Chapter One

Chapter One

K

eaton could hear his heart pounding in his ears. Just like every time he was on the battlefield, the beats synced with the ticking of the second hand of a clock. A calm went over him in the face of the danger that awaited him. He inhaled, the oxygen adding fuel to the bravado that came naturally to him. He was a well-trained soldier, a superbly trained warrior. One of the best specimens of the 75th Ranger Regiment.

Stepping out of his hidey-hole where he’d taken cover after the first shots rang out, Keaton looked around. His sightline was clear, which did not bode well. His spidey senses tingled at the calm and quiet. War was a noisy, frenetic affair.

Something was wrong.

Keeping low to the ground, he poked his head out to gather more intel. The camouflage of his clothes made it so that he blended with his environment. Even his gun was painted green and brown to mix in with the elements.

And then he heard it. A cry. A shot.

They sounded one after the other. Keaton’s ears perked like a dog coming alert. Before storming into action, he deduced what he’d learned.

The cry had come from the left side. The shot had come from behind him. The blast from the gun had gone over his head. The cry from a human throat had come before the shot. There was no resulting thump of a body.

A tingle went up to his spine. Keaton rolled over onto his back just in time. A grizzly bear of a man was on him, weapon rising.

That’s where the bear went wrong. A rising weapon was completely ineffective. Keaton’s weapon was at the ready. His finger already on the trigger, which he squeezed.

The grizzly’s body jerked from the direct hit. Pink paint-splattered exactly where his heart would lay if the traitor had one. Keaton fired off another and then another round.

“Hey,” growled the grizzly man. “I’m down.”

“You know you’re on my team, right?” said Keaton.

Griffin “Grizz” Hayes grinned. His incisors glinted in the midday sun like a predator who knew he’d cornered his prey. Keaton knew that look. It was the same look Grizz had given him back in Basic Training when he decided to prank their drill sergeant.

Sergeant Cook never saw it coming. The sadistic sergeant never figured out who’d put Gorilla Glue on the inside of his hat. The entire squad had paid for that prank for months in extra drills in the middle of the night. But it had been worth it to stick it to that demon-born drill sergeant. The red marks of the glue had taken just as long to heal, reminding the soldiers of their revenge every day they ate mud and missed sleep.

So, why had Grizz turned on his best friend now? And why was he grinning after he’d been caught? The spidey tingles crawled over Keaton’s skin again.

Keaton didn’t remain glued to his spot. He hit the ground just as more shots rang out. Grizz let out a roar of laughter. So, it was a mutiny. His entire team was out to get him.

What for?

It couldn’t be the late-night planning session Keaton held them in until well after one in the morning last Saturday. It couldn’t be the fact that Keaton changed his mind twice, on which supplier to use, causing them to redo the books over again, and then again. It couldn’t be the fact that he’d promised General Strauss that his team would have their Ranger Training Camp ready in just ninety days when the team had originally planned to take half a year to get things in gear, which didn’t include any downtime after separating from the military.

The shots coming at him from all four directions told Keaton he was wrong. They’d divided into two equal teams, three on each. But the four remaining men all aimed their weapons at him.

Keaton was undaunted. As the leader of his team, he saw how he could use this mutiny as a teachable moment. A plan formed in his mind. He only had time to come up with two variables in case Plan A didn’t work instead of his standard three. With the main plan and two backups, he moved into action.

Mac Kenzie’s gaze connected with his. The recognition dawned in Mac’s eyes. The two had been in many tough situations together. Enough that they could communicate without using words.

So Mac, or Mackenzie as everyone simply pushed his first and last name together, saw Keaton’s entire plan in one glance. But again, Keaton was already locked and loaded a second before Mac rose to the occasion.

Keaton grabbed Mac by the shoulders. Rolling him over, Keaton sprang onto his feet, hefting all of Mac’s six foot three, two-hundred-fifty-pound bulk of pure muscle.

“You son of a—” But Mac’s words died as his body jerked, taking on pink and purple paint from the assault meant for Keaton.

Keaton swung his weapon up and under Mac’s armpit. He took aim and fired, towing Jordan Spinelli and David Porco.

With two down, he had two more to go. He ducked around Grizz, plastering his front to the man’s paint-smeared back. In a matter of seconds, Grizz’s front matched his back. But not a speck got on Keaton.

From the protection of Grizz’s massive bulk, Keaton opened fire on his last frenemy. Russell “Rusty” Hook, who was a perfect shot, went down immediately.

Keaton still didn’t lower his weapon. “Surrender,” he called out.

“Never,” the five men said in unison. “Surrender is not a Ranger word.” They all chuckled after reciting the end of the Ranger Creed.

Keaton lowered his weapon. He walked to Mac and helped the man up. Another part of the creed was that they never left a fallen comrade under any circumstances.

Keaton clapped Spinelli on his back and came away with pink and purple paint.

“Told you he had eyes in the back of his head,” said Porco.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Keaton. “I have 360 vision. Like a hawk.”

“You mean an owl,” said Grizz. The man was the strong, silent type women always swooned over. He could often be found reading ancient poetry books. But the weird part was that Grizz actually liked the riddle of words.

“Then I’m a super owl,” Keaton countered. “Anyway, I think we can all learn something from this.”

Five groans joined the chorus of chirping crickets and birdsong in the forest. Keaton thought he heard a paint gun safety click off.

“This was supposed to be a fun excursion in the midst of your insane work plan,” said Mac.

“Don’t knock the plan,” said Keaton. “The plan is our ticket to not go to desk jobs.”

After separating from service, many rangers went on to work in the intelligence community or in top-level security. But none of his guys wanted to work inside. They all craved the outdoors and the freedom to set their own schedules. There was still a lot of action in them. They just no longer had the desire to travel and dodge real bullets.

“The unexpected will happen to us as we move forward building the best training camp in these United States,” said Keaton. “But, we’ll always be ready to maneuver because we have a plan.”

“Oh yeah?” said Rusty. “Maneuver this.”

Keaton dodged the paint pellet. It caught him in the forearm, but it wasn’t a direct hit.

Rusty rolled his eyes.

“Like a hawk,” Keaton grinned.

“An owl,” corrected Grizz.

Keaton shrugged.

“You sure about this location, though?” said Grizz. “The Purple Heart Ranch in Montana?”

“I’ve heard some crazy things happening up there,” said Spinelli.

Keaton had heard them too. Soldiers going to heal the wounds they’d received in combat. Yet, in less than three months, each man had winded up in holy matrimony and no plans to leave the ranch. It was kind of like a cult. But Keaton knew the man in charge and knew him to be a top-notch soldier and a decent man.

Marriage wasn’t a path Keaton planned to go down. He had a five-year plan before he even thought about marriage.

“We’re not living on the land, so none of the rules or hoodoo will apply to us,” he assured his men. “Our clients will stay six weeks, at the longest, which doesn’t meet their three-month rule.”

Apparently, the land of the Purple Heart Ranch had a zoning issue where if a soldier wanted to live on it, they had to be married within three months or hightail it out of there. It was backwoods, for sure. But they needed land in the backwoods to create their state-of-the-art course and facility.

“Good,” said Grizz. “Cause myth or zoning, I have no plans for a wife.”

There was a chorus of agreement. Except for Mac and Rusty. Mac had given a woman a ring, which she’d rejected more than once. Rusty had divorce papers sitting in his duffel bag. There was one signature on the ream of paperwork. It wasn’t his signature.

“Let’s get changed and head out,” said Keaton. “We’ve got a lot of work to do and little time to do it. Living at the edge of a rehabilitation ranch and preparing for our first clients will keep us all too busy for dating.”

“Whoa, whoa,” said Porco, holding his hands up in surrender. “Put dating back in the plan. Those farm girls need a load of me in their lives.”

Pops rang out as Porco was painted with a shower of bullets for that comment. With their ire turned away from himself, Keaton took a rare moment to relax and laugh at his brothers-in-arms and their antics.

His edict stood. With the amount of work they had to do in the next three months, none of them, himself especially, had time for dating. The training facility would be his sweetheart for the next five years before he even decided to look for a wife. That was the plan.