29. Chapter 29
Chapter twenty-nine
Daylight slipped through the curtains and found me exactly where I’d fallen asleep, my cheek resting over Lachlan’s heart and one leg tangled with his.
For several quiet seconds, I didn’t move.
His heartbeat thudded beneath my ear. One heavy arm curved around my back, holding me against him, and the pleasant soreness between my legs was a delicious reminder that I’d just had the best sex of my life.
I settled more comfortably against him with a soft sigh.
“You’re awake,” he murmured.
I lifted my head. “How did you know?”
“Because you just made one of those little noises I like.”
I pushed myself higher and kissed him.
That was a mistake—or possibly the best way to start the morning.
His hand slid down my bare back as his mouth opened beneath mine, and within seconds the lazy kiss turned into something that had my pulse racing. Lachlan rolled toward me, his palm closing over my hip as he deepened it.
Then he groaned.
Not the good kind.
I pulled back. “Uh-oh. Sounds like the last few days are catching up with you. Which part hurts?”
“Ribs mostly. Shoulder’s stiff. Probably half the rest of me if I stop long enough to take inventory.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “So naturally, spending half the night having sex seemed like a sensible recovery plan.”
His mouth curved.
“Aye. Best decision I’ve made all week.”
I laughed, but when he pushed himself upright, a brief grimace gave him away before he could hide it.
“You made it worse.”
“Probably.”
“Lachlan.”
He caught my hand and kissed my knuckles.
“It was worth every ache.”
The simple certainty in his voice sent warmth through me all over again.
I leaned in for another kiss.
He stopped me barely an inch from his mouth.
“If you keep doing that, we’re going to keep Miguel waiting. José arranged for him to drive us most of the way to the airport so no one connects his truck to the FBO.”
“Oh.” I reluctantly eased back. “Then I suppose we should get dressed.”
Lachlan checked the time, then his eyes returned to my mouth.
“We have twenty minutes.”
I raised a brow. “That’s enough time to be useful.”
A slow smile spread across his face.
“Aye. Very.”
He pulled me back beneath him and kissed me.
Getting dressed could wait a little longer.
By the time Miguel’s red pickup carried us away from the chapel, I was clean, dressed, thoroughly satisfied, and wishing our escape plan had included another few hours in bed.
Lachlan sat beside me in the truck bed, looking almost civilized in the button-down he’d found among the church donations.
My backpack rested between my boots.
Before we left, Lachlan had made sure my ankle was securely wrapped and had done the same for his battered ribs.
Miguel had supplied him with a holster and extra ammunition for both pistols.
Lachlan unloaded each weapon, examined them carefully, checked the ammunition, then reloaded before securing Ciro’s in the holster and Rafael’s in my backpack.
Between Miguel’s preparations and Lachlan’s careful inspection, the message was clear: neither man expected a quiet trip to the airport.
For now, though, the road was quiet.
Miguel kept to narrow farm tracks winding through coffee country, the truck bouncing over ruts while green hills rolled past.
One particularly deep hole sent me sideways.
Lachlan’s arm caught me around the waist before I got far.
“Almost lost you there.”
“I was perfectly fine.”
“Aye. You looked very graceful.”
I swatted his forearm and tried to pull away.
Lachlan laughed, tightened his arm around my waist, and hauled me right back against his side.
“Nice try, Mouse.”
I gave him an exaggerated huff, but settled against him anyway, watching the countryside pass.
Children in school uniforms walked along one road, talking and laughing among themselves. Bright shirts and sheets fluttered from a clothesline outside a small house. Somewhere beyond a stand of trees, music played loudly enough that I could hear it over the truck’s engine.
I remembered pieces of this world.
Not these people or these houses, but mornings with Mamá before La Cruzona became the only world I knew.
Normal everyday life had simply kept going while I disappeared from it.
I rested my head against Lachlan’s shoulder, wondering what my life would look like once Ciro Delgado’s world was finally behind us and all the chains it had put on us were gone.
A little while later, the families we’d passed had me thinking about Mamá again. Lachlan had heard me talk about her, but he’d never seen her—or the family she’d spent my childhood telling me about.
I reached for the backpack. “I want to show you something.”
Lachlan shifted beside me as I fished out my mother’s locket.
The antique white gold was cool against my palm, its tiny floral pattern worn smooth in places from years of being handled. I pressed the latch, and the four panels fell open.
“This is my mother’s family,” I said, holding it up to him.
Lachlan leaned closer.
I touched the first photograph. “Her parents. My grandparents.”
The next showed Mamá beside her brother, both much younger and long before Ciro had taken her.
“She told me about them when I was little. Their names, what they were like, things they used to do when she was a girl.” I smiled faintly.
Another panel held Mamá with me as a baby.
The last showed me older, tucked against her side.
My throat tightened.
“She used to tell me that if anything ever happened to her, I should find them.”
Lachlan’s attention moved from the photographs to me.
“She believed they would go to the ends of the earth to find her,” I continued. “She said they loved her too much to simply stop. And if I ever reached them and told them who I was, they would love me too because I was hers.”
It had sounded so simple when I was thirteen.
“I don’t know how much of what I remember is exactly right anymore. Just pieces.” I ran my thumb over Mamá’s face. “But she wanted me to know I had family somewhere.”
Lachlan stayed quiet and listened.
“I think Rafael is the one who kept the locket safe for me.” I swallowed. “Ciro never would have cared.”
I closed the panels and held the chain out to Lachlan.
“Will you?”
“Of course.”
I turned my back to him and lifted my hair.
His fingers brushed the nape of my neck as he fastened the clasp, sending a little shiver down my back.
The locket settled beneath my blouse. I was leaving with Papá’s name and the only piece of Mamá and her family I had left.
A couple of hours later, Miguel slowed and turned onto a narrow service road lined with warehouses and low concrete buildings.
“This is where I leave you,” he shouted through the small, open window between us as he pulled onto the shoulder beneath a row of trees. “The private aircraft area of the airport is less than a kilometer ahead. Straight down this road, then right at the fence. Go toward hangar six.”
Lachlan was already moving.
I slipped the backpack over my shoulders and climbed out of the truck bed.
Miguel came around to the back of the pickup and held out his hand to me.
I ignored it and hugged him instead.
He stiffened in surprise before wrapping both arms around me.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “For everything.”
“You get on that airplane,” he said quietly. “And stay safe.”
When I stepped back, Lachlan clasped Miguel’s forearm and tugged him forward for a pat on the back.
“My people won’t forget what you did for us.”
Miguel gave him a small smile. “No worries. Good luck to you both.”
Lachlan’s hand settled at the small of my back and guided me forward.
Miguel climbed into the truck and drove away without looking back, the old red pickup disappearing into ordinary traffic as though it had never carried two fugitives down a mountain.
No one watching the airport would ever know he’d been there.
“You ready, Mouse?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
His hand stayed against my back as we started walking.
The closer we got to the airport, the more industrial everything looked.
The farm roads and scattered houses gave way to warehouses, high fencing, and long buildings with enormous doors. Traffic moved faster here. Trucks passed us in bursts of diesel and hot air, and somewhere beyond the fence came a deep mechanical roar unlike anything I’d ever heard at La Cruzona.
I turned toward it just as an aircraft swept low overhead.
The sound hit me first.
I jumped hard enough that Lachlan’s hand closed around my waist.
“Easy, Mouse.”
I looked up as the plane crossed above us, impossibly large against the blue sky before dropping toward the runway.
“I had no idea they were that loud.”
His mouth twitched. “It’s hard to understand how powerful those things are until you’re up close and personal with them.”
“No kidding.”
He kept his hand at the small of my back as we continued.
Ahead, sleek cars turned between landscaped entrances and low modern buildings that looked more like expensive offices than anything I’d imagined an airport would be.
“This area is for private aviation,” he explained.
I had expected long queues, busy terminals, and lots of people dragging suitcases behind them.
Instead, the building Nik had sent us to was quiet, with tinted windows and only a handful of cars outside.
“This is it, right next to hangar six. We’ll walk into the lobby, give them our names, and everything else should be taken care of. I’m sure Nik has his jet just on the other side of this building.”
My pulse quickened.
After everything it had taken to get here, the entrance looked ridiculously ordinary.
Lachlan opened the door and motioned me through first.
I stepped inside, and cool air washed over me.
The FBO looked nothing like the airports I’d seen in photographs. There was a polished stone floor, low black leather chairs, and travelers scattered through the lounge staring at cellphones as though flying somewhere in a private aircraft was no more remarkable than catching a taxi.
A woman behind the reception desk looked up.
Her attention paused on Lachlan, then moved to me.
“Mr. Byrnes?”
“Aye.”
Relief loosened something in my chest.