Guardian Ranger (Shadow Agents 2)

Epilogue

Cale watched the sun as it slowly dipped below the horizon. It was so red, like blood in the sky. Seemed as if he spent most of his days covered in blood.

Killing.

Fighting.

“Why’d you save all those people?” The quiet question came from behind him. He tensed because he hadn’t heard any footsteps approaching.

Cale looked over his shoulder. Sydney Sloan stood just a few feet away. She’d come out of the temporary headquarters without making so much as a sound. She stood with her hands on her slender hips, surveying him with a hooded gaze.

He forced a shrug. “Someone needed to save ’em. Why not me?”

She gave a little laugh. He watched her with care. Sydney Sloan was a beautiful woman, no doubt, but as an EOD agent, he knew the woman was also deadly. A man needed to be extra cautious around a woman like her.

He looked over her shoulder, didn’t see her usual big, fierce EOD shadow, so he had to ask, “Where’s Gunner?” Because from what he’d observed, he always seemed to be just a few steps away from Sydney.

She frowned at his question. Then she shrugged, but he didn’t find the move to be as careless as she’d probably planned. “It would seem that most of your psych report was bull.”

He nodded. “Most.” His “aggressive tendencies”—yeah, that part had been true. He could get more than a little aggressive when the right circumstances occurred.

Like when someone was targeting his sister for death.

“The work you were doing on your own...it’s not so different from what we do,” Sydney said as she edged closer to him. “Rescuing people is part of our job.”

“And hunting killers?”

“We do the work that no one else can.” A deliberate pause. “You can believe that when someone targets EOD agents, all of us fight back.”

Yeah, well, that was the reason he’d become number one on their hit list.

“Since Jasper’s leaving, we’ll have an opening on our team,” she murmured. Her head cocked to the right as she studied him with that too-knowing gaze of hers.

He lifted a brow. “You’re seriously offering me a job?”

“No.”

The abrupt denial startled him.

“Logan’s the one doing the offering. I’m just the messenger.” Her smile widened, flashing a dimple in her cheek. “I guess he thought I might come across as friendlier. Especially when you consider that the other option was Gunner.”

Gunner...the guy who looked as if he ate nails. The guy who watched Sydney with a fierce, protective stare.

“You are the better option,” Cale agreed.

“So, are you interested?”

His gaze drifted away from her. He’d bought the place in Whiskey Ridge to try to give Veronica the stability that he knew she wanted. But she didn’t need him or the land any longer, not really.

Cale had known the first time he saw Jasper look at Veronica that things had changed. During the time that he had served with Jasper in the military, the guy had never gazed at a woman with such desperate intensity. As if his whole world were in her hands.

But that was exactly the way he looked at Veronica. No, actually, Jasper looked at Veronica as if she were his entire world.

Things were changing now, and maybe it was time he changed some, too.

Working on his own—well, that had gotten him a close call with death. But with a team to back him up, with people he could count on...

Cale nodded. “I think I might be interested.”