Though Tanner had had work over the past couple of weeks, it had been nothing that had taken him out of Atlanta and nothing that had required he use more than half his brain.
Which was good, because the other half was always consumed with Rhiannon.
Even thinking her name made an ache build up his chest. Maybe she had it right about the Boss, he thought, chuckling at her nickname for love. Maybe love did make people stupid and reckless and weak. Maybe she’d been onto something with her status quo.
And maybe this was all bullshit and he was just miserable, Tanner thought, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
But it had to get better. He couldn’t possibly feel like this forever. As if he’d left a part of himself in Virginia and it had migrated south to Begonia, Georgia.
A brisk knock sounded at his door, which was odd because McCann and Flanagan typically just walked in. Must be Payne, Tanner thought, pushing up from his recliner and making his way to the door. He pulled it open and drew up short.
Rhiannon.
He blinked, wondering if his pathetic imagination was playing tricks on him.
“Hi, Will,” she said, smiling tentatively. “Are you busy?”
He cleared his throat and marveled at the joy just looking at her made him feel. He felt a smile drift over his lips and hoped he didn’t look like a fool.
But he was her fool.
“No,” he said, opening the door wider. “Come in.”
She walked by him, bringing the scent of oranges with her, and his mouth instantly watered. She wore a red sleeveless top and another one of those little flippy skirts that had made it so easy to take her wherever he’d wanted. If she didn’t have on any panties, he was going to have a stroke.
She settled on the side of his couch and waited for him to resume his spot in his recliner before she finally spoke.
“How have you been?”
“You read me the minute I opened the door,” he said. “I’m sure you know.”
“Depressed, lonely, miserable?” she asked, wincing.
He chuckled darkly. “That about sums it up.”
“I can help you with that,” she said, and there was a hint of uncertainty behind the bravado, which alerted him to how much this was costing her.
But it had to be her move. And he’d be a liar if he said he wasn’t enjoying watching her make it. He quirked a brow. “You can?”
She lifted her chin. “Definitely. And I would be more than willing to distract you, as well. It’s just part of the services I offer.”
His lips twitched. “What about the status quo?” he asked, letting her know that this wasn’t going to be on some trial basis. She had to give him all or nothing. Anything less would result in him being in a padded room devoid of sharp objects.
She shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “Time to change it, don’t you think?”
“I was ready to change it before we left Virginia.”
She smiled sadly. “I was afraid, Will. But I’m trying to be brave now. Is that going to count for anything?”
“You off your game?” he asked. “Surely you know the answer to that already.”
She smiled and ducked her head. “I have an idea.”
“Then why are you still sitting over there?”
She launched herself at him. The breath whooshed out of his lungs and into her mouth and her fingers were suddenly in his hair, kneading his scalp, then lovingly—reverently—tracing the lines of his face.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she said, straddling him.
Tanner slid his palms over her bare ass and smiled against her lips. “No panties.”
“No point in wearing them around you.” She kissed him again, pressing her sweet breasts against his chest, and it took all the strength he possessed to push her back. He had to do something first.
“I’ve got something for you,” he said, reaching into his pocket. He withdrew the ring and held it up for her inspection.
Her eyes rounded and she gasped. “Will.” She looked closer. “That looks awfully familiar. Where have I—” Another sharp inhalation. “The Watson treasure? But how did you— Theo,” she said meaningfully.
“He gave it to me for you,” he said. “Because he wasn’t the only person who found his treasure on that trip. I did, too. I’m in love with you, Rhiannon. And I don’t care if it scares the hell out of you.” He chuckled softly. “Welcome to my world.”
“Are you going to put it on my hand?” she asked.
His chest felt as if it would explode with pride. “Happily.”
She admired the stone on her finger. “I’ve got something for your hand, too,” she said, and there was a hint of something wicked in her smile. She reached into her purse and pulled out a length of rope, then wagged it at him significantly.
He laughed, astonished, and offered his wrist. “Bind me,” he said. Because he was always going to be her love slave.
She wrapped the rope around his wrist, then around her own and held it up meaningfully. “We’re bound.”
“Ah.” Tanner sighed as he freed himself from his jeans and pushed into her. Home, he thought. “I
like this better.” He nuzzled her neck. “It’s got endless possibilities.”
She laughed. “I didn’t know you were psychic.”
“I knew you’d be back, didn’t I?”
“That confident, were you?”
“No,” he corrected. “Just hopeful....”
Sneak Peek
The next Ranger Security novel, In Too Deep.
Keep reading for your preview…
EXCERPT
As an active Ranger in Uncle Sam’s service who had performed more tours of duty than he could remember, Seth McCutcheon was used to seeing terrible things. But watching his mother die was definitely the worst “Mom, you need to rest,” he chided softly, his throat thick. Lamplight glowed against the side of her face, illuminating her smooth cheeks, the faint laugh lines around her eyes. She was fifty-two. Too young to be at the end of her life, a vibrant one that had been spent making sure that he and his little sister had been provided for. His gaze slid to the vase of daisies on her nightstand, her “happy” flowers, and his lips twitched in a weary smile.
“Tired of losing to me, are you?” his mother asked, a weak laugh shaking her unbelievably frail shoulders. She looked up from the cards in her hand and eyed him shrewdly. “You’re not letting me win, are you?”
Under the circumstances he would have, but it hadn’t been necessary. She’d always been able to beat him at poker, one of the few people who had, if he was quite honest. She’d taught him, after all. It only seemed fitting.
“You know damned well I’m not letting you win,” he told her, rolling his shoulders against the ache that had settled there. He’d been sitting at her bedside for hours, afraid to leave, afraid to miss a single second with her in case the next might be her last. “You’re trouncing me,” he complained good-naturedly. “If I were letting you win, I’d at least put on a good enough show that you wouldn’t know it”
She hummed under her breath, consulting her cards. “True enough, I suppose, but I do wish you’d make more of an effort, Seth. I’m about to up the ante in a way that’s going to seriously impact your future. You’d do well to get your head in the game.” Her tone was deceptively light, but he knew better.
Seth stilled and looked up. “Up the ante? What are you talking about?”
She smiled wearily. “I have little use for money,” she said. “Soon enough I’m not going to need it I—”
“Mom,” he interrupted, panic and dread making his heart race.
She set her cards aside, then reached over and took his hand. Her bright blue eyes were soft and full of compassion. Comforting him, when it should have been the other way around. Jeez God, how was he going to get through this?
“Seth, I know that you don’t want to have this conversation, but it’s one that has to take place. There are things we have to ta
lk about before I shuffle off this mortal coil,” she said in an attempt to season the terrible conversation with humor. “You know that. Please just listen.”
She was right He didn’t want to have the conversation, he’d never imagined that they’d be having it so soon. They’d only found the cancer four months ago—in her brain, no less. She’d undergone high doses of chemotherapy, causing her to lose more than twenty pounds and all of her hair. She currently wore an outrageous long blond wig, one that put him in mind of a Barbie doll. He’d been shocked when he’d first seen her in it— the first of many—but she’d merely laughed and said that the good Lord hadn’t blessed her with long hair of any sort and that this provided the perfect opportunity to try out different styles. Her glass was firmly half-full, even in the midst of this horrible disease. Seth looked heavenward and gave a grunt, his chest feeling as if it were locked in Satan’s vise grip.
Only his mother.
His eyes burned, but he tried for a smile all the same and gave her hand a squeeze. She was right. They couldn’t put it off much longer. She was getting weaker every day—in part, he was sure, because she refused to sleep more than a couple of hours at a time. She’d even made both him and his sister promise to wake her. She didn’t want to waste whatever time she had left by sleeping, she’d said. Were their positions reversed, Seth knew he’d likely feel the same way. Still...
He finally nodded, silently encouraging her to go on.
“Let’s get the grisly part over first, shall we? I don’t want a traditional funeral.”
He snorted before he could stop himself.
She laughed. “Yes, yes, I know. I’m predictably unpredictable, but I don’t care. The idea of all my friends and family gawking over my dead body lying in a coffin, talking about how ‘good’ I look while I’m dead, for pity’s sake, is just more than I can bear. Cremate me and scatter my ashes among my roses, where I’ll do some good.”
So that she’d still be useful...and still here. How was he going to get through this? he wondered again. How was the world going to go on when she was no longer a part of it? She’d always been there for him. Bandaging scraped knees, nursing colds, tossing the football with him in the backyard. A constant source of love and encouragement, one he’d realized too late he’d taken for granted.
“My will is in the desk over there,” she said, jerking her head in that direction. She picked up her cards once more. “It’s simple enough. I don’t have much, but what I have is yours and your sister’s.” She paused. “I want Katie to have the house. Since Rat Bastard left she’s been having a hard time making ends meet and I don’t want that for her and Mitchell.”
Seth was in full agreement there. “Rat Bastard’s” real name was actually Michael, and he’d recently left Seth’s sister and child and moved in with the girl who worked as the jelly doughnut filler at the local pastry shop. When the time was right, Seth fully intended to pay a visit to Michael and give him a lesson in how to treat a lady, most specifically, his sister.
He’d already given that same lesson to his father, the faithless, miserable, weak-willed son of a bitch.
“I’ve had the house appraised,” his mother continued. “And I’ve made provisions in the will to offset what your part would have been if I hadn’t left the house to Katie.”
“Mom, you didn’t have to do that. She can have it all. I don’t want—”
“Fair is fair,” she insisted. “I’ve been paying those life insurance premiums all these years just in case something happened and it’s a comfort for me to know that your sister will have this house and you’ll have a little money to put toward your own.”
Because he didn’t want to upset her, he didn’t point out the obvious. Seth didn’t need a “home.” His home was in the military.
She smiled weakly. “I know what you’re thinking, son, and that’s where my ante comes in. When I’m gone, your sister and Mitchell aren’t going to have anyone—” She swallowed, betraying the first crack in her resolve. That single fissure absolutely shattered him. “And I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew that you’d be coming home when your contract runs out.”
“Mom,” he said, shaking his head. Not this, anything but this. “You know—”
“I do know, Seth,” she interrupted. “I know that you love your job, that the military has been your life. I do know,” she repeated softly. “It pains me to ask and hurts even more that I have to.” She swallowed again. “But I also know that if something happened to you, Katie and Mitchell would be completely, utterly alone...and I just can’t bear that. And neither could they.”
It was a terribly bleak picture, but one that was equally accurate, should the worst happen. He thought of his sister, hardworking and funny. His nephew, only two years old, with curly blond hair and big brown eyes.
“Play me for it,” his mother said, glancing shrewdly at him above her cards. “If I win this hand, then you come out as soon as you can. If you win, then you do whatever you feel is right.”
A bark of laughter erupted from his thickening throat and he watched her lips twist. “Meaning if I don’t come out, then I’m a selfish, uncaring bastard.” He shook his head. “Excellent. Great choices there.”
His mother chuckled. “I’m being shamelessly manipulative, I know, but...”
He looked up at her. “And you’re also holding a winning hand, otherwise you wouldn’t have brought it up now.”
His mother merely stared at him, betraying nothing. “Are you in or out?”
Seth consulted his own cards. He was pretty confident, not that it would matter. He’d already lost. “In,” he said.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” his mother said.
Seth laid his hand down. “Three of a kind, kings high.”
His mother quirked a brow. “You and those wild cards,” she tsked, noticing the one in his hand. “Those one-eyed jacks always find their way to you, don’t they?”
Yeah, they did. He’d actually been given the nickname the Wild Card when he’d been in Jump School, and had a tattoo of one on his right shoulder to commemorate the moniker. Of course, considering that Seth’s methods were occasionally deemed unorthodox at best and reckless at worst, the name served double duty.
He merely shrugged, smiling. “They do seem to favor me.”
His mother’s lips lifted in a grin that made a sick feeling in his belly take hold. She laid down her cards. “They favored me with this hand, too,” she said, sliding a finger over the edge of the jack of hearts.
Four of a kind, aces high.
Shit.
His lips twisted. “Well played, Mom,” he said, mentally watching his future roll out in a direction he had never anticipated, never wanted.
She arched an eyebrow, but the relief in her face was so stark it was painful. “I have your word?”
He nodded, struggling to speak. “Of course.”
Seemingly satisfied that she’d completed an important task on her last to-do list, every muscle in her body relaxed and she settled more firmly into her bed. “Good,” she said, her voice thin. “Thank you. You’re a good man, Seth. My sweet boy,” she murmured. Her eyes drifted over his face with affection—a look he’d seen hundreds of times—then fluttered shut.
“You should rest,” he chided, his eyes stinging. “Tm tiring you out”
She laced her fingers through his. “I do think I’ll take a little nap. Wake me in two hours,” she said, giving his hand a firm squeeze. “Don’t forget.”
“I won’t, Mom.”
Exactly one-hundred-and-twenty minutes later, he tried...but didn’t succeed.
ABOUT RHONDA RUSSELL
A New York Times best-selling author, two-time RITA nominee, Romantic Times Reviewers Choice nominee, and National Readers' Choice Award Winner Rhonda Russell writes hot romantic comedy for Harlequin Books and Firefly Press, her indie press. With more than forty-five published books to her credit and many more coming down the pike, she's thri
lled with her career and enjoys dreaming up her characters and manipulating the worlds they live in.
Rhonda previously wrote as Rhonda Nelson, but getting married necessitated a name change. She and her husband (aka The Sweetest Badass in the World) and their menagerie of pets happily make their home on a 166-acre farm in the middle of nowhere in a small town in Northern Alabama near the banks of the Tennessee River. If you’d like to see videos of baby ducks, spoiled turkeys who like to ride in the car, guineas who think they’re turkeys, then be sure to check her out Facebook Page Author Rhonda Russell.
More from Rhonda Russell
Ranger Security
Under His Skin, #1
Over The Top, #2
Up In Flames, #3
Going Down Hard, #4
Crossing The Line, #5
Men Out of Uniform Series
The Player, #1
Major Perfect, #2
The Maverick, #3
The Loner, #4
The Hell-Raiser, #5
Letters From Home, #6
The Soldier, #7
The Rebel, #8
4-Book Romance Omnibus
Love You More
Bless Her Heart Series
The Future Widows' Club, #1
Disenchanted: A Witchy Business Novella
CROSSING THE LINE (RANGER SECURITY Book 5) Page 14
