Nicole Helm - Stone Cold Texas Ranger

There weren’t houses or other cars on the road. There was nothing. Nothing except rock and the low-lying green brush that was only broken up by the random cactus.

He turned onto a very bumpy dirt road that curved and twisted up a rolling swell of land covered in green brush. After she didn’t know how long, a building finally came into view.

Nestled into that sloping green swell of land, with the impressive almost square jut of the mountains behind it, was a little postage stamp of a cabin made almost entirely of stone. It looked ancient, almost part of the landscape.

And it was very, very small. She was going to stay here in this isolated, tiny cabin with this man who rubbed her all kinds of the wrong way.

“What is this place?” she asked, the nerves making her almost as shaky as she’d been earlier.

“It’s my private family cabin.”

“You have a family?” She couldn’t picture him with loved ones, a wife and kids. It bothered her on some odd level.

He slid her a glance as he pulled the truck around to the back of the cabin and parked. “I did come from a mother and a father, not just sprung from the ground fully made.”

“The second scenario seems much more plausible,” she retorted, realizing too late that she needed to rein in all her snark.

She thought for one tiny glimmer of a second his mouth might have curved into some approximation of a smile.

Apparently she was becoming delusional. But he doesn’t have a wife or kids. Really, really delusional.

“My sister stays here quite frequently as well, so hopefully you should be able to find some things of hers you can use.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t feel right about—”

“You don’t have a choice, Ms. Torres. You don’t have anything. And before you repeat it for a third time, yes, I realize I am of literally no comfort to you.”

“Well, at least I don’t have to say it for a third time.”

He let out a hefty sigh and then got out of his truck. She followed suit, stepping into the warm afternoon sun. The air had a certain...she couldn’t put her finger on a word for it. It didn’t feel as heavy as the air in Austin. There was a clarity to it. A purity. She couldn’t see another living soul, possibly another living thing. All that existed around her was this vast, arid landscape.

And a very unfortunately sexy Texas Ranger who appeared to be exploring the perimeter of his family cabin.

Even after being up since whatever time he had got up to go to her burned-out house, after all the time getting everything squared away to secret her out of Austin, after the incident at the gas station and driving across Texas, he was unwrinkled and fresh. All she felt was dirty and grimy and disgusting. She smelled, and she was afraid to even glance at what the desert air had done to her hair.

She stood next to the truck, waiting for her orders. Because God knew Ranger Cooper would have orders for her.

He disappeared around the corner of the cabin, and Natalie leaned against the truck and looked up at the hazy blue sky. She let the sun soak into her skin.

For the first time since before the fire, she had a moment to breathe and really think. All of this open space made her think about Gabby. How long she’d been gone, where she was... Did she still get to see things like this?

Natalie tried to fight the thoughts and tears, but she was exhausted. They trickled over her eyelashes and down her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away, but they kept falling.

She’d worked relentlessly and tirelessly for eight years to try to find Gabby, and she thought she’d been close. A hint. He keeps the girls. But now she was far away from Austin, and she was with this man who couldn’t pull a punch to save his life.

The hope she had doggedly held on to for eight years was seriously and utterly shaken.

What could she do here? What could she do when her whole life right now was just staying alive? People were after her, and she didn’t even know why.

Why was she crying now, though? She was finally safe. She knew Ranger Cooper would do his duty. He didn’t seem like the type of man who could do anything but.

Why was it now that she felt like she was falling apart?

“Everything looks good out here. I’m going to check the inside, but I need you to follow me.”

No please, no warmth, just an order. She kept her face turned to the sky, trying to wipe away all traces of the tears before she faced him. She took a deep breath and let it out.

She’d had a little breakdown, and now it was over. She’d let some air out of the pressure in her chest, and now she could move forward. She just needed a goal.

She glanced at Ranger Cooper, who was standing at the door, all stiff, gruff policeman.

She needed more information. That was the goal. Information was the goal. She couldn’t lose sight of that even though he was so bad at giving it.

She began to walk toward him, wondering what made anyone in his family think this was a good place for a little getaway cabin. It was rocky and sharp and dry. If you looked closely at all, everything seemed so ugly.

But when you looked away from the ground, and took in the home and the full extent of the landscape, there was something truly awe inspiring about it. It was big and vast, this world they lived in. She never had that feeling in the middle of Austin.

She walked over to the porch. It was hard to follow orders 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.