Driving Miss Lucia: Ranger’s End Book Three Read online

  Driving Miss Lucia

  Ranger’s End, Book Three

  Melissa Shirley

  After Glows Publishing

  Driving Miss Lucia

  Copyright 2018 © Melissa Shirley

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  Published by After Glows Publishing

  PO Box 224

  Middleburg, FL. 32050

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  Cover by: AG Cover Design & Formatting

  Formatting by: AG Cover Design & Formatting

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  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  Note from the Publisher

  Driving Miss Lucia

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  ESCAPED to Rangers End

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  Known now as Jane Doe, Lanie Carpenter is on the run from an abusive ex. Her cross-country drive lands her in Rangers End, a quaint and quirky town with striped awnings and little old ladies who can't move fast enough to help her out. Minutes after arriving she has a job and a place to stay. Plus, there's no danger in being a wingman/driver for a little old lady. Except that little old lady is anything but normal. Lanie can deal with harrowing rides in the passenger seat, with trips to Marco's All Male Dance Review, and even riding a mechanical bull, but John Alexander is more than she signed up for and more coincidence than she can ignore. How did a man from her hometown end up here, working for the same woman? Or does he work for her ex-husband? Only one thing is certain, whether he works for Chad or not, keeping her hands off him is a bit more challenge than Lanie can manage. But when Chad shows his face in Rangers End, it might take more than one small town and one large man to keep Lanie safe.

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  CONFLICTED in Rangers End

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  Lanie Carpenter is more than a job, she's been the woman of his dreams since he sat behind her in high school English class, and he needs this money to save his gambler father's kneecaps. Hired to find her, John can't bring himself to turn her over to the ex who lied to him, who marked her with bruises and forced her to run. Now, even though the entire town is in line to help, it's up to John to save her and show her that she is more than any man deserves, and no matter how long it takes that's what he's going to do. Even if her ex shows up. After all, she's Lanie Carpenter, the happily ever after he's always wanted.

  1

  Okay, your name is Jane. It’s not that different from Lanie. Jane. Jane. Jane. Road signs blew past and the car took her further and further away from Chad. To safety. All she cared about was getting to safety. So what if her fake ID looked fake, and if her new name had to be Jane Doe to match the falsified paperwork? It didn’t matter. Safety mattered. Never having to cower again. That mattered.

  With one eye on the road and the other on her purse, she stuffed a hand in the center pocket and counted her remaining money. Twenty-seven dollars. It was either dinner or gasoline. She wouldn’t be able to afford both and certainly not a hotel. Shit. Should have stolen more money from him. Stupidest thing you’ve ever done, you stupid girl. Now she sounded like Chad.

  No. She’d done the right thing. She would figure something out. She had to.

  As if sent to her by the angels above, a “We’ll buy your car” billboard appeared in the distance. “Exit now,” it read.

  The car had to be worth something. She’d bought it second hand when she’d still been working, but it had stayed stored in their garage, hidden away from the hard Chicago winter. It drove fine, had a high-dollar name, didn’t have any rust. Surely, she could walk away with a couple grand and something cheaper to drive.

  With a jerk of the wheel, she whipped into the lot and pulled around to the front door of a tiny metal trailer with grungy windows in need of a big bottle of Windex. The billboard had been bigger.

  Grizzly Adams, or at least a close relative of Grizzly Adams if that beard meant anything at all, stepped out of the glass and metal building as the dust billowing behind her car cleared. His green tie was the wrong color of neon for his salmon shirt, and his jacket had a gravy stain on the front, but she’d seen malice up close and personal. And he didn’t have an ounce of it in his face. He didn’t loom over her. He didn’t narrow his eyes or raise his hands in menace. It made stepping out of the car and promising herself no more fear much easier.

  “Well, hello, Miss…”

  She shrugged and smiled. “Doe. Jane Doe.” Roger Moore couldn’t have said it with more confidence. Maybe she could do this, after all.

  The big man laughed. Put a red hat and color the beard white and he could pass for Santa. “Well, what can I do for you, Miss Doe?”

  “You can buy my car.”

  Instead of speaking further, he glanced from the front of the car to the back, then walked around it with Lanie on his heels, stooping when he stooped, bumping into him when he stopped mid-step. “I can give you eight thousand.”

  Mentally calculating how much she’d need to make a new start, she shook her head. She’d paid twenty grand for the car, kept it garaged, hardly added any miles until this trip. “Fifteen.” Her voice quivered, but she jutted her chin higher. If she couldn’t hang onto the earlier confidence, she could at least look like she knew what she was doing.

  “Ten. It’s the best I can do.”

  “Do you have anything on the lot I can get for four or five?” That would leave her enough to hold her over until she could make a plan, at least, while at the same time allowing her to put a few hundred more miles between her and Chad.

  “Let me see.” He tapped his finger against his chin. “Ah. Come with me.” The cars in the far back corner had seen better days. Years ago. Now all she saw was rust. A lot of rust. But he led her to one with a rusty hood, a dented fender and a black cloud on the lower half of the windshield. It might have once been blue, but now she couldn’t tell. “This one is forty-non, nonty-non.” Suddenly, he had one of those deep-from-the-south accents she assumed was supposed to make her see him as a good old boy with charm and God’s good graces shining down on him. Her trust waned.

  “Uh, do you have anything else?” All she wanted was to make it to the ocean, see it one time. This thing didn’t promise more than a breakdown a few miles down the road. “Anything at all?”

  “Where you headed?” As if destination had a bearing on the quality he would show her.

  Lanie couldn’t tell him. Wouldn’t tell anyone, and that was only due in part to not knowing her exact destination. She had seen enough real-crime TV to know not to tell anyone. Across the road, a Greyhound pulled up and thirty or so people filed out. “Is that a bus station?”

  He nodded. “Buses in and out every hour or so.”

  She smiled. “Ten thousand sounds like a deal.”

  John Alexander sat back in his rented SUV and watched her. Every few seconds she scanned the area, left and right, in front of her and behin
d. Spooked. She was definitely spooked.

  It didn’t matter. He needed the money from this job. If he had to, he would follow her to the ends of the earth then he’d call Wright, and as soon as the cash hit has bank account, John would tell him where to find her.

  She’d been easy to track. Drove a car she’d purchased in her own name. Opened a new cell phone account, again in her own name. Dumb move, lady. He’d watched her sell the Audi, cross the street, and come out of a building, clutching what—considering the location and her new lack of transportation—had to be a bus ticket. Now, all he had to do was wait for her to catch her ride. Another couple hours, his father’s life would no longer be circling the drain.

  What nagged him, though, was what made this woman so important to Wright. Thirty thousand dollars of important to be exact. She was short, small enough to fit in his pocket. He hadn’t been able to see much except her tiny stature and flaming red hair from the distance he’d kept, but she certainly didn’t seem extraordinary enough to warrant a cross-country search. Not when Wright had enough money to buy just about any woman he wanted.

  Not your business. Your business is the thirty K to keep Dad’s kneecaps in one piece. Keep your eye on the prize. Before he finished the thought, the prize stood and made her way to the bus that pulled in.

  2

  Lanie stepped off the bus and traveled back in time to an era when striped awnings covered every shop window and old men played checkers outside the barbershop. She smiled. This might be the smallest town she’d ever seen, but she had a good feeling about it. No one ever got hurt in Leave It to Beaver land.

  A clock tower chimed and she counted the bells. Twelve. Noon time. But her stomach had told her that already. With a look over each shoulder—she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her—she shrugged off her paranoia, pulled her bag higher on her arm, and set off down the sidewalk toward the “Kelly’s Diner: Home of the Mile-High Pies” sign.

  How long had it been since she’d had even a whiff of pie? Since Chad said you were shaped like a traffic cone. Of course, she’d been seven months pregnant at the time. She swallowed back a wayward sob. Chad wasn’t here, now was he? Nope. She smiled. Bring on the mile-high pie.

  A bell over her head jingled as she pushed the door open. Red vinyl booths lined the wall of windows and a glass-front pie case sat against the near wall. Maybe not an actual mile high, but close enough to make her stomach growl and her mouth water.

  Customers ranged in age from old to prehistoric. She’d found one of those places where everyone knew everyone else, leaned across their own table to speak to someone at the next—an oddity in her big city world.

  Every wrinkled eye in the place focused on her. So much for inconspicuous. She waved, ducked her head, and took a seat in the closest unoccupied booth. With her bag full of cash on the seat next to her, she hid behind a menu and took a covert glance out the window.

  “What can I get for ya?” The waitress, fifty-something with a long gray braid and smile lines that bracketed her lips, slid in across from Lanie. “You don’t mind, do ya? My dogs are barking. I’ve been here since four this morning.” She lay across the table, arms splayed to each side as if she could no longer remain upright. After a second, she sat up and smiled, taking ten years with her.

  “Sure.” In truth, this was a little too close for Lanie who hadn’t been out in the world since she’d lost the baby and Chad hid her away as if she was too damaged to subject onto other humans. No, she wouldn't think about that. Not here. Not now. Never again.

  “Where you from?”

  “New York.” She’d practiced the lie so often over the last few days, she didn’t even blink as she spoke.

  “You don’t sound like New York and you’re too young to be Mable’s daughter.” Fabulous. Sherlock Holmes had decided to try her hand at waitressing. She cocked her head, sizing Lanie up.

  “No. I, um, I don’t know Mable. Uh…I’m actually… Do you know of anywhere hiring?” Oh God. She sounded desperate, weak. No. That wouldn’t do. She cleared her throat. “I need a job.”

  The waitress’s eyes widened. “You know what?" She patted Lanie’s hand with a warm one of her own. No flinch and Lanie didn’t jerk away. She considered it a win since she’d lately been so deprived of positive human contact. “Lucia needs a driver. It’s probably great pay. She has more money than the good Lord himself, don’t you know.” She leaned in close. “There’s no reason that old bat cain’t drive herself around, but she’s too rich for that. And there isn’t anybody in town who wants the job. She’s about alienated everybody who ever worked for her.” She whipped a cell out of her apron pocket. “Here, let me give her a call.”

  Lanie’s head was spinning. “Um, I don’t know.” Alienated everybody who ever worked for her. What did that say about the job? Didn’t matter. It was a job. So what if the woman was hard to work for? Chad hadn’t exactly been a ray of sunshine, and she’d managed to tough it out with him for three years.

  “Oh, don’t be silly. She’s gonna love you. She always protects the broken ones.” But she didn’t dial. Instead, she held the phone and stared at Lanie with eyebrows that seemed to be asking a question.

  Broken? Shit. It had been hours since Lanie had checked that the makeup covering her bruised jaw hadn’t faded. She touched the tender spot then pulled her sleeve down to cover the deep purple marking her wrist.

  She had five thousand dollars—the car guy turned out to be a sleaze after all. He’d made her buy back the bag of clothes she’d left in the trunk and accidentally sold with the car. Now, she had no car and no place to live, and she’d grossly overpaid for three pairs of jeans, four shirts and four pairs of underwear. Even if she lived on Ramen noodles under the nearest overpass or camped out in the woods, five grand wouldn’t last long. No way could she afford to turn away a job, no matter how persnickety this Lucia woman turned out to be.

  “Okay.”

  The waitress smiled. “Good girl.”

  By the time she finally got to order her burger and fries, an old woman entered and took the seat vacated by the waitress. She had a cap of snow-white hair pulled loosely into a bun at the base of her neck, and she could have easily been one of Lanie’s mother’s friends or would have fit equally in with her grandmother and her quilting cronies. “Good afternoon. My name is Lucia Gilden. I believe Kelly explained the job to you?”

  “That you need a driver?”

  “And companion for my afternoon excursions.” She waved a hand through the air. “Stand up. I need to look at you.”

  If there was one thing Chad had taught Lanie, it was how to take an order. She stood and shucked her baseball cap, holding it against her chest. She wished she’d thought to grab one of those business suits Chad’s mother insisted she wear to afternoon tea. She felt downright dowdy in a pair of distressed jeans and the old Bon Jovi t-shirt she’d had since high school and kept hidden at the back of the closet.

  Lucia nodded toward her seat, and Lanie sat again. “What’s your name, young lady?”

  Lanie held out her hand and gulped. “La—um, Jane…Doe.”

  Lucia nodded and pulled Lanie half across the table. “We’ll get you a better name. Don’t you worry.”

  “Oh…I…um…”

  “Did he hurt you?” The old woman’s brows drew together. She had wisdom written in those big blue eyes.

  Almost to death—to the point of no other choice anyway—he’d hurt her, but those were her nightmares. But Lanie didn’t want to tell the truth. Not at a job interview. “Who?”

  Lucia cocked her head and compressed her lips. “The man you’re running from.”

  Damn. She’d thought she hid it better. Lanie’s skin heated, and her heart hammered against her ribs. “I’m not…”

  Lucia nodded. “Young lady, trust is paramount to a good working relationship. I have to know you will protect my interests, and if you’re going to start off by lying—”

  “Yes, he hurt m
e.” She hadn’t planned to blurt it out, but she needed the job—especially if it paid as well as Kelly the waitress said it did. More money than the good Lord himself.

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that any longer.” She scooted to the edge of the seat. “Come.”

  Like the lost lamb Chad trained her to be, Lanie followed the old woman to the counter where her order had already been bagged and waited with a small grease stain on the side. “Thank you.” She rummaged through her purse for a twenty, but stopped when Lucia put a hand on her arm.

  To the waitress, Lucia said, “Put that on my bill.” To Lanie, she said, “You’re going to need clothes.”

  John adjusted the lenses on his binoculars. Now that he could finally see her, he couldn’t get enough. Elliana Wright. Lanie Carpenter. What were the chances? And who was the old broad stuffing her and the thirty or forty shopping bags into the Rolls? Wright hadn’t mentioned any family, and if it truly was Lanie Carpenter, he knew for a fact she had none. She’d lost her parents to a drunk driver senior year of high school, her grandmother a few weeks later.

  Lanie Carpenter. Holy shit. At seventeen, she’d been beautiful, his dream girl. But now? Her hair was still the color of a sunset, and he would bet any money—like father, like son, after all—she still had a killer body underneath the too large t-shirt and baggy jeans. God, he’d wanted her back then. Every red-blooded male who liked girls and attended JFK High had wanted her. That was back when she was Lanie, before she started using her proper name—Elliana—and got tangled up with Chad Wright, Chicago rich boy royalty with money to burn.