His Kind of Trouble by Samantha Hunter Page A

were not terribly adventurous out of the bedroom, and that had always been fine with him. But his mind went back to Logan and Jill, how his friends were both extreme athletes and how that connected them.
    Chance had met women who were adventurers in their own right, and dated a few, but he’d never felt that click until that moment with Ana—who was a chef, not an extreme athlete, but whom he believed would be up to just about anything he suggested. His former enthusiasm about the trip, about being here with Ana, returned as he signed the paperwork to store his plane while he was in Mexico. With that done he left the airport office to find Ana.
    She had been sitting right outside when he’d gone in.
    Now she was gone.
    Spying the woman’s bathroom across the way, he went over and stood outside, catching a young woman who walked out.
    “Hey, was there a woman in there, Mexican, yellow blouse and grey skirt, blue bags?”
    The young lady looked wary at first and then smiled with a little flirty nod of her head. “No, señor. There was no one in there but me, but if you are looking for someone...”
    Chance grimaced and shook his head. “No, thanks, though,” he said, hurriedly entering the lavatory to make sure that she was telling the truth. Checking each stall and a changing room in the back, he cursed again as he found them all empty.
    Turning to leave, two older women stood in the doorway and watched him, horrified.
    Chance muttered a partial apology in Spanish and pushed past them, intent on finding Ana. He’d never lost a client before, in the literal or figurative sense, and panic threatened to choke out clear thought. Where could she have gone?
    Or had she been taken?
    Chance returned back to the spot where she’d been sitting, and looked at the area from her perspective. Directly across the room was a pay-phone station; anyone could have hidden there, watching them.
    There was a travel agency and a car-rental desk next to the phone station. Someone had to have seen her. Chance approached the clerks, trying to maintain his cool. With armed police on patrol, the last thing he wanted to do was look agitated.
    “Excuse me,” he said to an older woman who sat at the travel-agency desk. “But I seem to have misplaced my girlfriend,” he offered in Spanish with what he hoped was a charming, and not desperate, grin.
    “¿Su novia?”
    “Yes, she was sitting right there, waiting for me, but now I can’t seem to find her. Did you happen to notice where she might have gone?” Chance asked, describing Ana the best he could.
    The woman frowned, and then her face lightened with realization.
    “Sí, sí,” she agreed as she told Chance that she’d seen a woman sitting there, who had been approached by a man and had left with him.
    “Did he force her? Was she taken?” Chance asked, lowering his voice and trying to remain calm.
    “No.” The woman shook her head, adding that the man was very handsome and Ana had seemed happy to see him and had gone willingly.
    Chance’s despair must have been evident on his face as the woman patted his arm and rattled something off in Spanish about how it happened to the best of men.
    Chance thanked her briefly and walked back to the middle of the aisle. Airline passengers, police, workers milled around him, going about their business as he tried to decide what to do.
    Why would Ana leave without telling him? What if she had been under duress?
    It was the only explanation. She may not like having a bodyguard, and she had tried to give him the slip that morning, but he couldn’t imagine she would do it again.
    Ana had been kidnapped. He’d known it was a possibility, but he hadn’t expected it here, right under his nose.
    Chance opened his phone, calling his brother.
    “Garrett?”
    “Yeah? You on the ground?”
    “I am, yeah. Easy flight, but I lost Ana.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “I was doing the paperwork to store the plane while I’m here. She was sitting right there, not