Range of Motion (Ranger Ops Book 4)

by Em Petrova

  Edie straightened her shoulders. “Well, I finally got over that first-time-coming-face-to-face-with-your-ex-thing everybody dreads.”

  “Yes, and you were very composed. I’m proud of you. I would have hit him over the head with a barstool.”

  Edie burst out laughing. Hallie followed, and they headed across the parking lot to the car.

  Before seeing Jake, she had enjoyed her time at the honkytonk, which surprised her. But seeing him had dredged up a lot of things for Edie, and none of them were about their relationship.

  There was still a lot more she wanted to learn about her biological father, stuff Jake would know since he still worked for him.

  “You know, Hallie, I think the country’s growing on me. I might not try line dancing anytime soon, but I’ll be back next month.”

  Her friend arched a brow. “Oh?”

  “Yep—hand me that invitation in your purse. I’ll be attending my ex’s wedding reception.”

  * * * * *

  Lennon eyed the woman in the checkout line ahead of him. She piled items on the conveyor—a rotisserie chicken from the deli, some strawberries and two bottles of wine.

  Her pale hair floated around her delicate jaw like a cloud, and this wasn’t the first time he’d wanted to sink his hands into those strands—he’d watched her at Big Mike’s.

  Seen her a couple of times in his dreams too.

  She paid for the items and was just turning away, when he called her name.

  She swung back to look at him, those big blue eyes fixing him in place. He forgot about the few items in his hand that his momma had wanted him to pick up on his way home for a visit.

  “Hi,” she said to him and then flushed a deep shade of pink that had his chest tightening.

  “Lennon,” he supplied.

  “Yes, I apologize. I’m actually good at remembering names, except it was loud in the bar and I might have had too much to drink later on at Hallie’s place.” She glanced at the bag in her hand containing the two bottles of red. “I’m really not an alcoholic either. I’m just refilling her wine cupboard.”

  “I see.” He chuckled, and she did too.

  He took a moment to notice more about her—the way her lips bowed at the corners, giving her a softer look and some freckles across the bridge of her nose. Looking at her almost made him forget his real reason for returning to the country that had less to do about his momma and more to do about his own cowardice.

  “Lennon, are you checking out tonight?” the clerk asked him.

  He knew the clerk too—he knew everybody in these parts, or if he didn’t, he was friends with someone who did.

  “Sorry, Jamie.” He set the items on the conveyor and moved closer to Edie. She didn’t step away, which he liked. Sometimes his size intimidated women, but mostly they wanted him for that very reason. It was true the shoe size matched what was in his Wranglers.

  “So you’re visiting Hallie again?” he asked Edie.

  “Yes. She’s running an e-zine out of her home. I’m not sure if you know that.”

  “Heard somethin’ like it,” he answered.

  Jamie gave him the total, and he pulled out some bills to pay her.

  “I’m a journalist, and sometimes she wants my insights on what she’s about to publish. A second pair of eyes and all that. I hadn’t expected to be here for a couple more weeks, but she persuaded me.” She lifted the bags she held. “Well, she’s expecting me.”

  “Wait a second. I’ll walk out with you.” He accepted his change and stuffed it into his pocket before snagging his bag with two fingers.

  When they got outside the country market, he reached for the bag of wine Edie carried. “Let me. It looks heavy.”

  “Oh. Thanks. You don’t have to do that.” She relinquished the shopping bag to him and led the way to her car.

  “How long are you in town?” he asked.

  “That depends on how fast Hallie and I get through the material. A day or two.”

  He was out as soon as he enjoyed a country fried steak, gave his momma a kiss and figured out how to say goodbye to an old friend.

  Forever.

  “I see you’re set for dinner tonight, and my momma’s expecting me. But maybe you’d like to join me for supper tomorrow? There’s a little Italian joint up the road. It’s not very good, but I can promise the company will be.”

  She blinked up at him, surprise crossing her beautiful features. “That’s very nice of you. But… I don’t think so. I’m not in the dating scene.”

  Damn.

  “Boyfriend?”

  Whew.

  She shook her head. “I’m pretty married to my career right now. I don’t have much free time, and I’m not from around here.”

  He didn’t say he wasn’t either, or at least hadn’t lived here in the past ten years. “I’m not asking you to commit—just have a plate of spaghetti with me.”

  A smile spread over her face, and his heart gave that same hard kick it had back at the honkytonk. After she agreed to the spaghetti, he wasn’t letting her go without her number. But that was for later negotiation.

  “C’mon. Hallie can’t refuse you getting out and having a good time after you’ve done all that work for her.”

  She tipped her head as if considering her options. By his way of thinking, she had only one—and that was to go out with him, because he didn’t often see a woman who piqued his interest, and this one had from the first.

  “I’ll even buy ya a meatball,” he threw in.

  The winning moment arrived as his humor hit home. She threw her head back and laughed. “All right. I’ll meet you there.”

  Too bad—he would have liked to talk to her during the drive. But he’d take what he could get.

  “Seven.”

  “All right, I’ll see you tomorrow at seven.”

  * * * * *

  Lennon was right—the food was terrible in the Italian joint. The sauce sour and the pasta sticky. She had gotten the spaghetti, because he’d told her it was the best on the menu. If that was the case, she’d hate to try anything fancier.

  She twirled the pasta on her plate and brought a bite to her mouth. She tried not to wrinkle her nose as she took a bite. At least the company was good.

  Lennon had told her several stories of growing up in these parts, how he and his brother had run the hills and valleys unchecked like wild Indians. She’d also learned a secret about Hallie’s past she would lord over her if the time was ever right.

  But she didn’t think she’d be seeing Lennon again. The man seated across from her was… well, out of her league. Not because she thought poorly of herself but because girls like Edie didn’t win guys like Lennon for very long, if at all.

  Men like him took interest and lost it all in the same night—once they realized she didn’t put out to just anyone. Only Jake had stuck it out longer, and she always wondered if it might be because he was trying to learn something from her.

  “Hallie told me you’ve won several awards for journalism.” His statement shocked her.

  She set down her fork. “You talked to Hallie about me?”

  “Yeah, we ran into each other after I saw you two at Big Mike’s. What did you write about to get the top scores?”

  She smiled. “The first two times, it was with articles that went against the grain. While everybody else wrote about current affairs or the pros and cons of GMOs, I was digging into much darker stuff. Hallie always says I make myself the underdog whenever I get a chance, and maybe it’s true on some level. But I chose to write about things I was more passionate about than whether or not wheat crops should be enhanced for higher yields.”

  Lennon was completely engaged in what she was saying, and for the first time she wondered if maybe they had more in common than she’d first thought.

  “I’m not much of a writer, myself,” he said. “I’m more of an action kind of guy.”

  Looking over his muscles, she could see that.

  “I d
id well enough in school, but teachers had to fight to keep me engaged. I bet you were top of your class, right?” He offered her a crooked smile that threatened to melt what brain she had right out of her head.

  “Actually, I had my struggles too. My mother’s also a journalist, and I was a surprise baby she didn’t know what to do with. So I was left with neighbors and sitters a lot. Then awkward youth struck. I was bad at sports and picked last for every team.”

  “Known a few like that. It’s tough on a kid,” he said.

  She went on, though why she was spouting all this to a virtual stranger, she had no clue.

  “My grades were good, but I wasn’t a good tester and landed in classes below my academic ambitions. I had a bunch of tutors.”

  “It’s admirable that you worked for it.” He took a bite of spaghetti and set down his fork. It was obvious the dinner was just an excuse for him to see her—he’d known how terrible the food was. It was a little touching, if she was honest.

  “I did work hard.”

  “Bet you were the editor of the school newspaper too.”

  She gave him a small smile and nodded.

  He sat back to grin at her. “I knew it.”

  She mused over the story she’d begun, considering whether or not to tell him that after she discovered who her father was, her late-night research had her grades slipping once more.

  She’d been put close to academic probation, her dreams on the line. And once again crawled back up until she was on the top, which had gotten her into Texas A&M for journalism.

  She stared at her meatball, listening to Lennon talk about how competitive he and his brother were in school and even still were as adults.

  Now there was a confident man. That alone was sexy, but he had all the rugged looks to go with it. Plus, he was about as far from Jake as she could possibly want.

  “I’m talking too much,” he said, sitting back to sip his beer.

  She smiled. “Not at all. What do you do for fun?” He hadn’t told her what he did for a living either, but that was okay. He would or wouldn’t—she wasn’t going to see him again anyhow.

  “I bowl.”

  Bowling? That was a little on the dorky side, even for her level of nerdy friends.

  He chuckled, a deep, low rumble that swamped her senses. “I know it sounds a little dull. I promise I’m not a total dweeb. But this group of buddies I hang with meets up at a local bowling alley, and we blow off steam.”

  “That actually sounds fun.”

  “It is. Maybe you’ll go with me sometime.”

  She wasn’t committing to that—or the meatball he’d promised. The greasy-looking meat sat in the center of her plate. “I think I’d better get back to Hallie’s. I’ve had a nice time, Lennon.”

  He stared at her for a long moment and then made shooting sounds like a fighter jet plunging out of the sky. “Crash and burn,” he said.

  Edie sighed. “It’s nothing personal, Lennon. I like you. I told you I’m not on the dating scene.”

  “Well, besides writing and not dating, what do you do?”

  “I work toward my goals.”

  “Which are?” He looked genuinely interested in her. She was flattered but still had no idea how things could work out between them, and she wasn’t interested in dating to fill her leisure time. She could do that with other things.

  Best not to get involved.

  Though, Lennon was more of a refreshing surprise than expected.

  He watched her intently, waiting to hear what she had to say. Okay, that was sexy too.

  “Currently, it’s to beat out three other candidates for the full-time position at Notable News. And to not let Hallie force me into country line dancing at Big Mike’s.”

  That broke the tension between them as both chuckled. The evening ended with Lennon paying for their awful meals, leaving the waitress, who he knew from school, a generous tip and then walking Edie to her car. There, he leaned in to give her a peck on the cheek.

  The brush of his lips spread warmth through her, and he straightened away before she could respond.

  “Be honest with me, Edie. What’s my chance of getting your number?”

  Chapter Two

  “Lennon!”

  Before sliding behind the wheel of his old Ford, he looked up to see his momma running across the yard to him, a foil package in hand.

  “You forgot your cookies!”

  He grinned and closed the door again, walking to meet her in the yard of the house he and his twin brother Linc had grown up in. “This is the third pack of cookies you’ve given me this month, Ma. Are you tryin’ to make me fat?”

  It was also his third visit in a month. He sure as hell never believed himself a coward, and today he was determined to end that streak.

  His mother reached him in a huff and grabbed her side as though she had a stitch from just jogging a few dozen feet. “You couldn’t get fat if you tried. Besides, if cookies mean you’ll keep coming to visit me, then I’ll go buy more ingredients right now. I’ve seen you three times this month, and I can’t remember the last time that happened.”

  “Thanks, Momma.” He took the foil-wrapped cookies from her and planted another kiss on her cheek. She hugged him around the waist, and he closed his arms around her, still feeling the aftereffects of the bruises and battering he’d taken from his last mission with the Ranger Ops special forces team.

  In his line of work, he never knew when he’d see her again, and he and his brother Linc always tried to visit when they had a free day.

  She pulled away with a teary sniff. “I miss my boys.”

  “You should move closer to the city, and then we can visit evenings and not just once in a while.”

  “I’m a country girl and always will be. I’d never leave all this.” She flapped a hand at him, shooing off his words like they were a curse. Looking over her head at the countryside—rolling green fields, wildflowers and the neighbor’s horses grazing nearby—he could see why.

  “Thanks for the cookies.”

  “Text me when you get home safe.”

  “I will.” He kissed her cheek again and got into his truck.

  He drove on autopilot, his mind and his heart back at the house with his momma. He and Linc had both been out of the house for enough years for her to make a life for herself without them. Her church friends and job at the hospital kept her busy. It didn’t stop Lennon from feeling the age-old guilt of driving away, though.

  He turned at the intersection, headed to the old cemetery instead of hitting the highway home. He had a stop to make, one that he’d been putting off for a while now. For weeks now, he’d come to the country with intentions to visit the grave, but he’d made excuses.

  He lost himself in thought and didn’t realize he’d arrived until he reached the grassy knoll behind the weathered country church. He parked the truck and scrubbed a hand over his face.

  As he got out, he grabbed an item off the passenger’s seat. The police challenge coin was one he and his closest friend, a fellow Texas Ranger, exchanged almost weekly on their bets.

  Bet you this guy tries to lie his way outta a ticket.

  Bet you can’t get that pretty girl’s number.

  Man, he missed the hell out of Adam.

  On impulse, Lennon grabbed the packet of cookies and carried it with him, crossing in front of the older section of the cemetery to reach the newer graves. He’d missed Adam’s funeral because he’d been away on a mission with Ranger Ops and had never had the guts to come here before now.

  The minute he spotted the grave marker and the name on it, he slowed his pace, taking the last few steps with his head bowed.

  For long moments he paid his respects while moments they’d saved each other’s asses played through his mind. As Texas Rangers, they’d come up against a hell of a lot of challenges, and it had bonded them.

  Then Adam had gone out on a call and taken a bullet. Lennon would always wonder if he could have saved him had h
e been his partner and not off with Ranger Ops.

  But there was no sense in wondering what if.

  He squatted before his friend’s name chiseled into the granite stone and held out the coin on his palm. It glinted in the sunlight.

  “You win, buddy,” he said softly. Then he took out one of the cookies and ate it. When he polished off the last bite, he set one of the cookies against the headstone, gave a nod of farewell and walked back to his truck.

  Driving back to the highway, he took a shorter route through the small town. He needed to fill up on gas and could use a drink too. If he had time, he’d swing by Big Mike’s, but the only reason he’d go there was in hopes of running into Edie again.

  Since she hadn’t responded to any of his texts since their date, he was pretty sure the crappy spaghetti had scared her off.

  He was just climbing out of his truck when he spotted a pretty little thing with a flirty red dress swirling around her tanned legs at the pump across from his.

  Lennon’s heart jerked hard against his ribs. He hadn’t expected to see Edie again, let alone after his thoughts had just touched on her moments before.

  So far, his advances hadn’t gotten him anywhere. He wasn’t one to fail in the dating department, and Edie confused him. Maybe he’d come on too strong. He had to take a different tack—she was different from the women he usually dated.

  Play it cool.

  “Hello, Edie. How’s your day?” he asked her in his best Texas boy drawl.

  Her smile widened. Jesus—she wasn’t just pretty but stunning. That pale blonde hair and her bright blue eyes had him trying not to stare too long. Her curves went on for miles in that red party dress.

  “Well, I could use some directions,” she said.

  “Where ya headed?” He abandoned his truck and stepped around the pumps to speak to her.

  “I’m looking for a…” She pulled out her phone and checked the screen. “A place called the Trinity Center.”

  Lennon let his gaze fall over her, taking in the red dress that tied around her neck and cupped her breasts to perfection, down to her tiny waist and to the hem of her dress that showed off her toned thighs. Her shoes were definitely party shoes—sparkly and high enough to display a lean line of muscle in her calves.