The Millionaires’ Club: Ryan, Alex & Darin

by Cindy Gerard / Cathleen Galitz / Kristi Gold

  But not for much longer. Tonight had really, truly, once and for all cinched it. She was ready to make the transition to wild oats. Since Ry was not going to be the man to guide her around that exciting corner, she was just going to have to find someone else who would.

  There had to be someone who wasn’t intimidated by her brother. Someone who hadn’t grown up around here wouldn’t know enough to be afraid of Travis. Someone new in town.

  Someone like Dr. Nathan Beldon.

  It just kept coming back to him.

  Yeah. She could settle for a doctor.

  Settle.

  She pulled in a deep breath, let it out. It probably didn’t say much about her strength of character that she was considering settling for any man who didn’t run from Travis. It also pretty much told the tale that she wasn’t evolved, in the feminist sense.

  “Not everyone is cut out to be a mover and a shaker or a corporate ball breaker,” she muttered, and flipped over onto her back again. “No crime in that.”

  She made a difference in her own way. She liked her volunteer work at the library with her friend Stephanie Firth, and her work at the burn clinic. She also loved organizing fund-raisers. But what she really enjoyed was the time she spent at the day-care center.

  She loved kids. Short ones, shy ones, snotty-nosed ones, even the ones that bit. And she wanted kids of her own—with the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Or at least with a man who was willing to spend his life with her.

  And then, of course, there was that other little thing. That virgin thing. She was so tired of celibacy. She wanted to know what all the fuss was about. If Nathan Beldon ended up being the one to show her, maybe he could also be the one she could potentially start a life and raise her babies with.

  And to hell with what Trav or Ryan said.

  “I thought we had this settled, bud.” Trav Whelan clasped a hand on Ry’s shoulder the next afternoon as they cozied up to the bar in the Cattleman’s Club. His expression was filled with stymied disappointment. “Don’t back out on me now.”

  Ry grimaced and scratched his ear. And came up blank. This conversation was not going the way he’d planned it. He’d had his arguments lined up like spit-and-polished soldiers. Put one of the other guys—any of the other guys involved with the situation—in charge of looking out for Carrie until this mystery surrounding Natalie Perez and her baby was solved. Ry was a lover, not a fighter, right? Yeah…he’d been in on some of the covert missions the Cattleman’s Club members sometimes found themselves diving into feet first for the greater good, but there were much better men for this particular job.

  Trav, however, didn’t see it that way and didn’t plan on taking no for an answer. And he was doing a damn fine job of guilting Ry into forgetting all the valid reasons why it was a bad idea for him to be the one to ride herd on Carrie.

  “You are my man,” Trav continued with a come-on, step-up-to-the-plate smile. “You have always been my man. Hell, Ry, you’ve been around long enough to know I can’t take a chance on some opportunistic SOB who might try to take advantage of her. You’re the only one I can turn to…and I can’t keep an eye on her. Not until this is over.”

  Torn between the need to wrangle a way out of certain disaster and his loyalty to Trav, Ry let out a long sigh while Trav settled in to draw a little more blood.

  “I’m a daddy. A daddy,” Trav repeated as if he still couldn’t believe his good fortune, “and the lady in my life… Ry, you know both Natalie and the baby are still at risk.”

  Yeah, Ryan knew. So, evidently, did Carrie. He was still chewing on that little bit of news. He was still a little staggered by her conjectures. She’d been dead-on right. About a lot of things. The Texas Cattleman’s Club did get involved in covert missions. It was part of their code of honor and their mission. Justice, peace, leadership…what they did was always for the greater good.

  Most recently, several Club members—Trav and himself along with David Sorenson, Clint Andover, Alex Kent and Sheik Darin ibn Shakir—had been trying to unravel the mystery that started one chilly night in November and just kept getting more bizarre. Yes, they knew a lot more now than they had that night when the then-unidentified woman had stumbled into the Royal Diner with a newborn baby girl and a cool half a million dollars stuffed in a diaper bag, but there were still questions.

  That woman, who had promptly collapsed, fallen into a coma and only recently recovered and regained her memory, was Natalie Perez, now Travis’s fianceé. The baby was Trav’s baby, the unexpected but wonderful result of an affair they had both decided it was best to walk away from almost a year ago.

  The two men became very quiet. Ry pondered the label on the long-neck he cupped loosely in his hands on the bar in front of him. “How is Natalie?” he asked finally. “And little Autumn?”

  Trav contemplated his own beer, as sober as Ry had ever seen him. “They’re doing okay. Man… I can’t believe I ever walked away from her. I can’t believe I almost lost them. That bastard Birkenfeld…he could have killed Natalie, sold our baby.”

  Ry let out a deep breath, the enormity of the situation weighing heavily on his shoulders as he recalled the details. He hadn’t been at the diner that November night when Natalie showed up with a Texas Cattleman’s Club business card clutched in her hand. Neither had Travis or Darin, who had both been out of the country on assignment until the end of the December.

  Maybe if Trav had been in town when Natalie had first appeared on the scene, they’d be further ahead of the game. But he hadn’t, and it was only when she’d spotted Travis at the New Year’s Eve party after he’d returned to Royal from Europe and a TCC mission, that Natalie had started to remember.

  She’d finally recalled Travis and their brief but intense affair that had resulted in little Autumn. It wasn’t until weeks later that she’d remembered why she’d ended up in Royal carrying all that money in a diaper bag. The story was so bizarre that even now Ry had trouble digesting the magnitude and the far-reaching effects.

  Natalie had been worked at a birthing clinic run by Dr. Roman Birkenfeld. Over several months she’d noticed that an alarming number of single women had lost their babies at birth. She’d been so alarmed she’d decided to secretly search the computer files. When she did, she discovered that the babies hadn’t really died but had been sold. Before she could confront Dr. Birkenfeld or go to the police with this damning information, she’d gone into labor.

  And that’s when her trouble had begun. The good doctor, it seemed, had had the same plans for Natalie’s baby as he’d had for the others. He’d drugged her, and the next morning, after she’d given birth, she’d realized he intended to tell her, as he had the other women, that her baby had died. Somehow Natalie had escaped the clinic undetected, and followed Dr. Birkenfeld and his nurse accomplice to the airport where Natalie was positive they intended to fly with the baby to the prospective buyers.

  When the nurse took the baby into a rest room to change her diaper, Natalie had made her move. She shoved the woman to the floor, grabbed the baby and the diaper bag—which, it turned out, was full of money that the TCC men now held in the club’s safe. She’d fled to the bus station, but Birkenfeld and his nurse had caught up with her in Amarillo.

  And from that point on, Natalie’s memory was still a blank slate, which was why Trav and the rest of the guys were still on guard.

  Ry angled Trav a look. “Has she remembered anything else?” he asked, knowing they needed something more to help them resolve this nasty business.

  Travis shook his head. “No. Everything after Amarillo is pretty fuzzy. All she remembers of Birkenfeld catching up with her is that there was a struggle and she hit her head.” He stopped, and Ry could see a hundred emotions cloud his friend’s face. Everything from rage to helplessness to relief that his woman and his child were safe to frustration that Birkenfeld had dropped out of sight but was still a threat. They wanted to put this entire episode to bed.

  “She
doesn’t know how she got away from them,” Trav continued. “Last night she told me that the only thing that kept her going was knowing she had to stay conscious long enough to find me.”

  He swallowed hard. “And then I wasn’t there for her.”

  “Hey.” Ry’s hand on Trav’s shoulder pulled him out of his anguish to meet Ry’s eyes. “You’re here for her now. You’re here for both of them.”

  All the TCC guys were, until they caught Birkenfeld and his nurse, who were still on the loose and evidently desperate, if the threats against Natalie’s life were any indication. Ry figured they were. And after Tara Roberts, who had taken Natalie home with her to recuperate, had ended up with her house mysteriously burning down, none of the TCC men felt they could let down their guards or ease up on their continuing investigation.

  “Birkenfeld is still out there somewhere,” Travis said, his voice chillingly cold. “Until he’s caught and put behind bars, neither Natalie nor Autumn are safe.” He turned to Ry. “That’s why I need you, man. Carrie—”

  “Is a big girl,” Ry insisted, still determined to work his way out of this. He was more or less in agreement with Carrie on this issue. “I really don’t know why you think she needs protection. She’s not a part of this.”

  “But I am. And I figure Birkenfeld knows that. Do you feel comfortable—no, strike comfortable. Do you feel one hundred percent sure that this sick bastard who drugs women and tells them their babies are dead so he can sell them, wouldn’t stoop so low as to try to get to Natalie through me and what’s mine?”

  Ry closed his eyes, knowing in his heart of hearts that Trav was right. Ry didn’t feel one hundred percent sure about that. And since Carrie was part of Trav’s world, he had a legitimate point. “You’re right. It takes a twisted as well as a corrupt mind to do what he’s done.”

  “And it takes someone I trust to look out for my sister until we find him and finish this.”

  Ry rocked his beer bottle slowly back and forth on the bar and finally nodded in defeat. How could he turn Trav down in the face of such a compelling argument?

  He expelled another deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. Okay. I’ll do it. But I still don’t understand what Nathan Beldon has to do with any of this.”

  Trav shrugged. “Probably nothing.”

  Ry whipped his head toward his friend. “Then why am I watching out for him?”

  “Because I don’t like him.” Trav gave Ry a bland look. “Do I have to have another reason?”

  Three

  “I don’t believe I’m doing this,” Ryan muttered under his breath later that night. He tugged his Resistol low over his brow. Slumped behind the wheel of his new black SUV, he watched with a scowl as Carrie walked toward the Royal Diner on Nathan Beldon’s arm.

  She worked fast. He’d give her that. Or maybe it was Beldon who’d “put the moves” on her. Now, there was a statement that was going to haunt him into the next decade. Just like spying on Carrie was going to be his undoing.

  Trav may call it keeping an eye on her, but Ry figured Wayne Vincente, the Royal police chief might have a different take on it—like maybe stalking. And Ry, hell, he called it a whole lot of other things. Like uncomfortable, and stupid and…hey. He sat up straight, all senses on red alert. Had he seen that right? Had the slimeball doctor’s hand slipped a gentleman’s distance too low at the small of Carrie’s back where he’d planted it with a little too much familiarity?

  The diner door closed behind them before he had a chance to decide if it had been an accident or an illusion.

  Slimeball.

  Ry didn’t even know the guy, yet after seeing that—whatever that was—the assessment felt like a good fit. Without an ounce of hesitation, he slipped out of his SUV and headed for the diner. Trav wanted him to watch out for Carrie, so that’s what he was going to do. And that’s what this was about. A favor for a friend. Nothing more. He’d made up his mind last night that no matter what he wanted or how hot she was, Carrie was as off-limits romantically as a top secret military intelligence project.

  And with that thought fueling him, he opened the Royal Diner door and prepared to run a little creative interference.

  Nathan Beldon really was quite attractive, in a reserved, sophisticated sort of way, Carrie decided as she settled in across the booth from him.

  “You sure this is all right?” the good doctor asked with a smile that was apologetic and attentive and…interested, she realized with pleased surprise. Interested in a way that Ry had never been.

  She pushed thoughts of Ry from her mind and smiled back.

  “This is fine,” she assured him. And it was more than fine that he actually looked a little shy…uncertain, even.

  Imagine. A man who looked like him, as imposing and as self-confident as him, feeling uncertain of her. Why, it just set her little Southern heart all aflutter.

  She smiled at herself and her silliness all the while covertly assessing her impromptu dinner partner. She’d been leaving her volunteer shift at the hospital when she’d run into him in the parking lot, introduced herself and asked him if he’d like to join her for dinner.

  She’d been pretty proud of herself. She’d been cool, confident, not overly friendly…and he’d very graciously accepted her offer. Eagerly accepted her offer, even.

  And now here they were. She shot a covert glance at him over the top of her menu. Nathan Beldon wasn’t what you’d call blatantly handsome—not like Travis or Ryan with their in-your-face, drop-dead-gorgeous good looks. His was more of a classic, polished appeal. His brown eyes weren’t flirty and warm like theirs; his were far more serious. Not that that was a bad thing, just different from what she was used to.

  He was also very tall. Ryan was tall—an even six feet—but Nathan was perhaps a couple of inches taller. She liked that, she decided. At five-nine, she liked to sometimes feel a little delicate, liked to look up into a pair of interested eyes. And Nathan’s dark eyes were definitely showing some interest.

  He wasn’t built like Ry, either. While Ry was all muscle and sinew and athletic grace, Nathan Beldon was on the slim side and moved with a refined elegance that made her wonder what it would be like to dance with him. Could she be Ginger to his Fred?

  Could it be she’d been watching too many old, classic movies? Again she grinned at herself and all these sappy romantic notions.

  “Next time,” Nathan said, his cultured voice so softly hopeful it dragged her away from her musings, “we’ll go to Claire’s…or am I assuming too much?”

  She smiled, pleased. “No…you’re not assuming too much at all. I’d…like that very much.”

  She also very much liked the way his perfectly styled hair—so dark brown it was almost black—completed the tall dark and handsome look, even if his hair was a little finer, a little thinner than Ry’s, which was a thick, lush sable and always looked as if he’d just run his hands through it in frustration.

  “As a matter of fact,” she added, catching and hating herself for comparing Nathan to Ryan for about the hundredth time since she’d run into Nathan at the hospital earlier, “Claire’s is one of my favorite spots.”

  Royal’s quaint and classy French restaurant was noted for its romantic ambiance and excellent wines. An invitation to Claire’s came with a wealth of implied possibilities.

  “Then we definitely have something else to look forward to,” Nathan said with another one of those smiles that promised more than a casual cup of coffee after a romantic evening.

  “Yes,” she said, determined to focus on him and the attention he was giving her and banish Ryan from her mind, “we definitely do.”

  “Hey, folks.”

  Carrie smiled up at Sheila who appeared with a carafe of coffee and her order pad. “Hey, Sheila.”

  “What would you like?” Nathan asked without acknowledging the waitress.

  Sheila was one of Carrie’s favorite people in the whole world. The bubble-gum-blowing, forty-something waitress was blousy and blatantly se
xual in her too-tight uniform and bold makeup. She was also forthright and funny and her cat-and-mouse come-ons to Manny, who flirted and teased with everyone but who, Carrie suspected, secretly had it bad for Sheila, cracked her up.

  “Have you met Sheila?” Carrie interjected, deciding Nathan hadn’t actually meant to be impolite, but instead was simply feeling the weight of “new person in town” syndrome and still felt a little uncomfortable with the locals. “She’s an institution at the Royal Diner.”

  “Sweetie, I’m an institution in Texas,” Sheila informed her with her best Mae West moue. “How you doin’, Doc?” she added as Nathan slowly lifted his gaze from the menu.

  “A…pleasure, I’m sure,” he managed, looking uncomfortable even as he forced a smile that Carrie strongly suspected was for her benefit.

  Determined to be generous and assume his actions were shy, not snobbish, Carrie folded her menu and smiled up at Sheila. “I’ll have the soup. And a small salad.”

  “Ranch on the side, right?”

  “You got it.”

  “And for you, Doc?” Sheila asked.

  His shoulders stiffened slightly then relaxed. As Carrie watched, wondering if perhaps he was a little snobbish after all, he folded his menu, looked at Sheila and manufactured a smile. “I’ll try the sirloin. Medium rare.”

  “Comes with a baked spud and a side of ’slaw.”

  “Fine,” he said and, dismissing her, redirected his gaze at Carrie.

  She’d just decided she’d imagined Nathan’s discomfort when the last voice in the entire free world that she wanted to hear boomed into the confined space she’d carved out for her and Nathan.

  “Fine with me, too, sweet cheeks. I’ll have what he’s having.”

  Carrie froze at the sound of Ryan Evan’s voice.