“You have your truck,” Ryder insisted.
Lauren jumped up and snatched the keys from Rose’s hand. “I drove it here, so it’s only fair if I drive it back to the bank.”
The men shared a look. Who were they to steal her joy?
“Come on, kid,” Rose said. “You’re with me.”
Caleb slowed his feet. “I’m staying with Lauren. She knows my mom.”
“All right, kid.” Ryder held the door open and let Caleb slide in back. When Lauren was safely settled, Ryder closed the door and walked around to the passenger side. He paused with his hand on the handle and spoke to Rose. “Meet you back at the bank. Give Craft a call and let him know what went down.”
Rose nodded and flicked the fob to unlock the truck. “You call Fowler and find out where the hell he is.”
Lauren popped back out the driver’s door. “Hey, Rose, do you have anything to eat in your truck?”
He shook his head no.
“How about sunglasses?”
Rose brought her a pair of aviators and headed back to the truck. Lauren popped on the sunglasses, covering the worst of the bruises and scrapes around her eyes, but the sight of them was embedded in Ryder’s memory. Lauren took them through their favorite drive-thru a block away to get the kid some chow and Ryder sent a text to his mother telling her the boy was safe. He swallowed two burgers before dropping back into the seat. He was asleep before they made it halfway across town. In the meantime, Ryder shot off a text to Fowler asking him to check in with an ETA. When he was sure the kid was out, he twisted to face Lauren. They needed to get a few things straight. “What was the game plan back at the bank?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Stay low, stay safe.”
“That’s always the plan. At the bank, I specifically told you not to engage. If anything went south, you were to head out.”
She braked at a stoplight. “In my defense, Earl threatened to kill a toddler and Miranda and Caleb.”
“And rather than trust me to handle the situation, you let yourself be taken hostage. Again.”
“I don’t know about let myself get taken.” The light turned green and she accelerated, shoving through the gears fast enough to slam Ryder back in his seat. “The gun overruled my objections.”
“Longest five minutes of my life.” She was only supposed to be in the bank for five minutes. Ryder took a deep breath to keep from yelling at his wife. Sweat beaded his brow. The day was sunny but windy, not too hot, but the inside of the little vehicle felt cramped and overheated. He had failed at his number one priority. She’d been taken on his watch. The features he loved were discolored like a boxer after twelve rounds. The natural curve of her lips was split and swollen, and the delicate skin at her throat had cuts and contusions. “It’s killing me to see you bruised. Trouble seems to follow you.”
She glanced at him, her eyes sliding to the right before focusing back on the road. “Who protects me when you leave?”
He grabbed a lock of hair and let the silky strand filter through his fingers. “I nearly killed a man with my bare hands. I’m the danger, baby. Why don’t you understand that?”
“You’ve never hurt me. Why don’t you understand that?” She took her hand off the stick shift and rested it on his knee. “I married you because you’re strong and smart and sexy. I married you because you remember every detail of our first date; because you listen and actually care about my work; because you intimidate Professor Crawford.” She laughed at that one, but the sound was strangled by unshed tears. “Because you quote poetry and Frederick the Great and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War; because with you, I’m never alone, even when you’re not in the same room, I know I’m safe. Ryder, you’re the center of my life. I married you for forever, not just when things are easy.”
Ryder let his eyes drift close. Exhaustion crowded in on him, weighing his shoulders down and filling the daylight with shadows. “I may not have forever.”
The hand on his knees squeezed. “Then we take what we can get, but Ryder, I’m all in. I won’t let you go a second time.”
He nodded his agreement, because he couldn’t fight past the lump in his throat. He coughed and glanced back at the sleeping kid. “What happened with Earl?”
“He locked me in the room with Caleb. We were waiting for the boss, whoever that is.”
“Smythe?”
“Oh, you’d think, right? Until I stumbled on his body wrapped in plastic.”
Ryder leaned back in the seat. Smythe’s dead body implied a new direction in the threat to Lauren. “Someone’s cleaning up the mess.”
“Looks like.”
Ryder’s gut clenched. “Baby, if they’re cleaning up the mess, you’re a loose end. You’re the only one who didn’t fall in line.”
“My husband taught me to defend myself.”
“You’ll make a team member yet.” She’d gone from being impulsive and pigheadedly independent to working as part of the larger team.
“I’d rather be your partner.”
Hell, he didn’t know if he could do a partnership. “I’m wired to lead.”
“We’ll work on that.” She rubbed her jaw where new bruises combined with the ones from the accident. “Earl would neither confirm nor deny, but I’m guessing the lawyer is the boss.” As they drove through afternoon traffic, Lauren relayed her experience. Knots formed in his gut at the details, but she didn’t spare him, didn’t hide anything. “I’m the one who started this. I walked into lawyer’s office the first time and put myself on his radar.”
A sickness wound around his heart. He had come back to end things with Lauren. For her safety, but knowing she didn’t want him cut deep. “Why did you?”
She downshifted to change lanes before speeding around a slow truck. The speed indicated her tension, one that increased as she zipped onto the interstate and wound aggressively through traffic. “I didn’t want to spend my life mourning a man who left me.”
“Your father?”
She nodded tightly, her eyes hidden behind the glasses, but her throat flexed when she swallowed. “I acted in haste. Let my fear rule me. I’m sorry.”
She was apologizing to him? Ryder was humbled by her generosity. “Baby, it’s my fault. I’m sorry.” His throat tightened on the words. He wanted to promise it wouldn’t happen again, but under the same situation—to protect her—he’d leave in a heartbeat, although that hadn’t worked so well the first time.
“I think I should go back to the lawyer.”
His heart flexed. After the deep connection of the last few days. After her statement about forever. “You want a divorce.” Now his throat closed, barely choking out the words.
“No. God.” Her hand fluttered to his thigh. “He doesn’t know we are aware of his involvement. If we went in together, acted like we wanted to get the paperwork started? You could plant a bug or something.”
The shock turned to anger. “Hell no.” He couldn’t let her put herself at risk again. “I let you go into the bank, against every instinct I had. That won’t happen again.”
“I survived.” She kept her eyes on the road.
“Look at you. You’re bruised and bloodied. He had you against the wall.”
“I fought back, but I survived thanks to you. How did you know where to find me?”
“We were already on the roof, planning to enter through the master bedroom when we saw the black flag.” Then he heard her scream and something inside him had fractured. “Smart thinking.”
“It was Caleb’s idea.” She glanced back in the rearview mirror. The kid was still sacked out. “But that doesn’t answer my real question. You’re avoiding the truth. How did you find me.”
He handed over her phone without a word.
“Are you telling me you put a tracker in my phone?” Her voice did that high-pitched thing as she smacked the steering wheel.
“No tracker. It’s an app.”
“You’ve been stalking me?”
“Stalking is a har
sh word.” He had put the app on her phone to keep an eye on her when he was far away. It soothed the demon to know where she was. “Tracking you proved necessary. Twice,” he reminded her in case the anger on her face broke free.
“We need to talk about trust.” She tucked the phone in her back pocket.
“This has nothing to do with trust. It’s about safety.”
“Oh, so when do I get a tracker on your phone?”
“Baby, I don’t need your protection.”
“Wipe that smug grin off your face, Ryder. If I have to get Craft’s help, I’ll have that app on your phone by sunset.”
At the next exit, she pulled off and stopped at the light. Ryder leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on her lips. “You’re the most determined woman I know.”
“Ha. Don’t think you can sweet talk your way out of this.”
He lifted his hands in mock innocence. “Would I do that?”
She glared over at him. “In a heartbeat.”
“Besides, we don’t need to confront the lawyer. While you were MIA, Craft sent the records and evidence he collected to the bank, the FBI, and about a dozen state and local agencies.”
“The lawyer will be long gone before they get their act together. He’ll be on a beach somewhere spending our mortgage money.”
“Don’t count on it.” Ryder grinned. “Craft is good. He put a tag on the lawyer’s passport. He’s now on the no-fly list.”
“Can he do that?”
“He did it. Now all we have to do is keep you safe until they put Earl and crew behind bars, just in case they get stupid enough to seek revenge.”
Lauren made the last turn to the bank. “Could take awhile.”
“Guess I’ll have to stick around.” Her smile banished the darkness. “Don’t park in the employee lot. Take it to the parking garage on Elm.”
She followed his directions to the parking garage and hid the hotrod in between two SUVs. “Any particular reason we don’t make this easy for the cops to find?”
“I have a buddy I can call to wipe it clean. When they run forensics, I don’t want any evidence linking you to the car. As far as the investigators know, we were never near the meth lab or the men scamming us out of our house.”
They walked Caleb to the bank and left him on the employee patio. They moved back before sending a text to Miranda. She raced out seconds later and embraced the boy. She looked around but didn’t see them. “Do you think she’ll keep quiet about you?”
Ryder nodded. “She wanted her son back, and she really doesn’t want to admit to helping Earl and his cohorts. She’ll keep quiet.” They walked around the block where Rose picked them up.
“We’ve got trouble,” he said as soon as they closed the door to the outside world.
“Really? It’s been such a peaceful day so far.” Lauren smirked. She took the chaos like a seasoned vet.
Rose ran the details as they drove through town. “Fowler called. He’s got a tail. They’re trained and he can’t shake them.”
“Where is he?”
“Outside of Tucson and headed this way.”
Ryder rubbed the bones around his eye socket, trying to ease the freaking headache that wouldn’t end. “Baby, I can’t take you with me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“You disappear and I will hunt you like the dog you are.” Trust. Lauren had to learn to trust him at some point. Debi was right. Lauren couldn’t live in fear that he’d leave, the way she had been from the beginning. She kicked the rear tire of Rose’s truck. They stood in the staff parking lot under a tree that filtered the afternoon sun.
Ryder brushed the hair off her shoulder. “We’re walking into a volatile situation. I will not take you into what amounts to a combat situation.” The intractable set of his jaw promised he would not be swayed.
Lauren swallowed her objections. After the week she’d had, she didn’t really want to go anywhere she could be shot at or beaten. “You think Earl and his cronies are on the run?”
“Yes. Craft confirmed that there’s a warrant out for Earl’s arrest. The lawyer has a flight scheduled this evening. He won’t be on it.”
Ryder’s certainty soothed her fears. “What about the others?”
“The remaining conspirators will try to run before the investigators link them to the evidence implicating the lawyer and Smythe. With Smythe dead, the rest of the crew will scurry into the shadows, but I want you to stay in a public place just in case.”
“How long until they find Smythe’s body?” The idea of a decomposing body in her old house nauseated her.
“Not our problem. Is Debi on the way?”
Lauren smoothed the cotton over Ryder’s chest. “You know she hates campus.” Not that Lauren blamed her. “But she said she’d be here soon.”
“Good. Go somewhere public. The cafeteria or the library.” Ryder pulled her body into his. “Keep your phone on you.”
“I’m seriously texting Craft and getting that app on your phone.” Lauren smoothed her hands over his shoulders to twine around his neck. “Come back to me.”
“If it’s safe.”
“That’s not the same thing.” She lifted the sunglasses to the top of her head so she could look him in the eye. “I’m safest when you’re with me.”
He brushed a thumb over her throbbing lip. “I’m starting to think that’s true.”
“Trust me. It is true.” Tingles spread from his light touch. “Kiss me.”
“There’s nowhere that won’t hurt you.”
“I’ll live.” Lauren swallowed. If they were separating, even briefly, she wanted that last good kiss in her memory banks. The distracted kiss and go in the kitchen haunted her. “I need you, Ryder.”
He lowered his head, softly dropping his lips to hers. He tried to keep it feather light, but Lauren didn’t give him what he wanted. She stepped onto the tips of her toes and pulled his head lower. Erotic pain accompanied the drugging kiss as she pushed past sweet and into steamy. Her tongue tasted him. He pulled her closer so she felt his erection against her cleft. The want didn’t fade, could never end.
Rose tapped the horn and Ryder lifted his head. “I have to go.”
Lauren smoothed hair from his face. “I will hunt you.”
“Then I guess the only way to keep you from stumbling into more trouble is to come back.”
“You guess right.” Lauren dropped to flat feet. “Be safe.”
“That’s my line.” He pressed one last soft kiss to her cheek and disappeared into the truck. Lauren watched it merge into traffic before dropping the sunglasses into place and winding her way through campus. The wind rustled branches and made the shady path cooler. Lauren wrapped Ryder’s coat tighter around her chest. At the admin building, she stepped inside to get out of the wind.
“Professor?” At the coffee kiosk, Beth stared at her, mouth open like a fish on a hook. “What happened?”
Did she look that bad? Maybe she should have avoided people, rather than walk into them and encourage speculation. “The accident,” she lied. “Just looks worse today with the bruises coming out.” Right. “Do you have any ice?”
“Sure.” Beth scooped ice into a plastic bag and handed it over the counter. “Anything else? A coffee maybe?”
Just the idea of coffee turned her stomach. Lauren sent a quick text to Debi telling her to meet in her office. Being around people was a bad idea. The look on Beth’s face was enough evidence of how horrific her appearance must be. “A hot tea, maybe?”
Lauren set the phone down and reached for her wallet, but Beth waved her off. “This is on me. Really looks like you could use it.”
“You have no idea.” Lauren pressed the icepack to her throat. The chill chased away some of the ache. Maybe she should take a bath in the stuff. “I appreciate the tea.”
Beth’s hands shook as she handed over the insulated cup. “Are you sure you’re okay? Can I call anyone?”
“No.” Lauren added honey to the tea
and stirred until it dissolved. Beth watched like she expected Lauren to fall over at any minute. Great. This would be all over campus before the weekend. Crawford would eliminate her for sure. “Thanks, Beth.” Lauren walked the long way around the admin building, hoping to avoid Crawford who had office hours this afternoon. If she were lucky—what were the odds—he’d think the rumors were an exaggeration from the accident. Crawford liked Ryder, so surely he wouldn’t think what Beth so obviously thought, that Ryder hit her. As if. Ryder lived in terror of it, but Lauren knew without a doubt that Ryder would never cause her harm.
Lauren shut the door and kept the light out so no one would notice she was there. Hopefully. She eased her tired bones into the black office chair behind her desk and let it tilt back. With the sunglasses still on, very little light made it through, and the dim light soothed her throbbing eyeballs. There wasn’t a bone or muscle in her body that didn’t hurt like hell. She set the ice pack on her neck and sat that way until the cold numbed the pain.
She titled forward and grabbed her tea, which had cooled enough to drink. She took several long swallows, and the warmth was like a balm to her sore throat, but the bitter taste didn’t do much for her tongue. Lauren grabbed the white tab and noticed it wasn’t her regular blend. Beth must have been so discombobulated that she picked the wrong one. After another unsatisfactory drink, Lauren set it aside. She put the melting ice to her jaw and groaned. She needed a long weekend away, a hot tub, and a glass of wine. Make that a bottle of wine. And Ryder. She leaned into the ice bag in her hand. Everything was better with Ryder.
She really would track him if he didn’t come back. She’d given it a great deal of thought. Debi was right. She controlled her future. If Ryder didn’t love her, that would be one thing. Lauren sat up, dropping the ice to the floor. Did he love her? Her heart felt as mangled as her face. He hadn’t said the words since he’d returned. Not when she said it to him, not when she’d told him why she married him. Why she loved him.
Would he be so worried about hurting her if he didn’t love her? No. He just bottled his emotions up like he was still on a mission. She had to believe that. He loved her, and love mattered, more than fear or danger or anything else she’d endured the last few days. She patted her pockets, looking for her phone. Dang. She’d left it at the coffee kiosk. She picked up the office phone and dialed the kiosk extension.
Live By The Team (Team Fear Book 1) Page 21