“Anything you’re going to regret leaving behind with your luggage?” Gus asked. “We can’t exactly go back to the hotel to get it.”
Reese thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “No.”
“Good.”
“But I don’t have my passport. It’s in the little safe in the hotel room,” she said with a frown.
“Tex’ll take care of it.”
“Seriously? He can do that?” Reese asked.
“The man can do just about anything,” Gus said without a hint of concern in his voice.
“What about Woody? And Isabella and Angelo? I’m guessing they don’t have their passports either. Or you and Tiny, for that matter.”
“We have ours,” Gus told her. “I’ve got a secret pocket sewn into the leg of my pants. As does Tiny. We’ve learned it’s better to be prepared for anything.”
“Oh. I wish I’d thought about something like that,” Reese said a little wistfully.
“It’s not an issue.” Then he turned to Isabella. “I’m sorry, but it’s too dangerous to go back to your apartment.”
“I know,” she said sadly. Then shrugged. “But stuff doesn’t matter. My brother and I are safe, that’s the most important thing.”
Gus nodded in agreement.
Reese’s mind was going a million miles an hour. She wasn’t sure how they were all going to get out of the country without passports, but if Gus said his friend would take care of it, she’d believe him. She was just so damn relieved that they’d been able to find Woody, and Isabella and her brother, and that they would hopefully be getting home soon.
As it turned out, they made one stop on the way to the airport, and that was so Tiny could run inside a touristy tchotchke shop to purchase a shirt for Woody that wasn’t covered in blood.
Reese took the opportunity to hug her brother hard. She never wanted to let go, and she got a little emotional when she was finally able to touch him and see for herself that he was all right. The bullet wasn’t imbedded in his shoulder, thank goodness, but he was still bleeding. Like the badass he was, however, Woody insisted he’d be all right until they could get to the US.
When they all got back into the truck, Tiny insisted on driving, which left Gus in the back with Angelo and Woody.
At the airport, Tiny went to an airline counter to speak to a representative. Reese was fully expecting them to be kicked out since they had no tickets, no luggage, and four of them had no passports.
To her utter shock, they were quickly escorted through security to a gate where a plane was already parked and half filled with passengers. They were seated in two rows toward the back of the plane, with Reese in a window seat next to Gus, and Tiny next to him on the aisle. Her brother, Isabella, and Angelo were in the row in front of them.
The teenager had been quiet, not saying much, although he and Isabella had a long conversation in Spanish before going through security. Reese had no idea what it was about, as she didn’t speak Spanish, but it seemed to be pretty intense. Both Isabella and her brother looked scared. Reese figured maybe they were worried about being stopped by airport security.
Woody had looked concerned about them both, but he was also as white as a sheet, so he probably didn’t feel up to pressing Isabella for details.
“I can’t believe we walked into the airport twenty minutes ago and now we’re on a flight to Dallas,” she said.
“Told you Tex was good.”
“You weren’t wrong. Although it’s a good thing we’re not sitting next to strangers because I have to smell awful.”
To her surprise, Gus leaned over, nuzzling the back of her ear with his nose and causing a cascade of tingles throughout her body. He sniffed long and loud before sitting back and smiling. “Nope, you smell fine.”
Reese chuckled. “Right, so says the man who probably smells as bad as me. For the record…I’m not a fan of hot-as-hell jungles with bugs the size of my head who like to suck blood.”
“Noted,” he told her with a small grin. Then his hand rose and he rubbed his thumb over an itchy spot on her neck. “You do have a few bites. I’m sorry we took so long.”
She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t passive-aggressively bitching about the time it took you to infiltrate a house, free not only my brother and his girlfriend, but also her huge brother who looks like he could be thirty instead of eighteen, and get out of there in one piece.”
“Good to know,” he said. “And you should know…” He started, but didn’t finish his thought.
“Yeah?”
Gus sighed. “The tickets Tex bought are all to Santa Fe.”
Reese blinked.
“I guess he assumed you would all be coming to The Refuge. And for the record, I think it’s a good idea. Woody needs some medical attention, and there’s no place in the world better for healing than our mountains. But if you really want to go back to Kansas City, I’ll see about switching your ticket when we get to Dallas.”
Reese wasn’t sure what to say. The part of her who’d had a crush on Gus forever was jumping up and down with excitement, but the practical part was screaming that it was a bad idea to spend more time with this man who, with every passing minute, she was falling for harder and harder.
“What’s Woody doing?” she asked.
“Tiny spoke with him before we boarded, and he has no problem going to New Mexico. It’s probably a good idea for him to lay low for a while, just in case.”
“Wait—what? You think the cartel will come after him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shit.”
“He’ll be safe at The Refuge. As will Isabella and her brother. The cartel doesn’t know anything about Tiny or me, so there will be no way for them to trace anyone to us. They probably do know where Woody lives, and if they decide to come after him, that’ll be the first place they look,” Gus told her.
Reese glanced out the window, deep in thought as the plane headed toward the runway. She felt Gus’s hand on her arm and turned to face him once more.
“I swear you’ll all be safe there. And I did say that I wanted to see where things between us could go when we got back to the States. The way I see it, you can make sure your brother heals properly, he can have some time with Isabella to figure out what their next steps will be, and you and I can get to know each other better.”
“Is there even room for all of us? From what I’ve read online, you guys are always booked up,” she said, stalling as she tried to figure out what she should do.
“You been reading up on us?”
Reese felt her cheeks get hot, and she shrugged. “Well, I told you I’d visited the website. Any self-respecting girl with a crush and mild stalker tendencies would do the same thing.” She did her best to make light of her spontaneous admission, when inside, she was freaking out more than a little bit.
Tiny joined the conversation and said, “Your brother, Isabella, and Angelo can take my cabin. It’s got two rooms. I’m sure I can room with one of the others for a while, they won’t mind.”
“And I’ve got two rooms too,” Gus said before Reese could ask her next question. “You can stay with me.”