Page 22 of Deception and New Direction (Ranger Shield Security #3)

JACK

“Oh my God , Jack !” Ruthie squealed, excitedly clapping her hands from the passenger seat. “ I just realized I get my cast off one week from today!”

We were on our way to her apartment to gather a few things she said she needed for her night out with the other ladies.

I was happy for her that she was getting her cast off, but I had yet to have the conversation with her about what happened after.

I knew I was being a selfish bastard, but I didn’t want her to move out.

I enjoyed having her in my space. I had even started thinking about it as our place.

I also enjoyed having her help out with my renovations.

I told myself I would have this conversation with her tonight since she was in such a good mood.

“Jack,” she said. “ When we get there, I want to climb the steps by myself.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to fight me on this like the first time?” she questioned me suspiciously.

“The first time, you were super wobbly on your crutches and I was worried,” I explained. “ Plus , I didn’t want to get caught staring at your ass. Now I can stare at your ass and admire it openly the entire way up three flights of stairs.”

She rolled her eyes, but I saw her lip twitch. “ Whatever .”

We made it to her apartment building, and she navigated the stairs with only a few minor missteps. We got to the top of the steps, and she fumbled with her keys. I hadn’t noticed until that moment that she had a shit ton of them.

“Why do you have so many keys?” I asked her.

She looked up at me. “ Everyone gave me a spare just in case. Ellie , Val , Archer , Granddad , yours, and I have the three different ones for the office.”

She finally found hers and stuck it in and then stopped.

“Jack.” The alertness in her voice got my attention.

“What?”

“It’s not locked, and I know we locked it.”

I put my hand over hers, which was still holding the key in the doorknob, and moved to slide her behind me. My own hand grabbed the handle and slowly turned it, noticing that it rotated with ease.

I removed the keys and handed them to her. “ Use your key to Archer’s place and let yourself in,” I spoke quietly to her. “ Call him as soon as you get in there. Now .”

I pushed her back toward the other side of the hall where Archer’s unit was then reached for the gun in the holster at my waist. I waited until she was inside, then slowly opened the door to her place.

First glance showed the place was trashed. Her whole place was flipped, broken, and rooted through. Knowing she was likely already on the phone with Archer , I used my phone to call the cops. I wasn’t sure if anything was stolen or not, but she would need a police report in case anything was.

Not wanting to contaminate anything from the crime scene, I left and closed the door, walking over to Archer’s apartment. I went to knock, but Ruthie opened the door.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, and I could hear the worry in her voice.

I did not want to have this conversation with her, especially knowing she was having a good day.

“Someone broke into your place,” I told her and watched her face fall.

“Oh shit.” Her voice was just slightly more than a breath.

I knew she must have been really rattled to not have come up with some quippy, non-swearing, response.

“How bad is it?” she asked, somberly, but to the point.

“The place is tossed. I called the cops and they’ll be here soon. We’ll go over and see if anything was stolen once they arrive.”

“Okay,” she said sullenly. “ I called Archer , and he’s on his way too.”

Usually, the cops had other priorities and did not respond quickly to these sorts of calls, but since we worked with law enforcement regularly in our job, we had made some good friends, and they were more than willing to push this up the priority list.

Once they arrived and scanned the place, taking pictures of everything, we let them know about Ruthie’s dad and potential stalker Mal .

While highly unlikely Mal was directly involved due to him still being in prison, it wasn’t out of the question for him to have a hand in this in some external capacity, especially with the flower incident several weeks ago.

Archer showed up to let everyone know he had gone through the limited security camera footage he had access to. Ruthie had one of those camera doorbells outside her unit, but they had their flaws.

It would have been great to have more, but the apartment complex hadn’t wanted tenants to deface their exterior property, so all she had was the doorbell camera. It had indeed captured the break-in but hadn’t tripped early enough, so there was no way to see the person’s face.

The man on the camera looked heavier set, and he definitely wasn’t a pro at this since it took him a few tries. He had a black hoodie and had come in at night. When he left, he kept his face down and carried nothing with him, at least nothing large enough to carry in his arms.

“Son of a biscuit eater!” Ruthie grumbled as we watched the video playback.

Apparently, this had happened the night before, and no one had noticed.

Archer’s camera had detected movement as well, but it was always doing that, given the location of their apartments.

Archer and Ruthie were the first two apartments in a total of six on their floor.

So , if you came up the main stairwell, you had to walk by both of their apartments in order to get to the others, which were all occupied.

So every tenant, friend, and food delivery person who stopped by was constantly triggering the camera notification.

“What a satchel of Richards this day has turned out to be,” Ruthie groaned.

“What did you just say?” Archer asked at her weird comment.

I had grown used to Ruthie’s alternate swearing over the last few weeks, so oddly I knew exactly what she meant to say.

“Satchel of Richards is code for bag of dicks ,” I told him, to which he chuckled and shook his head.

The cops allowed her to grab some personal items, especially since it appeared nothing of value had been taken. Since nothing was taken, Archer and I were leaning toward this being a targeted attack.

Archer pointed out that usually if it was just a crime of opportunity, people always take something. It may not be something of high value like jewelry or a TV , but anything they could sell and stand to make money from would be taken.

With nothing else for us to do, we got back into the car and headed back to my place.

I offered to go out to dinner, but she insisted on cooking. I’d found over the last few weeks of her living here that Ruthie used cooking to escape from things that stressed her, so I gave her that tonight. It would help take her mind off the break-in, even if only temporarily.

When we got home, she went into the kitchen, and I took Dash out. While he did his business, I made a few calls to Archer and Axel before coming back into the house.

As soon as I walked into the kitchen, I could tell she was still upset. She was prepping dinner but seemed to be in some sort of fog while doing so.

I walked up behind her, slid the hair off her shoulders, and started kissing her neck softly. Then I let my hands start to roam.

She giggled and slapped my hands away. “ I’m trying to make dinner, Jack .”

“I’d rather eat you,” I told her as my hand slid south.

She had on a flowy skirt with an elastic waistband—perfect for me to slide my hand under and stroke over the soft fabric of her underwear.

I massaged her left breast with my other hand as my mouth still worked over her neck and behind her ear and jawline.

“You’re so fucking tempting, Ruthie . I see you and can’t not touch you…” My words were somewhere between a purr and a growl as my mouth and hands continued to explore her body. “ Fuck , woman, we’ve been home for sixty seconds, and you’ve got me harder than a rock.”

“Jack,” she mewled as my fingers pulled her underwear to the side and worked into her wet core.

There was more than one way to ease her stress away, and I planned to do my part.

I grabbed all the fabric of her skirt and pulled down until it was all bunched around her feet. Then , to not jostle her too much, I turned her around and lifted her up onto the kitchen counter before sliding inside her.

After giving us both the release we needed, I talked her into ordering pizzas since the food she had been prepping was now on the floor, though most of it had been scooped up by Dash . We chose to eat the pizzas in bed before settling in for the night.

“Who knew you were a sex fiend and couldn’t keep your hands off me,” I told her.

She turned to me with her attitude in full force. “ I could absolutely resist you if I wanted, but I choose to let you win because it benefits me and I’m selfish like that.”

I laughed and decided to let her have that.

“One of these days, I’m gonna get you in a bed and take my time making love to you,” I told her.

I noticed the slight twitch of her eye at my comment about making love, but she powered through as only Ruthie could.

“Promises, promises,” she quipped. “ But I’m tired, so you’ll have to work on that plan for another night.”

She rolled over and pretended to fall sleep. I rolled over, pulled her body into mine, and fell asleep, content.

I’d never felt better.