Stone Cold Texas Ranger

“Cooper,” he grumbled into the speaker.

“You’re going to need to get out here.”

He recognized his captain’s voice immediately. “Text the address.”

“Yup.”

Vaughn rubbed his hands over his face, then went straight to his closet where a row of work clothes hung, always a few pressed and ready to go. He never liked to be caught without clean and ironed clothes on the ready, even in the middle of the night. He looked at the clock as he dressed. Three fifteen.

He strode through his house, gave the coffeemaker a wistful glance. Even though he always kept it ready to go, he didn’t have time to sit around waiting for it to brew. Not at three fifteen.

With a stretch and a groan, he strapped on his gun and tried not to wonder if he was getting too old for this. Thirty-four was hardly too old. He had a lot of years to go before he could take a pension, but more...

He had a lot of cases to solve before his conscience would let him leave. So, he needed to get at it.

He got in his car, and when his phone chimed, he clicked the address Captain Dean had texted and started the GPS directions. It took about fifteen minutes to arrive at his destination, a small neighborhood a little outside the city that he knew was mainly rental houses. Single-storied brick buildings, a few split-levels. Modest homes at best, flat out run-down at worst.

Fire trucks and police vehicles were parked around a burned-out and drowned shell of a house. Though it still smoked, the house had obviously been ravaged by the fire hours earlier.

Vaughn stopped at the barricade, flashed his badge to the officer guarding the perimeter and then went in search of Captain Dean. When he found him, he was with Bennet. Vaughn’s uneasy dread grew.

“What’ve we got?”

“This is the hypnotist’s house,” Bennet said gravely.

The dread in Vaughn’s gut hardened to a rock. The house was completely destroyed, which meant—

“She’s fine. She wasn’t home, which is lucky for her, because someone was. Herman.”

“Dead?”

Captain Dean nodded. “He didn’t start and botch the fire, either, at least from what information I’ve been able to gather. We’ll have to wait to go over everything with the fire investigator once she’s done, but I think it got back to somebody Herman squealed. Body was dumped.”

“The hypnotist? Where was she?”

“With her mom,” Bennet offered, “who works at a gas station down on Clark. We’ve got guys going over surveillance, but so far she’s on the tape almost the entire night. She came home just after some neighbors called 9-1-1. She’s innocent.”

Innocent? Maybe of this, but Natalie Torres was hardly innocent. The day was full of far too much weirdness for her to be innocent. “You sure about that?”

“Cooper,” the captain intoned, censure in that one word. “Do you know the kinds of background checks we did on her when she got a contract with us? I know you don’t agree with it, but using a hypnotist to aid in witness questioning isn’t some random or careless decision. We have to jump through a lot of hoops to make it legal. She’s clean. Now she’s in danger.”

Vaughn wasn’t certain he believed the first, but he knew the latter was fact.

“Ideas, gentlemen?”

“Well, she’ll need protection.” Bennet rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I’d say that’s on us, and it’ll make certain nothing dirty’s going down.”

“This is escalating.” Captain Dean shook his head gravely. “If it goes much further, it becomes less our business and more current crime’s business. We should be working with Homicide now. Cooper? What are you thinking?”

Vaughn didn’t answer right away. He caught a glimpse of Ms. Torres standing next to a fireman. She had a blanket wrapped around her, and she was looking at her burned-to-ash house with tears streaming down her cheeks.

He looked away. “We’ve got to get her out of here.” He didn’t particularly like the idea that came to him, but he didn’t have to like it. Bottom line, everyone else trusted this woman way too much, so if she was going to come under their protection, it needed to be his protection, so he could keep an eye on her.

It couldn’t be anywhere near here. “My suggestion? Stevens works with Homicide, then maybe you put Griffen on it too. I take the woman up to the cabin in Guadalupe. I go over things there, keep her safe and make sure she’s got nothing to do with it.”

“That’s gonna necessitate a lot of paperwork,” Captain Dean grumbled.

“She can’t stay in Austin. We’ve got to get her out of here. We all know it.”

The captain sighed. “I’ll call the necessary people. I can’t argue with this being the best option. But, you know who is going to argue?” He pointed at Ms. Torres.

Vaughn looked at her again. She wasn’t crying anymore. No, that angry expression that she’d leveled at him earlier today had taken over her face. He didn’t have to be close to remember what it looked like.

Big dark eyes as shiny as the dark curls she’d pulled back from her face. The snarly curve to those sensuous lips and—

No, there was no and. Not when it came to this woman.

“She’ll agree,” Vaughn reassured the captain. He’d make sure of it.

* * *

WHEN RANGER JERK stepped next to her, Natalie didn’t bother to hide her utter disgust. “Well, thanks for getting to my house after it burned down. Add that to me losing my favorite job—also your fault. Would you like to, oh, I don’t know...” She wanted to say something scathing about what else he could do to ruin her life, but...

Everything she had was gone. Her house, every belonging, every memento. Worst of all, years’ worth of research and information she’d gathered on Gabby’s case. All gone. Everything she owned and loved gone except for her car and what she’d had in it.

She tried to breathe through a sob, but she choked on it. The tears and the emotion and the enormity of it all caught in her throat, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from crying out.

She’d been here for hours, and she couldn’t wrap her head around it. She hadn’t even been able to text her mom the full details because she just...

How had this happened? Why had this happened?

She sensed him move, and she hoped against hope he was walking away. That he wouldn’t say a word and make this whole nightmare worse. All of this was terrible, and she didn’t want Ranger Jerk rubbing it in or—worse—feeling sorry for her.

But he didn’t disappear. She didn’t hear retreating footsteps as tears clouded her vision. No, he moved closer. She hadn’t thought much about this guy having any sort of conscience or empathy in him, but he put a big hand on her back, warm and steady.

She swallowed, wiping at the tears. It wasn’t an overly familiar touch. Just his palm and fingers lightly flush with her upper back, but it was strong. It had a remarkable effect. A strange thread of calm wound through her pain.

“This is shocking and painful,” he said in a low, reassuring voice. “There’s no point in trying to be hard. No one should have to go through this.”

She sniffled, blinking the last of the tears out of her eyes. Oh, there’d be more to come, but for now she could swallow them down, blink them back. She stared at him, trying to work through the fact he’d spoken so nicely to her. He touched her. “Are you comforting me?”

He grimaced. “Is that considered comfort? That’s terrible comfort.”

She laughed through another sob. “Oh, God, and now you’re being funny.” Obviously she was a little delirious, because she was starting to wonder if Ranger Jerk wasn’t so terrible after all.

Then she looked back at her house. Gone. All of it gone. There were rangers and police and firemen and all number of official-looking people striding about, talking in low voices. Around her house. Gone. All of it gone.

Ranger Jerk could be reassuring, he could even be funny, but he couldn’t deny what was in front of them. “This was on purpose,” she said, her voice sounding flat and hopeless even in her own ears.