Man in Black
Ranger’s End, Book Two
Melissa Shirley
After Glows Publishing
Man in Black
Copyright © Melissa Shirley
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Published by After Glows Publishing
PO Box 224
Middleburg, FL. 32050
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Cover by: AG Cover Design & Formatting
Formatting by: AG Cover Design & Formatting
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All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
About the Author
Note from the Publisher
Man in Black
Ranger’s End, Book 2
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With its coming bachelor auction, a buried treasure, and a cast of townsfolk long on memory and short on patience, Rangers End is a place Jesse Megalos hoped never to see again.
But there's black gold buried deep beneath the town square, and modern day prospector Jesse, is on a mission to bilk the town out of the land rights to it. The only thing standing in his way is Ryhan Connor, a woman so lovely he almost doesn't mind when she car-naps him. As quirky and entrenched in the town as this accidental porn-star is beautiful, Ryhan captivates Jesse almost to the point he is willing to sacrifice his objective if it means he'll win her heart. But when the town turns on their once golden princess, Jesse is forced to choose between saving the woman of his dreams and the town she still loves or taking back the company and all the wealth that once belonged to him.
1
God forgive me.
She had to ask because Ryhan Connor was pretty sure killing Rick, while a public service, violated a commandment or two, depending on how she did it. But the little weasel walking around breathing, spreading his fliers all over town, called Ryhan to action. Murder had to be committed. She imagined slipping her fingers around his neck, squeezing until he sputtered out his last breath. It was such a lovely thought she ignored the gas pump tolling up the charges beside her.
Maybe instead of murder, she could shove him in a little box and only bring him out for the Rangers End carnival at the end of every summer. The people would need a freak for their show, and ex-boyfriend or not, Rick was the freak all other freaks aspired to be. Damn him anyway. Damn him and his video camera and his “it’s just for us, babe” promise.
The pump kicked off. She shoved it back in the holder and walked to the window.
Great. Another driver who’d skipped out on a tip by paying inside. Her fifth today.
She smoothed her hand over the car’s roof. As one of the station’s two full-service attendants, she got to see all the fine pieces of machinery—and some not so fine—that traveled to or through Rangers End, but this one stirred something inside her. She pictured herself cruising Main Street in this thing. Saw it turning into Rick’s driveway. Actually, she saw it running Rick over. Then backing up to have a second go at him.
And just like that, the decision was out of her hands. She opened the door, started the car, and gave it a good engine rev. Now that was a roar.
The door of the shop swung open. The owner of the car leaned into the open passenger window and reached for the keys, but she slapped his hand.
“Get in or get lost, but I need this car for a few minutes.”
Rather than opening the door, the owner, whose name she didn’t know—a stranger to Rangers End—and didn’t care to know, climbed in through the window, legs half out as she powered away from the pump.
She glanced at the clock on the dashboard and mashed the gas pedal. The engine screamed as she raced out of town toward the shitty little trailer where Rick, the most God-awful ex in history, lived.
Slowing to a speed closer to the legal limit, she spared a glance at the car’s owner. Damn. Deep black hair, leather jacket, eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses. She ignored the yellow and white lines to ogle the handsome stranger with a sideways look then a full-on mouth-watering stare. As gravel flew up behind her, she turned her attention back to the road.
Don’t be an idiot. He’s just another pretty face. And from this day forward, we are immune to pretty faces.
“Mind if I ask where you’re taking me?”
Her traitorous mind amused itself with thoughts of his warm, maple syrup voice oozing over a stack of pancakes with her face on the top. Her stomach tingled. It had to be hunger. Had nothing to do with hormones. Nothing at all.
She hoped for the former and wrenched around in her purse, taking her eyes off the road to thrust the phone with its cracked screen under his nose. She jerked the car back onto the pavement. “Read for yourself.”
“Groupie sex video. Click the link.”
A second later, moaning drowned out the radio. The soundtrack of her life. Oh God. She breathed in deeply through her nose to quash the nausea threatening to eject her stomach contents. The reappearance of a very iffy tuna salad sandwich from the machine in the breakroom at Grover’s would ruin the Camaro’s leather for sure.
“I didn’t say watch it.” She grabbed for the phone but came up with a handful of air as Mystery Man swung toward the open window.
“Quality camera angle. Hmm. Blond hair. Flaming guitar tattoo in a very intimate spot. Oh, wait. We’re panning to the face. Hey. You’re the groupie.” He looked her up and down over the top of his sunglasses, slow, intimate, caressing her with his gaze. “Nice.” He drew the syllable out as the car fishtailed in the shoulder’s loose gravel. “Can I see the tattoo?”
She breathed in deep, shot him a go-to-hell glare, and pulled the car back onto smooth pavement. He was about one word from being tossed out of his own car.
She reached for the phone again. “It’s not a hockey game. I don’t need the play-by-play.” She snatched more air trying to take back her property. “And I’m not a freaking groupie. I was his girlfriend.” Turned out that was a distinction without a difference, and not one that filled her with pleasure or pride.
She glanced at her passenger again. Too masculine to be pretty, but too pretty to be simply good-looking. And Ryhan didn’t give a damn.
Much.
Okay. A little.
Her eyes drifted from the road to the shiny, pink, moaning cell he’d only looked away from long enough to sear her with his gaze. She reached out again. As her hand came in contact with the hard plastic, the phone flew out the window and bounced off the solid white line behind them—cellular roadkill.
“Perfect.” Gunning the engine, she zoomed closer to Rick’s house. From the corner of her eye, she saw her passenger cock one eyebrow. “What? I was young.” In truth, she’d learned a lot in the ten months since the video was made—most pertinent: not to trust guys in garage bands. Still, what did she care what some semi-familiar stranger thought, anyway? So what if said stranger was hot enough to liquefy steel? It wasn’t like she was in the market for another pretty boy to add to her list of man-mistakes.
“You haven’t changed much since the time stamp on the video.” He didn’t bother hiding his smirk, and she flexed her fingers to
keep from smacking it right off his face.
“I age well.” Time stamp? Damn.
She swung the car into the patch of gravel that doubled as Rick’s driveway. Why slow down when she could slam on the brakes a fraction of an inch from his Batman-painted van? Homicidal ex-girlfriends didn’t wait patiently on the sidewalk for kidnapped companions before breaking through the front door to cause physical injury to idiot ex-boyfriends.
And she was nothing if not homicidal.
Without missing a single step, she rushed up the sidewalk. Putting her slayer tendencies aside, she calmly twisted the knob as though she owned the house rather than showing up as Rick’s aforementioned former piece of. . .ex-girlfriend.
“Oh, Rick.” No point in scaring the little weasel back into whatever hole he’d chosen to hide in. But as she poked her head in every doorway she passed—kitchen, spare bedroom, makeshift recording studio with soundproofed walls—her syrupy sweetness turned to unsuppressed, unhinged screaming. “Rick!”
Flinging open the door to his also soundproofed bedroom, Ryhan glared at the bed. Susie Spencer, a busty blond with six or eight cup sizes more boob than brain, straddled Rick’s lap, back arched, and his head nestled between her mountainous breasts. Old-school video equipment whirred, though when she scanned the room, she couldn’t immediately find its location. Had she not been so focused on the idea of cold-blooded but justifiable murder, Ryhan would have taken a moment to hope he suffocated between Susie’s breasts.
He screamed a perfect scary-movie-girl squeal then lowered his voice to a bad impression of Matthew McConaughey. “All right. All right. All right. A threesome.” He didn’t bother to cover himself or his date. Rick’s over-inflated opinion of himself and his endowments made something like shame completely foreign to him. The eyebrow wiggle he aimed at her was overkill that screamed the measure of his ridiculousness. Before they broke up, she would have chuckled at his audacity. But she stood there with his gaze locked onto her breasts, and Ryhan’s scowl deepened.
“Not in your wettest dream. I’m actually here to kill you.” She took a step forward, hands clenched, ready to punch his beady little eyes out, and he scooted back toward the headboard, knees tucked almost to his chest. “Where’s your computer, you little freak?”
If he didn’t fork the damned thing over and fast, she might be forced to give serious consideration as to how she could hide the body. Rangers End didn’t offer a lot of options for body disposal, but if push came to shoving him into the dumpster behind the Rusty Nail, she would do it. Then have a drink after.
She heaved a pile of papers from a chair to the floor and moved to his dresser, dumping clothes out of drawers and kicking them to the side. A mantra of Kill Rick rang through her mind on repeat as she visualized snapping the laptop into two separate pieces and shoving one in each of his nostrils.
Rick’s new co-star swayed as she stood, naked and unashamed of her voluptuous curves, and stumbled into the wall, then the attached bathroom. She shut the door as Ryhan continued to trash Rick’s bedroom, staring up often enough to keep him clinging to the blankets for protection.
“You touch me, and I’m calling the cops.” His face changed from wide-eyed fear to that cheesy, trying to flirt look—tilted head, one cocked eye, half smirk. “Unless you want to finish for Susie.”
“I’d rather shove a fork though my own eyeball. And yeah, go ahead. Call the police. I’m sure they’ll be interested in your little”—heavy emphasis—“porn enterprise. Maybe you can tell them the name of whatever you slipped Malibu Barbie, and they can get you for that too, you piece of—” She couldn’t think of anything low enough to call him.
“I didn’t have to slip her anything. She got drunk on her own.” A na-na-boo-boo was the only thing he left off, and Ryhan moved closer again, this time hands out to throttle him. But her boot slipped on a piece of paper, almost landing her on her ass among the heaps of assorted garbage and clothes. She looked down, snatched a flier promoting her video off the floor, and a new bout of anger gurgled in her blood.
“While you’re at it, tell them to bring the coroner and some extra gloves. This one’s gonna be bloody.” She reached out a claw, aiming for his throat, and he retreated to the other side of the bed, holding up a hand in front of him. She crumpled the printed screen shot of her, naked and licking her lips, and threw it at his face.
“God, Ry. What’s your problem? The band videos need more hits. I need more hits.”
Oh, she’d give him more hits—to his face, his stomach, the teeny, tiny penis she couldn’t believe she’d ever—ugh.
Nope. Not thinking about that.
What were they—oh yeah, hits. He’d get more hits than he knew what to do with. She stomped around the bed to the closet and yanked his clothes off hangers to toss them to the floor. “It’s always here. Where is it?”
“Sweet cheeks, that video already has twenty thousand likes. And people are looking at the band’s concert videos now.”
Twenty thousand likes? This couldn’t get much worse. And sweet cheeks? He was one endearment away from meeting his maker. “Concert videos? What concert videos? Those are just me holding an iPhone down at the Rusty Nail while your three ‘fans’ drooled on the bar while they slept.”
“Look, I get it. You’re mad. But you’re the hottest chick I ever taped, and people are going wild for those luscious ti—”
“You say another word, and I’ll cut your tongue out and sell it on eBay.” Death was too good for him. Pain. Chinese water torture. Scrotum stretched up over his forehead. The possibilities were endless. And quite delightful.
“Listen, baby, nobody recognized Tommy Lee before his video with that Baywatch babe. He was just some drummer. But then that video got out, and now look at him.”
Ryhan clenched her hands at her sides. “Trust me, you teeny tiny little freak. You ain’t no Tommy Lee.” She crouched to look under a table. “Now, tell me where that computer is or you’re getting a pair of concrete boots and going for a swim.”
“At Johnny’s. He’s always taking care of the web anyway, so I just let him take it home.”
With a roar of rage, she stormed the bed and shoved the mattress off the foundation, rolling him onto the floor. He landed with a thwack of bare ass meeting tile, and behind her, someone chuckled.
“Who the hell is he?” Rick demanded. “You can’t just bring your new boyfriend here and think you’re gonna use my equipment.”
Blah. Blah. Blah, But she followed the direction of his pointer finger to the doorway. Holy crap. Six-foot-plus of panty-dissolving, handsome, car-napped stranger filled the frame, sunglasses now hanging off his black t-shirt. She blinked twice at the muscle definition of his chest and stomach, the long legs and chiseled jaw. She delivered the perusal he deserved, beginning at the toe of his black boots and working her way to his face. Not one disappointing inch. He smiled one of those smoldering, romance-cover-model smiles. Heat seared her, from her tiptoes to the shell of her ears and back again.
“Pretty sure he has his own equipment. Equally sure it makes yours look kind of sad.” The anger in her voice dissolved into something that had the stranger tilting his head as he watched her. “What’s your name?” No. Dammit. She didn’t care what his name was. Or how his jeans fit. Or how many stomach muscles she could see under his skin-tight T-shirt, or how her mouth watered at the thought of tasting his skin. . .or. . .
“Jesse. And you are. . .?”
She shook off her ill-timed hunger for the hot guy. “Leaving.” Over her shoulder, she said, “Listen up, assface. You have until tomorrow morning to make that video go away, or I’ll be back, and I’m bringing my hedge trimmers.” She took a step forward then stopped to look at Rick again. “Actually, now that I think about it, that’s too much tool for this job. But it has a ring to it that nail clippers just doesn’t. Either way, expect pain.” Jesse eased back against the wall, allowing her to brush past him, and the scent of his cologne wrapped around her as s
he stormed away.
As she kicked a new path through the clutter until she stood on the front lawn, a fluttery sensation churned in her stomach. Fire burned her skin in the cool April wind. Anger. It had to be anger. It sure as hell wasn’t lust. Her lusty days were over. Nope. Lust was for losers.
Okay. So what if she was standing in the yard wearing the coveralls she wore to pump gas at Grover’s, smelling like she’d taken a dip in motor oil, battling a case of lust that would make a stripper blush? It didn’t mean anything. It certainly didn’t mean the hot guy would be starring in his own NC-17 video with her. And it didn’t mean. . .
Damn. It meant something. It always meant something.
Jesse, at some point, had come to stand next to her, his hands shoved into his pockets while he looked straight ahead. “Need a ride?”
A ride? He wanted to give her a ride? Her mind whirled with the implications. Ride? On his joystick? No. Thank you very much. She didn’t need a ride. Nor would she stand there one minute longer imagining herself licking every single inch of his body. She had more important things to do. Like. . .anything that didn’t involve her tongue and his ab muscles. Much more important. So, if bachelor number one thought he was getting lucky, he had another think coming. Lust or not.
“Listen, pretty boy. I’m not just some cheap floozy who falls into bed with every handsome guy who drives into town in a sports car. You can keep your ride and everything else”—she shot a pointed look at the space just below his belt—“to yourself.”
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