Chapter 6 #3
“I was picked to be the driver for our club and in the end, placed third…much to the amazement of the other drivers. Our car wasn’t the flashiest, wasn’t the most expensive or even the fastest, but I was the best driver on that track.
” She wasn’t bragging. Okay, that was a lie.
She was bragging a little. The memory of how surprised everyone had been that a woman placed, especially one who wasn’t a member of the popular fraternities and sororities that usually dominated the race, was a fond one.
She liked doing things no one expected of her… and succeeding.
But this wasn’t a go-cart, and she wasn’t a college kid participating in a fun, harmless race.
Reese used everything she’d ever learned about cars and racing—and her determination not to let her brother get kidnapped again—to pull away from their pursuers. She didn’t care that they were being bounced around like pieces of popcorn in a microwave, all she cared about was getting away.
“In case I forget to tell you later, you’re fucking amazing. We’re almost back to the main road. Take a left,” Gus said calmly.
It was a good thing he knew where they were, because Reese might be a good driver, but she had a shit sense of direction. She didn’t remember which way she was supposed to go and probably would’ve gone right instead of left.
She made the turn, barely keeping the truck from sliding off the side of the road into a ditch, and floored it when they were once again on asphalt.
Seconds later, a loud whoop sounded from the bed of the truck, and Reese looked in the rearview mirror fearfully.
“They didn’t manage the turn! They’re in the ditch! Good job, Reesie!”
Reese hated that nickname. “I’ve told you a million times not to call me that!” she shouted back at her brother in irritation.
She heard him laugh uproariously.
Her heart was still pounding ten minutes later when they pulled onto the highway that would take them back to Bogotá. She felt jittery and a little weak, but figured it was the drop from the adrenaline rush she’d experienced.
“You’re okay,” Gus said from her right. “Take a deep breath. Good. Now another.”
Having him there to talk her down was a relief. She concentrated on the cadence of his voice rather than reviewing what just happened in her mind. “Is Woody all right? Isabella, are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” the woman replied softly.
Reese barely heard her over the rushing of the wind through the broken window behind their heads. She hated that the three guys were in the bed of the truck, because it was anything but safe, but there wasn’t much choice since the pickup didn’t have a backseat.
“For the record…anytime you want to drive, I have no problem with that. I don’t think anyone could’ve gotten us out of there in one piece like you did,” Gus told her.
His praise felt good. Really good. She’d wanted to hold her own, and show this man that she wasn’t helpless.
Until now, she’d been a liability, and they all knew it.
She might not know how to shoot, or be in shape enough to run a mile, but she’d been able to get them away from the bad guys because of her experience.
She figured that tipped the scales in her favor, at least a little bit.
“Where are we going?” she asked, forcing herself to concentrate on what was to come. She might’ve gotten them away from the cartel guys, but there was no telling what would happen now.
Instead of answering, Gus turned to the woman sitting between them. “Isabella, you and your brother have a choice. Do you want to come with us? Or stay?”
She looked at him. “I want to stay with Woody.”
Gus nodded, then turned to yell out the back window. “Woody?”
“Yeah?”
“Are Isabella and her brother staying with you?”
“Hell yes!”
“Spike, we have an issue,” Tiny called out.
“What?”
“Woody was hit.”
Reese’s blood ran cold, and she instinctively took her foot off the gas at the same time Isabella gasped and turned, trying to look out the back window.
“I’m fine!” Woody called out. “I told him not to say anything!”
“How bad?” Gus yelled.
“Not great,” Tiny said. At the same time Woody yelled, “A scratch!”
“Head toward the airport,” Gus told Reese firmly.
Reese took her eyes off the road long enough to shoot him a quizzical look. “Shouldn’t we go to a hospital?”
“I’d rather get the hell out of here. We have no idea what kind of connections those guys have, and if they’re with the cartel, I’m guessing it’s a lot. Going to a hospital will bring too much attention to us. There’s no way we could hide an American with a gunshot wound.”
“But Tiny said he wasn’t good,” Reese protested.
“Woody’s a tough son of a bitch. And Tiny didn’t say he was critical. We’ll get him help as soon as we can.”
Reese wanted to keep protesting, but she didn’t exactly want to go through another shootout. Or be on any drug cartel’s radar.
“Anything you’re going to regret leaving behind with your luggage?” Gus asked. “We can’t exactly go back to the hotel to get it.”
Reese thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “No.”
“Good.”
“But I don’t have my passport. It’s in the little safe in the hotel room,” she said with a frown.
“Tex’ll take care of it.”
“Seriously? He can do that?” Reese asked.
“The man can do just about anything,” Gus said without a hint of concern in his voice.
“What about Woody? And Isabella and Angelo? I’m guessing they don’t have their passports either. Or you and Tiny, for that matter.”
“We have ours,” Gus told her. “I’ve got a secret pocket sewn into the leg of my pants. As does Tiny. We’ve learned it’s better to be prepared for anything.”
“Oh. I wish I’d thought about something like that,” Reese said a little wistfully.
“It’s not an issue.” Then he turned to Isabella. “I’m sorry, but it’s too dangerous to go back to your apartment.”
“I know,” she said sadly. Then shrugged. “But stuff doesn’t matter. My brother and I are safe, that’s the most important thing.”
Gus nodded in agreement.
Reese’s mind was going a million miles an hour.
She wasn’t sure how they were all going to get out of the country without passports, but if Gus said his friend would take care of it, she’d believe him.
She was just so damn relieved that they’d been able to find Woody, and Isabella and her brother, and that they would hopefully be getting home soon.
As it turned out, they made one stop on the way to the airport, and that was so Tiny could run inside a touristy tchotchke shop to purchase a shirt for Woody that wasn’t covered in blood.
Reese took the opportunity to hug her brother hard.
She never wanted to let go, and she got a little emotional when she was finally able to touch him and see for herself that he was all right.
The bullet wasn’t imbedded in his shoulder, thank goodness, but he was still bleeding.
Like the badass he was, however, Woody insisted he’d be all right until they could get to the US.
When they all got back into the truck, Tiny insisted on driving, which left Gus in the back with Angelo and Woody.
At the airport, Tiny went to an airline counter to speak to a representative. Reese was fully expecting them to be kicked out since they had no tickets, no luggage, and four of them had no passports.
To her utter shock, they were quickly escorted through security to a gate where a plane was already parked and half filled with passengers.
They were seated in two rows toward the back of the plane, with Reese in a window seat next to Gus, and Tiny next to him on the aisle.
Her brother, Isabella, and Angelo were in the row in front of them.
The teenager had been quiet, not saying much, although he and Isabella had a long conversation in Spanish before going through security.
Reese had no idea what it was about, as she didn’t speak Spanish, but it seemed to be pretty intense.
Both Isabella and her brother looked scared.
Reese figured maybe they were worried about being stopped by airport security.
Woody had looked concerned about them both, but he was also as white as a sheet, so he probably didn’t feel up to pressing Isabella for details.
“I can’t believe we walked into the airport twenty minutes ago and now we’re on a flight to Dallas,” she said.
“Told you Tex was good.”
“You weren’t wrong. Although it’s a good thing we’re not sitting next to strangers because I have to smell awful.”
To her surprise, Gus leaned over, nuzzling the back of her ear with his nose and causing a cascade of tingles throughout her body. He sniffed long and loud before sitting back and smiling. “Nope, you smell fine.”
Reese chuckled. “Right, so says the man who probably smells as bad as me. For the record…I’m not a fan of hot-as-hell jungles with bugs the size of my head who like to suck blood.”
“Noted,” he told her with a small grin. Then his hand rose and he rubbed his thumb over an itchy spot on her neck. “You do have a few bites. I’m sorry we took so long.”
She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t passive-aggressively bitching about the time it took you to infiltrate a house, free not only my brother and his girlfriend, but also her huge brother who looks like he could be thirty instead of eighteen, and get out of there in one piece.”
“Good to know,” he said. “And you should know…” He started, but didn’t finish his thought.
“Yeah?”
Gus sighed. “The tickets Tex bought are all to Santa Fe.”
Reese blinked.
“I guess he assumed you would all be coming to The Refuge. And for the record, I think it’s a good idea.
Woody needs some medical attention, and there’s no place in the world better for healing than our mountains.
But if you really want to go back to Kansas City, I’ll see about switching your ticket when we get to Dallas. ”
Reese wasn’t sure what to say. The part of her who’d had a crush on Gus forever was jumping up and down with excitement, but the practical part was screaming that it was a bad idea to spend more time with this man who, with every passing minute, she was falling for harder and harder.
“What’s Woody doing?” she asked.
“Tiny spoke with him before we boarded, and he has no problem going to New Mexico. It’s probably a good idea for him to lay low for a while, just in case.”
“Wait—what? You think the cartel will come after him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shit.”
“He’ll be safe at The Refuge. As will Isabella and her brother.
The cartel doesn’t know anything about Tiny or me, so there will be no way for them to trace anyone to us.
They probably do know where Woody lives, and if they decide to come after him, that’ll be the first place they look,” Gus told her.
Reese glanced out the window, deep in thought as the plane headed toward the runway. She felt Gus’s hand on her arm and turned to face him once more.
“I swear you’ll all be safe there. And I did say that I wanted to see where things between us could go when we got back to the States.
The way I see it, you can make sure your brother heals properly, he can have some time with Isabella to figure out what their next steps will be, and you and I can get to know each other better. ”
“Is there even room for all of us? From what I’ve read online, you guys are always booked up,” she said, stalling as she tried to figure out what she should do.
“You been reading up on us?”
Reese felt her cheeks get hot, and she shrugged.
“Well, I told you I’d visited the website.
Any self-respecting girl with a crush and mild stalker tendencies would do the same thing.
” She did her best to make light of her spontaneous admission, when inside, she was freaking out more than a little bit.
Tiny joined the conversation and said, “Your brother, Isabella, and Angelo can take my cabin. It’s got two rooms. I’m sure I can room with one of the others for a while, they won’t mind.”
“And I’ve got two rooms too,” Gus said before Reese could ask her next question. “You can stay with me.”
She narrowed her eyes mock suspiciously.
He chuckled, but then got serious. “You’re safe with me,” he promised.
“I know,” she said without thought. And she did. If she’d learned anything over the last…day? Jeez, had it really been just hours since he and Tiny had knocked on her hotel door?
As if he had the same thought, Gus asked, “How’s your tummy holding up? We’ll ask the flight attendant for some extra water when she comes around. You have to still be dehydrated after…you know…and having your blood sucked out in the jungle.”
Lord, thank goodness he hadn’t said the word diarrhea. She was embarrassed enough as it was. “You need some too.”
“Hell, we all need a long drink and a good meal,” Tiny said with a small smile on his face. His eyes were closed and his head was resting against the back of his seat, but it was a good reminder that she and Gus weren’t exactly alone and had no privacy.
The pilot came on and announced that they were about to take off.
Minutes later, as the plane rose in the air, Reese let out a long, relieved sigh.
She was suddenly exhausted. The day was finally taking a toll on her and it was all she could do to keep her eyes open.
Her muscles were sore from being clenched in terror and she did feel a little off after not eating for basically two days, then running around like she was some sort of GI Jane.
“Sleep,” Gus ordered as he put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him.
Reese went gladly. She shifted in her seat to try to get a little more comfortable, and Gus pulled back just long enough to raise the armrest between them before settling her against him once more.
She sighed and closed her eyes.
“Think about it. I promise you’ll love The Refuge. Alaska and Henley will be thrilled to meet you. And you’ll love Melba and Scarlet Pimpernickel and all the other animals.”
Reese smiled. She’d seen pictures of the cow and calf on the website…and she felt a little tendril of excitement run through her. “If Woody goes, I will too,” she mumbled sleepily.
Gus’s arm tightened around her for a moment before relaxing. “Good.”
There were logistics Reese needed to straighten out. So many. Like letting her boss know what was going on, buying clothes, paying her bills remotely, replacing her credit cards and cell phone, getting a new ID, and probably a hundred other things…but for now, she was done. Mentally and physically.
She let herself relax. She was safe, her brother was safe…and she was in the arms of the man she’d had a crush on forever, who she’d honestly never expected to see again. She’d worry about the future later.