Page 2 of Ranger’s Honor (Lone Star Wolf Rangers #4)

KARI

I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I don’t even throw my glass across the room like I want to. I just sit there, spine straight, staring at my closed laptop as if glaring at it hard enough will reverse what I just saw.

It won’t—and I know it. No amount of staring is going to undo what just happened or erase those words from my memory.

I wish I’d never agreed to take the notes.

No one told me to write the story—but if they didn’t want it told, why hand them to me?

A safe deposit box would’ve made more sense.

Instead, I opened a door I don’t know how to close.

I'm a romance novelist for god’s sake, not an investigative journalist.

I've always been the kind of woman who only writes about danger, not lives it. And now here I am receiving anonymous threats on my computer. I suppose I should be grateful no one has taken a shot at me, but this feels somehow more threatening, as if the sender has invaded my space.

The air feels thick with static. Every breath a struggle—like trying to suck molasses through a straw.

There’s a weight pressing down on my shoulders, not physical, but heavy all the same—dense with implication and dread.

I feel exposed, as if every wall in the house has been peeled back and someone is watching me through the bones.

Like I’ve been marked. Not with ink or blood—but with attention. The kind that kills.

“Lavender wrap, coming in hot,” Maggie calls from the hallway—cheerful, oblivious. She has no idea someone just threatened my life using the same device I use to write steamy threesomes and grocery lists.

Ever so gently, I push the laptop away from me. I slide it beneath the stack of draft pages on the table. Then I do what I always do when my world goes sideways: I fake it.

By the time Maggie walks in, I’ve already plastered a smile on my face and am pretending to scroll on my phone.

She hands me the heated wrap. “You okay? You look like someone just stole your last Twinkie.”

“Plot twist,” I say lightly. “Turns out my heroine’s been in love with the villain this whole time. Now I have to figure out how to redeem a man who literally burned down her whole world.”

Maggie wrinkles her nose. “Why do you do this to yourself?”

“Because love is messy. And complicated. And occasionally flammable.”

She snorts. “Go to bed, Shakespeare. Since Gideon's out of town, I thought I'd crash in your guest room. We can have a girls' weekend."

"Sounds good," I say distractedly.

"Don’t stay up too late.”

“I won't. Night, Mags.”

The moment she’s gone, I toss the neck wrap onto the chair and pull my laptop back out.

The screen is still dark because I turned it off earlier, not because it failed me—but it feels tainted now, like touching it again might trigger another message.

I don’t dare open it. Instead, I power it down completely, holding the button a second longer than necessary, just to make sure.

Then I slide it away like it’s radioactive and sit there, shaking just enough to make my knees knock.

My fingers hover over my phone, itching to call Gideon. Or Dalton. Or anyone who knows how to turn fear into a plan. But if I do? They'll pull me out, hide me away, lock me down under the pretense of protection.

And I’ll lose the only thing I still have—control.

More importantly, I’d be pulled away from the truth. Sookie died trying to bring the Reaper to justice or at least shine a bright enough light on him that law enforcement could. And countless people have been killed by him. The Reaper is a stone-cold killer who kills for money.

I grip the edge of the table and take a few deep breaths, forcing air into my lungs one count at a time.

Inhale—hold—exhale. Again. My palms are slick against the wood, my heartbeat loud in my ears.

I try to steady the chaos ricocheting through my chest, but the feeling doesn’t go away.

It just waits—tense and low, like a tremor under the floorboards.

Ready to blow. I squeeze the edge tighter, grounding myself with the bite of pressure against my fingertips.

I’m not falling apart. Not yet. But I’m close.

The Reaper—or someone close to him—has found me. And suddenly, the walls of my house feel like paper. My skin itches. My stomach roils. I’m not alone—not really.

I need to understand what’s in those files first. What Sookie died trying to expose.

It’s not enough to inherit the trail she left—I have to walk it, even if it leads somewhere dark.

If Sutton trusted me with her friend's files, then I feel as if I owe them both more than fear and hesitation.

Someone has to finish what Sookie started, don't they?

Whether or not I feel ready, it looks like that someone is me.

I don’t know how long he’s been watching.

I don’t know if he’s in my camera, my Wi-Fi, or parked on the street in some nondescript van.

But I know this: whoever The Reaper is, he’s already inside.

Inside my system. Inside my house. Inside my life.

He knows who I am. Most likely where I live.

But most importantly, what I’m working on.

And worst of all—he knows what I have or at least I have what Sookie had.

He’s watching.

I get up, every nerve raw and screaming, my senses stretched so tight it feels like they might snap.

I move room to room like I’m being hunted.

Check the front door. Then the back. Again.

I pull the curtains tighter, making sure not a single sliver of moonlight seeps through the gaps.

I peek behind one end, careful not to disturb the window coverings, but the glass becomes a mirror in the dark, my own reflection blinking back at me like a stranger.

The shadows outside don’t move, but that’s what unnerves me most—they’re too still, like the calm before something awful.

Every creak of the house sounds amplified, deliberate, like the walls themselves are trying to whisper secrets I’m not ready to hear.

I strain to listen, but all I hear is the sound of my own shallow breathing.

My fingers slip into the drawer beside the fridge and close around the grip of my handgun before I’ve consciously decided to reach for it. It’s instinct, bone-deep and automatic. Cold steel comfort. This is Texas—we don’t reach for knives when bullets work faster.

I stand in the center of my kitchen, barefoot in yoga pants with my Glock held low but ready, like I’m auditioning for the world’s most anxiety-ridden version of Home Defense Barbie.

The safety’s off. My finger’s resting along the frame, not the trigger—just like Gideon taught me.

But my pulse is screaming, and the chill racing through my body has nothing to do with poor trigger discipline.

There's a knock at the door.

I jump, my heart trying to punch its way out of my chest. For one ridiculous second, I think he’s here. That he didn’t just send a warning—he came to deliver on it.

Another knock.

Three slow raps. Confident. Measured. Military.

Definitely not a pizza guy. I glance at the wall clock. 12:23 a.m. I creep to the door and peek through the side window.

And there he is…Dalton Calhoun.

All six-foot-something of muscled, tactical-grade wolf shifter, standing on my porch like he’s not the human embodiment of a growl.

The man has no right looking that gorgeous at this hour.

Broad shoulders, camo pants, black T-shirt stretched across his chest like it was stitched with military precision. His stance screams predator.

I open the door an inch and narrow my eyes. “Tell me you’re not here to mansplain how to make coffee at midnight.”

“Your brother sent me.”

I let the door swing open farther. “Of course he did.”

Dalton steps inside without asking, gaze sweeping the room like he’s cataloging every window, door, and lamp I could use as a weapon—or he could. It’s not subtle. It’s not meant to be.

“Did Gideon tell you I’m not a morning person?” I ask. “Because this is technically morning.”

“I’m not here for small talk.” His voice is low. Controlled. The kind of tone that makes most people shut up and listen.

Unfortunately for him, I’m not most people.

“So this is what? A surprise slumber party? Do I get to pick which corner you glower from?”

He gives me a look. Not annoyed. Not amused. Just... intense.

The moment I catch his scent, my pulse spikes.

Danger. And I know its name—Dalton Calhoun.

He just walked in like he owns the place.

He doesn’t. The last time he was here my place had an extra layer of chaos by the stuff I got from Sookie—a woman I’d never met, but whose work had been entrusted to me.

Corkboards crisscrossed with red string, coffee cups in varying states of abandonment, open files, white boards and sticky notes had been added to my workspace.

All those leads? Dead ends. Which made walking away feel almost reasonable—until tonight.

With a looming deadline, I’d catalogued everything—tidy folders, labeled files, neat denial. I planned to pick up the trail again once my current manuscript was done.

“Kari,” Dalton says, and somehow my name sounds like a warning. Or a vow.

I swallow.

“You know your brother. He knows Maggie is here and he wanted me to check on you. I was going to call you in the morning,” he adds. “Plans changed.”

“Define changed.”

“We have reason to believe The Reaper has resurfaced.”

Ice slithers down my spine.

“I know.”

His eyes narrow. “What do you mean, ‘you know’?”

I hesitate for half a second too long.

“Start talking, Kari.”

I cross my arms and lean against the doorframe. “After that initial rush, I listened to Gideon and put all of the stuff from Sookie away on a flash drive. I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I have my own life and career to think about.”

“And now?” he asks suspiciously.