“. . . and you knew where to buy it, because when you got out of prison, you didn’t just go back to the U.S. and live a nice, safe life, did you? You stayed here in Costa Playa and tried to save - everyone you could.”
Quinn stared up at the ceiling while one hand absently tickled the skin of Tasha’s naked back. “There have been rumors over the years that I might be involved in something like that,” he answered.
Tasha laid her head down on Quinn’s chest and closed her eyes.
Celie was right. People did good things, too. Tasha had just let herself forget that for a while.
“How are we going to get the fugitives to safety with Acosta’s men sniffing around?” she asked.
Quinn’s hand tightened on her lower back. “Well, I did have an idea . . .” he began.
“Oh?”
“But it’s risky,” he cautioned.
“And this wasn’t?” Tasha asked dryly, waving one hand toward the hotel room littered with clothes and smelling of raw sex.
Quinn shot her a wicked grin, then hauled her up so that she was lying sprawled on top of him, her hips cradling his intimately.
“Risky, but fun,” he corrected, running his hands down the length of her spine and making Tasha shiver.
“Tell me your plan before we both get distracted.”
Quinn nudged her thighs open with his knee and Tasha felt his erection rubbing against her. He reached up and caught her face between his hands, his fingers tender as he held her, their gazes locked together as he slowly lowered her mouth to his, stopping when they were only a breath apart.
“Too late,” Quinn whispered.
Then he proceeded to prove just how good distracted could be.
CHAPTER NINE
When the pounding on the door started the next morning, Tasha and Quinn were prepared. Or, rather, Tasha was prepared. Quinn had silently slipped out the sliding glass doors and dropped onto the balcony of the room below, leaving her alone with the dead guy in the bathtub.
Tasha left the bathroom door slightly ajar as she went to answer the summons.
She took a deep breath, mustering the last vestiges of her courage. If Quinn’s plan worked, this would all be over in less than two hours.
She could do this.
“Good morning,” she said, pulling open the door.
Luis Ortega, a commanding man with a lean body and hard,
dark eyes pushed past her into the room. “Who are you?” he asked harshly.
Tasha refused to act intimidated. She held out her right hand. “Tasha O’Shaunessey. Pleased to meet you.”
Ortega scowled at her but didn’t take her hand.
She hurried on, knowing that if he took a closer look into the bathroom, all would be lost. “Jorge’s in the bathtub right now, getting ready for my sister’s wedding this morning. You’re welcome to come if you’d like. Jorge told me that when it’s over, he needed to meet with you. I hope you don’t mind me monopolizing his attention until then.” Tasha clutched her bathrobe closed at the neck and did her best to giggle.
Ortega didn’t look convinced.
Tasha swallowed and crossed her fingers under the lapel of her robe. “I could get him if you want. He said he needed to, uh, relax for a little bit after last night, but maybe he wouldn’t mind being disturbed.” She turned toward the bathroom and pushed the door open an inch.
The sweet smell of a burning cigar wafted out on a cloud of steam. From where she was standing, she could see Acosta’s head resting on a towel at the deep end of the tub. Water flowed from the spigot and Tasha prayed that Ortega would leave before the tub overflowed.
Her eyes widened when Acosta’s head slid down a bit.
Holy crap. He was starting to float.
Tasha giggled nervously and turned to look back at Ortega. “I think he might have fallen asleep,” she whispered.
Ortega’s dark eyes bored into hers.
The silence ticked on.
Tasha’s hand flew to her throat when a bird screeched outside the window. “You have such interesting wildlife here in Costa Playa,” she said.
“Yes, don’t we?” Ortega agreed with a scowl.
She held her breath as he strode toward the bathroom door. Please, don’t let him go in there, she prayed. He paused, pushed the door open another inch.
Then, as if satisfied that his leader was safe in her company, he left her without another word.
Tasha let out a relieved breath and hurried into the bathroom to unplug the bathtub drain before Acosta floated away.
Phase two of Operation Dead Guy was about to begin.
She only hoped her sister wouldn’t mind a few uninvited guests at the wedding . . .
There was no way this plan could possibly work.
Quinn rubbed his aching forehead and squinted against the morning sun’s cheerful glare as he watched one person after another disappear into the trees.
His contact was to meet them at the waterfall in an hour. The fugitives had all bathed and been given clean clothes to wear. Supplies were being hauled to the clearing right now, his employees on the other end fully prepared to make it look as if a real wedding was taking place.
And yet . . .
Quinn could not quite believe that this day would not end in disaster.
“Where’s Tasha?” Celie O’Shaunessey asked, panting a bit under the heavy weight of her fancy wedding dress.
Quinn found it amusing that so many of his clients wanted extreme weddings with all the trappings of a more traditional ceremony. The exotic setting was great . . . as long as there was chilled champagne, elaborate bouquets, and men in tuxes.
“I’m going to get her right now,” Quinn said. He’d just seen Luis Ortega and his henchmen cross the lobby, presumably to get some breakfast while their boss was taking a bath. Now was their chance to get Acosta out of his room and on his way to the clearing.
Once he was there, all they could do was hope that Ortega took the bait. If not . . . Well, Quinn didn’t exactly have a Plan B just yet.
“You and Cal get out to the clearing and take your places. We’ll need to be ready when Acosta’s men arrive.”
Celie nodded and looked around the crowded roof for her fiancé, who had arrived yesterday evening, just after dark. He had accepted the explanation of their current predicament with much more equanimity than Celie had expected. His only comment after hearing the whole story was the somewhat crude, “Your sister gets in more tight spots than Hugh Hefner’s cock.” This had been accompanied by a wry shake of his head, as if to say, yes, he did know what sort of family he was marrying into.
Celie found Cal helping secure equipment to the zip line and relayed that it was their turn to go. They held hands and had just pushed off the landing platform when Quinn hit the hallway outside Acosta’s room.
Warily, he checked to make sure the coast was clear before rapping once, then again on the door. He’d been smart this time and brought a luggage cart so they wouldn’t have to lug Acosta’s dead weight through the hotel. The less time this took, the better.
“Tasha, it’s me,” he whispered.
She yanked open the door almost immediately. “Let’s get out of here. I managed to get his clothes back on him, but it wasn’t easy.”
“I can imagine,” Quinn said, striding toward the bathroom where he found that she had, indeed, managed to get Acosta stuffed back into his uniform. “Grab a blanket, would you? We’re going to need to cover him up.”
Tasha helped him maneuver Acosta onto the luggage cart, then tossed one of the blankets from the bed on top of him. It was only as they pushed him out into the hall that Quinn realized one of Acosta’s booted feet was hanging off the side of the cart.
Which wouldn’t have mattered had Ortega and his men not rounded the corner at that exact moment.
“Shit,” Quinn muttered.
“What do we do now?” Tasha mumbled out of the side of her mouth as the three men marched toward them.
“
Hell if I know,” Quinn answered.
“Keep moving.”
“Yeah. Good plan. Harder to hit a moving target, right?”
Tasha didn’t answer that. Instead, she turned her brightest smile on Acosta’s men. “I’m afraid you just missed Jorge. He’s on his way to the wedding.”
Luis gave her his patented scowl. “What are you doing?”
Tasha glanced down at the lifeless lump on the luggage cart and grimaced. “You guys get 60 Minutes down here, don’t you? You’ve heard how they never wash the blankets in hotels? All those germs from all those guests who’ve come—sometimes quite literally, I’m afraid—before you?” She gave a realistic shudder.
Luis merely continued to scowl, so Tasha continued as if he had encouraged her to do so.
“Well, so after last night and all of our, er, activity, Jorge got out of the bathtub and had a giant rash on his, um, you know, his backside?” She smiled sweetly. “So I asked if someone could please wash the bedding before we, um, used it again. Mr. Hayes volunteered to take care of it because so many other staff members are busy with my sister’s wedding.”
“You know how it is. Everyone has to pitch in around here.” Quinn shrugged and hoped like hell that no one saw the boot sticking out from beneath the covers.
“Fine. Whatever. You, girl, take us to Acosta. Now,” Luis ordered, grabbing Tasha by the arm.
While it was tempting to think about kneeing him in the balls and reintroducing herself properly, Tasha didn’t figure that would be the best course of action. Instead, she kept the phony smile plastered on her face as she turned and walked away from Quinn . . . and the landing pad.
She managed to take them the long way around the hotel, hoping to buy Quinn some time to get Acosta out of the way, before leading them up to the now-empty roof.
“It’s the blue line,” she murmured.
“Get on,” Ortega ordered after one of his men clipped a harness to the cable in front of her.
Tasha did as she was told, grateful that for the next ten minutes at least, she’d have a little peace.
Only, that didn’t happen. Ortega kept close to her, crowding her whenever she tried to slow down. By the time the clearing came into sight, Tasha was ready to scream with frustration.
She didn’t like being bullied.
Which was probably why she’d taken up investigative journalism—to take on the bullies of this world the only way she knew how.
Tasha found herself searching for Quinn’s face in the crowd. Rows of chairs had been set up at the edge of the clearing and the seats were filled with brightly dressed guests, who Tasha knew were actually the fugitives who were running from Acosta’s men.
She had to hand it to Quinn and his staff, they’d worked a miracle on this place. There were flowers everywhere—brilliant corals, pinks, reds, and yellows. A flower-covered trellis had been set up near the trees where the monkeys had been roosting yesterday. Tasha could only hope that they were gone by now. The last thing they needed was another murder-by-monkey.
A long table sat off to the right with a three-tiered wedding cake iced in white and a silver champagne fountain bubbling brightly on the cloth-covered top.
“Amazing,” she whispered, catching Quinn’s eye as her feet touched down on the landing pad.
He stood next to Acosta behind the back row of seats, sunlight glistening off his golden brown hair. She felt an odd tightening in her chest when he smiled at her, and had to force her feet to move as Ortega shoved her out of the way.
Quinn scowled and started toward them, but Tasha shook her head for him to stay where he was. They needed to remain calm if this crazy plan had any hope of working.
Quinn slowly rocked back on his heels. He’d arranged it so that there would be no free seats near him and Acosta—but, as he’d suspected, Ortega was striding toward them, obviously intending to force people to move to accommodate his men. Fortunately, Quinn had anticipated that move.
He nodded to the leader of the band, who nodded back and then began to play the first strains of the Wedding March.
On cue, Celie started up the aisle, her white dress billowing out behind her.
As one, the crowd stood, their low murmurs of approval rippling through the morning air.
Quinn did his best to hide Acosta from view while keeping watch on Ortega. The uniformed men had stopped near an empty smattering of seats nearest the landing pad. He hated leaving Tasha anywhere near Ortega, but there was nothing more he could do. He had to keep them away from Acosta until the time was right.
Quinn kept his gaze focused on the couple beneath the trellis as the ceremony began.
As the faux minister made up some nonsense about the rings representing never-ending circles of love, Quinn wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. The tricky part was coming.
“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride,” his maître d’ said.
“Come on. Hurry it up,” Quinn urged under his breath as the smooching commenced.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ortega and his men stand.
“Throw the bouquet, Celie,” he whispered, as Tasha ducked out from under Ortega’s grasp and raced toward him.
This had to look perfect.
That’s why Quinn hadn’t told Tasha the last part of his plan.
Because if she knew . . . Well, let’s just say she might not be such an eager participant.
For a split second, Quinn let his gaze wander among the scared and hopeful faces of the refugees. Nearly two dozen innocents who had had their lives brutally stolen from them and now—at last—were on the verge of finding freedom.
Would he risk it all to save them as he had a decade ago; this time knowing the price he might have to pay?
That was the problem with being an idealist, he supposed. Sometimes you had to back up those ideals with sacrifices beyond what you thought you could bear.
He pushed his chair back and stood up, searching the crowd for Celie.
“Throw it,” he mouthed when their eyes met.
She reached her arm back and threw the bouquet, the brightly colored flowers flying through the air toward the cliff’s edge.
Quinn slid the gutting knife from his pocket, its wicked blade flashing in the sun.
“What’s th—” Tasha began as she reached his side.
“Trust me?” Quinn interrupted. They had no time for this. Ortega was bearing down on them. He put his blade against the rope holding Acosta upright.
“What? Yes, of course I do.”
“Good, then catch,” he ordered, pushing her toward the bouquet that had begun its downward arch just past the edge of the clearing.
He cut the rope and, with fear for what he was about to do nearly choking the breath from his throat, he stepped back out of the way as Tasha grappled to catch the bouquet. Her fingers closed on the ribbon trailing out behind the flowers and she reeled it in, turning with a smile to show him that she’d caught it—her smile turning to a startled scream as Jorge Acosta toppled against her, his weight pushing her over the edge of the cliff and toward the ground forty feet below.
CHAPTER TEN
“I can’t believe you pushed me off that cliff.”
Tasha indignantly brushed the dirt off the seat of her shorts and shot Quinn a bruised glare from over the top of her wineglass.
Quinn reached out and traced the line of her jaw with his index finger. “I’m sorry, honey. I told you, I had to make it look like Acosta was trying to save you. To look authentic, it had to appear that you believed you really were going over that cliff.”
“Yeah, well, you’re lucky it worked.” Still hurt, Tasha turned away from Quinn’s caress. Indeed, his plan had worked perfectly. Acosta’s men could hardly believe anything was amiss—after all, they had witnessed the accident that killed their boss with their own eyes. An added bonus was that they were too distracted with trying to recover Acosta’s broken and battered body to notice that the wedding party was short two dozen
people by the time they climbed back up the cliff.
The fugitives had been safely handed over to the human resources manager at the Martins’ mine, Acosta’s death had been accurately faked, and Celie and Cal had been married by the maître d’.
Oh, and Tasha had survived her near-fall over the cliff because Quinn—after letting Acosta crash into her—had reached out and caught her.
Or, rather, he’d pulled her out of the way before Acosta’s dead weight could push her over the cliff.
She had never really been in danger.
But, still, it hurt that he hadn’t told her what he had planned to do.
Quinn wrapped his arms around her waist as the band he’d brought out for Celie and Cal’s wedding struck up their rendition of “I Will Always Love You.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, this time without the half-quirked smile that told her he thought she was overreacting. “I know you don’t trust me yet, and I guess I can’t say that I blame you. I was just doing what I thought was best. For you. For me. But mostly for the people who had escaped Acosta’s grasp. As arrogant as it might sound, I felt like I was their last hope. I couldn’t let them down.”
Well. Didn’t that make her feel like a selfish brat? Here she was, annoyed that she’d been scared for half a second, when the whole time he’d been trying to save them all.
Tasha stared at the firm line of Quinn’s jaw.
“Okay. Maybe I’ll get over it,” she mumbled.
Quinn chuckled. “Good. Do you think you’ll forgive me in time for your sister’s wedding? I could really use a date.”
Tasha looked up at him then and smiled. “Yeah, I think I’ll forgive you by then. But don’t ask me to catch any more bouquets.”
“It’s a deal,” Quinn said. And, as the happy laughter and sounds of music seemed to melt away, he added, “Because really, who needs a bouquet when you’ve already made your catch of the day?”
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