Chase stepped in front of Alana before the elevator doors slid open.The hotel’s appearance disguised the fact that all was not well in Cabo San Lucas.The paint was fresh and the decorations bright and cheerful.Those things didn’t spell danger to him.The text message on Gina’s phone had.
The elevator was empty.Still, he made Alana wait in the hallway while he checked the interior for any signs of tampering.When he was satisfied it was okay, he allowed Alana to enter the elevator car.
She shook her head.“You’re taking this protection thing seriously, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said.“So, please, set aside your independence for the sake of survival, and let me go first into places.”
“But that would putyouat risk.”
“Better me than you,” Chase said.“Apparently, our Text Dude wants a piece of me.He’s not above using an innocent woman to get what he wants.”
She liked that he wanted to protect her.Alana couldn’t imagine Vance stepping in front of a bullet to save her.He probably would have run the other direction and left her behind.“Back to last night…” Alana changed the subject.“What do you last remember?”
“I was with my friend Trevor.”
“Who hasn’t made an appearance for me to believe you have a friend named Trevor?”Alana pointed out.
Chase frowned.“You know, you’re right.”He pulled out his cellphone and texted his buddy.
Chase: Where are you?
Chase slipped his phone into his pocket and continued.“While I wait for his response, we can continue.As I was saying, I arrived in Cabo on a plane with my friend Trevor yesterday around noon.We went to our separate rooms and agreed to meet for drinks and dinner later that afternoon.”
“Sounds about like what I remember doing,” Alana said.“However, I arrived late yesterday afternoon with Gina.”
“Arriving with your friend, instead of the husband you expected to accompany you on your honeymoon,” he said, raising one dark eyebrow.
Alana nodded.“I consider it a bullet dodged.”
“And I’m a bullet that hit its mark?”
“Something like that.”The corners of her lips twitched, a good indication the woman had a sense of humor.Chase liked that in a person.He’d spent so much of his time with his SEAL team, and, though they participated in serious life-or-death missions, they still managed to laugh and play pranks on each other.
“Continue,” she encouraged.
“Trevor and I had enough time to catch some Zs before we went to dinner, which was just as well, because we’d been up the night before in Coronado at McP’s Irish Pub.Our old SEAL team threw us a going-away party.Trevor, of course, left several months ago, but I had just processed out.”
Alana looked up at him, her eyebrows hiked.“Out of the Navy?You’re not on vacation?”
He nodded.“Out completely.If I were a cat, I used up eight lives on Special Operations missions.I wanted to have a life before I reached my expiration date.”
“And what do you consider life?Marriage, children, a house with a white picket fence?”Alana asked while staring down at her feet.
“I don’t know exactly.I hope I’ll know it when I see it.For the most part, I wanted a life where I wasn’t being shot at, where I could ride horses and smell the pine sap.I kept in touch with Trevor after he left the military.He went to work in Montana for another SEAL buddy of ours from way back.He’s been pulling bodyguard assignments.For the most part, they sounded a lot less stressful or dangerous than the missions we’d spent the better part of almost half our lives conducting.Do you know I’ve never learned to fish?That was one of my goals in coming to Los Cabos.I want to go deep-sea fishing while I’m here.”
“You’ve never fished?Seriously?”Alana shook her head.“Even I’ve learned to fish, but that’s not unusual when you grow up on Maui.”
“Maui?”Chase tilted his head and studied her.“Now, that’s the life.Growing up on Maui had to be amazing.”
Alana nodded.“It was.My father took me fishing on weekends and during the summer until I grew up and moved out of my parents’ house.Lately, I’ve been scuba diving with a friend who happens to be an underwater photographer.She catches fish in pictures instead of on a hook.”Alana smiled, her gaze on the stainless-steel walls of the elevator’s interior.
Chase shook his head.“My father owned his own machine shop.He rarely took off.And when he did, my mother had a list of chores and things to fix.There never seemed to be time to go fishing or camping like other families did.I guess I wanted that.I thought I might get more of the outdoors when I joined the Navy.”He laughed.“I did get a lot more of the outdoors in the sandbox and in jungles.Still, it wasn’t the lazy fishing and fun camping I missed as a kid.”
Alana shook her head.“I can only imagine.It had to be harder, more intense.”
Chase’s chest tightened.“When one of my friends was killed on a mission, it hit too close to home.It could’ve been me.I could’ve died, never having learned to fish.”He grinned as the elevator door opened.“I’ve scheduled a deep-sea fishing trip with Trevor three days from now.”
“You’ll love it.Unlike fishing from the shore with my father, where many times we came up empty, most deep-sea fishing trips guarantee you’ll catch something.”She laughed.“My father rented a boat and took me and my brother fishing off the Maui coast one summer.I caught a small octopus, and my brother caught a six-foot nurse shark.”Her smile continued, even after she stopped talking.The smile softened her features.
