Conard County Spy

by Rachel Lee

  But Trace and Ryker had set out for Langley a day later, and she’d been on the edge of her seat ever since. They were taking on some pretty powerful people inside the secretive walls of the CIA. How would that turn out?

  Ryker called each evening to talk to Marisa, but she didn’t hear from Trace. It was as if he had cut her out of his life, and that gouged at her heart, painful every waking minute. Couldn’t the guy at least have said goodbye?

  She sighed and cooed at the baby. Another smile answered her, and Jonni tried hard to imitate the sound.

  “Both of them, I gathered,” Marisa answered. “You want me to take her?”

  “I’m fine. I’ve heard that babies can whistle. I wonder if I should try to teach her.”

  Anything except think about Trace’s return and what it might mean. Or worse, that Marisa had misunderstood and he wouldn’t come back at all.

  Those days she’d spent with him had taught her that he wasn’t a man who opened up easily. What he did share skimmed the surface, and even though she’d been caught up in all of this with him, he’d guarded his secrets carefully. He’d talked about his parents without saying a whole lot, she realized in retrospect. He hadn’t even evinced grief when he spoke of them dying in the Ebola crisis in Africa. Maybe most of his emotions were out of reach to him now. Maybe he’d locked them away in a safe place so he could do his job, and simply didn’t let anyone past those walls.

  Odd to think she’d made love with a man and didn’t truly have any idea if he liked her. He’d said some nice things, but that didn’t add up to liking. People said those things because they felt it necessary, and she had kind of pushed him into making love to her.

  Well, if he was coming back here, it was probably only to say goodbye. She couldn’t imagine him staying here in the middle of nowhere after the exciting and widely traveled life he’d lived.

  He’d probably die of boredom.

  Jonni started fussing, and Marisa took her to feed her.

  “It’ll all be okay,” Marisa said.

  “What will?” She certainly hadn’t revealed that she was pining for a man who clearly wasn’t pining for her. Not even a phone call?

  When she finally went home that evening, she was grateful it was a weekend. Because she suddenly had a strong urge for a good cry, an emotional catch-up with herself after all that had happened. A spy had waltzed into her life, saved her from a bad guy she never would have met except for him, and then waltzed away again.

  Why should she ever have allowed herself to imagine anything else?

  When the doorbell rang late the next afternoon, she almost didn’t answer it. She was in no mood to see anyone, and right now she most especially didn’t want to see Trace.

  But then irritation goaded her and she went to throw open the door. It was definitely Trace, with a fresh haircut, a long wool coat with buttons rather than a zipper and a half smile.

  “Well, hello,” she said a bit sharply. “Not even a phone call? Like I’m nothing?” She started to close the door, deciding in an instant that she was going to end this herself and not give him the opportunity.

  “They wouldn’t let me call.”

  That stopped her just as she started to close the door. Heedless of the still-chilly air, although spring was beginning to make real inroads, she said, “I’m supposed to believe that?”

  “It’s true.”

  “Ryker called Marisa.”

  “Ryker wasn’t under the intense investigation and questioning that I was.”

  She regarded him steadily, thinking that he looked a little tired, and even a bit thinner. Evidently these past weeks hadn’t been easy on him. Sympathy began to rise in her, the last thing she wanted to feel for him.

  She stepped back, letting him enter, and stood several feet away as he unbuttoned his coat. The glove was gone from his scarred right hand. “There’s coffee,” she said with less than usual grace.

  “Thank you.”

  But he didn’t move immediately, simply closing the door and standing there, looking at her. Just looking at her. As if...he were hungry for the sight of her? She didn’t dare believe it.

  “We need to talk,” he said finally. “Maybe that coffee would be good after all.”

  “Still taking pain meds?”

  “Rarely. They’re talking about amputation again.”

  She froze on her way to the coffeepot and caught her breath as she resumed getting two mugs and filling them. “No alternative?”

  “There’s always an alternative. Like living with this.”

  “Have you made up your mind?”

  “Not yet.”

  She carried the mugs to the living room. When he sat on the sofa, she took the chair, the safest place to be. He’d unbuttoned his coat, but still wore it, a sure sign he expected to be gone soon.

  This was painful, hurtful. Why in the hell had he come back? She couldn’t tell if this was worse than not hearing from him all this time. All it seemed to be doing was strengthening her sense of loss. No amount of telling herself she barely knew the guy was enough to ease what had taken root in her heart. “So,” she said, trying to keep the conversation to safe subjects, “did you clean house?”

  He smiled faintly. “We surely did. Ryker’s friend Bill was a great help with that. Apparently he’d been doing some digging of his own. And then of course I was exhibit A. It helped, too, that when the general started talking, he was mad enough to tell his side of the story.”

  “So what’s going to happen to him?”

  “I think he outlived his usefulness. My guess is he’s going to be tried and sent to prison. All because he wanted revenge. Or we might trade him for another prisoner.”

  She nodded, uncomfortably aware that her heart was beating heavily. She could feel it in her chest. What did she want, anyway? For this guy to leave or stay? His departure would return her life to its uncomplicated, normal state. If he hung around...well, why would he hang around anyway?

  “And what about the guy who betrayed you?”

  “He’s getting schooled by some very annoyed FBI agents about revealing the identity of a foreign informant, among other things. His star is rapidly crashing. As it should.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Good news, it seemed, except in one respect. “So are you going back to the agency?” she asked finally, her heart thundering.

  “Hell, no. And I wanted to talk with you about that.”

  “Me?” Now she felt confused. “What do I have to say about it?”

  “Everything.” Then he stood and came toward her, finally dropping to his knees in front of her. “I know I’m not easy. I know I’m a clam and it drives you nuts sometimes. I know I’m probably as crippled emotionally as I am physically. But I also know that I realized I missed you every single moment of every single day I was away.”

  Her heart was skittering now with both hope and fear. She wanted to reach for him, but for the first time in her life, she didn’t dare do what impulse demanded. “What do you want from me, Trace?”

  “A chance. I can’t ask for any more than that. A chance to grow whatever this is between us. A chance to make it into something lasting and beautiful. Because everything about you is beautiful to me, Julie. Even the way you give me a hard time. I love the way I never have to wonder what you’re thinking because you just tell me. I love the way you rarely let me run away and hide inside myself. I think with you I could be a better man.”

  She was breathing rap
idly now, hopeful and half panicked. “You hardly know me.”

  “I saw you under the best circumstances when we made love, and I saw you under the worst circumstances with the general. Everything in between is bound to be just as remarkable. I’m not worried about who you are. I’m worried about whether you can stand me.”

  “Stand you?” she repeated. Everything inside her was melting with the understanding that she wanted this man with her every single day in the future. He wouldn’t be easy, but that wasn’t part of bargains like this.

  “I know I’m difficult, but you’ve opened my heart for the first time in years. I’d like to be part of your world, part of a world where you put smiley faces on students’ papers and take care of your friends with everything you’ve got. Just let me try.”

  Enough, she thought. The answers were exploding inside her, and they were joyful. She slid off the chair until they were kneeling face-to-face. “Just tell me why, Trace. Just tell me why.”

  “Because,” he said firmly, “I’m in love with you.”

  She felt the smile growing on her face. “I could get used to hearing that.”

  “Then I’ll say it until you tell me to shut up.”

  She lifted a hand to cradle his cheek. “I never want you to shut up. Trace... I love you, too. Let’s make this work.”

  His face lit up like the Fourth of July, giving her a glimpse of the untroubled man he could become. “Really? How do you want to start?”

  “You can start by taking me to bed. This time, for a long time. I want to make love with you.”

  He leaned in to kiss her deeply, and she felt the familiar rush of desire through her entire body. “For hours and hours,” he murmured. “I want to make love to you forever.”

  “Me, too,” she whispered, throwing her arms around him and hugging him with every ounce of passion and strength in her body.

  A spy had come to Conard County. To stay.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from HER COLTON P.I. by Amelia Autin

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  Her Colton P.I.

  by Amelia Autin

  Chapter 1

  She’s not going to get away with it. That was all Chris Colton could think as he listened to the tearful story Angus and Evalinda McCay unfolded before him. Holly McCay wasn’t going to get away with keeping her in-laws from their beloved twin grandsons, all they had left of their son after he died.

  Chris leaned back in his chair in his northwest Fort Worth, Texas, office and glanced at the pictures the McCays had handed him. One was of blond-haired, brown-eyed Holly McCay and her now-deceased husband, Grant. The other was of the McCay twins, Ian and Jamie.

  “But they don’t look like that anymore,” Evalinda McCay said sadly. “Our grandsons weren’t even a year old when that picture was taken, and that was more than six months ago. Holly won’t even let us see them. She’s been like that ever since Grant...” She dabbed a tissue at her eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. McCay,” Chris said, steel in his voice. “I’ll take this job myself—I won’t hand it off to an associate. I’ll find your grandsons for you. And your daughter-in-law, too.”

  Angus McCay cleared his throat. “I don’t like to speak ill of my son, Mr. Colton, because he’s gone and can’t defend himself. But he was blind to what his wife was really like. She trapped him into marriage—”

  “They hadn’t even been married seven months when Ian and Jamie were born,” Evalinda McCay clarified in a shocked tone.

  “Grant’s will made her the trustee for their boys,” Angus McCay continued, as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “And...well...”

  “The money is all she cares about,” his wife threw in. She put her hand on her husband’s arm. “I know you don’t like to put it so bluntly, Angus, but you know it’s true.” Her gaze moved to Chris. “Holly took the boys and left town three weeks before Christmas. Right before Christmas...” She choked up for a moment before continuing. “Grant’s fortune is tied up in a trust for Ian and Jamie, but Holly is the sole trustee. Which means she can spend the money any way she sees fit, without any real oversight.”

  Angus McCay added, “And since she won’t tell us where she is...won’t even let us see them...” He sighed heavily. “We don’t even know if they’re alive, much less healthy and happy.”

  “We tried to get custody of the boys through the courts right after Grant died,” Evalinda McCay said, her wrinkled face lined with worry. “But grandparents don’t seem to have any legal rights these days. Our lawyer said he’s not optimistic—not even to force Holly to let us have some kind of visitation with Ian and Jamie.”

  “The police won’t help us, because Holly hasn’t done anything wrong,” Angus McCay said gruffly.

  “Except break our hearts, and Ian’s and Jamie’s, too, for that matter—but there’s no law against that,” Evalinda McCay put in.

  “You don’t have to say any more.” Determination grew in Chris. If it was the last thing he did, he’d find Holly McCay and her eighteen-month-old sons for Mr. and Mrs. McCay. Not just because no one had the right to deprive good and decent grandparents like the McCays access to their grandchildren. But because the children deserved to know their grandparents. That was the real bottom line.

  Not to mention it made him sick to think of Holly McCay isolating her children from their relatives for money. His foster parents hadn’t abused him, but he’d known ever since he was placed with them when he was eleven that they were in it only for the money the state gave them.

  “We tracked Holly here to Fort Worth, but then the trail went cold. That’s why we decided to hire you, Mr. Colton,” Angus McCay said now. “You know this part of the state—we don’t.” He glanced at his wife, who cleared her throat as if to remind him of something. “And there’s another thing. It’s all over the news here in Fort Worth about the Alphabet Killer in Granite Gulch.”

  Chris stiffened, wondering if the McCays knew about his family’s connection to the serial killer. But Angus McCay continued without a pause and Chris relaxed. “We know Granite Gulch is forty miles away, and we know all the targets so far are women with long dark hair. But who knows? That could change at
any time. And Holly...well...despite everything, she is our daughter-in-law. If anything happened to her...”

  He trailed off and his wife picked up the thread of the story. “We heard on the news the last victim was Gwendolyn Johnson, which means the killer is up to the Hs now. And Holly’s name begins with H. No matter what she’s done to us, Mr. Colton, she’s Ian and Jamie’s mother. They’ve already lost their father before they ever had a chance to know him. I shudder to think of those two innocent babies orphaned at such a young age.” She turned to her husband and nodded for him to continue.

  “We don’t know what it will cost,” Angus McCay said, “but we have some money saved. Whatever your fees are, we’ll double them if you make this job your top priority. And we’ll give you a bonus if you find Holly within a month. We have to find her, Mr. Colton. And the boys,” he added hastily.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Chris said, thinking to himself that Holly McCay didn’t deserve in-laws as caring as the McCays obviously were. “I won’t even take a fee for this one—just cover the expenses and we’ll be square. But I’ll find your daughter-in-law and your grandsons for you, Mr. and Mrs. McCay. You can take that to the bank.”

  Evalinda McCay unbent enough to smile at Chris with approval. “You’re a good man, Mr. Colton. I knew we were doing the right thing contacting you.” Her smile faded. “When you find Holly, please don’t tell her anything. She might take the boys and disappear. Again. No, I think it’s better if you just let us know where she is and we’ll take it from there. If we can just see her...talk to her...if she can see us with our grandsons...she can’t be that hard-hearted to keep us away when she knows how much Grant’s boys mean to us.”

  Chris nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He wasn’t convinced Mrs. McCay was right, but he wasn’t going to say so. If Holly McCay had fled right before Christmas, taking her twins—and their money—with her, she definitely could be hard-hearted enough to prevent the McCays from being a part of her sons’ lives. It’s all about the money for her, he thought cynically. Just like my foster parents. It’s all about the money.