Page 39 of Ranger's Honor
Her face goes pale. I catch the flicker in her eyes—a flash of recognition, fear, and something else. My chest tightens, fury and protectiveness punching through my gut. She's connecting the dots. Understanding this wasn’t a warning shot—it was a message. And it was aimed at her. The thought hits like a blade to the ribs. I need to get her out of here.
I pull on the clothes I discarded before the shift. “Truck. Now.”
We burn the next forty minutes putting distance between us and the highway, winding through marshland and low-canopy roads. The tires hum over uneven pavement, the scent of salt and brackish water thickening with every mile. Mosquitoes tap at the glass. Cypress trees loom, draped in moss, their limbs casting long, tangled shadows that seem to move without the wind.
Kari sits silent beside me, her gaze sweeping the landscape like it might rise up and swallow us whole. She doesn’t speak, but the way her hand tightens on the case says enough. I can feel the aftershocks rolling through her—flashes of gunfire, the spike of adrenaline, my voice cutting through the chaos.
I know what’s spinning in her head. What if she’d hesitated? What if I hadn’t caught the glint in time? She’s replaying the moment I shifted mid-threat to shield her. I see it in her eyes—part awe, part guilt, mostly an unsteady gratitude she hasn’t found words for yet.
When the stilt house finally emerges, it's like something summoned from a fever dream—rising pale and skeletal above the mangroves, its weathered beams cutting through the fog like ribs of a long-dead leviathan. The structure perches atop spindly supports, defiant against the encroaching swamp. Remote. Isolated. Ready.
I kill the engine and scan the clearing. The truck settles with a low tick-tick of cooling metal, the sudden stillness wrapping around us like a too-thin blanket. No heat signatures. No movement. The clearing is dense with cypress and brush, shadows stretching long in the fading light. I switch into neutral, letting the truck roll forward another few feet behind a stand of palmetto scrub before cutting the lights.
It won’t hide us from a drone, but it breaks the line of sight from the main road—and right now, that might buy us the few seconds we’ll need if anyone’s tailing. My eyes sweep once more, locking onto every angle, every perch that could hold a rifle or a camera. Nothing stirs. Still, my gut won’t unclench until we’re under cover.
“Go.”
She doesn’t argue.
Inside, the air smells like cedar and salt. Clean. Forgotten. I check every window, every corner, check the hurricane shutters, then bolt the door behind us.
Kari sets the hard case on the table and turns to me. Her voice is quiet. “Thank you.”
I don’t respond. Just reach for her hand and lead her down the hall, past the spartan bathroom, into the back room where the bed’s tucked against the wall. The mattress is plush, and the linens are fresh. Rush always stocks our bolt holes well.
I don’t expect her to follow when I strip down to my briefs, the fabric rough against my skin, the cool air in the room brushing over sweat-dampened muscles as I sit heavily on the edge of the bed, feeling every moment of the fight settle into my bones.
A flicker of movement at the edge of my vision catches my attention. Kari. Her eyes search my face, unreadable for a second. Then something clicks into place—resolve, maybe, or the quiet gravity of need. Determination? Desire? A tether tightening between us that neither of us pulls away from. Longing? Maybe all three.
She steps forward, bare feet silent against the floor, hesitation flickering in her eyes—not from fear, but from something quieter. Intentional. A choice made in the middle of the storm still spinning in her head. She’s rattled, reeling, but right now, she’s not coming to me for answers or safety.
She’s coming for grounding. For closeness. For connection. The kind that doesn’t press or pry, that asks for nothing but presence. Just the simple truth of not being alone in this.
The faintest breath gives her away. Her fingers find the hem of her shirt, toying with it before she pulls it off slowly, deliberately, revealing the smooth line of her stomach. The air between us shifts, thickens.
But her eyes never leave mine.
She crosses the room and climbs into bed beside me without a word, her body pressing into my side with a warmth that sinks deep. Like a balm I didn’t know I needed until now.
But she does. No seduction. No teasing.
Just warmth. Trust. The press of her breath against my skin, soft and steady. The heat of her body seeps into mine, grounding me deeper than any weapon or plan ever could. Her scent—something faintly floral, threaded with salt and skin—wraps around me, sinking past the steel of my discipline and into the part of me that only knows need. I let it in. Let her in.
I hold her close, let her anchor me, and for a few seconds, the chaos fades.
Tomorrow, we hunt, but tonight, we breathe.
CHAPTER 15
KARI
Pale light seeps through the cracks in the hurricane shutters, barely illuminating the salt-streaked windowpanes and the rough grain of the wood floor. Where the slats don’t quite meet, thin bands of gold slice through, casting angled streaks across the room like fractured blades of sunlight. The beams move with the breeze, narrow and dust-laced, crawling slowly along the walls as if trying to escape the dimness.
The air is thick—humid, briny, heavy with the scent of the Gulf—and clings to my skin like damp silk, fused with a tacky persistence that makes every movement feel deliberate. The air carries a faint tang of salt-slicked timber and the stale ghost of coffee left to cool too long—subtle, haunting, like the breath of yesterday curling through the corners. A breeze slips in through unseen cracks, cool and damp, prickling the heat still radiating from the sheets.
The atmosphere feels alive, charged with a tension that zings along my nerves, an electric hum that sets every nerve on edge. Like the house is wound tight with tension—waiting for something to break the silence.
A gull cries somewhere in the distance, shrill and echoing. Beneath the floorboards, the old bones of the house creak and groan, answering the restless gusts of wind that slither through the cracks. Outside, I hear the rustle of palm fronds swaying, slow and rhythmic, like breath. Inside, the stillness hums with tension. There’s a subtle change in the atmosphere—the kind that makes your skin prickle before your brain catches up.
