Rangers: Silver-Star Seductions: A Two-Book Box Set Read Online Free PDF

was on the porch before answering. “Need to talk to you about what you saw at the Newell place yesterday.”
    Disappointment threw a wet rag on her excitement. He was here on business.
    She gestured to the swing. “You wanna sit out here or go inside?”
    “Here’s fine.”
    She nodded, reclaimed her seat and waited until he sat beside her. She picked up the glass from the porch rail. “Cider?” She offered him the glass.
    Zeb accepted and took a drink. “Been a long time since I had hard cider. You make this?”
    “Polly,” she replied.
    Zeb nodded, took another drink and returned the glass to her. “I need you to tell me what you saw at the Newell place.”
    “I already told Deputy Perkins on the phone and signed a statement.”
    “Still, I need to hear it.”
    “Fine.” She recited the tale to him without embellishment. He remained silent until she finished speaking.
    “Perkins and Hawkins took a ride out there late yesterday. When their shift ended and no one had heard back from either, we tried reaching them on their radio and cell phones. No answer either way so the department sent another team out there. I went with them.
    “We found them both in the woods about a hundred yards from the house. Dead. Shot multiple times.”
    Willa felt like she was going to throw up. She rose and turned to the porch rail, both hands gripping it. This was her fault.
    “You okay?” Zeb got up and put his hand on her shoulder.
    She shook her head, trying to rein in her emotions before she spoke. But there was no reining in the pain or guilt. “This is my fault.”
    “How can you think that?”
    “Because it’s true!” She cut a look at him. “If I’d kept my mouth shut they’d be alive.”
    “Willa, you can’t think like that.” Zeb’s hand tightened on her shoulder and she shrugged it off. She didn’t want to be comforted. She didn’t deserve it.
    “It’s true and you know it. I could have just kept my mouth closed and it wouldn’t have happened. They’re dead because of me. And…” She turned to face him, hands clenched into fists at her sides. “And I bet a dollar to a donut that you didn’t find shit.”
    Zeb’s response was to reach up and remove his hat, place it on the rail and run his hand back through his hair.
    “I knew it!  Shit. Shit, shit, shit!!”
    “Willa.” He tried to take hold of her arms but she swatted his hands away. “No, don’t. Don’t you try to make me feel better about this. You know as well as I that this is my fault.”
    Zeb blew out his breath and hitched one leg up to sit on the porch rail. “Well damn, Willa, I guess you’re right. It’s your fault that Ellis and his boys got into drug running. It’s your fault that old man Newell’s place is failing and he let himself be talked into getting in bed with the Ellis clan. It’s obviously your fault that someone decided to kill those deputies. They couldn't have pulled the trigger on their own. I can see that clear as day now. Why I should arrest you right here and now because sure as shit, everything that happened is your fault.”
    Willa wanted to slap his face. He was making fun of her. And he was doing it by pointing out the truth of things. It made her feel a little silly and that made her mad.
    “Fuck you, Zeb.”
    “Right here on the porch?”
    Willa snarled, unable to articulate a response. Zeb reached out, fast as a rattler’s strike and captured her wrist to pull her over closer. “Willa, I know it’s a terrible thing. I hate it just as much as you do but you know it’s not your fault.”
    “I just don’t want it to be true,” she said, choking back tears.
    “I know, honey.” He pulled her all the way in and wrapped both arms around her. Willa couldn’t resist the comfort of his embrace. She wound her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his chest.
    “I hate this,” she whispered. “All the meanness. It tears down everything, Zeb. Everything people have worked all their