and listen to what someone else told her to do. She wasn’t used to that. She had been such a strong force in her life for the past few years. She had made all the choices, asked all the questions, sought all the answers. She’d even alienated her grandmother in her quest to find Gabby, so sitting back and doing what someone else told her to do was...hard. It went against everything she had put her whole life into.
But she knew that knee-jerk reaction didn’t have a place here. Not when she was with a Texas Ranger who obviously knew way more than she did about safety and criminals.
She was going to have to bury the instinct to argue with him, and it was going to be as big of a challenge as trusting him would be.
“The chances of anyone having breached the cabin are extremely low,” he said, opening the door and analyzing the frame as though it might grow weapons and attack them. “But when you’re dealing with criminals of this magnitude, you can’t be too careful. Which means I can’t leave you outside. I can’t let you out of my sight. So, I’m going to go inside and make sure there’s nothing off. I need you to follow right behind me, carefully mirroring my every step. Can you do that?”
“Can I walk behind you and do what you do?”
“Yes, that is the question.”
She gritted her teeth. He didn’t think she could walk? He didn’t think she could do anything, did he? He thought she was some flighty, foolish hypnotist who couldn’t follow easy orders.
Arrogant jerk of a man. “Yes, I can do that,” she said through those gritted teeth.
“Excellent. Let’s go.”
He stepped over the threshold, immediately turning toward the left. She followed him, and since her job was to follow exactly in his footsteps, she watched him. That ease of movement he had about him, the surety in the way he strode into the cabin looking for whatever he was looking for.
He was all packed muscle, but there was something like grace in his movements. It was mesmerizing, and she had no problem following him around the inside of the stone cabin.
They did an entire tour of the kitchen and living area, which were both open, and then down a very narrow hallway that led to two bedrooms and a bathroom. All the rooms were small, and the stone that composed the outside of the cabin were used for the inside walls and floor as well.
It wasn’t cozy exactly. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t the sort of log mountain cabin she had in her head. There weren’t warm colorful blankets or cute artwork on the walls. It was all very gray and minimalist.
“You have something against color?” she asked, forgetting to keep her thoughts to herself.
He glanced over his shoulder at her, and the question was kind of funny in light of the way his blue eyes looked even grayer here. It was like even the color of his body didn’t dare shine in this space.
“If you’re looking for color...” He opened the door to the last bedroom and stepped inside, doing his little police thing where he looked at every corner and around every lamp and out every window.
But Natalie didn’t follow him this time. Where the rest of the cabin was stone and stark and sort of reflective of the outside landscape, this room was a riot and explosion of color. It was glitter and fringe.
“What on earth is all this?”
“This is my sister’s room. Which means that, right now, it is your room, and you can feel free to use anything that’s in here.” He opened the closet and rifled through it. She still had no idea what exactly he was looking for, but she knew if she asked he would only give her some irritating half answer.
“I feel really strange about using your sister’s things.”
“Trust me, my sister has nothing but things, and when I explain to her why someone used them, she will be more than fine with it. As I reminded you earlier, you don’t have a choice.”
“Because I have nothing. Yes, let’s keep talking about that.”
He gave her a cursory once-over, just like he’d given the cabin. She wouldn’t be surprised if he checked her pulse and teeth or frisked her for a wire.
She tried not to think too hard about the little shiver that ran through her at the thought of his hands on her. Those big hands that had covered so much space on her back when he’d placed them there in comfort after her house had been decimated.
She swallowed and looked away.
“Sleep.” He barked the order, then walked right past her without a second glance or word. The door closed with a soft click, and she could only gape at the rough-hewn wood.
He was ordering her to sleep? The absolute gall of the man. How dare he tell her what she needed? She had half a mind to march right out of the room and tell him she was fine.
But, God, she was tired. So, for today, he’d get his way. And probably for tomorrow and the next day and the next, because he is in charge here, remember?
She sighed at that depressing thought and crawled into bed, hopeful to sleep all the tears away.
Vaughn stared at his laptop screen and tried not to doze off. He would need to wake up Torres soon, if only so he could sleep. The tail had left him jumpy, and he didn’t want both of them asleep at the same time at any point.
Unfortunately he was tired enough that the words of his files were simply jumbled letters. It was beyond frustrating he couldn’t concentrate. Had he gone soft? He hadn’t had a stakeout or any sort of challenging hard-on-the-body thing in a while. Had he lost his touch?
He scrubbed his hands over his face. This was ridiculous. He was fine. There was only so much the human body could handle and still be expected to concentrate on complex facts. Complex facts that had been hard enough to work out when he was well rested and well fed.
At the thought of food, his stomach grumbled. If he couldn’t sleep, then he could at least eat. If he made something, then Natalie could eat when she woke up.
There wouldn’t be anything fresh in the pantry, but they always kept a few extras on hand just in case. The nearest store was over an hour away, and while that was pretty damn inconvenient a lot of the time, between Vaughn’s desire for complete off-the-grid privacy when he wasn’t working and his sister’s need for a secret spot, it worked.
He and Lucy had handled their father’s fame in completely opposite ways. Lucy had embraced it. She’d followed it, becoming almost as famous a country singer as their father had been. She used the cabin only when she needed a quick, quiet, away-from-publicity break, which was rare.
Vaughn had hated the spotlight. Always. Like his mother, he hadn’t been able to stand the fishbowl existence.
So he’d found a way to have almost no recognition whatsoever. He’d gotten a strange enjoyment out of going undercover back in the day, knowing no one knew who he was related to.
“You are one screwy piece of work, Cooper,” he muttered, grabbing two cans of soup out of the pantry and digging up the can opener.
