Page 8 of Merry with a Ranger

“Yes, sir.” I rose, dragging my fingertips along Bonnie’s upper arm in full sight—nothing hidden here—anticipating her reaction.

She didn’t disappoint.

Her shiver was a full body effort that left the scant remains of her napkin in confetti. A large part of me needed her beneath my weight the next time she did that, but first I had to deal with a different sort of threat who seemed to have no idea of the damage he did to his daughter.

“Two, please.” My knuckles rapped the bar top lightly at the back of the room. The bartender didn’t have a big job tonight; either everyone ate out, or the resort wasn’t doing its job well over Christmas. “Event in town tonight?”

“Yacht party at the marina. You know rich kids. Plus the night markets on the boardwalk.” His knowing gaze told me he recognized my ilk.

I nodded back and didn’t ask him to throw his wisdom my way. Something told me I’d regret it. Hands filled with two generous fingers each to match the tip from earlier, I winked at Bonnie as she escorted her mother back toward the rooms.

Her lips sliding between whitened teeth, her gaze darted to the balcony and back. Hesitating for a second, she parked her mother in stasis near the door and the barman, and dashed back to me.

“I won’t be that long.” I searched her eyes, frowning.

“I never got to tell you anything.” Her eyes glazed with more salt than the ocean beyond the closed doors, though a rushing far louder than the sea filled my ears the moment she started to speak. “I– there isn’t enough time. Please find me afterward. I need to apologize.”

“Bonnie, there’s nothing?—”

She shook her head, vehement. “You can’t say that, Nash.” One tear jeweled her lashes like a glistening Christmas bauble. “You don'tknow.”

I swallowed hard. “You should have stayed.” I backed up a step, and another as she mouthed two words that ripped me apart inside. The kid I’d been looking for her that night, and theman I’d been five minutes ago, still clinging to a futile specter of hope, died a little.

I couldn’t.

Nothing else.

Turning my back to Bonnie, I paraded across the dining room floor to find her father outside and prayed I’d go numb in the night’s ocean freezing air before he said anything else that stung.

Maybe I wasn’t half as prepared as I thought.

Kicking the sliding door gently shut behind me, I walked along the balcony where the wind picked up around the side of the building in a veritable gale. Naturally, that’s where her father stood, his hands latched around the railing as though it would keep his bulk that was in no way threatened in blowing away on solid ground.

I coughed discreetly and passed over the glass. “Sir.”

He took the glass without looking. There was a measure of trust I didn’t expect.

“I know who you are, Mercer.” He stared across the sand, up the long beach where white caps flickered further out to sea while the waves themselves were eaten by the darkness.

“I missed her that night.” My voice stayed quiet, almost lost in the wind.

Almost.

He sighed. “We both did. She ever tell you?”

I shook my head, though he couldn’t see the motion, and joined him at the railing, both our drinks untouched. “I spoke to her this afternoon for the first time in ten years, sir. Real gut punch. Thought…thought I was over her, you know. The disappearance. Don’t know if you understood what happened after. The town was in an uproar. You all ran off. No one knew what happened. Speculation. Lies, rumors…the works. Her name…” I shook my head and dipped my neck between myshoulders, stretching muscles that were never right after that night, but they weren’t ready to give, yet. “I tried to quell them but I gotta admit even I struggled with that. After a while I got silent, too. Wondered where she’d gone. What happened to make you all run.”

The words fell out and I cursed myself internally for being so verbose. The silent dinner hit me in all the right/wrong places. But as I glanced sideways at the father staring into the darkness, I knew I wasn’t the only one affected that way. He just showed his fears, his stress differently.

Grant Little didn’t move. Not a word or a breath escaped him, though he didn’t hold back on purpose, turn purple or swell like an over puffed bullfrog. Nothing. That was a skill under duress. A learned trait. Or maybe this man endured so much that he’d mastered the art of stillness. An acquired skill.

“We were…required to leave.” He spoke to the night, the wind whipping his words away the moment he spoke, but my trained ear picked up each one, already knowing the bullshit story he was about to spin for me. “Headed north, got out of town after my wife’s first turn. Couldn’t stay around after that. Too much for her,” he said gruffly, as though emotion caught up with him.

Or the lies of ten years eating away a conscience never meant for it.

I turned my glass in my hands and took a deep drink. Letting the pain then the smoothness roll through me, and found the best words I could, planted them on target.

“I used to respect you, sir.” I stood side on so I looked him straight in the eyes, if only he’d face me but of course after that, he couldn’t. “That was more bullshit than a rodeo clown deals with on a Saturday night.”

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