Guardian Ranger (Shadow Agents #2)(50)
Author: Cynthia Eden

The funeral service was over. The few mourners were turning away.

Jasper shifted his stance lightly. That bullet of Wyatt’s had come close to his spine. A little too close for comfort. He’d taken six hits before and been able to keep walking. But that one bullet had almost taken him out.

He’d been in the hospital for two weeks. Wyatt’s service had been delayed while Uncle Sam finished the investigation on the EOD murders.

The case was closed now, mostly, anyway.

“I still think she’s too good for you,” Cale muttered. He’d only been in the hospital for a day; the wound he’d received had been easy to patch.

“You’re never gonna think anyone is good enough for her,” Jasper said. But Cale’s words were true. Hell, Jasper knew he wasn’t good enough.

Veronica turned and smiled at him.

But I don’t care if I’m not good enough. She wanted him. Somehow, that woman actually wanted him.

“What kind of life will you give her?” Cale pressed. “Always running off on the next mission, leaving her behind. That’s what I’ve already done to her. Our parents left us. Then I left her, again and again, on the missions that called me.” His voice tightened. “Missions that I could have turned away, but I didn’t.”

Because the man was a soldier at heart. The missions had called, and he had answered.

Jasper had been like that once, too. But things were different for him now. In his missions, he’d always been looking for something…

Someone.

Veronica was walking toward him.

I found her.

“There won’t be any more missions,” Jasper said as he glanced back at Cale.

Cale frowned. “What?”

Instead of repeating himself, Jasper said, “I was wondering, are you interested in selling your part of the ranch?”

“What ranch? I never fixed the place up and it’s blown to hell now.”

Maybe. Or maybe it was just ripe for starting over. Maybe this town was the place that he needed. Veronica was the woman he needed.

She was right in front of him now. They hadn’t been able to talk alone yet. Too many doctors. Too many EOD agents.

But he’d have her all to himself. Soon.

“I was told there’s a briefing today,” she said, raising her brows. “Do we go to headquarters?”

Headquarters. That run-down building that the EOD had claimed. The new sheriff would need a better central location. The new sheriff in town would need a whole lot.

Jasper nodded.

He noticed that Jimmy was just a few steps behind Veronica. The kid had been shadowing her. Whenever he looked at Cale or Jasper, he turned ghost-white.

They’d be getting rid of his fear at that briefing. The EOD would share its findings, and the case would be over.

Jasper glanced over at the closed casket.

No more murders in Whiskey Ridge. No more fear.

Time to start fresh.

If Veronica would have him.

* * *

THE TICKING OF the clock on the small desk was way too loud. Every tick had Veronica tensing. She knew this meeting was necessary, but the last time she’d been in this building, well, she’d been scared to death.

Almost as scared as I am now.

Jasper was out of the hospital. Finally. The doctors hadn’t let her see him once he’d been wheeled back to the O.R. She hadn’t been family, and there’d been cops and agents all around him. She’d been pushed back. Veronica remembered pacing the floor of that narrow waiting room again and again. Then she’d broken down and slipped back into the recovery room. Gotten some scrubs, acted as though she belonged and seen for herself that Jasper was going to be all right.

She’d even kissed him back there, until a stunned nurse had appeared, but that nurse had taken pity on Veronica and let her stay a little longer.

I just want to be with him a little longer.

Only her time was up now. The EOD agents had closed their case. They’d be leaving town, moving, as Jasper had once told her, as soundlessly as shadows as they slipped from Whiskey Ridge.

From her life.

“Cale Lane,” Logan said, drawing Veronica’s attention as the agent looked at her brother, “on behalf of the EOD, we want you to know that you’ve been cleared in this investigation.” The words were formal, real official sounding.

Cale just raised a brow. “I kind of figured that, you know, when you didn’t throw my butt in jail.”

Sydney’s lips twitched.

“Wyatt was pretending to be me,” Cale continued, voice harder now, “and Reed Montgomery was the one giving him the cases.”

Logan nodded. “From the intel that Sydney recovered—courtesy of your sister’s flash drive—Reed let his contact in South America believe that you were actually taking the EOD hits. Striker was assigned the jobs, but it was actually Wyatt who tracked and eliminated the targets.”

Targets. Veronica swallowed. That was such a cold, clinical way of referring to people.

“I told Wyatt that I was getting out of the business, that I was gonna stay at the ranch more with Veronica.” Cale glanced her way. “That must have been when he decided he could use my name.”

“He planned to make you disappear,” Jasper said. She jerked at his voice, way too sensitive toward him. “You were supposed to be taken out on that case in the Caribbean, but you went off the radar.”

“Because I know a trap when I walk into one,” Cale muttered with a sad shake of his head.

“But when you vanished—” Now Sydney was talking. Gunner stood, still and silent, behind her. “—Wyatt knew he’d have to find you and kill you in order to tie up all the loose ends. He left evidence at his kill scenes, evidence to tie you to the crimes.”

“The guy picked up a lot of crime-scene knowledge from his time in the Dallas P.D.,” Logan said, tapping his fingers against a nearby file. “Seems he was even dating an M.E. for a while. I’m guessing she shared some tools of the trade with him.”

And Wyatt had used that knowledge to plant evidence against her brother.

“If the EOD caught Cale, Wyatt was counting on the evidence he’d left behind to send you to jail,” Sydney said. Her gaze was on Cale. “And if that didn’t work…” Now Sydney’s green stare drifted to Veronica. “Well, Wyatt knew that there was one thing that would always bring you back to Whiskey Ridge.”

Veronica hated being bait.

“Wyatt just had to bide his time and watch Veronica.” Jasper’s jaw tightened as he gritted the words.