Duck and Run

by TL Schaefer

  Nick nodded, though his thoughts were still in a blur. In his experience, women wanted to fix you, or for you to fix them. The myth of the fifty-fifty relationship had always been that to him. A myth. “I think we’re both pretty clear on the events leading up to this. We need to find out who England really is, and who’s on the inside.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “Let’s see what Linc has to say.” She stood and walked to her room, which gave Nick a moment to regroup.

  It had felt good, right to clear the air, but he knew himself well enough to know he needed to abide by some kind of boundaries to keep their relationship, whatever it might be, in the safe zone. Of course, her honesty hadn’t exactly helped him with his internal boundary setting.

  Of all the things she could have uttered, what she’d said had been the last thing he’d considered. He’d thought she’d upbraid him for being what he was, that she would recoil from him in disgust. It’s what he would have done if a woman said the same. But instead, she’d laughed and laid a painful part of herself open. His admiration and respect for her—as well as his attraction—ratcheted up even further.

  Cris took a deep breath the moment she rounded the corner into her room.

  Regardless of her words, it was going to be hard not to have her way with Nick McLain. His honesty was refreshing, enough so that the words themselves didn’t really matter. Because as much as Nick McLain might think he was a user, he was anything but. She didn’t need a PhD in psychology to figure that out.

  She snagged the cell from the nightstand next to her bed and stared down at the rumpled sheets for a long moment. Nick thought his words would make her shy away. He couldn’t be more wrong.

  She’d stopped believing in happily-ever-after when Trent walked away, but there was nothing wrong with her sex drive. Nick McLain looked as tasty today as he had yesterday, when she knew nothing about him…hell, more so, even after her little heart to heart with herself this morning. The question of the day was…was she willing to do anything about their attraction? Was she willing to dive into sex for sex’s sake with Nick McLain?

  She thought long and hard. Yeah, she was, but after this was all over. They might be safe here at his buddy’s cabin, but their foes had ferreted them out at least once—at her place—and likely twice. She wasn’t counting on their amateurish sweep of the truck to keep them in that condition.

  The thing she hadn’t counted on was the way their talk had invigorated her. The world she’d been living in since Austin was all about action, didn’t involve a lot of introspection or even interaction, beyond Rob, Karla and her partner Ethan.

  All of them were reasonably self-contained personality bubbles. Not a lot of drama, not a lot of chit chat.

  Sure, she and Ethan hung out together occasionally, even threw back a few like the other night. But they’d never had a deep, meaningful conversation, and they’d both been fine with that.

  But talking to Nick had made her feel a zing that had nothing to do with the fact he was hot and that she was going to take him for a test drive. It had everything to do with how she’d enjoyed talking to him honestly about thoughts and feelings. About how their past traumas had shaped who they were today.

  In her mind, as they’d chatted, she’d been acting as a human being, but what if it was more? What if, after two years, she was ready to put her psychologist hat on again?

  It wasn’t a decision to make now, she thought as she drew in a deep breath.

  They had a lot on their plate, and, she smiled, once that plate was cleared, a lot to anticipate.

  For now, everything could stay as it was, but after? Nick McLain had a hell of a surprise coming.

  Chapter 10

  The television station had been showing his official photo for the last half-hour, right next to his boss, Oliver-freaking-Wilson. The man who would put the blame firmly on his shoulders, and then likely bury him.

  He was totally and utterly screwed.

  He laid a twenty on the table and left the diner through the back exit. He needed a plan, but all that ran through him was rage. He needed a clear head, but all he could see was the number cruncher’s face. And the cute little blonde’s. They’d blown everything to hell.

  And they were going to pay for it.

  The phone vibrated in Cris’ hand as she walked down the hallway. She looked in the display window, not so surprised to see it was Linc calling.

  “Tell me you’ve got good news,” she said, in lieu of a greeting.

  “Six of one, half dozen of the other,” he replied. “We ID’d them, cops, every single one of them, but they’ve disappeared. The guy posing as England is Gary Smith, a traffic cop from up near Wichita. The rest were local yokels. Where are you?” There was real worry in his voice again, now that they knew what they were up against.

  “Safe, in a hidey hole of Nick’s. We bailed from his place last night after getting the heebie-jeebies.” She settled on a barstool and mouthed “Linc” to Nick. He nodded in reply and poured himself another cup of coffee, obviously content to let her run with the conversation. “Not even sure there was anything to it, but after what happened at my place...”

  “About that,” Linc replied, then fell silent.

  “Don’t stop now…” she led, even as she braced herself for the revelation.

  “Rob grabbed your Expedition before it got stripped down to the bare bones, but someone had already smashed a window in. Nothing was taken.”

  Cris thought long and hard. “Maybe someone scared them away.”

  Linc’s silence was deafening.

  “But you don’t think so.” She paused, thinking through why someone would break in, but leave everything untouched. And then she knew.

  “It was one of Dad’s fleet, before they upgraded,” she said. “They gave me a deal.” She huffed out a breath. How ironic. A vehicle of her father’s had led the bad guys straight to her. To them. The registration showed her PO Box, but for the sale in Texas she’d used her maiden name. “If Smith traced the VIN...”

  “He did,” Linc confirmed. “We found the trace in the system. But it also alerted Christian’s staff. Apparently, they had a trace on it as well, just in case.”

  She sighed, rolled her eyes. Yeah, it was high-handed of her father to do something like that, to keep tabs on her, but she also understood why he’d done it. Austin had given all of them nightmares.

  “The Rangers are on it,” Linc continued, “and they used cell phone towers to track down your phone. Smith must’ve gotten scared and dumped it, because they found it in the same house you zapped the ‘Vette from. He may be stupid, but he’s wily. We’ve had surveillance on that house since right after you and Nick left my place. We were still in the process of getting a warrant, and he slipped past us somehow.”

  “Or one of the guys on surveillance is dirty,” Cris said, and took a sip of the coffee Nick placed in front of her. He’d liberally doused it in powdered creamer. Her heart jolted a little. He’d noticed how she took her coffee.

  She looked up, caught his gaze. Smiled in thanks.

  “Possible. We’re already looking at that angle since we had to use OCPD due to manpower constraints.”

  “So, to recap, the guys we saw are all dirty cops, Smith is an idiot—which leads me to believe he’s not the ringleader, but rather a stooge—and my father is on the warpath, literally.”

  “That’s about the extent of it. I’ll call you if anything else comes up. You hunker down until we bring these guys in, okay?”

  “Okay, but you know catching these guys isn’t going to be enough, right? Like I said, they’ve got to be lower-level players. This won’t be over until the whole ring goes down.” Never mind that she could probably go safely back to her cottage once they’d caught up to Smith. But it rankled. Leaving something unfinished had never been her MO.

  “Yeah, I know,” Linc sighed. “But we’ll deal with that after we take care of the local problem. You might want to think about heading down to Austi
n, Cris. Both of you. You’d be safe with Christian’s security team around you.”

  “I’ll think about it.” No way was she bringing trouble to her family’s doorstep. She’d done enough of that already.

  “But you won’t do it.”

  Linc knew her too well. “I’m tired of running. It’s time to take a stand. But we won’t be stupid. Just get these guys, all right?”

  “We will,” her old friend replied, and disconnected.

  Nick stood, completely relaxed, opposite her at the eat-in bar. He’d donned a shirt, which was a good thing, because she didn’t need the distraction of all that bare flesh right this second, especially not after Linc’s words and her decision of a few moments ago.

  She filled him in on Gary Smith and the rest of the details, but he honed in on what she’d said to Linc in parting.

  “So we stick?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to go running home to Daddy. Been there, done that,” she answered wryly.

  “Understood,” he nodded. “I think we’re good here. Even if I don’t like sitting on the sidelines very much.”

  Cris stood and began to pace, coffee cup in hand. “At least Linc found the mole.”

  Nick lifted an eyebrow in question.

  “My SUV was a holdover from my father’s security fleet. I bought it for a song when they upgraded to newer models.”

  “And it showed the history of sale on the VIN,” he finished.

  She tilted her head, considered him. He sure knew his way around cars.

  “I’m sure it stuck out like a sore thumb after a few hours of not moving in that neighborhood. I even moved it to a nicer street, but I guess it didn’t matter. My plan was to catch an Uber back right after I garaged the ‘Vette. Easy peasy.”

  “Until I showed up.”

  She shot him a smile.

  “Until you showed up. Dad’s in on this now. With his clout, and the Rangers, OSBI and KBI working it, I don’t expect it’ll take long to track them down.”

  “That’s good. More people shaking the bushes,” Nick acknowledged with a shrug. “Doesn’t make me feel much better in the here and now, though.”

  “Me either. I need to call my folks, and then I guess all we can do is hunker down and wait. Got any cards?”

  Six hands of poker later, Nick was in danger of losing his shirt. Not literally, of course, because after their little heart-to-heart, strip-anything was out of the question. Not that the idea didn’t tantalize him--seriously.

  No, Cristine was a wolf in sheep’s clothing when it came to cards. When he called her on it, she shot him a wicked grin. “My mom may look like June Cleaver but she’s crafty. She beat the pants off Dad the first time they met in college.”

  Her mother had taught her too well. At the thought of her family and the easy way she spoke of them, an unwelcome pang of envy skittered through him. Her conversation with her father an hour ago had only highlighted the differences between how they’d been raised.

  Christian O’Connor had been furious his only daughter had been threatened, and it had come through loud and clear in his voice when he asked to speak to Nick.

  The senator’s questions had been short, succinct and to the point, and before Nick handed the phone back to Cristine, her father made his feelings very plain. “Linc says you’re a stand-up guy, a Marine. I expect you to validate his opinion. You take care of my daughter, McLain.” The threat wasn’t even implied. It hung on the crystal-clear cell phone connection for a good thirty seconds before Nick replied.

  “With my life, sir,” he’d said in a deadly serious voice before handing the phone back to Cristine.

  Now, as she raked in yet another pile of toothpicks, he understood the elder O’Connor’s vehemence. Yeah, over the last thirty-six hours he’d done a complete one-eighty on his initial impression of her but hearing her father…it put everything into perspective.

  He hadn’t lied to the man. He would lay down his life for Cristine. He hadn’t realized it until he’d put voice to those words. It wasn’t something so simple as the fact he’d courted danger since the not-so-tender age of fourteen, when he’d boosted his first car. No, it was because, for the first time ever, he was looking forward to the end of this so he could taste Cristine’s lips one more time, so he could see if the woman who’d truly begun to intrigue him would want to give something so mundane as dating a shot.

  It was a huge departure from everything he’d told himself over a lifetime. It was the first time he truly to pursue something, instead of being the pursued. It was strange and wonderful and unsettling.

  He hadn’t been fibbing when he told Cris his relationships never ended well.

  He’d tried dating before, and it sucked. Even been engaged once, right after coming home. It’d seemed like the right thing to do for a really sweet woman who’d wanted nothing but the best for him. It had gone south pretty quickly after he bought the ring when she realized he couldn’t be fixed.

  Yet somehow, with this woman, he could see a week past their tangling the sheets. Something he’d never done before, not honestly. Whether he had the balls to act on it was the question of the day.

  Linc’s incoming call was a welcome distraction from his wildly veering thoughts. He grabbed the phone, needing something to do with his hands. “McLain.”

  “We’re almost home,” Linc announced unceremoniously. “We corralled everyone but Smith, and I figure he’s likely halfway to Mexico now.”

  Cris tilted her head to the side and waved her hand in a “give it up” motion.

  Nick held up a finger. “What about the ringleader?”

  Linc snorted. “You’ll love this. One of the guys we grabbed was their accountant. He rolled so fast I’m surprised he didn’t get whiplash. Rangers picked up Oliver Wilson in Galveston about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Wilson? No kidding. We’ve been trying to nail him for drug trafficking for years.”

  “You and everybody else. Apparently, he wanted to diversify. He’s had dirty cops in his pocket since he started business, but instead of running dope, they started lifting gang-banger’s rides and sending them down to Galveston, where they loaded them on container ships bound for South America. When the ‘bangers started getting antsy, he switched to bogus loans, which is what tipped the real Nick Coleman off in the first place. That’s where their accountant really came in. Little bastard is a wizard at cooking the books.”

  It all made sense, tied together neatly. Too bad he’d never been a neat-freak. This was too easy.

  “We’ll hang tight. Let us know when we can start back to Oklahoma City.”

  “Affirmative. Should be a couple of hours. Tell Cris that Christian is all over this one.”

  Nick smiled wryly. That much he knew. He disconnected, then filled her in, leaving out his doubts. He’d like to see if she came to the same conclusion. He wasn’t so surprised when she did.

  “That’s too tidy. An operation this big is messy. There’s no way they could grab everyone.”

  “Are we doubting Linc?”

  She looked shocked. “Oh, hell no. I have to wonder how much of a patsy this accountant is. If I were in his shoes, I’d be a lot more scared of Wilson than the cops. The law will put him away for a few years. Wilson will bury him. He was on the Rangers Most Wanted for years. Try as we might, we could never get someone on the inside. Dad even tried to go after him when he was the DA, then the AG. Wilson is too wily.”

  And that was it. In those few words she’d summed up the doubts he’d felt shimmying up his spine.

  “You think it’s a set-up?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. Finger Wilson and you take him out of commission, throw his organization into disarray, if only for a little while, until his thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyer gets him bail. It might be the kind of move someone working the inside might make. A coup.”

  “And if that’s the case, we’re screwed,” Nick summed up quietly.

  “Not necessarily. Smith gets fingere
d for attempted murder, Wilson goes down, or goes to war within his own organization, or maybe Linc’s right and this is all sewn up. In any of those scenarios, we’re clear. Wilson won’t dare send someone after us with all the heat, and if it is a coup, the guys behind it won’t want to draw attention to themselves. They’ll be taking care of business, and since we don’t know squat, we won’t be part of that business.”

  Nick leaned back in his chair, letting her words sink in. She might be right. And if she was, there was no reason they couldn’t talk about what would happen between them the second Linc called the all clear.

  Cris watched as the wheels turned in Nick’s mind, as he categorized each of her statements. Never mind that her explanation tied this up in as neat a bow as Linc’s, she couldn’t see any other outcome. People in Wilson’ line of work weren’t idiots. Her gut told her Smith had acted on his own, hoping to score brownie points with the boss. She and Nick had already thought the men had been too undisciplined when his henchmen came after them. That didn’t speak to someone acting with a plan, it was someone winging it.

  A man with Oliver Wilson’ clout—legal or not—would have no problem in turning a number cruncher like Coleman aside with legal maneuvering, if nothing else. He didn’t need to worry about an insect like Gary Smith, except to crush him.

  And even better? This cleared Rob, Karla and Ethan. While her life had veered sharply in the last thirty-six hours, it was nice to know her character judgment hadn’t been so far off.

  When Nick clunked the front legs of his chair on the floor, he leaned forward, a wicked gleam in his eye. “So if that’s the case, I have a much better idea of how to spend the next few hours than playing cards.”

  Cris laughed, feeling as if the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. She’d wondered how long it would take him to get to that point. Obviously not very long. She’d been there about five minutes ago. “Down, big boy. Just because nobody’s shooting at us doesn’t mean this is over.”