The Ranger Read online

  Wow, Will thought, impressed by her compassion and conscience. She was…simply remarkable. If he were as emotionally attuned to other people, would he be so magnanimous? he wondered. Would he resist the urge to mine those emotions and the impulse to interfere?

  He cleared his throat, uncertain what to say. “Thank you,” he finally murmured.

  “Thank Theo,” she said, leaning back once more. “I didn’t used to always be so sensitive.”

  He chuckled. That fit, actually. It was the logical, compassionate response to her gift. He could see her wanting to help, to soothe. It was her nature, after all.

  She folded the edges of her napkin. “I didn’t used to appreciate the fact that just because I could pick up on a person’s emotions it didn’t mean that I owned them. I had no claim to them, though I felt them, as well.”

  He studied her. “Sounds like that would be confusing.”

  “It was, in the beginning.” She blew out a breath. “But like I said, Theo helped me. He is much more empathetic than I am. He can pick up on subtle nuances I can’t even detect.”

  “I imagine that’s more curse than blessing,” Will remarked.

  She merely smiled. “It comes in handy.”

  He grinned, but it faltered. “So you said you had your suspicions,” he stated in a leading way.

  Her expression grew cautiously still. “I do. Are you asking me to share them?”

  “I’m curious as to how close to the mark you are,” he murmured.

  She considered him another minute, testing the atmosphere around him, he imagined. “All right, then,” she said. “The weight I feel around you…

  It’s enormously heavy. The grief, the shame and the regret feel like death to me, like you blame yourself for it.”

  He locked every muscle in his body to stem the shudder trying to break through him and she must have felt that, too, because she suddenly reached across the table and took his hand again. Her smile was sad.

  “When I consider the fact that you were a Ranger—underwent all that training to achieve the goal—then that tells me you had planned to make a full career out of the military. That you never intended to leave. You’re focused, driven and loyal. Quitting would never have been a part of your plan.”

  He gave a little breath and smiled at her insight.

  “Which means you lost someone close to you—a comrade, maybe?”

  The silence lengthened between them as Will struggled to block the images her stunningly accurate words conjured. Crumpled little bodies, slain women, and the boy…

  The one he’d tried to save, but hadn’t been able to.

  Help me…

  Blood was a common enough occurrence on the battlefield, but he couldn’t seem to get the stench of that child’s out of his nose no matter how hard he tried. He stared at his beer, followed a flurry of bubbles up the side of the bottle and gave his head a small shake.

  “Frightening close,” he finally admitted to her, tightening his hand around his drink to hide the shake.

  She winced with regret. “I’m sorry.”

  “Bad intel,” he told her, the words welling up inside him. “Women and children.” Bloodied teddy bear, stained shirt. “A boy. I…couldn’t save him.” And he’d felt that child take his last breath in his arms. The cloak of dread that had been stalking him for months suddenly settled over his shoulders and he couldn’t shrug it off. It clung to him determinedly, tightened around his neck, making him feel as if he was choking. The grief, the despair, the failure. It hurt to feel it, and the pain made him feel weak. Irrational, he knew, but it didn’t change anything.

  Her hand squeezed his. “I’m so sorry,” Rhiannon again said softly. “When you say bad intel…what does that mean? Your information was wrong?”

  He tried to focus, struggled to find the words to explain. “Yeah,” he murmured, remembering. “Insurgents were supposed to be in the area. They’d set a trap. Waited from a distance as we moved in, then remote detonated, you know?” Bastards, Will thought. “We retaliated, of course, and by the time we realized our enemy wasn’t there…it was too late.”

  “And you feel responsible?”

  “My team,” he said. “I was point.”

  “And the people who died, the boy, you’re certain it was your weapons that killed them?”

  His lips twisted into a bitter, cynical smile.

  “Does it matter?”

  She looked away and made a small face. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  Once again the silence swelled between them and Will gave a shaky, hollow laugh. “You’re good,” he said. “Even the shrink couldn’t get me to talk about this and yet you—” his gaze searched hers “—you don’t even ask and I spill my guts.”

  Unreal, he thought. And like a boil being lanced, the relief was instantaneous. It still ached, the pain lingered, but the reprieve was nice. It wouldn’t last, of course. He was a marked man—the experience had changed him. He’d never be able to fully let it go, but it would be nice to know he was going to be able to function.

  She pulled a sheepish shrug. “I’m a magnet,” she told him.

  “A what?”

  “That’s not an official term, just my own,” she said. “But I basically have that effect on people. I draw them out, so to speak. I always have. Total strangers have been known to spill their guts to me in the checkout lane and once during my pelvic exam my gynecologist told me that she was tired of her unattentive husband and was leaving him.” She winked and tipped her beer into her mouth. “Interesting conversation.”

  Will chuckled and shook his head. A magnet, eh? That sure as hell made sense…because he’d be damned if he could stay away from her.

  And he was quickly losing the will to try.

  RHIANNON STARED at her reflection in the bathroom mirror in Madigan’s Irish Pub and wished the little four-leaf clovers pressed behind the glass in the frame would truly bring good luck. She needed it right now.

  She’d known that the grief Will had been carrying around was substantial—had felt that all along—and even though her suspicions had been damned close to the mark, having them confirmed in his stilted Southern drawl while the agony rolled off him in waves was almost more than she could bear.

  Though she’d wanted to point out that this was not his fault—on any level—she instinctively knew that he would never completely relinquish owner ship of the blame. It was still too fresh, the horror too vivid in his mind to even consider releasing any personal responsibility.

  Does it matter? he’d said, with that heartbreakingly sad smile.

  Ultimately, it did not, and Rhiannon knew in his place she would no doubt feel the same.

  On the plus side—if there were a silver lining to this conversation—she’d felt the first vestiges of the gloom lift a bit off his shoulders and she desperately wanted to believe that she had played a key part in that. Helping him had become almost as important to her as finding Theo, and she hadn’t realized that until she’d had to excuse herself to the bathroom where she could take a moment to simply weep.

  For him.

  Because she knew he wouldn’t do it.

  Finished now—she hoped, at any rate—she took a bracing breath and splashed a bit of cold water on her face. Her eyes were slightly puffy, her nose a bit red, but she would fake a sneeze when she returned to their table and tell him that the air freshener had set her off.

  She took another deep breath and shook the tremors off her hands. Dammit, she had to get hold of herself. She was beginning to care too much, to feel too much when she was around him. Wonderful sex aside, there was a niggling feeling that she was sliding down a slippery slope and if she didn’t dig her nails in now and cling to the side of the cliff, she’d fall right off into the murky unknown.

  Love.

  The very word sent a dart of panic right into her heart. Fickle, unpredictable, uncontrollable emotion. Made fools of smart people, made the strong weak and rendered all other emotions virtually u
seless. It was the trump card, the boss, and up until now she’d never been the least bit tempted to dip her pinkie toe into its vast pond.

  And she wasn’t now, Rhiannon tried to tell herself, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. He was just an especially nice guy with great hands, who had the singular ability to unleash her baser instincts. He could draw an orgasm out of her faster than she could do it herself—which was saying something—and he made her want to climb right out of her skin and into his. Her heart fluttered with sweet anticipation and a strange sort of re lease when he kissed her, and her sex sang when he put those wonderfully large hands on her body. It was new and different, even special, she would concede.

  But it wasn’t love.

  It couldn’t be.

  Will raised a brow in concern when she sat back down at their table, and she sighed.

  “Damned air freshener in the bathroom,” she complained with a beleaguered huff of annoyance.

  “As if we’re not breathing enough chemicals in the air, let’s add some that are pine scented.”

  He grinned. “Does pine make you gag, as well?”

  “No, it makes me sneeze,” she said, a bit through her nose for the proper effect.

  He shook his head. “And to think I almost bought one of those little trees to hang from my rearview mirror.” He tsked.

  “And spoil your new-car smell? Blasphemous.”

  He looked at her plate. “Were you finished? You didn’t eat much.”

  She’d lost her appetite during their discussion, but she couldn’t very well tell him that. “It was a lot of food,” she said. “I just couldn’t finish it.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “So you’re ready, then?”

  She nodded and reached to grab her purse.

  Madigan’s was located a block off the little town square. “Why don’t we take a walk?” she suggested. “Do a little window-shopping.”

  “It would have to be window-shopping,” he said. “From the looks of things, they roll the streets up at five.”

  Will left enough money on the table to cover the bill and a generous tip, then stood. He literally towered over her. She’d noticed before, of course, but it never failed to send a thrill right to her midsection. Seemingly without thinking, he reached out and took her hand.

  Feeling his against her own made her heart do that funny thing in her chest, but the rightness of his fingers threaded through hers quickly calmed her down. She wasn’t used to being soothed, and had to admit the sensation was quite pleasant.

  They walked past a five-and-dime, a beauty parlor, a formal dress-wear shop, a shoe repair store—she hadn’t seen one of those in a long time—various antiques stores and a little shop that boasted nothing but dollhouses and assorted accessories.

  The only store still open was an ice cream parlor, and they ducked in and each got a scoop of pralines and cream in a waffle cone, then walked to the middle of the square and sank down on a park bench, where they could enjoy the fountain gurgling happily in front of them. It was twilight and the gas streetlamps sparkled to life, casting an orange glow. Kids zoomed along on their skate-boards, ladies power walked in pairs and several people were taking their animals for their evening adventure.

  Rhiannon sighed and licked her cone. “This is very Norman Rockwell,” she said, giggling.

  Will chuckled. “I keep waiting for Barney Fife to walk up and give us a citation for loitering.”

  She gasped delightedly. “I love Andy Griffith!

  I’ve got every season and special on DVD and am especially proud of my Fife Nip It in the Bud T-shirt.”

  He inspected his cone, looking for where it was melting the fastest. “You’re joking.”

  “About what? The DVDs or the T-shirt?”

  “The T-shirt,” he said. “I’m with you on the DVDs, but the T-shirt is a no.”

  She rolled her eyes and snorted. “This com ing from a man who wears the same T-shirt every day.”

  “It’s not the same shirt. It’s a clean version of the previous shirt.”

  “Yes, in black,” she said. “Why don’t you just print Badass in capital letters across the front? That would get the point across better.” She took another swipe at her cone.

  He leaned his head back and guffawed. “If you think I need a shirt to get that point across, then clearly I am not intimidating enough.”

  “You don’t intimidate me at all,” she told him, knowing that it was a lie. The things he made her feel scared the hell out of her and he damned sure didn’t need a T-shirt for that.

  Come to think of it, he was much more daunting when he was naked.

  Another laugh sounded in her ear. “I’m not the least bit surprised about that. You don’t scare me, either.”

  Ah…so she wasn’t the only one who was lying, Rhiannon thought, feeling his sudden uneasiness.

  Because she’d lost any sort of perspective at all, she was almost giddy with the insight.

  She nudged his shoulder. “I haven’t tried to yet.”

  He slid her a wary glance. “Yet?”

  She popped the last bit of ice cream cone into her mouth and smiled at him. “I’m going to scare the hell out of you tonight.”

  “How so?”

  “With that length of rope we picked up at the hardware store today.”

  He stilled completely and a slow smile spread over his lips. “That’s for you. You said you were intrigued by a little light bondage.”

  “Yes, but I never said I was the one who was going to be tied to the bed, did I?”

  12

  “THERE’S NO WAY IN HELL I’m letting you tie me to that bed,” Will announced as Rhiannon twirled the length of rope in her hands.

  Her face fell into a deliberate pout. “Damn,” she said. “There were things I wanted to do.” She waited a beat and then peeked up at him from beneath her lashes. “To you.”

  A cold sweat broke out across his shoulders at the innuendo and missed opportunity in her voice, but…no. She seriously couldn’t expect to tie him up. He would readily own his control issues. He had them, he knew. And yet the promise of those things she’d wanted to do to him hung in the air between them, taunting him.

  “One arm,” he said, offering a compromise.

  She shook her head. “Where’s the fun in that? I want you completely at my mercy. I want to be able to explore and play and drive you crazy without fear of retribution.” Another tragic sigh. “I wanted to be completely…uninhibited.”

  That was all it took to make him rock hard. She didn’t so much as have to touch him. She didn’t have to smile or let her eyes go all soft and wicked.

  She just had to make a few vague references and his dick acted as though she’d called it forward, her own devoted familiar.

  He leveled his gaze at her, wavering. “You’re not going to do anything terrible like leave me here for the hotel staff to find, or dress me in your underwear and take pictures and post them on the Internet, are you?”

  Her lips curled into an indulgent smile. “Have you given me any reason to do that?”

  “None that I can think of, no.” But it still made him nervous. Surrendering control. As she’d said, being at her mercy.

  She sidled forward and wrapped the rope sinuously around his wrist. “I promise you I won’t do anything to you that you don’t like.” Her warm breath fanned against his arm. “I actually think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

  Just like that, his will faltered. “In that case,” he told her, holding out his arm, “bind me.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “You’ll be my slave?”

  He gloomily suspected he already was. “Yours to command.”

  “Then get naked.”

  He chuckled.

  “And lie down.”

  He shucked his shorts and had the pleasure of watching her gaze droop in satisfaction. “And you have the nerve to say that I’m bossy?”

  She grinned at him. “And shut up.”

  Minutes later he was s
prawled across the bed, his arms stretched out over his head and securely fastened to the bedposts. A commingled sense of unease and anticipation made for a weird cocktail of sensation coursing through his blood. He couldn’t believe that he’d let her talk him into this, that he’d actually allowed himself to be tied up. Though he trusted her not to do anything embarrassing or horrid to him, there was still the niggling inkling of being powerless, of being exposed.

  Rhiannon stood at the foot of the bed and tapped her chin thoughtfully as she looked him over. Her gaze lingered on his dick and it instantly nodded a salute. A laugh that sounded dangerously hysterical erupted from his chest.

  “Where to start?” she murmured. She shrugged out of her shirt, shucked her skirt—did the woman ever wear panties?—then coolly popped the front clasp of her lacy pink bra. The fabric sagged away from her breasts, catching on her nipples. With a casual lift of her shoulders, it fell off, leaving her just as bare and open as he was.

  He felt marginally better.

  “Would you like me to make a suggestion?” he asked.

  “I thought I told you to be quiet.” She crawled like a cat up along his body and rubbed her erect nipples across his chest. A hiss slipped beneath her teeth, straight into his blood.

  “Ah,” she said, letting her lids flutter shut. “Nice.”

  Without warning, she moved up and suckled his neck right beneath his jaw, then ran her hands down his chest and carefully slid her nails over his nipples.

  Sensation bolted through him and he bucked slightly beneath her. He turned his head and kissed her neck, nipping her jawline, but before he could catch her mouth, she slid down his body, pausing to lick his chest, outline his ribs with her tongue and fingers, mapping every muscle, ridge and bone. Her hands kneaded him, insistent and greedy on his skin, and when her hair slid over the tops of his thighs he thought he was going to tear the posts away from the bed.