Coffee Scoop (9 page)

Ryan fished the crumpled paper that the boy gave him out of his pocket and handed it to Mama. “He asked me to give you this.”

Mama opened the paper and smiled. A coin fell into her lap. “Look, he’s sent payment for Angelina.”

“Who’s Angelina?”

Alvaro pointed to a little girl in pigtails. “The little one there, she’s sister to the four you met in town.”

“Mama almost broke her leg stumbling through the house to admit that one. The eldest, Jorge, he brought her to the orphanage last month while Ryan was in Texas. She was sick, barely able to breathe, and her mama, well, let’s say she’s not so interested in her children as she is in the men she keeps company with. The brother said he would pay for her upkeep and he does. I’m afraid to ask how though.”

Mama handed the paper to Ryan. “Look, son, at what the boy used to wrap the coin.”

Ryan smiled. “Yes, I see.”

“What is it?” Carrie asked.

“A page from Ryan’s Bible,” Alvaro said. “He leaves them all over the place. I keep telling him he needs to replace that book with one that’s not falling apart, but does he listen?”

The men began to banter like boys, sending Mama and Carrie into fits of laughter. “Is it always this way, Mama?” Carrie asked.

“Yes, and I pray it always will be. Perhaps you will stay and find out.”

“Mama,” Alvaro and Ryan both said.

“Fine, we don’t take about Carrie staying then. We talk about the weather and the cost of sugar cane and anything else rather than what I want to talk about.”

“I’m glad you see it my way.” Ryan turned to Carrie, a flush of embarrassment riding high on his tanned cheekbones. “Now that I’ve been thoroughly humiliated, maybe we ought to talk about the article you’re writing. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to ask these two characters.”

Carrie spent a delightful afternoon fielding questions and interviewing Mama and Alvaro then taking a guided tour of Heavenly Beans offices. Finally they ended the day with a drive to the coffee plantation where most of the coffee was grown.

“So, by law we are only allowed to grow Arabica beans,” Ryan said as he perched atop the hood of the truck and pointed toward the field. “Some of the finest beans in the world, if I do say so myself.”

Carrie leaned back against the windshield and watched the first stars of the evening appear. Never in all her imaginings could she have thought today would be so wonderful. She closed her eyes and mulled over all she’d learned.

According to Mama, Ryan and Heavenly Beans were the reason her babies, as she called them, were fed, clothed, and educated. She’d brought out a scrapbook of all the children who’d spent time in her care and, to Carrie’s surprise, the book included doctors, lawyers, teachers, and even a politician.

And Alvaro, the pastor? He’d turned out to be the most interesting character of all. Why, to hear Mama tell it, Alvaro kept the orphanage running and the coffee plantation producing during the week and saved souls on Sunday.

A feeling took root on that porch and grew until, just now, in the quiet of this place, Carrie felt the whisperings of the Lord. Ryan Baxter
was
the real deal. In her heart she’d known it all along.

It was her head – her stubborn and prejudiced ideas about men who raised money in the name of the Lord – that caused the trouble. Her article as she proposed it to Mr. Scott could no longer be written.

Carrie smiled. Oh, but she had another article in mind that would be much better.

“Now that’s the prettiest smile I’ve seen in a long time, Miss Collins.”

She opened her eyes to see Ryan looking down at her. “Yours is quite nice too, Mr. Baxter.”

He leaned closer. “Carrie,” he said slowly, “I need to tell you something.”

Carrie’s heart kicked into a furious rhythm. Why, it looked for all the world like Ryan might just mean to kiss her.

“Oh?”
 

“Yes.” Again he eased closer. “You see, there’s something the Lord’s been bugging me about and I feel like it’s time to come clean. See, I’m beginning to. . .” He frowned. “That is, what I mean is that after much thought I feel like. . .Oh, it’s no use.”
 

“What?”

“I’m trying to tell you that for some strange reason I’ve fallen in love with you but the words just won’t come out.”

“Ryan,” she said as she reached up to touch her palm to the rough skin of his cheek, “I think they just did.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

He said it. Ryan groaned and leaned back against the window, staring up into the night sky. Had there been enough light to see it, Carrie would have known he was blushing brighter than he had this afternoon on Mama’s porch.

“Ryan?”

“Yes?” he said as he closed his eyes.

“Open your eyes.”

When he did he saw Carrie’s face. “Me too,” she said.

“What?”

“I said, me too.” She resumed her position beside him and seemed to be staring at the first sprinkling of stars above the mountains.

“You too?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Et tu, Ryan?”

Ryan chuckled at the poor reference to Shakespeare. “Oh, Carrie, you can do better than that.”

She entwined her fingers with his. “Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.”

“Oh, that’s good,” he said as he lifted her fingers to his lips. “How about this one? They do not love that do not show their love.”

“Ryan?”

He shifted positions to see her better. “Yes?”

“That last one,” she said as she looked into his eyes. “Was that from you or Shakespeare?”

“Both,” he said as he leaned over to kiss her.

A moment later he settled her beside him as they stared up into the first stars of the evening. “Ryan, would you do that one more time?”

He happily obliged.

“I need to tell you something,” she said softly. “And when I’m through I’ll understand if you never want to see me again.”

Ryan listened while Carrie told him of plans to do an expose on Heavenly Beans, all the while wondering at the amazing way the Lord had thrown them together. When she finished her confession, she swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “So you see, I made up my mind you were just like that man that took my mama’s money but I was wrong. I was using you to get a story. Will you forgive me?”

“Oh, Carrie, honey, there’s nothing to forgive.” He sealed the statement with a kiss.

“Thank you,” she whispered, “for understanding.”

Ryan let the silence envelope them for a moment then worked up the courage to make his own admission. “Carrie, I need to tell you something too. See, I was using you too.”

“You were?”
 

He nodded. “I thought you were my ticket to free publicity. I figured an article in a big Austin paper would get the word out about our little company and set the sales figures skyrocketing. The more time I spent with you, though, the less I thought about coffee and the more I thought about you.” He reached for her hand. “About us. I lived for those E-mails and Instant Messages. I don’t know how I’ll stand it when you go back to Austin on Saturday.”

With that statement hanging heavy between them, Ryan drove Carrie back to the inn and saw her to her door. One last chaste kiss and he headed for the truck. He got all the way to the gate on the edge of the Heavenly Beans property before he turned the truck in reverse and headed back toward town.

* * *

Carrie finished her E-mail to Mama and Mille listing the day’s events, all but the kisses she shared with Ryan in the moonlight. Those were to be held in secrecy, sweet memories tucked away in her heart and brought out only in unguarded moments of solitude.

Moments when she would miss Ryan Baxter and Costa Rica terribly.

Her cell phone rang and she dove to answer it. “Hello,” she said, hoping the voice on the other end would be Ryan’s. If only she’d checked the caller’s number before she answered.

“Carrie, honey, it’s Mama. How’s Costa Rica?’

Carrie tried not to let the disappointment show in her voice as she chattered on about the land and people that had captured her heart. When Mama asked about Ryan, she fell silent.

“Oh, goodness, Carrie, you love him, don’t you?”

She nearly dropped the phone. “How did you know?”

Mama ignored the question to ask, “When can I meet him?”

“Meet him? Well, Mama, I don’t know. I mean, he’s here in Costa Rica and I’m leaving for Austin. It’s probably not going to work out.”

“Pish posh, Carrie. You gonna let a little something like location spoil a perfectly good romance? You think the Lord didn’t know about that problem when He decided the two of you were meant to be a pair?”

“But, Mama, I . . .” Something hit the shutters and rattled to the floor. Carrie looked down and saw a pebble sitting there.
 

“Now that was odd.”

“What was odd, honey?”

“But hark, what light is there in yon window?”

Ryan?

“Mama, I’m going to have to call you back.

“Is your young man calling?”

Romeo’s soliloquy from the balcony scene continued on the other side of the closed shutters. “I wouldn’t exactly say he was calling. Actually, he’s downstairs quoting Shakespeare right now.”

“To you?”

“Yes, I think so.”

 
“Don’t let this one get away, Carrie,” Mama said. “If he loves you and you love him, where you do the loving doesn’t matter. Besides, my passport’s good for another seven years. After that, well, we’ll just see if you want me to stay and take care of the babies or just visit regularly.”

 
“Bye, Mama.”

She hung up the phone and strolled to the window just in time for Ryan to lob another pebble in her direction. The projectile narrowly missed her foot as it bounced across the hardwood floor and rolled under her bed.

Throwing open the shutters, she leaned out the window. “Ryan, what are you doing here?”

“It’s about Saturday,” he said. “Your last day here.”

“What about it?”

“Well, I don’t want it to be your last day here. I mean, Saturday’s a nice day, and all, but it just doesn’t seem like the right day for you to leave.”

“Oh?” Carrie looked up toward the moon and saw a shooting star trail across the sky. Her heart felt like that shooting star, burning bright and racing quickly. “All right then, what day do you think would be a good one for leaving?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that all the way back here and I believe I’ve got an answer to that. I’d rather you came down here so we could talk about it without yelling though.”

“And we’d appreciate that too,” came the voice of the innkeeper.

“Sorry,” Carrie called as she closed the shutters and raced downstairs. Just before she emerged onto the deck, she slowed her pace and tried not to appear too hurried.

All reserve fled when she saw Ryan. She ran to him and fell into his arms. “So, what’s the answer?”

“Don’t go. Stay here, Carrie. You said yourself that you love it here. I can teach you Spanish and you can write your stories from right here in Rincon de Sales. What with the Internet and phone service like it is, you don’t have to live in Austin to make a living as a writer.”

Thoughts swirled and danced across her mind, delightful images that flitted but refused to stick. Yes, she could pick up and move to Costa Rica, but why should she? What was he offering?

 
“Hear my soul speak: the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service.” Before she could formulate the question, Ryan held her at arm’s length then went down on one knee. “Marry me, Carrie Collins. Marry me and come to live in Costa Rica.” He paused to grin. “And if it means anything, I promise a lifetime supply of love and Heavenly Beans coffee.”

For a moment all she could do was stare. Then, she smiled. “Oh, Ryan, I love you too.”

He rose to let out a shout of glee then lift her into his arms. “Tell the truth, Carrie. Was it me or the coffee that convinced you to stay?”

“Just kiss me, Ryan,” she said, knowing it was a little of both.
 

THE END