Under His Skin (Ranger Security Book 1)

by Rhonda Russell

  Jeb laughed. “Maybe she should have a talk with some of my family,” he said. “I’m anticipating all sorts of conditions to my inheritance when the time finally comes.”

  No doubt, Payne thought. Jeb’s family had lots of old railroad money they’d parlayed into an even more lucrative real estate business. The fact that he and his twin had opted for a military career as opposed to the family business hadn’t really bothered their parents, who’d only wanted their kids’ happiness, but had angered their grandmother to no end. Twila Anderson’s temper was legendary and her memory long. If she proved to be as spiteful, Jeb and his brother could find themselves cut out more thoroughly than they might imagine.

  Not that either one of them would care. Payne was familiar enough with wealth to recognize greed and Jeb Anderson didn’t have the look of it.

  At the moment he merely looked haunted, but given the circumstances—those eerily close to his own—he completely understood the expression.

  “Once my cover is completely in place with Foy, I plan on going over and talking to Rose Marie,” Jeb continued. “As well as the others, of course. I need to know who has had any sort of access to their things. I also want to review who has lived and worked in the community for that length of time. See if I can find any sort of correlation there.”

  “That should be something Charlie can help you with,” Payne told him. He studied Charlie’s notes again and hummed under his breath. “Actually, she tagged a potential suspect based on a complaint she found in an online review of the community. Apparently, a Sophie O’Brien, who supplies one of the shops there on site with handmade soaps and lotions, was accused of taking a piece of jewelry from a resident. The family complained to the director, but nothing was ever done to their satisfaction.”

  “That sounds like as good a starting place as any,” Jeb said. “I’ll definitely check her out.”

  “Can you think of anything else I can get for you?”

  “Some bleach for my eyes would be nice,” Jeb drawled, chuckling. “Foy was wearing a Speedo when I arrived and the image is clinging determinedly to my retinas.”

  Payne laughed. “I guess modesty goes by the wayside at his age.”

  “He also tried to sell me some Viagra. I don’t think modesty has anything to do with it. I think it’s more like advertising.”

  Payne smiled. “Is it working?”

  “He just left with a woman on his lap,” Jeb told him, sounding equally bemused and impressed. “So, as incredible as it sounds, yes, I suspect it is.”

  “I don’t know whether to be encouraged or appalled,” Payne remarked, taking a pull from the drink on his desk.

  “Me either and I’ve seen him.”

  Still chuckling, Payne told him to keep him posted and to let him know if he needed anything, then ended the call. A few more leaves lost their hold on the Bradford pear tree outside his window and drifted to the ground, revealing just a little more of the downtown Atlanta landscape. He spied a couple of utility workers fastening Christmas decorations onto the street poles and grunted in disgust. It was barely a week into November. Couldn’t they enjoy Thanksgiving before giving way to the sadly overcommercialized Christmas season? Geez, he was beginning to sound just like his wife. He’d certainly never given a damn about one holiday or the other before he’d married Emma and started a family. He resisted the urge to do a ball-check, just to make sure he still had them, and then laughed.

  Jamie and Guy had strolled into his office and both wore a questioning expression. “What’s so funny?” Jamie asked.

  “Nothing,” Payne lied. Judging from his happy expression, Jamie must have won the most recent game of pool in the boardroom.

  “Any trouble?” Guy said.

  “Not trouble, really,” Payne remarked, passing a hand over his face. “Just precious little to go on. I don’t think this is going to be as simple as we’d originally thought.”

  “That seems to be a running theme of late,” Jamie remarked with a grimace. He dropped into a chair and crossed an ankle over his leg.

  “Not much we can do about that,” Guy said. “How do you think he’s going to do?”

  Payne knew the question Guy was asking had nothing to do with Jeb’s abilities—those were top- notch and without doubt. He was a Ranger, after all, and there wasn’t a soldier alive who reached that level of expertise without possessing a keen mind, top physical form and a will of iron. It took more than being smart and in prime physical condition. It took mental endurance as well, which was often what broke before anything else did.

  “I think that he’ll make the transition simply because he knows that’s what expected of him,” Payne said. And with any luck, like him, he’d come to like it.

  “He reminds me of you,” Guy remarked thoughtfully.

  Payne didn’t betray a blink of surprise, but felt it all the same. That’s exactly what Emma had said when she’d met Jeb Anderson earlier in the week. She said he was “intense” and “brooding” and she’d be willing to bet “autocratic,” as well. She redeemed herself by adding the “but not quite so handsome as my husband” bit, but it was interesting all the same.

  Because he’d noticed it as well.

  Jeb Anderson had asked the same questions Payne would have asked had he been tasked with this particular case. And his reasons for coming out of the military were so very much like his own, only instead of losing one man on a mission he’d coordinated, Jeb had lost three.

  After speaking with Colonel Carl Garrett, who’d been more disappointed to see him go than any other recruit he’d sent their way thus far, Payne had known that they were getting a Class A agent. Not to say that they all weren’t, because they were. But even Payne had recognized the difference in Jeb, a do-it-or-die-trying mentality that marked him as a natural born leader with a determined, unshakable sort of resolve. It commanded respect, trust and loyalty.

  Payne also knew the Colonel was sad to see Jeb leave because he fully anticipated losing his twin brother, Judd, as well, who was also purported to be an excellent soldier. He inwardly grinned.

  No doubt Uncle Sam’s loss would be Ranger Security’s gain.

  And as assets went, it was damned hard to beat the Anderson twins.

  Chapter 2

  “Oh, Sophie,” Clayton Plank groaned loudly as she kneaded his bony shoulders. “Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. You have no idea how good that feels.”

  Sophie O’Brien’s lips twisted with humor. Oh, she believed she had some idea. Clayton certainly wasn’t her most grateful client, but he was definitely the loudest. And to anyone who wasn’t familiar with his noisy moans, groans, sighs and exaltations, those people would have undoubtedly imagined that Sophie was giving the eighty-seven-year-old man more than the traditional, strictly platonic massage.

  Clayton, however, liked to put on quite a show and, because he had a standing appointment, local residents often dropped by Twilight Acres’ General Store—where she sold her handmade lotions and soaps and kept a massage room—so that they could listen to him carry on.

  Clayton, ever mindful of his audience, never failed to make it sound like he was receiving a variety of mind-blowing, imaginative sexual favors and never left her little room without looking hot, sweaty and pleasantly worn out.

  She looked the same way, for that matter. But it was only because ninety-percent of her clientele were on blood thinners and required more heat than was ever comfortable, particularly during the summer months. She grimaced.

  Georgia’s zip code in August could easily be mistaken for Hell’s.

  “Same time next week, Clayton?” she asked, wiping the excess lotion from her hands and the sweat from her brow.

  “It’s a date,” he said, his response predictable.

  With a shake of her head, Sophie left the room so that he could redress and wasn’t the least surprised to see several pairs of eyes dart in her direction. Most of the gazes were amused and familiar, though there were always a few more baffled ones that she
didn’t recognize. No doubt they thought she was a hooker, turning her tricks at the old folks’ home as opposed to a seedy street corner. She mentally snorted.

  As if the hookers didn’t go directly to their houses.

  She’d been around Twilight Acres long enough to know that the only difference between this place and a college campus was that everyone here was older and could better finance their vices. Pot, she’d learned, never went out of style, sexual enhancement drugs had replaced speed, and thirty year old scotch and fine wine had picked up where two-buck chuck and George Dickel had left off.

  And considering that none of the residents had to cook, clean, work or hell, even drive for that matter, what was left to do there but get high or laid?

  Golden years, indeed, Sophie thought, her lips sliding into a smile. She fervently hoped she’d be able to retire here as well.

  “Oh, I’m so glad I caught you before you left,” Cora Henderson said, hurrying forward. The older woman was practically quivering with excitement. Her long snowy white hair was loosely braided, the plait dangling just below her collar bone. A fan of jewel tones and bold jewelry, today she was wearing a white tunic shirt, a large turquoise necklace and matching earrings, multiple rings upon her long, elegant fingers and a skirt the shade of the Caribbean Sea.

  Cora had been her grandmother’s neighbor and dearest friend here at Twilight Acres. Since her grandmother’s death two years ago, Cora had all but adopted her as another grandchild. She never forgot her birthday and insisted that Sophie spend the holidays with her and her family. She wasn’t certain how Cora’s relatives felt about that—especially after Cora had given her a cameo pendant her late husband had gotten for her while they’d honeymooned in Rome—but they were all too afraid of jeopardizing their inheritance to be anything less than polite.

  Because she had no other family to speak of—or would speak to, for that matter—Sophie sincerely appreciated it.

  Cora grasped her arm and leaned in excitedly. “Have you seen him yet?”

  Sophie blinked. “Seen who?”

  The older woman heaved a why-am-I-not-surprised sigh. “Of course, you haven’t,” she said. “You stay hidden away on that farm or in that massage room. Goats and old goats,” she went on, a familiar refrain. “How do you expect to meet anyone if you’re never out and about?”

  If Sophie wanted to meet someone, then she’d go out and about. Since she wasn’t so inclined, she was perfectly satisfied with the status quo. When and if she changed her mind, then she’d change her habits, but considering her last foray into the love department had netted her a two-week crying jag and a broken heart, she wasn’t keen on revisiting Romance Land at the moment.

  Sophie considered herself a relatively intelligent person, but to her eternal chagrin, she was nothing short of just plain stupid when it came to men. She’d been jilted just prior to the alter once and a string of broken relationships since had left her more than marginally gun shy. She never seemed to make the right choice, so she’d concluded that not choosing at all was her best bet. No more second-guessing herself, no more pining away for Prince Charming. Life was too short and she’d rather live it alone and happy than alone and miserable.

  The “alone” part was the constant, but from here on out, she was in charge of the variables.

  As for her goats, they provided the milk that she used to make her lotions and soaps—which she sold via the internet, here, and at several boutiques around Atlanta—and it was in her best interests to take care of them. Not that she wouldn’t have anyway. Thanks to her grandmother, Sophie had always had a bit of a “Heidi” streak and loved animals. Growing up on a farm—the one she’d inherited when Gran passed away—would do that to a girl. In addition to her goats, she had chickens, geese, ducks, swans and peacocks. Then there was Antonio, the rogue raccoon who was forever getting into her garbage. He wasn’t precisely a pet, but was around enough to feel like one.

  The “old goat” comment didn’t signify—she gave just as many massages to the women here as she did the men, possibly more. What had started as merely applying lotion to areas her grandmother and her friends couldn’t reach had turned into an unexpected career path that had kept her here at the retirement village long after her grandmother had passed away.

  Though she had a Business degree from the University of Georgia and had used her education to parlay her hobby soap-making—a craft she’d learned from Gran—into a lucrative career, she’d nevertheless gone back to school to get her massage therapy certification. Knowledge was power and she was a firm believer in doing things right. She grinned.

  Another lesson learned from grandmother. Dozie O’Brien had been a force to be reckoned with. A war bride, she’d moved to the US with her grandfather at the tender age of seventeen. She’d left her family and country—Scotland—but, thwarting custom, had refused to give up her name, one that Sophie had ultimately taken. She hadn’t appreciated what an honor her grandmother had bestowed upon her with that gift until she was in her teens and they’d visited Gran’s family in St. Andrews. She’d always joked that she was a few pounds shy of an heiress— gesturing to her plump middle—but Sophie hadn’t realized how close to the truth that was, joke or not, until they’d driven up to the gates of the family estate. It had been quite intimidating.

  Sadly, she had few memories of her grandfather—he’d been thrown from a horse the year before Sophie had moved in with her grandmother, but through old photographs and the stories her grandmother would share, she’d always felt like she’d known him.

  That her father could have been born of two such wonderful, kind people...

  She grimaced and shook the thought away.

  Naturally, Sophie hadn’t been in favor of her grandmother’s move to Twilight Acres—selfishly she’d wanted her grandmother to stay at the farm they’d shared since she was six years old—but had to admit that, in the end, it had been the right decision. Her grandmother had flourished in the social setting, had made good friends and had the occasional romance. Sophie had been basically grafted in to the Twilight Acres family and the love and support she’d gotten from the community since the death of her grandmother had been unfailingly kind.

  She cared about each and every one of the residents here—she had her favorites, of course, like Cora and Foy—but had come to know them all quite well and had developed an attachment to each and every one of them.

  And to think that someone was stealing from them...

  It made her blood boil.

  Initially, Sophie had chalked up the misplaced necklaces, earrings, bracelets and brooches to nothing more than memory loss—this was a retirement village, after all, and many of the residents had a hard time keeping up with their teeth, much less other valuables. They were forever forgetting doctor’s appointments, whether or not they’d taken their medication, things like that. But it wasn’t until Rose Marie Wilton lost her vintage Tiffany brooch that Sophie had realized something much more sinister was going on.

  In the first place, Rose Marie Wilton’s memory was tighter than a steel drum. She didn’t misplace anything, let alone lose it or forget it. Secondly, when the odd pair of reading glasses was lost, then that was to be expected. But having several pieces of especially valuable jewelry go missing—at least a couple a year since she’d been on-site—then there was something more going on.

  Sophie was determined to get to the bottom of it.

  Evidently realizing that Sophie was treating the “out and about” question as a rhetorical one, Cora heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I have it on good authority that Foy’s grandson is going to be here for several days. And Sophie, he’s not just hot but hawt,” Cora confided, using more of her newfound internet slang. “He’s at the Four Square Diner in a booth against the window. If you walk by there right now, you can see him.”

  And if she had any interest in seeing him, she would do just that. As it was, she didn’t and she had animals to feed. Furthermore, Foy didn’t have any childr
en. How could he have a grandchild, hawt or otherwise? Her friend had to be mistaken.

  “Cora, I need to get—”

  Cora tugged on her arm. “Just humor me, please. You can get a piece of pie to take home for dessert,” she told her, shamelessly taking full advantage of Sophie’s insatiable sweet tooth. Cora shoved open the door and propelled her into the chilly fall air. “Ethel made Japanese Fruit pie this morning. That’s one of your favorites, right?”

  Actually, yes. The raisin, pecan and coconut concoction was just about as perfect as a pie could be. Barring good old fashioned chocolate, of course, which would forever hold the top spot in her heart.

  “Evidently he’s a former Army Ranger,” Cora pressed on. “I’m certain that he has at least one tattoo, but I haven’t seen it yet. Don’t all soldiers get ink?” she asked, more to herself than to Sophie. Cora typically liked to stroll, but Sophie felt more this was a power march. “I’m usually a tall, dark and handsome sort of girl,” Cora went on. “But he’s different. He’s blond.”

  “Well, that’s a deal-breaker then,” Sophie told her with a matter of fact sigh. “I’m off blond guys at the moment. Luke was blond and you know what happened there.”

  Cora grunted indelicately. “Luke was an ass,” she said. “Fake smile, fake tan and slicker than goose shit. I warned you about him, remember? I told you he was a player, but would you listen to me? No. You were determined to see the good in him—determined to see the good in everybody and, while that’s an admirable quality on the whole, it’s not helpful when looking for a mate.”

  That was true enough, so Sophie could hardly argue there. Cora hadn’t liked Luke from the onset. She’d said he reminded her too much of a bad used car salesman. Honestly, Sophie had just assumed that Cora hadn’t warmed to Luke because he’d reacted poorly when her beloved parakeet, Jose, had landed on his shoulder and he’d smacked the bird away, when a simple shrug of his shoulder would have accomplished the same thing. He’d never particularly liked any of her animals either and the sentiment had definitely been mutual. She grinned. Her billy goat, Rufus, had never failed to nail him from behind when given the opportunity.