Page 9 of Rescued By the Ranger

“Fuck. Money complicates living sometimes.”

“And not having it complicates living, too.”

“Touché.”

“Could be my ex, Cary. I have a restraining order against him, but how would he have known we were up here?” Her eyes start to get glossy in the sparkling light of her phone. She turns away and shakes her head. “I hate thinking he could do it, but… I have to stop thinking of him as okay and not anything other than a monster.”

“It’s going to be okay.” I step closer and rub her back.

She inhales a cleansing breath and I can tell she’s faced some shit. Only people who have had to wipe away feelings and events do that move.

“Can I see your phone?”

“Why?”

“I just want to check a couple things.”

“Ummm… you know, that’s what my ex did. He’d insist that he had to make—” her face pales. “Oh God, he would come overand I would leave the room to get Jazzy ready. Do you think he could have?—”

“I think anything is possible.”

Leesa

I hand over my phone. Rhodes’s fingers brush mine and a chill raises the hair on my arms. For how gruff he started out, he’s remarkably caring and understanding. I can see he’s had a lot of training when it comes to situations like this and it makes me feel just a little more at ease.

He does some finagling of the system, and his eyes clench closed. “It’s right here. He’s put a tracking app in the background. It doesn’t appear on the main screens.”

“Should I destroy the phone?”

He stares at the phone and I’m about to ask again when he says, “No. Keep it as?—”

“But—”

“I might be able to reverse engineer the program to track him.” He moves in close and sighs. “Plus, Leesa, you’re going to need it for evidence and so might my family to get those power banks fixed.”

“Shit. He’s not a bad guy.”

He tips his head. “You just want to believe that because you have a child with him, and I’m assuming you have to relinquish her into his custody occasionally, but what if he is and what if this is the straw that can get his bad guy back to crack?”

I almost can’t think. There’s so much going on and then the buzzer goes off and I jump.

Distractedly, I pull the pan from the oven and even before I have them off the sheet, he’s sliding one into his hand and then bouncing it back and forth.

“Those are hot!”

“Perfect.” He takes a bite. “That’s so damn good. Okay, let’s just check all the windows and doors to makes sure they’re locked. Not that he can’t break in, but let’s not give him any advantages.” He grabs another one in his other hand.

My heart hurts. I hope and pray that it’s not Cary. Let it be someone else. Anyone else.

But inside of me, there’s a fear and a truth I just won’t let myself comprehend. There’s what Caia said,Creepy Caryin the back of my mind. I thought he was safe when we first started dating. I thought he wasextracaring about me, but he wasn’t. He was controlling. And I didn’t see because I was in too deep. He was charming and unarming in a way I’d never experienced. But in his need to be the only one I could see in his life, he wanted to be the one to see me hurting as well as happy, too. It was a sick game, and I can see that this might be one of those situations.

“I’ll take the rooms within two doors of the kitchen, so I don’t burn my cookies,” I say over my shoulder.

“We definitely don’t want that to happen. Those are some damn delicious cookies.”

“Appreciate it.”

He scoops another spoonful of dough with the spoon and I growl at him to only hear a light chuckle.

---