by Kaylea Cross
He returned his attention to the presenter before she could gather her thoughts enough to respond, his fingers still wrapped securely around hers. Teasing her with the promise of what would happen when they left and found somewhere more private.
“That was actually totally fascinating,” he said as they left the theater a few minutes later.
“You sound surprised.”
“I am.”
She laughed, energized by his interest and just being with him. “Isn’t it incredible? Just think.” She tipped her head back and looked up at the stars now appearing in the purple sky. “Everything we see, everything on earth, came from supernovas. So in actuality, we’re all made of stardust.”
“It’s amazing,” he agreed, then let go of her hand to wrap a steely arm around her shoulders instead, drawing her closer.
Nina leaned into him, savoring his warmth and strength. She felt petite next to him. Protected. And turned on.
“What’s your favorite planet?” he asked.
“Saturn, of course. It’s everyone’s favorite.”
His lips quirked. “Why is it your favorite?”
“Because it’s the coolest. Started out as a rocky planet and became a gas giant. Its rings are made up of rock and ice, and check this out—it even rains diamonds in its atmosphere.”
He glanced down at her. “Get out.”
“No, swear to God, it does. It happens on a few others planets in our solar system as well, but basically the atmospheric pressure is so great, it turns carbon in the atmosphere into freaking diamonds.”
“Hell, someone needs to figure out how to capture them and transport them back here.”
She playfully poked his shoulder. “Stop. So mercenary.”
He let out a low laugh and tugged her closer to press a kiss to the top of her head. Nina’s insides squeezed, her heart fluttering. “I don’t think I’ve been to a planetarium since I was in elementary school, and I don’t remember it being half that interesting,” he said. “I loved it, thank you.”
She smiled up at him, thrilled. “You’re welcome.”
Tate suddenly stopped and drew her off the path. He turned her to face him and settled his hands on her hips, his fingers squeezing gently, making her insides heat. The hunger on his face made the breath back up in her lungs.
He reached out to push a lock of hair away from her face, his fingers trailing ever so gently across her cheek and down the side of her neck. Raising goosebumps along her skin. “You are such a surprise.”
Her heart was beating so fast. “A good one?”
His mouth curved into a sexy grin. “I think so.”
Nina curled her hands around the tops of his shoulders, her fingers sinking into the hard ridges of muscle there. Oh God, she was going to melt.
Those gorgeous eyes dropped to her mouth again and he leaned in…
A ring tone went off.
Nina stopped, her eyes popping open. His phone. “Go ahead.”
“No,” he murmured, ignoring it as he cupped the side of her face in one big hand and covered her mouth with his.
Nina forgot how to think. Or breathe. All she could do was hold onto him, lean into that hard, lean body while his lips moved across hers.
This was so different from the last time. This time was deliberate, like he was savoring her. Teasing her. Seducing her with varying pressure of his lips, the subtle brush of his tongue across her lower lip.
She moaned and opened for him but he made a low sound and sucked on her lip instead, stroking it with his tongue before going back to caressing her lips with his.
At some point his phone must have stopped ringing because it started up again, the sound startling her. She groaned and lowered her heels back to the ground. “It sounds important.”
Tate kept hold of her with one hand while he took his phone from his pocket with the other. “I’d better answer, it’s Rylee.” He put it to his ear. “Hey, little girl. What’s up?”
Whatever his niece said must have been bad, because he went rigid and sucked in a breath. “What?” he said in a low, dangerous voice.
Nina’s insides tightened. Oh, no… What was wrong?
He grabbed Nina’s hand and immediately strode for the sidewalk. Nina hurried alongside him as he spoke to Rylee, her stomach tightening. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t good.
“Are you in a safe place right now? Is there someone with you?” He listened tensely. “Okay, stay there. I’m on campus right now and I’m coming to get you. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Rylee, do you understand? Don’t move.” Another pause. “Good girl. Just hang tight. I’ll be there soon.” He ended the call.
“What’s wrong?” Nina asked, worried.
“She was drugged at a club. Passed out, and when she woke up, her friend was gone.”
Nina’s insides congealed. Flashes of ugly memories bombarded her but she forced the fragmented, disjointed images aside. This was about Rylee, not her. And Rylee was safe. She was going to be fine. “Is she all right?”
“I’m going to get her right now.”
“I’ll come with you. If you want,” she added hastily, not wanting to overstep.
His eyes burned with banked rage as he glanced down at her, then they softened with gratitude. “I’d like that,” he said, and escorted her to his truck.
Chapter Nine
Tate shoved down the fear and anger coiling inside him as he and Nina pulled up to the coffee shop where Rylee was waiting for them.
“Want me to stay here and wait?” Nina asked softly.
“No, come in. She’ll be glad to see you. She told me after the first day that she could already tell you were going to be her favorite professor.”
“Really? Aww.”
He helped her out of the truck and strode for the entrance. Nina hung back as he pushed through the door and immediately scanned the place for his niece.
Rylee was seated at a table on the far left side, her elbows on the table and her head in her hands.
“Ry.”
She looked up at him and the mingled relief and shame on her face hit him hard. She got out of her chair and met him partway in an unsteady gait, walking right into his embrace when he reached for her.
Tate closed his arms around her, his cheek pressed to her hair. “You okay?” he said in a low voice.
“I still don’t know where S-Samantha is,” she choked out. “I didn’t call the p-police yet because I’m still not sure what h-happened.”
“All right. We’ll handle it.” He eased his grip enough for her to move back a few inches.
She nodded and sniffed, wiping at her eyes with the bottom of her sleeve. Her makeup was smeared, her hair mussed. She looked so damn young and broken, and the thought of what could have happened to her tonight twisted his insides. “Can we go somewhere else?” she whispered.
People were watching them, sensing something was wrong. “Yeah. Come on.” He turned her around, kept an arm locked around her shoulders as he steered her to the door. She definitely was still under the influence of whatever she’d ingested. He needed to find out what she’d been given and alert the cops. “Professor Benitez is here.”
Rylee lifted her head, looking around. “She is?”
“Waiting by the front door. She was with me when you called, so I asked her to come. That okay?”
“Yes.” She managed a wan smile for Nina when they stepped outside. “Hi, Dr. Benitez.”
“Nina, please. Dr. Benitez for class only,” Nina said with a gentle smile that faded into concern. “Are you all right?”
“I think so. Don’t feel so great, and my roommate’s missing.”
Nina nodded, her eyes full of sympathy. “I heard. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks,” Rylee mumbled, wiping at her eyes again.
Nina glanced from her to Tate. “Listen, if you two want to talk alone, I can go—”
“No, it’s fine,” Rylee said, leaning into him again. “I just wanted away from here because i
t felt like everyone in there was staring at me.”
“Let’s get you into the truck,” Tate said, steering her toward it. He put Rylee in the front seat while Nina got into the back.
Once he was behind the wheel, he turned to face his niece, cataloguing everything he saw. She looked shaken and miserable and her pupils were slightly dilated. “Are you dizzy?”
“Yes, and weak, and kinda sick to my stomach.”
Wanting to reassure her, Tate reached out and curled his hand around hers. “Ry, listen to me. We have to report this, and I need to get you checked out. I’m going to call a contact of mine on the Missoula PD and set up a meeting, have him meet us at the clinic I want to take you to. All right?” Minutes mattered if Samantha had been taken.
“Okay.”
He fired up the truck and made two calls as he pulled onto the road. One to a doctor he liked there, and the other to an old colleague on the Missoula force.
As soon as he was done, he glanced at Rylee. “Can you tell me what happened?”
She blew out a breath and ran a shaky hand through her hair. “I…I was with my roommate at a club she wanted to check out,” she blurted, flushing and avoiding his gaze. “I only had one drink—a martini.”
Tate refrained from asking her how she’d gotten in and served, since she was only eighteen. How she’d managed to get a fake ID wasn’t what mattered right now. “Go on.”
“I left it with her when I went to the bathroom. When I came out, she was talking to these guys. She still had my drink in her hand, so I didn’t think anything of it and drank the rest.”
“Tell me about the guys,” Tate said, trying to keep his tone level while every cop instinct he had clanged in warning.
She paused, frowning. “I remember finishing the drink and putting the glass on the bar. My roommate was dancing with one of the guys. He brought her back a minute later saying she wasn’t feeling well, and took her to the bathroom. I knew something was wrong and got up to follow her, but then I started feeling woozy too. The guys all seemed worried about us. One of them catching me before I fell off the stool. When I woke up there was a crowd around me. The guys were still there and Samantha was gone. Someone went to find her and couldn’t.”
“Was the guy who escorted her to the bathroom gone too?”
“No, he came back and said she was sick in the bathroom.”
“Didn’t anyone call for an ambulance?” Tate asked, getting more agitated by the minute. Sounded like classic Rohypnol drugging. Someone should have fucking called for help.
“No, I told them not to, asked them to take me outside to get air. I was so embarrassed, and just worried about Samantha.” She looked over at him, her eyes filled with torment. “What if someone took her?”
Yeah, he didn’t like the feel of this at all. Seemed likely that Samantha had been kidnapped, and Rylee was damn lucky to have escaped that same fate as well.
Tate glanced at Nina in the rearview mirror. She was still and quiet in the backseat, a sad, almost haunted look in her eyes.
Doctor Whitaker met them at the clinic. Tate and Nina stayed in the waiting area while the doctor examined Rylee and took blood and urine samples. By the time she was done, Tate’s contact Greg and his partner had arrived. Doctor Whitaker told them that while they needed to wait for the lab results to be sure, she was confident it was Rohypnol.
Tate set his jaw and wrapped an arm around Rylee when she dropped into the seat next to him.
He and Nina flanked her while Greg and his partner questioned Rylee about what had happened. “If your friend was distracted, any of those men she was talking to could have slipped a crushed pill or a liquid into both your drinks without her noticing,” Greg said.
Rylee shook her head, adamant. “I know that, but it doesn’t make sense. They were so nice, and they all stayed to make sure I was okay. Two of them searched for Samantha after she didn’t come back from the bathroom. If they were guilty of drugging us, they would have just taken off.”
Maybe. But Rylee had been pretty out of it and might not have realized what was really going on. Totally possible the guys had just hung around to cover their asses.
Greg turned to Tate. “We’ll review the security footage and interview everyone we can find. For right now, our priority is finding Samantha.”
“Of course.”
Greg’s partner made a note on her pad. “Where is your roommate from?” she asked Rylee.
“A little town in South Dakota. Can’t remember the name of it off the top of my head.”
“Does she have any family or close friends here?”
“Not that I know of.” Rylee rubbed her face, her expression crumpling. “I was her only friend here. I should have looked out for her better.”
“Hey.” Tate wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into him. “This isn’t your fault. And the police will find her, I promise.”
Rylee sniffed, her shoulders hitching as she forced a nod. “What do I do now?”
“You’re coming home with me,” he said. “There’s nothing more you can do right now, and I don’t want you worrying about anything else tonight.”
She seemed to sag with relief, still looking miserable. “All right, thank you.”
He kissed the top of her head and looked at Greg. “Can I take her home now?”
“Of course. I’ll be in touch.”
Rylee seemed steadier on her feet as he and Nina walked her out to his truck, but she was quiet. Tate settled her in the back seat. “You want to call your mom, or should I?”
Rylee groaned. “You, please. She’ll just freak out if I do it.”
Tate nodded, shut the door and turned to find Nina standing behind him on the sidewalk, her arms wrapped around her waist. She seemed a little pale, her usual sunny personality dimmed. “I’ll just catch a lift back to my car,” she said. “It’s twenty minutes in the opposite direction, and you need to get Rylee straight home.”
“No way.” She seriously thought he’d leave her here to find her own way back after what had happened, and after she’d stayed to help? “I’ll drive you to your car. Or, just come with us now and I can drive you back in the morning if you want.”
She hesitated for a moment, then glanced at Rylee and nodded. “All right, if you’re sure I won’t be imposing.”
“No, not at all.” It was also an excuse to spend more time with her, and he was all for that.
Nina got into the front beside him. Tate liked having her there.
He called his sister as soon as he pulled away from the curb. Tala stayed admiringly calm while he relayed everything that had happened. “She’s okay, Tal,” Tate emphasized. “I took her to get checked out. Everything’s fine, and I’m taking her home with me until we get to the bottom of this. She’s just really worried about her roommate.” And so was Tate.
“All right, thank you. Can I talk to her?”
He glanced in the rearview and found Rylee fast asleep, her head resting against the window. “Sorry, she’s already out.”
Tala expelled a heavy sigh. “All right. Tell her I love her and that I’m glad she’s safe. And that yes, she has to call me as soon as she wakes up. And you’ll update me if you get any news about the situation?”
“Absolutely. Don’t worry about Ry, I’ve got this. Love you.”
“Love you too, Tater.”
Nina was staring at him, a soft smile on her face as he ended the call. “What?” he asked.
“I love seeing the bond you have with your niece and sister, that’s all.”
He lifted a shoulder. “They’re my family.”
“Have you always been close?”
He nodded, glad to talk and get out of his head for a while. “Pretty sure she thought I was a living doll when I was first born. My mom said Tala carried me around everywhere, even took me to school for show and tell one day.”
“Adorable.” Her grin faded. “Was it hard for you when you moved away?”
“I hated it.
Hated my mom for it for a long time, too.” He shifted his grip on the wheel, forcing his muscles to relax. “Going from seeing Tala every day down to a couple times a year, sucked. She’d always looked out for me.”
“And now you look out for her and her daughter.”
He inclined his head. Damn right. “Tala’s been through a lot. She became a single mom while she was still in high school.”
“That must have been hard. Is Rylee’s dad in the picture?”
“No. He and his family refused to take responsibility, so they up and moved him back east somewhere before graduation. Tala’s raised Rylee all on her own, with support from my dad and stepmom. Especially while she was deployed and after she was wounded.”
Nina looked at him sharply. “She was wounded?”
“In Afghanistan, four years ago. Her convoy was hit by multiple IEDs. She jumped out to take a defensive position and stepped on an anti-personnel mine. She lost her lower leg and foot.” Thank God Braxton had been there, or she might have bled out while the rest of her team was engaged in the ensuing firefight.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. She’s tough, though. Fought through it like a warrior and now she’s training to become a Paralympic biathlete.”
“Wow, biathlon? She must train like crazy. And she’s obviously an amazing mom, because Rylee’s fantastic.”
A grin tugged at his mouth. “Yeah, to both those things. I always kind of worshipped her, growing up. But if you ever meet her, you can’t ever tell her I said that.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She reached for his hand, her fingers slender and soft as they curled into his palm. The way she’d reached for him, so natural, and her touch eased the lingering anger and anxiety swirling inside him. “How are you doing, anyway?”
Her concern filled him with warmth. “Fine now that I know Ry’s okay.”
Nina glanced back at Rylee as if to make sure she was still asleep before continuing. “Do you think someone took her friend?” she murmured.
He nodded. “Yeah. Just hoping the cops find her within the next hour or two.” He’d been a cop long enough to dread what the alternative likely meant.