Free Acceptable Risk by Candace Blevins Page A

“I was worried about Gen, being on the arm of a motorcycle
club president, but something tells me I’ve really stepped
in it.”
    “I was an Army Ranger for eighteen months, and
was promoted into a top secret unit I can’t tell you about,” Ranger
told her. “I gained the name when I joined, because they don’t
usually pull from the Ranger unit, and it was kind of a slam, at
first. Eventually, it wasn’t anymore, but I had to prove myself to
them.”
    “And now you work for this Aaron Drake?
Why?”
    He shook his head. “You share a little more
about yourself, I’ll consider sharing more.”
    “But ya’ll already know about me! I can’t
exactly do a background check on all three of you!”
    “We know you make nearly two hundred dollars an
hour, and you specialize in sports injuries,” Mac said. “You’re
under contract with the local university system and are approved to
work on their athletes, and it sounds like we won’t see you much on
the weekends during football season, as you’re also under contract
for two professional teams, to work on their injured people before
and after games so they’re loose enough to play.”
    “You were attacked when you were seventeen,”
Ranger added. “The report says you were drunk but still managed to
fight him off. You ended up in the hospital with a sprained
shoulder, but the culprit was never caught. You had a black eye and
a busted lip, and the officer who wrote the report thought you’d
had a fight with your boyfriend and were protecting him.”
    “That’s supposed to be sealed,” Bethany said,
her eyes shooting daggers.
    “It is,” Mac said, without even an ounce of
apology.
    “We know your mom’s been through four husbands
and was never married to your father,” Ranger said in a soft voice
as he walked to her and rested his hands on her hips. “My intuition
tells me the one she married when you were nine took a special
interest in you. You were sent away to camp for the entire summer,
and your grades took a dive the next year.”
    “How fucking deep did ya’ll look into me?” she
asked, her voice low, too.
    “They’re telling you what they found out,”
Jonathan said. “Trying to be honest and upfront. No secrets we
don’t have to keep.”
    She shook her head and told them, “I think I’d
like you all to leave now, please.”
    “Gen’s big brother and his best friend were
considered persons of interest in an incident that sent an eighteen
year old to the hospital with major brain trauma and several broken
bones a couple of days after you were hurt. They took care of your
boyfriend, didn’t they?” Mac asked.
    They could tell if she lied, so she told them,
“Yeah. I didn’t ask them to, but I wasn’t terribly upset when I
found out.” She stepped away from Ranger, and thankfully, he let
her go. “You aren’t wrong about my stepdad, either. It doesn’t mean any of it’s any of your business, though. I take care of
myself. I may not carry a gun everywhere like Gen, but I have one,
and I have my carry license. Sometimes I go to Frisco’s house and
shoot with Gen — he has a range out back. I carry pepper spray, and
I’ve taken some self-defense classes. I also have a really good grasp of human anatomy, and how to hurt someone with just a
touch. I know I can’t force the three of you to leave, though, so
I’ll ask nice, again . Please, leave.”
    “What kind of gun do you have?” Mac asked.
    Bethany looked at the three men, touched her
pocket to make sure her phone was in it, and walked to her front
door, grabbing her purse on the way out, saying, “Lock the door
when you leave,” as she slammed her own front door behind her. The
men had ridden together and pulled in beside her, so she wasn’t
blocked in, thank goodness. She half expected them to stop her from
leaving, but Mac stood on the front porch and watched her drive
away.
    No idea where she was going, she drove three
blocks to a manicure shop and went in to see if