I hated that I would never know the girl’s name. She had saved me. Colton may have been able to get to me in time, but maybe not. There was no way to know for sure. What I did know, though, was that I was incredibly grateful to her.
Colton reached for my hand, and I gave it to him, glad to feel the warmth of his fingers around me, glad that he was okay, and we were escaping. Then, we ran. We got into the car, started it up, and tore out of the lot as the sirens grew closer. We didn’t need to talk about a plan anymore. The plan had been decided for us. We were on the run from the mob.
Chapter 16
Rachel
“Are you okay?” I asked, probably for the tenth time in as many minutes. “How are the cuts on your face?”
“I’m fine,” Colton said. “Tony must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel for those enforcers. They were amateurs.”
“Is your vision blurred?” I pressed. “Does your head hurt? You shouldn’t be driving if you have a concussion.” A million thoughts were zipping through my head. At the diner, I’d felt somewhat calm until the end when I’d been attacked, maintaining composure in the face of chaos. But now that everything was normal again, and we were alone in the car, I felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. My palms were sweaty, and I wanted to roll down the window and stick my head out to feel the cold air.
Colton reached across the seat and grabbed my hand, squeezing tight. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look over at me. He just held onto my hand and kept driving. And, in that moment, I knew he was doing it as much for himself as for me. He was reaching out in the only way he could to tell me he was okay, but also that he needed me. To tell me that I was okay, and he would be there for me.
So, I grabbed onto that feeling. I focused on his hand on mine, putting all my energy into memorizing the feel of his skin against mine until the jumble of panicked thoughts in my head felt like nothing more than noise.
We were both okay.
Still, I kept my eye on the side-view mirror, worried we might be being followed. What if the men had escaped the police and were following us? What if the police came after us because of the damage to the diner or Colton’s connection to the mob? I didn’t want to voice these concerns to Colton because I knew he was dealing with a lot, and I didn’t want to make anything worse. But then, I noticed his eyes glancing up at the rearview mirror, and I knew he was having the same thoughts as me.
After a few minutes, Colton got off the interstate and drove on a side road for a while. Then, he cut across a microscopic town one-tenth the size of Pineville and followed a small highway west for a bit.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“We just need to make sure we aren’t being followed, and then we can stop and come up with a plan.” His voice was strained, emotion boiling just under the surface.
“We can handle this,” I said, having no idea if it was true. The only thing I felt like I could handle was a long nap.
Colton nodded and tightened his hands on the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. Then, he slammed the palm of his hand on the wheel and cursed.
I let out a yelp, startled by his outburst. He’d hardly said a word since we’d fled the diner, and suddenly, he was yelling obscenities.
“Colton? What’s wrong?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Everything. Everything is wrong.” His eyes were wide and unfocused, and the adrenaline he’d pushed down before seemed to be coming back. He couldn’t sit still. He kept readjusting in his seat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, tapping his foot on the floor. He looked like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin.
I reached across the console and grabbed his wrist. “Pull over.”
“I’m fine,” he said, trying to shake me off. “We have to keep going.”
“Pull over.” I annunciated each word, letting him know he didn’t have a choice.
I pointed to an exit ramp, and thankfully, he took it. A sign advertised a scenic overlook half a mile down the road, so we went that direction and turned onto the dirt road. Trees grew up on either side of the road, almost blotting out the sunlight, and it only got darker as we drove on.
“Pull over here,” I said, pointing out another dirt road running parallel to the one we were on. As soon as he made the turn, I told him to stop.
He shifted the car into park, and I pulled the keys out of the ignition, looking him straight in the eye. “What’s going on?”
Colton stared down at his lap, refusing to look at me. I leaned towards him and placed my palm on his cheek, turning his face to mine. “Look at me.”
He started to give in to me, started to turn, but then he clenched his jaw and got out of the car, slamming the door behind him.
There was no air in the car now that the AC was turned off, and I felt strangled. I wanted to give Colton a minute to himself, but I also couldn’t stand sitting in the car. So, I got out and followed him around to the back of the car. When I got there, he was unlocking the trunk.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
He crawled into the trunk until he was more in the trunk than out of it, his feet almost coming up off the ground. “Aha,” he said, scrambling backwards.
“What did you find?” I tried to see what was in his hand, but with him being partially in the trunk and under the dense tree cover, I couldn’t quite make it out.
He stood up and held up one hand, his thumb and forefinger pressed together.
I stared at it and then pushed my brows together. “You need to explain to me what I’m looking at, Colton.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, his fingers flashed—no, rather, something in his fingers flashed. I stepped closer and squinted until I could make out a tiny black square in his hand. There was an LED indicator light on the top corner that flashed green once every fifteen or so seconds.
“What’s that?” I whispered, suddenly nervous we were being listened to.
Colton dropped the small flashing device on the ground and crushed it under his foot, twisting the toe of his shoe in the gravel just to be sure it was destroyed.
“A tracker.”
He lifted the foot, and the device was in fifty tiny pieces. I waited for the light to flash again, but it stayed dark.
“Who put it there?”
“It had to be Tony,” Colton said, turning away from me and pacing across the road. “He must have put it in my trunk the day he came to the boxing gym to recruit me. He never trusted me, after all. This was all some kind of sick test.”
“A test of what?” I asked. “Your abilities as a kidnapper?”
“A test of loyalty,” he said, turning and pacing back towards me, his hands running through his hair and tugging on the strands. “The mob operates on loyalty and silence. Tony needed me to complete a serious job, so I wouldn’t want to go to the police with information about their operation. That’s why I had to kidnap Jenna. He needed to know my hands were just as dirty as his.”
I nodded, trying to give off the illusion that I understood everything that he was saying. “That would have taken a lot more than kidnapping one girl,” I said lowly. “It sounds like Tony’s hands are pretty dirty.”
“It’s never going to stop,” Colton mumbled to himself, shaking his head. “Not with this job or the next. It’s everything or nothing. And now, they’re coming for us.”
Colton was in his own head, paying no attention to me or anything around him. I had no idea what he was seeing, what he was thinking, and I wanted him to look at me. It was my turn to be there for him the way he’d been there for me in the car. It was my turn to hold his hand and give him a way to ground himself in the moment.
He was pacing back towards me, and I crossed the road to meet him halfway, wrapping my arms around his waist. “Colton, come on. Talk to me.”
He looked down at me, but his eyes were a million miles away. “I can’t.”
“You kidnapped me last night, and look at us now. Wha
tever it is, I can handle it. Tell me.”
He shook his head and pulled my arms away from him, dropping them at my sides. “That is exactly why I can’t talk to you about this.”
“Because I can handle it?” I asked.
“Yes, exactly!” he shouted, pointing at me and stepping backwards. “Because you handle everything. Nothing seems to phase you. Not when I kidnapped you or when I told you we had to hide from a mobster or when four goons showed up to kidnap you for real. You just deal with everything.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but then closed it again. None of this made any sense.
“You’re mad because I’m not freaking out right now?” I said after a pause. “Because, let me assure you, I am completely freaked out. I am terrified those men are going to show up and hurt you or—”
Colton groaned and spun on his heel, his hands in fists. “See? What is that? You’re scared for me right now? Do you even understand what you’re saying?”
A single sob burst out of me, and I crossed my arms over my chest to try to keep my emotions in check. I couldn’t believe we’d been sitting at the diner and enjoying breakfast only an hour ago. He had been so warm and sweet to me, so attentive. I was convinced fate had brought us together, that one day we would look back on the story of how we met, and we’d laugh. Now, however, I could sense it all crashing down. Colton was freaked out by my concern for him, worried that I liked him too much—more than he liked me. He didn’t want me.
Tears pressed against the back of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I wouldn’t cry over him. I’d spent so much of my life feeling less than everyone else. I wasn’t as pretty or as smart as Jenna. I wasn’t as funny as my friend Mariana or as successful as my parents wanted me to be. But the last twelve hours with Colton had taught me that I could overcome anything. I could handle anything. And as much as it would hurt, I’d handle this heartbreak. I uncrossed my arms and pressed them to my sides. Then, I spanned the gap between us in a few steps and pressed a finger into Colton’s hard chest.
“I’m not going to let you or anyone else make me feel small. I’m sorry you’re freaked out by how much I care about you, but that isn’t my problem. If your messed-up life has made you incapable of accepting affection, then that’s your problem. Don’t make me feel bad because of your issues.”
Colton stared at me for a minute, and then his head fell to the side and his mouth opened. “What are you talking about?”
The indignation that had been fueling me just seconds before began to wane. I pulled my finger away from his chest and re-crossed my arms. “Well, I, uh…I care about you, and I won’t let you call me crazy for that.”
Colton’s shoulders sagged forward and then he was moving towards me. He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me against his chest, smoothing down my hair with his hand. “Rachel.”
I was still upset with him, but that didn’t mean I was strong enough to resist a hug. I pressed my cheek against his muscular chest and breathed in the sunshiny smell of him. He felt so solid against me.
“I don’t think you’re crazy, and I’m not mad at you,” he whispered, his lips brushing across my forehead.
I pulled away so I could look up at him. “You aren’t?”
He shook his head and gave me a sad smile. “No. Of course not. You were amazing back there. I’m mad at myself.”
I wrinkled my forehead and wrapped my arms around his waist, hugging him to me so he couldn’t walk away again. “Why?”
“Because I put you in danger. My decisions almost got you hurt.” He reached up and grabbed a strand of my hair, tucking it behind my ear. “If they’d taken you away, I would have never forgiven myself.”
“But they didn’t. We won, Colton. We got away. Everything is fine.”
He shook his head and tried to pull away from me, but I held on. I grabbed the fabric of his shirt in each fist and clung to him. “Don’t walk away. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“Everything isn’t fine,” he said. Dark circles were pressed under his eyes, and I realized for the first time how worn out he looked. Since the moment he’d grabbed me outside the bar, he had been strong in my eyes. I was the weak link in the equation, not Colton. But now, I could see the strain this was taking on him. “They’re going to keep coming for us, and I can’t guarantee you will be safe. Tony’s men don’t care that you aren’t Jenna. They will take you to Tony, and I don’t know what he’ll do when he realizes I grabbed the wrong girl. I don’t know what will happen to you or to me.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
Colton shook his head. “Being with me is dangerous. As long as you’re with me, you are at risk, and I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t scare me away. I won’t—”
Colton was looking over my head, talking to himself. “If I can get you to a bus station, you can get a ride back home. Or to Chicago. Chicago would be safer. The further you are from your cousin, the better. They won’t bother you again.”
I tried to get him to look at me, but he wouldn’t. He was too busy planning how to get rid of me. Finally, I reached up and grabbed his chin. He stopped talking, his lips smooshed together, and looked at me.
“Listen to me,” I said, stepping up onto my tiptoes so I was a bit closer to his height, though still several inches too short. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Colton opened his mouth to speak, but I squeezed his face even harder and continued talking.
“I’m staying with you because I want to. Don’t you think I understand the risks? I was back at that diner, too. I saw you fighting those men. One of them even attacked me, and tomorrow, I’ll have the bruises to prove it. I know it’s dangerous. But I don’t care.”
I let go of his face and Colton wiped a hand across his mouth. “You should care.”
“But I don’t,” I said, shrugging and smiling up at him. “You and I just met. It’s unconventional and overwhelming, but it has also been good. Really good. And there’s no way I’m going to let some mobster and his band of enforcers keep me from being with you. I’ll be with you until this whole thing is over, and longer, if you’ll have me.”
I could tell Colton wanted to argue, but I could also see him softening. The crazy look in his eyes was beginning to fade and there was even the hint of a smile on his lips. “You think it’s been good?”
I nodded and circled my arms around his neck. “Really, really good.”
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine, and everything else ceased to exist. There was only him and me in the middle of nowhere.
Colton’s lips were soft for a minute, and then they became urgent. His hands crept beneath his denim jacket I was wearing and pressed against my lower back, drawing me closer to him. I tangled my fingers in his hair.
Why didn’t I care about my own safety? I should have, right? I’d only just met Colton. I liked him, but was he really worth all of this drama?
The rational part of my brain tried to convince me to leave. Colton was right. I should go home and maybe if everything blew over, he and I could reconnect and try to be together. But that didn’t feel right. For some reason, I knew that if I left him, we wouldn’t find our way back to one another. After the way we’d met and spent our first day together, being kidnapped and then chased by mobsters, I didn’t think it was possible for us to exist in the real world. Not yet, at least.
All couples face obstacles, and how they overcome those obstacles defines their relationship. Well, like it or not, running from Tony Gambino and his goons was our obstacle, and if we didn’t overcome it, I was afraid we would never overcome anything. If I wanted to be with Colton, we had to fight this together.
Suddenly, he was pushing me backwards, his hands skimming over my hips and down my legs, his fingers finding the hem of my dress and pushing it up. My back hit the side of the car and Colton pinned me down, trapping me in with his body. I didn’t have any complaints.
He kissed my cheek and my jawline, and I t
ipped my head back to give him better access as he continued the line down my neck and across my chest. I was so glad I was wearing the cocktail dress with the deep neckline, because it meant his lips were unencumbered by unnecessary fabric. In fact, Colton’s kisses were making the argument for becoming a nudist peck by peck. We would never be slowed down by clothes again.
“I want you,” I said, the three words meaning so many different things in that moment.
Colton groaned against my skin and dragged his hands further up my thighs until my dress was becoming dangerously short. But I didn’t care. We were alone. We’d escaped.
I turned my head to the side as Colton sucked my earlobe into his mouth. I opened my mouth in a sigh and turned my head, subtly letting him know I wanted more of that. Then, I looked down at the ground.
The tracking device was still on the ground in a million pieces where Colton had crushed it, and it was certainly broken now, but it hadn’t been broken when we’d arrived. Which meant…
“Colton,” I said, pressing my hands against his chest, trying to gently extricate myself from him. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, waggling his eyebrows and kissing me, his hands massaging over my chest.
I laughed and pushed harder. “Listen to me for a minute.”
He pressed soft kisses to my temple and then leaned back, eyebrows raised in a question.
“We can’t stay here. The tracking device was working when we stopped. They know we’re here.”
His eyes focused on me and then down at the ground. Then, he sighed. “I know. You’re right. We’re being reckless.”
“We are,” I agreed.
He tipped forward and pressed his forehead to mine. “I really don’t want to leave.”
I smiled and ran a finger from his temple to his jaw, admiring the square shape of his face. “I really wish we weren’t on the run.”
He nodded and grabbed the soft flesh of my hip, pulling me against him. Then, he pulled back and looked at me, his green eyes lit up with mischief. “There’s no way Tony sent more than one carload of men for us. And now that we took care of the four men at the diner, we have at least five hours until he can get another group together and get them here. Probably longer, since they won’t know about the failure of the mission at the diner for a while.”
The Wedding Steal - A SEAL Romance Page 14