Page 26 of Her Reluctant Hero
“A hard man. One who sees things in black and white.”
“Are you insulting me?”
“Are you denying that’s what you do? Is she as righteous as you?”
“Rebecca hasn’t seen the bad things in life like I have. She doesn’t believe people are all bad. She can’t really wrap her mind around why jobs like mine exist.”
“She’s your pure, like Hector is mine. You don’t want this part of your life to touch her.”
“Yeah,” he said, surprised by her insight.
“She wouldn’t judge me.”
“Like you said, I wouldn’t let her see that side of my life.”
She flinched at the words, but she didn’t give up. “How did the two of you meet?”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I read romance novels to go to sleep. Do you have a romance novel in your pack?”
“How I met Rebecca is not a romance novel,” he said with a smirk.
“Is it going to have a happily ever after?” she asked.
“Well, yeah, I hope so.”
“Then tell me.”
“All right. It was at the movies. I’d gone with some buddies. She was there, in line in front of me, so pretty. Real old fashioned, you know? Blonde and wholesome. She was even wearing a skirt.” She’d looked like one of those girls out of an old movie, fresh-faced and innocent. She’d been wary of him. His certainty that they belonged together scared her at first. As soon as he knew, he’d backed off, unwilling to risk losing her. His intensity had scared him. He’d never wanted anything as badly as he wanted a future with Rebecca. A nice, normal picket-fence future. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her. So I blew off my buddies and went to some chick flick with her.”
He turned to see Isabella’s reaction but she was asleep, her head back against the seat, her mouth open.
Once she was out, he contacted his team to tell them they would meet back at Tegucigalpa. After he’d made contact, he relaxed. Well, as much as he could with the goddess snuggled against him like he was some goddamn pillow.
For God’s sake, he’d been an asshole to her. Why did she feel comfortable enough with him to curl up practically in his damn lap? Was she just so comfortable with men? He couldn’t imagine her being as unguarded with Saldana and his men, but maybe he was mistaken.
The other thought that worked its way into his brain was that the other men in her life were even worse assholes than he was. He knew that was the sympathetic side of his brain talking. He couldn’t afford to be sympathetic.
But when he dropped off to sleep, it was Isabella’s laughing brown eyes he dreamed of.
Returning to civilization, even the civilization of the city of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, resulted in culture shock after being in the jungle for weeks. Alex could only imagine what it was like for Isabella after four years. He watched her pressed to the grimy glass of the truck windshield, taking in the sights, barely breathing as her attention darted from one thing to another. She was like a little kid. He swore he heard her whimper when they passed a bookstore.
As Vicente’s son Gerardo made his way through traffic, Isabella kept up a running stream of comments, reading signs aloud, chattering about the people and the cars, making the jungle seem downright quiet.
Gerardo knew the way to the embassy, thank God, and dropped them off in front, by the concrete rows of planters. Isabella hobbled for a moment on her bad feet, and Alex caught her elbow. As he guided her into the building, he wondered if his men had made it back to town.
Together they approached the marine standing at the entrance. Alex could feel Isabella’s tension rising with each step. He couldn’t blame her. Hell, this was a whole new world for her, one she hadn’t been in as an adult. She wouldn’t be pampered.
Within minutes of the marine announcing their arrival, DEA agents had swarmed them like the bugs in the jungle, surrounding Isabella, separating her from him.
“Wait, wait,” Alex called, trying to get to her. She was scared, he could see it in her wide eyes, the way she sought him. Damn, they were treating her like a criminal, patting her down, cuffing her and dumping out her pack.
One of the agents took the pink vibrator and twisted it open violently. Alex recognized the device that she’d slipped in the battery pack—a portable thumb drive.
“This is everything Eric told me to look for on Santiago’s computer,” she said softly.
Alex couldn’t explain why her words kicked him in the chest. She hadn’t told him she had that information. Okay, just because she had the drive didn’t mean she knew what was on it, but that she didn’t trust him enough to tell him she was carrying something so important.
