No, there was no and. Not when it came to this woman.
“She’ll agree,” Vaughn reassured the captain. He’d make sure of it.
* * *
WHEN RANGER JERK stepped next to her, Natalie didn’t bother to hide her utter disgust. “Well, thanks for getting to my house after it burned down. Add that to me losing my favorite job—also your fault. Would you like to, oh, I don’t know...” She wanted to say something scathing about what else he could do to ruin her life, but...
Everything she had was gone. Her house, every belonging, every memento. Worst of all, years’ worth of research and information she’d gathered on Gabby’s case. All gone. Everything she owned and loved gone except for her car and what she’d had in it.
She tried to breathe through a sob, but she choked on it. The tears and the emotion and the enormity of it all caught in her throat, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from crying out.
She’d been here for hours, and she couldn’t wrap her head around it. She hadn’t even been able to text her mom the full details because she just...
How had this happened? Why had this happened?
She sensed him move, and she hoped against hope he was walking away. That he wouldn’t say a word and make this whole nightmare worse. All of this was terrible, and she didn’t want Ranger Jerk rubbing it in or—worse—feeling sorry for her.
But he didn’t disappear. She didn’t hear retreating footsteps as tears clouded her vision. No, he moved closer. She hadn’t thought much about this guy having any sort of conscience or empathy in him, but he put a big hand on her back, warm and steady.
She swallowed, wiping at the tears. It wasn’t an overly familiar touch. Just his palm and fingers lightly flush with her upper back, but it was strong. It had a remarkable effect. A strange thread of calm wound through her pain.
“This is shocking and painful,” he said in a low, reassuring voice. “There’s no point in trying to be hard. No one should have to go through this.”
She sniffled, blinking the last of the tears out of her eyes. Oh, there’d be more to come, but for now she could swallow them down, blink them back. She stared at him, trying to work through the fact he’d spoken so nicely to her. He touched her. “Are you comforting me?”
He grimaced. “Is that considered comfort? That’s terrible comfort.”
She laughed through another sob. “Oh, God, and now you’re being funny.” Obviously she was a little delirious, because she was starting to wonder if Ranger Jerk wasn’t so terrible after all.
Then she looked back at her house. Gone. All of it gone. There were rangers and police and firemen and all number of official-looking people striding about, talking in low voices. Around her house. Gone. All of it gone.
Ranger Jerk could be reassuring, he could even be funny, but he couldn’t deny what was in front of them. “This was on purpose,” she said, her voice sounding flat and hopeless even in her own ears.
He didn’t respond, but when she finally glanced at him, he nodded. His gaze was on the house too, that square jaw tensed tight enough to probably crack metal between his teeth. He made an impressive profile in the flashing lights and dark night. All angles and shadows, but there was a determination in his glare at the ruins of her house—something she’d never seen in all those other officers she’d talked to today, or eight years ago.
Confidence. Certainty. A blazing determination to right this wrong—something she recognized because it matched her own.
It bolstered her somehow. “That’s why you’re here. It’s about this morning.” She watched him, and finally those cool gray-blue eyes turned to her.
“Yes, that’s why I’m here,” he replied, his voice still low, still matter-of-fact.
Natalie had spent the past eight years learning how to deal with fear. The constancy of it, the lack of rationale behind it. But this was a new kind, and she didn’t know how to suppress the shudder that went through her body.
“We’re going to protect you, Ms. Torres. This is directly related to the case we brought you in on, and as long as you agree to a few things, we can keep you safe. I promise you that.”
It was an odd thing to feel some ounce of comfort from those words. Because she didn’t know him, and she really didn’t trust him. But somehow, she did trust that. He was a jerk, yes, but he was a by-the-book jerk.
“What things do I need to agree to?” she asked. How much longer would her legs keep her up? She was exhausted. She’d come home after dropping her mom off at her apartment to find the neighbors in the streets and fire trucks blocking her driveway, and her house covered in either arcs of water or licks of flame.
Then, she’d been whisked behind one of the big police SUVs, made not to look at her house burning to ash in front of her, while officer after officer asked her question after question.
Oh, how she wanted to sleep. To curl up right on the ground and wake up and find this was all some kind of nightmare.
But she’d wanted that and never got it too often to even indulge in the fantasy anymore. “Ranger J—” Oh, right, she shouldn’t be calling him that out loud. “Ranger Cooper, what do I need to agree to?”
He raised an eyebrow at her misstep, but he couldn’t possibly guess what she’d meant to call him just from a misplaced j-sound.
He pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants, looking so pressed and polished she wondered if he might be part robot.
It wasn’t a particularly angry movement, sliding his hands easily into the folds of the fabric, and yet she thought the fact he would move or fidget in any way spoke to something. Something unpleasant.
“You’re going to have to come with me,” he finally said, his tone flat and his face expressionless.
“Go with you where?”
He let out a sigh, and she got the sinking suspicion he didn’t like what was coming next any more than she was going to.
“You need to get out of Austin. There isn’t time to mess around. Herman is dead. You’re in imminent danger. You agree to come with me, the fewer questions asked the better, and trust that I will keep you safe.”
“Herman is... How? When? Wh—”
“It isn’t important,” he said tonelessly, all that compassion she thought she’d caught a glimpse of clearly dead. “What’s important is your safety.”
“But I...I didn’t do anything.”
“You were there when Herman talked. That’s enough.”
She tried to process all this. “Doesn’t that put you in danger too? And Ranger Stevens?”
He shrugged. “That’s part and parcel with the job. We’re trained to deal with danger. You, ma’am, are not.”
She wanted to bristle at that. Oh, she knew plenty
