Crazy Ever After (28 page)
“But...Dad?” She turned her eyes to him. “You were helping the DEA?”
“I was until a couple of weeks ago. My cover got blown. We quickly had to fake my death. I’ve been in hiding ever since.” He turned to glare at Carlos De Faria. “You told me you’d get a message to them. That I was okay.”
Carlos’s eyes shifted. “Er...yes, well, we thought it would be more believable if even your family thought you were dead.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dad looked like was going to explode.
Her chest tight, Samara felt like she couldn’t breathe. “We thought you were dead,” she said again, voice choking. “Mom...oh my damn, Mom’s going to have a fit.”
“I am so sorry, Sam,” her father said, and he opened his arms. Much as she didn’t like to leave the safety and comfort of Travis’s embrace, she quickly looked up at him over her shoulder, and he released her. She took three steps, and then her father’s arms were around her and she was sobbing into his chest.
“Daddy, oh Daddy! I can’t believe this.”
He stroked her back and patted her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry we did that to you. I wanted you to know I was okay. It was just going to be for a couple of weeks. It was the only way. Otherwise I really would be dead.”
She smacked his shoulder. “We had a funeral for you!” Then she sobbed again. “How could you do that to us?”
“Shit. You had a funeral?”
“Yes! A really big funeral!”
“Christ. I’m sorry.” He held her while she cried. Finally she drew back and dragged her palms over wet cheeks. She sucked in a quivery breath. “I guess I should be happy you’re alive, not mad at you, huh?”
He grinned. “I think I’d be pretty pissed off, too, if I were you.”
“Oh, Daddy.”
“In fact, now that you mention it, I am pissed off at you. Both of you.” His frown returned. “What the hell are you two doing here, anyway? Do you know how close you came to blowing the entire operation?”
“Yes,” Carlos De Faria spoke. “We’ve been working years on this.” He too looked at them with his brows tight over his nose. “I tried to warn you at the hotel to leave.”
“Well,” she huffed, “if you’d told me who you were, maybe I would have.”
He sighed. “I couldn’t tell you,” he said with great patience. “I was undercover.”
“Samara doesn’t like it when people tell her what to do,” Travis said.
She rounded on him then softened at the love and affection in his eyes and the smile tipping up his lips. She moved back toward him, still hardly able to believe they were alive and everything was okay.
“We came here to talk to Javier about Paquita,” she told her dad. “I found the information on your laptop, and I wanted to see if I could finish the deal.” Her lower lip pushed out. “Is there really a Paquita bean? Probably not, huh?” Her shoulders slumped. What an idiot she’d been. This had to be the biggest screw-up of her life. Yet another epic fail. She just kept making mistakes.
Travis wrapped an arm around her waist, and she leaned against him with a sigh.
“There really is a Paquita bean,” her dad said. “I have been talking to Javier about it. He can’t produce enough right now to make it economically viable, but if we help with some equipment, we should be able to produce large enough qualities.”
Her heart leaped. “Really? ’Cause I want to taste that coffee! It sounds amazing!”
The men all laughed, and Travis squeezed her tighter. “I love you, Sam.”
“Hey.” Parker stepped toward them, scowling. “What is this?”
* * *
Travis lifted his head and met Parker’s eyes. His stomach clenched. Parker might not be happy, but too damn bad. He was not letting her go now. “Samara and I are in love,” he said, lifting his chin. “I know I made a promise to you a long time ago, but...well, that was a long time ago.”
“Dad. I love him. I’m twenty-four years old. I’ll fall in love with whomever I want.”
Parker’s scowl faded. He studied them. His mouth pursed. “Well.” He looked from Samara to Travis then dropped his gaze to Travis’s arms wrapped protectively around her. “Well.”
Travis resisted the urge to fling himself into the silence with some stupid defensive remark.
“You love her?”
He gave a tight nod. “Yes.”
“You’d damn well better not hurt her.”
“I don’t plan to.”
“Samara?”
“I love him, Dad.”
Parker gave a crooked grin. “I can’t believe this.”
Travis’s mouth dropped open. “You’re okay with it?”
Parker firmed his lips as if to hide his emotion. “I love both of you. You know that.”
“But...that time you...you were furious.”
“She was a teenager!”
Travis nodded again. “I know. But why the hell did you make me promise to never touch her again?”
“Oh Christ. I guess I thought she was going to be seventeen forever. I was having a little trouble accepting my baby growing up, all right? I’d seen the way you looked at her.”
Travis’s insides knotted. “You had?” He’d been kind of afraid of that. He rolled his top lip in and dug his teeth into it.
“It wasn’t hard to miss.” Parker waved a hand. “But she was my baby. Then there was that smuggling accusation...”
“I guess I owe you an apology for that.” Travis’s mouth twisted, and he held Parker’s gaze. “I gather you were working with the DEA back then too.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Parker.”
“I wanted to tell you, Travis. I couldn’t. The only one I told was Dayna.”
“She knew?”
“I had to tell her to save our marriage.” Parker made a face. “Thanks to you for telling her your suspicions.”
Travis winced. “Sorry about that too.”
“She was sworn to secrecy,” Parker added.
Travis felt Samara’s gaze on him, and they exchanged a look.
“I guess I have an apology to make too,” she said reluctantly. “Or maybe a confession.”
They’d both made mistakes, jumped to conclusions, hurt people they cared about. But they’d learned from it, hopefully, and maybe they’d have a chance to make up for it and try again.
“Could we go back to the hotel and talk about this there?” Parker asked. “I’d really love a shot of Lagavulin.”
“I do believe you have a role to play in running the company. When I said those things in that meeting, I meant it. We need you. We need your passion.”
“Thank you,” Samara whispered, her heart feeling full and soft, holding Travis’s gaze. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”
Travis snorted. “In my dreams, maybe.”
“I mean it!” Sitting there in Parker’s office in downtown Portland, she straightened. “I’m ready to part of a team,” she insisted, but then she caught the smile tugging the corners of Travis’s mouth and she relaxed a little. “I am.”
“I know,” Travis said. “Er...Duane Scanlon called me to tell me that he’s on board again with the partnership because of his meeting with you,” Travis added, then frowned. “Although I was pretty pissed when I found out you’d met with him without telling me.”
“Why?” she demanded. “It was fine.”
“You need to think these things through,” he said. “Meeting with him when you barely knew what was going on with the company was risky.”
“It wasn’t risky! I knew what I was talking about!”
They glared at each other then frowns slipped into grins.
“You did good,” Travis admitted.
Travis turned to Parker, who watched them with amusement. “This is going to be entertaining,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“We need her here, Parker.”
“I agree.”
Samara’s heart swelled even more in her chest, and she drew in a long breath through her nose.
“Okay, then we’re all agreed that we’ll redesign my job and Travis’s and we’ll create a new position for Samara here in Portland.”
Samara and Travis stood and walked out of Parker’s office, and Samara cast a regretful look at the huge windows and incredible view; they’d probably stick her in some windowless closet somewhere. Oh well.
They walked into Travis’s office. He closed the door behind him and took her into his arms, smiling down at her.
“So neither of us won.”
She gave him a saucy grin. “Oh, I think we both won.”
His smile widened, and his eyes warmed. “I love you, Samara. I want you in my life. Here at work, but outside work too. Even though I know you’ll probably drive me crazy for the rest of my life.”
She scowled at him, and he laughed.
“I don’t want to rush things, so we can just take our time getting to know each other again...”
“Fighting.”
“Arguing.”
“Spanking.”
“Oooooh.” She kissed his mouth. “You do know what I want.”
The End
Kelly Jamieson recently sold her twenty-first romance novel. Her writing has been described as “emotionally complex”, “sweet and satisfying” and “blisteringly sexy”. If she can stop herself from reading or writing, she loves to cook. She has shelves of cookbooks that she reads at length. She also enjoys gardening in the summer, and in the winter she likes to read gardening magazines and seed catalogues (there might be a theme here...) She also loves shopping, especially for clothes and shoes. She loves hearing from readers, so please visit her website at www.kellyjamieson.com or contact her at [email protected].
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