Live By The Team (Team Fear Book 1) (12 page)

“
Hey, Professor.” Beth’s eyes took in Ryder from his thick black boots to his untamed mane. Everything about Beth’s gaze showed primal interest. Even sitting next to a boy her age, Beth knew the difference between the boy at her side and the man standing next to Lauren.

Ryder rubbed a hand along her spine, easing the instant spike of jealousy she shouldn’t feel. “I’m Ryder. Professor Ryder’s husband.”

“
Oh.” Beth shook his hand limply, with just enough disappointment in her voice to make Joe sit up straighter. He introduced himself, and when he sat back down, he scooted his chair closer to Beth. Lauren smiled at the proprietary move. Joe might be young, but he had the moves down pat. Did they teach territorial behaviors in basic training?

“
Beth said you were in a car accident last night.” Joe placed an arm behind Beth’s chair.

Behind her, Ryder stiffened. He wasn’t much for chitchat, and he definitely didn’t like sharing. He lived in a world of need to know. No one needed to know his business.

“
Is that what caused the bruising? Because the one on your cheek looks more like a fist.” Joe cast an accusatory glance at Ryder.

The growl emanating from somewhere deep in Ryder’s soul went beyond anger. She reached back to grab Ryder’s hand and squeeze. “Nope. All car accident.” She turned her attention back to Beth. “I wanted to let you know that you got your wish. I won’t be teaching class this afternoon.”

“
Yes.” Beth did a fist pump in celebration.

“
Dr. Crawford’s taking over.” Lauren glanced at the nearest wall clock. “I wouldn’t be late if I were you.”

“
Shit. Oh, sorry, Professor.” Beth scooted her chair back and grabbed her tray. With a last dark glare at Ryder, Joe stood and walked out with Beth. By the time they reached the door, Joe’s hand rode the small of her back.

“
Well that was fun.” Nothing like having a complete stranger insult your husband. Ryder was a lot of things—distant, evasive, and overbearing came to mind—but he would never hurt her physically. Lauren followed Ryder to a table near the exit.

As always, Ryder took the seat against the wall. “Who’s the guy?”

“
Soldier from Fort Bliss. They met last night at the bar.”

“
Sounds sketchy.”

“
That’s how I met you.” And look how that turned out. Lauren grabbed her bowl of soup from the tray. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to imply—”

“
That’s exactly what he meant.” Ryder chewed on his sandwich for several minutes, his expression distant. “Is that what people think? That I hit you?”

Lauren dropped the spoon into her soup. “No one thinks that.”

“
Except the grunt.”

“
Okay. So Baby Face Joe thinks you have mean stamped on your face. He was trying to make you less attractive to Beth.” And good luck with that, because there was no comparison between Ryder’s rugged appearance and the innocuous Joe. “Can I have a bite of your sandwich?”

He slid his plate across the table. Lauren lifted the roast beef to take a bite. Something made a popping noise when she opened her mouth. Each bite sent stabs of pain through her jaw. She swallowed the bite nearly whole and dropped the sandwich back to the paper plate. She shoved it back across the table. “I think I’ll stick to soup.”

Ryder frowned. Only Ryder could make a frown look so undeniably attractive. His strong eyebrows slashed over deep green eyes and his firm lips pressed together. The hint of stubble gave his strong jaw the look of marbled granite. “Did I hurt you when I...”

“
Kissed my brains out?”

“
Answer the question.”

Lauren smiled, and then winced at the pain. “Honestly, I didn’t notice. I was too busy.” Busy wishing things were different. That he’d never left. That she trusted him. That she wasn’t so alone. God, she was having an existential crisis in the middle of the campus cafeteria.

“
Don’t try to make me feel better.” The guilty tone brought the lost boy look to his face. The look that triggered her need to nurture. She batted it down.

“
Fine. You shouldn’t have kissed me. Not because it hurt my bruised face, but because it bruised my heart.” The honest words simply popped out. What had happened to her control? And was that tears in her voice? Unacceptable. The muscles tightening her throat flexed. “Now finish your lunch.”

Late afternoon sun peeked into the stingy motel window near the door, casting shadows on the industrial blah carpet. Highway noise filtered through the thin walls. Lauren stared out, zoning in and out of the conversation between Ryder and Rose.

“
Both the brakes and the clutch cable were cut,” Rose said. “I climbed under the truck myself. There’s no doubt.”

“
Then not a coincidence.” Ryder rubbed a hand over her thigh.

“
Where’s my truck now?” Lauren shifted her gaze from the window.

Rose adjusted his position in the crappy dining chair. “I had a buddy tow it to your friend Debi’s, but, sweetheart, there’s not much worth salvaging.”

Lauren tried not to let the loss hurt her. She’d liked her granddad’s old farm truck. It made her feel rugged and independent. Plus it was her only mode of transportation. One more semester, that’s all she needed, but right now, the weight of life made that semester feel insurmountable. Leaning her elbows on the laminate tabletop, she rested her head in her hands.

Ryder rubbed her neck. Had he always been so physical? Yes, he’d like to put hands on her. Not to show the world she was his—although that was a factor—but he liked to reach out and touch. Lauren fought tired tears. “What did those men say when you, uh, interrogated them?”

“
They were paid to
acquire
you by a man named Smith,” Rose answered.

“
You mean Smythe with a Y?”

“
That’s the man. You know him?”

Lauren lifted her head. “Yes, that slimy son of a carpetbagger is the realtor who foreclosed on our townhouse.”

Ryder pushed back from the table and stood. “And why did he want to
acquire
you?”

The emphasis sent fear rolling in her gut, making her sick inside. Someone she knew, a man she’d been alone with, had paid those men to kidnap her. It was demented. “Maybe because I turned down his offer to be my sugar daddy.”

“
Jesus, Lauren.” Ryder paced to the mirrored closet and back. “How did that happen?”

He was gone, that’s how it happened. She met his gaze and saw the realization in his eyes. “We were at the townhouse doing a final walkthrough.”

Ryder looked at her with the intensity of the summer sun. The key was to avoid getting burned. “Did he touch you?”

“
No, Ryder, he was a complete gentleman when he suggested we hook up to keep me off the street.”

Ryder cursed her sarcasm as he stalked her with the controlled strength of a predator playing with his food. “What did you do?”

The inference lit her fuse. “Gee, Ry, I don’t know. I think I said, ‘What the hell. It’s not like I have a husband.’”

“
Answer the question. Did. He. Touch. You?” The tendons in his neck flexed and his cheeks flushed an angry red.

Rose stood and edged closer to the door. “I think I’ll just—”

“
Stay. We’re not finished,” Ryder insisted. “Lauren?”

She shrugged. “He tried. I think I broke his nose.”

Ryder closed his eyes. “That put you pretty damned close.”

“
I used the heel of the hand thing you taught me.” She sniffed with a mix of pride and shame. She hadn’t wanted to learn self-defense. Ryder had insisted. Even before they were married, he started teaching her to defend herself. “It sure bled a lot, so I really think I broke it.”

He moved close and scrubbed a hand through her hair. “Breaking noses seems to be your signature move.”

Not on purpose. “The first one didn’t hurt, just scared the bejesus out of me. The second one—with the guys last night—it hurt more to use my head.”

“
Even injured, you used your head. You’re something else, baby.” Ryder sat back into his chair and turned her to face him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. That I haven’t been there.” He rubbed a hand down her tender jaw and she leaned into his touch. “We’ll fix this. I will protect you.”

She’d never doubted his ability to protect, only his ability to stay. Her heart ached knowing his time with her had an expiration date.

The door opened and Lauren turned to see Rose leaving. “Don’t go,” she told him. “We’re done with the marriage stuff.” And Lauren needed a buffer against her own desires.

He glanced between them. “You two should talk.”

“
No.” The last thing she needed was alone time with Ryder. Exhaustion made her bones tired, and the filter between her brain and her mouth was off kilter. She’d end up saying something she shouldn’t. “We need to figure out what’s going on, and we don’t have time to waste.”

Rose looked to Ryder who gave a slight nod. “Let’s finish debriefing.”

Rose sat down in front of a small notebook. The pen seemed dwarfed in his big hand as he checked off a couple notes. “So Smythe shows up to foreclose your house, and then hires idiots to kidnap you. They sabotage your truck, which leads to last night’s crash.”

Lauren took a sip from her water bottle. “That about covers it.”

“
Not quite,” Ryder said. “What happened to the checks I had sent to the mortgage company?”

“
Another unanswered question. For now, we assume the realtor is dirty.” Rose added another line to his notes. “Possibly someone at the bank as well.”

“
Here’s another thing I noticed.” Ryder grabbed her hand as he spoke. “The FOR SALE sign in front of our house was the same company as the one in front of the meth house last night.”

“
No shit.” Rose drew a big star next to the last line he wrote. He could have been planning a business meeting for all the expression he wore. She wondered what it took to throw the big man off kilter.

Ryder wrapped his knuckles on the table. “The next step is to make contact with Smythe.”

Lauren walked to her purse to pull out her phone. She handed it to Ryder, and then sat down on the corner of the bed. “You’ll find his number in the Cs.”

Ryder’s lips twisted into a smirk. “Smythe with a C?”

Talk about creative spelling. A twinge of pain kept Lauren from grinning. “No, C for Carpetbagger.”

“
You’re a hard woman.” He smiled. “I like that about you.”

“
You have no idea. I can hold a grudge with the best of them.” She’d watched her mom hold a grudge against death and the Army for most of her life.

Ryder scrolled through her contacts.

“
Hold up. No calls yet. Think with your head, not with your—” Rose grabbed the phone from Ryder’s hands, before casting a quick glance at Lauren. As if she didn’t know how that sentence ended. “First we need background. We don’t plan an operation until we know the facts. We need to know about Smythe, the bank, and the status of your mortgage before we call him. We get one chance to surprise this bastard. Let’s do it right.”

“
What do you have in mind?”

Rose tapped the pen against the writing pad. “I think we should call in reinforcements.”

“
Absolutely not.” The determination in Ryder’s tone bordered on anger.

Tingles zipped across the hair on Lauren’s arms from the energy in the room.

“
What are you afraid of?” Rose taunted.

CHAPTER TEN

“
I’m not afraid, asshole.” Ryder exploded from his seat and stood as rigid as a flagpole. Tendons and veins in his biceps flexed while his hands fisted. “Leave the team out of my quagmire. They have enough shit to worry about.”

Rose climbed to his feet, right in Ryder’s space. The two warriors stood chest-to-chest, anger and unspoken grief between them. “We made a promise when we came back. Waiting too long cost two good men their lives. This is not the time to walk alone.”