Ruthie

According to my grandfather, I was the “most stubborn person on the entire planet”—I disagreed. That title belonged to a man named Jack Hutchinson.  Jack was my coworker, possibly my superior, my best friend’s brother and, currently, the biggest pain in my ass.

Granted, we didn’t exactly start off on the right foot, and that may or may not have been my fault. Partially.

In my defense, hot guys flustered me, and Jack was hands down the hottest man I had ever met. Oh, and my best friend had just been kidnapped.

* * *

Five Months Earlier

I was wrapping up for the day at Ranger Shield Security, where I worked as a receptionist and administrative assistant. I loved my job. I had been here just over six months now and had met so many great people.

Archer, Wade, and Vince, who owned and ran the company, were all upstairs finishing up a meeting. We had just hired two new guys since the security and investigations business was taking off. Dane Enderson and Axel Skarsgård had just finished all their onboarding paperwork, and I was showing them around the building. Our front lobby and reception area were downstairs on the street level, along with two small conference rooms where we could meet with prospective clients.

All the good stuff was upstairs though, including our security room, which housed all the cameras we had in and around the business. Plus some cameras for a few other small businesses that paid us to monitor them. We had a weapons room where we kept various guns, knives, Kevlar vests, and a few other items the guys might need. There was also a small fitness room for the guys to use if they wanted to.

Finally, there were individual small offices for Archer, Vince, Wade, as well as Jack—the fourth founding member who had just finished up his last tour overseas with the Army. He was back on US soil but finishing up his discharge paperwork. He was supposedly flying home tonight and would be meeting the rest of us over at the pub after work. His sister, Ellie—the only friend I had made since moving here— was very excited to see him.

After showing Axel and Dane their new offices, which were right next to Diego’s—our other recent hire—I brought them back down to the main lobby to show them where I kept any paperwork they might need while working on certain cases. I had just finished and was about to close up when I heard Wade yell from the hallway.

“Ruthie! Get upstairs and help Archer and Vince. Now!” There was urgency but also fear in his voice, so I knew something was wrong.

Likely sensing the same urgency, Dane and Axel followed me as I sprinted up the private stairwell we had that led upstairs.

Despite running what felt like the fastest ever in my life, both men dashed past me, meaning I was the last to arrive at Archer’s office. They had the building cameras pulled up on the large TV monitor adjacent from Archer’s desk.

“What’s going on?” I asked, very much out of breath.

Before anyone could answer me, Diego yelled out and pointed to the screen.

“There! He grabbed her from the back door.”

I looked up to see someone hitting a woman over the head as she exited the back door of our building. As she fell to the ground, someone scooped her up and put her in a nearby car. It took a few moments, but recognition finally dawned on me.

“Is that Ellie?” I asked the room.

“Yeah,” Vince responded.

Moments later, Archer sent Axel and Dane off to follow up on the woman who assisted in putting Ellie in the car. Then Archer and Vince took off with the tablet to go help Wade rescue Ellie, and Diego came with me downstairs to the main lobby to wait for the police to arrive.

It was chaos. Diego and I fielded questions from the police, showed them our security cameras, and walked them through everything that had happened.

In the middle of all this, a man off the street decided to enter the pandemonium.

“Excuse me—can someone tell me what’s going on?”

I turned to see a man I had never seen before at the entrance to our lobby.

He was good-looking, and he clearly worked out. Dark, close-cropped hair with an equally dark five o’clock shadow all along his jawline. His tanned skin was covered with an olive-green T-shirt and khaki cargo pants. He was wearing a backpack and had a large duffel bag on the floor next to him. His tall frame demanded attention, but not today.

This had happened before. Guys who left the military came in looking to see if we were hiring. On any other day I would have asked him some questions and made notes for Archer, maybe even added a few of my own just to stare at him a little longer, but again, today was not that day.

“Listen here, shitwhistle. I don’t know who you are, but you can’t be here right now,” I said to this man.

“Ruthie, I think this guy…” Diego interrupted, and I could just sense he was trying to get me to help this man, but I had other priorities.

“This guy can wait, Diego,” I emphasized. “Every minute we waste answering his questions,” I said, pointing to the new guy, “is a minute that could be used to help the cops find Ellie!”

Okay I may have shrieked a little at the end of that, but I wanted to find Ellie. She was the only friend I had made here.

“Ellie Hutchinson?” the new guy asked. “What happened to Ellie?” His voice got louder, and he moved back into my space and closer to the cops.

“Sir, if you—” One of the cops tried to interrupt him, but he wasn’t having it.

“That’s my sister. I’m Jack Hutchinson, her brother,” the new guy said, speaking louder and with more authority. “What happened, Officer?”

Oh crap. This was Ellie’s brother?

Archer and Vince said he would be coming into town tonight, but I totally forgot after everything that had happened. Now I felt like a complete idiot. I’d been a total bitch to my best friend’s brother.

What a great first impression.

* * *

Four Months Later

A knock on my door reminded me that it was time to go pick up my new dog. Dash was a retired racing greyhound. My grandfather had gotten him for me because he didn’t like me living alone. When I met my granddad for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, he presented Dash to me, informing me he was all mine once I got him everything he would need. Given that it was Thanksgiving Day and nothing would be open, he was keeping him for me until I could go out and buy a bed, food, collar, leash, and everything else.

I made my way to the door, knowing Archer was on the other side. I had asked him if he could give me a ride to pick Dash up since it would be a tight fit with a sixty-five-pound dog and all his stuff inside my small Prius. I unlocked the door and swung it open to see Jack, not Archer, standing on the other side.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Archer lives in the unit across the hall.”

I assumed he had gotten the unit number wrong, but since I was headed over there anyway, I figured I would just show him. I started to grab my purse so I could lock up and walk over with him when he finally replied.

“I’m not here for Archer. I’m here to take you to get your dog.”

“No, Archer is taking me,” I explained, a little peeved because he had offered last night and I’d turned him down.

Plus, I didn’t want to be alone in a small space with Jack. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel safe—Jack worked for the same security business both Archer and I did. I knew he was a decent guy. It was mostly that I didn’t trust myself with him. He was extremely attractive. He’d also made no bones about the fact that he was interested in me. He’d asked me out a few times in the last few months, and I’d turned him down each time. I had hoped he would have taken the multiple hints, but there was no shaking this guy. He wasn’t rude about it—it was more like he had amnesia and forgot I turned him down, so he just tried again, undeterred when I would say no.

“Ruthie, have dinner with me?” he asked politely as I cleaned up my desk for the day.

I thought back to how shocked I was that a man like him would even be interested in someone like me. I wasn’t ugly, but I also wasn’t on the same level as the Adonis standing in front of me.

“Um, that’s nice of you, but I’m not interested,” I said, stumbling through my response.

“Not interested in me, or men in general?” he returned.

“Oh, I’m attracted to you—uh, I mean men. I’m attracted to men, but I meant, um, I’m just not interested in dating right now.” God, this man flustered me and turned me into a blubbering idiot.

“Good to know. Another time, then,” he countered then walked away before I could even mutter another blundered response.

“Archer texted me this morning to ask me if I could do it because something came up for him,” Jack said, bringing me back to the present.

“Why?” I questioned, getting nervous that I was going to have to spend the day with the man in front of me. The man who turned me into a teenage girl staring at her first crush.

“Because he needed a favor and I want to help you out,” he replied as though it was something so simple.

“This could take a while,” I warned him so he knew what he was getting himself into.

“Then let’s go.” He waved me through the door.

I knew I could stand there and argue with him, but I also knew I had a lot to get done, and I still wanted to go into work for an hour or two and get some things done. I wanted to introduce Dash to the office since Archer said I could bring him with me some days. I grabbed my coat and purse and locked up, following him out to his car.

He had a black mid-size SUV, which would give us plenty of room for everything I would need to get Dash. I climbed into the passenger seat, trying to remember if I’d grabbed the list of things I would need to get today.

“Why a greyhound?” he inquired as we pulled out of the lot. “I heard you tell Ellie last night that the breed meant something to you.”

“My dad was involved in illegal greyhound racing back home in Nevada,” I sighed, hating that my father was part of this. “He used to work at the track. His job was to take care of the dogs after the races, but because my dad also placed bets on them, he would be cruel to the ones who lost him money. Even the ones who didn’t, he wasn’t exactly nice to them. After my mom died, I went with him and my brother a few times. I saw him mistreat the dogs and spoke up. He almost got fired—not for mistreating them, but for bringing me and causing a scene. He never brought me back again, but I couldn’t stand that he was so callous about hurting innocent animals.”

“People who abuse animals and children are the worst kind of humans,” Jack uttered, and I couldn’t agree more.

“I told my granddad this during one of our many chats after I moved here,” I told him. “He said he had a buddy who volunteered at a charity that helped find homes for former racing dogs when they were abandoned after they couldn’t race anymore. He had already been bugging me to get a dog so I wasn’t alone, but I didn’t want to get one until I could devote enough time to caring for it. I think this was his sneaky way of getting me one sooner since he knew there was no way I could turn down a dog who had been a former racing dog.”

And I truly believed that. My grandfather was kind and loved me, but he was also sneaky and clever enough to pull one over on me like this.

“Smart man,” Jack said.

Jack made me list off all the items we would need for Dash and then asked a little more about my granddad, and I realized how easy it was to talk to him. We had never really had small talk before. Generally at work, we only spoke about work-related things. I tried to avoid being with him for anything else because he made me nervous, and I hated that this man had that power over me.

About thirty minutes later, we pulled up to my grandfather’s property. He lived on three acres in the same small farmhouse that he and my grandma raised my mom and aunt Libby in. It was old, but he’d taken care of it over the years, so it was still in really good shape. He had a fully fenced-in backyard for his dog to run around in, as well as a chicken coop and a small garden.

As Jack and I exited the car and walked up the steps to the wrap around front porch, my grandfather met us at the door.

“Dumped the old boyfriend I see,” my granddad said by way of a greeting.

“Hi, Granddad. Nice to see you too,” I replied then walked up to give him a hug. “This is Jack. He’s here to help me get Dash and everything I’ll need for him since I can’t fit it in my car.

“Well, maybe if you drove something bigger than a golf cart, you wouldn’t need to keep having your boyfriends drive you everywhere,” Granddad retorted.

I sighed and turned to Jack, who was standing behind me with a smirk on his face.

“Jack, meet my cheeky and stubborn granddad.”

“I’m the stubborn one? Jim, you listen here,” my grandfather said, intentionally getting his name wrong just to irritate me. “This hellcat came out of the womb stubborn and has only gotten worse since then.”

“Good to know.” Jack smiled then reached out to offer his hand to my granddad. “Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Jack Hutchinson.”

My grandfather took it and shook it in return then told us to come on in the house. He had just put the dogs out in the backyard and told us to come have a drink first before we brought them back inside. As he closed the door, he spoke to Jack.

“Hope you aren’t in a rush, but I’d like a few minutes to enjoy my granddaughter’s company,” he said, and I knew full well he didn’t care one bit if Jack was indeed in a rush or not.

“My granddaughter here is the only family I’ve got left who lives in the US. My daughter Libby lives in Germany with her Air Force husband,” Granddad explained, and I noted he didn’t say anything about my brother, even though Jason was also alive.

“The headquarters in western Germany?” Jack asked my grandfather.

“Yeah…” My granddad seemed shocked by Jack’s question. “You Air Force too?”

“No. I’m an Army man, but I have a friend stationed there,” Jack replied, and I swear I saw my grandfather’s eyes twinkle.

“Ruthie, I like this one better than the other one you brought home. This one’s a keeper. Get rid of the dimwit pretty boy,” my granddad said as he turned to me, and I knew the “other one” he was referring to was Archer.

“Archer isn’t a dimwit, Granddad, though I’m definitely telling him you called him a pretty boy,” I chuckled.

“I hope you do,” he countered. “And make sure you tell him I like his replacement a lot better for dating my granddaughter.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “He’s not my boyfriend. Neither of them are. Both of them are my coworkers, and Jack is here to help me with Dash.”

I looked over to see Jack with a small grin pulling at his face. He was clearly enjoying this embarrassing display my grandfather was putting on.

“Son, as a fellow Army man myself, I give you my full approval and blessing for whenever the time comes you pull your head out of your ass and ask my granddaughter out on a proper date.” My granddad pointed to Jack.

“Duly noted, sir,” Jack replied, his previous grin now a full-blown Cheshire cat smile.

“Ugh. I’m going to the backyard to get Dash, and then we are leaving,” I announced to the room as I made my way to the back door, hoping neither man could see my face, which was now likely turning deep red.

Two hours and almost four million dollars’ worth of dog supplies later, we were finally back at my apartment to drop everything off. I wasn’t going to set everything up yet, but I at least wanted to bring it all inside before I went to work. I would take Dash with me so he could get used to the place. I’d even bought him a second bed to keep by my desk at work. After the last item was in, I turned and thanked Jack.

“You want me to take anything of his over to the office? I’m headed there now.”

“No, I’ll get it, but thanks,” I told him.

Dash came over to Jack and dropped his brand-new tennis ball in front of his feet. Jack picked it up and chucked it down my short hall, and Dash sprinted off to get it.

“Have dinner with me tomorrow night,” Jack said to me.

I blinked in response, caught off guard, so I didn’t have my usual response ready to go.

He must have mistaken my silence for concern though.

“We can eat here if you don’t want to leave Dash alone,” he added.

I appreciated that he would consider Dash, but there was no way I was having Jack in my apartment for a prolonged period of time. Definitely not for a date.

“I’m flattered, Jack, but I’m not looking to date right now,” I tried to explain.

“Okay, maybe some other time,” he replied, undeterred by my response. “See you at work later.”

He turned and walked out the door, and I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or sad by his departure. Dash, however, knew exactly how he felt. He went to the door, dropped the ball, and whined as though his best friend just left him for good.

* * *

Present Day

It was a week before Christmas, but many of us were all gathered at Vince’s parents’ house. They were leaving on a cruise, so they were hosting Christmas dinner early. His mom had invited everyone from the security business to host a holiday meal. Diego and Dane had other plans tonight, but everyone else had made it. In addition to eating, Ellie insisted we do a white elephant secret Santa gift exchange so that there was no need to get gifts for everyone. We’d kept it simple and pulled names out of a hat three weeks before.

Cat—Vince’s girlfriend—was there with her sister, Val. Vince’s secret Santa was actually Val, and she had gotten him one of those portraits where people look like royalty. It was Vince painted to look like a king, with a crown and everything. Oh, and it had their hairless cat, Harry, sitting in his lap. And it was huge. So big, I had been keeping it at my place for nearly two weeks so it wouldn’t ruin the surprise. I had it in my trunk, so Cat went out with me to retrieve it from the back of my car to bring in.

Cat went to the trunk of my car, and I opened the rear driver’s side door and reached in to slide the protective blanket off so we could each grab a side of the frame. Just as we were about to slide it out, I heard tires screech in the distance. I turned in the direction of the noise to see a dark-colored van racing toward us.

Before I even registered what was happening, the vehicle stopped right next to us, and two men jumped out. The one who came out the back door lunged and grabbed Cat. The other came right for me. All the self-defense classes I had been taking flashed before me, and my fight-or-flight response kicked in. I started to kick out, aiming for his kneecaps, but he blocked it, so I reached out and attempted to punch his throat, but he shifted. My fist ended up connecting with the edge of his jawline instead. My knuckles stung from the pain, but it gave me the brief opening I needed for an advantage. I continued to kick and punch with all the strength I had in me.

“Stop fighting me, bitch,” I heard the man attacking me say. “Stay still, and I won’t fucking shoot you.”

In class they tell you to fight hard, but also be loud. Make people nearby hear you, notice you, so I screamed as loud as I could. I heard voices around me, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying over my screams. Then I heard gunshots.

The man who had grabbed me, suddenly dropped me. I turned to look over and saw them load Cat into the van. I jumped up to try to grab her, and more shots rang out. Sharp pain exploded through my foot and ankle, and I fell to the ground. Tires screeched behind me as I crouched down between my back rear tire and the curb of the sidewalk. I looked down at my right foot, where the pain was now excruciating, and noticed blood.

A lot of blood.