I threw open the door to my walk-in closet and started on the pile of crap I’d let accumulate in the corner. Sorting dirty laundry, bags, and gear into piles, I paused when Cruz’s backpack appeared.
I gathered it to me, hugging it against my chest like it was Cruz himself. God, it even smelled like him, or my nose tricked me. Either way, for that millisecond, he felt real instead of this nearly perfect man I’d made up.
I sat on the floor between the piles and pulled out the accordion file. Everything was exactly where I’d left it when I’d last looked at it in Miami. My fingers grazed his military paperwork, and I pulled out the paper-clipped stack.
None of it made any more sense than the first time I’d looked at it. I saw his discharge papers and read through the details of his service. Maybe it was a violation of his privacy, but I would have done anything to feel closer to him at that moment.
My forehead puckered when I found the next sheet, and my hands started to shake. Could this…?
Scared to get my hopes up, I read carefully. Cruz had gotten out of the military, but was there a chance this could be what I needed?
I whipped out my cell phone and called the only person I could think of—Brandon.
“What’s up, Penna?”
“I think I know how to get Cruz back, but I’m going to need some help.”
“What do you need? You know I’ll help,” he said after a moment of silence.
“I think I need to talk to the president.”
“Of course you do.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Cruz
Havana
“Let’s go,” the guard barked from the entrance to my cell.
I rubbed a hand over my beard, trying to wake myself. The thing about being kept in a solitary cell with no window was that I’d lost track of time, and not just hours in the day, but days in general.
I’d tried to mark every time they fed me, to delineate the time by what kind of food the guards brought, but I had a suspicion they were changing it up just to fuck with my head.
“Now,” the guard urged.
I stumbled to my feet off the bare mattress of my bunk and followed him out of my cell. Another armed soldier trailed behind as we trudged through hallways and up a flight of stairs.
“What day is it?” I asked.
“Silence.”
Super helpful.
We emerged on the first floor, and I covered my eyes from the blinding sunlight that poured in through the windows.
“Move!” the guard yelled, and I walked forward, my eyes prickling from the assault of brightness.
“Here,” the one in front said, opening a door.
I walked through and was able to drop my hands from my eyes in the dimmer setting.
“Jesus Christ. What the hell have you done to him?” a man with a southern twang asked. I blinked as he came into focus. He was dressed in U.S. Army ACUs with full bird colonel rank on his chest and the name Ward.
“Treated him as any prisoner,” my father answered.
“Have a seat, son,” Colonel Ward said, pulling out a chair.
“He’s my son,” my father growled.
“Sure looks like you treated him like it,” Ward drawled. “I asked for this meeting two weeks ago.”
“I’m under no obligation to let you see this prisoner.” My father shrugged.
“As a Cuban citizen, you’re right. But as a member of the United States Army, you’re dead wrong, and you will relinquish Sergeant Delgado to my custody, or you will risk direct consequences. The United States doesn’t take kindly to foreign governments holding their soldiers.”
I sat up straight, leaning forward. “What’s going on?”
“How familiar are you with the Individual Ready Reserve?”
My mind floundered for an answer. “It’s the four years you’re on standby after you ETS.”
“Bingo,” he said, pointing to me. “Now for you non-Americans, I’ll make it clear. Sergeant Delgado enlisted for three years when he was seventeen—”
“He’s twenty-eight, so your point—”
“I’m talking now,” Colonel Ward interrupted my father.
Guess I’d unknowingly spent a birthday in this hellhole, which meant it was at least August first. Jesus, I’d been here almost four months.
“Now,” Colonel Ward said, turning back to me. “You enlisted at seventeen, served your three years as agreed, and then transferred to Individual Ready Reserve.”
“Right,” I agreed. Pieces clicked. IRR was automatic for anyone serving less than eight years. We were on the hook for eight and could be called back at the pleasure of the president, but it hadn’t been done since Desert Storm in the nineties. It was a piece of paper I’d signed and never given a second thought to.
But my eight years was up when I was twenty-five.
“Turns out, you deferred that time while you got your doctorate, Dr. Delgado,” Colonel Ward said with a smile.
“Deferred.” A spark of hope lit in my chest, and even though I wanted to kill it, the damn thing started to glow brighter and brighter.
“Yes. I’m sorry to inform you that two weeks ago I received a call that you’ve been recalled to the Selected Reserve. Your reserve unit back in L.A. is expecting you.”
A small, incredulous laugh slipped free.
“This is preposterous!” my father railed. “He is a criminal!”
“Accused of what?” Colonel Ward asked. “Kidnapping a willing eighteen-year-old adult and helping her get to the embassy for which she holds citizenship?”
My father’s mouth dropped open and then snapped shut, the muscle of his jaw flexing. “We will not surrender custody.”
The door opened and another Cuban general walked in.
“General Delgado.”
“General Gutierrez.”
Colonel Ward walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “As of this moment, I have custody of Sergeant Delgado. With all our two countries have gone through to reestablish diplomatic ties, are you really willing to go to war over this? Because I am. I don’t leave U.S. soldiers in enemy territory to be falsely imprisoned, and I have roughly five thousand soldiers about five hundred miles from here.”
My father’s fists slammed into the table, and he hung his head, his massive chest rising and falling rapidly. “No.”
“Of course you may take your soldier, Colonel. Please do so now,” General Gutierrez said with a smile.
“Pleasure meeting you, Generals Delgado and Gutierrez,” Ward said with a nod at each. “Thank you.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I jumped out of my seat and followed him as he left the conference room as yelling erupted from behind us.
“Keep walking,” he ordered. “Do not stop for any reason.”
“Yes, sir.”
We walked down the marble-floored hallway with its open arches into the Caribbean weather. Such a beautiful setting for ugliness.
We met up with a small group of armed U.S. soldiers, and I was led to a Humvee, which I immediately slid into. I sank into the seat as Ward took the front passenger seat.
“Is this really happening?” I asked, fully expecting to wake up in that solitary cell at any moment.
“It is. How are you? Hungry? Thirsty?” he asked as the convoy pulled out of the headquarters building.
“Yes to all,” I said, my head hitting the seat behind me. I was really leaving, escaping, heading home. Penelope.
“Good. We’ll need to debrief you, of course, and then we’ll get you headed back to the States.”
“Yes, sir. How did you know about me?” I asked.
“You have a hell of an insistent girlfriend, Sergeant.”
That hope in my chest blew into a full-blown fire. I’d be back in L.A. soon. I could hold her, kiss her, fight with her until we had the best make-up sex of our lives, and then start all over again. “There’s no one like her on the planet, sir.”
“Doesn’t take no for an
answer, either.”
I smiled—the first real one since I’d been taken away from her at the Embassy. “Yeah, well, there’s a reason they call her Rebel.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Penna
Los Angeles
“Rebel!” The reporters called out as I walked our little red carpet toward the premiere.
I paused, popping a hip in my strapless Vera Wang and smiling like I was the happiest girl on the planet. Truthfully, I was dying inside. My hair was shiny only because my hairdresser had spritzed me with God knows what, and all the makeup in the world couldn’t hide the bags under my eyes.
It had been three weeks since I’d found the papers and started the slow-moving ball that was the U.S. Military on the hunt for Cruz.
I’d been denied any information as of two weeks ago and told that the situation was now classified. Assholes.
Fulfilling my duties, I stood and looked pretty until I felt they’d gotten enough pictures and moved on. As far as L.A. premieres went, ours was tiny, but the biggest stars in extreme sports were here, and even a few A-list Hollywood actors.
Turned out our little documentary was making quite a splash.
“Rebel, would you say that you and the Renegades are the new generation of Warren Miller?”
“The idea that anyone could replace Warren Miller is laughable,” I answered. “Plus, I don’t think I have it in me to do this every year.”
I looked up the row to see Nick motioning me toward the door, and I made my excuses to the press.
“It’s a zoo out there,” I told him as we walked through the theater, headed toward the stage.
“We’ve got about ten minutes until speech time, and I didn’t want you trapped in the melee.”
“Thanks. The others?”
“Already waiting in the wings.”
The theater staff parted the red velvet ropes that sectioned off the backstage area and let us through. We thanked them and headed for our designated meeting spot.
Landon and Pax waited just behind the curtain, and we met up center stage.
“Damn, you stand out like a red dress in the midst of tuxes,” Landon joked.
“I thought about wearing a suit like you guys and then decided I’d never been afraid of being the only girl. You ready for this?” I asked Nick.
He nodded. “I pretty much came out in Cuba, so this is a piece of cake.”
“Did you see Zoe?” Pax asked. “She’s up and walking.”
“Gabe is here, too. I banned his parents, though,” Landon muttered at the end.
“Good call,” Nick said.
We shot the breeze for the next few minutes, killing time until Bobby motioned from the wings and pointed to his watch.
“Looks like it’s time,” Pax said.
We lined up and faced the full theater, only separated by a layer of velvet.
“Sometimes it floors me that we actually did it,” I said.
“It floors me every day,” Landon answered.
The button on our mics flashed red, and we stopped talking. We were live.
Music blared through the sound system, and the curtain rose to the applause of our audience. The house was packed. I made out a few familiar faces in the crowd—Leah and Rachel sat next to our reserved seats. Little John wasn’t far behind them.
“Thank you for coming,” Paxton started. “I’m Wilder,” he said with a wave.
“Rebel.”
“Nova.”
“And Nitro,” Nick said, finishing up.
The applause was deafening, and I felt the heat rising to my cheeks.
“The Renegades started in my backyard as the four of us refusing to go in for dinner when we were called.” Pax laughed. “We always wanted one more run, one more jump. I guess nothing much has changed.”
“We got older, moved out of our parents’ houses, thank God,” Landon added to the enjoyment of the crowd. “We won a few X Games medals and earned a reputation for pulling off the stunts no one else was stupid enough to try.”
“I was hurt,” Nick said, and the crowd quieted. “And my friends stepped up with the idea for this documentary, hoping my stunt and ramp designs would keep me in the game. I found out in Cuba I’m still pretty ramp-worthy, too.” The crowd whooped, and we all laughed.
“This documentary became more than sports,” I said. We’d practiced this a few times, but now that we were here, I was more than a little scared that I’d fuck up in front of the crowd. “Sure, we pull off some pretty amazing feats, but the stunts we do in this film are nothing compared to the experiences we had while traveling the world. Not just the places we saw, or the cultures we were able to witness, but how we grew together as friends.”
“We pulled off firsts,” Pax said.
“We failed others,” Landon added. “And then we went back for a second try and nailed it,” he said, smiling at Rachel. They’d spent three weeks in Nepal with the camera crew, and Landon had finally gotten his dream run.
“We pushed the boundaries of gender, logic, and gravity,” I spoke my part.
“And as you’ll see, we all fell in love.” Pax grinned at Leah. “I fell for my tutor.”
“I got back the one who initially got away.” Landon winked at Rachel.
“I fell for the one I was never supposed to.”
Grandma gave me a sad smile from where she sat with Elisa.
“I learned to love myself,” Nick finished.
“We started our fair share of international incidents, but I think Rebel took the cake,” Pax said with a laugh.
My gaze swung to him. Why the hell was he going off the script we’d agreed to?
Landon pulled me under his arm. “This girl was separated from the love of her life at the American Embassy in Cuba.”
“Landon,” I whispered, my mic down.
“Trust me,” he whispered in my ear.
“When she got home to L.A., she didn’t stop fighting,” Nick said. “In true Rebel fashion, she kicked down every door she could find, trying to get him back to her. She went up against lawyers, the U.S. military, and pretty much the entire Cuban government.”
“And you know what? She finally kicked down the right door,” Pax said, smiling at me like a lunatic.
“Pax…” I whispered, my voice breaking.
“Time to get your happy ending,” he said off-mic.
My heart stopped as Love Lifts Us Up played through the sound system.
“Holy shit, it’s like the eighties just came back,” Nick mumbled.
Landon smacked the back of his head, and Pax walked behind to stand with them.
The spotlight hit the left side of the stage, and I stopped breathing, scared that if I so much as drew a tiny amount of air, the vision would disappear.
Cruz stood twenty feet away, dimples out, his smile so beautiful I knew I had to be imagining him—in full military dress blues. My mic hit the ground as my hands flew to my face, covering my mouth.
A sound like a whimper escaped me as he strode across the distance to the wild applause of the crowd. My arms fell away, like I’d lost all the strength in my muscles. He didn’t say a word, simply took my face in his hands and kissed me as if we were alone—and as his lips moved over mine, his taste sweet, familiar, and oh, so Cruz, the crowd vanished, and we were the only people in the world.
My arms looped around his neck, and he lifted me off the ground and into his arms, tucking one hand beneath my knees in a bridal carry.
“All we’re missing is someone shouting, ‘Way to go, Paula!’” Cruz told me.
I laughed against his mouth, tears escaping down my cheeks. “You know An Officer and a Gentleman is the navy, right?”
How far we’d come since he’d said those words to me.
Those brown eyes locked onto mine, and I saw everything I needed there—strength, humor, home…love. “Shhhh. This is my grand gesture. My turn.”
I grinned, recalling the time I’d told him exactly the same thing on the
Athena, and threw my energy into kissing him.
He carried me offstage to the loudest applause I’d ever heard in my life, but it was background noise to the beat of my heart in rhythm with his.
“Now you just listen to me tell you that I love you,” he said very seriously.
“And I love you,” I answered.
“Good, because I don’t want to live a day in my life where I don’t wake up next to you and fall asleep with you in my arms. You’re the only future I see, Penelope. And if that means I have to close my eyes while you pull off whatever harebrained stunt you’ve cooked up, I’ll do it.”
“Or you can do it with me. You’ve got some pretty good moves of your own.”
“I have to keep up with my girl,” he said against my lips, and we lost ourselves to another kiss that felt even more perfect than the last. “I would have called, but I only got back stateside this morning, and this just seemed…”
“Epic,” I offered.
“Worthy of you,” he answered with another kiss. Was there ever going to be a time when I grew tired of kissing him? I highly doubted it.
His cheeks were smooth under my fingers as I pulled back enough to look at him. “You’re home? Really?”
“Thanks to you, I am.”
A fresh set of tears tracked down my cheeks, as if my body finally gave itself permission to let go. “I missed you, and I was so scared I’d never see you again.”
He tucked me in even closer and kissed my forehead. “Don’t cry. I’m here, and I’m never leaving you. Well…” he trailed off, and a wave of fear replaced my euphoria.
“What? You’d better tell me!”
“I do have drill once a month now. I’m kind of in the Reserves for the next three years. But if you don’t agree, I can always go back to Cuba.”
I laughed, tears blurring my vision. “I think we can deal. Cruz?” I asked, my hands running over the hair that met the nape of his neck.
“Yeah, baby?”
All it took was that look, and my body caught fire, immediately ready for his. Months apart hadn’t changed a single thing with our chemistry, or my soul-consuming love for him.
In those seconds, our future became so clear to me. We’d laugh, we’d fight, we’d push each other to the point of insanity, and we’d pull each other back from the brink. We’d love harder than any other couple in the history of the world.
Rebel (The Renegades) Page 36