by Becca Colton
THE RANGER AND THE SUMMER CAMP CUTIE
Becca Colton
Copyright © October 2019 Becca Colton
All rights reserved.
Cover image © DepositPhotos / PawelSierak
Contents
Title Page
Mailing List
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Also by Becca Colton
Mailing List
Copyright Notice
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Chapter 1
Adrienne
“Come home, ’Dri. I miss you.”
Ugh! ’Dri. I hate that name with a purple passion, but my idiot boyfriend — FORMER boyfriend — never got the hint, and by hint I mean flat-out saying, “Stop calling me that, asshole.”
Fortunately, I haven’t had to endure the butchering of my name like that since I left Michael two months ago. I should’ve known it wouldn’t last. I don’t have that kind of luck.
“How did you find me, Michael?”
He smirks. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” He steps into my apartment and I’m forced to take a step back to avoid having him run into me. He looks around the apartment. It’s tiny and there’s not a lot of furniture, but it’s been home since hitting the reset button on my life. He runs a hand along the bookshelf against the wall. The shelves are mostly empty, with just five books on the middle shelf. Most of my reading is done on my Kindle, which is sitting on the nightstand in my bedroom. It’s loaded with cheesy romances, my guilty pleasure, and my only form of entertainment since cable or satellite or even a streaming service is a splurge I can’t afford right now.
“Last chance, ’Dri,” Michael says, his voice getting a sharp edge to it. “Come home with me right now or . . .” He raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t have to explain what the ‘or’ leads to. I know. It’s the reason I finally left the jerk. One or two beers too many and the jerk hit me. I’ll take a lot of shit but that’s where I draw the line. When he left to go get cigarettes I grabbed what I could and got the hell out of Dodge. And I am not going back to that life.
“Fuck off, Michael.”
His smartass smirk becomes a vicious snarl in the blink of an eye. He grabs the bookcase and dumps it over. I scream as it crashes to the ground. Before I can think to run he jumps over the trashed particle board and shoves me back against a wall. He raises his fist and cocks his arm back. The idiot must have forgotten my childhood wasn’t all sunshine and roses. I took his shit before because I thought I was in love (Ugh) but I know how to take care of myself.
I slam him between the legs with my knee and he staggers to the side, dropping to his knees. I grab my purse and run for the door, remembering at the last second that I don’t have my phone. I turn toward the couch, where I last had it, but Michael is already staggering to his feet, and now I can see the gun tucked into the back of his pants. Fuck.
I run out the door and down the stairs, thankful I only live on the second floor of the apartment complex. I’m not exactly a couch potato but I’ll admit I do love donuts more than exercise.
A gunshot echoes through the air. I cringe, ducking down, trying to make myself as small as possible.
“Gonna make you regret that shit, ’Dri!” Michael yells after me.
I grab my keys out of my purse and hit the keyfob to unlock the door of my Chevy Sonic and slide behind the wheel, slamming the door shut as another gunshot rings out. The driver’s side-view mirror explodes.
Dammit. It’s not like I have the money to repair that. Working barely forty hours a week as a waitress at one of the local greasy spoons barely keeps me in the apartment with a fridge that’s more empty than full. I pull out of the parking space, slam the car into ‘drive’ and hit the gas as another gunshot fills the air. I hear a weird sound but don’t have time to worry about it.
As my little car shoots out of the apartment complex I look in the rearview mirror and see Michael running to his car. He has a souped-up Dodge Charger, which can catch up with this car with no problem at all. My only chance of outrunning him is to be long gone before he has a chance to spot me. I get on the highway with ‘away’ being the only direction I have in mind.
Chapter 2
Jace
I set the tiny shadow box on the narrow dresser, making sure the front of it — the item on display — is aimed at the bed, ensuring it’s one of the first things I see in the morning. A constant reminder that my old life is over, a reminder that, when it got down to it, I wasn’t good enough to get the job done.
“Hey,” a voice calls from the front door of the cabin. “None of that. No moping allowed at camp. It’s rule number one.”
I look over at the girl standing in the doorway, concerned eyes that look like mine gazing back at me.
With her dark brown hair and gray eyes, most people would probably mistake her for my daughter, especially since she’s twenty years younger than me, but that’s because my dad stayed single for a long time after my mom passed away. Eventually, though, he met someone new. A few years after that, I had a baby sister.
That baby sister, Jenna, now twenty-five years old, suggested this little . . . “diversion” to keep me from crawling too far in my own head, and she’s determined to make sure her plan is a success.
I force a smile onto my face. It almost feels real. “It’s okay, sis. Just a reminder that yesterday is behind me and tomorrow is full of endless possibility.”
She arches an eyebrow. “Where did that come from?”
“Fortune cookie from a restaurant I ate at last week.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. She fights it for a second and then laughs, shaking her head. “It’s actually good advice,” she says.
I shrug. “Maybe.” I glance out the window, watching some of the others move around the camp, setting things up and getting ready.
“Any chance you had company during that enlightening fortune cookie experience?”
I frown at her. “Just me, myself, and I. No room for anyone else in my life.”
She snorts. “That was before, when you were busy . . .” Her voice fades away, not wanting to bring up the topic. Her gaze drops to the floor and then slides to the space beneath the bed. She kneels down, her lips forming a grim line when she sees the wooden case. “You brought it.”
I nod. “Yep.”
“Jace —”
I cut her off. “Jenna, it’s for self-defense. We’re out in the woods. Next week we’ll have kids out here. Still out in the woods. The world is a dangerous place.”
Jenna stands up, squaring her shoulders at me, standing tall. At 5’ 10” she’s fairly tall for a woman, able to intimidate most people. Since I’m 6’ 5” I’m not one of those people. For just a second I wonder if we’re about to have one of those epic throwdowns like we used to have wh
en she was in her late teens, hanging with the troublemakers and lawbreakers. The kind of throwdown that made my dad and her mom wonder if one or both of us was about to end up in the emergency room. She might be two decades younger than me but my little sister can be feisty and stubborn when she wants to be. Luckily, this isn’t one of those times. A minute or two passes and she sighs, running a hand through her hair.
She points at the box under the bed. “Only for emergencies, okay?” she says. “Life or death.”
I nod. That’s always been the way it is for me.
She nods back and then gestures toward the dresser. “Your costume should be in one of those drawers. I promise I kept it simple just like you requested. We’ll eat and then get ready for the first practice run.”
I nod, looking out the window again. She sighs and comes over to me, patting my shoulder. “Relax, big brother. This is supposed to be fun. Smiling won’t kill you.” Before I can respond, she turns and heads toward the door. “The fun starts at sundown.”
Sighing, I start opening and closing dresser drawers. Fifth time’s the charm. I look down at a hockey mask and machete and sigh again. How did I let my sister talk me into this?
Chapter 3
Adrienne
The car gives one last cough and then dies. I pull over on the side of the road, staring at the gas gauge, the needle below the ‘E’. I smack the wheel with my hand. I know I had over half a tank of gas when I got home from work this evening. I sigh, looking out the windshield at the road ahead. It’s getting dark and tall trees line both sides of the road.
Michael’s stupid Charger was catching up with me on the highway when I got the bright idea to take the next exit — the one I was driving by at that exact moment. It was a good idea. I lost him. At least temporarily. However, I lost myself too. The exit led to a feeder road that ended at an intersection with two choices. Left or right. Getting back on the highway, in either direction, wasn’t an option. I chose right and ended up in the land of the trees, where absolutely nothing else existed except the trees, me, and the road. No cafes, no gas stations, no little towns. Nothing for the last half hour. And now I’m out of gas in the middle of nowhere.
For a few minutes, I just sit there, gripping the steering wheel tighter and tighter until my knuckles turn white, telling myself not to cry. I’ve started over before. I can do it again. I’ll just need to move farther away this time. Dallas is a big city so I thought it would be easy to lose Michael by simply moving a few counties away. This time I need to think about Austin or Houston or maybe even another state.
I release the steering wheel from the death grip I have it in and swipe at my cheeks. A couple of tears aren’t getting the memo about me not going to cry. A flash of light in the rearview mirror makes my heart hammer in my chest. Headlights in the distance. Has Michael found me? I can’t risk it. The man’s gone insane. I grab my purse and climb out of the car. I gasp when I get a good look at it. Even in the evening’s fading light, I can see the bullet hole in the rear fender. That probably explains the empty gas tank.
With a last look over my shoulder at the approaching headlights, I head into the trees. It doesn’t take long to get lost. I’m a city girl and everything around me looks the same. But I hear something. I’m not 100 percent sure but it sort of sounds like singing. Hoping I’m not imagining things — and not really having any other choices — I head toward the sound. As I get closer to it, the sounds become clearer. Definitely singing. A family out camping?
You’ve seen this movie, Adri, a tiny voice in my head says. This is the part where you come across the cannibalistic family living back in the woods or the guy in the hockey mask with the big machete comes across you.
Ugh! So not helpful. I regret every horror movie I’ve ever watched.
In addition to the singing, I can now see light flickering through the trees. A campfire? God, I hope so. I can’t help the smile that comes across my face. It’s October and I didn’t have a chance to change out of the shirt and skirt I wear for work before Michael showed up. The nights are too chilly to wander around the woods with bare legs.
Something moves in the brush behind me. I pick up the pace, telling myself it’s a rabbit or a deer. Anything but a cannibal or a guy in a hockey mask carrying a machete. The woods suddenly seem to end and I’m standing at the edge of a dirt road that leads to an open gate with a sign over it. Camp Hallow. A summer camp? There’s a fire burning in front of a row of cabins and people are sitting around laughing and singing and roasting marshmallows and hot dogs.
Yep. Seen this movie before. Definitely going to die, the helpful voice in my head says.
“I am not going to die,” I whisper to myself. The psycho ex-boyfriend is a danger. This is just . . . camp. Taking a deep breath and hoping for the best, I walk under the sign and into the camp. I’m just about to call out to the group when a new noise echoes through the woods. I freeze, a chill running down my spine, my skin prickling with goosebumps. I’ve seen the movies. I know that sound. It’s a chainsaw.
And then a figure jumps out of the woods near the fire. The figure is wearing a mask, a mask made of what looks like skin, and he’s swinging a chainsaw around as the people around the fire scatter. One guy isn’t fast enough and maniac chainsaw dude swings the chainsaw in that direction. The guy screams as a spray of red explodes from his chest.
I want to scream, but my throat is closed, so tight I feel like I’m choking. I force myself to inhale. Fuck this. I turn and run back the way I came, hoping the freak with the chainsaw doesn’t see me. Part of me feels like a coward. What about all those people? On the other hand, what am I supposed to do? Throw my purse at him?
Just as I reach the trees, another shadowy figure reveals himself. A big guy, wearing a hockey mask and carrying a machete. He looks at me and tilts his head, almost like he wants to ask a question. And then he steps forward, raising the machete.
“Boo!”
Out of the blue, I find my voice. I scream as loud as I can and punch the hockey-loving freak in the nose. Or at least I punch where his nose should be. It’s hard to tell with the mask. Pain explodes in my hand, but I hear a satisfying crunch, followed by an even more satisfying voice muttering “Sonofabitch!”
He’s reaching up to pull off the mask but I have no interest in seeing what he might be hiding. I dart past him, running through the woods as fast I can. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t even have any place to go. But anywhere has to be better than camp hell back there.
Chapter 4
Jace
I’m making my way to the edge of the woods, ready to surprise anyone running this direction while making their escape from Finn and his chainsaw, when the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen comes charging through the trees so fast I think she’s going to run into me.
Time seems to stop as we stare at each other, and for a second I actually forget what I’m supposed to be doing as I check out the tight t-shirt clinging to her heaving breasts, the short skirt that shows off her shapely curvy legs, and that curly hair that’s just begging for me to run my fingers through it.
And then I remember why I’m standing in the woods wearing a hockey mask and carrying a fake machete. I raise the machete and step toward her, raising the fake blade high in the air. “Boo!”
For a second, the girl just stares at me, and then she screams. For some reason I suddenly feel bad about scaring her.
And then she throws a punch that catches me completely off guard. Pain explodes in the center of my face and I take a step back. “Sonofabitch!”
The girl runs into the woods as I snatch the mask off my face. I drop it to the ground and wipe the blood from my nose with the back of my hand. Holy hell! My nose hurts like hell. It would probably be a good idea to tell Jenna to invest in a real hockey mask for those times when someone freaks out. And speaking of freaking out, I can hear the girl thrashing through the woods, and she either stumbled or fell down at least once. I sigh and start after her, p
ulling a tiny flashlight from my pocket and switching it on. The sun set a little while ago and the sky is cloudy, hiding the moon. Hopefully I’ll catch the girl before she runs headfirst into a tree.
I run toward where I last heard her, then realize the woods are quiet. She’s not moving. I slow down, sweeping the light along the leaf-covered ground. She could’ve run into a tree or knocked herself unconscious by running into a low-hanging branch.
A scream comes from beside me, practically in my ear, and then the girl rams into me. I’m not a small guy. For her, running into me must be like running into a brick wall. She bounces back and I have to hold back a laugh, but then she’s on me, her legs wrapped around my waist, her arms around my neck, her nails scratching anything and everything they can. Thank god none of the guys from my old life can see me now because I’d never live it down. I finally manage to get my arms around her and squeeze her tight against me, pinning her arms to her side.
“Let me go,” the little hellcat screams, her feet thrashing and kicking at my back. Her breath is hot against my neck and her not-small breasts are pressed firmly against my chest. She’s breathing heavy, almost panting, and she smells like cinnamon. My cock goes rock-hard. It’s weird and makes no sense, but even with her heels landing the occasional shot to my kidneys, I can’t get over how good this little hellion feels in my arms. An obvious sign I’ve been without female companionship for too long.
“Easy,” I say, my voice calm and low. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
“Says the strange guy who has me in a bear hug,” she snarls.
“You’re right,” I say, agreeing with her. “I’ll let you down, but don’t run. It’s dark and you could get hurt. You don’t want to trip over a root or something and break a bone.”
