Two Cowboys in Her Crosshairs [Hellfire Ranch] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Jennifer August

Tag gave him a sour look. “Boone. I didn’t know he’d gone to the Feds.”

  She lifted her palms. “I just found out myself.”

  “Figures,” Tag said. “Boone always did have holier-than-thou aspirations.”

  “Think he’ll give you a hard time?” Olivia asked.

  “He always did. Why should now be any different?”

  The half grimace, half smile was not all that reassuring. Jake scrubbed his face with his palm.

  “Why do I know Boone?” Hudson asked.

  “You know of him,” Jake said. “He was part of the Hellfire Battalion.”

  “Was he there that day?”

  “Yes.”

  Hudson chuckled. “Sounds like it’s old home reunion week.”

  Tag’s radio crackled and Deputy Carson’s voice squawked into the room. “Got a guy claiming to be a Fed here, Sheriff. Checking out his badge right now.”

  Tag rolled his eyes. “Give him back his badge and send him up. He’s clean.”

  “Just like that?” Her tone clearly implied her disapproval.

  “Yes,” Tag snapped.

  Jake laughed. “She’s a handful.”

  Tag snorted. “She’s a pain in the ass.”

  Hudson grinned. “Man, you have no idea. Sam is a good egg, though. When she’s not being bitchy.”

  “That happens?” Tag asked.

  Jake tipped more alcohol into his cooling coffee and sipped. He needed it to deal with Boone even though he’d not seen the man since they left Afghanistan.

  A few minutes later heavy footsteps sounded on the porch, and he rose. “I’ll get the door.”

  “No, I will,” Tag said. “I want to double-check his credentials before I let him in here.”

  Olivia lifted a brow. “A bit overzealous don’t you think?”

  “No.”

  * * * *

  Olivia sighed at his retreating back. “He and Boone always had a tenuous relationship,” she said to Hudson.

  “Why?”

  “Tag’s temper. He says he is much better now, but back then he was a major hothead. And despite being a silver-spoon kid, Boone has his own short fuse. Or he did. I hear being a Fed knocks that right out of you. Company man and rules and all that.” She looked at Jake. “Did you know he’d gone there?”

  “I’d heard. I used to keep up with all the guys, but not so much in the last year.”

  “So you know where some are?”

  “Yeah.”

  She sighed. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  Jake was frowning at the closed front door. “I just hadn’t gotten around to it. He should be satisfied by now. Tag’s just giving him a hard time.”

  Olivia pushed to her feet and stormed across the room. She flung open the door and glared at the sheriff’s broad back. “He’s FBI, for Pete’s sake, Tag, let him in.”

  Tag’s shoulders were as stiff as two-by fours. He turned his head only slightly before he nodded and stepped back. “Just finishing up some business,” he said.

  He moved, and she got her first look at Boone in three years. He hadn’t changed all that much. His black hair was longer and tied in a queue at the nape of his neck. He’d added a few new lines to his face around the eyes and mouth, but he retained the same sense of implacable scrutiny as before. The biggest change emanated from his eyes. They were as hard as onyx and nearly as cold. She wondered if the Feds did that to him.

  Despite his apparent frostlike demeanor, she caught the faint hint of surprise when he saw her. “So it is you.”

  She held the door open and waved him in. “You were expecting someone else?”

  He smelled of musky cologne and leather as he walked past her. “Well, I thought it might be you, but I wasn’t sure.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes as she shut and locked the door. “Bullshit, Boone. I know the Feds whipped you up a dossier as soon as you got the assignment.”

  He turned and grinned. For a moment she was transported back three years to a volleyball game in the burning heat and Boone hollering at the top of his lungs to get the ball. Back then there had been moments of sheer spontaneity. She often missed those sweet times.

  She smiled back. “Gotcha.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Got a hug for an old friend?”

  Olivia couldn’t hide her surprise, but she easily went into his arms.

  “We need to talk privately.”

  The soft words made her tense. “All right,” she whispered back even though she had no idea how to arrange that. Getting away from Jake and Hud wouldn’t be easy.

  Boone lifted a leather bag and handed it to her. “From Captain Strong. It’s a secure satellite phone and laptop.”

  “Great, thanks.” She turned to find Tag, Jake, and Hudson all standing.

  Tag still wore his disgruntled expression, but now Jake and Hudson had identical looks of annoyance on their faces. She was shocked at the little jolt of pleasure their obvious “don’t touch her” looks gave her.

  Boone strode forward and held out his hand to Jake. “Logan, it’s been a long time.”

  “Yeah. Congratulations on making the Feds.”

  Boone shrugged. “I had an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. Colonel Reed sponsored me and pretty much strong-armed them into accepting my application.”

  He turned to Hudson. “Boone Shepherd. Sorry we have to meet under these circumstances.”

  “Hudson Walker, and me, too. I deplore violence.”

  Jake snorted.

  Olivia set the bag on the dining room table. “You guys talk while I get set up here.”

  “What are you doing?” Jake asked.

  “I need to check my e-mails. I sent out some inquiries about Shag and the statue before I came down here. Hopefully we’ll have some information that can help us piece this together and figure out what and who we’re dealing with.”

  The men joined her at the table as the computer booted and hummed to life.

  She craned her head back and frowned up at them. “Sit down,” she said. “I don’t need you hovering over me.”

  Boone pulled out a chair and eased into it.

  Hudson brought the coffee tray and ducked into the kitchen. He returned with another mug and plunked it in front of the Fed before sitting next to him.

  Jake and Tag settled across from them, and Olivia muttered beneath her breath about idiotic pride.

  “What’s the situation?” Boone asked.

  Tag refilled his whiskey and coffee. He offered the bottle to Boone, but he shook his head. Olivia thought his reproachful look was a little overdone.

  The sheriff merely shrugged. “Two dead bodies. One is my deputy, one is a local who heard too much. One bombed-out hotel and a ranch that’s tied down bigger than Fort Knox.”

  Boone pursed his lips. “Leads?”

  “Not a fucking thing.”

  “Huh.”

  Tag’s neck started to mottle. “Think you can do better, G-man?”

  “Easy, Tag,” Jake murmured.

  Boone blinked. “I’m just here to help. Brass thinks with FBI resources you might get some faster results. I’m not here to take over your investigation, Cain.”

  Olivia eyed Tag, who sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The scent of whiskey and coffee wafted heavily over her, and she leaned back to escape the smell.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes,” Boone said. He looked as calm as the queen, but Olivia caught a slight tic at the corner of his left eye. “I have some information, too.”

  She straightened. “What kind?”

  Her computer beeped and chirped, and she looked at the monitor as her e-mail began downloading.

  “Captain Strong suggested you track down the remaining members of Hellfire Battalion. I know where at least four of them are.”

  Olivia’s breath caught, and she shared a stricken glance with Jake. She hadn’t wanted to believe anyone in the unit could be involved in this mess.

  The evidence was too overwhelming,
and she knew it.

  “Does that include the four of us?” Jake asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you have some paper?” Olivia asked Hudson. “I think better on paper than the computer,” she said when he looked questioningly at the laptop.

  He leaned back on his chair and opened the hutch drawer. With a flourish he pulled out a yellow legal pad. Boone handed her a pen.

  She hesitated. “Are we sure someone from Hellfire is hunting this statue?”

  “Yes,” Jake said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Damn,” he swore softly. “I wish I’d kept up with more of them.”

  Olivia exhaled. “Let’s make a list then. Obviously the four of us are on it.”

  “Add Doc Mayers,” Jake said.

  She did. “Where is he?”

  “In Freedom.” Jake smiled. “He’s the town doctor. Surely I mentioned that?”

  “Uh, no. Anyone else you’re hiding in this burg?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Boone shifted in his chair. “I know Quade Aldren is with the Justice Department. We have lunch sometimes. Lincoln Grace is a PI down in Houston.”

  Olivia wrote that information down.

  “Gideon Masters is a Texas Ranger,” Tag said. “I asked for his help on this case, but he’s on another assignment.”

  Olivia squinted at the updated list. “That only leaves Roark Weston.”

  “Weston?” Hudson asked. “I’m pretty sure I know that name. Hang on.”

  He strode from the room.

  “What about Brian Fischer?” Boone asked.

  Olivia shook her head. “He died in the attack. I saw him get hit.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Jake said. “He took a bullet to his leg, but he’s alive. Last I heard he was the head of security for some major corporation, but I don’t remember which one.”

  Olivia smiled. “Funny, isn’t it?”

  “What’s that?” Jake asked.

  “How we all seemed to have ended up in law enforcement one way or the other.”

  Hudson reentered the room. “Roark Weston is definitely not a cop or any form thereof. The man is a playboy rancher.” He tossed a weathered rodeo program onto the table. “He’s got a spread on the other side of Austin. He rides bulls and buckle bunnies and eats up publicity like a porn star giving a blow job.”

  Everyone remained silent for a minute then Tag burst out laughing. They all followed suit.

  “You have a unique way with words,” Boone said. “I like that.”

  “One of my many talents,” Hudson said as he took his seat again.

  Olivia sat back. “That’s all of us.” She looked at Boone. “You want to start running them down?”

  Tag’s fist hit the table. “It can’t be one of them. I trusted them with my life. We all did.”

  Olivia nodded and covered his hand. “Yeah, and one of them betrayed that trust. Who knows how to work the system better than someone in that system? It’s necessary.” She turned back to her computer to check her e-mail.

  It had finally finished downloading. Olivia skimmed the subject lines and senders then stilled at two in particular. “I have a couple of replies,” she said. She clicked on the first e-mail as tension blanketed the table.

  She bit her lip as she read the message and her heart fell. “My contact has never heard of Shag and doesn’t recognize the statue,” she said.

  “What about the other one?” Hudson asked.

  She opened that e-mail. Within seconds her eyes were as wide as saucers. “Holy hell,” she muttered.

  “What’s wrong?” Jake pushed back his chair and came around to stand next to her. His hand settled heavy and comforting on her shoulder, and she couldn’t help but cover it with her own.

  “This is from a contact in the Middle East. A professor I met before I ever made it overseas. He’s a specialist in Middle Eastern artifacts and history.” She reread the message and then looked at the faces staring back at her. “He says it’s likely from Bagram and that in the last fifteen months similar objects have been appearing on various black markets and in collector’s hands around the world. Apparently from the same source. None of the pieces have provenance. He’s pretty sure the sellers are or were looters.”

  Boone whistled.

  Jake’s fingers crushed against her collarbone for a moment before he let go. “That sounds like there’s more to this than just the statue.”

  “Yes,” Olivia said. “It sounds like we’re up against some kind of organized group.” A sudden horrible thought chilled her to the bone.

  “Olivia?” Boone said sharply. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Bullshit,” he replied.

  Jake crouched beside her, and Hudson appeared behind him. His blue eyes were filled with concern. “Darlin’? What’s going on?”

  “It’s just a stupid, crazy thought.”

  “Share it,” Tag ordered.

  She bit her lip and looked from one to the other then the men at the table. “Jake saw the statue the night before the ambush. What if…” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “What if the looter thought he was going to be discovered?” She closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe it would have happened.

  Jake sucked in a breath. “Shit,” he muttered.

  Boone tapped the table. “Okay, and?”

  She turned to look at him. “And what if, in a desperate attempt to cover his crimes, he arranged for an ambush?”

  The room went preternaturally still.

  “That’s crazy,” Tag finally said.

  Olivia felt as if her mouth were full of playground sand. Swallowing against the dryness, she shook her head. “What if it’s not? If this report is true, then whoever was looting had to have been doing it for a long time. And to keep something like that a secret meant Briggs wasn’t working alone. There had to be a network or support of some kind.”

  “I bet Shag got too close to whomever was in that network and that’s what got him killed,” Jake said.

  Boone sipped his coffee. “Yeah, I can see that. Looting has always been a profitable and dangerous profession. They’d want to protect the investment.” His gray eyes sharpened into knife points. “But I really would hate to think that one of our own could do that to us.”

  “People do a lot of stupid shit in the name of money,” Hudson said.

  “Olivia, does he say anything else? Give you a name or a lead or another contact?”

  “No but I’ll prod him a little more.” She felt sick to her stomach. The faces of her comrades, the men she trusted in battle and at play, flashed through her mind. Could one of them have engineered the disaster of that day? She fingered the eyelid of her dead eye.

  Her nerves shook from the inside out, and she darted anxious glances from one man to another. Could one of these guys have done it?

  Something must have shown in her expression because Jake cupped her face. “Hey, Livvie, relax. It’s safe here. None of us are involved, remember?”

  She licked her lips and tried to nod, but his grip was strong. “Yeah,” she rasped. “You’re right.”

  “You sure about that?” Tag glared across the table at Boone. “He just showed up. Mighty convenient that the Feds just happened to send one of our old squad mates to investigate this?”

  Olivia stiffened and wrenched to look at Boone.

  “Jesus, Tag,” he muttered. “I’m here legit. I had nothing to do with the ambush.” His face lost the stone façade for a moment, and his anguish was clear. “I felt the loss of every one of those marines even if I didn’t show it.” His voice was low and harsh. Each word held a wealth of horror. “I did not cause their deaths. I couldn’t have.”

  He closed his eyes and slumped to the back of the chair. “I’ll have them send someone else. Someone you can trust.”

  “No,” Olivia said. She swallowed hard. “No, until we figure this out, we need to stick together. I believe you, Boone.”

&nbs
p; Jake nodded and so did Hudson. They stared at Tag. He tapped his fingers on the table then took a long drag off the now-cold coffee. “Fine. But I’ll be watching you, Boone. One wrong move and I’ll take you down.”

  Boone gave him a weary half smile. “With that hair-trigger temper of yours, Cain, I’ll count myself lucky to get out of this without a new scar.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Night. Tag. Tell Sam I said hi,” Hudson said as the sheriff headed out the door.

  Tag just lifted his hand. Boone had left an hour earlier.

  Hudson was bone-tired. His entire body ached, and his head pounded as if he’d swigged a barrel full of rotgut whiskey.

  They’d pounded out a hell of a lot of information since Tag had shown up on their doorstep. Four hours of endless e-mails, intel strands, dossiers, suppositions, and a couple of terse arguments regarding scientific superiority and he’d been ready to chuck everyone out then crawl into bed with Olivia.

  But they’d gotten a good head start, or so Jake assured him.

  The sun was still low on the horizon as it climbed toward another scorcher. Too damn late to get any sleep, but he needed to lie down and rest for at least a few minutes. Olivia was in the bathroom brushing her teeth, and Jake was pouring out the last pot of coffee they’d made.

  He appeared in the hallway. “You look like hell.”

  Hudson managed a grin. “So do you.”

  Jake nodded. “Feel like I’ve been in the middle of a damn stampede.”

  His eyes were shadowed with dark memories and thoughts. Hudson walked forward and nudged him on the shoulder. “You okay?”

  “Mostly. Will be when this is finished.”

  “Me, too.”

  The water turned off in the bathroom, and the door opened, spilling golden light into the hallway. Olivia rounded the corner and walked into the living room a moment later.

  She smiled when she saw them.

  “We have a couple of hours before I expect things to start jumping around here.” She poked her thumb over her shoulder. “I’m pretty sure we’re too tired for anything, but I’d like to curl up between you two for a little bit.”

  A burst of energy hit Hudson. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Yeah,” Jake agreed. His eyes had lost the darkness, and Hudson sighed with relief.