Out of Range (Ranger Ops Book 6)

by Em Petrova

  The teacher next door popped her head out of her room. A paper airplane sailed past her, and she jerked back before it hit her in the temple.

  Laughing, Arielle bent and scooped it off the floor. She unfolded it to see someone’s math test. And by the looks of the grade, there was a good reason the kid wasn’t taking the test home to put on his parents’ refrigerator.

  She crumpled it and moved toward her fellow teacher. Sarah Gunn had been one of the most welcoming staff members here. From the first day of school, she’d made it a point to stop by her room and offer a listening ear or inform her of a protocol. Over the past six weeks she’d been here, Sarah had also gotten more personal by asking Arielle what she did with her free time.

  When Arielle admitted she was a bit of a hobby-aholic, doing everything from working on her running distance and endurance to her knitting abilities, Sarah had pressed her lips together in a concerned line and asked about friends.

  Arielle knew that look. She’d heard the question too. They were the same she’d gotten from every well-meaning family member and friend since her husband died.

  Sarah waved to some of the students calling out farewells and leaned against the wall outside the room next to Arielle. She enjoyed their antics, since they were the only kids she had to call her own.

  Together, they watched the students move toward the exit and the waiting buses.

  Leaving the school was itself a concern—a little over a week ago now, there had been a bomb threat.

  “Any plans for this weekend?” Sarah’s pale blue eyes were the exact opposite of Arielle’s, which were so dark that she couldn’t see the centers even when she looked hard at her reflection. In direct contrast, Sarah’s hair was raven and Arielle’s dark blonde, streaked lighter from all the time she’d spent outdoors after Darren died.

  She smiled warmly at her friend. “The park cleanup project is this weekend. Remember?”

  “Oh yes. I almost forgot that’s this weekend.”

  Arielle smacked her in the arm. “Oh you did not! You helped me plan it.”

  Sarah chuckled then called out, “Hey, Mattson! Get going or you’ll miss the bus!”

  The boy slammed his locker shut and took off sprinting down the hall to the open doors.

  Arielle returned her attention to her friend. “I’m stopping by the bakery to pick up a bunch of cookies, and I’m heading straight to the park after that.”

  “I’ll be there, but first I have to go home and let my dog out. You should get a pet.”

  Shaking her head, she said, “I’ve never owned a dog or cat.”

  “What? Are you serious?”

  “Army brat, remember? The year I spent here in Rose was the only year I wasn’t living on an Army base.” Her mother had moved here to be closer to her ailing parents, and Arielle’s father had come to visit only one time before they all moved to Okinawa.

  “Well, now you’re settled here and it’s time to think about whether you’re a cat person or a dog person.” Sarah was bossy, she was learning.

  “I’m thinking I might be a fish person.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You can’t get attached to a fish.”

  “Sure you can. Haven’t you ever seen those vet shows where owners take their fish in for surgeries and stuff?”

  “Okay, you definitely need to get out and socialize more than I thought. Good thing we’re doing the cleanup project. At least you can’t stay home reading those mystery novels or watching fish surgeries. All right, I’m gonna run. See ya at the park this evening.”

  Arielle watched her disappear into her classroom, and she moved back to her own, thinking of her friend’s words.

  You can’t get attached to a fish.

  Maybe that was more of a problem than Sarah knew. Maybe Arielle was having trouble connecting to much of anything these days. She bounced from one task or hobby to the next. When she wasn’t at the park the next few days, trimming overgrown bushes and carrying away fallen tree branches, she had plans to make a gourmet meal she saw on a cooking show and take a drive in the countryside with her camera.

  Normally, her nights and weekends were filled with activity after activity to keep her mind busy. It was a habit she’d picked up a couple years back after Darren died, and now… well, it might have gotten a bit out of hand.

  She didn’t know if she could slow down. The thought of going into a weekend without any plans or to-do lists gave her hives. The grief counselor must not have seen that one coming when she’d suggested Arielle stay busy or find new hobbies.

  After finishing out her final prep period of the day, she gathered her purse and a stack of English tests to be graded and walked out of the classroom, turning off the lights as she went.

  The hallways were emptied now, only a single teacher walking down the center at the far end, on his way to the office. She inhaled deeply, smelling disinfectant used to scrub the floors and the scent of pencil shavings that filled every school everywhere in the world.

  But here at Rose Middle School, it felt more like the scent of home.

  She was happy she’d made the decision to come here after Darren was killed in Iraq. It was high time she did something she’d always wanted—to put down roots. What better place than in a small Texas town that had felt so much like home when she was fourteen?

  And the park project… it was very close to her heart. The acres had been a haven to a teen girl. She had lived close to the park and been able to ride her bike there. Later, she’d had to sell the bike because she couldn’t take it to Japan when they moved. Recently, she’d been considering buying another. Yes, she’d do that, right after the paths of the park were cleared and made safe for runners and bikers.

  They had so much planned over the weekend, including erecting a new jungle gym for the little ones. Excitement drove her feet faster, and she reached the parking lot quickly.

  Before she climbed behind the wheel, she tilted her face up to the sun. The rays caressed her face and seeped into her pores, leaving her feeling more energized to begin work on the park.

  As she drove to the little bakery, she thought of the bomb that had been planted along this route. Terror had lit in the hearts of every teacher and student when they heard of the threat. And later, after they had heard the explosion… well, she would never forget the ice that had filled her veins.

  Stuff like that happened in other places of the world—not Rose, Texas. It put a small blotchy stain on her memory of the place, but that didn’t mean she was going to get up and move again. She’d had a lifetime of picking up and putting down in a new area of the country, the world. This time would be different.

  The bomb had been one of those freak things people would talk about fifty years from now in the sleepy little town miles from any of the big cities. And she wouldn’t allow it to mar her feelings about her chosen home.

  Starting with the park, she planned to make a difference. Then maybe… just maybe, she’d listen to Sarah and consider adopting a dog. Couldn’t be much harder to manage than a middle schooler, right?

  * * * * *

  Cav’s chair creaked in protest as he leaned his big frame against the back. Arms folded, he contemplated the shrink seated before him. The woman was pretty in a nerdy professor kind of way, wearing a high-necked blouse with her hair drawn off her face in a ponytail.

  He’d been evaluated by psychiatrists before and they seemed to have a one-track mind when it came to people like him. They saw a big, tough guy and tried to break him down. What they wanted from him were tears, the ugly kind.

  Well, he wasn’t about to sit rocking in the corner, bawling over those two hikers. In war, the innocent sometimes died. Their lives were lost but many more spared, and in the end, that was the conclusion he’d come to after the bomb incident near the school.

  However, it was protocol for him to visit the shrink, and he had three more sessions following this. Maybe by the next one, he could get her to let her hair down or show a little cleavage.
>
  She sighed. “Cav, are you paying any attention to me?”

  He shrugged. “Depends on what you’re trying to say to me. Or force me to say.” Like he said, he wasn’t about to produce tears or even a manly sniffle, even if it meant he got to skip the rest of the mandatory appointments.

  “Okay, I can see I’m not getting anywhere with you. Let’s try a mindless exercise.” She got up and walked to a bookcase along one wall. He watched her go.

  Yeah, not his type, even with her hair down and a low-cut top. His fellow Ranger Ops teammates would joke that she wasn’t nearly young enough for his tastes, but that wasn’t the reason he wasn’t interested. He liked a woman who could laugh at herself, and a wild moment in the bedroom was essential. This woman didn’t appear to be capable of either, not that he planned to ask her out. He did have professional boundaries.

  When she returned to the table and settled across from him once more, she laid a deck of large cards in front of her.

  “Oh good. Are you reading my fortune?”

  “What do you think it would tell you?” She turned the tables on him.

  He grunted with amusement. “That I’m having hot wings with the guys in an hour and we’ll catch the game too?”

  A smile teased at the corner of her mouth. “Nice. Look—I’m aware you’re only here because a commanding officer told you to come. Most of the guys I see are in the same boat as you. Something happens and the US government has to clear that they’re fit for duty.”

  “So you also know that if I wasn’t fit, most likely I wouldn’t even be here. I would have skipped the appointment, avoided assessment and gone to the bar to get hammered instead.”

  She looked him over but didn’t respond.

  “These aren’t tarot cards,” she said. “I’m going to show them to you and you tell me the first thing that pops into your mind. Don’t think, just give your gut reaction.”

  Fucking great.

  He nodded. The more he cooperated, the sooner he could blow this joint and get on to the game and the wings.

  She stared at him. “Ready?”

  He nodded.

  “All right. What do you see?” She flipped the first big card.

  “A pussy.”

  Her gaze shot to his. “All right. This one?”

  “A tight pussy.” He saw her chest rise and fall and a tightening of her lips as if she was holding back from telling him off.

  He laid his palms on the tabletop and pretended to be really involved in the assessment of his character, which he was going to fail in a blaze of glory.

  “This one?”

  “A wet pussy.”

  She made a noise of irritation but flipped to another.

  “Oh now that’s a good one.”

  “What do you see?”

  “It’s a pussy with something sticking out of it.” He cocked his head, taking a look from a different angle.

  She dropped the cards facedown on the table. “Do you see anything but pussy on these cards?”

  “What am I supposed to see?”

  “If all you see is pussy, then I can make a fair assessment about your mental soundness, Special Operative Wraggs.”

  He grinned and folded his arms. “And what is the outcome?”

  “That you’re one of those men who tucks everything away, stuffs it down and slaps a joke over the whole twisted, knotted mess like a bumper sticker that says have a nice day.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “So you’re saying I’m fine. Good. That’s all I need to hear.” He stood. “Same time next week?”

  She collected the cards that he could guess she wouldn’t be showing him again. She got up and placed them on her desk and then returned with a business card.

  She handed it to him, and he peered at the lettering. To his surprise, it wasn’t a card with her name and phone number in case of emergency. It had an address.

  He cocked a brow.

  “Don’t get so excited—it isn’t my address. It’s a project, down at the park. Why don’t you take your mind off things, get involved in some charity work?”

  “Is this prescribed therapy?”

  She shrugged. “You could call it that. Or you could call it getting out of your own head for a while and doing some good for the community.”

  He nodded.

  “Might take your mind off pussy.”

  Shooting her a wide grin, he stood. “We’ll see about that.”

  Chapter Two

  Cav stretched out his legs and propped them on the coffee table in front of him. Two empty beer bottles and four energy drink cans rattled at the movement, and he glared at the mess. Of course, he’d left it there and had nobody to blame for the pigpen state of his apartment but himself.

  He sighed and heaved himself back to his feet. Ending the day with a good clear-out, as his momma called it back in the days when his bedroom looked like it had exploded and smelled like a locker room, sounded like the best way to clear his mind too.

  The exercise of cleaning had never been cathartic back in the days of dirty football socks and Mountain Dew cans, but over the years he’d realized that decluttering his surroundings also helped clear his mind.

  Striding to the kitchen, he grabbed the trash can and returned to the living room. Dumping all the empty cans and bottles and tossing the crumpled wrappers of nutrition bars and bags of beef jerky revealed the uglier side of his life—a bachelor who didn’t cook and enjoyed far too much takeout. A man who was rarely home to give a damn about the way it looked. He never brought women here, and this was part of the reason. The other part was he didn’t want them to know where he lived and show up uninvited.

  But glancing around, he wondered what a woman would do to warm up the black leather sofa and armchair and the bare wood floors. The TV hung on the wall, and below that was a media cabinet holding a handful of DVDs he never watched. Yeah, nothing about this place made him feel at home. His buddy’s homes were much more comfortable.

  With all the trash removed from the living room, he carried the can back to the kitchen. The counters weren’t much better, cluttered with water bottles and takeout boxes. He swiped the entire mess into the garbage and then yanked out the bag and knotted it off. He dropped it out the back into the dumpster of his apartment complex and went back inside.

  He wrinkled his nose. Oh yeah, his momma would kick his ass if she ever walked into this place and took a good whiff. He gathered all his laundry and stuffed it into a bag to take to the coin laundry later. Taking a good look around, he felt more satisfied with his surroundings, but it didn’t match his insides.

  Only one thing might remedy that, and he pulled out his cell phone and called his momma.

  “Cavanagh!” She always used his full name. “I was just thinking about you.” The warmth seeped from her voice into his head, and he smiled.

  They always had that connection. “I was thinkin’ about you too, Momma. How are you?”

  “Same old. Working at the planning commission and the bakery on the weekends.”

  “Why do you work so much? If you need the money, I can help you.” She’d worked enough while he was growing up for two parents plus one.

  “I work to fill my time. Besides, I stash away the extra for when I’m too old to work. Now why were you thinkin’ of me, son?”

  He pictured her in his mind, a lean, wiry woman with honey hair that had long ago faded to silver. When he thought of her, she was always wearing one of those skirt and blazer combos she wore to work, but she was home and would probably be in her old gardening clothes.

  He was quiet a moment, lost in thoughts of the explosion. Too much to say and he wasn’t supposed to talk about it anyway.

  Then he dwelled over his appointment with the shrink.

  “Uh-oh. Tell me what’s wrong.” Her voice brooked no arguments, like always.

  “I had to talk to someone recently, and it’s got me thinking.” He rubbed a fingertip down the bridge of his nose.

  “Us
ually you talking to someone means a psychiatrist you’ve been assigned to after an incident. What happened?”

  “It’s not so much what happened as how I acted.” Thinking on the pussy comments from his visit to the shrink had him cringing. But why? He was a red-blooded single guy who loved the female form.

  “Go on,” Momma prompted.

  He returned to the living room and sank to the sofa again. “People expect me to be an ass.”

  She laughed. “Only because you don’t show them much else, Cavanagh. Do you believe you have to uphold your reputation?”

  “Maybe somethin’ like that.”

  “I never thought you acted like the tough bad boy for that reason.”

  He stared into space. “Okay, I’ll bite on your reverse psychology theory. What’s your take?”

  “I think you only put on the act when you’re feeling the exact opposite.”

  His brows creased. “Give me an example.”

  “Remember when that girl dumped you back in senior year? You never got dumped, and you didn’t talk badly about her, but you told your buddies you were about done with her anyway. It was normal talk for a teenager, but I hope you’re not still stuck in those ways.”

  “I’m not.” Was that true? He slept with who he wanted when he wanted, and the guys enjoyed razzing him about it. Could his momma be right—that he was doing the opposite of what he wanted?

  Damn, he couldn’t even consider that he was acting like a gigolo in order to cover up what he really desired, which was a loving, stable woman in his life.

  Hell no. Momma must be wrong.

  “Don’t go shaking your head, Cavanagh. I can hear your brain rattling between the walls. Just think on it, and maybe you’ll see the bigger picture. Now, when am I going to get a visit from you?”

  She was off on a tangent, making plans for when they were together again. He could go for one of her big hugs right now, and he promised to see her first chance he got.