Francisco sighed and asked for her passport.
Euphoric relief surged through her. Trying not to grin like an idiot, she dug it out of her purse and handed it to him. Her rescuer tapped the counter and winked before returning to his seat and picking up his book.
“Miss?” Francisco returned her passport and gestured toward the sitting area. “Your car will depart when the rest of your group arrives.”
“Thank you.” Taking her bag over to the chairs, she sat one seat away from the man who had saved her ass, literally and figuratively, twice in the last few minutes. Why wasn’t her female intuition freaking out about his offer? It wasn’t even an offer or an ask. He demanded Francisco add her to their trip and she didn’t even blink. Not only was her intuition not freaking out, her uterus was basically waving her fallopian tubes back and forth screaming, “Pick me! Pick me!”
“Thank you.” She glanced at him through her eyelashes. “I wasn’t looking forward to trying to find a hotel then coming back here tomorrow to catch the bus.”
He placed a bookmark between the pages of his novel and shut it. “No problem. I guess it’s fortuitous that my friends’ flight was delayed. We were supposed to leave an hour ago.”
His words echoed what he’d said earlier when he’d stopped her from falling. “I guess it was,” she said, smiling.
“I’m Shane.” He held out his hand and she slid hers into it.
“I’m—”
“Ban!” A loud voice boomed behind them and they both turned.
Shane released her hand and stood up, a wide grin splitting his face. A shorter man with close-cut blond hair dropped his bag and threw himself at Shane, who grabbed him in a bear hug. He wrapped his legs around Shane’s waist and slapped his back with both hands.
“Get off me, you weirdo,” Shane said, releasing his friend.
His friend punched him on the shoulder. “You like it weird.”
Another man, slightly taller than Shane, joined them. “Way not to make a scene.”
He and Shane clasped hands and did the bro-hug, back-slapping thing guys do. “Good to see you, Ban.”
“You too, Ghost.”
Kinley stared wide-eyed at the trio. Who were these guys? All three were well muscled. The second guy Shane had called Ghost had his hair shaved so short that he might as well have been bald.
“Let’s get you guys checked in so we can go,” Shane said. He turned and spotted her still sitting in the seats. “Oh. Hey, guys, this is… I didn’t actually catch your name.”
“Kinley,” she said as she stood.
“Kinley,” he repeated. “This is Oakley and Ghost.” He pointed to each of the men. “Guys, this is Kinley. She’s catching a ride with us to Carmelita.”
Oakley took her hand in his. “Trust Ban to find the prettiest girl in a place.”
She glanced between the three. “I thought his name was Shane.”
“It is. We call him Ban because—”
Shane shoved Oakley aside. “That’s a story for another time. You two go check in so we can get to the hotel sometime today and not scare our guest within the first fifteen minutes of meeting her.”
Ghost grunted and approached the counter and a wide-eyed Francisco.
Oakley leaned around Shane. “I’ll tell you the story during the ride,” he said in a stage whisper, then dodged Shane’s half-hearted swing at him as he joined Ghost at the counter.
“Don’t mind them—they’re harmless for the most part,” Shane said.
“Okay…” What had she gotten herself into? The next couple of hours were definitely going to be interesting.
CHAPTER2
Shane shoved Oakley out of the way when he tried to climb into the small van behind Kinley. Oakley might be one of his best friends, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to horn in on the woman Shane had saved from possible disaster. Twice.
