Page 12 of Rescued By the Ranger

But there’s always the hope that this one could be different. Could be something special.

My phone buzzes and I realize our bigger problem. It’s dying and I don’t have a power bank to charge it. The only people who know we’re up here are Shane and I think our parents, but since they’re seeing our grandparents in Arizona for the holidays, they may not even know.

Shane.

Fuck.

It’s clear this was a set up. Me. Leesa. The perfect little family that I don’t have but always wanted.

Well, I’m not falling for it, brother.

He believes he knows what’s best for people, but he doesn’t always know what people are really experiencing.

Jazzy yawns. “Mommy, I’m sleepy.”

I stand up. “What if we build a fort for you to sleep in tonight here in the family room near the fireplace?”

Jazzy peps up just a little. “I’ve never slept in a fort. I don’t know how to make one.”

“I can show you.”

We bring every chair from the dining and eat-in-kitchen tables into the large living room and I start collecting blankets from rooms with King-sized beds and then all the blankets from the kids’ rooms. Something colorful and soft. They collect about thirty pillows making the floor softer than if we were in the actual custom beds. I grab some clothes pins from the laundry room and a few more batteries for the flashlights from the garage and get to work making a tented structure over all of the fluff and stuff.

I show Jazzy how to make sure it’s not going to fall by inserting the tallest two bar chairs back-to-back in the middle and strap them down together with a bungee cord. I found some of what my mother calls “fairy lights” that run on batteries and I string them inside on the ceiling.

“Oooh, that’s pretty! How did you learn this?” Jazzy asks, the light sparkling in her eyes.

“I was in the military and part of my job was making sure my soldiers had a place to sleep that was safe and building tents was part of that.”

“If I get good at building forts, could I go help soldiers, too?” she asks.

I nod. “Absolutely, Jazzy. It’s all about making a commitment to be there when you’re needed to protect people.”

Just hearing the words coming from my mouth burns in my chest. I couldn’t be there when my soldiers and friends needed me the most. My failure hangs over my head like a dark cloud.

I finish up by making a doorway and with a flourish of my hand, I usher them inside.

They take a spot staring up at the twinkling ceiling.

“I’ll just go grab a bed over?—”

Jazzy reaches out to me. “No, please stay. Can you protect us from the man in the window?”

My knees weaken.

Can I protect them?

I kneel down before taking a place an arm’s length away from them. Jazzy snuggles between her mother and me and it seems like only a minute and she’s asleep.

I whisper to Leesa, “She’s adorable.”

“Thanks.”

“You tired?” I ask staring up at those lights. They are kinda cool.

“Not really. Kinda freaked out.”

I roll to my side to face her and she does the same.

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