Stone Cold Texas Ranger

Frustrated, he scanned the road again. The Guadalupe Mountains loomed in the distance of an arid landscape. The hardscrabble desert stretched out for miles, the craggy, spindly peaks of the Guadalupes offering the only respite to endless flat.

The cabin was still forty-five minutes away, and they were the only car on this old desert highway. If he had a tail, it was a much better one.

He flicked a glance at Torres. Thinking about her as a last name helped things. He could think of her as a partner, as just a person he had to work with. Not a complicated mystery of a woman.

The only problem was, he didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her, and that was the key to any partnership.

She sat in the passenger seat, her eyes still too big, her hands still clenched too tight. Her olive skin tone had paled considerably, but she’d gotten control of her shaking.

“You did good,” he found himself saying, out of nowhere. She had done good for a civilian, but he had no idea why he was praising her. What the hell was the point of that?

“I just did what you told me to do.”

“Exactly.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You really are a piece of work, Ranger Cooper.”

“Not everyone could have gotten through that, Ms. Torres. Some people freeze, some people cry, some people...” Why was he explaining this to her? If she didn’t want to believe she’d done a good thing, what did he care? But his mouth just kept going. “There’s a lot of pressure when you’re under a threat, and the smartest thing you can do is listen to the person who has the coolest head. You did that. You made good choices and had good instincts.”

“Well, thank you.” She blew out a breath, and he noted that the hands she’d had in fists loosened incrementally.

“I wish I didn’t know just how much I can stand up in the face of a threat,” she muttered.

“Unfortunately, that was only the beginning.”

“You’re a constant comfort, Ranger Cooper.”

She fell silent for a few moments, and he thought maybe they could make it all the way to the cabin without having any more of the discussion, certainly not any more of him telling her she’d done well. But she began to fidget. The kind of fidgeting that would lead to questioning.

It appeared that whatever nerves or fear that had kept Ms. Torres from interrogating him about what was going on had been eradicated or managed.

“Who’s after us? And why? What do I have to do with any of this?” she asked, thankfully sounding more exasperated than scared.

Scared tended to pull at that do-gooder center of him. He tried to focus on cases rather than people. But he could get irritated with exasperation. Why couldn’t she just trust him to keep her safe and leave it at that?

But he knew that she wouldn’t, and he had been given permission to share certain details with her.

Considering he still didn’t trust this woman, he wasn’t about to give her really important details.

He focused on the road, the flat, unending desert ahead of him. “You were in the interrogation room when Herman talked.”

“He didn’t even say anything that was any kind of incrimination. Certainly nothing that I would understand to be able to tell anyone. And I ruined your interrogation. They should be sending me flowers, not...fire.”

The corner of his lip twitched as if...as if he wanted to smile. Which was very...strange. But the fact she owned up to ruining the interrogation, while also making a little bit of a joke in what had to be a very scary situation for her, he appreciated that. He almost admired it. God knew he didn’t make light of much of anything.

“In all likelihood, they don’t know what exactly was said,” Vaughn told her. Nothing about his tone was self-deprecating or light, which he never would have noticed if not for her. “All it took was the knowledge that he was interrogated, and that we started looking into the name he mentioned. When you’re mixed up in organized crime, that’s enough to get you killed.”

She pressed her lips together as if a wave of emotion had swept over her. Her eyes even looked a little shiny. When she spoke, there was a slight tremor to her voice. “I just keep thinking about how he said he had a daughter, and his wife had cancer, and he’s just...dead.”

“He worked for a man who has likely killed more people than we’ll ever know about. Herman knew what he was getting himself into and the risks he was taking. Even if he wasn’t the muscle, and even if he had a family, he made bad choices that he knew very well had chances of getting him killed.”

“So you’re saying he deserved to die?” Natalie asked in that same tremulous voice.

It had been a long time since someone had made him feel bad about the callousness he had to employ, had to build to endure a career in law enforcement, and especially unsolved crimes. He didn’t care for the way she did it so easily. Just a question and a tremor.

But this was reality, and clearly Torres didn’t have a clue about that. “It’s not my place to determine whether he deserved anything. I’m putting forth the reality of the situation.”

“I don’t understand why they burned down my house, why they killed a man, just because he mentioned a name and you started asking questions. How is that worth following us across Texas? I mean, if they were going to kill us, wouldn’t they have already done it?”

“Yes.”

She waited, and he could feel her gaze on him, but he didn’t have anything else to say to that.

“Yes? That’s it? You’re just going to agree with me, and that’s it?”

“Well, honestly, they probably did try to kill you with that fire. You were lucky you weren’t home. What more of an explanation would you like?”

“One that makes sense!”

He could tell by the way she quieted after her little outburst that she hadn’t meant to let that emotion show. Especially when the next words she spoke were lower, calmer.

“I want to know why this is happening. I want to understand why I’m in more danger than you or Ranger Stevens. Why my house was burned down, not yours.”

“I can’t speculate on why they burned your house down. The reason that Stevens and I aren’t in as much danger is because we’re police officers. We’re trained to look for danger, and quite frankly going after us is a lot worse for them than going after you. Anyone hurts a member of law enforcement, the police aren’t going to rest until they find him.”

“But if you go after a civilian, it’s fine?” she demanded incredulously.

She gave him such a headache. He took a deep breath, because he wasn’t going to snap at her for deliberately misinterpreting his words. He wasn’t going to yell at her for not getting it. She wasn’t an officer; she couldn’t understand.

“We’re family, Ms. Torres,” he said evenly and calmly, never taking his eyes off the road. “It’s like if a stranger is gunned down in the street or your sister is gunned down in the street, which one are you going to avenge a little bit harder?”

Something in what he’d said seemed to impact her a little more than it should have. She paled further and looked down at her lap. He wasn’t sure if she was more scared now, or if she was upset by something.

“I’m going to keep you safe, Ms. Torres,” he assured her, because as much as he avoided those soft, comforting feelings almost all of the time, that was his duty. He would do it, no matter what.

“Why?” she asked in a small voice. “I’m not law enforcement. I’m not your family. Why should I feel like you’re going to keep me safe?”

“Because you came under my protection, and I don’t take that lightly.”

“I can’t understand what they think I can do,” she said, her voice going quieter with each sentence, her face turning toward the window as if she wanted to hide from him.

He was fine with that. He’d be even finer if he could stop answering her questions. “The thing about crime and criminals is that they don’t often follow rational trains of thought like we do. Their motivations and morals are skewed.”

“That almost sounds philosophical, Ranger Cooper.”

“It’s just the truth. It’s easier to accept the truth and figure out what you can do about it than to wish it was different or understandable.”

“But...what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to... I have other jobs, and a family, and... It’s all hitting me how much I’m los—”