CHAPTER 8
December 26
Cara walked with Tyler to the garage after the family’s toast, feeling positively giddy, her step light, a smile hovering around her lips, her eyes shining with hope once again. This was the Cara before the kidnapping, Tyler realized. They sat down at the two stools at the woodworking counter and she gave him a searching look.
“Are you all right, Tyler. You look . . . well . . . worried.”
He shrugged. “It depends. Look,” he began quietly, holding her gaze, “Wyatt is my boss at Artemis. In that phone call earlier, he said that my mission as a PSD for you was now finished.”
Cara stiffened, her eyes widening. “What does that mean?”
Hearing the sudden drop, the terror in her voice, he winced inwardly. “It means that a Delos jet is going to land at Davis-Monthan at ten a.m. tomorrow morning and fly me back to Virginia.” He wasn’t going to string Cara along or try to soften the blow. It was like taking off a Band-Aid—better to rip it off quickly than slowly.
“Oh, no . . .” she cried, staring at him. “Why so soon?”
His heart sank. If Tyler ever had any doubts that they shared something good between them, it was proven by her reaction. “They need me, Cara. Everyone at Artemis is a specialist of some sort. When a mission comes up where someone with my skills is needed, if I’m available, I’m the one that goes.”
Her hand pressed to her lips. “You have to go on another mission right after you leave us? Where? Will it be dangerous?”
Tyler slid off the stool took the steps to where she sat, placing his hands gently on her shoulders. He could feel the tension in them beneath her sweater. It was the anguish in her voice that tore through him. “I don’t know. Wyatt is the head of Mission Planning. He chooses the people he feels will be best suited for something, and it sounded like he needed me right away. He wouldn’t have chosen me if I were still your PSD, Cara. I’d have stayed here, guarding you instead. But with Azarola out of the picture, you’re safe now.”
“I see . . . yes, you’re right,” she agreed, placing her hand on his chest.
He smoothed the sweater along her shoulders, wanting desperately to hold her, kiss her, and love the hell out of her until she fainted with pleasure. “I’ll be fine, Cara. Most missions aren’t dangerous, so I don’t want you to worry. Okay?”
Where there had been such joy in them seconds ago, her sable eyes with gold dappling had turned dark brown, telling him just how much the news was affecting her. She was now fighting back tears, trying to be brave.
He felt her hand like a hot brand rest on his shirt, and he wanted desperately for her to continue to explore him as a man who loved her. But he felt caught in a messy, confusing net of circumstances. “You have your life back now, Cara. You can be like that butterfly pin I gave you. You’re free . . .” he rasped.
“But I don’t want you to go! I know you must, but my heart feels torn in half.” She slipped off the stool with his hands still on her shoulders and moved closer to him, placing her hands on his chest, looking earnestly up into his stormy gaze. “You made me want to live again, Tyler. You moved me out of the past and back into the present. I dream now because of you.” She swallowed, and then boldly added, “I’ve dreamed of us together. Forever.”
“What?” he managed hoarsely. “Do you really mean that, Cara?”
She whispered unsteadily, “I’ve dreamed of us being together ever since I met you, Tyler. Now I can tell you because you’re leaving, but I couldn’t say anything earlier about how I felt because you were here to guard me, not to begin a relationship. So often, I would have moments when I would feel you wanting to tell me something—and you couldn’t. You don’t know how many times I wanted to touch you like this, to talk with you on a personal, intimate level. I thought it was all in my head, Tyler. I couldn’t trust myself because of my symptoms but the more you were with me, the more I realized that what I felt toward you was very, very real. It wasn’t my overactive imagination.”
He stared at her, the softness of her palms against his chest making his skin tighten. His heart was pounding so hard he could barely hear her.
“I’ve wanted you just as much, but I couldn’t go there, Cara. What you felt from me is real.” He caressed her shoulders, seeing hope flare in her eyes. “But we need time to feel our way through everything that’s happened to us. I was drawn to you when Wyatt handed me your photo to discuss the PSD. I thought it was just me. I honestly didn’t come here looking to be drawn to you and I’m sure it was the last thing on your mind, too.”
She reached up, caressing his stubbly cheek. “You may be right, but somewhere along the line, I began to feel differently toward you, Tyler. You have no idea how tough it was not to ask you a hundred personal questions. I wanted to know so much about you, the person, but I was afraid to ask because you’d made it clear from the beginning you were strictly here to protect me.”
He caught her hand, kissing the back of it and then placing it against his heart. But what could he bring to her? He’d already hurt Lisa. He never wanted to hurt Cara like that. And yet, her luminous eyes were shining with love as she held his gaze, melting his heart with his desperate need for her. She made him want things he hadn’t thought he could ever have again.
“You inspire me to dream again, Cara,” he began roughly, moving his hand back and forth across hers. “I’ve been afraid to dream because when I married Lisa, I wanted it all: I wanted her, I wanted to see her pregnant with our child, I wanted to be with her when she gave birth, and I wanted to have a family.”
Cara could see that the man she loved was at war with himself. His sensitive, beautiful mouth was tight, his eyes shining with tears.
“All I wanted was a family, like the loving one I’d come from. I wanted that for us and our unborn children. I thought it would be easy to have one, but the whole relationship became a nightmare instead.”
She stepped forward, resting her brow against his upper chest, closing her eyes, and hearing the hard beating of his heart. As his arm came around her waist, holding her close, she felt him nestle his head beside her own. How long did they stand that way? It seemed forever.
“Sometimes,” she began softly, “the first step is the hardest one to take, Tyler. I learned that when I came home after captivity. Ali, Ram, and my family helped me with that first one. But it was you who helped me take that second, third, and fourth step toward getting better.” She lifted her head away just enough to drown in his turbulent blue eyes. He was so close . . . close enough to kiss. Pushing up on her toes, she brushed the tortured line of his mouth, her kiss slow, filled with invitation and warmth.
A jolt of fire plunged through Tyler as her soft lips touched and then coaxed his to relax. Her breath was moist, a few strands of her black hair tickling his chin. The scent of honey surrounded him, his nostrils flaring, drinking in her womanly fragrance. Never had he expected her to be so bold and kiss him! It took exactly four heartbeats for him to shake off his shock and accept her invitation. He had no right to kiss her. None at all. What could he offer her? Nothing. He didn’t think he could offer Cara what she truly deserved.
Yet, her lips pillowed against his, shy but hungry, and he tasted her for the first time. The Madeira wine was sweet upon them, and he groaned as she pressed her hips against his, letting him know just what was at stake between them. Yes, she was committed to him, and wanted a serious relationship.
His mind liquefied and he couldn’t think coherently. All he could do was feel his lower body explode with raw animal need of this tender, beautiful, trusting woman. Her mouth opened and he took her more surely, reining in his primal desire to consume her in every possible way. Knowing how to love a woman and make her soar beneath him, he ached to do that right now with Cara. He was getting lost in the texture and shape of her mouth, feeling her smile against his. Yes, this was right, and his erection was powerful as his body recognized the truth of their connection. He knew that Cara would feel it straining against his jeans, no matter how he tried to hide it.
He glided against her lips, opening them, tasting her more deeply, and allowing her to let him know just how far she wanted him to go. When her tongue shyly touched his, he growled, that old, familiar sexual hunger rising swiftly, nearly overtaking his need to be slow and responsive to Cara. She wasn’t a neophyte. She knew what she wanted—and she knew what he wanted.
Unwillingly, Tyler pulled away from her lips, tasting Cara, never wanting to forget this moment with her. As he opened his eyes, he saw her long, black lashes lying against her golden skin, her cheeks rosy, flushed with excitement—with need. As her lashes lifted, he saw her cinnamon-colored eyes dappled with gold in their depths. He was mesmerized by her beauty, the silence winding around them, embracing them as they stood in one another’s arms.
“I know you have to go, mi amado. My beloved.” She touched his cheek, holding his gaze. “We will find a way, even though there will be so much distance between us. I don’t want you leaving without knowing that you hold my heart in your hands, Tyler. I have never been attracted to a man as I am to you. This is real. It’s wonderful and it’s frightening because I don’t know what’s going to happen when you leave us tomorrow.”
“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met,” he managed, his voice strangled sounding. “You’re not afraid to step into a relationship with me, Cara, and that blows my mind.”
She managed a small smile. “Why would I be afraid?”
“My past,” he said heavily, moving his fingers through her silky hair. “I’m not a good bet, Cara. I’ve already proven that by losing Lisa and my marriage. He peered intently down at her. “And you’re still willing to risk your heart with me knowing that? I’m not in a safe job. I know how much you worry, sweetheart.” He moved his hand across her hair, his gaze coming back to hers. “This is serious, Cara.”
“No one lives on an island,” she whispered, pushing a few strands of his dark hair off his furrowed brow. “You’ve learned from your past, Tyler. We all have. I trust you, and I’m not afraid to let you hold my heart.”
He groaned and eased her away from him just a few inches. “I don’t lead a normal life, Cara. I never know when I’ll be home or somewhere overseas. You’re the kind of woman who, when she gives a man her heart, does it forever.”
“Do you want it to work?” she demanded pertly, giving him a searching look.
He liked this strong, feminine side of Cara. She wasn’t afraid to do a full frontal, calling him out. Making him responsible for what he said and testing if he really meant it. “I’d like nothing more in this world than for it to work out between us, Cara.” He slid his hands slowly up and down her upper arms, watching that fiery glint come to her eyes. He wondered just how much of Cara he had yet to meet, once hidden by her trauma. She was hardly a wilting lily in this heated moment between them. She knew what she wanted: him.
His ego gloried in her bold desire for him and her willingness to come forward and claim him as her own. But the wounded part of him shrank in terror of being hurt once more. Had his job situation changed enough? He no longer had anxiety, allowing him to be open once more. Could he give marriage a hundred percent this time? The desire to teach her so much about her lovely body and gift her with his experience flowed powerfully through him. It was a part of love, a wonderful part. How badly he wanted to cave in to Cara’s pleading words and her logic.
“Then,” she said throatily, “let’s stay in touch after you leave, okay? I’m not giving up on you, Tyler. And don’t you dare give up on me!”
Managing a shadow of a grin, he slid his fingers through her hair. “I want to stay in touch with you.” Forever. But he couldn’t voice the words, as much as he wanted to. Seeing her expression lighten, filling with hope, and her innocent trust filling him as well, he rasped, “I don’t know where this will go, Cara.”
“I do, and I want us to have the courage to find out. Together.”
They both realized that their original situation had changed one-hundred-eighty degrees. Now, he was the wounded one, the person who lacked courage to try because his fear was holding him back.
“Then continue to be courageous for both of us,” he coaxed, tenderly grazing her cheek. “I know many things about us would have to meet your expectations, and I don’t want to disappoint you.”
Fondly, he looked around the garage. “This is your home. You were born here and you want to stay close to your parents here in Tucson. That will never change, and your love of your kindergarten children fills your heart with a joy that few people ever experience. I wouldn’t want to take any of that away from you. These things are a part of your foundation, who you are. They can’t be moved away from, minimized, traded, or told to go away.”
Her eyes sparkled, an impish glint in them. She tapped his chest smartly. “Then, Mr. Hutton, you’d better think outside the box and figure something out. Come home to me, mi amado. I will be waiting here for as long as I draw a breath on this earth—waiting for you. You cannot allow fear to keep your heart hidden from me anymore.”
*
February 14
Every fiber within Tyler was screaming for him to hurry up, to press down on the accelerator of the rental car he was driving on I-10 west. In the seat next to him was a huge bouquet of pink roses and a second one of red roses. Beside the bouquets were two large, heart-shaped boxes of the best Belgian chocolates he could find when he’d finished his assignment there. In his pocket was a bright-red velvet box with a set of wedding rings, created and designed by his father, for Cara.
She and her family knew none of this was speeding towards her.
As he drove through the dusk, the sky opened up with horizontal stripes of pink, gold, and red, great colors for this special, loving day. His heart was bursting with unexpected news that he knew would rock Cara’s world and his own. How badly he wanted to see her! Just that one precious kiss had fed him in ways he’d never realized until he left on a European assignment to Brussels. It was nearly five p.m. and the winter sky was beautiful in the Sonoran Desert—a helluva lot better than the ice, snow, and cold of Europe and the rest of America. Living out here had its undeniable perks.
Cara knew he was coming to see her. He wouldn’t just drop back into her life after being gone for nearly two months without some kind of warning. His hands opened and closed around the steering wheel as he tried to tamp down his own excitement at seeing her in person once more. As soon as he’d arrived in Alexandria, Virginia, Ram and Ali had picked him up and whisked off to Artemis for a late evening mission meeting. There, Wyatt Lockwood and his team had laid out his new assignment: helping the Belgian government hunt down and find terrorists. He spoke enough French, the language most often used in that part of Belgium, and could eavesdrop on conversations. He would be working with Belgian officials as they tried to destroy terrorist cells they knew were hiding in Brussels. They needed a combat medic to accompany their teams as they explored these areas. With the types of weapons that the terrorists used, victims would bleed out before they could reach a hospital.
Artemis provided topnotch combat medics, placing one in each of the teams. It was a good idea, which Tyler endorsed. Luckily, in the six-week mission, his team had no casualties. Cara and her family could know nothing of the mission.
Now, the mission was over. What would Cara think about his news? It was life changing, and he knew Mary and Diego would be shocked. For once, it was good news, and he was the messenger being sent by Artemis to give it to them.
Tonight should be a happy night for all of them. The only fly in the ointment was Cara’s possible reaction to his proposal of marriage. In rare Skype calls to one another, neither of them had referred to their having fallen in love with one another. Tonight he planned to do exactly that. But he would have to get Cara alone to find out what she wanted with this long-distance relationship of theirs. Would she say yes?
Leaving the freeway, he drove down another avenue going south. In a few minutes, he would arrive at the Montero home. Missing Cara so much, he’d come to realize in their separation that she fulfilled him in ways that Lisa never had. The women had very different personalities, and Cara fed his soul, while Lisa had warmed his heart. Cara was everything he’d dreamed of having. But he could lose her if he didn’t begin sharing his true feelings with her. He was still a work-in-progress on that front!
But now he was determined to do it. The drive to settle down, to have a family, had become a compulsion. Maybe it was his age and maturity, or wanting this dream he’d had as a kid actually come true. He’d find out in a few minutes.
In the glow of the brilliant red, pink, and gold sunset, Tyler saw all three members of the Montero family standing out on the porch, waiting impatiently for him to arrive. He grinned, feeling a lot of his tension dissolving. As he turned into the garage area, the flash of headlights showed Mary in a bright-red skirt that fell to her ankles and her favorite white, long-sleeved blouse with ruffles at the throat. Diego was dressed as usual in a pair of clean jeans, a chambray shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and wearing the same pair of beat-up cowboy boots.
Cara stood out, wearing a soft, clingy pink dress with a v-shaped neck to show off her slenderness. The dress fell to her knees and she was wearing white sandals on her feet. Her black hair was drawn up on her head, several silver combs keeping it in place. She looked so excited—but so was he.
Turning off the engine, he climbed out. He’d worn a dark-blue sports coat over a white shirt, with tan chinos. Tyler had thought about wearing a tie, too, but he knew the Monteros were a laid-back family who didn’t judge people on what they did or did not wear. So he’d left the tie on the front seat beneath the gifts he’d brought.
Waving to them, he walked around the car, opened the passenger-side door, and gathered up everything. He’d gotten two bouquets: one for Mary and the other for Cara. Balancing everything, he pushed the door shut with the toe of his shoe.
“Tyler!”
Cara came running around the end of the car, her smile welcoming and huge.
“Hey,” he called, smiling at her as he halted. He saw she had pinned the butterfly brooch on the left side of her dress. That was reassuring!
She laughed as she halted, eyeing his arms full of flowers and boxes of candy. “You came prepared for Valentine’s Day, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “Flowers and candy for you and your mom. I figured I’d give Diego the chocolates.” He saw her expression grow tender as she came forward, placing her hand on his upper arm. She leaned forward, brushing his recently shaven cheek with a kiss.
“All I want,” she whispered, “is to be with you sometime tonight when we can talk.” She straightened. “Mama and Papa can hardly wait to see you. Mama made a Valentine’s Day cake and Papa has the vanilla ice cream ready for it. I hope you’re a little hungry?” she asked, slipping her arm into his.
Tyler wasn’t going to settle for a quick peck on the cheek. As she came beside him, he leaned over, capturing her smiling lips.
They halted near the car, the flowers squeezed between them as he hungrily kissed her. Even better, Cara’s lips were just as warm and sweet as he remembered. As they eased apart, he said, “Let’s make a date to meet in the garage later. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said breathlessly, walking with him around the car and heading for the porch where her parents stood waiting for them.
Mary was stunned by his gift of red roses, all two dozen of them. He knew in Mexico and other Latin countries that a kiss on each cheek was welcomed. This time, Mary kissed him a third time, a sign that he was more than just a friend, and it made him feel wanted. He moved to Diego and shook the man’s strong, sunburned hand.
“Are you giving me the chocolates?” he teased, taking them with a nod of thanks.
“I didn’t think you’d want to eat the flowers,” Tyler joked, grinning.
Diego laughed deeply. “Sí, you are right about that!”
Tyler turned to Cara. “These are for you. I know your favorite color is pink,” he said, slipping the two dozen roses wrapped in gold foil with a red ribbon, into her arms.
Cara leaned over, inhaling the roses’ rich aroma. She made a humming sound in her throat. “They smell so good, Tyler. Thank you!”
If her parents were as surprised as he was that she came and kissed him full on the mouth, they didn’t seem shocked at all. Instead, as Tyler finished the quick kiss, he saw them nod and give one another knowing looks. “How about if I hold on to the chocolates for you until we get inside?”
“As long as you don’t start eating them without me,” Cara laughed.
Diego opened the door, ushering them into the brightly lit house. He went directly to the kitchen, bringing down two large glass vases. Tyler put the candies on the table.
“You are staying with us, aren’t you?” Cara asked.
“Absolutely.”
“For how long?”
He saw the concern in her expression. Touching a long, slightly curled strand of her black hair near her temple, he said, “I’ll tell you more about that after we sit down at the table, okay?”
“Sure. I’m going to help Mama and Papa serve the cake and ice cream.”
“Can I help?”
“You can pour the fresh coffee,” she said, pointing to the four yellow mugs sitting next to the percolator.
Tyler liked helping, and the kitchen was large enough for four people to comfortably do their thing. Soon, the pink frosted Valentine’s Day cake had been expertly cut and placed on the dessert plates. He helped Mary bring them to the table after taking steaming mugs of coffee to the table earlier.
As they all settled at the table, bowls of vanilla ice cream next to the white cake with pink frosting, Tyler knew it was time.
“I have a lot of news that I want to share with you,” he told them. “I hope you’re ready for some earthquake surprises.”