Page 7 of Deception and New Direction (Ranger Shield Security #3)

JACK

Ruthie had worn a tight red pencil skirt and a white dress shirt to work today.

She looked like the sexiest librarian I’d ever seen in my life, and it was driving me crazy.

In fact, it was the third day this week she had worn a tight skirt.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear she wore these outfits just to mess with me. If so, mission accomplished.

Her stature may have been on the smaller side, but her body wasn’t.

Ruthie worked out, so she was fit, but she also had thick hips and a plump ass.

And those tight skirts she wore only accentuated what God gave her in spades.

She had what women called a pear-shaped body.

Average to maybe slightly smaller than average up top, but I was definitely an ass man, so that didn’t bother me at all.

There was something about the way that red fabric hugged her curves, fused to her supple thighs and ass, that had my brain thinking all kinds of X -rated thoughts.

Thoughts that were completely inappropriate to be having in the middle of the office, in broad daylight, while surrounded by witnesses. Not that it stopped me.

Those thoughts lingered long after I dropped her off at work, even as Wade and I finished up a quick recon job and made our way back to the Ranger Shield Security office.

I told myself I wasn’t going to swing by the front desk to see Ruthie because she’d claim I was checking up on her—which was accurate.

But then I walked in and saw my sister and Cat chatting with her, and just like that, I had the perfect excuse.

“I want to cut back on swearing so I don’t accidentally swear at the office,” Ruthie said to them.

Ellie gave her a flat look. “ You work with mostly retired military guys. I don’t think this is the first time they’ve heard those words or care.”

Wade snorted at me. “ I can confirm that.”

“I’m not worried about you guys hearing me. I’m worried about a client hearing me drop the f-bomb,” Ruthie explained.

Cat perked up, waving her hands enthusiastically. “ Ooooh …maybe you should do a swear jar. I did that with Val once—though it didn’t really work.”

All of us smirked at that comment, knowing her sister did, in fact, have the vocabulary of a highly educated pirate.

“What are you guys talking about?” Wade asked as he made his way over to my sister.

“New Year’s resolutions,” Ellie responded happily. “ Ruthie here is going to give up swearing—supposedly.”

Ruthie rolled her eyes as she turned to look at Wade and me. “ Did you guys need something?”

“Nah, we’re good,” I responded. “ Gonna go up and get with Archer about this next job.”

The women promptly ignored us, resuming their conversation as Wade and I walked off, chuckling at how easily dismissed we were.

An hour later I came back to the front office to grab a file from Ruthie . She was on the phone, so I waited, casually glancing at her desk—and that’s when I saw it: a framed photo of me, sitting in her open desk drawer.

Not just any photo, either. One from my basic training graduation.

Well, well, well.

Curious as to why she had a picture of me at all—let alone one from years ago— I made a mental note to immediately abuse this new information for maximum entertainment.

She hung up the phone, and before she could say a word, I pounced.

“Ahhh, so you do like me,” I said, noticing her jump slightly at my question, obviously not having realized I was behind her.

“What?” she asked.

“You have a photo of me in your desk. I feel honored.” I pointed at the photo since she looked confused by my comment.

She glanced down then back at me. There was a brief moment where I saw the exact second she decided not to let me win this round.

With a sweet smile, she shrugged. “ It’s for my murder board.”

I laughed. This woman was too quick-witted for her own good.

“Do I get the murder board all to myself, or is there anyone else on there with me?”

“You’re on there with a few other assholes,” she quipped.

From the back office, Cat’s voice rang out: “ Put a quarter in the jar!”

Ruthie growled under her breath before muttering a string of soft curses, which only made Cat yell louder.

“Every time you swear you put a quarter in the jar!” Cat yelled again. “ You agreed!”

Ruthie sighed in defeat and turned back to me. “ The photo is actually for your sister. She wants my help putting together a collage for her living room. This was the last picture she sent me to print, so I haven’t put it in with the others yet.”

That made sense.

I gave her a small smile. “ Good to know you’re not going to murder me.”

“Not yet,” she deadpanned then turned back to face her computer with a small smirk on her face.

My face, however, had a wide grin from ear to ear as I made my way back upstairs to my office.

I was happy that Ruthie and my sister had become friends. When I left for the Army when I was eighteen, I had left Ellie behind, and I never knew how much she would need friends as a lifeline.

My parents had died in a car crash when Ellie was thirteen and I had just turned eighteen.

We went to live with our grandma, but I quickly realized my parents hadn’t had a life insurance policy or any real emergency funds, and we would quickly become a burden on my grandmother.

Knowing Ellie wouldn’t be able to live on her own for several years, I had a decision to make.

Get a job right out of school or join the Army .

I had always had the military in the back of my mind but had also looked at college and other options too—while my parents were alive.

But when I saw the struggle we brought to our grandma—who never viewed it that way and certainly never treated us as a burden— I decided to enlist in the Army four months after I graduated high school.

My grandma fought me on sending her money, but I told her if I was renting an apartment, they would make me pay even while I wasn’t living in it, so she should view this as my rent money. I knew she hated taking the handout, but she also needed it, so she relented after I pushed.

The Army had helped me out in more ways than just helping to send money back to my family. I was in a bad spot after my parents died. I think because my initial focus was helping my sister grieve and ease the transition for my grandmother, I never had a chance to grieve myself.

The military gave me solace and space to grieve. But because training, and then missions, required your full attention, I was never able to get too deep in my grief.

Most importantly, in the Army , I had made friends who became my brothers.

I remember sitting outside our camp one night on guard duty with Vince and Wade a few days after our mission in Jalalabad had gone FUBAR .

“You guys in it for the long haul?” Wade asked.

“What do you mean?” Vince responded.

“I always thought I’d be in the military for life,” Wade said thoughtfully. “ Serve my full twenty- plus years to get my retirement benefits and pension, but now I don’t know.”

I knew what he was thinking. I’d thought the same thing until our mission had gone haywire a few days ago. Unfortunately , that was common enough that the military had an acronym for it—fucked up beyond all recognition, or FUBAR .

“There’s gotta be safer ways to get the bad guys,” I said, knowing they felt the same.

As shitty as this job could be sometimes, it still felt good knowing you made a difference.

“My cousin Archer , the cop, is thinking about getting out,” Vince said. “ He feels the same way we do. He wants to make a difference, but he’s often caught up in red tape.”

Government bureaucracy at its finest. Didn’t matter if you were a cop or in the military, that red tape was still there.

“He’s moving to Atlanta and wanted to know if I wanted to go in with him on a security and private investigations business,” Vince added.

I’d heard about people doing that. Our skills fit that mold perfectly.

Atlanta wasn’t a far home base from my sister either. And maybe I could convince her to leave that asshole boyfriend and move down south with me.

We’d spent the next few weeks chatting about it when we could, and figuring out some details, but ultimately, we’d decided we were in. We were all on our final tours, though mine would be the last to finish.

The plan was the guys would get the business up and running while I finished out the last few months of my tour and would join them. Ranger Shield Security had begun.

In the end, everything had worked out. Ranger Shield Security was now growing faster than we could keep up with, and we found ourselves even to the point of turning clients down. We had plans to hire more people, but that took time.

But this was a good problem to have and one that I was proud to be a part of.

I still suffered from PTSD from time to time, but so had the men I’d served with, so they understood.

It was after my second deployment that I realized I likely had PTSD .

I only had a mild case, but I knew enough of the symptoms from other comrades to know the signs.

Not wanting to go down that dark hole too far, I first reached out to our military chaplain about it, because, similar to a priest, they weren’t obligated to share anything you told them in confidence—and there was definitely a stigma to PTSD , even nowadays.

The chaplain had set me up with a counselor confidentially through the VA office.

Many people didn’t realize how important the VA was to military personnel or veterans.

For me, it was a lifeline. That counselor helped me out greatly, and while my PTSD wasn’t gone completely, I was able to live my life and not let it control me like it did some other friends I’d served with.

I came home from my final deployment— PTSD in check—happy to know my sister had moved into my place. I hadn’t known the whole story at the time but just knew that she had gotten rid of that douchebag she was dating. Then I found out she and Wade were an item and practically living together.

Admittedly, that bothered me a bit at first, but I knew Wade was a good, honest guy, and I saw the way he was with Ellie . He would lay down his life in an instant for her, and that was what she needed. Especially after the last prick.

I knew it was complicated for them in the beginning because he was her manager at the bar, so they were worried about a conflict of interest, but it all worked out in the end.

Hopefully that would bode well for me too, since I had every intention of also pursuing a workplace relationship with Ruthie .

I just needed to get her on board with that idea.