Page 8 of Rescued By the Ranger

I grab a spoon and when Leesa’s back is turned, I scoop out a taste, shoving it into my mouth before she turns back and rolling my eyes in the light of the flashlight. Jazzy giggles.

“That’s amazing,” I moan and Leesa spins with a gasp to face me, her eyes wide.

“Oh, thanks. It’s my world-famous chocolate chip recipe.”

“You get the oven started?”

“I did. Not so shabby in the woods.”

Internally, I cringe a little. Being inside this house isn’t the least of my worries. The woods have their own dangers of animals and space and disorientation during a storm. As long as we can stay inside, we should be fine.

I hand over a flashlight. “Jazzy, I think there’s some coloring books and colors?—”

She jumps off the counter and runs into the living room to the cabinet. Obviously, she has insider information.

Exactly how close are these people to Shane?

I lean back against the counter while Leesa continues to put scoops of cookie dough on a baking sheet.

“Hey, we need to talk,” I say.

“Problem with the power bank?” she licks her finger after the final plopping of dough and my gut tightens watching her finger pop from her rosy-pink lips.

“Yeah. Like a big one.”

“Did it blow up?” she giggles a little like it’s a joke. But it’s not funny.

“No, someone tore it up. It’s not operational permanently.”

She stills and her head turns slowly to me. “Like someone was in here?” she lowers her voice, “Vandalism?”

“Looks like it. I don’t think an animal could’ve done what’s been done.”

She slides the sheet into the oven and then leans back against the counter across from me. A smattering of flour dots her nose and the urge to reach out and brush it off is almost overwhelming. “Do you think we’re in danger?”

And this is where I have to decide if I’m going to be honest with this woman about what Jazzy said to me or if I keep it to myself and just allow whatever happens to play out with her being blissfully unaware.

But that’s what happened to me in Kuwait. The superiors knew there was cause for alarm before we went on our final scouting round of the night. They heard information through our inside intelligence, but they didn’t relay it because they thought it was too farfetched to be true.

It was all too true.

And six of my buddies lost their lives. It was an ambush of the worst kind… using children as cover. We couldn’t fire back. We wouldn’t. And then when they were done, they turned the guns on the youngest victims of the war.

It was savage. It was barbaric. And it was over in a matter of three minutes. I was alive because I was the tail and took shelter while my friends were out in the open.

I hate myself some days for surviving.

“Jazzy told me there was a man outside the window when the lights when off.”

Her mouth opens and then closes. “She say if she recognized them?”

“I didn’t ask. She was really shaken up.”

“You have any enemies?”

“Not me. My family might with Dad and Shane being in litigation, but I doubt it. This house is in a trust, and no one knows who it belongs to.”

“That’s not true. It just appeared inColorado Homesand it said who it belonged to.”

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