He wasn’t just being nice.

  Nothing was faked.

  He wasn’t here because he felt sorry for me.

  The playfulness and lightheartedness that Torie had said that Chase had lost was in full view.

  He laughed.

  He smiled.

  He genuinely enjoyed my company just as I enjoyed his.

  I sensed that he was happier, just like I was.

  Did he go a little crazy on the gift giving?

  Yes.

  But Chase being Chase, I had a feeling that even that made him happy, so I didn’t get on his case about it as much anymore.

  Maybe it was pathetic, but this friendship meant more to me than any romantic relationship I’d ever had. No one had really cared enough about me to do something like this for me since my mother had died, and for that reason, his effort to make me happy meant more to me than he’d ever know or realize.

  “You still miss her?” Chase asked in a husky voice. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for the funeral, Vanna. I would have been if I’d known. I was in a location that didn’t have a lot of outside contact with the world. By the time I found out from Torie, it was over.”

  I nodded. “It’s been a full decade and I still miss her every single day. I don’t think that will ever go away. She was my whole family. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was starting my first broadcasting job at the time, I probably would have been with her. Most of her work took place in the research center, but it was always an adventure when she had to go out to a location. I almost always went with her if I could.”

  “She was an amazing woman,” Chase said earnestly. “You’re a lot like her, you know.”

  “I’ll definitely take that as a compliment,” I answered. “I see quite a bit of your father in you, too. He was a pilot and loved to fly.”

  “He did,” Chase confirmed. “Torie wasn’t really interested in learning, but Wyatt and I both had our pilot’s license the minute we were legal to fly solo. This was Dad’s cabin before I inherited it. I have a lot of good memories here. It was our favorite getaway with our father when Wyatt and I could get leave at the same time. We’d do some fishing and drink more than a few beers while we were here. It was one of the ways I stayed grounded.”

  “I didn’t know this cabin belonged to your father,” I mused. “How often do you get up here?”

  I felt him shrug as he replied, “This is the first time since he died. For a while, it was too painful to think about being here without him. I’ve considered coming up a time or two in the last few years, but I just never got the time. Until recently, Wyatt and I were in Paris more than we were in San Diego. Having our main headquarters back in the States means we don’t have to travel nearly as often anymore.”

  My heart ached for Chase’s loss. “I’m sorry. I know how close all of you were, and how much you must miss him.”

  “It gets easier with time, but as you already know from losing your mom, missing a parent never quite goes away. I probably never appreciated just how good I had it until I lost both of mine,” he said, his tone full of regret.

  “How does it feel to be back here again?” I questioned softly, wondering if it was painful to be here for him now.

  I knew from experience how hard it was to let go of the pain of missing someone you loved. After all, it had taken me nearly a decade to sell my childhood home.

  “It’s good,” Chase said. “I can remember the happy memories without them being painful anymore. Honestly, I think that’s why I thought about Christmas here. When we were younger, the whole family spent Christmas here a few times.”

  “It’s a pretty magical place,” I said wistfully. “I just wish Santa hadn’t been so generous.”

  “The gifts were nothing, Vanna. Trinkets and useful things. It’s not like Santa brought you a new home or a new vehicle.”

  I tilted my chin to send him a warning glance. “He’d better not. And it’s not just the gifts themselves, it’s the thoughtfulness of this entire experience, Chase. Like I said, I haven’t really stopped to enjoy a Christmas tree or a holiday meal in years.”

  Honestly, the price of the gifts was nothing to a guy who had the kind of money that Chase had.

  The sentiment was a different thing altogether.

  “No intimate Christmas in the mountains with Bradley?” Chase asked roughly.

  I snickered. “Oh, God, no. We were both on location that year.”

  “I’m sure Torie invited you to our Christmases,” Chase considered. “The three of us have had very few holidays when we weren’t in the same place for the holidays, even if we had to fly somewhere to be together.”

  “Every year,” I assured him. “But I was always out of the country. I think I lost track of how important it was to be with the person who was the most important to me for the holidays. Torie is the sister I never had. Now, I regret missing those holiday celebrations with her. Tossing a gift in the mail isn’t quite the same thing as spending time together. I guess I didn’t know how blessed I was to have her until I almost lost her.”

  “You were there when she really needed you, Vanna,” Chase reminded me. “Knowing how career driven you’ve been, I can’t even imagine how difficult it was to put your own career on hold after her kidnapping.”

  I shook my head. “It wasn’t, really. There was absolutely no question of where I wanted to be when it happened. She’s been there for me, too, Chase.”

  He chuckled. “She wasn’t happy when I told her that I was going to be your advisor, and that you’d be staying with me. The only reason she didn’t give me too much grief about it was because she lives so close. She was terrified when you went missing, Vanna. The sisterly feelings go both ways. She would have been on the rescue if she’d thought she could wheedle her way onto my jet.”

  I smiled because that sounded exactly like my best friend. “I’m sure she would have. I’m grateful that we’re close enough that she noticed I wasn’t sticking to my schedule. If not for her and Last Hope, I don’t think I would have made it out of that jungle alive.”

  “I’m not going to lie,” Chase replied gutturally. “I’m sure you wouldn’t have. You were already pretty septic, and the systemic infection was the most challenging part of your recovery.”

  I nodded. “I don’t remember much about those first few days in the hospital. I just recall you being there every time I woke up scared. Did you get any sleep?”

  “Enough,” he said, blowing off my concern for him. “I’ve never really required a ton of sleep, and I learned in the military to grab an hour or two when and where I could.”

  “Do you ever miss your life in the military?” I asked curiously.

  “Sometimes,” he said candidly. “There’s a comradery there that I don’t think you’ll ever find in another line of work. And there’s rarely a dull moment. Our ops had to be planned down to the second, and there was no room for error, so the shelf life in special forces out in the field isn’t generally a long one. But while I was doing it, I felt like I was part of a team doing something important. It’s hard to lose that sense of having a higher purpose like that, and that instinct to save the world is hard to shake off when you become a civilian again. I guess that’s why we all appreciate being involved in Last Hope. We’re big and spread out now, but that comradery is still there, and it gives us a chance to do what we can to help.”

  “I know most of your military operations were shrouded in secrecy. You probably can’t say much about them specifically, but were they really timed down to the second?” I asked inquisitively. “The investigative journalist in me has to ask.”

  “Most of them were top secret in the 160th SOAR,” he revealed. “We coordinated with and flew other special forces units like Delta Force and Navy SEALS to locations for specific objectives. Night Stalkers specialize in flying in the dark. And yes, my curious little friend, timing was everything. I never missed a target time, plus or minus thirty seconds. That was always our goal, no matter what kind of operation we were running.”

  I winced. “That’s pretty brutal.”

  “When lives depend on not missing a time window, you get it done,” he answered with a note of amusement in his voice. “We weren’t known as the best of the best helicopter pilots in the military for nothing.”

  I smirked at his cockiness, but I supposed when someone was challenged with missions that difficult, brash confidence was probably necessary.

  “So taking over Durand with Wyatt was a huge career change,” I pondered.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “But business offers a different kind of challenge. There’s a certain satisfaction in a deal well made, or releasing a new product that you know is the best quality on the market.”

  “Many of which were given to Santa to put under that tree,” I teased.

  “Of course. He knows quality when he sees it.”

  I burst out laughing because I couldn’t hold it back. “You’re obnoxious when it comes to Durand products and their quality.”

  “We have to be,” he confirmed without a trace of arrogance. “Durand lines wouldn’t be half so sought after if we weren’t offering a product that will last a lifetime. Enough about me. Tell me what life is like as an investigative journalist.”

  I took a deep breath, but I didn’t answer immediately.

  Since Chase had always made it a point to be honest with me, I wanted to do the same thing.

  Chase

  “Vanna?” I prompted when she didn’t answer. “Is this something you don’t want to talk about?”

  Hell, I would have nixed that question if I thought it might upset her.

  She shook her head slightly before she said, “It’s not that. I’m just trying to figure out exactly how to answer. It’s not exactly the career I envisioned when I got out of college.”

  “What did you want to do?”

  She took a deep breath before she answered, “I thought I was going to do groundbreaking investigations and write pieces that would earn me a Pulitzer someday. But there wasn’t a lot of demand for a journalist with no real writing experience. So I took a job at a small cable news station in San Diego, hoping I could get some experience under my belt and some name recognition. For some reason, I’ve been there ever since. Deadline America got more and more popular, and it just hasn’t made sense to stop doing it. My pay slowly increased until I was making decent money, too.”

  “But?”

  I could hear the hesitation in her tone.

  She lifted her head to look at me, and my gut wrenched at the melancholy expression in her gorgeous eyes.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she said softly. “I owe a lot to Deadline America. I was able to do some stories that were really important, even if I couldn’t tell them exactly like I wanted. I have a producer, a director, and a lot of other people to answer to about my content. There’s usually a limit on just how gritty things can be on television, and there’s added sensationalism sometimes when I just want to write…”

  “The facts?” I finished.

  “Exactly,” she said with a sad smile. “Even if those details are gritty and a little too much for television. I think that may be part of the reason why I’m burned out. I know what’s real, but I don’t always have an outlet to tell the ugly truth. I am doing stories worth telling, but sometimes there’s way too much fluff and not enough realism. I’m writing an investigative written piece in addition to my report for Deadline America on the Darien Gap crisis. It’s something I’ve done for a lot of my stories over the years, even if nobody ever reads them. The situation there in the Darien Gap is horrific, Chase. There’s so many children with no place to go and so much suffering that had gone on for them even before arriving in Bajo Chiquito and some of the other reception staging areas.”

  “I’d like to read that article,” I told her honestly. “And you’re right. If you’re a writer, that’s probably the best outlet for you. Especially considering the topics you cover. I’ve marveled over every story you’ve ever told on Deadline America, Vanna, so I can only imagine how incredible those stories would be if you were writing them exactly the way you wanted.”

  “You can’t possibly have seen every single episode,” she scolded.

  “Actually, I have. Even the earliest ones. I’ve also bragged to anyone who will listen about the fact that I’ve known you since you were a kid because I’ve always felt honored to know you. Maybe we haven’t seen each other that much over the years, but I never stopped thinking about you,” I confided.

  Strangely, that was a fact I couldn’t deny.

  Maybe I’d never woken the fuck up enough to admit that I felt more than just friendship for Vanna, but subconsciously, I’d probably always known it. Most likely, I’d stayed in denial because I knew Vanna would always be the unattainable for me. My little sister’s best friend. It had been a hell of a lot easier when I’d simply seen her as a challenging debate partner and a family friend.

  I’d never missed a single episode of Deadline America. If I knew I was going to be away, I’d record it.

  Granted, it was a riveting program, and Vanna was one hell of an investigative journalist, but I knew now that I’d been anal about watching because of…her.

  Because of Savannah.

  “I thought about you, too,” she said hesitantly. “And I worried when you were flying in the military. Torie kept me posted about you and Wyatt.”

  Wyatt? Fuck Wyatt. Yeah, I loved my older brother just as much as Torie did, but I would have much preferred that Vanna was just thinking about…me.

  For some reason, this was one instance when I didn’t really want to be paired with my brother. That made me just the other family friend she was worried about.

  Okay, back to our previous conversation. The last thing I wanted to focus on was what I really wanted from Savannah Anderson. “So why not give up Deadline America and just write freelance about whatever you want?”

  Her eyebrows furrowed as she said contemplatively, “I’m not sure if Deadline America was a blessing or a curse in that respect. My name is definitely known, but I’m not in the upper echelon of serious investigative journalists who win Pulitzers. And I don’t have creative freedom in my job. I write the stories, but they’re torn apart to make them appropriate for television.”

  “Vanna, nothing you’ve ever done is pure fluff. If you wanted to make that transition, I know you could. Your name is respected. Hell, I respect you. It takes some major balls just to be in some of those locations.”

  Isn’t that the truth?

  I’d cringed repeatedly as she’d trudged through some of those deadly geographical hot spots without a thought for her own safety.

  She batted her eyes playfully. “So you weren’t watching just to check out how sexy I was in rubber boots and a sun hat?”

  Shit! It didn’t matter what she was wearing.

  “How do you know I don’t have a thing for women in mud boots?” I asked lightly.

  To be honest, she looked sexy in anything she wore, mud boots included.

  Didn’t matter.

  Makeup or no makeup.

  Filthy dirty or clean.

  Slim or curvy.

  Scars or no scars.

  She was the most desirable female I’d ever met.

  There was no limit to the ways she could get my dick hard.

  Sometimes I wanted to be inside her gorgeous body so badly that I could hardly breathe.

  Mine!

  Savannah was mine.

  She was always supposed to be mine.

  I could feel it with every breath I took, every second I was close to her.

  She was the one who was always missing for me.

  The one I’d been pining for in a crowded room.

  I wanted to claim her elementally like a goddamn caveman and drag her off to my lair.

  It had just taken me too damn long to realize it.

  I tried not to think about what might have happened if I’d wised up years ago…

  “Do you?” she said in breathy whisper that made my cock ache.

  Okay, I’d gotten a little distracted. “Do I what?”

  “Have a thing for women in mud boots?”

  Not really. It was pretty much just…her. “I might,” I answered noncommittally. “Now tell me exactly why you can’t do what you want in your career. I think the risk is probably worth taking. You’re not happy. Not to mention the fact that Deadline America nearly got you killed.”

  “I accept the dangers in every assignment,” she said nonchalantly. “It’s part of the job. You always know something could happen, but honestly, I’ve been in more dangerous places than Bajo Chiquito and everything was fine. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe I’m just afraid that I’ll fail if I try to sell written stories. Not to mention the fact that I make pretty decent money in my current job. I’d be starting all over again, Chase. I’ll have to think about it some more.”

  If money was one of her worries, I could alleviate that in a heartbeat. “What if money wasn’t an issue?” I asked.

  She shot me a small smile. “Money is always an issue for most people, Chase. I don’t have a backup. I have to make a decent living. California isn’t cheap. I could probably hold off on buying a house until I see how things go. I could rent a condo or a small place. I don’t need a lot of space to write.”

  “Or…you could just hang out where you are for as long as it takes to get a new career going. You said it was no hardship to live with me,” I reminded her.

  She let out a stunned laugh. “Oh, my God. I said it’s no hardship for me. I hardly think you want a semi-permanent houseguest, and I’m not exactly broke. Having a live-in female would be really hard on your love life, and Torie is getting a little impatient about nieces and nephews. I think she’s about to give up hope of ever marrying off either of her older brothers.”

  “She’s married. She can have her own kids,” I grumbled. “And I already told you that I’m not seeing anyone.”

  “Things could change,” she answered gently. “You’ve already done more for me than anyone ever has in my entire life, Chase, and I don’t just mean monetarily. Regardless of the circumstances, this has been the happiest week of my life. It’s made me realize just how buried I’ve been into my job, and how much I’ve been missing. I can never thank you enough.”