Entangled (Serendipity Adventure Romance Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

away, because first he had to digest that proof. Cara noticed. She cared.
    “Tobin?”
    He was taking too long, but this minute might have to last him a lifetime, so he wanted to drag it out. The scar and the bruise that was still showing a little yellow after six weeks didn’t matter. But it mattered to her, and that sent a flock of butterflies through his stomach.
    “Tobin, what happened?”
    Lying would be easier: he could say he got hit by a surfboard at work. But he’d never lied to Cara and wouldn’t start now.
    “Had a little run-in with the shady side of the law in Belize,” he said and shrugged it off.
    She looked at him with such big eyes, looking uncharacteristically fragile and full of regret.
    “Cara,” he started, but she held up her hand in a stop signal and closed her eyes.
    Okay, not a time to talk. But maybe a time to hold. He stepped over to her and wrapped his arms around her, nowhere near as abruptly as she’d hugged him outside but just as tightly. Listened to each heaving breath and held her and said nothing, because really, what was there to say?
    Other than
I missed you so much
and
take me back
and all the other stuff tough guys weren’t supposed to say if they wanted to keep their pride.
    But he didn’t want his pride. He just wanted her. So he nearly said it.
Cara, I missed you every minute of every day.
    Maybe she knew it was coming because she sniffed and backed away. The only consolation was that she didn’t actually shove him away the way she’d done the last time they parted. Six years ago when he’d come begging to her for a chance to explain.
    A fly buzzed between them, and he waved it away.
    “What’s going on, Cara? What are you doing here?”
    Her hands fluttered in the air until she took a deep breath and started in a quiet voice. “I work for TeleCel.”
    “The cell phone company? I thought you worked for that other one.”
    “TeleCel is a subsidiary, and I got an offer to come down here. To Panama.”
    Made sense; she was fluent in Spanish and a shooting star in her company. He knew, because yeah, he’d pumped his cousin Meredith for any news of Cara he could get. Meredith being friends with Cara’s older sister meant he got news on a regular basis. But he hadn’t heard about Panama.
    “How long have you been here?”
    “Just two months.”
    Two months. About the time he and his brother had been sailing in Belize on the boat they inherited from their grandfather. That was why he hadn’t heard.
    “Wait,” she said abruptly. “How long have you been in Panama?”
    “About three weeks.”
    They stared at each other in silence, and he swore she was thinking the same thought.
If only I’d known…
    Cara gave her head a little shake, and her long black locks rippled against each other. He had to take a deep breath before he could process anything else. Oh, talking. She was talking again.
    “This part of Panama, from here to the Darien Gap, is the last big section of the Americas without cell phone coverage,” she said. “Whoever gets a transmitter up Cerro Atrato first—” she pointed high, indicating some mountain peak “—will have conquered the last big chunk of virgin territory.”
    He glanced out at the simple huts of the village. A woman was beating a woven rug with a stick; a pig rooted near her feet.
    “I don’t get it. It’s not like there are thousands of customers begging for cell phone coverage here.”
    She shook her head. “It would be a marketing coup more than a financial gain. TeleCel wants that. They need it. So they sent me here to get the chief to sign a deal. Just to helicopter in one little satellite dish. Nothing else. No chopping rain forest down, no intrusion. Just one transmitter.”
    “And what? These people are so pissed at the cell phone industry that they’re holding you hostage?”
    “No, they seemed okay with the deal. I’m sure it has to do with DigiOne.”
    “Digi who?”
    “DigiOne, the only other major telecom