by Anna Lowe
“Catalina?” She gaped. “What were you doing there?”
“The question is, what are you doing here?”
Here being a twelve-by-twelve hut on the edge of the clearing in what looked to be a cluster of guest cabins set apart from the village.
“Hey! Wait a minute!” A wiry young man trotted up and stuck an accusatory finger at his chest. The man’s eyes screamed jungle warrior; the black lines painted on his face angled with the frown he wore. Tobin expected a guttural indigenous language to come out of his mouth, but he spoke perfect English. “Who is this?”
Tobin stuck his hand out and flashed a huge smile. “Tobin Cooper. And you?”
The man’s frown deepened.
“Tobin, this is Rodrigo, the chief’s nephew,” Cara said. It was more a sigh than an introduction. “Rodrigo, meet Tobin. And now, if you’ll excuse us…”
Firm, polite, no-nonsense. Cara in business mode. Tobin smiled. The woman hadn’t risen through the corporate ranks for nothing.
“Yes, if you’ll excuse us.” He put a little naughty in his smile. “I just can’t wait for a little private time with my wife.”
Cara froze with the door half-open.
Tobin pretended he didn’t see. “It’s been too long.” Six years too long, but the guy didn’t need to know that.
Her jaw clenched as she pulled the door the rest of the way out, and she motioned him in with a vicious swipe at the thick jungle air. A couple of curious kids had tagged along, and he peeled away gently and waved goodbye. “Hasta luego, kids.”
The second he went in, his eyes landed on the four-poster double bed, draped with netting. Elegant, in a bush-camp kind of way. Suggestive, given the messy sheets. Like she’d just rolled him out of there instead of pushing him in.
Cara came in behind him, slammed the door, and the whole cabin shook.
Yep. It was Cara, all right. His Cara.
Chapter Five
He turned, squaring his shoulders. Cara was going to chew him out, he knew it. Let him have it for screwing everything up six years ago with one stupid act. Take all the frustration evident in her stiff body out on him. And he was ready to take it like a clueless puppy, because damn it, his imaginary tail was wagging wildly just to be allowed back in her life, even for a short time.
“So, your husband, huh?” he started before she could blow up.
“I was desperate.”
“Clearly.”
She glared.
“I did kind of like it, though.” He risked a grin.
“You would.”
“So, Mrs. Cooper, what brings you to—”
She batted his arm. “It’s Leoni. Ms. Leoni.” She drew out the Mizz.
“Coulda been Cooper,” he teased. It was a reflex, like breathing. Blinking. Sleeping. Loving her.
And teasing. So much fun.
“I was going to keep my name, remember?”
Of course, he remembered. Loved her all the more for it.
“Then I could have been Leoni.” He meant it as a joke, but his voice betrayed him and it came out all cracked and warbly. Sad. He covered up with a broad smile. That usually worked.
Not on Cara, though. She shook her head, and he braced himself for an onslaught. A full-on outburst of that Italian temper she unleashed every once in a while, with raging hands and fiery eyes and syllables that would come tumbling out on the end of a verbal battering ram.
Sure enough, she threw up her hands. “This is why we were never good together.”
“We were always great together,” he growled.
“You don’t take anything seriously.”
“You take everything too seriously.”
“Marriage is a serious thing, Tobin. You shouldn’t joke about it.”
“It was never a joke.” It came out in a rough whisper, and he covered up with a shrug. “You can joke or you can cry.” A fine line he’d crossed more often than he’d care to admit.
She took a deep breath, then suddenly lost steam. Maybe she was listening, after all. Because she stood there with shaky hands and a shaking head, one breath away from falling apart — or slugging him.
Then her gaze caught on something on the right side of his face and she softened. Her hand cupped his cheek, and he closed his eyes to focus everything on the sensation of Cara, touching him again.
The rose petal scent of her filled his lungs. The soft pad of her thumb brushed over his cheek, and if it stung a little, he couldn’t care less.
“What’s this scar?” she whispered through quivering lips.
He didn’t answer right away, because first he had to digest that proof. Cara noticed. She cared.
“Tobin?”
He was taking too long, but this minute might have to last him a lifetime, so he wanted to drag it out. The scar and the bruise that was still showing a little yellow after six weeks didn’t matter. But it mattered to her, and that sent a flock of butterflies through his stomach.
“Tobin, what happened?”
Lying would be easier: he could say he got hit by a surfboard at work. But he’d never lied to Cara and wouldn’t start now.
“Had a little run-in with the shady side of the law in Belize,” he said and shrugged it off.
She looked at him with such big eyes, looking uncharacteristically fragile and full of regret.
“Cara,” he started, but she held up her hand in a stop signal and closed her eyes.
Okay, not a time to talk. But maybe a time to hold. He stepped over to her and wrapped his arms around her, nowhere near as abruptly as she’d hugged him outside but just as tightly. Listened to each heaving breath and held her and said nothing, because really, what was there to say?
Other than I missed you so much and take me back and all the other stuff tough guys weren’t supposed to say if they wanted to keep their pride.
But he didn’t want his pride. He just wanted her. So he nearly said it. Cara, I missed you every minute of every day.
Maybe she knew it was coming because she sniffed and backed away. The only consolation was that she didn’t actually shove him away the way she’d done the last time they parted. Six years ago when he’d come begging to her for a chance to explain.
A fly buzzed between them, and he waved it away.
“What’s going on, Cara? What are you doing here?”
Her hands fluttered in the air until she took a deep breath and started in a quiet voice. “I work for TeleCel.”
“The cell phone company? I thought you worked for that other one.”
“TeleCel is a subsidiary, and I got an offer to come down here. To Panama.”
Made sense; she was fluent in Spanish and a shooting star in her company. He knew, because yeah, he’d pumped his cousin Meredith for any news of Cara he could get. Meredith being friends with Cara’s older sister meant he got news on a regular basis. But he hadn’t heard about Panama.
“How long have you been here?”
“Just two months.”
Two months. About the time he and his brother had been sailing in Belize on the boat they inherited from their grandfather. That was why he hadn’t heard.
“Wait,” she said abruptly. “How long have you been in Panama?”
“About three weeks.”
They stared at each other in silence, and he swore she was thinking the same thought. If only I’d known…
Cara gave her head a little shake, and her long black locks rippled against each other. He had to take a deep breath before he could process anything else. Oh, talking. She was talking again.
“This part of Panama, from here to the Darien Gap, is the last big section of the Americas without cell phone coverage,” she said. “Whoever gets a transmitter up Cerro Atrato first—” she pointed high, indicating some mountain peak “—will have conquered the last big chunk of virgin territory.”
He glanced out at the simple huts of the village. A woman was beating a woven rug with a stick; a pig rooted near her feet.
; “I don’t get it. It’s not like there are thousands of customers begging for cell phone coverage here.”
She shook her head. “It would be a marketing coup more than a financial gain. TeleCel wants that. They need it. So they sent me here to get the chief to sign a deal. Just to helicopter in one little satellite dish. Nothing else. No chopping rain forest down, no intrusion. Just one transmitter.”
“And what? These people are so pissed at the cell phone industry that they’re holding you hostage?”
“No, they seemed okay with the deal. I’m sure it has to do with DigiOne.”
“Digi who?”
“DigiOne, the only other major telecom provider down here. We’re supposed to present to the investment group that put out the call for bids on this project on Friday. If DigiOne is the only company to present, we’ll lose this deal.”
He tried not to shrug. Who cared about some business deal?
She must have been reading his mind. “I’ll lose my job, Tobin. The company brought me to Panama to win bids like this. I’ll lose the reputation I’ve spent years building up. Do you know how hard it is to make it in this business?”
He knew how badly she craved success, yes. Something that hadn’t made sense to him until he met her parents for the first time — a couple of hard-working immigrants who had their kids’ high school diplomas framed on the living room wall. Their college diplomas, too — the ones they’d slaved away to pay for, because the daughters of the pizza parlor couple were going to end up much higher, much prouder than their humble roots. They had no choice. It was a matter of family pride.
Cara’s parents had been thrilled when they found out she was bringing home the son of one of those blue-blooded American families. Like it was proof that the Leoni clan had made it in America. But they had counted on Tobin being someone more like his brother Seth — the good son who went to the right schools, got the right job, and got himself primed for the good life.
Tobin was the other brother, though. The one who got kicked out of the right schools. The one who got the wrong job, because what guy in his right mind used the Dartmouth degree he somehow managed to earn — because yes, in spite of everything, they’d let him in — to become a ski instructor? The way they saw it, Tobin achieved nothing better career-wise than a year-round tan. They didn’t understand what an accomplishment it was to write his own script in a family like his.
But Cara did. She understood. Loved him for it. At least, he thought she had.
Then everything had come crashing down with a single misstep, and the one woman who’d made him think that he might someday get in step with the mainstream cut him off cold.
Cara’s job was her life, her pride. Like hell, he would stand by and watch her lose it.
“So let’s get you out of here.”
She threw up her hands. “I can’t. They won’t let me. They’re killing time until Friday, I’m sure of it.”
He squinted at her. “When is this presentation?”
“Friday at three.”
“So why isn’t your company hauling ass to get you out of here?” If he were boss of that damn company, he’d have a whole search party out looking for Cara.
She scowled. “All I could get out was one quick message to a switchboard. And if Enrique gets it first—”
“Enrique?”
“My coworker who did the early legwork up here. He was furious when the company chose me to do the final negotiations instead of him.”
“Furious enough to screw up this deal? To set you up?”
She tilted her head left then right. “I don’t think he’d set me up, but he’d probably grab a golden opportunity if it came along. All he’d have to do is delete the message. Maybe pass on another one, like ‘Cara called, and she’ll be back soon.’ Then when I don’t show up for the meeting, I look like a fool. The company loses the bid, fires me, and presto — Enrique gets my job.”
Tobin glanced through the narrow cut of a window to the tiny hamlet outside. “I don’t get it. Why would this village keep you here? What do they care who gets the bid?”
She shrugged. “I’m guessing DigiOne has offered the village a better deal than TeleCel has.”
“Can’t you outbid them?”
“Not from here. I’m stuck. No phone. No ride.”
She blinked at him and let five quiet seconds tick by.
He was about to say that she had him, and he had Lucy — clunky spark plugs and all — when a knock sounded at the door.
“Señorita Leoni,” came a voice.
“Señora Leoni,” he growled back. She was supposed to be his wife, right? Which made her a señora. “Come on, honey,” he said, purring his best fake-husband voice in her ear. “Let’s you and me go for a walk.”
“A walk?”
He dropped his voice to conspiratorial level and winked. “A reconnaissance mission. Because I am here to bust you out of this joint.”
Chapter Six
Cara opened the door on a very suspicious Rodrigo.
“Señorita—” he started, but Tobin growled, so Rodrigo started again. “Señora, you didn’t tell us you were expecting your husband.”
Almost-husband, she wanted to say, and I wasn’t expecting him either. She held her ground and tipped her chin up just a little bit, like her parents taught her. Pride. It was all a matter of pride. And sometimes, that meant covering up minor details like a racing heart and nerves that danced, just on seeing him again.
She strode out the door with Tobin in tow, trying to look like a woman who knew what she wanted.
Except she didn’t. Everything had been clear until the moment Tobin showed up. She’d only wanted out of this village, pronto, and back to the office to pull together a first-class presentation that would knock the investors right out of their seats in their rush to award the bid to her. Well, to TeleCel. Then she could set her sights on the next project, and the next, and the next. Crawl into the bubble of work, work, and more work. Climb the ladder higher and higher. That was her mission in life.
Or it had been, until she’d met Tobin, all those years ago. He’d taught her a lot more than how to ski. He taught her how to live and love and laugh so hard, she shook. Taught her that time was worth more than money. That love could happen overnight and last a lifetime. That a woman who didn’t need anyone might just need him.
“Why would she have to mention her husband?” Tobin cut in, hitting Rodrigo with a punch of a look. “If a man came here on a business trip, would you expect him to start talking about his wife?”
A thousand bonus points appeared on the scorecard her mind assigned to Tobin.
Rodrigo, who never looked anything but sly, suddenly looked apologetic. “No, no! I mean… What do you do, Señor Leoni?”
“I’m a photographer,” Tobin answered, without bothering to correct the last name to his own. More bonus points.
“Where is your camera?”
She could feel Tobin stiffen beside her — couldn’t miss it, because he had his arm around her shoulders, her body snug against his — but on the outside, he didn’t miss a beat.
“I’m on vacation. My wife complains that I work too much.” He said it with a chuckle, and she knew the inside joke. Working too much was probably the only thing he’d never been accused of by anyone. Not his parents, her parents, or any of the friends they’d once shared.
She frowned. Tobin was doing it again — bringing himself down by parroting their cutting remarks. But that wasn’t fair. She’d seen him come home bone-tired and frozen after a twelve-hour day on the slopes. Seen him stick on a smile and say sure to the little kids who begged for just one more run with their favorite instructor. Seen him stay up long nights making last-minute changes to surf safari arrangements for whimsical clients. So what if his office was a mountainside or a beach? The man worked hard.
And played hard. That was the problem. Wherever Tobin went, a dozen adoring groupies went, too. All the weekends she spent polishing presentations an
d reports, he spent charming customers on the slopes. For all she knew, he’d been entertaining señoritas all the way down the coast.
Right on cue, a dozen critical voices piped up in her mind.
A guy like that is too popular for his own good. How could you ever trust him?
He’ll never amount to anything. Why doesn’t he get a real job?
She shook her head at herself. The past was the past. She had a job to do.
“And what are you doing for your vacation?” Rodrigo pressed on.
“I was thinking of staying here for a couple of days,” Tobin said, and she nearly yelped. “Enjoy the rain forest. Visit the waterfall.”
What did Tobin want with a waterfall? She needed to get out of here, now!
Rodrigo beamed. “Yes, you can stay. Visit the waterfall, interact with my people. Learn our ways. It’s a fascinating culture. A small but important one.”
“Do I get to wear a loincloth?”
Tobin was joking, but that didn’t stop a little spike of heat from shooting through her body. Tobin in a loincloth… A little flap of fabric in front, two bare cheeks behind, round and tight. A sight for sore eyes.
Rodrigo launched into his favorite subject: finding a way to help his tribe move into the modern era while preserving traditional ways. In the short time she’d been in Panama, she’d heard a lot about indigenous groups and NGOs fighting for rights and representation, and Rodrigo seemed a true champion of the cause. A cause she could admire — except the part about keeping her hostage. She let her eyes drift over the village. How did they stand to benefit — or suffer — from TeleCel getting the antenna bid?
“Señorita! Señorita!” The kids came running up and towed her away to show her some kind of game with sticks and leaves. Amazing how creative kids without video games and TV could be.
She didn’t notice that her right hand was still clasping Tobin’s — tight — until the kids pulled her away. There was a little tug and she glanced back at him. His eyes held hers like a spotlight, as if the rain forest and village had faded away and it was just her. He had that crooked grin on that gave him a look halfway between star-struck and scheming.