Team Love on the Run Box-Set #1

by Lisa Phillips

  In time it would be proven true or false, but right now Cyan was the only woman in the world he wanted to be with. How was it she could give him so much without demanding anything? No one had ever done that before.

  She leaned back, eyes wide. “Uh…”

  “Don’t apologize.”

  “Good, because I’m not sorry.” Her lips twitched, but she sobered fast. “It’s been an awful, scary, and shocking day, but I’m glad you were here. That was probably a bad way to say thank you, but I don’t have a better idea.”

  “Me, either.” He grinned for a second, then sobered. “As soon as the police get here, we’ll get you somewhere you can rest.”

  “I don’t think I’ll rest until I know Mimi and Cooper have been caught. Otherwise, how will I know he won’t break in again, and this time—” She shut her eyes. “I don’t think I’ll sleep on my own. Not until I know.”

  “I’ll stay with you, if you want. We could find a good hotel, and I’ll get us adjoining rooms. Or if you didn’t mind, I could sleep on the couch at your place.” He kept talking, even though he felt like an idiot with no idea how to make her feel better.

  “I’ll have to call my security company and have them re-set my alarm. That’s if my house hasn’t been completely destroyed, since it’s been unlocked and open since we ran out. Cooper probably wrecked the place after we got in the boat.”

  He needed to find out what happened to Boomer, also. His friend’s house had exploded, or been set on fire. Was Boomer even still alive?

  Cyan looked out the window at the parking lot and the gas station beyond it.

  It felt like they’d been disconnected from the real world. Would they have to go back to their lives soon? Nate wasn’t sure he was ready to give this time with her up, even if they were in the middle of so much murder and mayhem.

  Chapter 12

  Nate lifted his phone and tilted it side to side. “I’m going to call Grant again.”

  Cyan nodded. “I’m going to run inside and use the restroom.”

  He reached over and pulled on the door handle to let her out. “Be careful.”

  She shot him a look, but he was already dialing. Did he think Cooper might be there? He couldn’t know where they were. Not this fast. There was no way. Right?

  Cyan turned in a circle as she walked, watching the whole area. There were a couple of cars. An older man on a motorcycle. It wasn’t the guy from the library, was it? The world wasn’t that small.

  She walked faster, almost sprinting to the restroom. Hopefully she’d figure out how to do that with bandaged hands, but it was going to hurt. Her hands stung almost continually. Whatever the doctor had given her had worn off. She should probably get some regular pain killers, but that would mean asking Nate for money, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to do that even if he had offered.

  Cyan turned again, putting her back to the door in order to push her way into the gas station store. They had cameras all over the place, so she figured she’d be safe for a few minutes. The lanky kid behind the register went wide-eyed for a second as she walked by. Cyan tried to smile in return.

  Why couldn’t she go somewhere no one knew who she was? Even if this kid didn’t recognize her, some people did. Or maybe he was just reacting to the injured state of her. In the grocery store. That guy at the library. Online was the worst, which was why she didn’t have a private Facebook page, just a fan page she didn’t check that much and rarely posted on.

  When they got all this cleared up with the police, she needed to pack her car and just drive. Find some small town with a church that needed a worship leader and spend her time singing to her Lord the way she wanted to do. All the time. It was like a compulsion at this point—she needed to praise His name; there wasn’t a better way to describe it. She’d rather be singing to Him than just about anything else.

  And why couldn’t she? God should honor that desire in her, right? What was the point in wanting to serve Him if God couldn’t give her a situation where she could do it? Except, part of her wondered if God even wanted her to do that. Maybe He hadn’t opened that door for her because it wasn’t what He wanted her to do. But what was the point in having a desire in her heart that she believed God had given her if He didn’t want her to have it?

  Cyan shook her head, her gaze moving around the room until she found the restroom sign. She wanted to serve God, but instead she was here in some weird world where mobsters killed people, innocent FBI agents were shot doing their jobs, and the two most unqualified people in the world were the ones fighting to sort it out?

  Her life made no sense whatsoever.

  Cyan strode toward the hall where the bathrooms were.

  Cooper and Mimi had inserted themselves into the situation, but at its core this was still about her past. Her uncle was dead; her mom had passed away. Did one of his old associates still hold a grudge against her? The “boss” could have the SD card. She’d give it to him herself if she knew who he was—but would he leave her alive?

  The Marshals service wouldn’t have let Cyan and her mom leave Sanctuary if they’d still been in danger. They would have been protected even if her mom signed them out with an active threat. She’d have been given a WITSEC handler if she needed to still be in witness protection, but she hadn’t. Of course, the marshals hadn’t known her mom still had the SD card—if they’d known it existed at all.

  Now she was back with Nate, who made her heart flutter and took care of her like she was precious. A man like that surely wasn’t accustomed to the biblical ideal of dating and marriage, even if he’d been a gentleman so far. Or maybe she was selling him short.

  Could he really be the man God had for her? She wanted a quiet—anonymous—life. A life she wouldn’t get with a rich and famous football player. But since when had God’s plan been anything like the future she saw for herself?

  She’d thought she would always live in Sanctuary.

  She’d thought she would work with kids, and then she’d thought she would be a worship leader.

  She’d thought she wanted a quiet life with a small family, love, safety, and laughter.

  Apparently all that was too much to ask for.

  Movement in that mirror above the hall drew her attention up. A figure in a black coat walked behind her. She kept going, into the dimly lit hall. There was nowhere to go now but toward the bathroom. Three doors and then an exit at the end with an alarm-bar, just like the library had. Only on this one the cord dangled down, disconnected.

  Cyan picked up her pace. She couldn’t even go to the bathroom when she needed it. Headed for the exit door, Cyan twisted so she could push the bar with her hip and not her bandaged hands.

  Cooper was right behind her.

  The door clicked open behind her even as her breath hitched in her throat. It swung back and let in the heat. The cold metal gun—a gun which had recently killed two FBI agents—pressed against the soft skin under her jaw. She tried to swallow but it got stuck.

  “Hello, Cyan.”

  He forced her outside. Cyan looked at the man and then the gun and then the car he’d parked behind the gas station where Nate wouldn’t be able to see it.

  “I can’t drive. I can barely grab anything, let alone shift a gearstick.” She should just make a run for it. Sure, he’d probably shoot her, but maybe he didn’t want to kill her. If she could make enough noise, maybe she’d get help and not die. Recovering from a gunshot wound would suck, but not as much as being dead.

  “Fine,” he bit out. “Get in and move over.”

  Cooper positioned her between himself and the car, so she had nowhere to go, and held the gun on her while he opened the door. Cyan scrambled in and tried to move far enough over to get out the passenger door, but got tangled on the gearstick. He grabbed the belt of her jeans. She couldn’t get forward. Her fingers glanced off the handle, and her stitches pulled. She cried out with the pain.

  He picked up her feet and pushed her legs toward the passenger side of
the car and got in, then locked her door. He pulled the belt across her even though she wasn’t straight up in the seat. Her body twisted at a funny angle, and she couldn’t right herself. He was going to do whatever he wanted, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Finally he moved back and started the car.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  His eyes gleamed as he pulled out of the parking lot. “We’re going sailing.”

  “I don’t have any clothes.” Okay, so that wasn’t the most pertinent thing right now, but it was what came out of her mouth. She needed a bathroom first, and then a shower. Then she needed clean clothes. Cooper wasn’t going to be around for any of that, though. Not if she could help it.

  “You need your guitar.”

  She looked at him. “Too bad I left it at Nate’s house.”

  She bit her lip. Maybe she should’ve told him she’d lost it or something.

  Cooper frowned. “Don’t you have another one?”

  Sure, an old Fender she’d had since she was a teenager. “We’ll have to go to my apartment and get it.” Not that she had her key, either, but still. Either the place would be open or the cops had locked it up. Maybe Vanessa Rae would be there and she could convince her to call the cops. There had to be a way to alert her neighbor to the fact she was in trouble.

  “Very well.” Cooper made a turn toward her apartment.

  A cold chill swept through her. “You know where I live.” It wasn’t a question. “Is it you who went through my apartment?” She shook her head. The timing was too close for him to have been the one.

  He glanced at her then, with a look like she’d never seen before. “I’m your biggest fan.”

  Cyan glanced out the window. She’d have to unbuckle the belt, get the door unlocked, and get out before he realized what she was doing. With her hands bandaged, that was next to impossible.

  She’d be dead, or subdued at least, by the time she realized it wasn’t going to work. No one would ever know what happened to her—Cyan would either disappear with him and never get away from the horror he represented, or she would turn up as a file on some homicide detective’s desk and never ever get to find out what the promise in Nate’s eyes meant.

  God, this wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m supposed to be praising You, not living this nightmare. Is this really Your best for me? Aren’t You supposed to give the desire of their hearts to people who love You? This makes no sense. It isn’t what I wanted.

  Fear welled up in her throat. She sniffed back the reaction, praying Cooper wouldn’t see it as weakness he could exploit. She didn’t want him to get all worked up because she was scared. She had to pretend she wasn’t shaking to her very core.

  How could God have allowed this to happen? Hadn’t the last two days been bad enough? God didn’t hate her, but it sure felt like He disliked her if He was willing to allow this to happen. This didn’t look anything like what she’d imagined her life to be. She’d always known she wouldn’t walk the path everyone else did. That was a given. Cyan wasn’t like normal people, and not just because she’d grown up in Sanctuary.

  She was supposed to have used the gifts God had given her. But how could she do that as a captive? A sob welled up in her throat as she let go of that hard-won dream. If God didn’t want her to serve Him, then she wouldn’t do it. Even though it was the thing she wanted most in the world, this was a big “No” from the Lord that it was never going to happen. Now she just needed to accept that fact.

  Cooper walked her all the way to her front door.

  When Vanessa Rae opened her front door, tears were streaming down Cyan’s face. “Cyan!” She glanced from Cyan to Cooper and back. “Uh…is everything—”

  Cyan shook her head. “No, everything is not okay.”

  Cooper pulled her to her door.

  Cyan turned to him, lifted her bandaged hands, and let them fall back down by her sides. “I don’t even have my key. You’re going to have to break down the door if you want my guitar. Although to be honest, I’d rather you kill me than take me on a sailing trip.” She lifted her hands again but couldn’t really make effective quote marks. Still, she prayed Vanessa had caught her reference.

  All Cyan heard was a gasp, and then Vanessa slammed her door. Please be calling the police.

  Cooper narrowed his eyes, but Cyan was done. She lifted her chin. “Good luck getting away with this.”

  He kicked the door in and grabbed her arm. “Thirty seconds. You get your guitar, or I splatter your brains and your neighbor’s all over this hall.”

  She leaned in to his face. “I can’t even scratch my nose. How do you expect me to pick up the handle of my guitar case?”

  Cooper pushed her inside.

  Chapter 13

  Nate left the cops outside and went in the gas station store. Again. If he gripped his phone any tighter, he was going to break the thing.

  The cashier’s eyes widened. “You’re Nate Mason.”

  “Yup.” He gave a half-hearted attempt at a smile. “I know the cops watched your surveillance tapes, but—”

  “Tapes are broken.”

  Nate said, “They are?”

  The cashier nodded, and Nate pressed his lips together. The cops hadn’t told him that, but they had asked if he could hook them up with season tickets.

  “Did they ask you about the man who took her?”

  “I didn’t see no kidnapping. But she looked freaked out, you know? I think she was being followed, like by some crazy ex or something. Did you know she’s Cyan Greene? That song, the one about broken wings? That was her.”

  “Sure was.”

  “Hey.” The kid’s eyes lit up. “Was she freaking out cause of you? Are you the crazy ex?”

  “No. I’m the one who’s going to get her back from the crazy guy.”

  “I don’t know where he took her or nothin’.” He waved a spindly finger to the back corner. “He came in after you guys pulled into the lot and waited right there for her. Watching. It was super creepy. Then when she headed for the bathroom, he started following. I was going to say something, but then I realized who she was. By the time the guy walked by me, I remembered he was there. I got ready to yell to her, but he flashed this huge gun. I work at a gas station and there’s a guy with a gun? This ain’t gonna go well for a guy like me. Never does.”

  Nate stood silent for a moment, amazed by the sageness of the young man’s outlook. “So you just let him abduct her out of the back door?”

  “Hey, I called the cops.”

  “And I appreciate that.”

  “Mr. Mason!” The cop who’d interviewed Nate stood in the door with his thumbs in his gun belt. Couldn’t he have gotten someone more like that detective on CSI Miami? Instead, he got the country-bumpkin sheriff’s deputy because they were outside city limits. “This is a police matter, and I suggest you go home.”

  Yeah, right. Cyan had been gone two hours, and Nate had spent that entire time answering question after question about dead FBI agents and a former starlet who’d been missing for years.

  Not a whole lot about the abduction that had taken place right here.

  He sighed, glancing around the store as he exhaled. He wasn’t qualified to do this. If any of his brothers were here, they’d know what to do. Not only that, but Nate was currently useless as a football player for anything other than drawing attention to himself—which was happening as people stopped to get gas and saw him and the cops obviously having an intense discussion. A crowd had gathered around the forecourt and the store.

  Ben never did anything that drew attention to himself. John was the sheriff of a town no one even knew existed—a town Nate would give up all his money to go live in if he could. Grant was well-known, but he had a way about him that was so understated. Everything Grant did was about protecting innocent people while trying to be the best husband and father he could be.

  Now that Cyan was gone Nate didn’t have anything but a fat wallet and a giant empty house
. Nothing but the ability to feel even more sorry for himself than he had when he’d found out his football career was basically over.

  Nate kicked at the tile floor with his good foot. What would Ben do?

  “Mr. Mason.”

  He glanced at the cop. “I’m leaving.”

  Nate strode out, past the flashing cameras on every cell phone of every person out there. Thank you modern technology for that gem of wonderment. And he prayed his supremely bad day didn’t go viral. Yeah, he prayed. What else was he supposed to do? John kept telling him it was the only thing that would get him out of this funk, but John didn’t know Nate was grieving the end of his career. Now it was a thousand times worse. Cyan’s life was on the line. If there was a possibility prayer could work, why wouldn’t he do it?

  Nate strode along the sidewalk trying to push away the pain in his ankle. He’d have to ice and elevate it later. Right now all he needed was a dose of painkillers. He called a cab and got a ride back to his house. He needed to call his brothers, try and figure out where Cooper had taken her, and get his car.

  The cabbie was shocked by his passenger’s identity to say the least. But Nate sent him a look that made the driver quit chattering and leave him to his thoughts. He tapped the cell phone on his leg, trying to figure out what he should do. Cooper had to have a house or something. A car. Not that he could track a car. He didn’t know the man’s phone number. Daire was who-knew-where, finding Mimi. Otherwise Daire would be here helping Nate figure this out.

  Why had they all left him alone?

  Just like he’d let Cyan go in the gas station alone.

  Nate hung his head and swiped the moisture from the corner of his eye. He couldn’t do this by himself. Cooper had what he wanted, while Nate had lost everything good in his life, and there was little he could do about it.

  Ben would rush off—with his gun—and return two days later, bloody but with Cyan perfectly fine. Grant would hold a meeting. John would…pray, probably. He talked about his faith all the time now, and Nate didn’t really get it. But Cyan did, because why else purposely listen to Christian music? If God was going to listen to Nate, it would be because he was talking to Him about people who already followed Him.