CHAPTER 7
December 25
Cara could hardly wait to sit down next to Tyler on the couch. Christmas morning meant rich Mexican coffee, a hearty breakfast, and then everyone gathering in the living room in front of the tree, where her parents would hand out the gifts. They’d had delicious coffee, huevos rancheros, and now they were ready for the distribution of the gifts. This year, there was a gift from Ali and Ram beneath the tree, too. They promised that next year, they would be home for Christmas.
At least she had Tyler with her. He was dressed in a cream, long-sleeved polo shirt, the sleeves pushed up to just below his elbows. His masculinity was always center stage, although he never seemed to realize or take advantage of it.
He was the polar opposite of Colin, who strutted around as if being male was a badge of honor, always bragging about what he’d done to make himself stand out and attract women. She was now appreciating men who were comfortable in their skin and with themselves, such as Ram and Tyler—so different from braggarts like Colin.
Cara was given five gifts, and the last one was a small box with a bright gold ribbon wrapped around it. As she took it from her father, she saw on the tag that it was from Tyler. She turned, smiling over at him. “What did you get me?”
He laughed. “Like I’m going to tell you. Remember, I’m black ops?”
She moved her hands around the small, silver foil-wrapped box. “No hints?” She gave him her best pleading look, watching his face grow tender.
“No. A surprise is a surprise. I hope you like it.”
“I’m well past surprises, believe me,” she quipped, referring to her kidnapping. She saw him give her a sympathetic look as Diego brought over his third gift.
“This is a good surprise,” he promised her.
Diego carried a huge package over to Tyler. “Hey I didn’t expect anything,” he told him shyly.
“You should know better,” Diego said with a grin. “And I see you’ve given each of us a gift, and you didn’t have to do that, either.”
“You should know better than that,” Tyler shot back, laughing with Diego.
Mary sat down in her chair and Diego took his seat, facing the couch where they sat. “I think it’s time we open our gifts!” he said to everyone.
Cara knew it would be no surprise that she had knitted her mother and father a gift. Knitting had kept her sane through the worst of her trauma as she sat in her bedroom, rocking in the rocking chair because it, too, soothed her anxiety.
For the next few minutes, she watched her parents open her gifts to them, delight shining on their faces. Her mother’s favorite color was red. No surprise there. Her mama was a fiery, passionate personality, just like Ali. Mary loved the red cape that Cara had knitted for her. It would keep her warm during the winter months in the Sonoran Desert. Her father was very pleased to see another long-sleeved, dark-brown cable-knit sweater he could wear in the winter while working in the pecan orchard.
“Aren’t you going to open yours?” Tyler suggested to Cara.
“You haven’t opened any of yours, Señor Hutton.”
Chuckling, he said, “Okay, I want to open the biggest one and that’s from you.”
Cara held her breath, hoping that he would like the gift. As he pulled the dark, navy-blue sweater out of the box, she saw him smile. “Do you like it?”
“It’s perfect,” he said, holding it up, placing it against his torso, making sure it fit and the sleeves were long enough. “I like that it’s simple and one color. In my line of work, we can’t wear bright colors or stand out in any way. We have to blend in.” He folded the sweater, placing it in his lap. “Thank you, Cara. You didn’t have to do this for me, but I’m glad you did.”
She wanted to reach out and touch his cheek as she had in the classroom, but something stopped her. Ever since she’d hugged him, it felt as if he was retreating from her. Now she realized it had been the wrong thing to do. “I watched what you wore when you first got here. Your clothes were all dark, conservative, single colors. I didn’t know you couldn’t wear brighter colors, but that makes sense to me now.”
“Is this machine washable and dryer safe?’
“Sure is,” she said, drowning in his blue gaze, wanting desperately to kiss him just once. But this wasn’t the time or place. If ever. Picking up the small package, she daintily unknotted the bow and slipped the ribbon away from it. Feeling Tyler’s gaze on her, she concentrated on removing the silver foil wrapping from around it. She could feel tension rising in him and didn’t know why. Maybe he was worried she wouldn’t like his gift? Giving him a nervous smile, she said, “I just never expected a gift from you.”
“I wanted to give you something that would make you feel good about yourself.”
“Hmmm,” she teased, placing the wrapping aside, “that sounds mysterious. Now you’ve made me curious.” She pried open the blue velvet jewelry box. Her eyes widened as she peered down at the small brooch and a gasp broke from her lips. Then, she turned her head and met his gaze.
“Tyler! This is beautiful,” she sighed, stroking the jewelry, awed by the pin’s delicate beauty.
“You like it?”
“Of course! I love butterflies! How did you know?”
“You have a bunch of them up on the wall of your bedroom.”
She gave him a sour look. “Your black-ops side again noting little details.”
Giving her a nervous smile, he nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.” He leaned closer to her, pointing to the gold butterfly that had two filigree wings. “My dad is not only a gem miner, he’s also a gemologist and jeweler. He makes my mother gifts like this. These aren’t cut glass faceted in the wings of the butterfly, Cara. They are pink, blue, yellow, and green sapphires that he found in the earth, from his mine.”
She gasped. “No! Are you serious?” She gulped, realizing this was not a piece of cosmetic jewelry.
“That’s eighteen-karat gold from Alaska. For years, my dad was a gold miner before settling down and marrying my mother. He struck it pretty rich up in the Klondike area. He had the gold he panned melted into bars. In the winter, he makes molds and then melts the gold and pours it into them, finishing them off with gemstones he’s found at his mine and then sets them into the jewelry.”
She stared at the fine, detailed butterfly. It was about the size of quarter with a pin in the back and a gold bail at the top of it for a necklace if she preferred. “Oh, dear . . . I thought . . . well, this has to be very expensive, Tyler.” She gave him a helpless look.
“I called my dad two weeks ago. I remembered he’d created this brooch a few years ago. He liked it so much that he didn’t want to sell it, because all his jewelry goes faster than he can create it. He held on to it. The last time I was home from deployment, he gave it to me. He said this was a special piece and felt I should have it.”
“What a wonderful story behind this amazing piece,” she said, gently touching the shining, glittering stones. There must have been thirty small, faceted sapphires of different colors in the piece. “But why give it to me, Tyler? Didn’t your dad give it to you for a special occasion or something?”
He smiled. “Maybe later, when we’re alone I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”
“I love stories.”
“I know you do. Your kids love when you read from a book to them because you make the characters come so alive.”
Feeling heat rising in her cheeks, she picked up the box and stood. Taking the butterfly out of the box, she said, “Would you pin this on my collar?”
Mary and Diego came over to look at the brooch. They praised it, too. Diego beamed at Tyler.
“That is a priceless gift,” Mary said to both of them.
“His father made it,” Cara explained.
“It glints the colors of the rainbow,” Mary said, nodding, giving Tyler a pleased look.
“I think it is one of my dad’s favorite pieces,” Tyler told them, taking the brooch from Cara’s fingers and carefully pinning it on the lapel of her soft, white angora sweater. “What do you think, Cara?”
“I’m going to go look in the mirror,” she said, smiling, touching it.
Tyler watched her turn away and walk down the hall to the bathroom.
Diego clapped Tyler on the shoulder. “We approve, mi amigo! Cara will adore that until her last breath. She has no expensive jewelry, so you will always be special to her.”
Cara came back, a smile wreathing her lips. “This is incredibly beautiful, Tyler! Please, thank your dad for me? I will treasure this for the rest of my life! I would love to write him a letter and tell him how much I love his work and artistry.”
Diego and Mary smiled at one another, retreated to their chairs, and sat down.
“Thank you,” Cara whispered, drowning in the blue of Tyler’s eyes. She touched the brooch once more. “Promise me you will tell me about this butterfly?”
He remained serious. “Yes, I promise.”
*
December 26
Cara found Tyler out in the garage at ten a.m. He was cleaning up an area where her father had been doing some sanding work on a piece of furniture. Her heart warmed as she watched him sweeping and using a dustpan to carry the curled wood chips to the garbage can kept in one corner. He looked up and smiled.
“What are you doing out here? I thought you were going to go over your lesson plans for January?”
She hungrily absorbed him in a pair of well-worn jeans and a black t-shirt that showed off his powerful physique. Tyler wasn’t heavily muscled, reminding her more of a tight spring that when jolted into action made him a lethal bodyguard. “Oh, I was taking a break from it. I was just wondering where you had gone. Mama’s in the kitchen whipping up some apple pies and Papa took off for the pecan farm. They had an emergency out there. One of the main water pipes blew and they asked him to come in to oversee the repair of it.”
“Your dad shouldn’t have to be doing that the day after Christmas,” Tyler muttered. “He works out there ten hours a day, five days a week. They could call a pump company and have them do it without demanding that he be there, too.” He clipped the broom handle back on the sidewall and placed the dustpan next to it. Rubbing his hands down his jeans, he walked toward the stool where Cara sat, she had pulled one out for him as well. He was pleased to see that she was wearing the butterfly brooch on her dark-blue knit sweater, which, of course, she had made.
“Papa is always afraid of being fired,” she confided. “That’s why he comes when they tell him to do it. He isn’t paid for the extra time he spends there, either. It’s wrong. They think they can take advantage of Hispanic people, just as they have for nearly a century in the fields of the US.”
He pulled the second stool closer to Cara, sitting down and facing her, about four feet between them. “It isn’t fair and never has been.” He saw the turbulence in her eyes. They always turned a darker brown when she was upset about something. And when she was happy they were a cinnamon-gold color. “So? What’s up? You look like you’ve got something to say.”
“Am I that obvious, Tyler? Really?” she sighed, shaking her head. “I guess I can’t hide anything from you.”
“We’re taught to read people as a matter of course. It just makes you look that much more beautiful to me. There’s everything right about showing how you are feeling, Cara. Don’t ever lose that part of you, because people can trust you. What they see is what they get.”
She pushed the light-blue wool fabric of her trousers down across her thighs, a nervous gesture on her part. “Yesterday, after you gave me this incredible gift,” she said, touching the butterfly, “you said we could talk more about why your dad had given it to you.”
Now it was his turn to frown. “Oh.” The word came out flat, but there were a lot of feelings hidden behind it. He raised his eyes to hers. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“I was married at one time to a lady named Lisa when I was twenty,” he began in a low tone. “Looking back on it I wasn’t ready to be married or knew what being married meant. I was cocky, full of myself, a risk taker, and thought I was impervious to combat and what it took out of you over time. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t have married her.” He slowly moved his palms down his thighs. “As it was, my PTSD accumulated over the years. I couldn’t communicate with her when I’d come off a deployment. We got into a lot of verbal fights and they were all my fault, not hers. She was trying to get me to open up, to understand my pain, but I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how, but that’s not an excuse. She sent me divorce papers when I was twenty-six and over in Afghanistan. I signed them.” His hands came to rest and he looked away, unable to stand the sympathy in Cara’s eyes. “I truly loved her and I knew this disaster was all on me. I signed the papers because she deserved to be free of me. She deserved happiness . . .”
“I’m so sorry, Tyler. Both of you were in great pain with one another. Ali has talked to me enough about her PTSD and how it has harmed the relationships she’s had off and on through the years. She refused to date military guys, just civilians, but she said those men didn’t have a clue who she was, the pressures on her, or understand the dangerous world she worked within. It wasn’t a fit and it didn’t work for her until she and Ram finally settled the bad blood between them.” She tilted her head, searching his sad gaze. “Do you think a civilian can marry a military person and make it work?”
“I do, but as I learned with Lisa, it takes a helluva lot of work, of constant inter-communications. I wouldn’t open up and she wasn’t a mind reader. The two never mixed, like oil and water.”
“So it’s about the man not speaking up? Letting his wife know how he really feels?”
“Yeah, something like that. But another part of it, Cara, is that no civilian can possibly understand what has happened to us in the military and especially not in combat situations. Not one of them can imagine it, even though they try. If I did this all over again, with hindsight being twenty-twenty, I would have put off marriage until after I left the SEALs. So many SEAL marriages got destroyed. It’s a sad situation. Poor Lisa was just another casualty.”
“But so were you,” she said softly.
“I think Life 101 teaches us things that should be pretty common sense, but that only happens after you’re ready to climb out of your twenties and get into your thirties. By that time, you’ve made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot more—and you can make far more mature decisions.”
“Ali and Ram are both near thirty.”
“Yes, and I think the way they see each other now has changed their minds from what they thought of each other before. I think that relationship is going to continue to grow into something solid down the line. At least, I hope it does, because they’re both good people.”
Opening her hands, she asked, “When you gifted me with this butterfly that your father had made, you said there was a story behind it?”
His mouth tightening, he began, “I was a year out of my divorce from Lisa and came home to my parents’ place in Montana after deployment because I had no home to come back to stateside. I was pretty depressed. My parents were married in their late twenties and are still in love to this day.
Seeing them still so happy, I broke down and asked my dad what I did wrong in losing the marriage and Lisa. He smiled and went over to one of his cabinets where he kept the best jewelry he’d made. Telling me to hold out my hand, he placed that butterfly brooch in my palm. I sat there feeling so damned defeated. I’ve excelled at everything I’ve ever done, Cara. I’d always been a winner. But the divorce found me unprepared. I had no training, no experience of how to deal with the emotions that were continually boiling up in me, and I felt like a loser.”
Tyler shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “I asked Dad what he was doing because I knew how much he prized that piece of jewelry. He said that when you love a woman she is your best friend, your lover, and the mother of your children. He tapped the butterfly and told me that a woman is like a butterfly. You had to respect her, treat her as an equal, or she would fly away from the man who wanted to control her. Most of all, he told me that while women wanted our physical strength and good looks, what they really wanted was us to give them our hearts.”
He shook his head, “I asked him what that meant—I hadn’t a clue what he was getting at. He said that you could not bully, manipulate, push, or lie to a woman. That love between two people consisted of equality and mutual respect. A woman was the butterfly of a man’s world as he saw and understood it. I knew how much he loved this brooch and I tried to give it back to him, telling him that I got the message, that I didn’t need the brooch. He has large hands, Cara, much larger than mine. He cupped my hand, telling me that I should keep this for a woman who was everything to me that he’d shared earlier. I was to give it to her because in time, he said, ‘You’ll be more mature and you’ll understand what I’ve just shared with you’.” Tyler forced himself to look up at Cara, her eyes glistening with a sheen of tears. Her hands were clasped between her breasts where her heart lay.
Just then, his cell phone rang.
*
Mentally cursing, Tyler answered the phone. “Hutton,” he snapped. Dammit, he’d just unveiled his heart to Cara and now this! It couldn’t have been worse timing. Glancing over at her, he saw her sniffling and fighting her tears, her face soft and sculptured by light and dark, her long black hair slightly curled, framing her oval face.
“Tyler, it’s Wyatt Lockwood. Sorry to bother you, but we just received news that the Mexican Marines stormed Emilio Azarola’s villa—yes, the same people who kidnapped Cara.”
Shock bolted through him. “There was an ongoing mission? You knew about this?”
“Sure did, son. It was top secret because our Mexican Marine friends asked that it be so, and we agreed. Captain Gomez of the Marines teamed up with an Artemis op to create a joint, long-term mission to hunt the sick bastard down and capture him. Only, when they stormed the villa, Azarola was killed along with twenty of his men. No one was left alive in that snake pit. The Marines blew up the villa, brought in bulldozers and leveled the area. It was a warning to other drug kingpins in the state of Sonora that the Marines were coming for them, too.”
Tyler glanced over to see a sudden worried look on Cara’s face. “Can I tell her and her family what happened?”
“Absolutely. They deserve to have closure on this, too. And of course, that means your gig as a PSD for her is over. There will be a Delos jet at Davis-Monthan at 1000 tomorrow morning to pick you up. I think Cara will like the good news. Ali has been worried that Azarola and his men would drive into Tucson and kidnap her once more. Now, everyone can rest easy. None of Azarola’s men are alive. No one is going to kidnap her, so you tell her she’s safe now, okay?”
Tyler’s throat tightened as he held her gaze. There was tension in her expression, her full lips now thinned. “Yes, I’ll let her and her family know.”
“Good enough. We all miss you, so we’re looking forward to having you back in our department.”
Tyler hung up, feeling as if his heart had just fallen out of his body. He knew this day would come, sooner or later, and that was why he’d tried so hard to maintain emotional distance from Cara. He slid the cell phone back into his shirt pocket, meeting her troubled gaze.
“That was Wyatt, from Artemis. He called to tell me to let you and your family know that a Mexican Marines joint task force has just killed Azarola and twenty of his men. They wiped them out.” He saw her eyes snap open, shock hitting her.
“Oh,” she cried out softly, her hand against her throat. “Really? He’s really dead?”
Hearing the relief in her hoarse tone, he gave a bare nod. “It’s over, Cara. You don’t have to go to bed at night thinking that he or his men are going to cross the border and come here to kidnap you again.” He reached out, covering her other hand that was knotted into a fist in her lap. “It’s over, mi corazón.” He knew enough Spanish to say that endearment to her and he meant every word of it. She was his heart. There was such love that came to her eyes when he gruffly spoke those words to her. She turned her hand, her fingers wrapping around his.
“I-I’m in shock, Tyler . . .”
“But at least this time it’s good shock.”
“Do Ali and Ram know about this?”
“Yes. Everyone’s celebrating back at Artemis. This is a day for the good guys and girls. After the Marines took the villa, they removed the bodies, brought in a bulldozer, and plowed that place into the ground. It’s a warning to other drug lords who live in Sonora that the Marines are coming after them, too. It’s the start of a huge multi-country task force effort to eradicate all the other Azarolas.”
She released his hand and stood up, nervously looking toward the closed door that went to the kitchen from the garage. “Can we tell Mama and Papa?”
“Absolutely,” he said, standing. Walking up to her, he gently turned her toward him, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders, drowning in her shining eyes filled with joy. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Cara. It’s as if this chapter in your life is over. Now,” he continued, looking around the quiet, shadowed garage, “you’re starting a new one with new possibilities. Like the butterfly I gave you, it’s a symbol of freedom. In the chrysalis stage, you were imprisoned by Azarola. Now, you’ve cracked the chrysalis, unfolded your beautiful wings and can fly free, living your life just the way you want.”
He could see the shock and growing relief now that her worst fears were gone. But he was going to be gone, too. Very shortly. Not having the stomach to tell her yet, he urged her toward the stairs leading to the kitchen. She flashed him the prettiest smile, her cheeks a bright pink, her steps far more confident than ever before. It was at that moment that Tyler knew he’d fallen in love with her—the deepest, and forever kind.
What the hell had he done? How had it happened? He stuffed his feelings down and focused on Cara’s bubbling cry as she opened the door, running toward her parents in the kitchen. As he stood back, he saw Mary burst into tears over the good news, grabbing her slender daughter. Diego wrapped his arms around both of the women. It was humbling to see that a man could cry right along with his wife and daughter, and Tyler had the ultimate respect for men like Diego because they were so rare.
He, too, knew how to cry, but too often he’d stuff it down instead of allowing tears to fall. That was part of his problem. Right now, there was a lump the size of a walnut in his throat and Tyler felt as if he had to forcefully pull in air and then expel it, or he’d suffocate. The sobs in the kitchen were filled with relief, with celebration, and soon, the three of them were laughing and giggling, arms around one another.
“Come!” Diego urged him. “Come celebrate Cara’s freedom with us!” he said, making a sharp gesture for Tyler to come and share in the happiness with them.
Tyler grinned shyly, hands in his pockets, slowly walking toward these people he had come to love. He drowned in Cara’s eyes as she stepped away, opening her arm, and drawing him beside her. And as she did, Diego’s strong, leather-brown arm curved around his back. On the other side was Mary’s plump arm gripping her husband and Cara. For a moment, there was silence, but it was a silence of relief, as if the four of them were breathing as one, their hearts pounding in unison. He closed his eyes, feeling the fierce love this family shared between them. How he missed being near his own parents, missing that same palpable love that wound through him like soft rain after a thunderstorm, the drops hitting the parched area of his heart that yearned for exactly this: being wanted, being loved, being held, and being with a loving family.
As Diego patted the center of his back, he guided Tyler’s head against all of their bowed heads. He whispered a prayer to the Lady of Guadalupe, Mother Mary, his voice choked, tears rolling unashamedly down his lean, sun-darkened cheeks, his other arm drawing his wife and daughter as close as possible.
Tyler heard Mary speaking in Pascua Yaqui, her voice husky with tears. He didn’t know what she said, but whatever it was, it was passionate, fierce, and deeply grateful.
Cara whispered brokenly, heads bowed against one another, “Oh, Lady, thank you for taking care of all of us! We humbly thank you from the bottom of all our hearts for looking over us. Please bless Tyler, who is your warrior guardian caring for all of us . . .”
Her trembling voice broke something so old and so deep within him that it sounded, literally, like glass being shattered. Hot tears were rolling out from beneath his tightly shut lids, his arms around them, holding on to them, feeling their hearts beating wildly with such jubilation that he’d never felt so thankful as at this moment. They had all made him a part of their family and he’d be forever grateful for their open arms, welcoming him into their lives.
Finally, Mary broke them apart, telling them to go to the table, that they would pour a bit of their beloved Madeira wine that they drank only on very, very special occasions, to celebrate the good news. Tyler tried to offer his help, but Mary shook her finger in his face.
“Go! Be with my daughter where you belong! She needs you now more than ever.”
The words pulverized him and he turned, feeling a heavy weight settle on his yearning heart. God, he didn’t want to tell them right now that he had to leave tomorrow. Not now. This family had been through months of unending hell, unrelenting fear and anxiety. He sat down next to Cara, with Diego at one end of the table. Both were glowing with joy.
Mary brought over four small, beautiful hand-cut crystal goblets. She set them down in front of Diego and then handed him the cherished bottle of Madeira. Diego nodded his thanks, opened the bottle, and carefully poured the amber liquid into each one. Mary sat down at his left, across the table from himself and Cara. Both women were still wiping their damp cheeks dry, but their eyes sparkled like stars glimmering in the darkness of the desert night sky.
Diego handed the first glass to his wife, holding her gaze, love clearly being communicated between them. Next, he handed one to his daughter, a catch in his voice as he choked out, “Mi hermosa hija, to my beautiful daughter.”
Next, he handed one to Tyler. “You have become like a son to us, mi amigo.”
More of that old, hard, dark substance within Tyler shattered. He held Diego’s glistening eyes, beyond ecstatic that his daughter was no longer the target of a dreaded drug lord.
Diego picked up his glass and held it up. “I toast our Lady of Guadalupe. We thank her for our daughter’s life and an end to our family’s nightmare.”
Tyler took a sip of the sweet aperitif wine, silently agreeing with Diego’s low, emotional words.
How was he going to tell them he was leaving? It was no accident Diego called him “a son to us.” And out in the garage, he hadn’t helped matters at all. He’d called Cara “my heart,” and he meant those branding words with his soul. He could tell his roughly spoken endearment wasn’t lost on her, either. He’d seen the desire leap to her eyes, the love in them when he’d said it—the feeling was mutual.
He loved Cara, and he knew Diego and Mary loved him and felt they both saw him as a decent man to become Cara’s husband. He had grown fond of them. They were good people who worked hard and tried their best. Cara and Ali were a reflection of them, both stellar human beings in his book.
He had to talk with Cara privately, knowing this was a blow she did not see coming. His whole life had taken on a rainbow of happiness just from being around Cara. Her family was perfect. Love was everywhere. So now, what?