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“You’re saving your life. Period. You won’t have a job or a family to go back to if you’re dead.”
“Again, such a comfort.”
“At this point, it’s more important that we are honest than it is that I comfort you. Right now you’re safe because you’re with me. That’s the only reason. I need you to not forget that.”
“I don’t expect you to allow me to forget it,” she returned, reminding him of that hallway when she’d blamed him for getting her removed from the Rangers. Though it was frustrating that it was geared at him, her anger would serve them well. It would keep her moving, it would keep her brave.
“It’s best if you don’t. For the both of us. You’re not the only one in danger here, you’re just the only one who doesn’t know what to do about it.”
“What about Ranger Stevens?”
“Ranger Stevens can keep himself out of danger. All I need you to do is worry about listening to me. If you do that, everything will be fine.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I give everything to my job. There is nothing about what I do that I take lightly.”
So everyone had always told him. Too serious. Too dedicated. Too wrapped up in a career that didn’t give him time for much of anything else.
But people didn’t understand that it gave him everything. A sense of usefulness, a sense of order in a chaotic world. It gave him the ability to face any challenge that was laid before him.
Maybe it gives you a way to keep everyone at a safe distance. It irritated him that those words came into his head, even more irritating that they were in his ex-wife’s voice. He hadn’t thought about Jenny in over a year. Why had the past two days brought back some of that old bitterness?
But he didn’t have time to figure it out. He had to get to the cabin, and he had to solve this case.
Personal problems always came after the job, and if the job never ended... Well, so be it.
* * *
NO MATTER HOW exhausted she was, all Natalie could do was watch as the desert gave way to mountain. They began to drive up...and up. There were signs for Guadalupe Mountains National Park, but they didn’t drive into it. Instead, Ranger Cooper took winding roads that seemed to weave around the mountains and the park markers.
There weren’t houses or other cars on the road. There was nothing. Nothing except rock and the low-lying green brush that was only broken up by the random cactus.
He turned onto a very bumpy dirt road that curved and twisted up a rolling swell of land covered in green brush. After she didn’t know how long, a building finally came into view.
Nestled into that sloping green swell of land, with the impressive almost square jut of the mountains behind it, was a little postage stamp of a cabin made almost entirely of stone. It looked ancient, almost part of the landscape.
And it was very, very small. She was going to stay here in this isolated, tiny cabin with this man who rubbed her all kinds of the wrong way.
“What is this place?” she asked, the nerves making her almost as shaky as she’d been earlier.
“It’s my private family cabin.”
“You have a family?” She couldn’t picture him with loved ones, a wife and kids. It bothered her on some odd level.
He slid her a glance as he pulled the truck around to the back of the cabin and parked. “I did come from a mother and a father, not just sprung from the ground fully made.”
“The second scenario seems much more plausible,” she retorted, realizing too late that she needed to rein in all her snark.
She thought for one tiny glimmer of a second his mouth might have curved into some approximation of a smile.
Apparently she was becoming delusional. But he doesn’t have a wife or kids. Really, really delusional.
“My sister stays here quite frequently as well, so hopefully you should be able to find some things of hers you can use.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t feel right about—”
“You don’t have a choice, Ms. Torres. You don’t have anything. And before you repeat it for a third time, yes, I realize I am of literally no comfort to you.”
“Well, at least I don’t have to say it for a third time.”
He let out a hefty sigh and then got out of his truck. She followed suit, stepping into the warm afternoon sun. The air had a certain...she couldn’t put her finger on a word for it. It didn’t feel as heavy as the air in Austin. There was a clarity to it. A purity. She couldn’t see another living soul, possibly another living thing. All that existed around her was this vast, arid landscape.
And a very unfortunately sexy Texas Ranger who appeared to be exploring the perimeter of his family cabin.
Even after being up since whatever time he had got up to go to her burned-out house, after all the time getting everything squared away to secret her out of Austin, after the incident at the gas station and driving across Texas, he was unwrinkled and fresh. All she felt was dirty and grimy and disgusting. She smelled, and she was afraid to even glance at what the desert air had done to her hair.
She stood next to the truck, waiting for her orders. Because God knew Ranger Cooper would have orders for her.
He disappeared around the corner of the cabin, and Natalie leaned against the truck and looked up at the hazy blue sky. She let the sun soak into her skin.
For the first time since before the fire, she had a moment to breathe and really think. All of this open space made her think about Gabby. How long she’d been gone, where she was... Did she still get to see things like this?
Natalie tried to fight the thoughts and tears, but she was exhausted. They trickled over her eyelashes and down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away, but they kept falling.
She’d worked relentlessly and tirelessly for eight years to try to find Gabby, and she thought she’d been close. A hint. He keeps the girls. But now she was far away from Austin, and she was with this man who couldn’t pull a punch to save his life.
The hope she had doggedly held on to for eight years was seriously and utterly shaken.
What could she do here? What could she do when her whole life right now was just staying alive? People were after her, and she didn’t even know why.
Why was she crying now, though? She was finally safe. She knew Ranger Cooper would do his duty. He didn’t seem like the type of man who could do anything but.
Why was it now that she felt like she was falling apart?
“Everything looks good out here. I’m going to check the inside, but I need you to follow me.”
No please, no warmth, just an order. She kept her face turned to the sky, trying to wipe away all traces of the tears before she faced him. She took a deep breath and let it out.
She’d had a little breakdown, and now it was over. She’d let some air out of the pressure in her chest, and now she could move forward. She just needed a goal.
She glanced at Ranger Cooper, who was standing at the door, all stiff, gruff policeman.
She needed more information. That was the goal. Information was the goal. She couldn’t lose sight of that even though he was so bad at giving it.
She began to walk toward him, wondering what made anyone in his family think this was a good place for a little getaway cabin. It was rocky and sharp and dry. If you looked closely at all, everything seemed so ugly.
But when you looked away from the ground, and took in the home and the full extent of the landscape, there was something truly awe inspiring about it. It was big and vast, this world they lived in. She never had that feeling in the middle of Austin.
She walked over to the porch. It was hard to follow orders and listen to what someone else told her to do. She wasn’t used to that. She had been such a strong force in her life for the past few years. She had made all the choices, asked all the questions, sought all the answers. She’d even alienated her grandmother in her quest to find Gabby, so sitting back and doing what someone else told her to do was...hard. It went against everything she had put her whole life into.
But she knew that knee-jerk reaction didn’t have a place here. Not when she was with a Texas Ranger who obviously knew way more than she did about safety and criminals.
She was going to have to bury the instinct to argue with him, and it was going to be as big of a challenge as trusting him would be.
“The chances of anyone having breached the cabin are extremely low,” he said, opening the door and analyzing the frame as though it might grow weapons and attack them. “But when you’re dealing with criminals of this magnitude, you can’t be too careful. Which means I can’t leave you outside. I can’t let you out of my sight. So, I’m going to go inside and make sure there’s nothing off. I need you to follow right behind me, carefully mirroring my every step. Can you do that?”
“Can I walk behind you and do what you do?”
“Yes, that is the question.”
She gritted her teeth. He didn’t think she could walk? He didn’t think she could do anything, did he? He thought she was some flighty, foolish hypnotist who couldn’t follow easy orders.
Arrogant jerk of a man. “Yes, I can do that,” she said through those gritted teeth.
“Excellent. Let’s go.”
He stepped over the threshold, immediately turning toward the left. She followed him, and since her job was to follow exactly in his footsteps, she watched him. That ease of movement he had about him, the surety in the way he strode into the cabin looking for whatever he was looking for.
He was all packed muscle, but there was something like grace in his movements. It was mesmerizing, and she had no problem following him around the inside of the stone cabin.
They did an entire tour of the kitchen and living area, which were both open, and then down a very narrow hallway that led to two bedrooms and a bathroom. All the rooms were small, and the stone that composed the outside of the cabin were used for the inside walls and floor as well.
It wasn’t cozy exactly. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t the sort of log mountain cabin she had in her head. There weren’t warm colorful blankets or cute artwork on the walls. It was all very gray and minimalist.
“You have something against color?” she asked, forgetting to keep her thoughts to herself.
He glanced over his shoulder at her, and the question was kind of funny in light of the way his blue eyes looked even grayer here. It was like even the color of his body didn’t dare shine in this space.
“If you’re looking for color...” He opened the door to the last bedroom and stepped inside, doing his little police thing where he looked at every corner and around every lamp and out every window.
But Natalie didn’t follow him this time. Where the rest of the cabin was stone and stark and sort of reflective of the outside landscape, this room was a riot and explosion of color. It was glitter and fringe.
“What on earth is all this?”
“This is my sister’s room. Which means that, right now, it is your room, and you can feel free to use anything that’s in here.” He opened the closet and rifled through it. She still had no idea what exactly he was looking for, but she knew if she asked he would only give her some irritating half answer.
“I feel really strange about using your sister’s things.”
“Trust me, my sister has nothing but things, and when I explain to her why someone used them, she will be more than fine with it. As I reminded you earlier, you don’t have a choice.”
“Because I have nothing. Yes, let’s keep talking about that.”
He gave her a cursory once-over, just like he’d given the cabin. She wouldn’t be surprised if he checked her pulse and teeth or frisked her for a wire.
She tried not to think too hard about the little shiver that ran through her at the thought of his hands on her. Those big hands that had covered so much space on her back when he’d placed them there in comfort after her house had been decimated.
She swallowed and looked away.
“Sleep.” He barked the order, then walked right past her without a second glance or word. The door closed with a soft click, and she could only gape at the rough-hewn wood.
He was ordering her to sleep? The absolute gall of the man. How dare he tell her what she needed? She had half a mind to march right out of the room and tell him she was fine.
But, God, she was tired. So, for today, he’d get his way. And probably for tomorrow and the next day and the next, because he is in charge here, remember?
She sighed at that depressing thought and crawled into bed, hopeful to sleep all the tears away.
Chapter Five (#u526b0c52-07e7-563d-8fe9-2724b1ed2c7a)
Vaughn stared at his laptop screen and tried not to doze off. He would need to wake up Torres soon, if only so he could sleep. The tail had left him jumpy, and he didn’t want both of them asleep at the same time at any point.
Unfortunately he was tired enough that the words of his files were simply jumbled letters. It was beyond frustrating he couldn’t concentrate. Had he gone soft? He hadn’t had a stakeout or any sort of challenging hard-on-the-body thing in a while. Had he lost his touch?
He scrubbed his hands over his face. This was ridiculous. He was fine. There was only so much the human body could handle and still be expected to concentrate on complex facts. Complex facts that had been hard enough to work out when he was well rested and well fed.
At the thought of food, his stomach grumbled. If he couldn’t sleep, then he could at least eat. If he made something, then Natalie could eat when she woke up.
There wouldn’t be anything fresh in the pantry, but they always kept a few extras on hand just in case. The nearest store was over an hour away, and while that was pretty damn inconvenient a lot of the time, between Vaughn’s desire for complete off-the-grid privacy when he wasn’t working and his sister’s need for a secret spot, it worked.
He and Lucy had handled their father’s fame in completely opposite ways. Lucy had embraced it. She’d followed it, becoming almost as famous a country singer as their father had been. She used the cabin only when she needed a quick, quiet, away-from-publicity break, which was rare.
Vaughn had hated the spotlight. Always. Like his mother, he hadn’t been able to stand the fishbowl existence.
So he’d found a way to have almost no recognition whatsoever. He’d gotten a strange enjoyment out of going undercover back in the day, knowing no one knew who he was related to.
“You are one screwy piece of work, Cooper,” he muttered, grabbing two cans of soup out of the pantry and digging up the can opener.
“Do you always talk to yourself?”
His hand flew to the butt of his weapon before he even thought about it. Before he recognized the voice, before he had a chance to smooth out the movement so Natalie wouldn’t know what he had meant to do.
Quickly he put his hands back to work opening the soup, and he purposefully didn’t look at her because he didn’t want to see that familiar look on her face. Jenny would cry for days after he had moments like that one, wondering why he couldn’t ever shut it off, that natural reaction.
Why the hell couldn’t he keep his mind off his past? Dad, Jenny. Why was it in his head, mucking things up when he had to be completely clearheaded and one hundred percent in the game right now?
“I’m heating some soup if you’d like some,” he offered, ignoring her previous question.
“Have you been awake this whole time?”
“Someone needs to remain vigilant.”
“You can’t stay awake forever.”
“No, I can’t. Which means at some point, I’ll have to trust you enough to take over the lookout position.”
He finally happened to glance at her, and she had her lips pressed together in a disapproving line. As though she was surprised to hear that he didn’t trust her. He’d been nothing but clear on that front. She shouldn’t be surprised.
“The only option for beverage is water, and you’re going to have to learn to live on the nonperishable staples in the pantry. I don’t think it’s safe to go to town, and certainly not worth it unless we absolutely have to.”
