Sweet Seduction Serenade

by Nicola Claire

  "Eva, we've tried everything we can. I'm sorry, but we've got no choice. You're booked on the next flight out at one pm."

  I nodded slowly, completely in agreement with his words, as the entire room erupted.

  "That's ridiculous!" Mr Anscombe shouted, coming to his feet. "There has to be another way."

  "We've been searching everywhere the Russell boys have contacts and found nothing. They've simply vanished and so has Nick," Ben said steadily, unfazed by Jacob Anscombe's incredulous rage.

  "You can't force Eva to go back," Katie said, just as irate as her father. I couldn't understand why they'd be arguing, it made complete sense to me and this was their son/brother, there shouldn't have been a question in their minds other than how quickly can she leave here?

  "There's more," Ben said through a clenched jaw. "Blood at the scene Nick was checking out matches his type."

  Everyone went silent, even Mr Anscombe and Katie. There'd be no more battle cries from my corner of the ring.

  "I'll just go grab my bag," I said standing, all eyes in the room swinging to me.

  "Eva," Mr Anscombe said, but I held up a hand to forestall him.

  "There's no other way and I won't accept any harm coming to Nick because of me."

  I started walking from the room, thumbing through my contacts on my phone to find Cary. I was putting the phone to my ear as I entered Nick's room, at exactly the same time Pierce and Stone walked into the house. Both sets of eyes met mine down the hallway, then Cary answered and I stepped into the bedroom out of sight.

  "Hey, sweetie. What's up?" came his cheery voice down the line.

  "Meet me at the airport in the next hour, we're heading home."

  A pause, then, "What, Eva?"

  "The Russell boys have got Nick and will kill him if I don't leave the country today." I thought a summary of the situation was best, I'd fill him in on the rest once we were on the plane.

  "This is getting ridiculous," Cary muttered down the phone. "Is it really necessary that you leave?"

  "Yes," I said, not wanting to argue this with him right now, I had a bag to grab and a plane to catch. "Will you tell Derek?" I asked, not wanting to face him myself. "But only at the last moment, so he can't catch the same flight as us." I felt like a tool asking that.

  "Sure, sweetie. I'll leave him a message at reception, he'll clear it later when he gets back in. I think he went in search of you at your Dad's. That should give us enough time to skip the country without him being any the wiser."

  God, it sounded like a darn movie again.

  "Okey dokey." I attempted some Tennessee sunshine in my voice, but I think I wasn't fooling my best friend. "I'll see you shortly."

  "All right, sweetie. This will sort itself out in the end, you'll see," he said cheerily again. He wasn't fooling me either.

  The next half hour was a whirl. I didn't have time to see the expressions of sadness and worry and fear and incredulity on the Anscombes' faces. I phoned Gus and told him what was happening, letting him know the Breedlove would be at Nick's for him to pick up once things had been sorted out. I sent a text message to Jessie, rewriting it a dozen times, but finally settling on "You win. I fly out at one." I told Ben I didn't need to go via Dad's to pick anything else up, I had my passport and the important stuff with me. Maybe the cowboy hats and boots I left behind would allow him to remember me in his last days, when Jessie finally let him go home.

  I said a stilted good-bye to Mr and Mrs Anscombe, the former wrapping me up in a tight hug, tears streaming down her beautiful face. Katie hiccoughed as she gave me a kiss on the cheek, Gen outright bawled. I said nothing more than my strained good-bye, I couldn’t even say sorry. And that made me feel like a darn fool.

  Ben and Adam had a brief intense conversation about who would take me to my flight. Ben won, so Adam said his farewells at the kerb. I kept my face down, staring at the ground. My expression cut-off from any emotion I was feeling. If I allowed myself to feel, I'd cry. And we all know that cowgirls don't cry.

  Ben was silent on the way to the airport. Silent as he carried my small overnight bag into the terminal. Silent as Cary found us and wrapped me up in his familiar and much welcomed embrace. I almost let the tears fall then, but I promised myself they could once I was on the plane. The cowgirls worldwide would understand if I just held it together until then.

  Just as Cary and I were about to go through to the boarding area, ticket holders only from the gate onwards, Ben stopped me with a hand to my upper arm.

  "Cowgirl," he said in his deep, gravelly voice. I turned and forced myself to meet his eyes, he'd organised my ticket and ASI had paid for it after all. "We'll sort this. First get Nick safe and fixed up. Then we'll deal with your Aunt, make sure your Dad is OK. Yeah?"

  I let a long breath out, my body though didn't release any of the tension it had been holding on to.

  "I don't know what to say," I said, embarrassed my voice was cracking.

  "Nothin' to say. Nick won't stop until your Dad is safe and your cousins are spittin' teeth out of their mouths. ASI don't take kindly to this kind of behaviour and now it's personal."

  I wondered what it had been before. For me it had always been personal. My Dad, my loser Aunt and her dumbass boys. And Nick. It didn't get more personal than that. I guessed Ben was telling me it was personal to all of the ASI men now. Their boss had been compromised, harmed, they would seek revenge. Jessie, Levi and the boys were my family, but right then I had never felt like I belonged with them less.

  "I hope you nail their asses," I said and spun on my booted heels, sweeping past a patiently waiting Cary towards our plane.

  Cary caught up to me at the passenger waiting area, just as I was handing over my ticket to the attendant to board. He silently followed suit, trailing behind me as I walked down the tunnel to the plane itself. ASI had booked me on an Air New Zealand flight, luckily Cary had managed to get a ticket too and checked in with me, charming the female attendant into giving us consecutive seats. He could always turn on the charm when needed. That's why I needed him, because right now I was anything but charm personified.

  In a daze I took my seat, by the window so I could watch my hometown disappear beneath the wings of the plane as we left. Knowing I should be paying more attention to Cary, but utterly unable to right then, I placed my earphones in my ear, switched on my MP3 player and fired up Garth. If there was ever a moment that Garth Brooks was needed, now was it. Leaving behind a dying father I would no doubt never see alive ever again. And for the second time in my twenty-eight years, leaving behind my heart.

  It was fitting, I thought, as the plane began its slow taxi onto the runway, that I was leaving, because the fear I'd felt was familiar and the sight of Auckland getting smaller and smaller as we lifted off into the air was familiar too. And when all else is a jumbled mess of pain-filled thoughts and emotions, we always turn to the familiar. I'd escaped my trailer trash family eight years ago. I'd thought - briefly and incorrectly - that I was old enough to face them again and not be torn to shreds. But now that was proven impossible, I was running away again.

  From them. From what I felt for Nick. From a life that I'd briefly considered I could live. I knew what waited for me in Nashville. My band - who for the first time since I'd formed them, didn't feel like they were truly mine at all - my small two bedroom white clapboard house on Belcourt Ave, near Vanderbilt where Cary worked. We shared the rent and kept each other company, but right in that second I felt like I didn't belong there either, that the house we'd called home for the past eight years wasn't. That Nashville with all those gorgeous cowboys and all that beautiful, heartbreaking and soul lifting Country music, wasn't home too.

  I felt lost and although my best friend sat beside me, I felt more alone than I had in my entire growing years. Growing years where my cousins tormented me and mother barely tolerated me and my father ignored my existence. Where I had never fitted in, not once.

  And all of a sudden I felt like m
aybe I didn't fit in, in Nashville.

  There'd be gigs to organise, so I could pay the rent, but first I'd have to use the last of my savings to replace the Martin. I did have a spare guitar to strum on, but for performance standard it wouldn't really cut it, still I might be able to take my time before rushing out and purchasing the first Martin I could find. Maybe I'd even test out a few Breedloves, do a comparison. At least that would be something to keep my mind off other things.

  I'd also have to have a few practice sessions with the band, get a feel for their style again. Because they really were so different from Gus and the guys back home. And when had I started calling Auckland home?

  Then, no doubt, in the next few days Derek would come calling. Maybe the best thing for everyone would be to go back to how it was. Derek would get what he wanted, I could pretend that nothing had happened in the past week or so, and life could simply return to how it was. Numb and false and a band-aid sticking over the gaping hole in my chest, neither fixing it nor truly hiding it, if anyone bothered to look too closely. So, I wouldn't let them, I'd keep my distance, like I'd kept my distance from everyone but Cary since I arrived.

  It wasn't much of a plan, but it was something. No, actually, it was all I had to give. Because if I thought my heart was missing before, I now knew that was utter darn crap. Because right now I could feel it, and it was tearing me apart from the inside out. It wasn't missing, because I'd found it again one night in Sweet Seduction playing Thunder Rolls to a practice crowd. It wasn't missing, because Nick had given it back and in the process made me feel whole for the brief time I had again with him.

  And now, as Cary and I winged our way further and further from Auckland, I realised that my heart was torn in two. I left a piece of it with Nick Anscombe - praying he'd be fine once I was gone, knowing I could never go back for fear of what Aunty Jessie and the Russell boys would do - and he'd left a piece of my heart with me. To remind me of what I was running from. To prevent me from ever making this mistake again.

  And as Garth Brooks' Which One Of Them began playing in my ears, I knew I'd never forget him. How could I? When I'd freely given him that piece of my heart and would never give a slither of it to anyone else again.

  The words of the chorus rang out in my head, "So tell me, which one of them will be you tonight? Which one of them will hold me in your arms so tight?" and the past eight years of pretending I was still with Nick when in another's arms came flooding back in...

  ...and I finally let myself cry.

  Chapter 18

  The Hour Glass Was Almost Out Of Sand

  Katie

  Four torturous, long hours. Throughout it all I tried to be the daughter they had raised. The daughter they needed me to be. The sister Nick would have been proud of. The sister Dominic relied on to keep the rest of the family together, while he hunted for our brother with all of Nick's ASI men.

  Adam had stayed with us for the first hour, then Ben returned to relieve him once Eva had boarded her plane. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Eva was sunshine in a bottle, a breath of fresh air and I knew Nick would be devastated when he came home and found the beautiful, effervescent cowgirl gone. But first things first. We had to bring Nick home safe and sound, then we'd worry about Eva.

  I watched Ben pace in the corner of the room for the most part. He was restless, like a caged animal. He wanted to be out on the hunt for the Russell boys and their matriarch. But Adam was the tracker on the ASI team, Ben was the shadow you never knew was there. We didn't know where the Russells were, so shadowing them was moot. Nick needed Adam right now, so Ben drew the short straw.

  Every other ASI personnel was called in. No matter what their current assignment, they dropped everything to find Nick. Perhaps there'd be fallout afterwards, but none of them cared right now. Gen's brother Jason breezed through Nick's house at one point to converse with Ben quietly in the corner. All directions were coming from Eric in the ASI control room and we considered shifting there to be close to the communications, but neither Papa nor Mama wanted to leave Nick's house. I couldn't blame them. ASI was his passion, but the Nick we knew, the private Nick, was here.

  In the décor he had selected and I had designed for him. In the immaculately presented front and back lawn. Even in the fragrance of the place. Nick's aftershave hung on the air mixed with a new scent; peaches and cream, which I knew must have been Eva's. The combination of both seemed as old as time, as though his signature smell was always meant to be entwined with hers.

  I watched Jason give an update about something to Ben and wondered why he hadn't just phoned like the rest. Ben was getting a constant stream of messages and phone calls, none of the other ASI guys had stepped foot in Nick's house. But Jason did. And a part of me - stupidly - thought maybe it was to check on me. But he didn't even look my way. Not once. Not a single time in the entire five minutes he was there.

  It was Ben's eyes that came to mine while they talked, a strange expression briefly on his face. I tipped my head sideways trying to decipher it, but I couldn't. Ben could hide in shadows and also hide behind a mask of impassivity when he chose. The expression disappeared the moment he saw me watching them, the mask slipping into place. He nodded once to Jason and then Jason left. He didn't even say a word to my parents or his sister. He just slipped out the door, determination written all over his face.

  They were all good men working for Nick. Ex-military like Jason and a couple of the others. Ex-policemen. Certified private investigators. Techno-geniuses like Eric. A mixed bag, but they all had one thing in common. They were the best at what they did. Nick had head-hunted a few, some came from all over the country to work for the famous - or infamous - Anscombe Securities and Investigations. I tried to calm myself with that knowledge. They would find Nick and bring him home.

  Even Detectives Harvey Stone and Ryan Pierce made appearances from time to time. Once before Eva left and again since then to give us an update on the Police's side of the investigation. Eventually the Russells would be found, New Zealand was only so big. But what would be left of Nick, and Eva's father? I was almost as worried about the poor sick man as I was about my brother. Surely all of this was not good for his failing health.

  I made tea and coffee. I whipped up fresh scones for everyone to pretend to eat. I answered Nick's private home phone, fielding any interest from the press - who'd unfortunately caught wind of the situation, something about a Russell boy, Tyler I think, bragging about it down at a pub - the neighbours curious about the comings and goings of Police vehicles and the like, and extended family who'd heard the news through various media. I kept a cheerful demeanour while I dealt with it all, but inside I was crumbling. Much longer and I'd be like Gen; a sniffling, blubbering mess on the couch.

  She tried to put a brave face on, but Gen cries at the drop of a hat. It was to be expected that she'd sob when Eva was forced to leave and then spend the rest of the past four hours trying to hide how upset she was from my folks. I gave her a hand squeeze whenever I felt strong enough to bolster her up, then as soon as her tears got to me I'd scurry away to do something else.

  At three o'clock word came in that they'd found him. Eva was already airborne and thousands of miles away. The first words, apparently, that Nick said to Adam as he approached him in the abandoned building in South Auckland was, "How's Eva? Is she OK?" He had blood soaking his right upper leg, a pool of it beneath his thigh. He was weak and battered and bruised and nearly passing out from hypovolemia, but his first thoughts were for his cowgirl. It was then Mama and Papa shared a look that said it all.

  They knew. And I knew. And I was guessing all of his men by now knew, that Nick Anscombe had finally given away his heart.

  And we'd let her escape, so we had a chance of bringing him home. This was not going to go well at all. But Adam deflected his queries with vague answers and by the time he made it to hospital, he was unconscious. That left us two hours of surgery and then a further two hours of recovery, before he was cons
cious enough to demand where his angel was.

  Things went down hill from there. He threatened to fire his entire staff. To ostracise his family from his life. And then he demanded a cellphone and his credit card, because he was booking a ticket to Nashville that night.

  It was Papa who talked him out of it. I think it broke Mama's heart as much as it broke mine to watch.

  "Son," Papa said in that soothing tone he used on us when thunderstorms made all three Anscombe kids climb into their bed at night. "If you chase after her intent on bringing her back, you need to take some good news with you. Otherwise she won't listen, she'll stay away to protect you. You either catch these arseholes for her, or at the very least you secure her Dad. Then you find her and you make her know she is yours."

  Mama blinked up at him with a look I'd seen before whilst growing up. Pure, unadulterated adoration. Like he was the very air she breathed, her life depended on this man. My mother has a very strong will of her own, but she'd given her heart to a man who knew what he wanted when he saw it, then simply set out to take it, claim it and make her his completely. I was thinking his sons were just like him.

  And I desperately wanted the man I gave my heart to, to be like my Papa too.

  We left Nick when he fell asleep exhausted with promises to be back early the next day.

  When I arrived at the hospital at eight in the morning, the moment visiting hours began, he'd already self-discharged. The nurses there shaking their heads in dismay, but with little smiles playing on their lips.

  He'd said to them that he needed to see a cowgirl about a song and demanded to be let loose so he could chase her down. I think they were picturing bulldogging or some such rodeo event.

  I panicked the entire way to ASI headquarters, not being able to get him on the phone. But I needn't have worried. He'd listened to Papa and was doing exactly what he'd advised. Hunting down the Russells and trying to find Eva's Dad. With the dedication to a task that all Anscombe men have, Nick approached the hunt for Eva's family with single minded focus.