Stone Cold Christmas Ranger

“I was eight. Whatever my brothers were doing, I had no part in.”

“Brothers?”

She didn’t move, didn’t say anything, but Bennet nearly smiled. She’d slipped up and given him more information than he’d had. He’d known Alyssa was connected, but he hadn’t known how close.

Yeah, she was going to be exactly what he needed. “I’d like you to look at the picture of the Jane Doe and let me know if you remember ever seeing her with your brothers. It’s not an incredibly graphic picture, but it can be disconcerting for some people to view pictures of dead bodies.”

Alyssa rolled her eyes and snatched up the picture. “I work as a bounty hunter. I think I can stand the sight of a...” But she trailed off and paled. She sank into the folding chair so hard it broke and she fell to the ground.

Bennet was at her side not quite in time to keep her ass from hitting the floor. “Are you okay?”

She was shaking, seemed not to have noticed she’d broken a chair and was sitting in its debris, the picture fisted in her hand.

“Alyssa?”

When she finally brought her gaze to his, those brown eyes were wide and wet and she was clearly in shock.

“Where’d you get this?” she demanded in a whisper, her hands shaking. Hell, her whole body was shaking. Her brown eyes bored into his. “This is a lie. This has to be a lie.” Her voice cracked.

“You know her?” he asked, gently rubbing a hand up and down her forearm, trying to offer something to help her stop shaking so hard.

Alyssa looked back down at the picture that shook in her hands. “That’s my mother.”

* * *

THE TEARS WERE sharp and burning, but Alyssa did everything she could to keep them from falling. She forced herself to look away from the picture and shoved it back at the Texas Ranger, whatever his name was.

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Her mother had left her. She’d been seduced away by some rival of her father’s. That was the story.

Not murder.

It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. She tried to get ahold of her labored breathing, but no matter how much she told herself to breathe slowly in and out, she could only gasp and pant, that picture of her mother’s lifeless face seared into her brain forever.

Murder.

She realized the Ranger had stopped rubbing her arm in that oddly comforting gesture and instead curled long, strong fingers around both her elbows.

“Come on,” he said gently, pulling her to her feet.

Since the debris of the rickety chair that had broken underneath her weight was starting to dig into her butt, she let him do it. Once she was standing somewhere close to steady on her feet, he didn’t release her. No, that strong grip stayed right where it was on her elbows.

It was centering somehow, that firm, warm pressure. A reminder she existed in the here and now, not in one of the different prisons her life had been.

She blinked up at the Texas Ranger holding her steady. There was something like compassion in his blue eyes, maybe even regret. His full lips were downturned, slight grooves bracketing his mouth.

He was something like pretty, and she’d rather have those cheekbones and that square jaw burned into her brain than the image of her dead mother.

“If I’d had any idea, Alyssa...” he said, his voice gravel and his tone overly familiar.

She pulled herself out of his grasp, pulled into herself, like she’d learned how to do time and time again as the inconsequential daughter of a criminal, as a useless kidnapping victim.

She’d spent the last two years trying to build a life for herself where she might matter, where she might do some good.

This moment forced her back into all the ways she’d never mattered. What other lies she’d accepted as truth might be waiting for her?

She closed her eyes against the onslaught of pain. And fear.

“My brothers didn’t murder my mother, Ranger Stevens,” Alyssa managed, though her voice was rusty. “I know they’re not exactly heroes, but they never would have killed my mother.”

“Okay.” He was quiet for a few humming seconds. “Maybe you’d like to help me find out who did.”

She didn’t move, didn’t emote. She’d worked with law enforcement before, but she was careful about it. They usually didn’t know her name or her friends. They definitely didn’t know her connection to the Jimenez family.

This man knew all of that and had to look like Superman in a cowboy hat on top of it. The last thing she should consider was working with him.

Except her mother was dead. Murdered. A Jane Doe for well over a decade, and as much as she couldn’t believe her brothers had anything to do with her mother’s murder—murder—she couldn’t believe they didn’t know. There was no way Miranda Jimenez had stayed a Jane Doe without her family purposefully making sure she did.

Alyssa swallowed. Making sure her mother had stayed a Jane Doe, all the while making sure Alyssa didn’t know about it. Her brothers had always claimed they were protecting her by keeping things from her, and it was hard to doubt. They had meant well. If they hadn’t, she’d have been dead or auctioned off to some faithful servant of her father’s before she’d ever been kidnapped.

Ranger Stevens released her, and she felt cold without that warm, sturdy grip. Cold and alone. Well, that’s what you are. What you’ll always have to be.

“Take some time. Come to grips with this new information, and when you’re ready to work with me, give me a call.” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and handed her a card from it.

She took the card. That big star emblem of the Rangers seemed to stare at her. It looked so official, so heroic, that symbol. Right next to it, his name, Bennet E. Stevens. Ranger.

She glanced back up at him, and was more than a little irritated she saw kindness in his expression. She didn’t want kindness or compassion. She didn’t know what to do with those things, and she already got them in spades from Gabby and Natalie and even to an extent from their law enforcement significant others.

Everyone felt sorry for Alyssa Jimenez, but no one knew who she really was. Except this man.

“Do you have a phone number I can reach you at?” he prompted when she didn’t say anything.

She didn’t want to give him her number. She didn’t want to give him anything. She wanted to rewind the last half hour and go with Gabby to the hospital. She would have avoided this whole thing.

Not forever, though. She was too practical to think it would have lasted forever.

“Fine,” she muttered, because, as much as she knew she’d end up working with this guy, the promise of solving her mother’s murder was too great, too important, and she didn’t want to give him too much leverage. She’d make him think she was reticent, doing him a favor when she finally agreed.

She grabbed a pen and scrap of paper from her desk and scrawled her number on it. He took it, sliding it into his pocket along with the pictures he’d retrieved. She’d wanted to keep them, but she had to keep it cool. She’d get them eventually.

“I’ll be in touch, Alyssa,” he said with a tip of his hat. He paused for a second, hesitating. “I am sorry for your loss,” he said gravely, before turning and exiting her office.

She let out a shaky sigh. The worst thing was believing that kind of crap. Why would he be sorry? He didn’t know her or her mother. It was a lame, placating statement.

It soothed somehow, idiot that she was. She shook her head and collected her belongings. She’d stop by the hospital to check on Natalie and Gabby, and then she’d go home and try to sleep. She’d give it a day, maybe two, then she’d call Ranger Too-Hot-For-Her-Own-Good.

She locked up and exited out the back, pulling her helmet on before starting her motorcycle. It was her most expensive possession, and she treated it like a baby. Nothing in the world gave her the freedom that motorcycle did.

She rode out of the alley and onto the street that would lead her to the highway and the hospital. Within two minutes, she knew she was being followed.

Her first inclination was that it was Ranger Stevens keeping tabs on her, but the jacked-up piece-of-crap car following her was no Texas Ranger vehicle.

She scowled and narrowed her eyes. Of course, anyone could be following her, but after the Ranger’s visit and information, Alyssa had the sneaking suspicion it was all related.

Maybe her brothers had ignored her existence since she’d been kidnapped and then released, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t find her if they wanted to.

If they were after her now, they wouldn’t give up until they got her. But that didn’t mean she had to go down easy. Certainly not after they’d abandoned her.

She took a sharp turn onto a side street, then weaved in and out of traffic the way the car couldn’t. She took a few more sharp turns, earning honks and angry middle fingers from other drivers, but eventually she found herself in a dark, small alley. She killed her engine and stood there straddling her bike, breathing heavily.

Did her brothers know Ranger Stevens was investigating their mother’s death? Did they have something to hide?

She squeezed her eyes shut, finding her even breathing. They couldn’t have killed their mother. They couldn’t have. Alyssa couldn’t bring herself to believe it.

Her phone rang and she swore, expecting it to be news about Natalie’s baby. Instead, it was a number she didn’t recognize. Her brothers?

She hit Accept cautiously, and adopted her best take-no-crap tone. “What?”

“You’re being tailed.”

She scowled at Ranger Steven’s voice. “I’m well aware. I lost them.”

“Yeah, well, I’m tailing them now.”

“Idiot,” she muttered. How had this man stepped into her life for fifteen minutes and scrambled everything up?

“What?” Ranger Stevens spluttered.

Alyssa had to think fast. To move. Oh, damn the man for getting in the way of things. “Listen, I’m coming back out. I want you to let them follow me. And when they take me, I need you to not get in the way.” Her brothers had never come for her, and she’d stopped expecting them, but if they were coming for her now...she was ready.

As long as she could get rid of the Texas Ranger trying to protect her.

Chapter Three

Bennet wanted to argue, but he had to keep too much of his attention on following the men who’d been following Alyssa to try to outtalk this girl.

Let them take her? “Are you crazy?”

“We both know it’s someone from my family, or sent by them anyway. If I let them take me, I get information.”

“And end up like your mother.” Which was probably too blunt when she’d only just found out about her mother, but he couldn’t keep compassion in place when she was talking about getting herself abducted.

He heard a motorcycle engine roar past him, and swore when Alyssa waved at him.

He tossed his phone into the passenger seat and followed. It was reckless and possibly stupid not to call for backup. But while Captain Dean had given him the go-ahead to take on this case, Bennet wasn’t ready to bring in other people yet. He needed more information. He needed to know what he was dealing with.

The fact of the matter was he had no idea what he was dealing with when it came to Alyssa Jimenez.

She cut in front of the car that had originally been following her. He watched the streetlights streak across her quickly moving form, and she waved at those guys too.

She was crazy.

While Bennet had been worried in the beginning that the tail’s goal had been to hurt Alyssa, it was clear they were after something else. If they wanted to hurt her, they could run her off the road and drive away. No one would know the difference except him, and Bennet didn’t think they knew they had a tail.

It was clear they wanted Alyssa. Whole. She had wanted him to let them take her, so it seemed she knew she wasn’t in imminent danger from these people, as well.

Was she working with them? Was he the fool here?

Except when she finally quit driving, he could only stare from his place farther down the street. She’d led them to the public parking of the Texas Rangers headquarters.

What on earth was this woman up to?

She parked in the middle of the mostly empty parking lot—employees parked in the back and public visitors rarely arrived at night. The car that had been following her stopped at the parking lot entrance. Clearly her followers didn’t know what to do with this.

Bennet made a turn, keeping the parking lot in view from his rearview window. When the car didn’t follow, the occupants instead kept their attention on Alyssa, he knew they hadn’t seen him following them.

He made a quick sharp turn into the back lot and then drove along the building, parking as close as he could to where Alyssa was without being seen. He got out of his car and unholstered his weapon. He crept along the building, keeping himself in the shadows, watching as the car still idled in the entrance while Alyssa sat defiantly on her motorcycle in the middle of the parking lot, parking lights haloing her.

That uncomfortable thing from before tightened in his gut at the way the light glinted off her dark hair when she pulled off her helmet. Something a little lower than his gut reacted far too much at the “screw you” in the curve of her mouth. She looked like some fierce warrior, some underground-gang queen. He should not be attracted to that even for a second.

Apparently some parts of his anatomy weren’t as interested in law and order as his brain was.

“What are you guys? Chicken?” Alyssa called out.

Bennet nearly groaned. She would have to be the kind of woman who’d provoke them.

“How about this—you send a message to my brothers. You tell them if they want me, they can come get me themselves. No cut-rate, brainless thug is going to take me anywhere I don’t want to go.”

The engine revved, and Bennet moved closer. He wasn’t going to let these men take his only lead on this case. Even if she was trying to get herself killed.

But in the end, the car merely backed out and screeched away.

Leaving him and Alyssa in a mostly empty parking lot.

She turned to face him as if she’d known he was there all along. “I bet that got their attention, huh?” she said. She didn’t walk toward him, so he walked to her.

“Yes. How smart. Piss off your criminal brothers you claim to have nothing to do with so they come after you.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“I thought you wanted me to let them take you.” Which he never would have done.

“I was going to, but then I saw what cut-rate weaklings they sent after me. Afraid of a little Texas Ranger parking lot.” She made a scoffing sound. “The only way to really get some answers is to get inside again, but guys like that? Dopes with guns? Yeah, I’m not risking my life with them. My brothers can come get me themselves if it’s that important to them.”

“You’re not going back inside that family.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Since when did you become my keeper?”

“Since I’m the reason you think you need to go back there. We’ll investigate this from the outside. You don’t need to be on the inside.” He’d sacrifice a lot to actually accomplish something, but not someone else’s life.

“Shows what you know. Not a damn thing. I’ve been gone a long time, but I still know how the Jimenez family works. I can get the answers we need.”

“We need?”

She looked at her motorcycle, helmet still dangling from her fingertips. He’d watched her shake and tremble apart after seeing her mother’s picture, but she was nothing but strength and certainty now.

Again, Bennet couldn’t help but wonder if he was the sucker here, if he was being pulled into something that would end up making a fool out of him. But he’d come too far to back out. Gotten the okay on this case, gotten to Alyssa. He had to keep moving forward.

“My brothers didn’t murder our mom,” she said, raising her gaze to his. Strong and sure. “I know they didn’t. I’m going to prove it. To you. And when you find out who really did it, you can bring them to justice.”

Her voice shook at the end, though her shoulders-back, chin-up stance didn’t change.

He couldn’t trust her. She was related to one of the biggest drug cartels in the state. And while Gabby and Natalie had befriended her, and Vaughn thought she hadn’t had contact with her brothers in years, this felt awfully coincidental.

She must have seen the direction of his thoughts. “You don’t have to trust me, Ranger Stevens. You just have to stay out of my way.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” No matter what it took, he had knocked over whatever domino was creating these events. He was part of it, and whether he trusted her or not, he had some responsibility for bringing her into this.

“They must have my office bugged,” Alyssa said, scowling. “The timing is too coincidental, too weird. It’s been two years since the kidnapping rescue, and they’ve left me alone. They had to have heard you questioning me. So, they know. You have to stay out of my way so we can know what’s really going on.”

“How can you think they had nothing to do with it if they’re stepping in now when they supposedly know what I’m after?”

“They didn’t kill our mother, but cartel business is tricky. Complicated. Their never identifying her when she was Jane Doe, it could be purposeful or they feel like they can’t now or... I don’t know, but I have to find out. I’m going in. You can’t stop me, and God knows you can’t stop them.”

He didn’t agree with that. He could put a security detail on her, keep her safe and away from her brothers for the foreseeable future. Even if the Rangers pulled support, he had enough of his own money to make it so.

But it’d be awfully hard to make it so when she was so determined, and it’d make it harder to get the information he needed. It would make it almost impossible to solve this case.

He studied her, looking at him so defiantly, as if she was the one in charge here. As if she could stand up to him, toe-to-toe, over and over again. Some odd thing shuddered through him, a gut feeling he didn’t want to pay attention to.

He’d made his decision, so there was only one way to settle this. “If you’re going in, then I’m going in with you.”

* * *

AND THIS TEXAS Ranger thought she was crazy.

“You think you’re going to come with me. You think in any world my brothers would allow a Texas Ranger into their home or office or whatever without, oh, say killing you and making sure no one ever found out about it?”

“Except you.”

Unfortunately, he had a point. Also unfortunately, her last name might keep her safe for the most part when it came to the Jimenez family, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt, if she outright betrayed her family, she’d be killed.

Like your mother.

She couldn’t get over it, so she just kept pushing the reality out of her mind as much as she could. Still, it lingered in whispers. Murdered. Murdered. Murdered. How on earth could Mom have been murdered? It didn’t make any sense.

Except she left. Betrayed your father. Maybe it makes all the sense in the world.

She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She couldn’t focus on possibility. She had to focus on truth.

“I can handle this,” Ranger Stevens said resolutely.

“No. You can handle being a Texas Ranger. You can handle being a cop. You can’t handle being inside a drug cartel. Even if they let you, you’d want to arrest everyone. And trust me, that wouldn’t go well for you.”

“They didn’t hurt you. They ran away.”

“Of course they didn’t hurt me. Even if I’m not involved in the business, I’m the daughter of a cartel kingpin. I’m the sister of the people who run it. They hurt me, they’re dead. It’s a matter of honor, but that doesn’t mean that protection extends to you.” Or to her, if she betrayed Jimenez.

“So we’ll have to find a way for them to think it’s a matter of honor not to kill me.”

“How on earth do you suggest we do that?”

“I have a few ideas, but I’m not discussing them here in this parking lot.” He gestured toward the Texas Rangers building.

Alyssa laughed. “I’m not going in there. My brothers are going to think I’m working with you on a lot more than Mom’s...” she cleared her throat of the lump “...murder.”

“You know it isn’t just me at stake here. Natalie and Gabby. Their families. They’re a part of your life, and now—”

She took a threatening step toward him—or it might have been threatening, if he wasn’t about six inches taller than her and twice as wide. “You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I have made my life very separate so they would never get pulled into this if I had to be?”

“I don’t know you at all, Alyssa. I don’t know what your plans are.”

“My plan is to live a normal life. That’s all I want.” She realized, too late, she’d yelled it, shaking all over again. Normal had seemed almost within reach lately, and then this Texas Ranger had walked into her office and everything had changed.

She was Alyssa Jimenez again. Not bounty hunter and friend, not even kidnapping victim, or the inconsequential relative of very consequential people. She was in danger and in trouble, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

He reached out, and she hated that something like a simple touch on her arm could just soothe. She’d never understood it, but Gabby would hug her back in that bunker, and even out here in the open, and everything would feel okay. This guy, this stranger of a Texas Ranger, touched her, and it felt like she could handle whatever came if he was touching her.

It was insanity.

“If they bugged your office, it’s likely they’ve bugged your house.”

Alyssa thought of her little apartment above Gabby and Jaime’s garage. Was it bugged? Was the whole house bugged? Had she brought all of her family’s problems into the house they’d been kind enough to open up to her?

Guilt swamped her, pain. Tears threatened, but she wouldn’t be that weak. She’d fix this. She had to fix this.

“Come home with me.”

She jerked her head up to look at Ranger Stevens and carefully pulled herself out of his grasp. Everything in her rebelled at the idea of going home with him. His house. His life. Him.

“I have a big house. Multiple rooms. You can have your own bathroom, your own space. We can get some sleep, and in the morning we can talk knowing that no one has bugged my place.”

“They know who you are now. If they bugged my place, they know your name. They know what you’re after.”

He seemed to consider that with more weight than she thought he would. “All right. I have somewhere else we can go. It might require a little bending of the truth.”

Alyssa frowned at him. “What kind of bending of the truth?”

“We’ll just need to pretend this isn’t related to my job. That you’re not so much a professional acquaintance but a, ah, personal one.”

“Where the hell are you taking me?” she demanded, touching her bike to remind herself she was free. He couldn’t take her anywhere unless she agreed.

And if you go home, would you be putting Gabby and Jaime in jeopardy?

“My parents have a guesthouse. I use it on occasion when necessary. I can say I’m having my house painted or remodeled or something and they’ll believe it, if they’re even home. But if I’m bringing you with me, they’re going to need to think...” He cleared his throat.

Alyssa’s mouth went slack as it dawned on her what he was suggesting. “You want me to pretend to be involved with you like...sleeping-over involved?” Her voice squeaked and her entire face heated. Her whole body heated. She’d never been sleeping-over involved with anyone, and she was pretty sure that was a really lame way of putting it, but she didn’t know how else to say it.

She didn’t know how to wrap her head around what he was suggesting.

“My parents aren’t invasive exactly. Actually, they’re incredibly invasive, but like I said, it’s unlikely they’re there. They have some of the best security in Austin, so we’ll be safe, or at least forewarned. Should one of the staff mention I had a woman over, then they’ll assume it’s personal and we’ll just go with it.”