eyes, he spied movement beyond the patio. Walking toward what used to be the gate was a woman leading a little boy away.

  “Thank you,” he called after them. “Gracias.”

  The woman never looked back, but the child turned and waved. With a flash of pearl white teeth, he said something, but Mark only caught a few words—bien, gracias, and Señor del Cerdito.

  An uncommon joy filled his being, and with it strength to walk back to the salon, where he fell back on the bed in an exhausted sweat.

  “Are you okay?” Alarm filled Corinne’s voice.

  “You know,” he said, breathing with some effort, “I don’t think I’ve ever been better, considering how sick I feel.”

  She pulled the sheet up over his half-clad torso, and as it settled on his skin, she yanked it back. “You’re soaked in perspiration again, Superman.”

  Instead of replying, Mark watched her fill a plastic basin with water from a pitcher and place it beside the bed.

  “Move over,” she ordered, nudging him away from the edge so she had room to sit. “I guess your fever broke again.”

  The cool cloth that she wrung dry over the basin felt soothing as she gently ran it over his face and around his neck.

  “Mmm,” he moaned softly. “Keep this up and I won’t want to get well.”

  Corinne gave him a stern look, but the pink climbing from the neck of her shirt to the tip of her hairline belied it. “Behave, or I’ll get Soledad.” Taking up a hand towel next to the pitcher, she flung it on his face. “I’ll wash; you dry.”

  After rinsing the cloth and wringing it again, she began to mop the perspiration from his chest. Mark caught his breath as she made methodical circles from the center, up and over the width of his shoulders.

  “Now,” she said, “turn on your side and I’ll wipe down your back.”

  Forgetting to dry, Mark obeyed. “You know, I changed my mind.”

  “About what?” she asked.

  “About my luck,” he mumbled. “I have people who care for me. Very special people.” People who had little more than a tin roof over their heads and rags on their back … a woman like Corinne, the flighty bumblebee Soledad, and children he hardly knew. “And a brother who, instead of reaming me out as I expected, understood when I confessed everything that had gone wrong on the project.”

  The cloth stopped. “You told Blaine? About the contractors and … everything?” she asked, seeming stricken, though by what he couldn’t imagine. “God is definitely working here,” she murmured, as if in awed prayer.

  Mark wiped his eyes on the pillow. Maybe it was the fever, because he was definitely not the sappy type. “I haven’t forgotten God,” he admitted, suddenly needing to share that with her. Especially with her, because he knew she would understand. He coughed, clearing his throat of the emotion binding it. “Who’d have thought I’d have to come all the way to the Twilight Zone to find Him?”

  Corinne reached over him, taking the towel he’d dropped. The brush of her body against him reminded Mark of how right it had felt when he’d held her in his arms. He inhaled the sweet scent of her.

  “And have you found Him, Mark?” Her voice rang with hope. But then Corinne wouldn’t have him any other way, no matter how much charm Mark surrounded her with. He rolled over, holding on to the towel and her hand, and then her gaze.

  “I’m not kidding. Don’t make any more jokes,” her voice warned, but a plea swam in her overbright eyes.

  Mark wanted to swim in them forever. “Yes, I found Him. And more.”

  “More?” She moistened her lips in expectation of his answer.

  Not the kiss that was on his mind, he reminded himself. “I think I found the meaning of His love … here among the people, who give when they have nothing.” He sucked in a ragged breath. “And with a woman who lives it.”

  Reaching up with his finger, he caught the single tear that ventured over the fall of a dark eyelash to her cheek and put it to his lips, tasting its saltiness. “I want all of you, Corinne Diaz, but I’ll make do with this until I can prove myself worthy of your trust … of your love.”

  Stars of emotion glittered in the gaze fixed on him. Kissing the same finger, he planted it on the quiver of her chin. And when he drew it away, her lips descended, touching his, tentative … unsure.

  Then uncertainty was lost in the sweet burst of desire he held at bay beyond the tender embrace of his arms. He wanted her to know that this intimacy, unlike before, was on her terms, in her time. The last thing he wanted was to scare her away. Her shy, lengthening caress robbed him of breath, yet, if this were his last, he’d count it another blessing.

  As he inhaled, the smell of tobacco smoke mingled with the orange blossom of Corinne’s scent, setting off an entirely different set of alarms. All of them made him aware that they were being watched. Mark maneuvered so that he might see where the smoke was coming from.

  Standing in the door, his expression as wooden as the carvings in the tourist shops, Primitivo waited patiently, a faint trail of smoke drifting up from the pipe in his mouth. As if sensing that Mark was no longer a part of what had become their passionate exchange, Corinne backed away, confusion overtaking her flushed features. Following Mark’s look toward the entrance, she gasped and leapt to her feet.

  “P-Primitivo,” she stammered, reaching for the washcloth that tumbled to the floor. “We … I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “We have a custom in the States called knocking,” Mark grumbled.

  “I’d best dump this water and leave you two be.” Corinne grabbed the water basin with such force that the water sloshed over the side, spilling down the front of her jeans.

  “You are better?” the Indio asked, as if he was always met by a couple in passion’s embrace.

  Mark spied the dingy woolen medicine sack slung over his shoulder. Please, Lord, no chopped chicken liver. I don’t even like that at swanky places.

  “My nagual entered the lan
d of the spirits,” Primitivo said.

  “Your nagual?”

  Primitivo gave him an impatient look. “My animal spirit … it is how one travels in the spirit world. Did you burn the candles and cobal as instructed?”

  “We burned the candles.” As night-lights.

  Primitivo gave him a dismissive wave. “No matter. You were witched by the ghost before you could protect yourself.” He shook his head. “Shame you no smoke tobacco.”

  “Oh, that would have helped my cough a lot.” Mark couldn’t help his sarcasm. He felt like the dickens, although Corinne had done wonders to distract him. Talk about a rude awakening. Primitivo gave him the willies.

  “How has Soledad cleaned since your visit from the other side?”

  “Do spirits wear shoes and swear at pigs?”

  Primitivo’s gray brow shot up. “The pig drove it away?”

  “More likely Toto was mooching attention.”

  “I heard it belonged to a witch. That is good.”

  There was no reasoning with this guy. Mark glanced over to where the pig had slept without fail since the night of the ghostly encounter—in front of the hearth. It fetched. It heeled, although of its own accord. Spiritual nonsense aside, could it be part guard dog too?

  “Soledad sweeps with a broom, no?”

  Mark nodded. Despite his doubts regarding Primitivo’s beliefs, he was curious as to what Soledad’s cleaning had to do with witchcraft.

  “Hmm.” Digging into his sack, the Indio produced a candle. After several attempts, he finally lit it with his pipe.

  If the old man started dancing and chanting, Mark would lose it. He watched as the healer walked around the room, watching the flame of the candle and kneeling to wipe the floor with his hand.

  “No one else is sick?”

  “Just me.” But if Soledad caught Primitivo insinuating that she did not keep a clean house, he would be needing a healer too.

  Toto raised his head as the elder Indio approached him with the candle, but never moved when Primitivo climbed up on the raised hearth and ducked into the fireplace.