Nate shifted to take the weight off his ankle. Cyan opened her eyes, looking up at him. “How are you doing?”
She wrinkled her nose, and he pretty much fell in love with her. “I’m okay.”
Distance. Keep a distance. “Your hands hurt?”
She nodded, a small movement that made him shift his arm so he could rub her shoulder. “Little bit.”
“I can’t imagine what your life has been like,” he said, talking low and knowing it was a hush-hush subject. Mimi knew about Sanctuary already, but Daire was a wildcard. Though he knew how to keep a secret. “I don’t know how you ended up there, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty. You wouldn’t have been there otherwise.”
“I miss it. Small town, good people for the most part. I liked living there.”
“I’ve been, twice now.” He smiled. Once had been to help his brother, and they’d landed for a few minutes before leaving again. But the second time had been longer.
No one was ever going to keep Nate out, not with his nephew, Pat—John’s son—living there. He’d signed a thousand bits of paper, and if he told anyone about the town, he’d end up there himself. But if that was what it took to have a relationship with his nephew, then he’d do it.
“You’ve been to—” She glanced at Daire and Mimi, then back at him. She whispered, “Sanctuary?”
He nodded.
“I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t know you knew.”
“Everyone has secrets, and we barely know each other.” Nate could count on one hand the number of people he truly trusted, and even they didn’t know he needed surgery on his ankle. Still, with Cyan there was this…connection. And now there were even more threads that stretched between his life and hers, intertwining them in a way he couldn’t deny even if he wanted to.
Nate grinned. “But now I know you’re the woman who broke Matthias’s heart.”
Cyan’s eyes widened.
“Don’t worry. He’s getting married in a few weeks.”
“He is?”
“Yep. Frannie’s really nice, and they’re basically perfect for each other.” Nate laughed, because there’d been an epidemic of that lately. First his brother John met Andra. Then Matthias, who he now counted as a friend even from a distance, admitted how he’d felt about Frannie for a long time. Two of his teammates had gotten hitched—and quit calling, along with everyone else. —And Grant had been married for years, separated, and had recently convinced Genevieve they should give their marriage another try. Nate felt kind of left out.
“I’m glad for him. Matthias is a good man; he always was.” Still, something lingered in her face and her tone.
Nate decided to ask. “What is it?”
“Matthias and I…” She sighed. “It was a long time ago, but it was the catalyst for mom deciding we should leave. I wondered for a time if she’d set it up, if she’d paid Diego to kiss me knowing Matthias was going to show up right then. I’d like to say she’d never do something like that, but I wouldn’t put anything past her.”
“You think she’d do that?”
“I know she told Ron. My manager.” She glanced at Mimi. “Mom told him all about what happened. Like it was me at the root of all of it, not Diego. He used that as the basis for a bunch of stories he leaked to the press to stir up chatter about me.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I had to have my shot at stardom.” Cyan shook her head. “Who cared about my reputation when fame was on the line?”
“Sounds like you’ve been given a bad rap.”
Cyan sighed.
Nate wanted to ask more, but the phone from Boomer’s truck rang with Grant’s number. “Yep?”
“Hello to you, too.” Grant chuckled. “Remember Donny Harlen? His sister was in my English lit class my sophomore year.”
“Didn’t you get caught kissing her in the janitor’s closet?”
Grant chuckled. “Anyway, Donny and his partner will be the ones at the meet point.” Grant gave him directions, which Nate relayed to Daire. A Walmart parking lot where the meet would be around the back, down a residential street so parking lot cameras couldn’t see them.
“We should be there in about fifteen minutes.”
“Great,” Grant said. “Everything else okay? You? Cyan? Mimi isn’t giving you any problems is she?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s asleep or something.” Mimi didn’t move, so he figured his guess could be correct. “Daire probably put some ninja choke hold on her.”
“Don’t underestimate her.” Grant’s voice had hardened.
“I won’t, and neither will Daire.”
Grant hung up, and Daire drove them to the rendezvous point.
Nate glanced out the window. “This is almost over.”
“I hope so.” Daire muttered.
“Somewhere to be?”
His friend shrugged one shoulder. “Ben might need some help, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave you to fend for yourself.”
“And yet, when you think about it, the only reason I ended up in danger in the first place was because we were doing something for my brother.” Nate grinned. “I’ll have to explain that to Ben when I see him.”
Daire shook his head, chuckled, and then groaned, rubbing his hand on his chest. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, you may have a point.” Ben would go ballistic if he found out his job was what put Nate in danger. Well, he was probably ballistic wherever he was, but also busy enough he had to put it aside for later and concentrate.
“Maybe I should fire you and hire a reputable company.”
Daire chuckled. “You can try. I doubt Ben would stand for that, either.”
“True.” Nate was stuck with his brother—all of them actually—and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Daire turned left without using his turn signal and pulled over at the sidewalk. A black SUV waited on the opposite side of the road. Daire turned to him and Cyan. “I want the two of you to stay here.”
Cyan looked like she was going to object, so Nate set his free hand on her forearm. “That’s fine.” He didn’t want her moving out of her restful position, and Nate didn’t want to walk more on his foot than he had to. Daire could handle this.
Nate watched while they hauled Mimi out and put her in the back seat of their car, and then Daire led them back over. Nate saw the agent he knew and lifted his chin in a greeting, which was returned.
Daire opened the trunk. Hopefully Cooper would accept the inevitable and go without a fight, though if they accidentally slipped and punched him, Nate wouldn’t complain. Who knew what would have happened to Cyan if they hadn’t heard her in the bathroom.
There was a shuffle and then a thud. Someone yelled, and two shots fired from a gun. Nate twisted to look back out his side window. The brother of the girl Grant had kissed after English lit fell to the ground, eyes open but his sight gone.
Daire flung the door open and dived in, shoving the car in gear. Two shots fired in quick succession at the back of the car. Daire hit the gas. Cyan screamed, and they ducked as the back window shattered. The trunk slammed down and popped back up again, bouncing open as they sped away.
Nate yelled, “What happened?”
He could see the clenched muscle in Daire’s jaw. “Cooper got one of their guns. Both the agents are dead, and Mimi ran off.”
Daire glanced back. “Call 9-1-1. Tell them what happened but don’t mention my name.”
Nate paused in the act of retrieving his phone and looked up.
“You were the one handing off Mimi and Cooper to the FBI. I was never here, you don’t know me. You’ve never heard of me. I don’t even exist.”
“Seriously?”
Daire turned a corner. Nate had to grab the handle at the top of the window while Cyan wrapped her arm around his free one. He caught her wince.
“Just call them.” Daire continued to drive, sending them speeding up the coast at a punishing pace. If they kept this up, they were going to get pulled over. Daire’s wish of being absent—completely—wouldn’t last too long.
The dispatcher answered, “Emergency services.”
Nate explained about the murders, dropped Mimi’s real name and the name Cooper, his brother—the director of the US Marshals, and the FBI contact.
“Police officers are being sent to that location. I’m going to ask you to park and tell me where you are so that I can have officers meet up with you.”
Nate figured Daire could ditch them at that point if he wanted to. He gave the dispatcher cross streets, and Daire pulled into a gas station.
“We’ll wait here for the cops.” Nate hung up.
Daire shifted to face them. “I have to go.”
“I’m sorry.” Why did Nate feel the need to apologize? “I want to tell the police. We can’t keep doing this.”
Daire nodded, glancing to Cyan and back to Nate. “Don’t sweat it. Not anything you need to worry about. I’ll find Mimi before they do. You just concentrate on giving them as much as you can on Cooper. He’s the bigger threat right now. He just killed two FBI agents, and he’s on the run.”
“That’s it? Just Cooper?”
“Grant will deal with Mimi after I find her. She’s not going to let anyone get in her way, but she wants the comfort of wealth and leisure. She won’t kill if it’s not part of her carefully prepared plan.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
Nate raised his eyebrows.
“Get in the front so it actually looks like you were driving.”
“You’re seriously asking me to lie to the police?” Nate studied his friend’s face, but Daire gave away nothing.
“Would you do it to save someone’s life?”
“Yes.”
Daire got out, leaning back in the car for long enough to say, “Then I was never here.” He left the driver’s door open.
Nate turned to Cyan. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head, breathless. “Cooper killed them.”
“I know.” He really needed to get to the front seat, but how could he just leave her here? “Cooper’s not here and neither is Mimi. Neither of them are going to hurt you anymore.”
Cyan’s eyes filled. “They probably had families, those FBI agents. Wives and kids who aren’t going to see them come home today.” She sucked in a breath. “Because of me.”
“Us.”
She shook her head, but Nate turned her so she looked at him.
“Cyan, this is us. Not just you.”
“Until you have to go back to your life, and I—” Her voice broke, and so did a little part of Nate’s heart.
“Honey, I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you have a career.”
Nate clenched his stomach and decided to actually admit it out loud. “I need surgery on my ankle. I’ll heal, but enough to play football again?” He shrugged, even though it hurt to be so casual about it.
Cyan reached up. She set her bandaged hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry.”
Why was she apologizing to him? As much as he hated it, Nate’s eyes filled with tears that really wanted out. But when Cyan leaned in and kissed him, all thoughts of crying evaporated as he gathered her close. There was something inexplicable which drew him to her. He’d never admit it, but all that stuff about two souls being meant for each other totally worked for him. How else was he supposed to tell it was real this time?
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.