Rangers: Silver-Star Seductions: A Two-Book Box Set (7 page)

Willa drew back and stepped into the old-fashioned claw-footed tub. Zeb climbed in with her and drew the curtain. Steam billowed around them like a cloud, warm and wet. Willa picked up the soap but he took it from her and slowly washed her. There was nothing sexual in the act. For him it was a reverent moment. She closed her eyes and surrendered until she was clean and then she took the soap from him and repaid him in kind.

It was not until they were in her bed, her head lying on his chest that she spoke again, in a soft whisper. “I thought I was going to die tonight and for a moment I wished I hadn’t sent you away. Then I realized how selfish that was.”

“Selfish?”

He could feel her nod against his chest. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”

Zeb hugged her tight to him. “Nothing’s going to happen to me, honey. And I wish I had been here for you.”

“But you were. You came back. You came back for me.”

Zeb smiled into the darkness. “You’re my ever after, Willa Hale.”

“You remembered?”

“I did, Willa. I sure did. And I’ll never forget again. Just promise me that you won’t forget. No matter how cranky I can be at times, or pig-headed, or just plain stupid. Promise me you’ll never forget.”

“Never. I love you Zeb.”

“And I’ll never love anyone else.”

She tightened her grip on him for a moment and then relaxed. And for the first time he could ever remember he met sleep with a smile on his face. His mama’s curse was gone. He’d found love.

*****

Willa was catapulted to consciousness by the sound of gunfire and glass exploding. The bedroom window burst, shards of glass and wood peppering the bed. Zeb was already rolling of the side of the bed, going for his weapon on the bureau when the figure of a man appeared in the doorway.

“Willa!” Zeb yelled as the blast from the shotgun blinded Willa for a moment. She screamed as Zeb collapsed and scrambled across the bed toward him. Just as she cleared the bed something slammed into her abdomen and sent her rocketing backwards. Another blast and something hot seared into the side of her head.

She fell back onto the bed, pain making it nearly impossible to form a coherent thought other than
get to Zeb.

With pain lancing through her at every twitch of muscle and bone, she managed to roll off the bed. Zeb was on his back on the floor, blood pouring from his chest. She tried to get to him but her strength failed and she collapsed.

She didn’t know how, but suddenly he was there, his hand on her face. She managed to lift one arm and reach out. His hand found hers.

“I’m … so… sorry.” His voice was weak and sounded like he was talking thought water.

“Not your fault.” She managed to get out.

“My ever after,” he gargled the words then went silent.

My ever after
.

Ronnie Camp and his wife stood in the hallway, watching as the EMTs worked on Zeb and Willa. They’d called the law at the first sound of gunfire.

It didn’t look good. Zeb had taken a shot to the chest and Willa had been shot twice. Once in the abdomen and once in the head. The EMTs were doing everything they could to stop the bleeding. One of them, a young woman who looked to be around twenty had tears streaming down her face as she worked.

“You’re my ever after, Zeb Childress.” Willa had whispered twice and struggled to feel for Zeb.

“Willa, Willa,”  Zeb had answered. “Promise me.”

Willa felt a searing pain in her chest that became the entirety of her reality, leaving no room for anything else. On and on and then suddenly, it vanished.

She was lying in her bed. It was early morning and a lazy breeze wafted through the open window. Zeb lay beside her, his eyes still heavy with sleep, his voice soft. He spoke to her of love, of how he came back to her, how he hadn’t wanted to be there and how she’d made him change his mind. He reminded her of how she’d kissed him when he showed up at her door.

“I wanted it to be forever.” He looked at her with eyes filled with tears.

“Silly man. It is. Look, can’t you see?”

Suddenly they were no longer in the bed. She was a child again, sitting in her swing, smiling up at Zeb. “Push me, Zeb. Push me so high I fly away into the sky.”

He did and she felt the wind and sun on her face, that brief escape from gravity at the apex of her swing where she felt as though she could lift up from it and fly into the heavens. She felt the sudden tug of gravity as she fell back to earth and suddenly she was motionless again, smiling up at him.

“You’re my ever after, Zeb Childress.”

He smiled and then they were no longer children, no longer in her yard. They weren’t anywhere. They were just alone in an endless sea of soft light. Zeb took her hand and smiled at her and Willa knew she’d never seen anything so beautiful or loved anyone so much.

“And you’re mine, Willa Hale. My ever after.”

“Zeb,” Willa whispered.

There was one brief flare of fear and then love and joy claimed her completely.

“We’re losing her!” The female EMT scrambled for chest paddles as Willa’s vitals failed.

“Him too,” the other EMT replied. “Nothing we can do.”

Both cardiac monitors coded at the same time, the shrill sound of patients flat-lining.

It was over.  They were gone.

Zeb fell silent and reached for the plastic cup of water on the table beside the bed.  He’d talked more in the last two months than in all of the previous years of his life. He stroked his fingers down the side of her face and leaned down to kiss Willa’s forehead. She’d been in a coma for two months. Every day he came and sat with her, talked to her, tried to find some sign that she could hear him, that she was in there, somewhere.

He’d told her everything he could remember about his life, and her part in it. How he’d come back and how she’d changed him, gave him back hope and love. He told her every detail he could bring to mind, hoping it would bring her back to him.

“Hey baby, I’m here. It’s a nice day today. It’s starting to cool off a little. Pretty soon the leaves will be changing. Ronnie and Polly are taking good care of the place but Lobo, Sassy and her clan and Bobby are really missing you.

“Willa please. Can you hear me?  Honey help me. Give me a sign. Squeeze my hand. Open your eyes.”

Tears ran down his face. He didn’t know what else to do. He thought back to the night they were shot. He was sure they were going to die. Fully expected it. He remembered seeing her lying on the floor, bleeding.

In the next instant, he remembered something else. Willa on the swing at nine years old. Willa at thirteen and the sadness in her eyes when he left Calder County. Willa standing in the light.

“Ever after.” 

He sat up, wiped his face and then gathered her into his arms. Her body was limp. Zeb held her for a long time, then kissed her gently. “It’s time, Willa Hale. It’s taken my whole life to get it but now I do. You were right. Way back then, when you were nine. You were right, Willa.  You’re my ever after Willa and ever after starts now. You have to come back to me honey. I can’t go it alone. Please, come back. Be my ever after. Let me be yours.”

There was no response.

Zeb sat there for two hours, crying and holding her tight. Not once did she twitch or make a sound. No matter how much he wanted it, he couldn’t will her to come back. He’d lost her.

Finally, he lowered her back down to the bed, kissed her and stood. It taken his entire life to see a love that had been there all along, a love that he would give anything to be able to claim. A love he wanted more than anything in the world and could not have.

“I love you, Willa. No matter what, you’ll always be my ever after.”

Zeb dried his face, turned away, and walked to the door. Just then he heard it. A soft whisper.

“Ever after?”

Hope made him weak. He whirled around. Willa’s eyes were open. She was looking at him.

“You remembered.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“I remembered.” He rushed to her bed and gathered her into his arms. “Willa, god, Willa, I thought I’d lost you.”

“I’m sorry. I was trying. Trying to talk to you, to tell you. I heard you. I heard what you said, Zeb. I lived it all again and I loved you all over agai
n̶
and, and you remembered, Zeb.  You remembered.”

“I remember honey. I remember it all.”

“And do you mean it? Are you really my ever after?”

“That I am, Willa. That I am.

“Ever after.”

Book 2 of Rangers: Silver Star Seductions

When Cia Whitehorse walks into Kade Lawson’s office and announces she’s been assigned to help with a serial killer investigation, he’s damn sure he’s never met a federal agent as sexy.

Cia takes one look at Kade and makes up her mind that she’s going to have him in her bed. She might not be interested in love, but sex is definitely right up her alley and Kade looks like the kind of man who can give her just what she wants.

Kade is more than willing to deliver what Cia needs. She gets to him. Tough and sexy, with an unspoken promise in her look that says she’ll rock his world. But that look is covering something. And Kade’s a sucker for a mystery.

The problem is, solving the mystery of Cia Whitehorse comes with a price.

She felt the knife pierce her skin. The pain was white hot, robbing her of breath and consuming her mind with agony. If only it had robbed her of sight. He pressed his face close, his eyes on hers as he pushed the knife in deeper.

Her voice returned in a tortured scream as he wrapped his free arm around her and pulled her tightly against him, hilting the blade in her abdomen. Something equally hard and offensive pressed against her groin and he leered as he ground against her.

If she’d had the strength she would have clawed his eyes out, but darkness was closing in fast and she had nothing left. The monster had won. She would die and then he would kill the girl.

Don’t let me die
. It was not so much a prayer as a wish, and not as much for her as for the girl tied to the bed a few feet away. She wanted so much to stop him from what he would do to the girl.

Darkness claimed her, but it was not of the forever kind. The sound of screams and whimpers, of a man panting, drew her up from the darkness. Pain lanced through her and before she opened her eyes, her hands sought the knife. Once her hands wrapped around the hilt, she forced her eyes open.

What she saw brought sickness and the sharp sting of hatred bubbling up inside her. He was raping and torturing the girl.

Strength surged through her from a well she’d never tapped into before. She gritted her teeth, sucked in a breath and yanked at the knife.

Pain beyond anything she’d known nearly sent her careening back into the darkness.
Don’t pass out, don’t pass out. You have to stop this bastard.

With one bloody hand clenching the knife, she rolled over and pushed herself up to sit. He was so focused on the girl, he never noticed, not even when she struggled to her feet and dove at his back, both hands gripping the knife.

The first stab caught him just below the base of the neck. He howled and thrashed, turning on her. As he did, she struck again. This time the knife slid in just below his diaphragm.

He fought with her, trying to knock her back, trying to dislodge the knife, but she held on, pushing as hard as she could, wanting to drive the blade into his evil heart.

But her strength was failing. He managed to pull away and fall off the bed. He hit the floor and rolled onto his back. His chest heaved rapidly and blood poured from the wound, each beat of his heart pumping more from his body.

She knew then he was done. She just had to get to a phone.  She started for the door and spotted her firearm on the floor where he’d kicked it. She bent to pick it up, heard a sound, and turned.

The girl had rolled over and was staring up at him. Somehow, he’d managed to get to his feet and pull the knife free.  She grabbed the gun, swinging it up as his arm arced toward the girl, his hand gripping the knife.

All she had to do was take him down, shoot him in the shoulder or leg. He was too weak. One shot and he'd go down. But blind rage overrode all of her training, all of her humanity and morality. With a scream of fury she fired, over and over, watching his body dance like a marionette whose strings were being jerked and pulled by vicious hands.

Cia woke, drenched in sweat, her breath as hard as if she’d been running and her heart hammering way too fast to be healthy.

She clawed away the damp sheets and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

“Had the dream again, did ya?”

The gravelly voice, flavored with the Deep South, had her looking toward the door. Joe stood watching.

She was none too politely as she gathered her wet hair and wound it into a knot on the back of her head. “What are you doing here?”

“You ain’t never gonna have peace if you keep runnin’ from what’s stopping you from latchin’ onto it.”

“I’m not ever gonna have a night’s peace if you don’t stop coming into my home uninvited.”

“You invited me in a long time ago, Gracie. You just don’t like admitting that you need me.”

“I need you like a root canal.” She got off the bed and brushed by him. Once in the kitchen, she hunted through the cabinets. “And my name is Cia. Did you move my Jack?”

“Drinkin’s the last thing you need. And your name is actually Allagracia, a variation of Altagracia, which interesting enough is a reference to the state of high grace of Mary, the mother of Jesus.”

“So now you’re an educated redneck? Where’s my Jack, Joe?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“Damn!” She stomped back to the bedroom, pulled on a pair of jeans, and jammed her bare feet into her boots.

“Where you going in the middle of the night?”

“None of your damn business!” She marched by him, snatching up her keys from the table by the door.

She made it behind the wheel of her car before she lost it. At first, it was just tears, but within seconds, sobs racked her body. She’d never admit it to him, but she was scared. Scared that if something didn’t change she was going to lose it completely. She couldn’t go on like this forever, fighting the demons that came in her sleep or trying to drink herself stupid every night so that she couldn’t dream.

Cia wasn’t an idiot. She knew she was on the fast track to nowhere good, but she couldn’t seem to turn back. The truth was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Maybe she deserved everything she was getting. Maybe Joe was wrong. Maybe she didn’t deserve to be redeemed.

After all, she
was
a murderer.