Page 104 of Rangers Last Promise

I go straight to my bedroom.

Doc waits in the doorway.

“You can come in.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you standing there?”

“It's your bedroom.”

The answer surprises me.

After tackling me twice, ordering me around, and practically attaching himself to my side, this is where he discovers boundaries?

“You've had your hands all over me for the last twelve hours.”

His eyebrows rise.

From the hallway Sheriff Tate says, “I can hear you.”

Heat floods my face.

“That isn't what I meant.”

Doc's mouth twitches.

“I know.”

“Stop smiling.”

“I'm not.”

“You are.”

I open the top drawer of my dresser harder than necessary.

My jewelry box sits beneath a stack of scarves.

I lift it out and place it on the bed.

For a moment, I don't open it.

Fifteen years.

Grant’s lockbox is waiting behind the sheriff’s department.

And the key that opens it has been sitting here all along.

Doc comes closer.

Not too close.

Just enough.

I lift the lid.

The charm bracelet lies exactly where I remember leaving it.