Page 26 of Rangers Last Promise

But Doc doesn’t look away from me.

“The person who shot at you knew about my promise,” he says. “He knew Grant left evidence behind. Now a photograph has disappeared from this tavern, and someone entered your mother’s house while you were upstairs.”

“I understand the danger.”

“No. You understand an investigation. This is different.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“Because you’re the target.”

I step closer until only inches separate us.

“I’m a deputy sheriff. I do not hide while other people hunt a man who tried to kill me.”

“I’m not asking you to hide.”

“It sounded like it.”

“I’m telling you to stay alive long enough to catch him.”

The words are quiet, but the force behind them ripples through me.

For the first time, I see what Grant must have seen in him.

The calm beneath the pressure.

The man who could kneel in the middle of a battlefield and put shattered soldiers back together while bullets struck the ground around him.

The man Grant trusted with his final promise.

I hate that some small part of me wants to trust him too.

“I don’t need a bodyguard.”

“Good. I’m not one.”

“What are you?”

His eyes hold mine.

“The man your brother asked to stand between you and the bullet.”

Before I can answer, the lights go out.

The tavern falls into darkness.

Doc grabs me around the waist and takes me to the floor as the front window explodes.

4

DOC

The lights die.

Glass explodes inward.

I wrap an arm around Mara’s waist and drive her to the floor as a bullet tears through the space where she was standing.