The priest looked at him, with dark laughing eyes, and he took hold of Tom’s shoulders and said, “It’s a miracle. It’s nothing short of a miracle.”

And Tom nodded, because right now it felt like nothing less.

CHAPTER 52

Nick and some of the others stayed in the woman’s house. The rest were taken to the priest’s rectory where they settled in the large sitting room, still cool at this time of morning with two fans spinning lazily on the ceiling above them. The priest’s housekeeper brought them coffee and cake, the sticky sweetness causing a euphoric silence.

It was only as they sat savoring the cake that Tom looked around and saw that they’d once again separated into the same two distinct groups. With the exception of Shen, who’d stayed to look after Nick until a doctor could get there, it was pretty much the original escape party sitting around Tom now.

They weren’t inclined to speak, but the housekeeper started cooking ham and eggs and as the smell reached them from the kitchen, George began to cry. Kate put a hand on his shoulder but he laughed through his tears and said, “I’ve been dreaming about bacon for so long!”

And they all laughed and talked now, even beginning to laugh over some of the events of the last few days, now that they were safely behind them. Father Francisco popped in several times to check on them, though he mainly just fussed over Perro.

After everyone had made their tearful calls home, Shen arrived. A couple of people jumped up and hugged him, making him clearly embarrassed. He shrugged and said, “A doctor arrived, and a local politician, so I left.”

Barney smiled. “You’re a welcome addition.”

“Well, I’d rather be here. And… well, the politician speaks English, so Joel and the others were telling him what happened, only, not the way I remember it.”

Alice glanced at Tom but then said, “Who cares? We all know what really happened. That’s all that matters.”

There was a sense for a while too, that their little group really was all that mattered. They heard voices as people came to the main door of the house and spoke to the priest or the housekeeper, and they heard vehicles outside, and on two occasions helicopters flew low overhead and seemed to land somewhere not too far off.

But the friends were left alone, talking and laughing, sometimes lulled into silence. And Tom was there, one of them. He’d joked with Miss Graham that two weeks wasn’t long enough to get to know him, and yet here he was, feeling closer to some of these people than he ever had to anyone.