Coffee Scoop (8 page)

The child said something to Ryan in Spanish then gave him a snaggle-toothed grin. Ryan returned the smile, and the comment.

“What did he say?” Carrie reached into her bag for her camera and took a few quick pictures of the retreating boy.

Ryan looked a bit uncomfortable. “He said you were a very pretty lady.”

“And what did you say?”

He met her gaze. “I told him I had to agree.”

Without thinking, Carrie lifted her camera and snapped a picture of Ryan.
 

“What was that for?” he asked as he found first gear and set the truck moving again.

Rather than answer, she turned to attempt a picture of a softly swaying stand of sugar cane. It was only an attempt, and a poor one at that, for her hands were shaking so bad there was no way the photograph would be any good.

* * *

By the time Ryan turned the truck into the small parking lot of the inn and helped Carrie down the steep slope to the owner’s office, he knew he was in trouble. The thought of leaving her here and not seeing her until tomorrow set so poorly with him that he decided to invite her to come out to the farm after she dropped off her bags.

Carrie paused at the wooden railing of the Casa Negrita’s expansive eastward-facing deck. Her gaze swept the fields of Negrita coffee which gave the inn its name and seemed to settle on the mountains beyond.
 

Ryan joined her, leaning his elbows on the rail. A movement in the trees caught his attention. “Look, Carrie, over there. See them?”
 

“Monkeys?”

“Howler monkeys, looks to be seven or eight of them. Probably a few more hidden in the foliage.” He pointed to a ridge just beyond a cluster of mango trees where several dozen deer traversed the clearing. “Hey, look over there. Have you ever seen so many at once? You certainly won’t see that back in Texas.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Carrie smile. “There are a lot of things here I won’t see back in Texas.” It was her turn to point. “What are those?”

He stared over in the direction of the canyon below them. “What? I don’t see anything.”
 

“Right down there, by those trees. Lemon trees, I think. See, there’s another one.”

Narrowing his eyes, Ryan leaned a bit farther over the rail and tried to see what caught her attention. All he saw was a lemon grove that stretched to the edge of the property and the coffee growing along its border.

“Don’t you see them?” When he shook his head, Carrie grabbed his arm and pulled him to her side. “Come over here and look right down there. See? Oh, there’s another one. A baby.”
 

Rather than look at whatever caught Carrie’s interest, he stared at her. Why hadn’t he noticed before that the journalist wore a sprinkling of cinnamon-colored freckles on her nose and cheekbones?
 
And when she smiled, when had she developed those dimples.

Surely those things had all been in place before she came to Costa Rica. Why were they so noticeable now?

Because you’re seeing her in a new light.
 

“They look like foxes by they’re silver. How is that possible?”

“Silver foxes,” he said as he continued to stare at Carrie. “In this part of Costa Rica, they usually shy away from people. You’re lucky to have seen them at all, much less on your first day here.”

The length of her lashes captivated him, as did the tilt of her chin and the way her earlobe had a single freckle where an earring should be.

“This is
absolutely
unforgettable, Ryan.”

His heart skidded to a stop then lurched to a gallop. “Yes, absolutely.”

And in that moment he knew he’d lost his heart to the reporter from Austin. To be truthful, he’d probably lost his mind too because he barely knew her. And yet he felt like he’d known her forever.

He should tell her, give her at least a hint of what he felt. It made no sense; and it made complete sense. Better to be up front with his intention, especially since Carrie’s purpose for coming down here was business and not pleasure.

Clearing his throat, he said a prayer that he might come up with something brilliant. As an afterthought, he asked the Lord to stop him if he should keep his peace about his feelings.

While Carrie continued to watch the silver foxes play below the deck, Ryan waited for God to give him the perfect words. When nothing specific came to mind, he decided to step out in faith in hopes the Lord would meet him there.

“Carrie?”

She turned her attention to him and smiled. What a beautiful smile. He could stare and that smile and forget to breathe.
 

Stop it, Baxter. You’re acting like a teenager.

“Yes, Ryan?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.” He paused. No, that didn’t sound right. “I mean, I have something I should say.” Again the words didn’t quite fit the moment. Finally he decided to just blurt it all out; state his feelings flat out in plain language and let the chips fall where they may.

“Carrie, look. I didn’t have any idea this would happen until I saw you in the airport, and I wasn’t really sure until just now, and I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I need to tell you that I think I am beginning to fall in-”

“Ryan,” came the familiar voice of the owner of Casa Negrita, “is that you?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Carrie sat at the small table in her room and opened her laptop. While she waited for it to power up, she walked to the window to watch the last purple fingers of twilight extend over the mountain. Already the night had come alive with sounds, some familiar and others distinctly unfamiliar.
 

As the innkeeper warned, the evening air had turned chilly. She reached to pull a sweatshirt out of her bag and shrugged into it then closed the painted wooden shutters guarding her window. Tonight she would surely need to cozy quilt now folded on the chair beside her bed.

Her laptop sounded a greeting and Carrie walked over to attempt an Internet connection. To her surprise, the little inn had a wireless network. In a modicum of steps, she opened a browser and retrieved her E-mails.
 

Deleting the junk mail came first, followed by a note to her mother detailing all she’d seen today. As an afterthought she added Millie to the recipient list the clicked the send button. She was just about to sign off when the sound of an Instant Message rang out.

To be or not to be sleepy. That is the question.

Ryan and his Shakespeare jokes. Carrie smiled.

Not
, she typed.
Wide awake, actually.

Me too
, came the quick response.
Want to talk awhile?

Sounds great!
As soon as she typed the words, she deleted them. It wouldn’t do to look overly excited.
Why not?
Again, she hit delete as soon as she finished typing the last letter. Finally, she settled for a more generic
Yes.

What seemed like only a few minutes later, Carrie yawned. How strange to be tired so early in the evening. She typed an answer to Ryan’s question then hit the toolbar key, causing it to appear at the bottom of her screen.
 

1:27. Carrie scrambled for the nightstand and the watch she’d removed earlier.
1:29.

Ryan, would you believe you’re supposed to be picking me up in 6 hours?

After a brief pause, he sent another message.
Want to keep talking or should be continue this conversation in the morning?

Morning,
she wrote, although she could have typed all night.
 

Alas,
Ryan wrote,
parting is such sweet sorrow.

Smiling, she sent one last message.
Upon the morrow then.

The morrow arrived far earlier than she expected, leaving Carrie to believe the sun must rise on a different timetable in Costa Rica. She stumbled through the process of dressing and taming her hair, aided by the pot of steaming dark Negrita coffee and gallo pinto the innkeepers left on her doorstep.
 

Even in her sleepy state, she recognized gallo pinto, the bean, egg, and corn tortilla concoction from the research she’d done in preparation for the article. While she’d frowned on the mix of ingredients when she read about them, the actual taste of the national breakfast was a pleasing surprise.

So was seeing Ryan waiting for her on the deck where she’d left him last night.
 

“Good morning,” he called as he walked over to give her a quick embrace. “Did you sleep well?”

“Very,” she said. “How about you?”

 
“Truthfully, I don’t remember sleeping, but I’m not complaining.” Ryan winked. “The conversation made the lack of rest worth it. So, Miss Collins, are you ready to see my corner of Costa Rica?”

For the next two hours, Ryan acted as tour guide while Carrie took videos and notes, as well as the occasional photograph. In Grecia, they stopped in the shadow of the iron church. Painted red with white fretwork adorning the roof, the church sheltered a tidy little park where Ryan set out a picnic lunch for them.

After lunch, they set toured Sarchi, where they toured the oxcart factory and a furniture maker’s shop then stopped at a small zoo. After much coercing, Carrie allowed Ryan to take her picture feeding the toucans, but only after he posed with a feisty hair-pulling macaw.
 
Before heading off for the mountains and the village of Rincon de Sales, Ryan pulled the truck over next to a sign advertising Heavenly Beans as the finest coffee in Costa Rica.

“Thirsty?”

“For your coffee, always,” she said with a grin.

At a tiny table set on the edge of a lemon grove, Ryan surprised her by turning the conversation to the interview she’d all but forgotten about. “So, are you getting enough information to write your story?”

The idea of doing the story she’d planned set poorly. Speaking to him about it on this glorious afternoon in this idyllic spot felt even worse.
 

“More than enough,” she said as she stirred a teaspoonful of sugar into her coffee. A thought occurred. Why not be honest and tell him of her concerns? If Ryan had nothing to hide, he wouldn’t mind, would he? After all, Mr. Renfro was certainly forthright in answering her questions.

“Something wrong?”
 

She looked up to see Ryan watching her. “No,” she said quickly. “Just thinking.”

A child’s laughter caught her ear. From around the corner of the little coffee shop, a quartet of raggedly dressed youths strolled toward them. Carrie watched Ryan sit his mug down slowly, never letting the boys out of his sight. The tallest of the four, a lad of no more than ten or eleven, reached into the pocket of his cut off jeans and pulled out a cigar.

He called Ryan by name then said something in Spanish. Ryan rose, obviously tense, but said nothing. When the boy turned his attention to Carrie, Ryan walked over to stand beside her, casually draping his arm around her shoulder.
 

Ryan spoke, enunciating each word with care, then tightened his grip around Carrie’s shoulders. A long moment of silence followed as he and the boy stared, neither moving, barely blinking.

Finally the boy shrugged turned to walk away. As the others followed their leader, Ryan heaved a sign. Abruptly, the foursome stopped and the older boy pulled something from his pocket. He handed it to a smaller boy, who raced toward the table.

Stepping forward to meet the little fellow, Ryan accepted what looked like a crumpled sheet of paper. As the foursome headed down the road toward the village, Ryan settled back into the chair across from her and stuffed the paper into his pocket.

“Carrie,” he said slowly, “do you mind a change of plans? I’d like to show you something.”

Twenty minutes later, Ryan stopped the truck in front of a tidy white picket fence. On the other side of the gate a group of children sat in a circle passing a ball between them. Situated on the porch of a whitewashed home was an elderly woman dressed in brilliant scarlet and holding a sleeping infant. Above her next to the open door was a sign proclaiming this residence to be Casa de Dios.

“House of Children.”

“Hey, I didn’t think you spoke Spanish.” Ryan came up behind her and grasped her hand. “I’d like you to meet someone very special. That’s her up on the porch.”

“Senor Ryan!” a little boy called, and soon the two of them were surrounded by dozens of children. The woman in scarlet rose and settled the infant in a cradle then walked toward them.

With a few words and a clap of her hands, the woman sent the children scurrying back to their games. She extended her hand to Carrie and smiled.

“So pleased to meet you, Miss Collins,” she said. “Ryan has told me so much about you. I’m Mama. Mama Zamora.”

The trio moved to the porch where a neatly dressed young lady brought tall glasses of sweet lemonade. She smiled at Carrie and disappeared inside. Moments later, heavy footsteps announced a visitor.

“Mama, I hear we have company.”
 

A tall dark-haired man stepped onto the porch and grasped Ryan’s hand. Carrie recognized him at once as Ryan’s best friend Alvaro.

“Good afternoon, my friend,” Alvaro said. He turned his attention to Carrie, brown eyes dancing with what looked like amusement. “So you’re Carrie.”
 

“Yes, I’m Carrie.”
 

He winked at Ryan. “She’s every bit as beautiful as you said, Ryan.”

“Cut it out, Alvaro,” Ryan said.

“Boys, remember your manners.” Mama shook her head. “Can you believe I must listen to this nonsense? And people think raising so many children is difficult. I tell you, it’s the adults in this house that give me trouble. And to think this one is a pastor.”

“Mama, I saw the Gallego boys again.”

The older woman frowned. “Up to no good, I suspect.”

“The usual. Threatening the tourists and begging for money or a match to light his cigar.”

Mama shook her head. “If only the boy would see the error of his ways. His life would be so much better here.”

“Some can learn by hearing and others must find their way by doing. That boy and his brothers, they fall into the second category,” Alvaro said. “Someday they will ring the bell, Mama. We cannot give up hope.”