Make Mine a Ranger (Special Ops: Homefront Book 4) by Kate Aster Page A

walking away, Tyler shut the door
behind him, pain radiating from the fist he had acquainted with Dan’s face. It had
been overkill. He could have sent him to the floor with lesser a blow. But damn,
it had felt good to feel the guy’s cheekbone crunch against his hand.
    Climbing into Mick’s car, the questioning
happened fast. “Does he know about Abby?”
    Tyler grinned. “Nope. He didn’t mention
her at all. And believe me, he would have.”
    Relief washed over Mick’s face, making
Tyler realize the Commander cared as much about that little girl as Tyler did.
    “Call Bess right away,” he said, handing
him his cell.
    Tyler winced a little when he took the
phone in his grip, his hand already swelling slightly from the impact.
    Mick narrowed his eyes on Tyler’s hand.
“I told you not to beat him up.”
    Tyler shrugged. “What could I do? He hit
my fist with his face.”
    Pulling out of the parking lot, Mick
laughed.

Chapter Nine
     
    Bess stood in front of the sink in her
new white gi. Not her usual attire for scraping the remnants of chicken piccata
off the skillet, but Abby was hungry and she hadn’t had time to change after
getting home from the gym.
    After his run-in with Dan, Tyler had
insisted Bess join his MMA gym and learn some self-defense. Just once, he said,
and she’d be hooked.
    She hadn’t believed him, of course.
    Her first class was on Monday. Basic
self-defense for women. By the end of the hour, she was drenched in sweat, her
throat was sore from practicing her shouting, and her legs throbbed from
kicking.
    What an awesome way to start the week,
she had decided, feeling more powerful than she ever had.
    On Tuesday, after waking up with her
muscles screaming in agony, she thought a night off would be a good idea. But
Abby had begged to go back again that evening because in the gym’s child care
facility they had a bouncer for the kids up on Tuesdays, and what child could
resist that?
    So Bess had decided to suffer through a
kickboxing class for an hour while Abby bounced to her heart’s content.
    “Kickboxing is freaking awesome!!!” she
had texted Lacey and Maeve from the locker room at the end of the class.
    Then today, one of the gym’s owners,
Connor, had greeted Bess and Abby at the door with a gi. She’d need a gi, he
explained, for tonight’s women’s grappling course.
    Grappling? She had thought the idea crazy.
It was one thing to punch target mitts or kick a heavy bag, but an actual
person?
    But when Connor told her that Tyler had
bought her the gi, she had been so ridiculously touched by the gesture, she
couldn’t refuse.
    Before Bess knew what had happened, she
found herself rolling around on the mats, trying to break free and pass the
guard of another student. Not just trying to—but actually learning
how to. How many times would that have come in handy in her relationship
with Dan?
    She was hooked.
    “Hey, look at you!” Tyler exclaimed as he
walked in through the door and looked Bess up and down in her gi. Abby jumped
up from the table and crawled up Tyler’s tall form like he was a ladder.
     “Do you like it?” Bess asked,
biting her lip.
    “Yeah. You look like you’re ready for a
cage fight.” Giving Abby a kiss on the forehead, he set her back down in her
chair.
    “I’m not ready for that yet. But I did
take the grappling class today.” Bess handed him a plate of chicken piccata she
had saved for him. “Thanks for the gi, Tyler. That was really so sweet. I want
to pay you back for it, though.”
    “I’ll never let you. I’ve always wanted
to watch a woman cook me dinner in a gi. It’s a little fantasy of mine.” Eyes
suddenly widening, he darted a look at Abby as though he might be assessing
whether that comment had been too much for an inquisitive three-year-old to
hear. When she kept eating her chicken, his shoulders dropped in relief and he
shot a smile at Bess. “She’s eating chicken,” he noticed.
    Bess nodded. “Gave up the