Kellie looked up at him. “Hi.” He’d changed into a dark blue sport shirt and jeans. His eyes matched his shirt. Outside the radio station, he’d been wearing his white Stetson. But in his office as well as now, the light in the living room illuminated the sun-bleached tips of his wavy light brown hair.
Her mother was carrying the food. “I’ve brought dinner for all of us.”
The Ranger smiled and took the bag from her. “Thank you, Mrs. Parrish. How did you know I’m starving?”
The way the corners of his eyes crinkled sent a surprising curl of warmth through Kellie, who put her purse on a chair. While he and her mother went to the kitchen, she turned to help her father carry her bags upstairs to the bedroom. That was when she saw that another couch had been added to the living room. Everything had been rearranged so it would fit.
As they passed the guest bedroom upstairs, she saw some of the Ranger’s things on the bed. She avoided her father’s eyes and continued to her room.
“Are you okay, Kellie?”
“I don’t know what I am yet, but knowing this Ranger is here to protect me is all that’s helping keep my sanity right now.”
Her dad gave her a big hug. “I’m relieved, too. The captain told me Ranger Vance was one of the men who brought down the drug cartel earlier in the year. He says there’s no one better, and I believe him. Come on. Let’s go back down and hear what this Ranger has to say.”
Kellie nodded. “I’ll be there in a minute.” She needed to pull herself together.
He kissed her forehead and left. She took time to freshen up in the bathroom before joining everyone at the dining room table. When the Ranger saw her, he stood. “I’m sure it’s strange for you to feel like a guest in your own home.”
“I’m too thankful you’re here to think about it.”
He sat back down. “These ribs are delicious. Thank you. I work better on a full stomach. Tonight I’m going to help your daughter draft her marriage announcement message for her blog. By ten it will be out on the internet. As her parents, you’ll be bombarded with questions from everyone who knows you. I want you to tell them that Kellie and I met on the circuit. It was love at first sight and we couldn’t stand to wait, so we were privately married before her rodeo performance in Montana.
“Tell people there will be a wedding reception for us at the ranch in December, after Finals. Don’t say any more or any less. We’ll worry about explanations after this stalker is caught.”
This is really happening. She eyed her parents, who agreed to do exactly as he said. He had a way of instilling confidence and trust.
He looked at them. “From here on out, Kellie is going to do what she would do if there were no threat. The three of you will carry on with your lives while I work behind the scenes. No one is to know about this case except the four of us and my team.”
“Sally and Cody know a man was bothering me.”
“I talked with both of them earlier in the day. They won’t be telling anyone about this.”
Kellie’s father thanked him again. “I think it’s time we left the two of you alone so you can get on with your plans. Come on, Nadine.”
They both got up from the table. Kellie jumped up to hug them. “I’ll call you all the time so you’re not worried.”
“We love you, honey.”
“We do,” her father said in a gruff voice and gave her a bear hug. “Do everything the Ranger says.”
“I promise.” She walked them to the front door. “I love you. Thank you for being the best parents on earth.”
“I won’t let anything happen to her,” the Ranger assured them before they left the condo. The conviction in his voice prevented Kellie from breaking down.
Kellie shut the door and hurried past him to clear the table. He helped put everything in the waste bin while she wiped down the top. “If you want to get started on the blog piece, we can do it here.”
“Sounds good, but let’s sit down for a minute and lay the groundwork.”
She nodded and followed his suggestion. He sat across from her. “First of all, I’d like you to call me Cy and I’ll call you Kellie. Next, we need to make this real.” He reached in his shirt pocket and set three rings on the table. After putting the larger gold band on the ring finger of his left hand, he said, “Go ahead and see if they fit.”
With trembling fingers, she picked up the engagement ring with a beautiful one-carat diamond. She slid it on and it was a surprisingly good fit. So was the gold wedding band. The moment was surreal.
“How do they feel, Mrs. Vance?”
Her head flew back. Their gazes fused for a moment. It feels too natural. “Fine.”
“Will they bother you when you ride?”
She blinked. “No. My right hand does most of the work.”
“Good. Let’s discuss the living arrangements. I plan to sleep downstairs and had the team bring over a hide-a-bed couch. If you don’t mind, I’ll use the half bath on this floor, but I’ll shower upstairs when you’re not here. For the time being I’ll use the guest room to store my clothes and equipment.”
In the next breath he pulled a pair of latex gloves from his back pocket and put them on.
“Why don’t you bring me the mail? I’ll go through it in case this stalker has sent you a message to frighten you further.”
At the thought, her body broke out in a cold sweat. Kellie went into the living room to get her purse and brought it to the table. After she opened it, he reached inside and took out the bills.
He went through the pile one piece at a time. “Let me know if you see something odd.”
She shook her head. “It’s the usual bills and ads.”
He kept going. When he came to a Cowboy Times magazine, he held it up by the spine. Two cards fell out along with a three-by-five white envelope. He picked up the letter. There was no return name or address. Her name and address had been typed on the front. “This was postmarked from Austin on the same day he approached you in Eagle Mountain.”
Kellie felt her stomach drop while she watched him open it. He spread out the eight-by-ten piece of folded paper. The word liar jumped out at them in big letters. She gasped. The stalker had cut them out of some magazine and had glued them on.
“This is going to the forensics lab. It’s my opinion that over the years this man has had a string of broken relationships, maybe a failed marriage, and feels betrayed. He has no friends or anyone he’s emotionally connected to. Every time he finds a new target, he convinces himself it’s love. When nothing works out, he goes into a rage because every woman turns out to be a liar.”
“I wonder how many other women he’s done this to.”
“Who knows, but it stops with you. I noticed you have a laptop upstairs. Why don’t you bring it down and we’ll get started on your announcement?”
“I’ll be right back.” When she brought it down a minute later, she noticed he’d put the letter in a plastic bag and had discarded the gloves. He’d also produced a laptop she’d seen lying on the hide-a-bed.
“I’d like to access more of your archives while you work on what you want to say.”
“I’ll send them to your computer.” He gave her his address.
They worked side by side. She wrote something, then deleted it and started again. After several attempts she got into the blog-writing mode and allowed herself to go with the flow.
“How’s it coming?” His deep voice