“It’s just the truth. It’s easier to accept the truth and figure out what you can do about it than to wish it was different or understandable.”
“But...what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to... I have other jobs, and a family, and... It’s all hitting me how much I’m los—”
“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