To Save This Child

“Didn’t I fill a big order for you a few days ago?”

“Yes. For Dr. Bridges’s office. The quiche was excellent.”

“Kendal wants to ask me some questions about the Chiapas trip,” Ben said. “Dr. Bridges has asked her to go along.”

The owner’s eyebrows shot right up to the edge of his kerchief. “Bridges asked you to go to Mexico? Don’t do it, sweetie! That man’ll break your heart.”

The man’s tone left no doubt about what he was implying. Kendal felt her cheeks flush to a neon red. “I—”

“Nolan,” Ben intoned with undisguised impatience as he looked around the crowded space. “The doc asked her to go along as an interpreter.”

Nolan looked abashed, but even so, he said, “Oh, right. That’s what he claims.” He turned to dish up Kendal’s fruit salad.

While she dug in her purse for the money, the caterer studied her with open skepticism. “He sure picked himself a pretty little interpreter. What happened to Kathy?”

“She’s sick and can’t go,” Ben supplied. Apparently Ben had an inside track on events in Bridges’s office.

“Nothing serious, I hope.” The smoothie was done and Nolan poured it into a glass.

“Gallbladder.” Ben took the glass.

“You take care, sweetie,” Nolan said as Kendal picked up the fruit salad.

As they walked away Kendal was still feeling her cheeks burn at the caterer’s implication that she might be accompanying Jason Bridges to Mexico as some sort of paramour. She wasn’t like that. Not at all. In fact, she’d suffered in stubborn celibacy this whole year since Phillip had left. A few men had asked her out, but she wasn’t attracted to them. She was beginning to wonder if she’d ever feel real passion again, or if Phillip’s betrayal had killed that part of her for good.

“Don’t mind Nolan,” Ben said quietly when they got back to their table. “He doesn’t like Dr. Bridges. Thinks he’s a player.”

“Is he?”

“How should I know? Nolan’s just bitter. His sister’s a nurse down in surgery. She dated Dr. Bridges for a while, went all gaga over him, baking him banana nut bread and stuff. Just because it didn’t work out, that doesn’t make Jason a bad guy.” Ben didn’t elaborate further, but Kendal could fill in the blanks. The relationship between the doctor and Nolan’s sister had probably ended with a broken heart—hers—and The Wolf had moved on to his next conquest. But Ben wasn’t about to criticize this doctor, who he obviously admired.

“You like Dr. Bridges?”

“Jason’s a stand-up guy.”

A small cross shone dully from the open collar of Ben’s shirt, and Kendal wondered what “stand-up guy” meant to someone with Ben’s convictions. Someone who serves mankind under the worst of conditions? Someone who plays around but apparently thinks he’s exempt from breaking hearts because everybody understands that he’s The Wolf? “What do you mean?”

“You’ll find out what Jason’s like soon enough if you go down to Chiapas with him.”

“You mean that he’s a good surgeon?”

“He is that, but it goes deeper. He’s put himself in some tight spots helping those people.”

“Like what?”

“Like there are factions down there that want to force the government to get involved and bring those people into the twenty-first century, and there are other factions that want the area to stay isolated. Jason has been caught between them a time or two, right along with the poor people he’s trying to help.”

“That’s why Dr. Bridges handpicked you? For security?”

Ben’s handsome face looked abashed. “I can use a gun—and my fists—if I have to, but the truth is, I’m really more like Jason’s pack animal,” Ben smiled. “Actually, I like to go because Dr. Bridges pays all my expenses and he gives me time off to visit the missions around San Cristóbal de las Casas. That’s what I really want to do someday—missionary work.”

“That’s wonderful! Tell me what it’s like in Chiapas.”

Ben’s descriptions of Chiapas were romanticized, but graphic. He told her about the fascinating culture, of the superstitions that persisted among the descendants of the Maya. About the beautiful waterfalls, lakes and rain forests. He didn’t pull any punches as he described the intense heat, the altitude sickness, the man-eating mosquitoes and the inevitable onset of Montezuma’s revenge.

“Turista, the locals call it. Thought I’d die the first time it hit me. The cramps! Never had such a bad case of diarrh—” He noticed the revolted look on Kendal’s face and stopped. “Sorry.”

He sipped his smoothie while he eyed her impeccable manicure and silk power suit. “Are you sure you’re up to this trip?” he asked. “No offense, but you seem like more of an indoor type gal.”

“I’ve had my share of adventures,” Kendal asserted. Which was at the least misleading and at the worst an all-out lie. Her “adventures” consisted of skiing down a double diamond slope at a fancy resort or finding her way on the Metro line in Washington D.C. “I’ve been to Mexico before,” she added for good measure, leaving out the fact that her trips had mostly been confined to the Miami-style resort areas of Cancún.