Paper Moon by Linda Windsor

Author:Linda Windsor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

“So you think there’s any chance Hogar de los Niños can buy that old place?” Wearing a pair of boxer shorts dotted with sombrero-wearing chile peppers that one of the women purchased for her foundling that afternoon, John Chandler spat a mouthful of Blaine’s toothpaste into the hotel sink. The toothbrush was courtesy of the hotel.

“It’s a long shot.” Blaine stared from his bed at the swirls in the plaster ceiling, hands folded behind his head. “But as the priest said, all things are possible.” Since meeting Caroline, Blaine was beginning to believe it.

He stifled a yawn behind the back of his hand. It had been an exhausting day, and everyone, the students included, opted to turn in early. Where his mother got the idea that he’d be relaxing was beyond him. Going night and day like this, keeping up with teens, was harder than his most taxing week of travel. At least he didn’t have to entertain clients twenty-four/seven.

“You really believe that?”

“What?”

Upon wiping off his face with a towel, the young man tossed it in a heap on the counter.

Blaine’s clenched jaw checked a reprimand to hang it next to the one that he’d meticulously refolded and hung to dry earlier, as the youth walked over to the other double bed.

“That all things are possible,” he said, dropping down on the mattress.

John Chandler not only acted like Mark; he looked like Blaine’s younger brother at the same age. With sandy blond hair cut to perfection and blue eyes with naturally dark lashes to set them off, he was a female magnet. Once they heard his smooth lines, girls competed over him, while their mothers fawned. Not that Blaine, with his father’s darker features, had ever had trouble garnering feminine attention when he sought it. He simply didn’t make a game of it like Mark. But then, life was a game to his brother, just as it was for this kid. And the game was called Let’s see what I can get out of this.

“You got a new toothbrush, shorts, T-shirt, food, shelter, and transportation for two days without putting out a cent, didn’t you?”

Strike one. Guilt grazed Blaine’s consciousness the minute the cynicism escaped. The boy looked sincere. Or was he just buttering up a babe’s old man?

John winced, a painful look flickering across his face. “Okay, I’m talking God’s grace, certainly not yours.”

The shot hit its mark. Blaine had shown little grace where John, or Mark, for that matter, was concerned. Put John’s way, it didn’t sound nearly as righteous. “Sorry, I asked for that one.”

Apology accepted in silence, the young man shifted on the other bed, mimicking Blaine’s position. “My mom was religious,” he said, “and I was brought up in church. Then Dad died and she remarried. Everything changed.”

Blaine took it that the change was not for the good. Strike two with the guilt bat.

“I went from being part of a family to being ‘the kid.’ I mean, nothing I could do made my stepdad like me.

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