“Ranger, please, let go. You’re holding on too tight.”
He immediately relaxed his grip, but he couldn’t let go of the fear for her. “I’ve seen what they can do. Is that what you want? You want to get hurt? You want them to take Arturo and make him Lobello? And you and Chloe? I promise, once he is through using you he will sell you both and you will disappear. He knows you live alone, out here, on this farm. He could do anything and by the time I got here, it would be too late.”
The last bit of resolve melted from her face. Ranger fought the regret climbing up his spine. All he wanted today was to talk to her, hope for a date, maybe a kiss. Instead, a goddamn Mexican cartel honed its sights on his woman.
His woman.
No, Shane’s woman. He shouldn’t think of her like that. Like he had a right to her body. But more and more he found himself wanting more than her body. He wanted her heart. Her soul. Her love.
He wanted to be there to protect her and Chloe. The thought of children, or raising a child, had never before entered his mind. But seeing her with Chloe in her arms did things to him. Made him feel deeper. No, he shouldn’t want Amy Carter or her baby. He should honor his promise to look out for her, a promise he’d made to Shane at his graveside. But he did want her. He wanted all of her.
“You can’t stay here. Not tonight.” Amy placed a hand, gently, on his chest. He felt like she shoved her fist into his chest and gripped his heart. “I’m not stupid. I understand that this guy is a threat. But it can’t be you protecting us. I’ll call Bo.”
“Why are you so damn scared of me?” Did she have another man? Is that why she didn’t want him here? The control he’d fought so hard for flew further away. He’d kill whatever bastard laid a hand on her.
“I can’t tell you. Just trust me, you don’t want to be here.”
“Is it another man? Is that why you’re so hell bent on stomping me down?” Fury faded to red. Then black. He couldn’t see straight. Ranger had fought for so long against a ghost, he didn’t know if he could deal with a real live person.
“Is that what you think, I’m sleeping around? You’ve lost it. I haven’t ever been with anyone else!” Amy shouted and twisted in his grip.
“Why else won’t you let me protect you?” Ranger roared in response to her outburst. His chest clenched so tight his ribs were near breaking. He didn’t think he could take it. If she was in love with someone else. If she chose someone else again. He knew he couldn’t take it.
Chapter 6
“Let go.” Amy screamed so sharp the metal walls rattled. She lifted her arms, and then yanked them down, flinging Ranger’s grip from her.
Rage. Fear. Heat. Was she losing her mind? Why did she crave the touch of a man who thought she slept around? How could she betray Shane so quickly? It hadn’t even been a year since the funeral. What kind of woman could move past her husband’s death like that? And for a man who thought she was a slut. “You asshole. You really think I’m seeing someone else?”
Ranger didn’t look remorseful. In fact, he leaned down, his stupid-perfect chest glowed gold in the sunset. And her stupid-stupid heart did a flip-flop for joy.
“I don’t know what to think. You’ve flown circles around me so long I can’t see straight.”
“So of course, big caveman, you assume it’s about sex?” Amy balled up her fist, the blood pumping. Shane had never talked to her like that. Never.
But he’d never talked to her at all.
“Just tell me. End my misery.” Ranger yelled right back. He didn’t turn and walk away. He didn’t go cold and distant, like she didn’t matter. “Dammit Amy Ann, I’ve never loved another woman in my entire life. It’s always been you. Always.”
Oh God. “Ranger...” What to say?
I love you?
She might as well close her business and hang the foreclosure sign in the window. And Chloe, what about her daughter? Could Mavis use her relationship with Ranger to take her daughter away? Make her look like an unfit mother?
Ranger stood tall then. Looked down at her. A look she’d seen before. The one right before the people in her life walked out the door.
Amy swallowed past the lump of cotton in her throat. Her father had given her that look. Seventeen years old, the week before prom. She hadn’t seen him since.
Shane gave her the same look after their fight. He’d boarded a plane for Afghanistan without a backwards glance.
Now Ranger.
Tears threatened but she looked away and blinked hard. Not again. She didn’t care. She didn’t freaking care.
“I’m not leaving. You can scream and cuss all you want. I know you love me.” Ranger grabbed her arms again. This time though he held her at arm’s-length. Trapping her in his strong hands and strong gaze. “I’m. Not. Leaving.”
The metal cage around her heart cracked. “What?” He wasn’t giving up?
“Your temper might scare off a weaker man, but not me. Because deep down, I know you want me to stay. I know you’ve got some fucked up reason to tell yourself why you can’t let me, but you want me too.”
He wasn’t leaving. Not Shane. Not her father.
“Tell me you don’t want me. Tell me right now to my face that our kiss doesn’t drive you wild. That you don’t think about that night together. Tell me it didn’t mean anything.” Ranger didn’t blink or break his gaze from hers. He didn’t give her the chance to look away.
She couldn’t speak. Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t tell him that, because she’d dreamed about that night every single day since. She’d imagined his lips on hers. Imagined his mouth on her skin. Tasting. Taking. Torturing.
“I can’t. Please, Ranger. I can’t. Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because, you’re worth fighting for. Every damn day for the rest of my life.” Ranger’s voice was harsh, deep, and caressed her skin like the softest silk. “Tell me you don’t want me.”
I don’t want you. But her lips wouldn’t form the words. He wanted her enough to see past her false anger. Past the front. He wanted her enough to stay. “I want you.”
Ranger groaned and yanked her to him. “Dammit.” Ranger crushed his mouth over hers in a kiss that communicated all the pent up need. All the longing. She parted her lips, welcomed his probing tongue. Met him head on and clutched his shoulders like a lifeline, because if he let her go, she’d collapse on the ground. He tilted his head, slanting his mouth over hers. The kiss was so intense she almost melted.
She couldn’t help but notice every little detail. His day’s beard growth scraping across her jaw. His tight lips, so tender and soft. His smell. The way a man should smell. All earth and musk and raw sex. Her stomach clenched, her thighs clenched, her entire body clenched, desperate for more of this man.
He drove her wild, past reason, past her a-good-girl-shouldn’t-do-this thoughts. She wanted him so bad.
His hands moved from her shoulders, down to her elbows. Each inch of her skin burned. When his hands fell on her hips, she jerked forward. He cupped her ass, lifted and squeezed. Amy moaned, the intense sensations torturing her insides. Please don’t stop.
Her cellphone buzzed in her back pocket. She ignored it, Ranger’s lips trailed down her throat, in light fluttering whispers against her skin.
The buzzing in her pocket came to life in a loud ring, and AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” filled the hangar.
Holy. Crap. Amy jerked back and snatched the cell from her pocket. She’d pre-programmed the ringtone to warn her of impending disaster. Her mother-in-law had the sixth sense.
Ranger pulled her to him again, but Amy wriggled free. “You must really love that person.”
Love? Sure, like the devil loved church.
“I gotta go.” Mavis and her weekly calls of guilt to remind Amy that she’d stolen her only boy too early. Now she could add lusting after his best friend to her list.
“What? Wait a minute. Who was that? What’s wrong?” Amy wanted to tell him it was Mavis. But no. That
was her own cross to bear.
“Listen. I know you want to stay and help out. But you can’t. Not tonight. Please, I promise to call Bo over if there is trouble.”
“Tell me what is going on.”
“I can’t. Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon. Okay?” Amy backed up a step. Then another.
Ranger’s look of confusion and hurt and anger filling up her vision.
Her cell buzzed again, indicating a voice message from Mavis Carter. The mother-in-law to make Ursula the Sea Witch look like a guppy. Eighty percent of the reason Amy could never have a life or relationship past Shane Carter.
“Amy stop. Talk to me.”
Amy backed up one more step. “I’m sorry.”
Then she did what she did best. She ran. All the way to the house. She left a too perfect sculpted set of abs in her dust and high-tailed it to her back door. He’d said he didn’t want her just one night. He wanted her forever. Wanted her enough to fight for her.
Amy went into the kitchen, slammed the door behind her and grabbed the back of her kitchen chair. Her heart hit so hard and fast it might as well have been the plane propeller whacking her chest.
Ranger. She closed her eyes. Want wandered down her body. His confusion was worse than his outrage. Damn Mavis and her call. Amy wouldn’t be surprised if the woman hadn’t set up cameras to spy on her. She had made it plain she never trusted Amy. And that she blamed Amy for Shane joining the military and therefore his death. That her mission in life was to make Amy miserable.
She never missed a photo op for the press. Mavis had cried on more news stations than Oprah. And then she’d dragged Amy to the cemetery every month to stare at Shane’s grave. And to remember the guilt.
But Shane had been the one to walk away. Not Amy.
And now she had a flesh and blood God-given second chance all but beating down her door and threatening to drag her by her hair to his cave to be his little woman.
And she wanted that so bad.
Her body felt on fire. Maybe she was having heat stroke. Amy went to the cabinet, grabbed a glass and filled it with ice water, downing half the contents in one long gulp. She needed to cool off.
Needed the shock to remember who she was. She was Shane Carter’s widow. She was loyal. She wasn’t attracted to her dead husband’s best friend.
Not attracted. Not attracted. Not attracted.
She didn’t want him every second. She finished the water. Maybe if she told herself often enough she would start to believe it.
She’d done everything she could to warn Ranger away, and he kept coming. And thank God he did, otherwise she and Pedro would have been alone with Santos. Amy knew the man could have done anything to her, and no one would have been able to stop him.
Except Ranger.
She went to the living room, stopping in front of the fireplace mantle. Shane’s military picture sat right there, in a black frame. His straight lips and serious eyes glared at her. Cold. Hard. Distant.
Remember, Amy, remember.
Chapter 7
Ranger slammed into the newly finished log house he shared with his brother and new sister-in-law, barely keeping his rage in check.
No matter how much he wanted to turn and put his fist through the wall, this wasn’t his house to destroy.
But if his commander kept him stateside, he’d build his own house. Then he could put a hole in any goddamn wall he wanted.
Amy blew so freaking hot one minute he thought he was in the Mohave Desert and so cold the next he might as well be in Ant-freaking-artica. He didn’t know whether she’d given him heat stroke or frostbite, but either way his brain was fried.
Damn woman. No one had ever made him lose control like that. When they kissed, he felt like a king. But after, when she opened her mouth and spoke, he felt like a fool.
And now, all he felt was rage. Santos had sealed his fate. The man would die. It was just a matter of when. But Amy didn’t want Ranger there, at her house, at night. Part of him realized she was running scared and needed time. Needed soothing.
But the other part. The caveman part, wanted to beat down her door and scream mine.
“What the hell?” Hunter walked into the kitchen.
“What?” Ranger half-growled the word.
“Where is your shirt? Why aren’t you doing recon on the Lobellos? And what the fuck is that smell?” Hunter filled up the doorway from the living room to the kitchen. His brother, black hair, black eyes. And up until last year, Ranger had almost been convinced, a black soul.
But then Hunter found Evie. And the big grizzly bear tamed into a cub in her hands.
Ranger briefly considered lying, but there was no point. He’d not only completely neglected his mission, but he’d almost blown it.
“Grab me a beer.” Ranger moved to the table, pulled out a hand carved wooden chair and sat.
“Sure.” Hunter strode to the stainless steel fridge, pulled out a couple of beers, passed one to Ranger, and took a seat opposite. “Spill.”
Ranger twisted the cap off his beer, downing half the bottle in one swallow. The cold liquid cooled his temper to about a half a degree below boiling. “I stopped on the way to McGehee.”
“What was so important you detoured from the Lobello’s home town?”
“Amy Carter.”
“Jesus H. Christ. You do like your torture don’t you?”
Ranger knew his brother thought he’d lost his mind. Hell, sometimes Ranger even thought he’d lost his mind. “Yep.”
“And what, you thought if you showed her your muscles she’d change her mind and jump your bones?” Hunter leaned back in his chair, his amused grin growing wider, and crossed his hands behind his head.
“I had a shirt on when I saw her.” Ranger took another swig, needing the liquid courage.
“And?”
“And I stopped by the field she was spraying, hoping to catch her for a minute, and she doused me in goddamn herbicide.”
Hunter tipped back in his chair and roared with laughter. Ranger gave serious thought to kicking his brother’s chair backwards. He planted a booted foot on the edge and gave Hunter a nudge. His brother stopped laughing. “Do it and die.”
“I’m glad I can provide so much entertainment, brother.” Ranger eased back, letting Hunter’s chair back down flat on the kitchen tile.
“Just tell me the next time you plan to visit her. So I can provide back up. Evie’s gonna be pissed you stank up the new house.”
“Sure. Right after you help me over a cliff.” Ranger paced to the trash, tossed the empty beer, and grabbed a new one. “She’s driving me nuts.”
“All the best ones do,” Hunter said.
“Yeah easy for you to say, yours didn’t twist you up into knots. Blow hot and cold.”
“Were you here last year? Are we talking about the same woman? My wife? The one that ran from me at every opportunity?”
Ranger nodded and sat back down. “Yeah. That one. She’s an amateur compared to Amy.”
Hunter’s stare probed too deep, his silence telling. Hunter had almost lost Evie to her own psychopath stalker. And Ranger knew, if his brother had lost Evie, Hunter wouldn’t have made it. He would have lived, as is took oxygen in and out of his lungs, but Hunter would have shut down, and what little edge of peace he’d gained, would disappear.
“So quit then. Give her up.”
“Okay. I’ll give up when you give Evie up.” Same thing. Ranger felt for Amy deep beyond his heart. Into his soul.
“You’ve got it bad, man. And no way Mavis is gonna let her move on, that woman will flay her alive and eat her for lunch.” Hunter leaned forward, rested his arms on the matching heavy wood table.
Ranger cringed. Shane’s mother moved beyond contentious to downright mean. The woman may lead the Baptist Church women’s prayer group, but she belonged in hell with her father, the devil. Then realization dawned. The phone call. Highway to Hell. Mavis.
No wonder Amy went ghost white
and ran off. This shit storm of small town drama was about to go FUBAR.
“The commander is gonna have your ass either way. We can’t do the mission without the intel.” Hunter reminded him in his calm big brother voice.
Shitballs. The mission. Ranger was the only team member yet to come face to face with Lobello and therefore the only one to do intel and a possible meet and greet without tipping their hat. Small town gossip wasn’t the only thing about to go FUBAR. “Hunter. I ran into a Lobello named Santos at Amy’s hangar this afternoon. He was there, threatening one of her workers.”
Hunter stopped moving, his stare turned deadly. “The Santos Guillera who is in charge of new inductees?”
Arturo. Shit. “We need to call command. I think he was there to take Arturo away from his father. And I think Amy is in danger too.”
Hunter had his phone in his hand punching in numbers when it rang. Hunter met Ranger’s gaze. Command.
Hunter sat back and answered the cell. “Sir.”
Ranger couldn’t hear what was said, but whatever it was, it was loud. Cpt. Grey, it seemed, was pissed. Ranger made to grab the phone but Hunter held up a hand. “Yes, sir. Be there in five.”
Hunter disconnected the call, downed his beer. “Well little bro, you started your own shit storm alright. Cpt. Grey wants us there five minutes ago. Oh, and in case you were wondering, he’s gonna ream your ass for screwing up.”
“I couldn’t tell. Damn. I can’t stay long. I have to set up at Amy’s. That bastard might show up tonight for a snatch and grab.” Ranger headed toward the spare bedroom and shower.
“You gotta take a shower and get to the meeting or the CO’s gonna tag you AWOL. I’ll call Bo Lawson, fill him in, have him sit tight on her property until we can get there later.”
Ranger all but snarled. “Tell that sadist to keep his hands off my woman.”
“Sure. Touch your woman and die. Got it. Now hurry the fuck up so we don’t get reamed any more than necessary.”
Men of Mercy: The Complete Story Page 28