by Kat Martin
Holding on to her father’s hand, Bree led him toward the man who had risked his life to save her.
“Dad, this is Derek Stiles. I’d probably be dead if it weren’t for him.” Or brutally raped or forced into a life of prostitution, never to be seen again.
Her dad extended his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Derek. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you did for my daughter.”
Derek’s expression never changed. “Bree’s an amazing woman. I’m glad I was able to help.”
“He did more than help, Dad.” She began to tell her father all the things Derek had done to protect her, but her dad cut her off.
“You can tell me all about it back at the hotel. I took the top floor of the Sheraton El Presidente to use as a command post. You both have rooms there. You can rest and refresh yourselves.”
“How do we get to the city?” Bree asked, glancing at the activity around them.
“The colonel has a helicopter waiting to take us back. I’ve got the jet on standby at the airport whenever we’re ready to leave.” He smiled. “Your mother sent several changes of clothes. She figured you would need them.”
Her mother was a rock, the matriarch of the family, the person who held everyone together.
She glanced at Derek, whose expression hadn’t changed. Bree just nodded. “Okay.”
“All right, let’s go.” Her dad set his hand on her shoulder and ushered her around the building toward a military Jeep parked out of sight behind a faded yellow, wood-frame house. Derek walked a few paces behind them. She could already feel him distancing himself, preparing to leave.
Her throat tightened. She loved him. There was no way to pretend it wasn’t so.
They all climbed into the Jeep, and the driver turned onto the road, heading in the opposite direction the soldiers had escorted Castillo, General Batista and his men. They followed the dirt track to where a big jet helicopter sat in an open field, nothing at all like the much smaller Raven that Derek had flown.
The blades were slowly revolving, waiting for orders. They all climbed in and belted into their seats, Bree making a point of sitting next to Derek. He flicked her a sideways glance but said nothing.
Just as they were ready to lift off, Colonel Zepeda climbed aboard. Then the engine revved, and the chopper lifted away. She still hadn’t had a chance to talk to her dad, but as the helicopter roared back to the city, she looked at Derek’s stony face and swallowed back the tears collecting in her throat. Nothing she said was going to matter.
Derek’s mind was made up. Whatever they had shared was over.
Bree’s heart ached as if a knife had been stabbed into her chest.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DEREK OPTED NOT to stay at El Presidente. He’d borrowed a phone and called the Garrett Resources office in Houston as soon he’d returned to San Salvador to let them know he was well and safe. As soon as word of the hijacking had reached Bogotá, his meetings had been canceled indefinitely.
He hadn’t expected the phone call a few minutes later from his employer, Reese Garrett, CEO of the company, though the email he had sent from the plane had gone to Reese.
“Thank God you’re safe,” Reese said. “As soon as I got your email, I called Bran, and he insisted on flying down.”
Brandon Garrett was Reese’s younger brother, a former special ops solider. During his years in the army, Bran had been deployed many times to South America, though he never talked about it.
“Bran managed to make contact with a colonel named Zepeda,” Reese said. “Zepeda was familiar with El Defensor, and once he understood the situation, the colonel was eager to help. Bran wasn’t allowed to go in with the colonel’s men, but that’s never stopped my brother. Apparently, he was in Santa Margarita when the operation went down. Soon as he saw you and Ms. Wingate were safe, he disappeared.”
That sounded like Bran. They were friends of a sort. Clearly Bran Garrett was a good friend to have.
“Tell him I owe him a beer.”
Reese laughed. “Tell him yourself. Bran’s still in San Salvador. Company jet’s waiting to bring you both home. Where are you staying?”
“Intercontinental. Room 515.”
“I’ll let him know.”
Since Derek’s phone was somewhere in the Honduran jungle, he’d picked up a disposable, but it didn’t have his contact list. “That’d be great.”
“Anything you need?”
He thought of Bree and how much he missed her. A new heart, he wanted to say but didn’t. “I bought myself some clothes, so I’m good to go.”
“Take a week off when you get back,” Reese said. “Two if you need them. Rest up and relax. I’ll be in touch.” The call ended, and Derek lay back on the bed in his hotel room. Shoving his hands behind his head, he stared up at the ceiling.
Tired and depressed, he must have fallen asleep. A knock on the door awoke him an hour later. When he looked at the clock, it was a quarter to five in the afternoon. With a sigh, he stumbled out of the bed and answered the door, stepped back to let Bran Garrett into the room.
“Reese told me you were in the city,” Derek said to him. “I really appreciate what you did.”
“No problem.” Bran looked him up and down, taking in his rumpled clothes, uncombed hair and unshaven face. “Man, that jungle must have been even harder on you than I thought.”
Derek scratched his days’ growth of beard. All he could think of was Bree, but Bree and her father had already left for Seattle. She had wanted to see her mother, reassure her mom that she was okay.
With her father eager to leave for home, they hadn’t had time to talk, which was good. Derek had nothing to say.
Bran held up a brown paper bag. “I figured you might need a little lift. I got something here that’ll cure whatever ails you.” Carrying the bag over to the small round table in front of the window, he took out a bottle of Ron de El Salvador Cihuatan Grand Reserve rum. Bran cracked it open and poured two fingers each into a pair of water glasses, then carried one over and handed it to Derek.
“Salud.” He waited for Derek to lift his glass.
“Salud.” Derek tossed his drink back, and so did Bran.
“All right, now tell me what’s going on.”
They sat down at the table. The room was nicely furnished, done in shades of pale sea green. The queen-size bed was a hell of an improvement over a cot in a tent. On the other hand, he’d rather be sleeping in the jungle with Bree than sleeping by himself in a wide comfy bed.
“I guess this is all just catching up with me.”
Bran cocked a dark brown eyebrow. He was a good-looking guy, tall, with light blue eyes, and amazingly fit. “Is that so? I don’t suppose it could have anything to do with that luscious little honey you rescued in the jungle.”
Derek’s head came up.
“Breanna Wingate?” Bran continued mercilessly. “She’s been all over the news. Couldn’t sing your praises enough. Said she’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”
Derek glanced away. “She needed help. I helped her.”
“That’s it? You got off a hijacked plane to protect her when you could have stayed aboard. You two didn’t get close while you were fighting for survival out there? Because I’ve been where you are, bro. I married the woman I rescued. Or maybe she rescued me.”
Derek sighed. “Okay, fine. I’m crazy in love with her. Breanna’s beautiful and strong and sexy as hell. What guy wouldn’t fall for her?”
Bran took a drink of rum. “So why aren’t you in Seattle? That’s where she is, right? Up there with her parents?” He went to the table and poured a little more rum into his glass, brought the bottle over and poured more for Derek.
“She’s just visiting her family in Seattle,” Derek said. “She lives in Dallas, runs a nonprofit there called Shelter the Children, among o
thers, I guess.”
“Dallas. That’s even better. You two only live a few hours apart.”
Derek drained half the rum in his glass. “Don’t you get it, man? She’s Breanna Wingate. Her dad’s one of the richest men in the world. I’m not in her league. My mother was a druggie, and I don’t even know my father’s name. I’m not good enough for her. Her parents would probably have me shot if they knew I’d even touched her.”
“Bullshit. You’re one of the top executives at Garrett Resources. You had to have a college degree, right?”
He nodded. “I studied hard and worked my way through school. So what?”
“You were a jet fighter pilot, Derek. That didn’t come easy, either. Far as I’m concerned, Breanna Wingate would be lucky to have you.”
Derek looked at his friend. He and Brandon had only talked a few times, yet Bran had flown all the way to South America to help him.
“Look, Bran, I appreciate your advice, but—”
“You think she loves you? Because she sure sounded like it on TV.”
Derek glanced away. “Everyone would say I married her for her money.”
“So who cares? There are assholes everywhere, Derek. Nothing you can do about that. She said you didn’t even know who she was when they took her off that plane.”
Derek downed the rest of the rum in his glass. “Like I said, she needed help, and there was no one but me.”
“Yeah, well, maybe this time you should help yourself.” Bran rose and set his empty glass on the table. “You can think about it while we’re on our way home. You ready to get the hell out of here?”
Derek pushed up from his chair. “Damn straight. More than ready.” While Bran slid the bottle of rum back into the paper bag and tucked it under his arm, Derek grabbed the few items he’d purchased at the local Sanborns department store, and they headed out the door.
An hour later, he was leaning back in a butter-soft leather seat in the Garrett Resources jet on his way back to Houston.
All the way there, Derek thought about Bree.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I WISH I could stay longer, Mom, but I’ve got so much work to catch up on back home.”
“I know, honey. Maybe we can plan a vacation together this year. We haven’t done that in a while.”
Bree smiled. They were sitting at the big oak table in the breakfast area of her parent’s gigantic kitchen. Huge plate-glass windows looked out at a turbulent sea. “I’d like that.”
Allison Wingate was an older version of Bree, only a little shorter, with the same blond hair and blue eyes. “Anywhere but South America, right?”
An image of Derek popped into her head, and her throat tightened. She remembered the way he had looked at her the last time she had seen him: not the least sign of emotion in his face, nothing that could give her the slightest indication of his feelings. It was as if they had been strangers. Bree turned to stare out the window, afraid her mother would see the tears that sprang in her eyes.
“I can tell what you’re thinking,” her mom said softly. “You’re thinking of Derek again.”
She turned away from the window. “You should have seen him, Mom. Derek was amazing. He took incredible risks to protect me.”
“I know how much he means to you, sweetheart. You need to talk to him, tell him the way you feel.”
“If he loved me, Mom, he wouldn’t have let me go.”
Her mother toyed with the handle on her coffee cup. “Maybe you should consider it from his point of view. No matter whom you marry, people will say he married you for your money. He’d have to put up with that for the rest of his life.”
It was true, but still... “Derek’s strong, Mom. You can’t imagine how strong he is. I think he could handle whatever anyone said. The thing is, Derek comes from a broken home. His childhood was dark and ugly. He doesn’t think you and Dad would ever accept him.”
Her mother sat up a little straighter. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but your father and I talked about this. He knows all about Derek’s past. He had him checked out thoroughly when he found out the name of the man you were with.”
“If he doesn’t think Derek is good enough for me, he’s wrong! I would be lucky to have him.”
Her mother smiled. “Your father admires Derek for the things he’s accomplished. The man dragged himself up by his bootstraps and made himself a success. He’s exactly the kind of man your father and I hoped you would find.”
Bree sighed. “If I told him that, he wouldn’t believe me. Even if he did, the fact is he just might not love me. At least not the same way I love him.”
“Talk to him, sweetheart. Tell him how you feel and ask him how he feels about you.”
Her throat ached. She wanted to believe her mother was right, but deep down she couldn’t convince herself.
“I’ll call him when I get back to Texas.” But she didn’t think it would matter; she didn’t want a man who didn’t love her.
“Don’t just call him,” her mom said. “Talk to him in person.”
She swallowed and nodded. The sad truth was, even if she stood right in front of him, there was no way she could read Derek’s thoughts if he didn’t want her to.
Her father walked into the kitchen just then. She had told her dad about Derek on the jet as they were flying home. He knew she was in love with him. She had asked him not to interfere in any way.
“What is it?” her mother asked, far better at reading a man than Bree was.
“Apparently, there’s some kind of disturbance at the front gate.” The brown eyes behind the glasses fixed on Bree. “The man’s name wasn’t on the visitors list. The guard asked him to leave, but he refused. Turns out his name is Derek Stiles and he’s here to see you.”
Bree’s heart jerked.
Her dad looked at her and smiled. “Shall I let him in?”
Her heart was pounding. She had no idea why Derek was there, but she prayed with everything inside her he had missed her as much as she had missed him.
“Maybe he just came to say goodbye,” she said. “We didn’t get to talk before we left. Maybe he just feels like he needs to clear the air.” Or officially put an end to their brief relationship.
“You won’t know until you talk to him,” her mother said, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “Whatever happens, I’d really like to meet him.”
Bree nodded.
Her dad gave her an encouraging glance. “I’ll tell the guard to let him in. Why don’t you talk to him in the library? It’s nice and quiet in there.”
Bree would rather talk to him in a little coffee shop in town—anyplace but her family’s palatial home. But maybe it was better this way. Better if he saw the world she had been born into, the world she still sometimes lived in.
She waited nervously in the library, a two-story, wood-paneled room lined with acres of books. She had always liked it there, had spent hours sitting on the dark green velvet sofas, curled up with a favorite novel.
She stood up when Derek appeared in the doorway, his wide shoulders nearly filling the opening. He was dressed in a navy blue blazer, tan slacks and a white dress shirt with no tie. His dark brown hair had been neatly trimmed. He looked amazing.
“Hi,” she said dumbly, wishing she could have come up with something clever.
“I needed to see you,” Derek said, looking every bit as nervous as she was. “I wanted to talk to you. I probably should have waited until you got back to Texas, but I’ve already waited too long.”
She just stared, thinking how wonderful he looked, wishing he was holding her the way he had in the jungle. She thought of the way she had felt when he kissed her and wished he would do it again.
“I missed you,” she said, the words just popping out.
“I missed you, too, Bree. So much.”
And then somehow h
e had moved and so had she, and she was crushed against his chest, his arms wrapped tight around her. He looked into her eyes, tipped her chin up and very gently kissed her.
He ran a finger down her cheek. “I know I’m not the guy your dad would have chosen, but I love you. If you love me, too, I promise to do everything in my power to make you happy.”
Her throat closed up. Before she could speak, her father’s voice rang from the doorway.
“You’re exactly the man I would have chosen for my daughter, Derek. You risked your life more than once to protect her, and you never let her down. And I know all about you, son. From the moment the kidnappers mentioned your name, I started digging. I know about your past—which you managed to spectacularly overcome—but also about the things you’ve accomplished. You represent everything I believe a man should be. Now I’ll leave you two alone so you can finish the conversation I so rudely interrupted.” Her dad closed the door.
Still wrapped in Derek’s arms, Bree looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “I love you, Derek. So much.”
“Will you marry me? I know it’s too soon to ask, but whenever you’re ready—”
“I’d love to marry you.” She smiled, her eyes glistening. “Anytime. Anyplace. Whenever you want.”
The sweetest, sexiest grin spread over his face. “I should have come sooner.” And then he kissed her. A deep, timeless, endless kiss that promised everything she had ever dreamed. Both of them were breathing hard when he finally let her go.
“I’ve got a week off, two if I want. I know you probably have a lot of work to catch up on, but we deserve to spend some time together. So what do you think?”
Bree smiled. “You owe me a week in bed. I’m holding you to it.”
Derek laughed, and she could hear the relief in his voice. For once, she knew what he was thinking.
He kissed her very softly. “I almost didn’t come. It took me a while to work up my courage.”
Bree cocked an eyebrow. “So asking me to marry you was harder than fighting a jungle full of terrorists?”
His mouth edged up. “When you put it that way—yeah.”