Guardian Ranger

by Cynthia Eden

  “Thank you,” she told him.

  The words were soft. Whispered from between her lips.

  Lips that he was suddenly way too aware of in that moment. His heart was racing, his muscles locked and tight as adrenaline burned through him.

  “Thank you for saving me.”

  He didn’t want her thanks, but Jasper was uncomfortably aware that he wanted her. Since that first look in the bar, he’d wanted her, wanted the one woman he was about to betray.

  Fate always enjoyed playing her games with him.

  He offered Veronica a smile and hoped the darkness hid the intensity of his eyes. “Hey, you’d already called the sheriff.” A sheriff who was coming closer and closer with each passing moment. “Seems like you were doing a fine job of saving yourself.”

  The scream of the siren was nearly upon them. The flashing lights from the sheriff’s car illuminated the scene. The fact that Jasper was holding a weapon meant he could expect a loud—

  Brakes squealed. The sheriff jumped from his car and yelled, “Drop your weapon! Get away from the woman!”

  Only the woman in question wasn’t exactly trying to get away from him. Veronica positioned her body in front of Jasper’s. “He saved me! Wyatt, stop! Jasper isn’t the bad guy!”

  Oh, if she only knew.

  But Jasper knew how to play the game. He dropped his weapon, one of his weapons, anyway, and put his hands up.

  “Two men tried to kidnap me!” Veronica rushed to explain. “This guy over here...” She jerked her thumb to the man on the ground. “And another guy. They forced me off the road. Jasper stopped them before they could drive away with me!”

  “Another guy?” the sheriff repeated. Jasper couldn’t tell much about the man; he was behind the lights, and his body was covered by the darkness. “What guy?”

  “This guy,” came Gunner’s familiar voice as he walked out of the darkness. The perp was in front of him, taking slow, sullen steps.

  The sheriff swore and jerked his gun toward Gunner. This was probably as much excitement he’d ever seen out on that highway. Pulling over drunks versus catching kidnappers.

  Yeah, the normal routine had just been blown away.

  “Easy,” Gunner said to the sheriff, voice deadly soft. “I’ve got the man subdued.”

  The perp’s hands were behind his back, and Jasper had no doubt they were cuffed.

  “Who are you?” the sheriff demanded, his gaze locked on Gunner—or what he could see of Gunner.

  “I’m a federal agent,” Gunner said, flashing his ID very, very fast. Mostly because it wasn’t legit. Sure, they were federal agents, but they didn’t exactly carry around ID that would ever tie them back to the EOD.

  “You an agent, too?” the sheriff asked as he swung his attention back to Jasper.

  “No, he’s a friend of mine,” Veronica said before Jasper could respond. It was a good thing that she was so quick to reply. It saved Jasper from having to tell a lie in front of her.

  The sheriff began to slowly lower his gun. “I don’t understand. I was just patrolling a few miles away... What the hell is going on here?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.” Jasper glanced at Gunner’s prisoner. The man’s body was stiff, angry. Did the guy think he was tough?

  Jasper had broken plenty of tough targets in his time.

  This guy would fall, too, and Jasper would find out just why the men had been after Veronica.

  * * *

  IT WASN’T HER first time at the small sheriff’s station in Whiskey Ridge, Texas. But it was the first time that she’d been afraid of the men who stood in the nine-by-twelve-foot cell.

  Veronica edged back, deliberately placing her body close to Jasper’s. He was talking to his buddy, the guy who was some kind of federal agent. The man—Gunner something—said that he’d been on his way to meet Jasper for a drink when he got the call about the attack on the road.

  Wyatt was pacing nervously in front of the prisoners. His hair, short and black, jutted out at odd angles, the result of him running desperate fingers over his head. He kept casting worried looks at Veronica every few minutes, and he’d already asked at least a dozen times, “Sure you’re all right?”

  Other than a few bruises, she was fine.

  Things could have been much worse, and she knew it.

  “You got a permit for that weapon?” Wyatt demanded of Jasper. Wyatt’s dark eyes had narrowed.

  Jasper nodded.

  Veronica’s hands fisted. “I don’t think that’s the priority here.” She knew Wyatt was a by-the-book guy, but didn’t an attempted kidnapping trump a weapons charge?

  Wyatt flushed, but held his ground. “Those guys aren’t talking.” His thumb jerked over his shoulder toward the cell. “Not a damn word. I’m running their prints, so we should at least know who the hell they are soon.”

  She risked a look at the men and found them both glaring at her. The town’s doc had come in and patched up the injured man. The bullet had gone straight through his shoulder. Easy in and out. But the concussion he’d received when his head slammed into the trunk had him dazed.

  “Those were some damn fine shots,” Wyatt said, but the words weren’t a compliment. They reeked of suspicion. “One blast to the shoulder, two shots that both hit the tires of a moving vehicle.”

  “The vehicle wasn’t exactly moving fast,” Jasper murmured. “The driver was just pulling off when I made the hits.”

  She just remembered the smell of burnt rubber. The squeal of tires. The thunder of the shots. Veronica cut her gaze back to the sheriff.

  Wyatt was frowning. His face wasn’t as hard as Jasper’s. His features were softer, rounder, with a few more lines around the eyes. He was good-looking, when he wasn’t sweating bullets—which he was doing right then.

  But despite his sweat and tension, Wyatt’s stare was knowing as it lingered on Jasper. “You’re real comfortable with a gun.”

  She didn’t like where this was going. “That’s because he’s a former army ranger. He served in the military with...with Cale.”

  That revelation had both of Wyatt’s brows rising. “Did he now.”

  That news had just led to even more suspicion in his gaze. Not what she’d wanted to happen. “I was just... I’d been going through some old photographs of Cale’s recently, hoping to find something that might help me locate him.” That was one hundred percent true. She’d dug out every photograph she could find, desperate for any clue, no matter how small. “I saw Jasper in some of the photos, and I remembered how close he and Jasper used to be.” Again, all true. She’d seen Jasper’s photograph, remembered just how deadly Cale had said that the ex-ranger had been, and she’d known that she needed a man like Jasper to help her. A bit of checking on her computer, and she’d realized fate was on her side.

  Jasper had been in the area.

  “So she called me up,” Jasper said, interrupting easily and just taking up the story now. “We got to talking, I came here...” His fingers slid down her arm. “One thing led to another. I’m sure you know how that can be.”

  Wyatt’s jaw locked. “But what brought you out on that road tonight? When you were supposed to meet your friend at Last Chance?”

  There wasn’t a whole lot of privacy to be found in the sheriff’s station, but they’d moved far enough away from the prisoners so that the jailed men couldn’t hear their quiet words. Veronica was glad to be away from those men. The intensity of their stares unnerved her. They tried to kidnap me.

  She’d never come that close to violence like that before. Never had violence actually directed at her. Cale had always protected her from everything and everyone.

  Cale wasn’t there anymore.

  “Even though my friend was coming, I didn’t want Veronica driving home alone. I figured Gunner could wait a bit.” Jasper reached for her hand. Shocked her when he lifted her fingers to his mouth and brushed a light kiss over her knuckles. “So I followed her, and I’m damn glad that I did.
”

  Her heart had slammed into her chest. I’m glad, too.

  “I want to talk with these prisoners,” Gunner suddenly said. “Alone.”

  Wyatt tensed, then glanced over at the deputy who was on duty that night, a young guy with pale skin and wide eyes. She knew the deputy well, as well as she knew Wyatt. Deputy Jimmy Jones had lived in Whiskey Ridge his whole life. Quiet, shy, but the twenty-two-year-old was fierce about protecting those in his county.

  When she’d first met Jimmy, she’d felt much sympathy for him because the boy he’d been...well, his life had been a nightmare. But Jimmy had pulled himself out of that darkness, and now he was fighting to be better, stronger.

  “Why are you wanting to talk to my prisoners without me present?” Wyatt asked. “That’s not what I’d call regular—”

  Gunner lifted out his ID again. “I want to talk to them because I think they might fit it on my case.” A brief pause, then, “They fit the profile of some men I’ve been tracking with the FBI.”

  They did? That was news to Veronica.

  Jasper’s fingers tightened around hers.

  “Let me talk to them and see if we need to take over jurisdiction here.” Gunner shrugged and walked toward the glaring men in the cell. “If I can tie them to the other abductions...” He said this part loudly, deliberately so, or at least that was what Veronica thought.

  The injured man, a wiry guy with light blue eyes and sandy hair, seemed to pale even more. Then, for the first time, he spoke, shouting, “We didn’t take anyone!”

  “Anyone else, you mean,” Gunner corrected. Then he glanced over his shoulder at Wyatt. “Give me some time with them, alone. I’ll find out everything I need to know in my interrogation.”

  Jasper nodded, as if granting his permission. Veronica frowned, but Jasper said, “You take care of them, Gunner, and I’ll take Veronica home.”

  Home?

  But Wyatt was nodding now, too. Well, wasn’t it great that they were all in agreement? She was breaking apart on the inside, and they’d formed some sort of guys’ club.

  “You do need to head home, Veronica,” Wyatt told her. “We’ll take care of these men.”

  She didn’t move. Her gaze had turned back to the two men. Their faces were now etched in her memory. They were young, younger than she’d suspected when their car had first slammed into hers. They barely looked twenty. One still had acne.

  And they were sweating. More so than Wyatt. They looked afraid and as she swept a fast glance at the man called Gunner, she realized that they should be afraid.

  Jasper was danger wrapped up in a handsome package. Gunner...he was just lethal. An icy intensity burned in his dark eyes, and his hard features hinted at the hell he must have seen over the years. This was a man well acquainted with death and darkness. This was a man who scared her.

  Her breath eased out slowly. Despite the fact that both Jasper and Wyatt wanted her to head home, Veronica wanted to stay. She wanted to face these men and find out just why they’d tried to take her.

  “You can’t hide from the dark.” Another rule from her brother. “The night comes whether you want it to or not.” He’d first spouted that one when she was seven and terrified of monsters. She’d wanted to hide in her closet.

  Now she knew that hiding did no good. The monsters, the real ones, could find you no matter where you went.

  She took a deep breath and headed toward that cell. Jasper tensed and gritted, “Veronica.”

  She kept walking and only stopped when she was a foot away from the bars. “Why?”

  The injured man flinched.

  “Why did you hit my car? Why did you try to take me?” They’d both had knives. Both had threatened her with them, but the blades had never sliced her skin.

  Wyatt grabbed her arm. “You can’t do this.”

  Um, she was doing this. Because she wasn’t a coward. These men wouldn’t make her cower in the dark. The night comes...

  Wyatt tried to pull her toward him. “There are rules about questioning suspects. They have rights. You can’t just—”

  “I have rights, too,” she snapped back at him as a sharp burst of anger filled her chest, driving right past the chilling fear that she’d known for the past few hours. “I think I have the right not to be stuffed in the back of a trunk on a Saturday night.”

  “She does have that right,” Gunner murmured.

  Her gaze cut to his. It almost looked as if he was about to smile.

  “Do you want these bozos getting released on some technicality that a lawyer tosses up at us? Some B.S. about them not having counsel?” Wyatt’s tension had doubled.

  As far as she knew, the men hadn’t asked for lawyers. They hadn’t asked for anything.

  “I’ve got this,” Wyatt told her, voice deepening. “Let me do my job, okay? Trust me.”

  But he hadn’t done his job before. When her brother had vanished, he’d done nothing.

  She pulled away from him, stared once more at the men. Jasper wasn’t saying anything. He’d just come up to stand behind her. Silent. Strong.

  When her brother hadn’t come back after a few weeks, she’d started digging. Pushing. Pushing as hard as she could as she dug into his life and the faint trail that he’d left behind.

  Had someone tried to push back?

  “Is this about Cale?” she asked softly.

  She saw the injured man’s eyelids flicker.

  Her heart seemed to stop. Then it raced, faster and faster with each second that ticked by. “Do you know where he is?” Veronica demanded, and she lunged for the bars.

  Jasper grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her stomach and hauling her back against him.

  The men in the cell were smirking now. The taller one, the one with dark brown hair, took a step toward her. “Don’t know your brother.”

  Jasper’s hands squeezed her tighter.

  Through numb lips, she managed to say, “I never said Cale was my brother.”

  That made the smirk vanish. The guy’s eyes cut to Wyatt and blazed a wild blue. “We want a lawyer, now.”

  “Tell me about my brother!” Veronica yelled back.

  Jasper pulled her even closer against him. She could feel the rock-hard muscles of his abs against her back. His head lowered. “Easy,” he whispered in her ear.

  Did it look as if she could take this easy? The guy had just admitted to knowing her brother. Random abduction? No way. No. Way.

  Wyatt slammed his hand against the bars. “Veronica.”

  Jasper growled. “Watch that tone, Sheriff.”

  Wyatt shoved both of his hands into his hair. “They asked for a lawyer. We have to get them one.” He pointed to the deputy. “Go get Tanner Dempsey. He still occasionally practices some defense over in Dallas.”

  As far as Veronica knew, Tanner Dempsey was the only lawyer within a two-hundred-mile radius. She’d thought he gave up law after he’d lost that last big case in Dallas, but maybe anyone with a law license would do right now.

  When Jimmy rushed to the back of the station, and the back exit, Wyatt glanced at Veronica. Heaving a sigh, the sheriff waved toward his office. “Go cool down in there. When Tanner gets here—”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Veronica said, shaking her head. “There’s no telling how long it will take Tanner to get here.” Provided he was even in town.

  A muscle flexed in Wyatt’s jaw. “They aren’t going anywhere,” he gritted. “And if you don’t want to go home, then at least get in my office. You can’t be near these prisoners.”

  Now she was the one to glare at the men in that cell.

  “Don’t worry,” Gunner’s rumbling voice promised, “I’ll find out exactly why these men tried to abduct you.”

  Of course, she wanted to know why the men had targeted her, but right now her priority was finding Cale. “I just want my brother back.”

  “This is a lead,” Jasper whispered in her ear. “Settle down. We can make this work for us.”
>
  Settling down wasn’t exactly easy. Not after everything that had happened.

  He led her toward the sheriff’s office. As they walked away, she saw Gunner taking out his phone and heading for the station’s front doors. “Where’s he going?” she asked. The prisoners were the other way. He wasn’t going to find out much by heading outside.

  “He’ll be checking in with his superiors. Briefing them on what’s happening.”

  Oh, right. Gunner had said that he was already working some abductions in the area.

  Jasper shut the door behind them and exhaled on a hard breath. She rubbed her arms, feeling chilled as the air blew down on her from the vent overhead.

  His finger rose and traced over her arms, making goose bumps. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  She nodded. She couldn’t hear any sounds from the outer area. The blinds were all shut in Wyatt’s office, effectively closing them off and giving them a bit of privacy.

  “When I saw the crash and those guys trying to stuff you in that trunk...” His hand fell away from her. “You scared me.”

  She blinked at his words, taken aback. “I scared you? I didn’t think anything could scare someone like you.”

  He stared at her intently, like a snake targeting his prey. “A guy like me?”

  She’d said the wrong thing. She was nervous and scared and when he was this close, she just felt hyperaware of him. Veronica shifted from one high heel to the other. She really hated these shoes. “You know what you are. You’ve seen so much. Done so much. You’ve—”

  “Killed?”

  There it was. He’d just tossed it right out. So she wouldn’t back down. “Yes.”

  His pupils seemed to expand, the darkness taking over the green of his eyes. “Every man can know fear, but you can’t ever let that fear stop you.”

  Sounded as though he had his own set of rules to follow.

  “I said I’d help you.” He took a step forward. She refused to retreat. So he just got...very close to her. Her breath came a little faster. Her mouth seemed to go dry. Especially when he added, “But my help has conditions.”

  “Conditions?” She had to tilt her head back to better meet his gaze.