One Tough Texan

by MJ Rodgers

  The intimate eroticism of it brought her to another climax, so unexpected that it ripped through her in a stunning shockwave.

  She could feel his heart still hammering, wildly, as he pushed himself up on his forearms to stare at her.

  She had barely enough breath for life. She had no words to tell him what this incredible joining with him meant to her, how much sweeter and more important her life had just become. He seemed to have no words for her either.

  But what his beautiful silver-gray-and-turquoise eyes were saying as they roamed lovingly over her face was beyond words, beyond anything Jamie had ever seen or heard.

  Her heart swelled so much it felt way too big for her body.

  He rolled to his side, bringing her with him, still joined to her, his arms holding her fiercely to him. She did not know whether it was a prayer or curse he whispered against her hair. All she knew was that she never, ever wanted him to let her go.

  “IT WAS GAS ALL RIGHT,” Keele said, over the telephone line. “You smelled it, Matt? That’s what warned you?”

  “Almost too late,” Matt admitted, shifting his weight off his injured leg as he stood by the motel room’s nightstand. “Got a whiff of it coming out of a partially open side window.”

  “Fire department’s preliminary once-over says it must have been a leak in the line,” Keele said.

  “Have they identified the source of the leak?”

  “Too early,”

  “I don’t like that window being open, Keele. Windows stay shut for security in an expensive home like that.”

  “I hear you. Matt, they found a body in the bedroom. It was beneath the rubble of a brick fireplace and so much shattered glass that they figure the bedroom must have been floorto-ceiling mirrors.”

  Matt had been afraid of something like this. “Who was it?”

  “White male, maybe fiveten. From his size and the remains of the Rolex on his wrist, they think it’s Timothy Palmer.”

  “Makes sense. It was his car outside, still warm.”

  “Have you considered this could have been a booby trap that backfired? This Timothy Palmer could have been trying to get you when he miscalculated the explosion.”

  “If he had decided on a hit, a couple of bullets would have been a lot more accurate, less messy and a damn sight less expensive than decimating his half-million-dollar house.”

  “I get your point.”

  “But it could’ve been someone else who set it up, Keele.”

  “I can’t push this from an official standpoint. And you’re going to get your butt kicked if it gets out you’ve been using the Firm’s resources on a case that doesn’t qualify.”

  “Let me worry about that. Run Timothy Palmer’s driver’s license through the files. What did you find out about Stedman?”

  “That picture you sent doesn’t match any Stedman we have on file, or anyone else for that matter.”

  “What about the tie between Donald Tennisen and Timothy Palmer. Anything there yet?”

  “Nope. Tennisen’s lawyer has shut that old boy’s mouth up but good. I do have one piece of news. Seems when Tennisen was given his opportunity to contact his lawyer, one of my buddies here just happened to make note of the unlisted number he called. I checked it out. It belongs to a Sharlyn Beckwith of Reno.”

  “Sharlyn?” Matt repeated.

  “Name sound familiar?”

  “If it’s the same Sharlyn I’m thinking of, we have our connection.” Matt quickly filled Keele in.

  “I’ll check her out,” Keele said. “Where can I reach you?”

  Matt heard the shower turn off. He knew Jamie would be coming into the room soon.

  “Have to get back to you. That explosion might have been meant to include Jamie and me. We’ve been followed since we got here. I’ve lost the tail for now, but I don’t want to pick it up again. I have to rent another car and keep moving. I’ll call you in two hours.”

  Matt hung up the phone and turned toward the closed bathroom door. He cinched the towel securely around his waist and prepared himself for all the things that he would have to say.

  His heart sank with the weight of them. He’d rather face the tiger than the lady when that door opened.

  He was going to have to tell her about Timothy Palmer’s death, he was going to have to tell her that everything they had just shared had been a mistake.

  For the first time in his life he’d come up against something stronger than his control, stronger even than his honor. He’d let it lead him into committing an unforgivable act of betrayal against his brother.

  There would be hell to pay. He was about to pay it. He could never, ever touch her again.

  Somehow, he would say this. Somehow, he would get her to understand this. Somehow, he would give her up. Somehow.

  The door opened. Jamie walked out, her long hair pinned to the top of her head. She was wearing nothing but a skimpy motel towel tucked above her breasts. It barely reached to the top of her thighs. A triangle of golden curls peaked out beneath it.

  “Did I hear you on the phone with someone?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth to answer her. But before he could form any words, he had forgotten her question.

  She was so damn beautiful. Every time he saw her he knew she couldn’t possibly be more beautiful. And then the next time he saw her, she was. Having held her in his arms, made love to her, he knew why he hadn’t touched another woman in five years. And why he would never touch another woman.

  She smiled when she saw him looking at her.

  Slowly, she walked toward him. He knew there was something he had meant to say to her, but his mind had melted. All he could concentrate on was the seductive, sweet sway of her hips, her graceful arms rising to unfasten the hair at the top of her head.

  The thick butter-colored strands tumbled down and he found he had crossed the room to catch them. Their cool, rich silk rustled through his fingers. The scent of the soap from her shower on the honey warmth of her skin rose up to greet him.

  His hands cupped her face, then ran along her graceful neck to the white caps of her shoulders. He pulled off her towel with fingers already way too eager. Her deep bluebonnet eyes locked directly with his. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted, her nipples blushing into erect peaks.

  Need clawed ravenous and raw and wanton inside him.

  His body was telling him what his heart had known from the instant he saw her. She was the other part of him-the part that had been missing all these long, lonely, aching years.

  He reached for her. She came with a hungry, happy sigh.

  JAMIE SAT AT THE BACK of the restaurant and listened to Matt telling her about Timothy Palmer’s death. He had waited until they both had a warm meal in their stomachs.

  It was a good thing. Hearing the news before eating would have ruined her appetite.

  She kept seeing Tony’s smile as he looked at her that night so long ago. She kept hearing his voice telling her she looked pretty. Her heart-so full and happy only moments beforenow sank heavy and low in her chest.

  “This is all my fault.”

  “What are you talking about, Jamie?”

  “Matt, don’t pretend you don’t know. My looking for him, my using your show to flash his picture. I led those murderers right to Tony!”

  Matt’s hand covered Jamie’s, so large, so strong, so very gentle. She raised her eyes to his. It came as a shock of pure pleasure to see the warmth mixed with lust every time he looked at her now. She could gaze into this man’s eyes forever. And what’s more, she wanted to.

  “Jamie, this is not your fault. I don’t know who this Timothy Palmer, alias Tony Lagarrigue, was. But I do know that he wasn’t in the witness-protection program hiding from the Mob.”

  “But that FBI Agent Creighton said—”

  “It wasn’t true.”

  Matt’s words, his voice, his clasp on her hand-they were all combining into an emphatic assurance that Jamie felt quite forcibly.
/>   “If you’re saying this just to try to make me feel better—”

  “I’m not lying to you, Jamie. Creighton isn’t an FBI agent. Neither is Wilson.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “When the FBI’s safeguarding someone in the witness-protection program, they don’t go running their mouths off about it. Those two are as phony as the identifications they flashed.”

  Jamie recognized the serious look on Matt’s face. As his words sank in, so did tardy understanding. “You knew this all along, from the moment you found them in my room. That’s why you acted so unfriendly and distrustful. That’s why you kept me so close to your side all the time we were with them.”

  He withdrew his hand from hers. “Yes.”

  “You could’ve told me before this.”

  “Would it have made a difference, Jamie? Tony had to be the one who sent them. Just like he had to be behind the call, the note, the eighteen-wheeler trying to run us off the road. Every time before that I’ve tried to warn you away from him, you’ve refused to be warned.”

  “Matt, it doesn’t make sense. Why would Tony warn me away if he wasn’t in the witness-protection program?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. Let’s say he had a couple of buddies pose as phony FBI agents. The story they told about his being in the witnessprotection program could still be true. Could be he sent them because real agents wouldn’t disclose that information.”

  “No, Jamie. Nothing about Creighton’s story or Tony’s situation fits. When the FBI puts a family in protection, they create a new identity for them, complete with new socialsecurity numbers, birth certificates, the works. They do not borrow another family’s names and history as Tony and his mama and daddy did when they lived in Sweetspring.”

  “If the FBI had to move Tony and his family out quickly, they may have had no choice but to temporarily use another family’s ID.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. There is nothing slipshod about the relocation of these folks. The program is administered with strict attention to every detail and every safeguard. Several years back the bureau lost a couple of witnesses in protection because things were too loose. Everything was restructured. Now only those few select agents involved in witness protection even know who is being hidden and where.”

  Jamie was beginning to get an odd feeling about Matt’s explanation—a real odd feeling. “How do you know so much about the FBI?”

  Matt sipped his after-dinner coffee quietly for a moment before responding. “I used to rub elbows with them when I was in military intelligence.”

  That odd feeling that Jamie had wasn’t satisfied at all by that explanation. “Matt, who is Keele?”

  He looked over at her. For the first time in hours, Jamie noticed Matt’s eyes were guarded. Her pulse jumped.

  “Keele’s a…good friend,” he said.

  “A good friend who appeared in the middle of nowhere with a helicopter, an M-16 and a team of paramedics to rescue us. If they had been military, there would have been some insignia or identification on them or the craft. There wasn’t. They were all FBI undercover agents, weren’t they?”

  “Jamie, let it go.”

  “Matt, I have to know the truth.”

  “Look, Jamie, even if Keele and the others are what you think—and I’m not saying they are-you have to understand

  it would be inappropriate for me to say.”

  “And if you were, would it also be inappropriate for you to say?”

  She had to admire how quickly and smoothly the mask slipped over the features of his face. “Say again?”

  “I’ve been wondering all afternoon how you got your gun through security at the airport. That was the only time you weren’t at my side since we left San Antonio. Matt, I may be slow to catching on to things, but I’m not that slow.”

  “Jamie—”

  “All those computer databases you accessed so easily in your office. The cellophane bags and tweezers you just happen to tote around. That ‘private investigators are trained for this sort of thing’ bull you’ve been handing me. Those aren’t tricks in the P.L trade. Those are evidence-gathering techniques taught to a federal agent.”

  “There’s a perfectly logical explanation for everything you’ve—”

  “Yes, and I bet you have that perfectly logical explanation right on the tip of your tongue, too. A good FBI undercover agent would have to, wouldn’t he? Particularly if he was one of those special agents part of witness protection.”

  Matt stared into the blackness of his coffee cup. Jamie felt his silence profoundly. As certain as she had been, his lack of denial still came as a small shock to her system. The new knowledge fizzed through her thoughts, bubbling through all her past impressions and assumptions. Her voice rose excitedly.

  “Your P.I. firm. Even your ‘Finder of Lost Loves’ TV program. They’re all a front for what you truly do. You relocate folks, give them new identities, hide them, watch over them. And you’ve been doing it all the time!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Matt said nothing in response to. Jamie’s words, just sipped his coffee calmly.

  But Jamie was anything but calm. Her insides were jumping with the excitement of the news. “Liz can’t know. Nor Cade. Not even your mama and daddy know, do they?”

  Matt’s eyes rose to meet hers squarely. “Jamie, you can’t ever talk about this to them, to anyone.”

  There was a flat, emphatic quality in Matt’s voice that Jamie had never heard before. Goose bumps popped out on her skin. She understood only too clearly that she had just been given an order. The severity of the delivery sent a chill up her spine.

  “Matt, if you don’t know by now that I’d rather die than say or do anything that could hurt you—”

  He took her hand into his, held it hard. The warm lust was so strong in his eyes that it shocked her anew.

  “I know, Jamie.”

  “Does Sarita have something to do with witness protection?”

  “No, Jamie. She’s just a little girl looking for the impossible.”

  “Impossible? Uh-oh. You found her mama, didn’t you?”

  “And she never wants to see Sarita.”

  “Sweet Lord, how do you tell a child something like that?”

  Matt withdrew his hand from Jamie’s and sat back with a long exhale of breath. “I don’t even know how to tell her daddy.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Like a man who’s been kicked by a mule.”

  “Don’t tell them about Sarita’s mama, Matt.”

  “I can’t leave ‘em dangling.”

  “They need something else to take their minds off looking for her. Now, as I recall, Sarita’s daddy’s right tall and handsome and serious looking. Sort of reminds me of the kind of man whom Liz’s been known to take a liking to.”

  Matt’s face took on a look caught between angst and awe. “Jamie, you can’t be fixin’ on my playing matchmaker here?”

  “I don’t see what introducing them would hurt. They both got a lot of inside mending to do. Could be easier for them to get it done if they do it together. And you know Liz would just love Sarita. Always thought she’d make a mighty fine mama.”

  Matt chuckled. “Could be I should’ve included a woman on the makeup of my team.”

  Jamie smiled. “No ‘could be’ about it. Running a privateinvestigation firm as a front to keeping an eye on things makes some sense. But I confess I don’t see how the TV show fits in when it comes to protecting the folks who are hiding.”

  “It doesn’t fit in, Jamie. It was the brainchild of a boss who ‘don’t know nothing and has that all tangled up.’“

  “Your boss?”

  Matt nodded. “He thinks if some mobster wants to locate someone in our protection, he’s actually going to come knocking on my door pretending to be looking for a lost love.”

  Jamie laughed, then caught herself on the serious edge of Matt’s expression. “I’m sorry. I
know it’s not funny. It’s just so ludicrous it struck my funny bone.”

  “I wish it could find mine.” “I guess this isn’t just a job to you, is it?”

  “Jamie, a woman’s a life giver. Something else can be just a job to her. But a man’s proof of potency is his work. If he’s not out there doing the right thing, then whatever he’s out there doing is wrong.”

  Jamie had the strongest impression that Matt wasn’t referring only to his work anymore, but to a part of himself, some deep, personal contract etched on his soul.

  The impression made her heart gulp with unease although she couldn’t understand why.

  But she did understand something else. She hadn’t thought words necessary between them because she had believed the boundless passion she had felt in his arms. And the message in his eyes when he looked so lovingly and joyfully into her face afterward.

  Now she wasn’t so sure. Because now there was this new emotion there.

  Slowly, deliberately, Jamie forced herself to take a deep breath and let it out.

  “Matt, we need to talk about our…lovemaking.”

  The continuing look in his eyes caused the shadows of her unease to circle in closer.

  “Jamie, I can offer you neither an explanation nor an answer.”

  “You’re…unsure about what’s happened between us?”

  “I know exactly what’s happened between us. I never meant to let it happen.”

  The shadows closed around Jamie’s heart until it shivered from their cold. “You regret it.”

  “Regret is not the word I would use.”

  Jamie didn’t want to hear the word he would use. She was suddenly sure it would be a lot worse. “Looks like it’s time I headed back to San Antonio.” She barely recognized her voice.

  “Not without me, Jamie.”

  Matt slowly took her hand into his and one by one interlaced their fingers. Jamie’s breath caught at the sensations shivering through her as she absorbed the smooth heat of his palm and the friction of his fingers.

  She had never felt such eroticism from just having her hand held before. But then this man had taught her more about sensuality than she ever imagined existed.