Her Ranger Rescuers

by M J Adams

  “Luke,” she breathed, pushing the door closed behind her. His hands came up and cradled her face.

  “It’s really you.”

  “It is.” Tears leaked down her face. “How long have you been here?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, leaning down and burying his face in the softness of her neck. “You’re late, Cora. Everyone’s late.”

  “So much has happened,” she whispered, finally feeling warm and safe. She was so, so tired, but by the peachy way the house smelled, she was sure Luke would have a bedroom ready for her.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “Rich came to Silver Lake,” she said. “Everything exploded.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been watching it on the news.”

  Cora hadn’t allowed herself to do that. She didn’t want to know if federal agents were two heartbeats away from beating down her hotel room door. “Did they get him?”

  “Yeah, Cora,” he whispered, his lips landing on her collarbone and eliciting a shiver from her. “They got him. And you’re dead. Off the map. Free to be whoever you want to be.”

  “Really?” she asked, her tears still painting tracks down her face. His hands on her waist felt so solid, so secure, so safe.

  “Really,” he said. “There’s been no one here. No one watching. I’ve been alone this whole time.” He kissed her neck, and Cora bent his head back to give him better access. “You’re safe now.”

  “Have you heard from anyone?”

  He shook his head slightly. “I ran into some trouble of my own and ditched my phone the first day.” He touched his forehead to hers, and she couldn’t believe that after all this time, all the miles beneath wheels, all the flights, that she was here with him.

  “They’ll come,” she whispered, just before tipping up and matching her mouth to his. He kissed her slowly, passionately, like he’d been dreaming of kissing her for the nearly two weeks he’d been there. Alone.

  “Do I have a bedroom?” she asked. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Of course,” he said, taking her hand and leading her through the living room to a hallway. “I have it ready for you.”

  She had no clothes with her, choosing instead to change in bus station bathrooms and throw her old clothes in the trash can. Didn’t matter now. She could get new clothes here in Richland Center.

  Luke led her to the bedroom at the end of the hall, clearly the biggest one. It too smelled like fruits and powders and she couldn’t wait to collapse onto the huge bed and sleep.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered, slipping her hand up Luke’s chest. “Sleep with me tonight?”

  “Of course,” he said again, pulling back the comforter and crawling beneath it with her. Snuggled into his side, she sighed, finally feeling like she’d reached her destination.

  She’d come home.

  The next morning, she woke when Luke brushed his lips along her bare shoulder. Blinking, she opened her eyes to his handsome face.

  “You’re still here,” he whispered, and she grinned at him as she wrapped her hands around the back of his neck.

  “I’m still here.” She closed her eyes and just breathed in the scent of him. “We’re safe here?”

  “One hundred percent,” he whispered.

  “And Max and Isaac?”

  “No word yet. They’ll make it here, Cora.” He kissed her, removing all her worries and doubts about the other two men she loved.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt now, and as he explored her mouth with his, Cora couldn’t wait to get hers off too. While Isaac had eradicated all barriers between them quickly, Luke took his sweet time, ministering to her as each article finally found its way to the floor.

  She felt every motion and emotion deeply with Luke, just as she’d hoped she would when they could finally be alone together, and she’d never felt more loved and cherished in her whole life.

  Chapter 24

  Max

  Max hated the sight of the barn. Hated that he was once again in the back of this idiotic luxury car, waiting for a goon to open his door.

  That didn’t happen. Instead, the goon opened the barn door, and the Grand Master walked out, her dark purple skirt suit completely out of place amidst the brighter sunshine outside.

  His door opened, and he slid across the seat quickly to make room for the Grand Master. “This is out of character,” he said.

  Lucinda said nothing as she situated herself on the seat and the door closed. The car began moving again, and Max had no idea what to say. He’d had his excuses all lined up. His explanations ready and deliverable with a completely straight face, no emotion whatsoever.

  Isaac had gotten Cora out of Seattle, and he’d disappeared too. He wasn’t answering his phone anymore either, and Max alone had returned to Parkwood Academy.

  The car passed the gate and exited into the city of Parkwood, getting steered toward Colorado Springs. “I’m cleansing,” Lucinda finally said, and Max understood the code language.

  She had a leak. A mole. And the barn would probably be in ashes by the time the car returned to the Academy.

  “That’s too bad,” Max said.

  “I think you’re doing the same,” she said.

  “I wish,” he responded.

  “Two of your team members are unreachable.”

  “Maybe they cleansed me,” he said, adding a note of misery to his tone. He hated not knowing where everyone was, but in the end, he’d had to rely on the fact that they all knew the final destination. They were all smart. And eventually, he believed they’d all be together. Until then…Max told himself he could play this game a while longer.

  He could.

  He would.

  He’d thought Isaac would have to take on that role, but when he’d been closer to Cora than Max, things had shifted.

  “Details on Richard Middleton,” Lucinda said, and Max drew in a deep breath.

  “He was arrested in Silver Lake,” he said. “Holding a gun to his head inside the house we bought for Cora.”

  Lucinda wore huge sunglasses, so Max couldn’t see her eyes. He didn’t like that, and figuring he couldn’t get a read on her anyway, he looked out his window. “Your leak sent him there?”

  “I’m assuming,” she said. “I apologize, Major Ellis. I had no reason to think this relocation wouldn’t go as smoothly as our countless others.” She actually sounded apologetic, but Max had his doubts.

  He’d never heard of an entire team leaving the Academy, and he couldn’t help thinking this huge breach wasn’t a coincidence.

  But a trap. A way for the Grand Master to recall the three of them, make an example of her power and authority, and keep Parkwood as it had been for the past five years.

  “I’m still cleared to go to Montana?” he asked.

  “After our investigation. We need to know who the leak was.”

  Max pressed his lips together, his teeth grinding against one another too. He knew what an investigation like this took, and it was months.

  He was not staying at Parkwood for months. A week, maybe. Maybe, he told himself.

  The car continued to drive, and Lucinda said nothing. Max hated this isolation, the fact that he hadn’t talked to Isaac since Monday, that the past three days in Texas had been pure hell—and that included the temperature.

  “I would like permission to relocate during the investigation,” he said. “I’ll keep my phone with me.”

  “You really don’t want to be here.” The interest in her voice caused Max to turn toward her.

  “No, ma’am. I don’t see the point.”

  “I’ll need all new men on my team,” she said, her eyes just as penetrating through the dark shades.

  “I am not interested, ma’am.” He started to turn back to the window when he caught the scowl on her lips. He paused, eyes forward, his heartbeat rippling through his chest. “Who was the leak?”

  “Hmm?”

  He looked at her again, finding her attention out the window now.
“Who was the leak?”

  “We’re still looking into it.”

  Max didn’t believe her, and he wondered how long she’d been lying to him. Lying to him, and he didn’t know. Hadn’t suspected.

  He didn’t shift. Didn’t move. Didn’t make to button his suit coat.

  But he really needed to get out of this car.

  He had a phone with him, and his wallet. That was all. Everything else he owned was back in the room on the third floor of the Academy.

  The car eased to a stop, but Max had no idea where they were. He didn’t spend a lot of time in the city surrounding the Academy, and he’d prefer he had a weapon in order to take on the Grand Master, her driver, and anything else he might encounter on the other side of the car door.

  For all he knew, there could be an entire entourage of vehicles in front of and behind this one.

  Hopelessness beat against his throat, but he swallowed it back and carefully lifted his hand to the door handle.

  “It’s locked,” the Grand Master said, and Max dropped his hand to his lap.

  “I just want to go,” he said quietly.

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

  “Why’d you send Rich to Silver Lake?”

  Lucinda didn’t answer, which was almost an admission in Max’s mind.

  “You know what he did to her.”

  “I know what she did to you,” Lucinda said harshly. “My best team. My top tier A-team, and she had you eating out of her hand within a day.” Disgust coated her words, and Max had never felt fear like he did now.

  All at once, he realized that Lucinda was cleansing, but not back at the Academy. Right here, in this car, and he sucked in a breath and held it as if she’d released a toxin only he could inhale.

  “You have other teams, Grand Master,” he said, searching the car in front of him for something, anything. This wasn’t a limousine, so there weren’t seats across from him. But there was plenty of leg room, and a small compartment in the middle of the wall in front of him. The window had been up when he’d gotten in, and it remained up now.

  Perhaps that compartment housed the mechanics for that window. Max wouldn’t know until he opened it. He reached for it at the same time Lucinda did. Because his hand was bigger, and he was far stronger than her, he managed to get it open despite her attempts to wrench his hand back.

  He couldn’t see very well as the car moved again, probably under an overpass or something, blocking the sun.

  But his fingers touched cool metal, and he wrapped them around the handle of a gun. It fit in his hand as if he’d used it before, and all at once, the car sped up, launching him backward into his seat.

  He grunted while Lucinda cried out, and he could only assume she didn’t know what was going to happen next either.

  Max steadied himself and pointed the gun at her. “I’m getting out of this car. I’m going to walk away, and you’re going to let me go.”

  She cowered against the side of the car but said nothing.

  “Tell the driver to stop,” he commanded her, and still nothing happened. The vehicle sped along, and Max felt disoriented and lightheaded at the same time. They kept going faster and faster, and Max reached up with one hand to hold onto the handle above the door, keeping the gun on Lucinda.

  He really didn’t want to shoot her. Bullets could be traced, and he didn’t need to be dealing with a dead or bleeding body.

  Why couldn’t she just let him go?

  “No one leaves the Academy,” she said, her breath short and full of air. “Don’t you know that, Max?”

  He did now. “I wouldn’t have signed up had I known.”

  “You think we have the money to buy houses all over the country? Extract women from dangerous situations?” She gave a high, mirthless laugh that chilled his blood. “That all comes at a price, and once you’re in, you’re in. For life.”

  Max couldn’t believe that, but Lucinda’s sunglasses had been knocked off in the sudden acceleration, and she looked absolutely dangerous. Dark.

  And scared.

  “Even you?” he asked.

  “I’ve tried to leave exactly once,” she said. “My husband was killed, and I was relocated to the barn where I now live and never leave.” She shook her head. “You’ll never get out. They’ll hunt you, and Luke, and Isaac until they find you.”

  “Who’s they?” he asked.

  Before she could answer, the driver slammed on the brakes and the car went from flying to stationary in a matter of seconds. Max got thrown forward, his face bashing into the barrier between him and the driver on the other side.

  The loudest noise he’d ever heard moved through his ears, so much like a dozen tanks colliding that Max thought he was back in the Middle East on one of his missions. He clapped his hands over his ears, felt something sticky there, and groaned as everything spun into blackness.

  The scent of smoke and gasoline and blood filled the air, and Max finally opened his eyes to see what had happened. Where he was. What was going on.

  Lucinda was unconscious, actually down on the floor of the vehicle between the seat and the barrier. She bled from wounds on her head and face, and Max couldn’t hear his own voice as he called her name.

  He spun and tried the door handle, still finding it locked. He had no idea how long he’d been out, but it couldn’t have been long. Shifting, he put both feet against the glass in the window and kicked.

  Over and over, he tried to break the glass unsuccessfully. He finally aimed the gun at the window and fired one round, kicking against the bullet hole in the glass. It finally shattered and he twisted his broad shoulders to get through the narrow opening.

  The sun beat down outside, but he couldn’t see another person. Heard no sirens—not that he could hear anything right now. Not even the gunshot had registered in his ears.

  Outside and on his feet, he looked up and down the road. Nothing. No one. It seemed the car had gone off on its own, and the driver had taken them outside of town to a deserted service road.

  He held the gun at the ready and opened the driver’s door to find the front seat was completely empty. Steam and smoke rose from the hood, and Max knew it wouldn’t be long until more people arrived.

  You can’t be here, he told himself, and he turned to face the red bluffs behind him. With only the gun, his wallet, and his phone, he set off into the wilderness.

  Chapter 25

  Isaac

  Isaac felt the weight of soldier eyes on him before he found Jonas several rows back and way off to the side. He wore a hat over all his black hair, but Isaac knew the man like his own face.

  He’d sent Cora away in a Parkwood car ten days ago. And he’d been on the run himself since. He was very good at covering his tracks, but apparently, not good enough.

  Deciding he’d had enough games, he got up from the spot he’d staked out in the bus station and walked toward the restroom. Jonas didn’t look at him but kept his attention on his phone, the brim of his hat almost concealing his face.

  Isaac ducked into the bathroom, ready for all of this to be over. He was currently in a tiny speck of a town called Benson, close to the Arizona-Mexico border. He’d been traveling by bus or hitching a ride with whoever would give him one, wherever they were going.

  He bummed cash from whoever he could, and he hadn’t eaten in over fourteen hours. He looked into his own eyes in the restroom, and he looked exhausted and pissed off. Accurate, he thought, gripping the front of the counter.

  When he left the restroom, he didn’t go back to his seat. Instead, he strode toward Jonas. Because of this change, he was almost upon the man before Jonas even knew it. He stood just as Isaac arrived, and Isaac grabbed him by the collar as the woman next to them cried out.

  “What are you doing here?” Isaac growled, his face a mere two inches from Jonas’s.

  He didn’t even blink. Didn’t look afraid at all. “Orders,” he ground out between his teeth. He put one hand on Isaac’s, his
eyes flicking over Isaac’s shoulder. “Security.”

  Isaac released him and stepped back, his adrenaline firing through him with the force of anti-aircraft weapons. “I’m fine,” he said, backing up. “Sorry, everyone.”

  Jonas held up one hand as if he alone could ward off the security guards. Isaac returned to his seat, grabbed the backpack he’d gotten from the soccer mom who’d driven him to a bus station in Southern California, and headed for the exit. His bus didn’t leave for another half an hour anyway.

  Outside, the heat nearly suffocated him, and he sucked at the air, not finding enough oxygen. Panic flowed freely through him now, and he hated the weakness it brought with it. He’d suffered from anxiety and panic attacks growing up, but he’d managed to learn how to control them once he’d entered the Army.

  “Let’s walk,” Jonas said, his words short and clipped as he passed Isaac.

  He stayed still, watching the other man stride down the sidewalk. “I’m not going back,” he said. “I’m allowed to quit.”

  “I don’t care,” Jonas said, and that got Isaac to move.

  He caught up to a man he considered a friend. “What?”

  “I don’t care if you go,” he said. “But I don’t think Parkwood is what we thought it was.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Jonas pulled out his phone and set it on top of a garbage can, continuing without it. His jaw jumped, and he didn’t say anything for the longest time.

  Sweat poured down Isaac’s face, and he needed to get back to the station or he’d miss his bus. He couldn’t afford to do that, not in terms of money or time. “Jonas—”

  “I don’t think you’re allowed to quit.” He cut him a severe look out of the corner of his eye. “I was tasked to follow you. Find you, and Luke, and Cora. Kill you all.”

  Surprise mingled with horror, and Isaac stopped walking. “Kill us.”

  “I think death is the only way out of the Academy.”

  “No.” Isaac shook his head, refusing to believe he’d worked for such an organization. Believed in it. Thought they were doing good things for people in bad situations. “Lucinda—the Grand Master—she’s not like that.” Isaac might not like her, but she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer.