The Cowboy's Deadly Mission

by Addison Fox

  Or a terabyte, as it may be.

  The quiet of the kitchen was a nice break from the early morning battle with Tate and the discovery of all that had come after, and Belle used the time to her advantage. She set up her notes for the interviews, then went to work on her report of the early morning call to the ranch. She hit Save on the draft—she’d add in Julio’s notes to her own back at the precinct—and stood to refill her coffee mug. The sound of the opening door had her turning, the light breeze that spilled in sparking with the scents of spring. Her smile of welcome faded as Tate stomped his way into the house.

  “The first group of men will be in to see you around three. Sorry we’ve kept you waiting but spring calving season is in high gear and you can’t stop Mother Nature.”

  She glanced at the clock over the sink. “I’ve had plenty to do. And I can wait. I understand this is a working ranch.”

  “Good.”

  He stood there, the jacket he’d worn that morning gone in favor of the warming weather. His broad shoulders were shown off to perfection in a dust-covered Henley and his slim waist was encased in a pair of well-worn jeans. If she didn’t have a firm enough grasp on her tongue it would likely be hanging out.

  With that image fresh in her mind, Belle turned back to the counter and the pot of coffee, willing her hands to still. “You want a cup?”

  “I’ll switch to water. Too much caffeine makes me twitchy.”

  “Okay.”

  “How many is that for you?”

  She turned around, her battle armor fully intact. “Cups? I don’t keep count.”

  “You should. All that coffee’ll stunt your growth.” As if to punctuate his point, his gaze roamed from the top of her head down to the bottom of her toes, then worked its way back up.

  “I’m fully grown.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Just like the earlier innuendo with the handcuffs, something dark and twisty unfurled lower in her belly. Oh, the man did things to her. Dark and wicked things. It was the whole reason she kept her distance. And she’d been doing it so long, she’d be damned if she’d consider it cowardly or weak.

  It was one hundred percent self-preservation.

  She avoided looking at the curve of that delectable backside when he bent to get a water out of the fridge. “It will be up to the men if you can stay here when they’re interviewed.”

  Tate stopped mid-pull on his bottle of water. “Telling me what to do in my own house?”

  “People aren’t comfortable talking about private matters in front of their boss.” Even if she hadn’t observed this very behavior after interviewing thousands of people over the past ten years, Belle had lived it. She’d always hated talking of her mother’s alcoholism—that went double for talking about it with a superior.

  “I’d wager they’re less comfortable saying it to the police.”

  “Yes, well, you don’t know what might come up. Delinquent childcare payments or illness or any number of personal matters can be the cause of odd behavior. Whatever it is, it’s not for you to hear.”

  “I feel the need to repeat, this is my house.”

  “Then I’ll just have to remove myself from this lovely kitchen and have all your men come into town. It’d be an awful shame to waste everyone’s precious time during such a busy season for something as simple as a spot of privacy, but that’s how we’ll handle things.”

  Tate hesitated, something flickering behind his eyes before he seemed to give in. “Fine.”

  She expected him to turn on his heel and leave, so it was a surprise when he took a spot opposite her at the table. The heavy drag of the wooden bench seat over the slate tile floor scraped and creaked slightly when he settled himself onto the bench. “What are you going to ask them?”

  “Police busin—” The words weren’t even out when he had her computer in hand, snaked back across the table.

  “Tate! That’s work.”

  The telltale laughter lines that normally crinkled around his eyes—especially when he was at his jerky, cocky best—faded as he scanned the screen. “This is the report you’ve written up. About this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re recommending a police patrol here on my land and stakeouts down in the ravines.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re also proposing that you run the op down in the ravine?”

  “Yes again.”

  “Then you’re a bigger fool than I ever thought.”

  The words stung with all the evil ire of a mound of fire ants. Worse, it hurt that he still had the power to hurt her at all.

  He’d never liked her decision to go into police work, but an incident late one night when they were dating, when she’d gone on a ride along with a couple of officers, had sealed his ire. A domestic incident that had become violent had resulted in her getting kicked in the thigh.

  As injuries went, it was minor and hadn’t deterred her much, but Tate had latched onto it as if it proved him right somehow. That police work was dangerous and not something she should be involved in.

  What if the husband had wielded a knife or a gun instead of his leg? The arguments had started there and steamrolled as his imagination got the better of him.

  An imagination that, ultimately, got the better of their relationship, too.

  “And there we go again, Tate. Right back to the same spot we’ve been in for almost ten years.”

  He handled the laptop back, setting it so the screen faced her once again. “We keep hitting that spot because you stubbornly refuse to understand the danger you choose each and every day.”

  “No!” She pushed back on the bench seat, the hard scrape of wood over tile a harsh punctuation to the eruption of emotion. “You don’t understand. You seem to think that I’m some sort of punching bag for your ego.”

  He was on his feet, his chest heaving, his fighting stance a match for hers. “My ego? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “If you really cared at all about me, you’d understand that I need to do this.”

  “Now whose ego are we talking about, Belle?”

  The question tripped her up, pushing the air from her lungs as she fought to find the right words. Fought to explain this need she barely understood herself.

  She’d given up everything—everything—to be a cop. And standing in his kitchen, staring at Tate, that truth came back to her full force. So she did what she always did.

  She protected herself.

  “You can’t stand that I’m here. You can’t stand that I’m the one who was called out to the ranch this morning to help you. And you really can’t stand that I am making a life for myself.”

  “Make a life. Make whatever the hell you want. It doesn’t mean I have to sit around and watch you put yourself in harm’s way and act like I’m okay with it or not have an opinion on it.”

  “It’s smothering. Even your attitude about the ranch hands. They’re grown men. They can choose what they’re going to say to me without you hanging over their heads like some den mother.”

  “I’m not—”

  “And it’s not just me or the ranch hands either. You do it to Arden. How fast did you hightail it back here this morning to tell her to lock herself in her room? Meanwhile you went out to the ends of the ranch at five a.m., still in the dark, without a care for your own safety.”

  The barb clearly hit its mark as his gaze went a cold, hard green. “You stick to what you know. You’ve made your decisions more than clear, but I don’t need you interfering with me or my family.”

  “I’m not interfering.”

  “You have no idea what my family means to me.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “You haven’t been around for ten years, so no, you really don’t.”

  She knew he was fast—she’d watched him win more
than a few high school football games as a wide receiver because of his long legs and speed. She’d experienced a different sort of speed in the length of time it took him to get her out of her panties in the back seat of his car when both of them were in a frenzied rush to make love. She’d even seen him race across the town square to corral a puppy who’d lost his way at the annual Memorial Day picnic before he headed straight into Main Street.

  But none of them compared to the speed of how fast she tumbled into his arms.

  One moment she was standing beside the long table and the next she was in his arms, pulled tight against that impressive chest.

  And it was even better than she remembered.

  The firm contours of his pecs were harder than the ones she pressed against in her mind’s eye. The strong lines of his shoulders were broader than the ones she traced in the dreams that woke her in a fever. And the firm lips that pressed against hers were far softer—and far more adept—than any she’d recreated in her most vivid fantasies.

  Belle knew she should fight him—should pull away and avoid going down a path fraught with memories and pain and sadness—but heaven help her, she could no sooner stop kissing Tate Reynolds than she could stop breathing.

  He held her close, his lips tinged with the subtle cues of desperation. Somewhere in the hard press of his mouth and the glorious exploration of his tongue, she felt it.

  Fear.

  It hummed beneath his skin, subtle yet insistent. And it added depth and dimension to the harsh words and dismissive tone he’d used earlier.

  Hadn’t that been the root of all their problems? He was so convinced she’d come to a bad end as a cop that he refused to see her competence. Her strength. Or her ability to train and plan for the work.

  If only—

  “Cops cleared us. Time to mend the fence line.” Ace’s voice boomed into the kitchen in advance of him, but it was enough to pull them apart and out of the electrifying kiss. Belle whirled from where she stood pressed against Tate to see Ace stomp into the kitchen, his move reminiscent of his brother’s.

  She nearly stumbled back into the bench seat until Tate held her steady, his large, capable grip strong on her biceps.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.” She pressed her hands on his forearms to fully steady herself before pulling back. “I’m fine.”

  Ace was smart enough to keep his mouth shut as he tromped over to the coffeepot. “Rex Hudson will be in shortly. He’s just cleaning up after that last calving and will head in.”

  “Thank you.” Belle picked up her notebook and pen and scratched down Rex’s name. She knew the man—had seen him around town and had even hung out with him and his girlfriend one night at Tabasco’s—but the notes gave her something to do.

  And it kept her from looking at Tate and the curious way his dark gaze seemed directed toward her.

  Ace turned from the coffee maker, his attention on Tate. “You ready to go fix the fence?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then let’s go.” Ace doffed his hat in her direction, then shot a pointed stare at his brother that spoke more than any words. “We’ll see you later, Belle.”

  “Please don’t rush. If you’re not back by the time I’m done, I’ll just let myself out.”

  “We’ll be back,” Tate said. His words held an ominous sort of promise and she wasn’t sure if she should be worried or aroused.

  Since her stomach still quivered with butterflies and her mouth practically trembled from the heavy imprint of Tate Reynolds’s lips, she decided worry was the better choice.

  Arousal held far too much risk.

  * * *

  Tate dragged on the thick gloves needed to finish installing the line of fence. Their hands had been prepared to do the job earlier, but when the cops took over their investigation, he and Ace had sent them into more productive work instead of waiting around to be cleared.

  He’d have preferred to be out here by himself. Or would have gladly dragged Hoyt out with him. His younger brother knew when a man wanted to keep things to himself. He respected that. Understood that.

  Not Ace.

  Tate glanced over to find his brother dragging on his own gloves, as if he had all the time in the world. Yet one more thing to chap at Tate’s ass, but he knew arguing with his older brother would only make the man move slower.

  Which took the low-simmering anger that had burned beneath his skin all morning and turned up the heat a few notches. And while it was unfair to lay all that heat at Ace’s feet—Belle had done a damn fine job of upping his ire all on her own—it would do no good to use Ace as his personal punching bag. His older brother hit back.

  Hard.

  “I said it this morning and I’ll say it again. Belle looks good.” Just like with his coffee refill in the kitchen, Ace never even looked at him as he bent down to pick up his end of the barbed wire they’d already pulled out of the truck bed.

  Since he knew exactly what Belle looked like—and smelled like and tasted like, for that matter—Tate said nothing and walked to the opposite end of the length of fence. He bent to snag his end of the wire and nearly tumbled over himself when he miscalculated his grip. His thick gloves swiped the barbs instead of gripping them and he quickly hopped in his boots to right himself. As if sensing his overcompensation, Ace pulled back, dragging the wire out of the way. “You okay?”

  “Fine.” Tate bent once more and gripped the thick width of fence, hauling it up with both hands. “I’m fine.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  Again, Tate ignored his brother as they walked toward the open fence line. As if by unspoken agreement, they both avoided the yellow tape that still fluttered in the afternoon breeze, even though they were free to remove the offending sign of intrusion on Reynolds land. The cops had taken their photos and their soil samples, clearing them to continue their use of the property.

  Although he was glad to get the chore done, that subtle sense of menace that had ridden him all day still dogged his steps like an invisible weight around his neck. What should have been a ready distraction—kissing Belle until they were both oblivious of the world around them—hadn’t done the trick.

  Nor would ignoring the situation.

  Someone had been murdered on their land. He’d seen the body himself—seen the ravages of what one human could do to another—and wondered if he’d somehow been implicit.

  The steady increase in crime in the Pass was unsettling, but Tate had managed to keep his distance from it as he and his family worked to return Reynolds Station to its former glory. Their father’s betrayal of all of them—using the illegal ranching practice of rendering to feed the cows—had nearly put them under. It was not permitted to feed livestock with the ground up by-products of already-slaughtered animals, yet their father had taken the shortcut that had brought down the ire of the press, their buyers and the FDA, as well as the never-ending headlines proclaiming how mad cow disease could come to Texas.

  The discovery of Andrew Reynolds’s crimes and his quick decline and death from a heart attack had only added to the nightmare of the situation.

  But they’d found their way past it.

  Ranching was good business and the land held enough life in her that their father’s illegal practices hadn’t put them fully under. Bit by bit, year by year, he, Ace and Hoyt had brought things back. For all his ribbing of her yoga and her meditation and her incense burning, Arden did more than her fair share and he commended her for it. She kept their books like a champ, managed payroll and saw to it that they even had an annual Christmas party for their staff. She’d also been instrumental in pushing him and his brothers toward PR opportunities that would highlight their focus on sustainability and off what had nearly ended their business.

  While all that effort had gotten them back on track, their inward focus on rebuilding an honest, thriving
business meant they hadn’t done their part for their community. Beyond supporting the basic request of the police to put some outlying patrols on their land, they’d sat back and ignored what was happening around them.

  On a hard sigh, Tate lowered his end of the fence to the ground, his motions matched with those of Ace. The two of them worked in silence, Ace’s questions seeming at an end as they both worked to attach their ends of the fence to the thick posts that speared up out of the earth. It was boring work and he’d spent endless, tedious hours doing it as a kid, but in that moment, Tate would’ve done a mile of fence line if he could avoid the drive back to the main house with Ace.

  Hell, he’d do the entire perimeter of the ranch five times over if it meant they didn’t have to suddenly look inward—inside that fence line—hunting for a killer.

  Sweat pooled at the base of his spine as a mental roster of their staff reeled through his mind. Ranger and Tris continued to nag at him, but as Tate considered their staff, he knew there was a huge difference between thinking a man was capable of drugs and making the far larger leap to murder. He and his brothers expected an honest day’s labor from their team, but that didn’t mean they knew all there was to know about the men who they hired to work their land. And no matter how well paid, for some there was no amount that satisfied a desperate craving for more.

  Drugs were an easier leap than suspecting one of his employees had blood on his hands.

  Ace broke the silence. “Belle settled in well.”

  “We should have put her in the mess hall.”

  “Kitchen’s more comfortable.”

  The kitchen was considerably more comfortable—and intimate—if that blazing kiss with Belle was any indication. And damn it, he didn’t want comfortable. Nor did he want the memory of her pressed against his body or the way her soft lips opened beneath his own haunting his thoughts.

  But it was too late to rethink the impulse to drag her close.