by Em Petrova
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved
Range of Motion
Ranger Ops Series Book 4
Copyright Em Petrova 2019
Ebook Edition
Electronic book publication 2019
All rights reserved. Any violation of this will be prosecuted by the law.
More in the Ranger Ops Series
AT CLOSE RANGE
WITHIN RANGE
POINT BLANK RANGE
RANGE OF MOTION
TARGET IN RANGE
OUT OF RANGE
She’s tougher than he thinks. She’s also more vulnerable than she wants to admit…
When it comes to two things—his special ops team and women—Lennon is never in over his head. But after a hot chick invites him as her date to her ex’s wedding, he’s not sure what he got himself into. He wants to see more of her—okay, all of her. Trouble is, he has no idea how to lure this evasive beauty between his sheets.
From birth, Edie’s always been the underdog. Even her father didn’t claim her. All her life, she’s fought to get people to take her seriously, and in the tough field of journalism, that isn’t easy. Fighting for what she wants is the norm, but putting herself in that situation still requires guts she doesn’t always believe she has.
When Lennon discovers the woman he desires has so many buried secrets it will take some hefty explosives to shake them loose, he feels a little betrayed, slightly pissed… and very protective. He’s not about to let her face down danger alone, but Edie doesn’t need some chiseled macho man trying to break through her carefully constructed web of lies… or her heart.
Range of Motion
by
Em Petrova
Chapter One
“Okay, Hallie. I got out of my comfort zone by petting a horse, but this?” The honkytonk music blaring through the tiny bar had Edie stopping in her tracks. She looked at her friend, who tugged on her arm.
“C’mon! You’ll enjoy yourself.” Hallie managed to pull Edie all the way through the door and into the space.
“If a fire marshal got a look at this place, they’d be shutting them down,” she said loudly to her friend.
“Don’t even think about writing an exposé on that.” Hallie hauled her across the floor to the bar. Every single stool was occupied. So were the tables. It was standing room only.
As soon as Edie thought this, two cowboys hopped off their stools and waved for the girls to take them.
Hallie’s eyes glittered as she shot Edie a look. “See? Told you cowboys are nicer than other guys.”
“All right, I might have jumped to conclusions.” Edie’s gaze fixed onto one hot cowboy’s backside as he sauntered off with beer in hand.
Hallie took one stool while she took the other, and they ordered drinks.
Edie was feeling out of her element, to say the least. She’d busted her butt to get into a prep school, had won awards for her writing all through college and landed that coveted spot at an insider’s edition of a newspaper as an intern. Journalism was her life, and it was hard not to look around and see stories… well, everywhere.
Her visit in the Texas countryside with her old college roommate was proving a culture shock. So far, she’d helped feed critters and stepped in things she didn’t want to think about. She’d stroked a horse’s mane and watched her friend ride around the fenced area.
But here at Big Mike’s bar, things were getting up to Edie’s speed. She eyed a man in a hat and shirt sleeves rolled over thickened forearms swig his beer from a few feet away.
“Maybe we’ll get you on that dance floor.”
She groaned at Hallie’s suggestion. One glance at the line dance forming on a miniscule dance floor had Edie sweating in parts she hadn’t known she owned.
Shaking her head, she placed her lips around her straw. “I’m not doing that. I’m not even capable.”
“We’ll see.” Hallie had always been a bad influence—or was it good?—on Edie by forcing her out of her comfort zone. If not for Hallie, she would have spent her college years behind closed doors studying and writing pieces about the wealthy emancipating their children so they would receive a free ride for schooling. It was a valid problem, and one the public and financial aid agencies—
There she went again.
This evening, she was going to drop her pen and enjoy herself, but it was damn hard when journalism ran in her blood. Growing up as the only child of a single mother who was always out in the field to get a story of her own, Edie had a difficult time seeing life and not the work needed to go into it.
She swept the room again, drinking in the smiling faces of Texas country people enjoying a night out. Lifting her straw to her lips, she sipped the fruity alcoholic blend. Next to her, Hallie shot her a smile.
“Never thought I’d see the day Edie Howard was sitting in a place like this.”
Edie made a face. “What’s that mean? I’m capable of enjoying myself.”
“It’s not that—it’s the country. I’ll make our city girl into a down-home girl if I have to tie you up to keep you here with me.” Hallie grinned, but Edie knew she was only partly joking.
Hallie had attended Texas A&M with Edie, but as soon as she graduated, it was clear she was returning to the back roads she preferred. She’d rented a nice place off the beaten path and, besides boarding her horse and a pair of feisty chickens, she was running a flagship e-magazine out of her home office. She’d also asked Edie twice already to come on board with her, get in on the ground floor and see what they could build together.
Edie’s dreams took a different path, though, and Hallie wasn’t offended when she turned down her offer. She just invited Edie to come stay a while and she’d show her around.
Which included a stop at Big Mike’s honkytonk bar along a road called FTM34. The farm to market roads confused the hell out of Edie, who was used to the disaster zone of the crowded I-35.
Everything seemed to be along a dirt road out here, though. Edie couldn’t even believe this was Texas—it wasn’t any Texas she knew.
“Beer.” The guy at her elbow leaned over the bar to order, brushing against her sleeve as he did.
She looked to him and found him looking back.
Good Lord, they even grew men different in these parts. Maybe she was a country girl, after all.
Or she could be for this man.
Over six feet tall with the broadest shoulders she’d seen in person, he was not only built but beautiful. His features chiseled, hardened like stone.
He gave her a nod and smile and then looked around her to Hallie seated on her left.
“Hallie. Good to see ya.” His Texas drawl was all maple syrup and honey with a side of grits.
Edie pressed her thighs together just from the sound.
“Lennon. Meet my friend Edie. She’s visiting for a while.”
He gave Edie a nod and looked her in the eyes. “Edie.”
“Hi.”
So lame. Hi?
She could almost hear Hallie’s inward groan.
Okay, maybe it’d been a while since she’d spoken to a guy, and never one this hot. Clearly, she was out of practice.
“Where you from, Edie?” he asked.
“Texas Hill Country.”
A smile sp
read across his rugged features, and Edie shifted on her stool as awareness stole over her. She and Jake had broken up months ago, and she hadn’t gotten onto the dating scene since. Maybe it was time. One night with a cowboy like this one would smooth over any bumps she still felt at being jilted by Jake.
“Nice up that way,” Lennon said.
“Lennon’s a country boy at heart, aren’t ya?” Hallie peered around her to ask.
The bartender slid his beer across the counter to him. He lifted it in agreement with Hallie’s words. “No matter where the wind blows me, I always will be,” he said.
Edie raised her own glass and clinked it against his draft. Looking into his eyes, she sipped.
Okay, flirting was like riding a bike—she remembered how, even if it’d been a while.
Lennon looked over their heads at someone and did that sexy jaw lift thing country boys did in greeting. “I see an old buddy of mine. I’ll swing back around and talk to you ladies again.”
“See you later, Lennon,” Hallie said.
“Bye.” Edie gave him a smile and watched him move off.
“I think your ‘hi’ really impressed him,” Hallie said.
Edie moaned and took a sip of her drink. “You know I’m good for rallies, picketing parties and attending long, dull meetings between men in suits. It’s been a while since I’ve flirted with anybody, let alone a guy as hot as that one.”
Hallie smiled. “In high school, everybody wanted Lennon and his brother. He seemed to like you too.”
Edie chuckled. “Thanks for trying to boost my ego, but you don’t have to lie.”
Hallie gaped at her. “Didn’t you catch the way he looked at you?”
She straightened. “Was he?”
With an exaggerated nod, Hallie twisted on her stool. “Let’s hit the dance floor.”
She caught her friend’s arm and stopped her from hopping down. “Ohhh no. I’m happy right here.”
Hallie eyed her and finally gave a resigned sniff. “Next time I’m getting you on that dance floor.”
“Sounds like a threat, and I won’t be bullied, even by the editor-in-chief of a new up-and-coming political publication. How great is it that you followed your dream and are already running full force?” Edie was impressed with Hallie’s success, while she was still battling to rise to the top of the interns at Notable News. Long ago she’d realized she had to do a hell of a lot more work to get what she wanted at that place, especially since there were two men hired before her and the only other girl was magna cum laude from a big school back East.
Edie was always on the bottom fighting her way up the rungs of the ladder.
Hallie beamed at her. “I’m getting new subscribers daily too. It helped that you wrote that piece on my e-zine for Notable News. Thank you again for that.”
“Of course. I’m just glad they accepted the extra piece after the story I’d written about Senator Arthur.”
Just saying that name had Edie’s stomach knotting.
For years, she’d found herself obsessed with the man, and not because of his political stance on gun control, which he was known—and targeted—for.
At the age of sixteen Edie had finally caught her mother at a weak moment and learned who her father really was.
Ever since that day, she had thrown herself into learning everything she could about Senator Bradley Arthur. Born from an extramarital affair between Arthur and her mother, who’d been digging into a story about the senator’s political rise, Edie had no fairytale dreams of her father.
He had a wife and two children, now grown, an impressive mansion twenty minutes from his main office and a second home in Colorado, where he and his family escaped to ski in the winters. In summers, they went horseback riding there.
Discovering the senator had secretly supported Edie’s way through the prep school she’d finally gotten good enough grades to attend, bought her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and paid for her college tuition had stunned her almost as much as her resemblance to the man.
Not only did she have his very pale blonde hair—white blonde as a child—but she boasted his blue eyes. She looked more like him than the children he claimed… and she had never even met the man.
The past year or so, the senator had been targeted by anti-gun groups, and one in particular had taken things to the extreme by setting fire to his home, kidnapping his daughter and taking his nephew hostage, sending the rest of the family into the care of bodyguards. She was proud of her father for standing for what he believed in, but her journalist side smelled a story from a mile away.
Radical groups didn’t usually set fires or take hostages—their goal was media exposure. Edie was certain the senator had ticked off the wrong rebel group and they weren’t going to let it slide.
“The piece about Arthur was brilliant, Edie. Truly.”
She beamed, thinking of how she’d managed to deepen the senator’s story from what was typically written about the man. “Thank you.”
“You’re not afraid to state the facts.” Hallie raised her glass to her in tribute.
If only her friend knew how afraid she was of stating facts—at least about her own tie to the senator. Maybe it was time to confess to her friend.
But how did one state that she was the illegitimate and secret daughter of a powerful politician who was rocking the entire nation?
“I like the hair. Why did you cut it?” Hallie’s switch in topic was welcome.
Edie brushed at the shorter strands that skimmed her collarbones. “Just felt like a change, I guess.”
Edie’s gaze shot to that sexy-as-hell cowboy again. Lennon. He sure beat out Jake on a huge level, at least in the looks department.
Too bad it had never been about looks for Edie. When it came to men, she needed good, stimulating conversation, and Jake had inspired her with his knowledge of current affairs and politics, which had become her passion since learning about her parentage.
She’d been with Jake two years, and then he’d gone to a political rally and come back with the charming and lovely Miss Deep South or whatever her title was. Edie thought it was more likely Miss Deep Throat.
After a few weeks without him, Edie had realized a lot of what enticed her about Jake was that he interned for Senator Arthur. It gave her a chance to pick his brain about the senator and get to know him in a more intimate way than digging around in archives.
“Lennon’s hot enough to make a girl sweat all the way across the room. Why don’t you go ask him to dance?” Hallie nudged her with her elbow and then froze.
Edie looked around.
Suddenly, Hallie grabbed her arm. “Let’s go.”
“Wait, what? We just got here.” She set down her drink before it ended up all over her clothes as Hallie dragged her off the stool and to her feet. They made it two steps before Edie realized what had come over Hallie.
She dug in her heels and came to a halt.
Jake.
And at his side, the blonde he’d cheated on Edie with. What were the chances he was in this part of the country too, unless…?
“Dammit. I knew I’d seen her picture somewhere before, and now I remember—Jake’s new woman is from these parts. She won a few pageants, and all of us girls made fun of those pageant types. Ugh.” Hallie dragged her a few feet to the side to avoid the couple.
Edie ducked her head, but it was too late—Jake had spotted her.
Hallie’s grip tightened on her arm as he walked over with his new girlfriend in tow.
“Wow, this is like a college reunion. Who knew I’d meet two of my old friends in a place like this?” Jake had this way of talking that had gotten Edie going, and not because of his sexy drawl like that other guy. It was because Jake was smart, and she loved his mind.
But in the end, he was only a man, thinking of what was between his legs.
She slanted a glance at the woman on his arm. She was blonde too, but being a natural blonde, Edie recognized a bleach bottle blonde when s
he saw one. This girl was Platinum Number 006, by her guess.
“Hello, Jake.” Somehow, she’d found a voice and managed to use it. At least she hadn’t done any of the other things running through her mind—like spitting in his face, slapping him or picking up a barstool and bashing him over the head.
“Ladies, this is Emma. My fiancée.”
Hallie’s fingers locked on Edie’s arm even harder at the news, but she shook her off with a note of calm and the sweetest Southern smile she could slap on her face.
“Why, Jake, that’s wonderful news. Congratulations to you both. A long engagement, I suppose, while you finish your grad degree?” Inside, Edie was seriously contemplating that barstool right about now.
“No, actually, the date’s set for next month. You absolutely must come to the reception. Baby, do you have one of those invitations in your purse?” He turned to his woman, who nodded and dug around in her handbag, pink nails flashing.
She pulled out a white envelope, and Jake handed it to Edie. “I’d like my closest friend to be there,” he said to her.
P…U…K…E.
Edie smiled and plucked the envelope from his fingers. “Thanks. I’m in the middle of a research project, so we’ll see if I can get away.”
He chuckled. “You always did tend to bury your nose in the research part of your field, Edie.”
“Yes.” She twitched her hands into fists to keep from going back for that barstool. Her imagination played out her swinging for all it was worth, of Jake falling over and taking his fake-ass Barbie fiancée with him.
Edie smiled, genuinely this time. “Hope to see you both soon,” she sang out and then pushed toward the door.
When she and Hallie burst out into the cooler night air, Edie tossed the envelope on the ground and stomped it with her high heel. “God, I hate that guy. What did I ever see in him? It sure as hell wasn’t his personality.”
Hallie bent to pick up the invitation and stuffed it into her own purse. “I’m sorry we ran into him. I never would have placed him here at Big Mike’s.”
