I screamed as my body was rocked and jostled around the SUV, the world spinning out of control around us as the car did donuts in the parking lot. When we finally stopped, I took a quick ten-second inventory of my limbs and body; nothing felt broken. I could move my neck, my arms and my legs; everything was good. Then I looked for Derrick. He was slumped unconscious in the seat next to me, a gash on his head from some broken glass, but otherwise, he seemed okay. Chase and Heath both moaned in the front seat, but I saw their bodies moving, and neither had flown out of the vehicle. We’d all been belted in. We were all okay.
“Everyone all right?” Heath asked woozily.
Chase groaned. “Yeah.” His head lolled to the side, but he opened his eyes, and they still seemed bright and aware. “Piper, you all right?”
“I am, yeah. Derrick’s unconscious, but I think he’s okay. He has a gash on his head from broken glass—”
“They’re coming,” Heath said, cutting me off.
Chase sprang to life in the front seat and then spun around to face me. “When I say ‘go,’ you grab your bags, and you and Derrick go. You run for the airport as fast as you can, got it? You hide until your flight is called.”
I swallowed and nodded, gently tapping Derrick’s cheeks to wake him. “Come on, Derrick, wake up. You need to wake up.” He stirred slightly, and then one eyelid lifted just a fraction. Oh, good, his pupils weren’t dilated; he didn’t have a concussion.
“What happened?”
“We were T-boned.” I tore the bottom piece of my undershirt off and held it against his forehead to stop the bleeding. Head wounds bled like a bitch.
Noises outside the car caused my head to spin around, and then Heath’s door was opened from the outside, and fast and angry orders in Spanish were barked. I heard Heath’s voice, and he was speaking perfect, fluent Spanish back.
I saw the handle on my side of the car move and hastily locked the door before anyone could get in. Derrick’s door was completely smashed in and useless. The only other way out would be through the sunroof or the hatch in the back.
“When I say ‘go,' got it?” Chase’s eyes locked on mine. I nodded. He gracelessly crawled over the gear-shifter and into the driver’s seat and then outside. We heard more arguing in Spanish, and then my door was unlocked from the outside by the fob. I knew that it was either Heath or Chase and didn’t bother to lock it again. Instead I continued to try and rouse Derrick, grabbing both of our backpacks from the back seat and strapping them to our backs, thanking God for tinted windows and that no one could really see what I was up to.
“Derrick, you need to be ready to run. When Chase says go, we have to jump out and run for the airport, okay? Can you run?” He nodded and then blinked a couple of times as he winced and put his hand to his head.
“Yeah, I can run.”
They were still arguing, loud voices and heated threats, and we heard more fighting, fists colliding with faces, followed by loud and close-by sirens. The flashing lights of the approaching police sent a frisson of fear up my spine, settling at the base of my skull. And then, suddenly, my door opened, and Heath was standing there nodding and telling me to get out. “You guys need to run.”
I shook my head. “I…I was told to wait until Chase said ‘go.’”
He nodded impatiently. “Yeah, well, my brother is currently otherwise occupied.” He helped me climb out. At that moment, I saw Chase being handcuffed at gunpoint and led away by the Cusco police.
“What the hell is happening?” I made to lunge for Chase, only to have Derrick and Heath both pull me back before I even took a step. Derrick seemed to have composed himself and was set to run.
“He’s turning himself in as the trafficker,” Heath said. “He’ll be okay. We’ll get him out before anything bad happens to him. This was the only way to get the henchmen off your back, keep the drugs from getting distributed and the cops from going after you guys. He’ll be fine.” He started to usher us toward the “Departures” wing of the small airport.
But I dug in my heels, my head shaking until my neck hurt. “But we can’t just leave him. You can’t just leave your brother. We need to help him.”
A firm hand came up under each of my triceps, and they flanked me, lifting me up until my feet dangled, and they carried me off into the airport.
“Do you know what they would do to you in prison here?” Heath asked gruffly, suddenly reminding me more of his stoic brother and less like the cheerful jokester he’d been earlier. He was worried about his brother as well but trying to keep it together.
I swallowed and shook my head in ignorance.
“Chase is way safer going to prison here than you are. And if you try to help him, you’ll end up in prison too. He’s trained in this…he’s a…” Heath paused for a second, considering his words. “And you’re a foreigner. You’re a woman. You’re beautiful.” He sucked air quickly in through his teeth. “That doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re tough as nails…it’s just, well… He can hold his own, I promise. I’ll even have him call you when he’s free, okay?” We stepped inside, and they finally put me down. I shot them both a menacing glare. Heath’s mouth twisted, but he couldn’t quite muster a smile. “Get on the plane, Piper.”
Derrick grabbed my hand. “We need to go.”
I clenched my jaw and looked up into Heath’s eyes; they were the most intense midnight blue I’d ever seen, with flecks of white, like stars against the backdrop of a crystal-clear night. “You have him call me.”
His mouth jerked again at the corner, and this time he managed a small smile. “I will, I promise.”
CHAPTER 20
“We need to get your head looked at,” I said as we sat at our gate in the airport, both of us quiet, tense and introspective. A lot had happened in the last few hours, in the last few days. Hell, this week had been insane. And now it was over; it was all over. Chase was going to prison for me, the drug dealers would no longer be after me, and Derrick and I were flying back to Lima so that he could catch his flight to Santiago and I could board the plane bound for Vancouver.
“It’s fine,” he said grimly, using a shirt to stop the blood flow. But his face was pale, and there was blood all over his collar. Derrick’s current appearance earned him a fair few puzzled looks and concerned faces from passing passengers. A couple of people even went as so far as to move seats, giving us a wide berth, as if the gash on his head made him suddenly contagious and everyone would catch a head wound.
I was thankful that no airport staff had approached us, and it seemed as though the police outside had been content with taking Chase and didn’t feel the need to come looking for me. But I wasn’t ready to let down my guard. For the moment, I allowed myself to focus on Derrick, instead of constantly checking for an ambush behind me.
Ignoring Derrick’s protests, I brought out my emergency first aid kit and started cleaning him up. The cut was deep, but I wasn’t sure it would require stitches. I cleaned it up as best I could, using the disinfectant wipes I had, and then put a couple of butterfly bandages over it to close up the skin. All the while he barely looked at me, which was a challenge, given I was right in front of him. What was wrong now? What had I done?
I finished with his injuries and then went to the bathroom to wash my hands. Only then did I notice the big bruise on my cheek. How did I get that? Had my head hit something? I whipped out my makeup and touched up my face. It didn’t look great, as I had minimal supplies to work with, but it looked better.
A rush of nostalgia hit me in the chest as I made my way back to sit next to Derrick. This was how we’d started, and this was how we were going to end, sitting in an airport not speaking to one another, but with an abundance of emotions and unspoken feelings passing between us. Only this time, instead of wondering what his touch, his kiss, his body felt like, I knew. And it was all I could do to keep myself from crying at the thought of never getting to feel his lips against mine, his body covering mine ever again. I bit the inside of
my cheek until I tasted blood and stared out the window at the taxiing planes, determined not to let him see me cry.
It wasn’t a long wait; we killed a lot of time driving around Cusco trying to lose our followers, so within the hour we were called to board the plane. Unlike the flight to Cusco, where we’d talked about all the dirty things we wanted to do to one another, and the excitement of Machu Picchu was still before us, now we were heading back to Lima and getting ready to part ways. There was nothing exciting or remotely uplifting about this flight. We were flying back into the mouth of hell, only this time I’d be forced to face any demons I came across alone.
I wanted to talk to him, ached to hold his hand one last time, to rekindle just a glimmer of what we’d shared over the last seven days. Oh, my God, had it really been just seven days? It felt like I’d known him for so much longer. The things we’d shared, what we’d been through — talk about skipping a few steps when it came to dating and getting to know someone.
I tried several times to catch his attention or start a conversation, but every time I opened my mouth or went to reach for him, I stopped myself. He’d closed himself off for a reason; he’d said before he was a private person, so he’d put up these walls on purpose. I didn’t know him well enough, had only known him for a week, so I had no right to make him tear down those walls for me, to tell me what was on his mind, as much as I wanted him to. So we sat there for the entire flight in painful, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking silence.
We unloaded from the plane, but only I had to go and grab my bag to re-check it. He was just being transferred to another jet, one bound for Santiago. While I was bound for home. Boring, unfulfilling, jobless, husbandless home.
I exhaled and looked up at the digital flight board; his plane wasn’t for another six hours, mine wasn’t for another eight. We still had time. Time for what, though? Could we sneak off into a bathroom for another quickie? Grab a hotel room nearby? I wasn’t ready for the sex to end. I wasn’t ready for the dream to end. I wasn’t ready for us to end. But he’d already pulled away; he’d already ended it.
“So…what time is your flight?” He looked down at me, big bags having suddenly appeared under his eyes while his throat bobbed with strain.
I swallowed, my own throat feeling tight. “Um…it’s not until 1:20.”
He nodded. “Mine’s at eleven-thirty.”
“I, uh…I see that.”
“So, home, eh?”
Oh, my God, what the hell was going on? It was if we’d just met and hadn’t spent the last week running from bad guys and fucking one another senseless. I went to open my mouth and ask him why we weren’t off making out in some random corner, but I stopped myself and let out an exhausted sigh. “Yeah…home. I need to decompress.”
He nodded but averted his eyes. “Yeah, me too. That’s what Easter Island is for. You can’t get any farther away from your problems and the hustle and bustle of life than the most isolated island in the world.”
My chest quivered, and tears stung behind my eyes. Was this how we were going to leave it? “No…I suppose you can’t.”
He looked back up at the schedule board for a moment and then down at me. “Come with me.”
A quick gasp had me coughing for air. When I finally didn’t feel like I was going to choke on anything, I looked back up into his eyes, stormy and gray and chock-full of conviction, full of promise and need. “What?” I shook my head, hoping that I’d heard him correctly, but not wanting to count my chickens.
He nodded again. “Come with me.”
I shook my head. “No... I… I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“B-because… this is…” But I didn’t have a good answer; I had no answer.
“Piper.” His tone held so much authority my head snapped up to look at him before I knew what was happening. His face was so focused, so resolute. But when he saw my wariness, they softened just a touch and he gently cupped my cheek.
Despite the craziness of the airport around us, I saw only Derrick, heard only Derrick.
“I don’t know what’s going on with us,” he said, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “But it’s more than a fling. It’s more than two people making one another forget their troubles and just feel good. You know it, too. You feel it, too. I see it in your eyes.” His lips trembled, but he pressed on. “I want you, Piper. Every minute of every day, I want you. Fuck, I’m pretty sure I need you. You make me feel more alive, more… in love with the possibility of happiness, of second chances than I’ve ever felt before.
“It’s only been a week, but… if this is what falling in love feels like, if I’m supposed to feel a tightening in my chest and have a brain of mush whenever you’re around, then… I don’t want this feeling to end. Come with me. Let’s figure out what is going on with us. Let’s explore the possibility of the impossible. Take a chance on a second chance.”
My mouth hung open, he took it as an invitation and leaned in for a kiss. His tongue swept inside, tasting me, pleading with me. This time he was the one doing the begging. I felt it with every brush of his lips, every lave of his tongue, and the way he tugged me closer, unwilling to let me go.
Reluctantly he finally pulled away, bending his knees so that we were eye-to-eye, a wicked gleam in the swirling thundercloud gray of his irises. I’d never noticed it before, but there were hints of gold in the gray. How unusual and beautiful.
“We can travel the world if we want to. See any country we choose. Teach abroad. You said you’re done with law, and your husband thought you should be a teacher. You’re educated enough to teach; so am I. We could walk into an ESL school in Santiago tomorrow and have jobs by the end of the month when we get back from Easter Island.”
“But…my apartment.” I was grasping at straws now, and I couldn’t quite figure out why.
He shook his head. “Call a friend to lease it for you, or give it up and have a moving crew put everything in storage.” The man had an answer for everything. Had this been why he’d been so quiet? Was he trying to figure out a way for the adventure to never end? His hands were now cupping my cheeks. “I can see it in your eyes, Piper; you want this too. You want to travel and have more adventures. You want to throw caution to the wind and see what tomorrow brings without having planned the whole thing out the day before. I can see you want this… you want us.”
There was that word again, us. He wanted us.
“Take a chance on me, Piper. Take a chance on love… take a chance on us.” There was that word again — us.
My heart pounded like a drum in my chest and my entire body was on fire. I could feel a flush of heat spreading up from my neck to my cheeks and into my hairline and a buzzing sound filled my ears. Was I having a stroke? Or was this just what it felt like to take a leap of faith into the unknown? Gently and sweetly, I pulled his hands from my face. His eyes went wide with panic, and he started to shake his head to get me to stay. But I didn’t say anything. I just took his hand and pulled him forward and up to the LATAM Airlines desk.
I fished my passport and my last remaining credit card out of my purse and plunked them on the counter. “One ticket to Santiago, please.”
EPILOGUE
SIX MONTHS LATER…
“Hello?”
“Piper?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
“You’re a tough woman to track down.”
“Who is this?” I put my pen down and got up from my desk, wandering over to the window and looking out onto the rolling hills.
“Chase.”
I gasped. “Chase?”
“Yeah.”
My heart started to beat wildly in my chest. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“H-have…” My voice caught in my throat. I hoped to God he wasn’t going to say ‘yes’ to my next question. “Have you been in prison this whole time?”
Silence.
“Chase?”
“You’re a tough woman to track down. Been doing some
traveling?”
“Yes, where are you?”
“Home.”
“And where is home?” The man could be such an ass.
“I’m okay, Piper.”
Tears pricked the corner of my eyes, and I sniffed, wiping the back of 2
my wrist beneath my nose. “Okay.”
“If you’re ever back up in Canada, you look me up. We can grab a beer…laugh about all of this. Maybe even be friends.” Yeah, because you laugh! I fought the urge to laugh now.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. “Okay. Chase?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
More silence.
“Chase?”
“You’re welcome. Listen, Piper, it’s good to know you’re safe and happy, but I have to go. We’ll talk when you’re home.”
I sniffed again and wiped my eyes. “Okay.”
“Goodbye.”
I don’t say goodbye anymore; it’s too final. “See you later, Chase.”
* * *
SEVERAL YEARS LATER…
* * *
“EXCUSE ME, IS THIS SEAT TAKEN?” I ask, noticing that the seat next to a menacingly attractive man is vacant. He’s busy puttering away on his laptop. It appears he is editing and polishing up an interesting photo of a grizzly bear and her cubs. The photo is stunning, and so is he.
His eyes flash up at me, and he smiles, moving his laptop bag off the chair I’m interested in. “No, not at all.”
I flop down with an oof and throw the bags around my neck and shoulders to my feet; my back is killing me. “Thanks.”
His lips twist. “Not a problem.”
I grin at him and pick up my ratty old copy of Accepting Loss: A step by step guide to dealing with the loss of loved ones. He snorts through his nose but doesn’t look back at me. He keeps his eyes fixed on his computer, his fingers furiously flying across the keys and touchpad.
Tropical Tryst: 25 All New and Exclusive Sexy Reads Page 184
