Merry with a Ranger (Love Beach Holiday Collection)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

N ASH

When the threat came, I had all the timings wrong. Bonnie and I managed to spend the morning in each other’s arms without incident until the door to my room was kicked in without any prior announcement.

“That’s just fucking rude,” I muttered as I rubbed sleep from my eyes with one hand and tucked her beneath the blankets with the other, figuring her father would at least knock.

That was the part I got wrong. Not the knocking, her father.

Because I found myself looking down the wrong end of a gun no one ever wanted to be on, and I’d had enough of that particular end for a lifetime.

“Fuck me.” I pushed Bonnie behind me as I stared at a man I didn’t know who hadn’t bothered to cover his face, and that fact alone boded really shittily for the start of Christmas Eve for both of us right when I found the first spark of happiness in a long damn time.

The second part of it was that while his gun was pointed at me, his attention was on her.

“Get out,” he snapped, as though he expected her to know him. “I’ll deal with you shortly.”

I couldn’t risk taking my eyes off him, but the way Bonnie stiffened behind me, then shifted away, told me I miscalculated really fucking badly.

“Love, I need you to use those words you promised me before,” I murmured, gliding my hand under my pillow for the gun that should have been there, but wasn’t.

Where the fuck is it?

“I’m sorry, Nash,” she replied, her voice way too steady for my liking. A metaphorical sucker punch hit me in the back, right in the damn kidneys, and stole all my air.

“Sorry for…? Give me something more,” I muttered, more than a little desperate.

“Sorry for this.” Sadness filled her voice, enough that I risked turning to look at her.

In time to see her raise the handgun I was missing, flick the safety expertly off and double tap the asshole holding the gun on us.

The fact he never fired before he fell, never made a single sound, told me he expected the move less than I did.

I didn’t turn around to check. She hadn’t missed, not at that range, not with that confidence or skill level. My cock stirred at the image of her burned forever into my mind holding that gun, naked, her legs spread apart, fierce determination written across her stunning face even as my eardrums protested at the noise abuse.

“Damn, girl. If this is how I die, I’m good with it,” I breathed when my head stopped ringing.

She managed a hiccup as she lowered my gun. I caught her as her knees bent, collapsing beneath her. The gun tumbled from her hand. I caught that too, flicking the safety back on, and sliding it beside the box under the bed. Then I tucked her into my side and wrapped the blankets around her as she began to shake, her brief spurt of adrenaline leaving her as fast as it came on.

“Never actually taken out a live target before, huh?” I kissed the top of her head. “Proud of you, love.”

She hiccupped amongst the sobs. “You have?”

“Yeah.” I huffed out a laugh. “Couple of times now. Still feel shit on the inside no matter what I pretend. Wanna tell me who taught you to shoot like that?”

“I did.”

The knock I expected still didn’t come, but with the door kicked in like that, who needed to knock?

Grant Little-Lawson stared back at me when I turned my head, then his attention dropped to the body on the floor. “I’m sorry it had to be you.”

I figured he wasn’t talking to me, or the dead man staining the carpet. “Someone gonna tell me why I got a dead body on the floor and why I have to explain to my boss why my gun was fired by someone who isn’t me?” I didn’t let go of Bonnie, and she still shook in my arms beneath the sheets.

Grant made the wise choice not to comment on the fact that we shared a bed, nor our state of undress. He did, however, need to start talking, or she did, because resort management and the local cops were going to be up our combined asses in a matter of minutes.

As much as I enjoyed being a Texas Ranger, that shiny little star didn’t mean shit halfway across the country. For the first time since I resigned, I missed my FBI badge with a vengeance.

“I want to tell him.”

Bonnie’s voice came from the region of my armpit. I tugged gently on her hair and ignored her father who didn’t scare me half as much as he had when I was a kid.

“Love, if you want to tell me your story then you’d better hurry up. We have a very limited time before I’m going to need to explain myself and put pants on.” I paused. “And we should probably move to a different room.” The small living area off my bedroom would do. While I was used to the aroma of death, I doubted Bonnie had that life experience.

Grant sighed. “I’ll run interference. Buy you a few minutes. Best talk fast, Bon-Bon.”

I carried Bonnie to the two-seater sofa, still wrapped in the sheet, collecting our clothes as we went.

Her fingers flicked at my side, nails scratching my ribs lightly at the nickname she never told him she hated. “I’ll be quick,” she muttered, tickling me with her breath.

I waited until Grant left the apartment, positioning his bulk with his back to the doorway so no one could see in, and hauled her out of my tickle zone to slam my mouth down on hers. “That was the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen, love,” I murmured into her mouth.

Grant coughed not so discreetly from the resort room doorway.

Bonnie grimaced, ignoring both him and the dead man congealing on the floor behind us, but at least we didn’t have to breathe him in now.

“I need clothes,” she whispered.

My arms wrapped around her middle as I hauled her against me. “Right now you need to tell me what the fuck happened.” I captured her jaw between my fingers and fixed her with a hard stare. “I’m not gonna leave you to face any of this alone. I’m not leaving you , love. But I need information, because I can’t protect you without that.”

Her mouth made the sweetest little moue without her knowing it, I thought, and I kissed her before she could say anything. Hands swatted at my shoulders until I gave her air.

“I can’t talk if you do that,” she hissed. “I–”

Her gaze darted to the door, and my arms tightened. Breath left her, and it was like her entire body deflated. I knew she wasn't ready to talk but we’d run out of the luxury of time. Her heart rate picked up against my arms as I pressed my lips to her temple and promised I’d make love to her at some future point.

Sometime . When I could contain myself from needing to screw us both into next week. Month.

Year.

With my name next to hers on a certificate.

“The night you were supposed to take me—” she stalled. I gave her time, stroking her arms and tried not to glance back at the doorway, counting mentally in my head and ignoring the stupid damn clock. “That night you, we— everyone. Daddy had people around while I got ready. Men.” Her voice cracked.

My arms tightened about her frame. I loosened them with effort. “It’s okay, love. I won’t leave you, and they can’t hurt you now. Looks like your daddy taught you how to protect yourself just fine.”

After the fact, maybe, but Grant went up a notch in my estimation.

I leaned back, grabbing for our clothes I collected earlier, and dressed her one-handed as she talked, then myself.

“They came into my room. After their meeting. Something about the school, wanting to limit who attended. Daddy, he didn’t like it.”

“Bonnie.” I kissed her temple. My eyes weren’t the only ones on the door. I had a damn good idea where this conversation was headed.

Her tears drenched my arm long before she told me what she kept inside all these years. “I couldn’t stop them. Too many. My dress was ripped.”

I swallowed. She went shopping for that damn dress with her mother weeks before prom. I remembered I hadn’t been allowed to see it. They teased me with the thought of her dressed up and I played along, aching to see her, waiting for her. So damn gorgeous just in jeans and a t-shirt. My girl.

“Fuck, Bonnie.” I kissed her mouth before she could keep talking. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

The platitude didn’t go far, but she pressed into me as I fixed the back of her dress and managed to wrap my belt around my waist, checking for my wallet, my badge I’d need the moment the local cops rocked up, and a different sort of rock.

“Mom came in halfway through. She saw everything.” Bonnie’s voice broke in full. “He held down, and she tried to help but they’d, I don’t know, someone kept Daddy away. He didn’t know, couldn’t help. He was heartbroken after. Called the police, reported everything. But they police were?—”

She choked, and I filled in the rest of the story because I knew this one by heart. Coldness filled my veins.

“The police were paid off because he owned them, didn’t he?” I recited by rote. “My grandfather.” Fuck. The one case I’d been after, all these years. If I’d been able to put him away earlier, she’d have been free that much sooner. “This was his man, wasn’t he?” I jerked my head back toward the body cooling on the carpet. She nodded, and sucked in a breath. “The reason you haven’t been able to come back to Texas at all?” Another nod. “Christ, love. I’ve failed you. Not being there for you.”

“I wasn’t allowed to. The police. I– they took me away. I– I asked them to drive past the prom. I saw you that night. You looked so angry.”

I stared down at her, horror building in my gut. “I saw that. The police car. I thought it was a routine drive by, checking on the kids. Our safety.” I uttered a hollow laugh. You were right fucking there, love. I could have–” I slammed a fist backward into the plaster by the headboard and put my knuckles right through the wall.

Bonnie didn’t even flinch, only burrowed deeper into my chest, her tears soaking my shirt, but I didn’t care. Her hand slipped through my fingers, trying to pry my hand open, kissing the tiny cuts I put on my own skin.

“Don’t hurt yourself. Nash, please, let me hold your hand–”

Her desperate plea snapped off as I opened my fingers, displaying the diamond ring sitting in the middle of my palm.

“I’ve had this in my pocket ever since that night. I knew it was too early, and it was everything I had saved for a car we talked about me buying that I used on this instead.” I caught her hand and as she nodded, her lips parted, I slipped the ring always meant for her onto her finger. Her tears flowed fresh and fast as I kissed her knuckles, folding my bloodied ones over hers. “I love you, Bonnie. I want my name next to yours forever. It’s always been us.” I searched her eyes. “I wish I’d been there. Would have fought for you. But damn, girl. I’ll fight for you now.” I hit stop on the recording on my phone, knowing I’d need that later, and pulled her in for a deep kiss when she didn’t fight me.

She nodded, but her eyes were serious when I let her breathe. “What if I’m in jail for the next twenty years for killing a man?”

“That? That was defense, love. I promise.” I sent off two messages, one to my local FBI contact, the next to Archer, and pocketed my phone.

That pocket suddenly seemed a hell of a lot lighter. “Wanna tell your daddy before the cops arrive and we gotta tell them everything all over again?”

She kept on nodding, and let me lead her back around the dead man whose name I still didn’t know to Grant.

He didn’t turn his head when she hugged him, but did hold out an arm. “I heard,” he said gruffly. “You sure you want to be hitched to a Texas Ranger, Bon-Bon?”

She glanced at me with wide eyes. “Is that what you are?”

I shrugged. “It’s new to me, too. I was FBI.”

“Oh.” She blinked at me. “Daddy? We’re getting married in Texas.”

He looked down at her and ignored me. “You trust him?”

“We always should have.”

My heart glowed in my chest as she released her father and slipped her arms around my waist.

Then, we waited.