Merry with a Ranger (Love Beach Holiday Collection)

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

N ASH

I was buying her ice cream. I didn’t care if it was penguin weather outside. The temperate air of Love Beach turned icy as the wind picked up off the ocean and swept in like Santa Claus decided to bring the ice caps along for the ride this silly season.

With a day left to go before Christmas Eve hit—damn, I lost track of days hauling my ass across the country, then finding Bonnie—the entire population of the small town was out at the beachside night markets. No wonder the resort emptied of its floating population for the evening.

Vendors sold everything from gingerbread spiced lattes that scented the salty, sticky air with cloves and ginger and cinnamon. Giant Yorkshire puddings were offered by another shop. Hand blown, glass ornaments swung gently from all angels of a wooden hut, despite the wind, their tinkle audible where they dangled on long ribbons. Glowing neon reindeer, waving Santas, and other assorted Christmas light paraphernalia covered every inch of sand and boardwalk as far as I could see.

Bonnie walked beside me, her hand wrapped around mine as she licked a vanilla—of all things—ice cream like it was the best treat she’d ever had.

I eyed her, willing myself not to get hard or grow too envious of the attention she gave a melting cone that was my idea to get her in the first place, and finally put words into action. “When was the last time you ordered dessert?”

Her eyes slid sideways, and I knew the answer to that before she said a word. “Daddy doesn’t really allow it. Not unless it’s one of those little biscuits that comes with coffee.”

“Mhmm.” The sound I made in the back of my throat came out rude, but Grant Lawson wasn’t the respectful man I remembered from my youth.

Back then, I’d been afraid of him. I needed his approval to date his daughter, and I wanted to be worthy of them both. Now, he seemed to be afraid of me. The tables had turned. For some stupid reason, I preferred the status quo the other way around.

“Don’t be like that.” She finished the damn ice cream and licked her fingers, subjecting me to a fresh form of torture. “He does the best he can.”

“How’s that?” I didn’t look sideways at her, and managed to keep my hand loose around hers.

Bonnie halted for a second but when I didn’t stop with her she hurried to catch up, her pinkie still getting a suction clean in her mouth. “He’s trying. You know, with Mom?—”

I growled, frightening several market goers who gave us a wide berth as I spun on my heel, yanked the fingers out of her mouth and drew her close. “You can stop the bullshit about your mother. Yes, I get she’s traumatized. It’s horrible, Bonnie. But I’ve seen it enough to know that doesn’t ‘just happen’, okay? Stop lying to me, and tell me what happened to you. Or don’t. But don’t expect me to believe the bullshit you’ve been spinning to the rest of the world and getting by on for the last ten years.” I didn’t step back, and I didn’t give her space, knowing I pushed her way too hard.

Bonnie nodded, holding my gaze. “Okay. That seems fair.”

The fuck?

“It does?” I let out a measured breath. “Bonnie…”

She held up a hand. “You gave me a choice. I’m taking the latter, for now. Maybe later, when we aren’t…here, alright?” Her voice dropped an octave, begging me not to push her in public.

“Am I that much of an asshole you think I’ll do that to you?” My mouth softened, and all I wanted to do was kiss her until the sun rose on Christmas morning.

Not practical, but then, closet romantics like me rarely were.

“No, I don’t think that. Come on. I want to see the tree.” She pointed shyly along the boardwalk to where a large tree was surrounded by glowing sheep, angels and what looked like dangling stars that wobbled only a little precariously in the high winds.

“You haven’t been out to look at any of this?” I squeezed her hand gently. “Not prying. I genuinely want to know what you’ve done and haven’t.” And I was prying. But in the sweetest, least assholic way I could think to do.

“Nope.” That was all the answer she’d give me, towing me along behind her as she wove her way through the small crowd that seemed to grow with the late hour, rather than disperse.

“Alright.” I shrugged, following her until she burst out into a clear area beside the giant tree that seemed to go on forever, even to a guy my height. “Hey.” I wound my arms around her from behind, nuzzling into her hair. “We need a signal for every time something happens to you that you like and that’s a first, okay?”

She laughed softly, scratching her nails lightly over the back of my hands. “What if I don’t like it?”

I bit back a groan as her nails dug in a little, and I imagined her doing that to my back. “Then you gotta tell me so I learn you, okay? That’s what trust builds on.”

“I think we already have a bit of that.” She breathed in, and pressed her body back into mine. “This. Now.”

“Now?” I nuzzled into her hair, kissing the side of her throat as she made muffled squeaking sounds that drowned out the rest of the crowd altogether for me.

“Yes,” she breathed, digging her nails right into my hands.

I pressed mine to her stomach, pulling her back into me. “This too?” I licked the slope of her neck and swore she fucking melted into me.

“Yeah, that,” she said faintly, tipping her head back to stare up the tree and the stars waving above us. “I don’t want to leave here.”

It was a child’s wish, and for a moment her simple prayer stalled me. That’s how cloistered her life had been. While I’d been screwing around with the FBI, making a career I was proud of, progressing enough that Archer knew my name and called when he had a vacancy, giving me a job in his Texas Ranger unit, and not buying myself the dog and house I promised I always would, she’d been…

What, exactly?

Living week to week in apartments with her mother and father watching over her shoulder. Living off their money and not having a life of her own. Elementary school teacher my ass. The stupidest thing about it all was that the girl in my arms had—has—the brains to do anything she wanted. She should have been prom queen. Valedictorian.

The girl I should have proposed to, after prom.

Instead I lost her, and she lost herself along the way, it seemed.

“Come back with me.” I pulled her around roughly to face me. Her lips opened in a frozen ‘o’ as though she couldn’t make the sound, but her pretty mouth framed it anyway. “Come back to Texas with me. I’ve got a rental place, and a new job. Needed the change, and it was time. I promised myself I’d buy a house, and a dog, but those things haven’t happened for me yet. It’s like I was…waiting for something.” I swallowed my own wish. “Someone.”

She stared at me, those blonde curls moving side to side, a negative on her lips, right there. I didn’t want to hear it, and kissed her just to keep the pretense up for another minute. Slim arms wound around my neck as she pressed her body to mine.

“So…lots of surfing in Texas, huh?” She looked up at me through her lashes, calling me out on my bullshit point blank for the second time, unafraid.

This woman.

I grinned against her mouth. “Bit of a new thing. Had some things to wrap up here. But you’re a pretty distraction.” A lie. She was so much more than a distraction. At least, I thought she was from the indications her father gave me. But that was tomorrow Nash’s problem.

“I can’t go home.”

Four words that ruined a future for us both. Just as I thought I had this life thing all figured out, fate sent me a moonflower scented curveball like her.

“Yeah? Where would home be?” I tucked her hair behind her ear. “What would it look like?” I pleaded with her, begging to know what she wanted. Desperate.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not something I can ever have so I never thought about it.”

“There has to be something you want,” I persisted, knowing I pushed her for all the selfish reasons now. I had committed to Archer’s unit. Walking away was career suicide. But she was worth more than any career. Always had been.

“What I want.” Her brow dipped low as she turned the idea over like it was a novelty. Maybe to her, it was exactly that. “I think…that white picket fence would be pretty. I don’t care where, as long as it’s with you.” She leaned down after dropping that bomb of a pronouncement, and snuggled into my chest. “Oh, aneeeog.”

“Huh, love?” I tapped the back of her head, then wound my fingers through her hair because it was too damn soft to avoid touching. “Say that last bit again.” I was surprised that words came out at all.

She left me damn on breathless being so damn so close, saying all the things I wanted to hear more than anything in the world.

“And the dog. It’s a good idea.” She beamed up at me, and I saw what she did reflected in her eyes—an untouchable dream. A fairytale that wasn’t real. She’d stay in this moment with me, say what she really wanted because no part of her ever believed that it would come true.

Because that had been her shitty world since I saw her last.

Caged. Bound.

I needed to burn something or ash someone.

Instead, I gathered her close before the giant Christmas tree, the one with all the fake lights, and dangling stars, and dared to make a wish of my own. “What sort of dog would we have?”

“I don't know. I’ve never been allowed to have one of those, either. But I like big ones. The sort you can cuddle, but that you know will eat anyone who comes in that isn’t supposed to be there.”

I stared hard at the top of her head. “Aren’t you full of the best sort of surprises, Bonnie Little?”

“Shh.” She peeked up from her cozy place against my chest. “I’m not supposed to use?—”

“Yeah, I know. Lawson and all.” I sigh. “Don’t worry, love. I won’t get you hurt, okay? I get how it works.”

The fact no one had come to rip her off me yet surprised me, but then maybe Archer put in a call. The man seemed to have an invisible and unending stream of clout that far exceeded his geographical territory.

She shrugged. “No one ever comes to see me. I just know they’re there. It’s scary. I hate it.” She shivered in my arms, and I wrapped her tighter.

“You want to head back?” Another answer I knew. Maybe she was right about the trust thing. About knowing each other.

“Not yet.” Decisive. Saying, not asking. We’d definitely established a baseline of trust even if it was forged on a decade of fairytale worthy hopes and dreams.

“Okay. Whatever you need, love.” I turned her back around to stare up the tree.

We didn’t move for an age. Not when the small choir of school aged children came by to serenade us, or the herd of baby reindeer paraded by, though she made cooing sounds. Or when a string quartet played a few carols before moving along.

Only when everyone started to pack up and the wind turned icy did she finally look up at me, the night’s stars—real ones, not the fake—reflected in her eyes as she nodded and said, “I’d like to go in now.”

So I took her hand, leading her all the way back to my room, and made sure I locked the door behind us.