else in life, importance can be relative.”
Behind them, the deejay was calling for everyone’s attention since the bride and groom were preparing to cut their wedding cake. “I need to get back there. Before someone comes looking for me.”
He slowly released her wrist. She stopped herself from rubbing the tingling that remained there just in time.
The man was entirely too observant. Which was, undoubtedly, one of the qualities that made him such an excellent agent. But the last thing she wanted him to know was that he had any kind of affect on her.
They were occasionally connected business associates and that was all. If the guy knew she’d been infatuated with him for years—well, she simply didn’t want him knowing. Period. Maybe the knowledge would make a difference to him, and maybe it wouldn’t. But she didn’t intend to find out.
Playing immune to him was already hard enough.
She couldn’t imagine how hard it would be if she spent any real time with the man.
He gave that small smile of his that had her wondering if mind reading was among his bag of tricks. “See you next time, babe.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the partygoers. “Drink some champagne for me.”
She glanced back, too. Leandra and Evan were standing in front of the enormous, tiered wedding cake. “I can probably get you a glass without anyone noticing. Cake, too.”
She looked back when he didn’t answer.
The only thing she saw was the dark, tall form of him disappearing into the cold night.
Chapter One
May
“I still think you’re insane.”
Since Angeline had last seen Brody Paine almost six months ago, he’d grown a scruffy brown beard that didn’t quite mask the smile he gave at her pronouncement.
His sandy-brown hair hung thick and long around his ears, clearly in desperate need of a cut, and along with that beard, he looked vaguely piratical.
“Seems like you’re always telling me that, babe.”
Angeline lifted her eyebrows pointedly. They were sitting in a Jeep that was currently stuck lug nut deep in Venezuelan mud. “Take a clue from the theme,” she suggested, raising her voice to be heard above the pounding rain.
As usual, he seemed to pay no heed of her opinion. Instead, he peered through the rain-washed windshield, drumming his thumb on the steering wheel. The vehicle itself looked as if it had been around about a half century.
It no longer possessed such luxuries as doors, and the wind that had been carrying sheets of rain for each of the three days since Angeline had arrived in Venezuela kept up its momentum, throwing a stinging spray across her and Brody.
The enormous weather system that was supposed to have veered away from land and calmly die out over the middle of the ocean hadn’t behaved that way at all. Instead, it had squatted over them like some tormenting toad, bringing with it this incessant rain and wind. May might be too early for a hurricane, but Mother Nature didn’t seem to care much for the official calendar.
She huddled deeper in the seat. The hood of her khaki-colored rain poncho hid most of her head, but she still felt soaked from head to toe.
That’s what she got for racing away from the camp in Puerto Grande the way she had. If she’d stopped to think longer, she might have at least brought along some warmer clothes to wear beneath the rain poncho.
Instead, she’d given All-Med’s team leader, Dr. Miguel Chavez, a hasty excuse that a friend in Caracas had an emergency, and off she’d gone with Brody in this miserable excuse of a vehicle. She knew they wouldn’t expect her back anytime soon. In good weather, Caracas was a day away.
“The convent where the kids were left is up this road,” he said, still drumming. If he was as uncomfortable with the conditions as she, he hid it well. “There’s no other access to St. Agnes’s. Unless a person was airlifted in. And that ain’t gonna happen in this weather.” His head bounced a few times, as if he were mentally agreeing with whatever other insane thoughts were bouncing around inside.
She angled her legs in the hard, ripped seat, turning her back against the driving rain. “If we walked, we could make it back to the camp at Puerto Grande before dark.” Though dark was a subjective term, considering the oppressive clouds that hung over their heads.
Since she’d turned twenty, she’d visited Venezuela with All-Med five times, but this was the worst weather she’d ever encountered.
“Only way we’re going is forward, sweetie.” He sighed loud enough to be heard above the rain that was pounding on the roof of the vehicle. His jeans and rain poncho were caked with mud from his repeated attempts to dislodge the Jeep.
“But the convent is still miles away.” They were much closer to the camp where she’d been stationed. “We could get some help from the team tomorrow. Work the Jeep free of the mud. They wouldn’t have to know that we were trying to get up to St. Agnes instead of to Caracas.”
“Can’t afford to waste that much time.”
She huffed out a breath and stared at the man. He truly gave new meaning to the word stubborn.
She angled her back even farther against the blowing wind. Her knees brushed against the gearshift, and when she tried to avoid that, they brushed against his thigh.
If that fact was even noticeable to him, he gave no indication whatsoever. So she left her knee right where it was, since the contact provided a nice little bit of warmth to her otherwise shivering body.
Shivers caused by cold and an uncomfortable suspicion she’d had since he unexpectedly appeared in Puerto Grande.
“What’s the rush?” she asked. “You told me we were merely picking up the Stanley kids from the convent for their parents.”
“We are.”
Her lips tightened. “Brody—”
“I told you to call me Hewitt, remember?”
There was nothing particularly wrong with the name, but he definitely didn’t seem a “Hewitt” type to her. Brody was energy itself all contained within long legs, long hands and a hard body. If she had to be stuck in the mud at the base of a mountain in a foreign country, she supposed Brody was about the best companion she could have. She wouldn’t go so far as to call the man safe, but she did believe he was capably creative when the situation called for it.
“Fine, Hewitt,” she returned, “so what’s the rush? The children have been at the convent for nearly two months. What’s one more night?” He’d already filled her in on the details of how Hewitt Stanley—the real Hewitt Stanley—and his wife, Sophia, had tucked their two children in the small, exceedingly reclusive convent while they trekked deep into the most unreachable portions of Venezuela to further their latest pharmaceutical quest.
Brody had, supposedly, enlisted Angeline’s help because he claimed he couldn’t manage retrieving both kids on his own.
“The Santina Group kidnapped Hewitt and Sophia two days ago.”
“Excuse me?”
Despite the rough beard, his profile as he peered through the deluged windshield could have been chiseled from the mountains around them. “Do you ever wonder about the messages you’re asked to dispatch?”
“No.”
“Never.” He gave her another one of those mind reader looks.
Sometimes, honesty was a darned nuisance.
“Yes. Of course I am curious sometimes,” she admitted. “But I don’t make any attempt to satisfy that curiosity. That’s not my role. I’m just the messenger. And what does that have to do