It didn’t take more than a fraction of a second to register my girl curled in a ball with red streaks decorating her arms in a cruel parody of Christmas tinsel and Odin looming over her with a knife that flashed in the light.
It didn’t take me more than a fraction of a second for twenty years of training to kick in and for my finger to feather the trigger.
Just once.
And it only took a second for his body to fall.
The sound of the shot echoed off the mountain long after Odin created his own Christmas decorations on the cabin floor.
But for the first time in twenty years, I didn’t announce my presence before I took the shot.
I wasn't a Ranger any more.
“We’re gonna burn this fucking cabin to the ground, I grate out as I laid the rifle on the sofa beside Eve, peeling her hands from her face. “Fuck, kitten. I wasn’t there for you.”
Tears streaked her face, mingling with red. I stroked her skin that appeared undamaged, thank fuck. But her arms…those were sliced up. I cradled her top me, cautious of the damage to her as I pulled my phone out and pressed call.
“You have her?” Travis’s voice was frantic.
“Cabin. Get me a fucking ambulance. Again,” I gritted out.
“Yes, sir.” He hung up.
I kissed the top of Eve’s head whispering soft things to her. “I’m so sorry, Eve. Fuck, I should have seen it.”
“What, that your other girlfriend would be a decoy for Simon Haldon’s brother?” she sniffled as she looked up at me through a fresh sheen of tears. “That’s some utter bullshit right there, Ranger.”
“Not a Ranger anymore< eve. I’m just yours.”
She closed her eyes and rested against me, letting me hold her until the light around us changed to flashing ones I thought I’d escaped forever.
“I know," she whispered.
Epilogue
ARCHER
I stood behind Eve as she spoke quietly to her parents. We’d spent the morning clearing weeds and grasses away from their graves in the family plot above the big house. The grave yard was a decent pilgrimage and we’d package a bit of food and a few other things. Eve had taken to wearing sleeveless dresses as the weather warmed. Though she was out of bandages now, I knew the thin scars on her arms still bothered her.
We had no firm idea of how Simon Haldon’s brother had found Eve, but it wasn’t too hard to guess. The news reported heavily on his arrest in Texas, following both of us earlier in the year when he stalked her to my place. It seemed that news had followed her all the way back to Montana, along with Odin.
So, I had a new job at Red Hard—vetting incoming ranch hands, the same way I used to vet rangers. Apparently I did have some useful skills after all. Everyone from Joe’s crew had cleared out shortly after Christmas, and Pierce kept to his own side of the fence line. That was the way it would stay, as far as we wereboth concerned. Travis and Jude too, now that they understood the full story—all of it.
The doe still didn’t leave me alone, following me most days. She was pregnant now, had her own boyfriend much to Eve’s hilarity. We’d decided to choose a name together later in the year.
But for now, I waited while Eve had the quiet conversation she needed with her parents each month.
“I’m ready to head back, if you are?” Eve appeared by my side.
I slipped an arm around her waist, drawing her away from the grave sites to a rocky outcrop that looked away from the big house and its fields and deeper into the mountains behind Red Hart.
“Not just yet.” I leaned down and kissed her gently. “How are you feeling?”
She shrugged. “Good, I suppose. Then tight. Panicky. Then I see you, and I’m okay. Then, repeat.”
“It might take a while.”
“If ‘a while’is a decade or so.” She raised her hand to run her fingers across the garnet and diamond necklace I’d given her when she came to see me in Texas. The garnets represented red Hart, and the stars were laid out in the shape of one of the constellations above the mountain I’d loved the first time I came here.
