Cowboy Under Cover

by Marilyn Tracy

  Jeannie had to close her eyes against the sudden spasm of wonder and pain that crossed Chance’s face. She held her breath, waiting for an answer, trying to withhold her cheer for the boy’s talking and her fear of Chance’s reply.

  “I think we have much to talk about, you and me,” Chance said, his voice even more jagged than before.

  “I think so, too,” José agreed, nodding solemnly.

  Dulce wiped her eyes. “You know what I liked about today?”

  “What?” José asked, as if there had never been a time he hadn’t spoken.

  “El Patron screaming like a girl.”

  They all giggled a little hysterically, José the loudest.

  Ted Peters, a tall, dark football player of a man, came in with the news that Pablo was doing fine in the hospital and that Nando Gallegos had been arrested. “He spilled every frijole he could think of and added a few tortillas for fun.” His face grew somber and he said, “I’ve got to go call Doreen. She’s gonna be pretty upset when she hears about her cousin.”

  Chance winked at Jeannie before pushing to his once again shod feet. “Plus she’ll need some consolation about Jorge.”

  Ted brightened. “That’s right, she will.”

  “Look, I hate to do this, Ted, but do you think you could go over and tell her personally?”

  Ted gave him a sharp, suspicious look that Chance met blandly.

  Ted asked, “Are you serious?”

  “I’m dead serious. I never kid about arrest or death notifications. Besides, we’re crawling with police here. We’ve got El Patron dead to rights this time. Kidnapping, attempted murder, not to mention solicitation to murder, theft and a few hundred other things.”

  “Okay, then. If you say so. You’re the boss.”

  “Get going,” Chance said. “And haul Jack into town with you. Make sure Cora knows he wasn’t shot at, okay?”

  After Ted left and Chance had taken a long look at José and Dulce in Jeannie’s arms, he tapped Dell on the shoulder and asked if he’d mind seeing the family back to the ranch. “They’re done in. And I won’t be finished here for a while yet. The border patrol guys want to check into this garden story of his to see if that’s where some of their agents might be found. And I sure don’t want Jeannie and the kids to see any of that.”

  Chance wasn’t surprised Dell shuddered, but all the man said was, “Your pickup?”

  “No, take Jeannie’s Jeep. I’ll send you home in my pickup when I’m done here, or you can crash out there.”

  Chance didn’t have more time than to give each of the Rancho Milagro party a quick hug before Dell whisked them out the door. He felt odd watching them leave without him. He was near to bursting with pride in them, in their resilience, in their strength and in the budding love they were so willing to reveal.

  Every time he thought about the three of them in El Patron’s clutches and how close he had come to losing them, he had to draw a deep breath to quell the shakes.

  “Chance?” One of the state police officers called from the garden.

  When he got outside, a weeping Juanita was huddled beneath the tree, a sodden handkerchief clutched in her hand. She was staring at a patch of overturned soil, flowers and a fat gray cat that sat on the mound of dirt, grooming itself.

  “We’ve got something here,” the officer said. “The lady says this is where her husband was buried. They made her watch. It’s a wonder any of you got out of here alive, let alone had such an easy time of it.”

  Chance met Juanita’s eyes. An easy time? He’d suffered every torment known to man just thinking of Jeannie and the kids in this evil place. And what Juanita had suffered, however much she might have been an unwilling participant in the early harassment of Rancho Milagro, didn’t bear scrutiny.

  “Go easy on her,” Chance said. “If she hadn’t drugged the rest of El Patron’s people, we probably wouldn’t be here.”

  “Are you going to prosecute her?”

  “Not if I can help it,” Chance said. “I think she’s been through enough. She has family down in Mexico that will take care of her. Especially now that El Patron can’t hold them over her head.”

  Juanita began crying again, covering her face with her hands. Chance’s cell phone rang. His heart gave a little jump when he saw Jeannie’s number.

  “Vaya con Dios,” Chance said softly to Juanita before walking into the house. Go with God.

  He answered the phone. “Chance here.”

  “Dell. They’re safe. We’re at the ranch. Jeannie’s cleaning up the dining room and kitchen. The kids are already in bed. They’re in together. That Dulce is quite a piece of work. She wouldn’t let the kid out of her sight for a second. I see what you mean about a family. She treats them like a little brood hen protecting her favorite chicks.”

  Chance smiled, thinking of the Dulce he’d first met, Miss Quiñones to you. “You want to take Jeannie’s Jeep and head home?”

  “Naw. I think I’ll give your lady a hand in the kitchen and hang out here until you get back. The horses are hungry, and you’ve a bunch of puppies that are demanding a little attention. How did Doreen talk you into so many of them?”

  Chance grinned then sobered quickly. “Juanita showed the state boys where they buried her husband.”

  “Jesus.”

  “And what about Jorge?”

  “He was off to the morgue with the ambulance that carried Pablo into town. Pablo’s still cursing me. And he said to tell you that he quits the marshal’s office. He’s staying on here as ranch hand. It’s a lot more exciting, he says.”

  Chance chuckled. “You take care of them for me, Dell.”

  “As if they were my own, Chance. As if they were my own.”

  Jeannie heard the end of Dell’s conversation with Chance and her heart warmed at his last remark, knowing that Chance had asked him to watch out for them. She thought of the first day she’d seen him, running into him on the street and having the fleeting feeling he was protecting her. She remembered the night she’d watched him in the darkness, staring at her window, and how she’d known he was up and guarding her.

  Something about the memories made her want to cry. Made her want to move into Chance’s arms and stay there forever.

  She continued clearing the dining table and mopping up the spilled iced tea, trying not to think of the past several terrifying hours. So far, she hadn’t succumbed to the hysteria lurking in her, though she knew from her background that some kind of reaction was inevitable.

  She’d already checked on Dulce and José twice. Incredibly, as Dell had told Chance, both children were sleeping soundly, albeit in the same room and with a night-light on. Either the amazing strength that all children possessed was at work there, or more sadly, both children had already been through so much that a life-threatening event was just one more notch on their already scored belts.

  José hadn’t talked any further since his miraculous few words with Chance, revealing nothing of how he’d come to be on the ranch, who his real parents might be, or anything of his past. It seemed his desire for speech centered on the man he’d chosen as his papa.

  Jeannie’s eyes again filmed with tears. Would Chance even be willing to take on such a role? He hadn’t answered the boy directly. His endearment to the boy may have been nothing more than just a phrase, a simple slip of the tongue. Oh, but how she wished it could be true!

  “Let me do that,” Dell said, taking the mop from her hands.

  Jeannie gave up the handle gratefully. “Thanks for everything, Dell,” she said. “And I’m sorry about holding Pablo’s gun on you earlier.”

  He flashed her a grin. “You had me going there for a while. I saw at El Patron’s house that you’d taken the safety off.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “This is a great place you have here,” he said. “Chance told me you’ve made all the people here into a family. I can see why.”

  “Thank you, what a lovely thing to say,” she said. Chance
had said she made all the people at the ranch into a family. Did that include him?

  “You’re in love with him, then?” he asked.

  Her body seemed to still. Was that what she was? In love with Chance Salazar?

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “I just thought the way you two were looking at each other…”

  It was unfair to make Dell suffer embarrassment. “I don’t know how I feel about Chance. I think I’m afraid of wanting too much.”

  “You know, my old grandmother used to say that wanting too much is never a problem, it’s not wanting enough that causes the heartache.”

  Jeannie stopped wiping the table and looked at him. That’s what she’d felt in the magic pool with Chance. And that’s what she’d been afraid of with Dulce. “Your grandmother was a wise woman.”

  He grinned at her. “She still is, she just doesn’t talk so much anymore.”

  Jeannie chuckled. “And you, Dell?”

  “I figure I’m holding out for one of your partners,” he said. “If they’re anything like you, I know I could probably want a whole hell of lot.” He busied himself mopping for a few fast and, she suspected, blushing minutes, then said, almost offhandedly, “You could do a lot worse than Chance. He’s a good man to have around in a pinch. Besides, he’s tip over teakettle for you.”

  Jeannie smiled. She liked the playfulness of the phrase and wished she could believe it were true, believe it enough to trust her heart to Chance, to trust her heart to anyone again.

  But she did, didn’t she? She’d given her heart to Dulce and to José. She hadn’t railed at El Patron, Dell or even Pablo because the children had been her responsibility or under her care at the time of their kidnapping. She’d called them her children because that’s exactly how she thought of them and how she wanted to think of them. Possessive, loving, motherly.

  “Chance had some hard times as a kid. Not financially. His family has enough money to float a boat. He just never really had what I’d consider a family life. They all came and went at odd times and didn’t see much of one another.”

  Jeannie thought of the nightly dinners and how enlivened they were by Chance’s presence. How everything seemed better and easier and more fun when he was around.

  Jeannie, honey, go for it. It’s the right time.

  She looked up, startled. It wasn’t Dell’s voice she’d heard. It was David’s.

  You can’t have a future unless you let go of the past.

  Her words? David’s?

  “I’m going to go bed down the horses,” Dell said. “And feed the pups.” He gave her an odd look.

  “Fine,” Jeannie said absently. Her heart was pounding almost painfully in her chest. She heard the front door gently close behind Dell.

  Trust yourself, Jeannie. It’s not enough to trust someone else. You have to trust you first. Remember?

  “David?” she whispered.

  There was no answer.

  Or perhaps there was, for minutes later she heard Chance’s pickup truck pull into the drive.

  Chance felt as if he’d traveled a hundred years that day. He’d gone from a stiff stranger with Jeannie that morning, still smarting from the night before, to as ardent a lover as was humanly and emotionally possible, to dedicated cop, to raging father and husband. He was still choked by the emotions he’d felt at seeing his new family in danger and enraged at all the harm one madman had caused over the years.

  And now he was home. At least it felt like home, the first real home he’d ever known, despite having a sprawling family.

  Dell greeted him, having stripped down and given a quick curry to the horses. “They’re eating now and drinking about half the water left in the Pecos River,” he said.

  “Thanks for everything, Dell,” Chance said, clasping his deputy’s shoulder.

  “You’re a lucky man, Chance.”

  “I’ve always thought so,” Chance said, dropping his hand from his friend’s shoulder. “But I gotta admit, I’m pretty nervous right now.”

  “Because you’re gonna ask her to marry you?”

  “Hell, I haven’t even gotten around to telling her how I feel yet, let alone talking about marriage.”

  “No time like the present, pal.”

  Chance sighed.

  “Scared?”

  “Spitless.”

  Dell chuckled. “Well, I gotta tell you, Chance, you’d be making the mistake of a lifetime if you don’t tell her just how crazy you are about her and if you don’t get down on that bum knee of yours and beg her to stay with you forever. She’s what my old grandmother used to call a keeper.”

  “Your grandmother is only in her sixties and dances in a chorus line on a cruise ship.”

  “She used to say it before she took to the road.”

  Chance grinned.

  “Grandmothers aside, you gotta tell her.”

  “I’ll remember this some day,” Chance said. “And give you grief.”

  “You can name your first kid after me.”

  “Looks like it’ll have to be my third.”

  Jeannie found herself standing tensely by the sofa in the living room, her hands clenched in her pockets. She’d heard the sound of her Jeep leaving the ranch and smiled at Chance’s high-handed disposal of her property. Just as he’d gotten rid of Rudy Martinez the day they fought the fire together and the way he’d dispatched El Patron.

  But she didn’t know what to expect when he walked in the front door.

  The door opened and he stood there, silhouetted against the porch light shining on the veranda. He slowly removed his cowboy hat and ran a hand through his hair. And she realized he was just as nervous as she was.

  He hung his hat on the rack she’d had Pablo mount by the door soon after they arrived at the ranch, then he turned and held out his arms.

  It was that simple.

  She melted into them without consciously having crossed the room. He held her fiercely to him, as if trying to pull her inside his body.

  “I love you, Jeannie McMunn,” he said. Simply. Naturally. And with such emotion in his voice that the rough corduroy tore.

  “And I love you, too, Chance Salazar,” she said.

  He stilled completely, as if she’d told him to clear off the place instead of returning the love he’d offered her.

  “Are you having a heart attack?” she asked.

  He gave a ragged chuckle and kissed her with an intensity that stole her breath. When he pulled back for air, he stroked her hair, her face and held her away from him as if memorizing her. “Dell told me I should get down on one knee.”

  “Does that mean I have to also?” she asked, smiling despite tear-filled eyes.

  “You’d probably have to. I’ve got a bum knee from riding rodeo. I probably wouldn’t be able to get back up again.”

  “Are you offering me damaged goods?”

  “Yep. And you’re gonna take ’em, too.” He grinned at her. The smile slipped from his face. “Because I can’t live without you, Jeannie. I think I’ve dreamed about you since I was a kid, wanting that roan Appaloosa.”

  “You’re such a romantic,” she said.

  “So, Jeannie McMunn who courts trouble and forgives a lying dog of an undercover marshal…will you marry me and be my love forever?”

  He’s a good man, Jeannie.

  “Forever’s a long time,” she said.

  “Not long enough when you’re around,” Chance said, kissing her cheeks, stroking her neck, her back. “Forever doesn’t seem near enough time. So will you marry me?”

  “What about your job as marshal? Don’t you normally work somewhere else? Albuquerque or Dallas?”

  “A federal marshal can call his own station. One of the perks. I pick here. So, will you marry me?”

  “I come with children. Two at least.”

  “I know. I figure they won’t mind switching last names. And in José’s case, he’ll get one finally. So, will you marry me?”

  “And I have lot
s of baggage from the past,” she said.

  “I’ve a couple suitcases of my own. What do you say we stack them in the closet? We can explore them together someday. Will you marry me, damn it?”

  She grinned at him. “When you put it that way, yes.”

  Chapter 15

  J eannie spread a thick blanket on the sandy beach in the chasm she’d named Piscina Milagro, Miracle Pool. Chance set down a large picnic basket Jeannie’s friends Leeza and Corrie had stocked following the short wedding ceremony they’d flown out from D.C. to attend.

  “Are you sure this is what you want for a honeymoon?” Chance asked.

  “I’m sure,” Jeannie said. “We have sky, fresh water and a private beach. What more could anyone ask for?”

  Chance stretched out beside his wife of two hours. “You know, don’t you, that there used to be a legend about a magic spring on this ranch somewhere.”

  “Pablo was saying something about that this morning.”

  “No one’s been able to find it for more than a hundred years.”

  “We did.”

  “It makes wishes come true,” he said.

  Jeannie looked at him and felt her heart would overflow with the love she felt for him. “I made a wish the first day I found this place,” she said softly. “I wished I could just open up to you. To love you.”

  “And I made a wish when we came here together,” Chance murmured, drawing her down to nestle in his arms. “I wished that I could hold you forever.”

  “And now we’re here.”

  “In a place where wishes come true.”

  “Chance?”

  “Yes, love,” he said.

  “One of us must have made another wish that day,” she said.

  “I’m sure I made a few. I think this is one of them.” He unfastened her blouse and laid it open. She was a continual marvel to him. He pressed a kiss to her collarbone and trailed it with his tongue.

  “Remember when we were here before?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, and proved he did.

  “And you told me you were safe?”