Rescued by a Ranger

by Tanya Michaels

  “What about your parents?” Zane asked. “Are they retired or still working?”

  “Don’t actually know,” she said, her voice tight. “I was a ward of the state.”

  Was it folly to share that personal fact with him? Did it make her more identifiable, should anyone ever ask about her? Zane didn’t need to know she’d been abandoned as a sickly toddler. She’d needed so much extra care that no one had adopted her. Eventually, she’d become as healthy as any other child, but she’d never found a permanent home.

  “I don’t really like to talk about it,” she added. She glanced pointedly at the cheap digital watch that was light-years away from the diamond-studded Cartier Christopher had given her when they’d learned she was pregnant the first time. “Not to be rude, but I need to run Belle’s bath soon.”

  “Right. One quick favor to ask, then I’ll go. Would you let Eden babysit for your daughter sometime? If you and Tess ever wanted to go see a movie, for example. I would owe you big-time.”

  “You would?” Alex blinked, not sure how hiring his daughter to babysit was a favor to him. “Is Eden trying to save up for a car or something?” She knew parents of teens often encouraged their kids to seek employment, but Zane’s going door to door on his daughter’s behalf seemed a touch overzealous.

  “This isn’t about money,” he said. “It’s about responsibility. My ex asked if Eden could come live with me because she’d fallen in with a bad crowd in California, developed some dangerous habits. She was becoming argumentative, disrespectful, sneaky.”

  “You realize you’re not painting a picture of someone I want to entrust with my only child?” she asked wryly.

  “She’s still a good kid deep down,” he maintained, sounding as if he was trying to convince himself as much as Alex. “I catch glimpses of it, like last night. Watching her with Belle was encouraging. She was the Eden I remember, the young woman I believe she can be. There are a lot of rehabilitative programs that focus on giving offenders more responsibility as a way to improve self-worth and behavior.”

  Damn it. Alex understood too well the need to do what was best for one’s child; she empathized with his goal. And after turning down his dinner invitation, saying yes to this seemed like the least she could do. Further entangling her and Belle’s life with Zane and his daughter’s, however, was too big a gamble to take.

  She was slow to answer, trying to frame her refusal gently. “I appreciate your being so candid with me.” Didn’t she owe him some honesty in return? If she’d stepped on the broken glass, it wouldn’t have stung more than her conscience did now. “The truth is, I’ve always been a little overprotective of my daughter, even before my husband’s death. Belle wasn’t my first pregnancy. Before her, I...lost two. Then I went into labor with her prematurely. I was terrified. She’s my miracle, and I can’t let anything happen to her. The idea of letting a teenager I don’t know well, one with a history of irresponsibility—”

  “I understand,” Zane interrupted. “And I won’t take up any more of your time.”

  He looked so dejected that it was on the tip of her tongue to offer a compromise, such as suggesting they discuss this again after she was better acquainted with Eden. But Alex couldn’t afford to get any better acquainted with the Winchesters! It was temptingly easy to talk to Zane. In one short conversation, she’d mentioned being a foster child and her miscarriages, both of which were private matters she rarely discussed.

  Maybe if he weren’t such a good listener, maybe if he weren’t a sympathetic fellow single parent or didn’t have such intense green eyes, they could have shared a casual friendship. The very attributes that made him so attractive made him nearly as dangerous to her and Belle as the Hargroves.

  Chapter Five

  After a day and a half of stormy weather, Alex woke on Saturday to early-morning sunshine. She stretched in bed, taking a moment to savor the peace and quiet, then realized that something was obviously wrong. Like those movies where a commando says “too quiet” right before the ambush. When was the last time she’d been allowed to wake up naturally? Her daughter, a habitually early riser, should have shaken her awake demanding breakfast or asking if it was time to go the festival yet.

  “Belle?” Alex called as she swung her feet out of the bed. “Are you upstairs, honey?” Her daughter knew how to turn on the downstairs television, which stayed tuned to a child-friendly channel. But Belle was not a particularly stealthy child. Even if she’d chosen to forgo breakfast and had suppressed her excitement over the festival, it seemed unlikely she could have tiptoed down the stairs without alerting Alex.

  Alex had just stepped into the hall when she heard her daughter’s answering moan. She quickened her pace and found Belle curled into a tight ball, her breathing uneven. She looked as if she was holding her stomach beneath the sheets. Belle opened her eyes long enough to grimace in her mom’s direction, then closed them again.

  “Hey, punkin.” Alex sat on the bed, stroking her daughter’s hair away from her face. The curls were damp to the touch, and Belle’s skin was hot. “Not feeling so good this morning, huh?”

  “I’m not sick,” Belle said angrily. “Today’s the festival.”

  Alex’s heart sank in disappointment for her little girl. But there was a bright side here. “It’s a weeklong event. We have lots of chances to go.” A lot of the local businesses were operating on a shortened schedule for the next week, and school kids were getting out at noon.

  “But we were gonna go today!”

  Alex thought it best not to further upset her daughter by arguing. “I need to get you medicine for your fever. Then you can get some more rest, and we’ll talk about it after you wake up.”

  Belle sat bolt upright, but immediately slumped as if she’d used her last reserve of energy. “If I take the medicine, I can go?”

  “I’m not making any promises about today. The most important thing is getting you all better. Do you want some juice? Or a cold washcloth?”

  “No. I want—” She stopped, swallowing hard. Tears came to her eyes and she gestured frantically to the decorative wastebasket in the corner of the room.

  Alex got it to her just in the nick of time, mentally adding “trash can” to the list of things she should replace for their host family.

  * * *

  BY LATE AFTERNOON, BELLE was so weak that she wasn’t even asking to go the festival anymore. Her entire day had consisted of sleeping and being sick. Alex’s natural maternal concern started to mutate into bleaker fear. She was having a difficult time keeping her daughter’s fever down. If it went up another couple of degrees, it would hit the “seek medical attention” range. And what if Belle became dehydrated?

  Medical insurance and falsified records hadn’t been part of Alex’s thought process when she fled Houston. She’d been ill-prepared for this. And even if Belle’s fever broke and this proved to be nothing more than an inconvenient twenty-four-hour bug, the problem of records and identification wasn’t going away. As Alex transferred a load of linens from the washer to the dryer, the thorny question of kindergarten in the fall once again reared its ugly head.

  What in the hell am I doing?

  Her nebulous, half-formed plan from the other day returned. Even if she hadn’t gathered decisive ammunition against the Hargroves during her marriage, had she glimpsed and overheard enough to piece together some of their shadier activities? Perhaps if she racked her brain and started making notes, she could outline enough to make them uncomfortable, to give herself some leverage.

  “Mommy?” Belle’s voice was faint, but Alex had been listening for her.

  “Just a sec!” She raced up the stairs. “What can I get you, baby?”

  Belle scowled. “Not a baby.”

  “Oh, I know.” Alex wrapped an arm around her daughter. “You’re my big girl.”

  Belle cuddled closer, not saying anything for so long that Alex thought she’d fallen back asleep. When Belle finally murmured, “Big enough for ballet?
” Alex knew her daughter was finally starting to feel better.

  Still, it wasn’t until much later that night, when Belle appeared to be in a deep sleep and hadn’t been sick for several hours, that Alex felt free to take a shower. Even then, she kept it brief and left the door to the master bath open to better hear her daughter. She emerged ten minutes later, wrapped in a fluffy green towel and surrounded by steam.

  Debating whether she had the energy to dry her hair or brush her teeth, she dropped across the bed. The sound of a phone ringing barely penetrated her fatigue. Since she and Belle had moved in, she periodically heard the phone or answering machine in the Comers’ home office. But after a moment, Alex realized this wasn’t the house phone. It was The Phone—the disposable cell Bryce had given her when he suggested that maybe she shouldn’t use her real one if she wanted to stay invisible. He was the only one who had the number.

  “Hello?” she answered cautiously.

  “Hey, Red. How you holding up?”

  “Today might not be the best day to ask,” she said wryly.

  The long pause on the other end made her feel guilty. Bryce had done so much for her—she had no business whining to him.

  “Sorry,” she backtracked. “Belle was under the weather with a stomach bug, and I’m a little beat. Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Um, actually...”

  Dread slithered along her spine. “What is it? Your cousin coming home early? Did you see my picture up on a post office wall?”

  “A private investigator came by my apartment,” Bryce said.

  Alex felt as if she’d plunged into icy water and was too disoriented to break the surface. You knew this was a possibility. Her former in-laws could afford an entire platoon of investigators if they didn’t care about discretion. Still, it was alarming that anyone had tracked her to Bryce. Before crossing each other’s paths at that fundraiser right before she and Chris split up, they hadn’t spoken in years. They’d only been in touch a couple of times after that—it was one of the reasons she’d felt safe turning to him.

  She tried to breathe normally. “D-did you talk to him?”

  “For a few minutes. I got the sense he was grasping at straws. He said he was reaching out to some of your former colleagues and classmates because he represented family trying to find you. He hinted that his job was to help orchestrate a happy reunion.”

  Manipulative bastards. The Hargroves were exploiting her past as an orphan to generate empathy with people who’d known her.

  “I played dumb,” Bryce said. “Which is easier than you might think for a genius like me. Told him I couldn’t recall when I’d heard from you last but that I was happy to take his number in case you got in touch. I suppose there’s a remote statistical chance that he’s not working on behalf of your evil ex-in-laws, but—”

  “No, the Hargroves definitely sent him.” She’d spent her entire life in the same state where she’d originally been dumped. It was ludicrous to think that her parents or other long-lost relatives just happened to be looking for her now that she was hiding from two very vindictive and powerful people. But the neighbors and friendly acquaintances she’d left behind didn’t know that.

  Bryce seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “You didn’t tell anyone else where you were going, did you? Provide anyone with a way to reach you in case of emergency?”

  “Definitely not. Chris and Belle were my only family, and you were the only friend I trusted to be entirely outside the Hargrove sphere of influence.”

  “And you haven’t confided in anyone since you and Belle got there?”

  “No, but I’m constantly afraid someone is going to catch us.” A green-eyed someone with chiseled features, who lived in dangerously close proximity. She had limited practice lying, much less to a man with experience in solving crimes and observing suspects.

  Before this, her only real attempt at deception had been when she’d made quiet plans to take her daughter and leave Christopher. Even if she’d been blatant about her intentions, he would have been confident in his ability to dissuade her. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d cajoled her into staying with promises to be a better man. She’d once gotten as far as scheduling an appointment with an attorney but had canceled when she learned she was pregnant with Belle.

  “Bryce, I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done. You’re... Thank you.” The words were trite, but the gratitude she felt was too overwhelming to be captured.

  He made his all-purpose pshaw sound. “You forget, I design games where heroes embark on quests to help others. This is the first time I’ve ever lived one! And it didn’t even require my battling through a hell-swamp infested with zombie gators.”

  She laughed despite herself.

  “Now that’s what I like to hear,” he said in a satisfied tone.

  By the time they said goodbye, she was no longer in the throes of a full-blown anxiety attack. However, Bryce’s call was a reminder that the Hargroves hadn’t given up. If Alex had subconsciously nurtured a drop of hope that, as time healed their loss, their determination to possess their granddaughter would wane, it was gone now. Too bad I can’t afford a platoon of private investigators. Even if she had more money, hiring an investigator who could be traced back to her or Bryce was risky.

  No, she would have to rely on herself. It was time to start documenting that Journal of Hargrove Misdeeds. She needed to think back over eight years of marriage, every single thing she’d glimpsed or overheard, even if it had seemed innocuous at the moment. Hopefully, given enough time, she could paint a damning enough picture to protect her daughter.

  * * *

  BY MONDAY MORNING, BELLE’S appetite had returned with a vengeance. She was on her second helping of French toast when Alex took away the bottle of syrup her daughter seemed intent on emptying.

  “Whoa! That is way too much,” Alex scolded.

  Belle nodded solemnly. “I deduced that from your frowny face.” She’d practiced her favorite new word a lot since hearing Zane use it. “Know what else I deduce?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Today’s the day we go the festival! ’Cause you said we could if I felt better and I’m all better.” To emphasize her point, she stretched all into three syllables.

  Alex sighed inwardly. After Bryce’s phone call this weekend, she was even more paranoid about being in public with her daughter. But Belle had spent a restful Sunday working on puzzles and eating soup, with no sign of nausea or fever. I did promise. Besides, if Alex really wanted to preserve any measure of anonymity, wasn’t it best to blend in? Taking her protective stance to an extreme might make her an unintentional local mystery and draw attention to “that reclusive Hunt woman.”

  “All right, today’s the day. If,” she said, “you play quietly in your room for a few hours so I can get some sewing done.”

  Belle inhaled the rest of her French toast, scurried to the sink with her dirty plate and dashed upstairs at record speed.

  Well, she’s definitely got her energy back. Alex tried to muster some of her own as she set up the portable sewing machine on the cleared-off kitchen table.

  Last Friday, when she’d delivered one final costume to Tess, the redhead had referred her to Mrs. Turlow, an elderly lady around the corner whose arthritis had gotten too bad for her to do her own mending. Tess had mentioned what a nice job Alex did and how cheaply she was willing to work. In addition to the stitching Alex had agreed to do for Mrs. Turlow, she needed to patch some of Belle’s clothes and her daughter’s torn chihuahua. Belle had begun making pitiful comments about how she was not only deprived of a real dog, she didn’t even have the comfort of her favorite stuffed puppy.

  In the intermittent lulls when the sewing machine wasn’t running, Alex could hear her daughter overhead, charging festival admission to princess dolls and selling them plastic fruit. Since Belle’s stomach was no longer troubling her, Alex planned to finish her work just before lunchtime. They could eat at the fa
ir once they’d dropped off Mrs. Turlow’s blouses.

  After a quick call to the older woman, letting her know the minor repairs were finished, it occurred to Alex that if she kept taking these seamstress odd jobs, people would need a way to contact her. Did she dare give them the number for the disposable cell phone? Even though Bryce told her it should be untraceable, the idea of sharing it made her feel nervous, exposed.

  She pushed the unsettling thoughts away and called upstairs to her daughter. “Belle? Come put some shoes on so we can—”

  The little girl raced down the stairs, wearing a pair of pink sparkly sneakers, carrying a floral print jacket and announcing, “Already went potty. Let’s go!”

  * * *

  EVEN THOUGH THE CROWDS were lighter during the week than on Saturday and Sunday, there were still more than enough festivalgoers to warrant a security detail. Zane and newly promoted police sergeant Gina Sandusky were overseeing a shift of officers and volunteers. Gina had just radioed a “code seven” to let him know she was taking her lunch break. As he patrolled the area, he thought again how grateful he was to Gina for introducing her seventeen-year-old sister Beckie to Eden yesterday. The two girls had wandered the fair together on Sunday, and Beckie had agreed to pick up Eden after school today and bring her to the historic downtown area.

  Was it too much to hope that Beckie’s good habits would rub off on his daughter? By getting ahead with some summer courses and accelerated classes, Beckie had only needed one semester of school her senior year to earn her diploma. In August, she would leave for college and was working in the meantime to save up some money. Maybe Zane could pay Beckie to tutor his daughter if she continued to struggle in classes.

  He’d praised Eden’s efforts when he saw her reading a novel for class on Saturday night, but she’d dismissed him with a morose, “Not like I have anything better to do. You need friends for a social life.” Hopefully, hanging out with Beckie would help in that regard, too.

  Zane passed Amy Winthrop, the bartender from the Jalapeño, on the sidewalk and stopped to say hi. “Pretty day, isn’t it?” After the storms at the end of last week, people had worried about bad weather dampening the festivities, but the sun had shone all weekend. If one stood in the shade, the breeze could get a little chilly, but other than that, it was a perfect spring afternoon.