As much as he liked the sound of Alana referring to them aswe,he still had no intention of bringing her with him to La Casa Loca that night.
Chase let Alana slide her key card over the door lock but set her to the side and entered first.
“Hey, it’s my room,” Alana groused.
Chase paused with his hand on the doorknob.“How often have you breached a room that could be filled with hostiles?”
“Every time I walked into my father’s office,” she muttered.
“Did he shoot at you?”Chase asked.
“Not with bullets.”She rolled her eyes.“Okay.You’ve proven your point.You can clear the room before I enter.”
Chase gave her a curt nod and entered the suite, moving quickly and quietly from room to room until he was certain it was enemy-free.
Alana entered.“I’m going to freshen up and then order something for us to eat through room service.”
While Alana was in the bathroom, Chase placed a call to his new boss in Montana.
On the first ring, Hank answered, “Patterson speaking,”
“Hank, Chase Flannigan here,” he said.
“Chase.Good to hear from you.But I thought you were on vacation.You shouldn’t be calling me until you get back.”He paused for a second.“You’re not in Montana, are you?”
“No, sir,” Chase said.“I’m in Mexico, and I’ve run into a bit of a challenge I was hoping you might be willing to give me some advice on or help with.”
“Shoot,” Hank said, his tone as authoritative as any SEAL commander Chase had served under.
He had just finished explaining the situation to Hank when he heard the water shut off in the bathroom.“Any help or advice you can give me is welcome,” he ended.
Hank whistled.“Cartels are a bad deal.Let me put a few heads together on this, and I’ll get back to you.”
“Thank you, sir.Again, any advice would be helpful.”
“You’ll hear from me in less than an hour,” Hank promised and hung up.
“Who was that?”Alana walked out of the bedroom into the sitting area.“I hope it was room service.I’m starving.”
“Sorry, it wasn’t.”He lifted the house phone to call room service.“Pizza or sandwiches all right?”
She nodded.“Either sounds great.But if it’s pizza, make it pepperoni.I really like pepperoni, but I rarely get to choose what I like.”
He smiled.“A woman after my own heart.”Chase ordered a pepperoni pizza with double pepperoni.When he set the phone down, he studied Alana.“Why don’t you get to choose what you like on your pizza?”
She drew in a breath and let it out.“My father gets heartburn with pepperoni, and my ex-fiancé wouldn’t eat pizza unless it was some fancy kind with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach.All I ever wanted was a fast-food-chain pizza with pepperoni.”
“Why didn’t you ask for what you wanted?”
“I was always overruled by dominating men.When I was a teen, I’d sneak out of the house and use my father’s sports car to pick up my favorite pizza, take it to a park and eat half of it by myself.The other half, I’d hide in my backpack and carry up to my room to eat later.”
“As an adult, you couldn’t get what you wanted?”
She shrugged.“Not when I was with either of them.”
He frowned.“You do like pepperoni, right?You’re not just settling on it because I like it, are you?”
She smiled.“Not at all.It’s my favorite.And if you recall, I chose pepperoni before you said what you liked.How would I know whether or not it’s your favorite?”
