Page 13 of Merry with a Ranger

“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 committedto 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?—”

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