by A Parker
Then he unceremoniously held me at arm’s length. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
I blinked. “What?”
“What were you doing, riding after Bates like that? And I told you to stay at Grant’s! What got into your head, Carrie? You could have been killed!”
“But I wasn’t.”
He plunged his fingers into his hair and stared at me with wide eyes. “I thought… I thought… fuck.”
“You thought what?” I pushed.
“None of this would have been worth a damn if you went off and got yourself killed! You’re supposed to stay away from shit like this. Let us handle it. You did your part last night.”
I grinned up at him.
“What’s funny?” he growled, taking a menacing step forward.
“It sounds like you were worried about me.”
A vein grew near his temple. “Worried?”
I nodded.
He threw his hands in the air. “Of course I was fucking worried! I was more than worried! I thought you were going to get yourself killed. And you know who isn’t worth your life? Bates and his sadistic daughter.”
“But they were worth you risking your life?”
“Don’t test me, woman.”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” I bit back. “How is it any different when I want to take matters into my own hands compared to when you do? I’m a Ranger, not a damsel. I knew what the risks were. And I know how to handle myself. I couldn’t sit back at the house twiddling my thumbs pretending there wasn’t something better I could be doing with my time. If not for me, the cops would have been on you guys back at the landfill and you’d all be dead.” I folded my arms and glared expectantly at him. What could he say to that?
“We would have figured something out. We always do.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh please. Just admit it. I helped.”
He glared hotly at me. “It didn’t feel like help when you rode off without me.”
I shrugged. “What did you want me to do? Bates was getting away. I knew I stood a chance of stopping him, so I went for it.”
“You’re a selfish woman.”
“Selfish?” I asked incredulously. “I was doing it to save your ass. Forgive me for not wanting to follow orders. I was going crazy back at the house. I felt so powerless.”
“And I felt powerless watching you drive off!” He got in my face, and I glared hotly up at him. His eyes flicked back and forth between mine and I felt anger rolling off him in waves. “What do you expect from me, Carrie?”
“I expect you to trust me to handle myself.”
“I do trust you,” he said, his voice rising, “but I don’t trust anyone else. And how can I protect the woman I love when she’s riding away from me?”
His words hit me right in the chest. The anger in me immediately softened. “Did you just say ‘love’?” I whispered.
Chapter 39
Jameson
“Yes,” I breathed. “I love you, Carrie.”
She looked at me like she never had before, and I forgot about the pain in my ribs and my side. I forgot about my headache and my worry for Jackson. In this moment, the only thing that existed was her.
I took her hands in mine. “Even though you make me fucking crazy, out of control, and like no matter what I do it will never be enough because I could never truly protect a woman like you, I do. I love you. I love how batshit you are. How your mind works. How you taste. How you aren’t afraid of anyone or anything. How scared you make me…” I trailed off. I couldn’t put the rest of it into words.
Carrie had changed me. She’d changed everything.
She smiled up at me. “You don’t have to protect me.”
“Yes I do.”
Carrie shook her head. “No. You don’t. But I love that you try. And I love you, too.”
There it was. Those three little words.
I hadn’t expected her to say them back, but there they were, invisible in the air between us.
Carrie stretched to the tips of her toes and kissed me. She wrapped her arms around the back of my neck and held herself to me as I held her close and lifted her off the ground. My ribs protested, but I didn’t care.
After everything that had happened, this moment belonged to us.
When I set her down, I noticed she was soaking wet. “You’re filthy.”
She pointed down the road to her bike in the ditch. “I sort of wiped out in the ditch.”
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “Just wet and kind of smelly. Are you hurt?”
I felt compelled to lie so as not to worry her, but I lifted the hem of my shirt anyway and showed her the gash in my hip from where Caroline’s bullet had grazed me. “This is the worst of it. Aside from this it’s just a few bruises. Nothing I can’t handle.”
She touched gingerly at the skin near the gash. “You’re still going to need stitches. We should get you back to Brody. And check on Jackson. The others might need us.”
“Does William’s bike still run?”
She nodded weakly. “Yeah, I think so.”
“I’ll follow behind you in case anything goes wrong. We’ll take it easy. Ride gently. But you’re right, we should get out of here.”
Back at Grant’s, I opened the gate and held it open for Carrie to walk William’s bike into the back. All the others were back already, and their bikes were parked on the gravel. We heard commotion up on the porch and turned just as Suzie launched herself down the steps. She met us down on the gravel and threw her arms around Carrie.
“I’m so glad you’re okay. Mason said you took off like a crazy woman after Bates. We thought… well, we thought you might not make it back.”
“I’m fine. William’s bike however…” She looked over her shoulder back at the bike. “I’m sorry, Suzie. I didn’t mean to.”
Suzie shook her head. “It’s okay. I can fix it. Hopefully. Besides, William always said bikes were made to be ridden. He put his fair share of dents and dings in the thing when it was his.”
“How’s Jackson?” Carrie asked.
Suzie’s expression fell. “Brody is seeing to him. He lost a lot of blood, but Brody says he’ll be okay with some rest. Sam on the other hand? She’s a bit of a mess.”
“I can only imagine,” Carrie breathed. “And the others?”
Suzie grinned at us both. “Everyone made it back in one piece. Come on up to the deck. They’ll all be happy to see you. We’ve been worried.”
We made our way up onto the deck where everyone got to their feet and welcomed us with hugs and claps on the back. Carrie seemed initially overwhelmed by the greetings and I couldn’t blame her. This was the first time she’d had such a warm reception.
When everyone had reunited, she looked around at them all. “I’m sorry, guys, but Bates got away. I was so close. I had him. But Moss... if not for him, I would have gotten Bates and his daughter.”
Abel brought her under one heavy arm and pulled her up against him. Carrie, barely over five feet, was nearly swallowed up by his size, and it became quickly obvious that he’d already had a couple beers, possibly to handle the pain of several fresh broken fingers on his left hand.
I’d have to get the story on how that happened later.
“Don’t sweat it,” Abel told Carrie. “You were a mad dog out there, just like the rest of us. Thinking you could take on Bates by yourself.” He threw his head back and laughed. “You’re as wild as the President.”
Carrie looked surprised, then flattered.
Abel set her free and pushed her toward me. She fell into my arms and let me wrap an arm around her hips, holding her to me.
“What’s this about then?” Knox leaned on the railing, nursing a deep purple bruise forming on his jaw.
All eyes were on us. Carrie blushed and looked at her feet.
“Out with it,” Gabriel pushed.
Grant, leaning on the side of the house by the patio doors, chuckled. “C
ome on, we’ve all known this has been going on a while. No need to keep secrets.”
“Fine,” I said, before spinning Carrie around and kissing her in front of everyone.
Suzie clasped her hands together and giggled almost gleefully. I’d never heard a sound like that come out of her. The men whooped and hollered, and Carrie pushed at my chest, embarrassed but giddy.
“Tex,” she muttered, tucking her hair behind her ears.
The patio doors slid open. Much to my surprise, Sam stepped out. She looked worn and tired, but her lips were curled in a gentle smile as she made room for someone else to come out behind her. We were all surprised when Jackson filled the doorway, stepped lightly out onto the porch, and accepted Sam’s help as she guided him to the closest chair.
However, he didn’t sit down.
On his feet, he stood around and looked at us. “Tonight may not have gone how we hoped, but we’re all still here, and that has to count for something. You boys saved my ass tonight. And you?” His gaze slid to Carrie, who froze like a deer in the headlights and clung to my arm. He surprised us all by chuckling until it pained him, and he clamped a hand on his side while Sam shot him worried looks. “You made us all look bad, riding off after Bates like that.”
The men laughed.
Carrie didn’t. “He got away.”
Jackson nodded. “I know. It’s okay.”
She looked at her feet. “They drove out of the city. I think… I think they might be running.”
“If they are, they’ll be back,” Jackson said. “A man like Bates doesn’t walk away from his prize. Tex almost killed him tonight. He needs to regroup. So do we. When he comes back, we’ll be ready for him.”
Carrie nodded and didn’t look up.
“Hart,” Jackson said firmly.
She lifted her gaze. He moved forward, grimacing in pain. Brody shook his head behind Jackson, irritated that his patient was already disobeying his orders to rest. The rest of us looked at our President like he was a god as he placed a hand on Carrie’s shoulder.
“You did well tonight. Tonight, you are one of us.”
Her eyes danced.
“Welcome to the Devil’s Luck,” Jackson said. “We’ve got your back from here on out. No questions asked.”
Abel lifted his beer with the hand that didn’t have broken fingers. “To the Ranger.”
“The Ranger,” everyone said unanimously. I added my voice to the toast, and Carrie turned to me with tears in her eyes and hope in her smile.
“Well done, kid,” Jackson said before releasing her shoulder and moving tiredly to his chair. He lowered himself into it, and Sam took up her place beside him.
“Did you hear that?” Carrie whispered excitedly in my ear. “Jackson doesn’t hate me anymore.”
Knox pressed a beer into her hands. Grant clapped her hard on the back, knocking her forward a step. She grinned like a kid on Christmas morning when Mason draped his jacket over her shoulders later in the night when the temperatures dropped. And when the men all sat around telling Suzie and Sam the tales of the night, Carrie was the star of the show.
I watched her as she realized that she’d found a new family here in Reno, and I wondered if she truly understood just how far these men would go to protect her. She was our blood now. Mine forever.
Ours.
So long as she would have us, that is.
Epilogue
Carrie
A single ice-blue eye stared unblinking at me. All around it was darkness so thick I could have sworn I’d fallen into a well of ink. The eye narrowed even though it was lidless, and a hollow laugh rang in my ears. I lifted my hands to cover them but found I didn’t have hands.
Where was I?
What was this place?
Surely, it wasn’t real.
The eye spoke.
“You broke our deal, sweetheart. Do you remember what I said? I have a bullet saved for you, Miss Hart. It’s all shiny and new, but it belongs in your skull. You should have killed him.”
My ears rang with Bates’s voice. It sounded like he was inside me. Desperate, I tried to escape the sheer nothingness all around me, but there was nowhere to go. Everywhere I turned I was met with more darkness and that single, penetrating, ruthless eye.
“You should have killed him.”
I tried to scream, but I had no mouth. No lungs. No tongue.
“You should have killed him.”
“You should have killed him.”
“You should have killed him.”
I sat up drenched in sweat and rubbed at my eyes. The darkness of the dream fell away and I peered around at Tex’s bedroom. It was half past six in the morning. The sun was just beginning to rise, and deep orange light shone through the warehouse windows overhead. I tilted my head back and gazed out at the sky as it slowly faded from dark blue, to purple, to blue. Somewhere outside a bird sang his morning song.
It was just a dream. I brought my knees up to my chest, rested my forehead on them, and closed my eyes. Just a dream.
The battle at the landfill had been two nights ago. Like all surreal things, it felt like it had never happened except for when we were around Jackson, who was still having a hard time with the giant hole in his side. He’d been shot by Moss with a large caliber bullet from some sort of rifle, and the damage had been damn near impossible for Brody to repair in what little time he had to work with. His fix had been messy, rushed, but effective, and he was able to stop the bleeding and patch Jackson up before things got too dicey.
Bates was in the wind.
Nobody had heard a peep about him, his daughter, or Moss. The three of them were gone, like smoke.
I hadn’t decided yet if that made me more nervous than knowing where they were. Bates wasn’t the sort of man to run from a fight, so I knew his absence meant his health was bad. Tex had either killed him or nearly killed him.
In time, we’d find out which was true, but I doubted the man was dead. Something told me we’d have to work harder to achieve that task. I sighed and tried to think about anything other than Bates’s eye and his voice in my dream.
If or when Bates returned, he’d be out for my blood. I’d be safer in Austin.
Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I looked over at Tex sleeping soundly beside me. He slept on his back, his face turned slightly away from me, his right hand resting on his bare chest. The blankets were down around his hips, showing off his cut stomach, muscular chest, and the cut of his hips.
He still had to wear a thin bandage over the gash in his hip where Caroline had grazed him with a bullet, but Brody told us the stiches would dissolve in a week or two, and he’d be good to go. His ribs hadn’t bothered him as much this weekend because we’d taken it easy, but he was far from healed. Every now and then if he twisted the wrong way or stood up too fast, he’d hiss in pain, and I’d be reminded of that terrible night when he’d died and I almost lost him.
Neither he nor Brody had yet to say a word about what really happened in this room that night.
I brought it up to Brody last night. We’d all been at Grant’s, as per usual. Suzie and Mason were out in the shop tinkering away on William’s bike, trying to get the repairs underway and fix the damage I’d done. Jackson and Sam weren’t there. They were home resting.
But the rest of us sat sipping beers, shooting the shit, pretending just for the night that we were safe and all was right with the world.
At one point I caught Brody alone in the kitchen, and I’d asked him what happened. How had they pulled it off when the defibrillator didn’t work?
Brody had gone quiet and refused to look at me. A good ten seconds passed before he finally looked me in the eye and told me not to ask him about it anymore. With that, he’d left me in the kitchen staring after him.
Whatever they’d done, it scarred them both.
Tex avoided the subject all together. One of these days I’d get it out of him, but it didn’t have to be today. Today, all I wanted to be was gr
ateful.
So I curled back under the blankets and watched him sleep. Twenty or so minutes slipped through my fingers as I lay there, watching his eyelids flicker in dreams. I hoped they were more pleasant than mine. When he started to stir, I reached out and caressed his cheek, liking how the stubble on his jaw tickled my palm. He hadn’t gotten around to shaving. Things had been too crazy.
I thought the facial hair suited him.
He opened his eyes as he rolled toward me. “Were you watching me again?”
“Watching you?” I scoffed. “Why would I? That sounds terribly boring.”
“I could feel your eyes on me, woman. They’re like lasers.”
“I was thinking.”
“About?”
“About what I’m going to do next.”
His brow furrowed. “Austin or Reno, you mean?”
I propped my head up with my chin in my hand. “I made up my mind.”
He sighed and put a hand on my hip. “It’s okay. I understand.”
Poor, foolish, silly man. “I choose Reno,” I said simply.
He blinked.
I grinned in earnest. “More importantly, I choose you.”
Tex rolled on top of me and pinned me beneath him. “Don’t play games with me.”
“No games. I want to stay.”
“You’d be giving up a lot. Too much. Your home, your badge, your family. With Bates still on the loose, you’ll have to tread lightly. Keep to small circles. Will it be enough for you?”
How could he not understand yet? He was everything to me. Not enough?
“I could have everything in the world, and if you weren’t in it? It would never be enough,” I said. “You’re infuriating. You smoke like a chimney. You’re stubborn as hell and nobody makes me as angry as you do. But nobody fills me up the way you do, either. I like who I am with you, Tex. I can be myself. This is something rare between us. I can’t give it up. Not for a badge, or a job, or anything.”
He searched my eyes as if looking for a lie, like he didn’t quite believe what I was saying.