Page 1 of Ranger’s Honor (Lone Star Wolf Rangers #4)

KARI

' Y ou should let him wreck you.'

I type the line, then backspace it, then type it again—this time with feeling.

'You should let him wreck you,' she whispers, voice unsteady as the hurricane wind howling just beyond the porch screen. 'Just once. Just to see if you survive it.'

I stare at the words, chew on the edge of my pen, and sigh.

“Too dramatic?” I ask the empty kitchen.

From the living room, Maggie calls out, “It’s a romance novel, Kari. Not a court transcript. Give the people what they want—stormy sex and emotional trauma.”

I laugh and toss the pen aside. “You’re not wrong.”

She peeks around the doorframe with a mug in one hand and a chocolate chip cookie in the other. “You’ve got your ‘don’t interrupt me unless you’re on fire’ face on.”

“It’s the last chapter,” I admit. “If I don’t nail it, everything before it falls apart.”

“You said that about the last chapter.”

“That was the last chapter,” I say, rubbing my temples. “Until they had breakup sex on the roof during a thunderstorm. Now there’s a new last chapter.”

“You are chaos in leggings,” she mutters, but her voice is fond. “Want me to heat up the lavender neck wrap? You’re starting to make that forehead wrinkle thing again.”

“Sure,” I say absently, already turning back to my screen.

Maggie’s footsteps retreat and I hear the microwave door open. I take a deep breath and drop back into the fictional storm I’ve conjured—a heroine who’s been running from her past, a hero who’s been running from himself, and one night that will change everything.

I type another paragraph.

And another.

Then pause to check the time.

Midnight.

My laptop battery’s at 38%, and the last sticky note on my wall says: DON’T FORGET TO HYDRATE OR YOU’LL DIE.

“Okay, okay,” I mutter, pushing back from the table and heading toward the sink. I fill a glass with water and take a sip, eyes drifting to the framed photo on my fridge.

Me and Maggie.

God, that smile. That summer.

Maggie had found me crying in a bookstore over a one-star review and dragged me out for tacos and tequila until I could laugh about it.

Then I introduced her to my big, badass brother, Gideon.

Maggie moved away for work, got successful, and eventually came back—like most stories worth telling, hers wasn’t a straight line.

That’s when things got complicated. Not long after Gideon finally got his head out of his ass and Claimed Maggie, we met Sutton Blake—whose best friend, Sookie, was an investigative reporter digging into a cartel assassin known only as The Reaper.

I press my fingers to the glass surface of the photo of Sutton, Maggie and I, the weight of obligation pressing down instead of grief.

I didn’t know Sookie at all, but the notes from her investigation landed in my lap anyway.

After all, I was the only one who was a writer—the fact that I was a romance writer and not a journalist never seemed to occur to anyone, including me.

Sookie’s notes were handed to me like a torch—and I took them, knowing full well what that meant.

I told myself I’d dig in once I finished my WIP.

That it could wait. Only, no one seemed to care what a romance author might find—not the cops, not the press, and definitely not the people who’d killed her.

I didn't know her, but Sutton described her as incredibly observant and very talented. She wrote everything down, and I hate that her death was labeled a “botched break-in” when we all knew better.

The truth she died for is still out there. Lurking. Watching. Waiting.

And now it’s watching me.

My laptop chimes behind me. A low, distorted tone—definitely not my usual cheerful alert sound.

Frowning, I set the water glass down and cross back to the table.

The screen’s gone black.

No open files. No blinking cursor.

Just black.

Then, in jagged white text, words begin to appear—one at a time.

Like a warning.

YOU SHOULD HAVE STUCK TO WRITING YOUR DIRTY BOOKS, KARI BONHAM.

My blood turns to ice.

I grip the edge of the table, heart hammering.

More words appear.

THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING. DESTROY THE NOTES.

SOOKIE COULDN’T TAKE A HINT.

DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE.

The cursor blinks beneath the message. Then the screen goes dark again. Completely black.

My mouth is dry. My fingers hover over the keyboard, unsure whether to try and reboot or rip the whole machine out of the wall and toss it into the bay.

In the living room, Maggie hums softly, flipping through a cookbook—completely unaware. She doesn’t know I picked up where Sookie left off. Nobody does. Not even Gideon. I thought I was being careful. I thought if I worked in drafts and offline folders and unmarked drives, I’d be safe.

I thought if I played it normal—just a quirky author with too many mugs and not enough boundaries—I could keep chasing the truth under the radar.

The problem is, someone did notice.

I close the laptop slowly, like it might explode. My hand flies to my chest, breath ragged as the truth punches through me:

I’m not safe. And Sookie was right—if I’m not careful, the next story he ‘rewrites’ won’t be fiction. It’ll be my obituary.