I wrapped my legs around his waist. “Mhmm.”
“Hey, you two,” came a groggy voice from the bottom bunk of the bed across the room. Big black raccoon eyes with mascaraed lashes slowly blinked open, while blonde hair that looked like she’d stuck a fork in an electrical socket started to move as Elissa attempted to sit up. “Don’t be having sex while we’re in here, okay?”
Derrick’s body started to shake with laughter on top of mine. And soon I was trembling too. “Okay,” I squeaked.
“LET’S JUST FLY UP,” he said as we made our way to breakfast, choosing to eat at a restaurant outside of the hostel. We’d walked past a cute little kitschy bistro-type place when we were out for our wander the day before. The menu had been interesting, and we wanted to go back and try it.
“Up to Cusco?”
“Yeah. I know we’d both planned on busing up, but after everything that has happened,” he shook his head and clutched his camera bag to his chest like it was an infant he was deathly afraid of dropping. “I’d rather just get my ass to Cusco than sit on a cramped and stinky bus for a day and a night.”
I had to admit it, the idea of simply flying up there sounded awfully appealing. I wasn’t looking forward to an endless bus ride either. I’d done one from Boquete to Panama City, and it’d been bloody awful, cramped and bumpy, with terrible Spanish films playing on the televisions overhead.
I nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
“I’m going to go duck in and check out some new computers,” he said, switching gears and pointing to a shady looking computer store. “Maybe I’ll find mine. The robbers may have pawned the stuff to ditch it quickly.”
My face fell, but he just chuckled and pulled me close, planting an affectionate kiss on my temple. “Come in with me?”
My eyes flew down the road; I knew exactly where we were. I shook my head. “Uh, no…I’m…I’m going to go look for a…for a souvenir shop. Meet you back in here in fifteen?”
His eyes flashed fire for a quick second at my refusal. But then he tossed on a giant, panty-soaking smile and pecked another quick kiss on my temple (this appeared to be his thing).
“Okay,” he said, untangling our fingers and pushing open the door. I grinned at him and turned to go. A woman on a mission. And then I headed off.
I hit the buzzer for the door, and within two seconds it clicked open. Unlike the new hostel we were staying in, where the level of security rivaled Fort Knox, this place would let anyone waltz in, including shady maintenance guys.
There she was, again. Sitting like an idiot behind the desk. I walked up to her. “Do you remember me?” She squinted at me, and then it dawned on her. Her eyes going wide, while her hand jerked and she fumbled with the pen in her hand.
“Uh…Senora…Miss…”
I glared at her. “Have you found out who did it?”
She shook her head and started to stammer. “N-no.”
“Did you have something to do with it? Did you get a cut?” I started wandering around the little lobby, an old worn couch next to a stand of pamphlets, a potted plant sitting on top of her desk, next to a small clay cup of pens and scissors.
She swallowed, then her eyes darted to the boisterous group of young twenty-somethings who came bounding down the stairs. “P-please…” she murmured.
I cocked my head. “Please what?”
She shook her head. “Y-you have money. J-just go.”
What the hell did that mean? I have money? So, because I happen to have more than the average Peruvian, that gives them a right to steal from me? What the fuck?
I turned to the boys who were laughing. “You know this place is dangerous, right?” Four happy smiles vanished. I nodded. “Yeah, we were robbed here yesterday. First, they gave my room away. So, then I agreed to share with someone else. Then the pipes burst in our room. So, when we went out for a bit to let maintenance fix the bathroom, they, or someone else, used bolt cutters on our lock on the valuables cabinet and robbed us. Took my…” I hesitated. “Took my boyfriend’s laptop, his passport. Credit cards, money. My cameras.”
Their eyes went wide.
Gladys shook her head. “No…no…no robado.” What was this woman’s deal? Why was she so reluctant to admit that we’d been robbed? Why was she against having the authorities in the hostel? Something was seriously fishy.
“Yes!” I said with a hiss, spinning back around to face the woman. “Si, robado.” And then something came over me. Like I was suddenly possessed, my inner beast, my inner bitch came raging forward. All the loss I’d suffered and bared throughout the last couple of years came to a head, my arm came out, and I ran it across her desk, sending everything to the floor in a flutter. The clay cup crashing and smashing, sending pens everywhere. Damn, that felt good. I moved on. I flipped over the pamphlet rack, and then grabbed the potted plant and smashed it to the ground. I was on a rampage, determined to destroy, to ruin. To ruin her. Even if she was completely innocent in all of it (which I highly doubted, given her behavior so far), I needed someone to blame.
I continued on my path of destruction. The four backpacking boys just stood there with their mouths hanging open, watching as the crazy blonde chick trashed the hostel lobby.
But then I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Lady,” came a strong accent, maybe German. “I get that you’re mad, and you have every right to be. But she’s calling the cops. You need to go.”
The lightbulb flashed on, and I stopped. My heart was pounding while my chest heaved as if I’d just run a marathon. I was practically foaming at the mouth. I saw that her cell phone was glued to her ear, while her eyes darted around the room.
“Lady…you need to go.”
“Fuck!” And I sprinted.
“Whoa, whoa! Where’s the fire?” Derrick chuckled, after I smacked right into his chest, having bolted from the hostel and directly back to the computer place. He grabbed me by the shoulders, the humor in his eyes disappearing the moment he took in the panic on my face.
I swallowed. “We…we have to go.”
“Why?”
I looked behind me. “I kind of went back to the hostel and trashed the place. She called the cops on me.”
“You did what?”
“J-just the front room. Knocked some stuff over, broke a planter.”
Just then a big thick hand came up under my arm and began ushering the both of us down the sidewalk. I tried to dig in my heels, but the force of the man behind us was just too strong.
“You guys need to change your appearance and keep a low profile,” the gravelly voice whispered.
He turned a corner and then ducked us all into an alley. Only then did he let go of my arm. Derrick wrenched his body away and spun around to confront the man. “Dude…what the…”
“Shhh,” the mountain of muscles warned. We heard footsteps running down the sidewalk. The mountain turned his back to the street and pushed the two of us in front of him. The footsteps drew nearer, and then three police officers ran past.
“Are they looking for us?” Derrick asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Mountain murmured. He peeled off his hat to reveal a completely bald head. “Here, put this on. Can you tuck your hair up?”
I shook my head; my hair was too long. But I put the hat on anyway, pulling my ponytail through the hole in the back. “Why am I doing this?”
“You guys need to keep a low profile,” he said again.
“Why? Because I trashed a hostel lobby?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded like a Harley Davidson coming to life, while eyes as dark as midnight, blue and deep, stared back at me with unwavering focus and sincerity. His head was shiny and bald, but he owned it, and it looked good. Muscles rippled out of his tight black T-shirt, while two-day-old scruff clung to his chin, hiding a faint but long white scar that traveled up the left side of his jaw to his ear.
“What the fuck is going on?” Derrick asked impatiently, his wary eyes and “ready to bolt” stance saying he wasn’t yet entirely con
vinced this guy was here to help us.
Baldy rolled his eyes. “My name is Chase. I’m…” he paused. “I’m one of the good guys, and we’re here on a” — his eyes darted around the alley quickly — “sensitive mission. The hostel is a front for something. We’ve been bugging them for some time, trying to figure it all out.”
Holy shit. “A front for what?” I asked, suddenly happy as a pig in shit that I’d gotten out of there when I had.
He shook his head, big blond caterpillars practically kissing, he furrowed his brows so tight. “I can’t say.” And then it dawned on me. Had they been bugging the place yesterday when we were in the shower?
My cheeks must have gone fifty different shades of pink. “I didn’t listen to that,” he said matter-of-factly, reading my mind. “Besides, you’re not the first two people to get it on in a hostel bedroom.”
My face was on fire.
Derrick shook his head. “I still don’t understand what the hell is going on. Are you a SEAL? Joint Task Force 2? Who are you with?”
“You two need to go back to your hostel and stay there,” Chase said, evading his question. What was Joint Task Force 2?
I shook my head. “Derrick has to go to the embassy today to get a new passport. We were just going to grab breakfast and then head to the embassy.”
Chase’s eyes flew to each of our faces, and then he nodded once. “All right, but let’s get a move on. I’ll come with you.”
We started to move, Derrick managing to keep pace with our new bodyguard, but I was forced to trot at a steady lope to keep up. “So why are we in danger?” I asked, a tad out of breath from how quickly we were traveling through the streets.
“What was on that laptop?” He turned to Derrick but didn’t stop moving.
“Photos and articles,” he said dubiously. “I’m a travel journalist and photographer. I’ve been in Costa Rica and Panama for the last six weeks taking pictures of monkeys and sloths and writing about the nature sanctuaries they live in.”
Chase shot him a side-eye. “That’s it?”
Now it was Derrick’s turn to side-eye. “Yes. Why? You think they thought I had sensitive information on my laptop and that’s why they stole it?”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin, and it made a raspy sound. “Perhaps. I’m not sure yet.”
“What is the hostel a cover for?” I asked again, a painful stitch forming on my side. Luckily, I spotted the white and red symbol of the true North, strong and free, waving just up ahead. I could have cried, it was so beautiful. My flag. My home.
Chase made a low rumbling sound in his throat. “We don’t know yet. But we’re leaning toward money laundering and possibly smuggling of illegal goods. Maybe even human trafficking, or drugs; again, we’re not entirely sure. They’re good at what they’re doing and hiding their operation well.”
We came up to the guard gate in front of the embassy. He walked straight up and started speaking to the woman behind the Plexiglass. We were then asked to present all our identification, only Derrick didn’t have anything besides his international driver’s license, his last emergency credit card, and his travel medical insurance card. Apparently, that was enough, and we were eventually permitted access.
“You weren’t stopped by anyone in Panama and asked to bring anything in your suitcases, were you?” Chase asked after we’d all taken a seat in the unfriendly and very un-Canadian embassy waiting room. Seriously, had the decorator even bothered to Google Canada? Where were the images of lakes and rivers and the ocean? Leaping orcas, sassy beavers, and stoic elk? Instead, there was just an ugly-ass mosaic of random-colored tiles glued to the wall; it looked like something a six-year-old had reluctantly done at summer camp.
Both Derrick and I shook our heads.
“Did you leave your bag unattended for any prolonged period of time? Meet anyone suspicious? Tell them which hostel you were staying at?”
Derrick shook his head again. But my mind was back at my hostel in Panama City. Eduardo was Panamanian, and he’d suggested I go to The Inca Treasure because his brother-in-law owned or ran or managed the place. I couldn’t entirely remember the connection. But I’m not a seasoned traveler, and I took his friendliness as good ol’ hospitality, ignoring every instinct I had that the guy could be shady. I wanted to see the good in people. My job had groomed me to always look for the worst, to find flaws, and now that I’d left that world, I was trying to see the best. But when I thought more about it, I remembered that when I had been waiting for my cab to the airport, I’d needed to run to the washroom, and I’d left my bag in the front lobby under his watchful eye. Had he put something in my bag?
I reiterated all this to Chase, while Derrick’s eyes grew wider and Chase’s brows pinched tighter.
“You have no idea what he could have put in your bag?”
I shook my head, hoping to God it hadn’t been drugs.
“Well, it didn’t trigger the security scanners at the airport, so…”
I swallowed, fear and dread tasting metallic on my tongue. This was not at ALL how this holiday was supposed to go down.
“Or,” Derrick started, giving Chase a sidelong glance before focusing all his attention back on me, “we were robbed simply because we’re white and appeared to have money. No foul play, nothing smuggled.” He rested a hand on Chase’s shoulder, which appeared to make the bald, blue-eyed mountain very uncomfortable. “I know you’re trained in all this subterfuge and spy stuff, but in this case, when we hear hooves we need to think horses and not unicorns.”
Chase made a rude noise in his throat and inconspicuously shrugged off Derrick’s hand. Derrick wrapped the other arm around my waist and pulled me close. I didn’t hesitate, and I slouched into him.
“Well, either way,” Chase said with a surly scowl, his demeanor clearly rattled. I was going to guess he wasn’t used to people challenging him or touching him. “Keep a low profile in Lima, okay? Gladys called the cops, and she scanned your passport when you arrived, remember? They have all your information. And even if you are innocent, guilty of nothing more than breaking a potted plant, the authorities would love nothing more than throwing your white ass in prison to earn some bail money.”
At that moment, I cursed myself for not having gone into international law. So instead I just nodded. Derrick nodded, too, though his was far less emphatic than mine.
That seemed to be enough for Chase at the moment. “Where’s your new hostel?”
“Not far,” Derrick said. “About six blocks.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Derrick rolled his eyes and was about to say something snarky, I’m sure, but just then he was called to order and had to go and plead his case for a new passport.
“Are you two married?” Chase asked, startling me out of my fog. I’d been rehashing what I’d just done at The Inca Treasure, the adrenaline still pumping through my body. It had felt really good to trash the lobby. Cathartic.
“No.” I shook my head. “We, uh…we actually just met in the airport in Panama.”
I thought for sure the caterpillars were going to jump on his forehead and he’d spin around and give me a wide mouth and face painted with judgment. But the man didn’t even flinch.
“In this case, Derrick might be right. It may just be horses. But just be careful, okay? Do you have a phone?”
I shook my head. No, the bastards had stolen that too. Maybe I should go and buy a cheapy phone. At least while we had our bald bodyguard present we could wander around the city with a bit more ease.
He grunted. “’K, we’ll go get you a phone. And then I’ll put my number in it. If you find anything in your backpack, or someone suspicious contacts you, you’re followed or whatnot, you let me know, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
I was busy studying the tile on the floor while Chase seemed completely content just sitting there looking straight ahead. I’m not even sure he was blinking. Was this part of training for whatever organization he
was with? No blinking? I watched him out of the corner of my eye.
“Yes?” he asked slowly.
“Who are you with? Or if you tell me, will you have to kill me?”
He let out an exasperated sigh; his shoulders slumped just a fraction. “Have you heard of SEAL Team 6?”
I nodded.
“I’m not with SEAL Team 6.” He swallowed. “Let’s leave it at that, okay?”
Well, shit! That just prompted about one hundred other questions.
A few minutes later, Derrick re-emerged. “Well, they believe I am who I say I am. But it’ll be a couple of days before I can get a new passport, so I’ve got to stick around Lima for a bit.”
I fell into line with the two men after we’d reclaimed Derrick’s new laptop and Chase’s phone from security, and we made our way back out to the street. Derrick’s fingers linked with mine on instinct. How could it be instinct when we’d only known each other for twenty-four hours? But instinct or not, it felt good, and I held on to him, happy that I didn’t have to travel alone anymore, happy that I had someone to share this with.
Chase flanked me on the other side, and I felt tiny, like a child between two big sexy men. But as handsome as Chase was, as much as he radiated alpha-male waves out to everything with two X chromosomes, making them swoon and cream their jeans, I was more attracted to Derrick. The ball of energy around him wasn’t red like Chase’s, and it didn’t scream alpha to the rooftops. Yet, he was no less dominating, no less confident; it was just a quieter confidence, a more inherent and reserved dominance. People seemed to flock to him, but he didn’t demand their attention they way some alphas do. It just happened organically.
And besides, I was done being with a man whose job was dangerous and could get him killed. I’d lost Ray because his job had been dangerous, going out onto a boat in the middle of the ocean to collect samples. Who would have thought a biologist’s job would be life-threatening? And I’m sure if this Chase guy had a woman, she was saying a prayer or two every night because the man’s job was not safely pushing a pencil behind a desk, it was out in the field running intel on slimy drug dealers and human traffickers. No, Derrick was safe, his job was safe, and he made me feel safe, and that’s exactly what I needed.
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