Bulletproof Badge

by Angi Morgan

  The questions didn’t stop—breaks were few and far between. He didn’t mind. It meant they’d be finished quicker. The men treated him like a hero and were friendly enough, but none of them would tell him about Kenderly. No one answered his one question...was she all right?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Thomas was right. The motel is dingy,” she spoke softly to herself. After a week alone, sometimes she needed to make certain her voice still worked. Dingy and dark, especially with the curtains drawn.

  Kenderly paced. She wasn’t a pacer, yet...she paced. She’d actually paced more in the past week than she’d thought humanly possible. Then again, she hadn’t been outside Rangers headquarters or motel rooms for over a week.

  The unknown bugged her. The not knowing where or how long. Everything about starting over. Would she ever be safe? It all bugged her. They had Thomas Dimon in custody, and she’d been assured he wouldn’t make bail. They’d indicted Paul Tenoreno, and he also hadn’t made bail, which was a huge relief.

  But she’d lost control of her life because she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. At least she wasn’t crying about the situation.

  But maybe she wanted to, just a little.

  She’d thought she’d grown very close to Garrison, and then he’d just left. His last words had been about breakfast. Two days of being deposed or debriefed and feeling alone. She wasn’t allowed to call anyone except an attorney. After they assured her no charges were being brought, she didn’t need one. She was told time and time again what she couldn’t do. Then another week of just sitting, hidden in several run-down motels.

  Not one person had mentioned anything about her future. The more they veered away from the subject, the more her brain dwelled on it. And on Garrison.

  So she paced.

  The men in and out of Company F’s headquarters looked like genuine Texas Rangers—boots, jeans, dress shirts, guns and white Stetsons. It was sort of hard to think of Garrison Travis as one of them. He was her personal hero in a curly wig.

  But wasn’t he the one who put you in a room with strangers and just left?

  It was easy to remind herself just how heroic he’d been with each retelling of their adventure to another prosecutor with a video camera. But it was harder to believe when she was alone in a new motel room every night. The prosecutors reminded her how well they’d do with the evidence and testimony. But it was no consolation to walking away from everything she’d built for herself or business.

  It just didn’t help that she was so completely alone. It gave her too much time to play the what-if game. What if things had been different?

  “Blah, blah, blah.” Tired of talking to herself again. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  She’d made her decision to honor Isabella and Trinity by testifying, no matter what. She crossed her arms and looked out the window, longing to be outside in the fresh sunshine.

  Kenderly stretched her neck from side to side to relieve the stiffness. “How can I be so stiff from just pacing? This is never going away while I’m sleeping in a motel bed.”

  “I still owe you a back massage.” Garrison was in the doorway.

  Shiny boots, black jeans, crisp white shirt, white hat and a genuine glad-to-see-you smile that she’d sorely missed. It was so corny to think that she’d missed him more than anything in her life. They’d known each other for so little time, but she did. She couldn’t hide how seeing him made her happy.

  * * *

  “I DON’T THINK you’ll want it here, though.” Garrison loved the unreserved joy on Kenderly’s face when she saw him. She no longer looked abandoned, just impatient. “How you holding up?”

  It was good to see that she’d come out of this whole thing relatively unharmed. The one conversation he’d had about Kenderly was with Major Parker and Captain Oaks when they’d asked what Garrison wanted as his next assignment.

  “I don’t suppose reminding you that fraternizing with a witness is against the rules,” Oaks had warned.

  “What about protecting a fiancé?” he’d asked.

  “That, son, is something I can work with.” The captain had laughed.

  Garrison’s short conversation with Oaks had surprised him, but he was comfortable with the decision. As long as Kenderly liked the idea and things worked out. They’d have lots of time to get to know each other while he served on her protection detail.

  “Garrison!” She flew into his arms.

  “No one would tell me a damn thing until this morning,” he whispered. “You should be happy to know they’re taking your safety very seriously.”

  “Well, being safe is extremely lonely.” She stepped back when Jesse and Bryce walked in the room.

  “Go ahead and kiss her,” Bryce said. “No one’s coming.”

  Both men faced the hallway, giving them privacy—of sorts.

  Garrison didn’t hesitate. He scooped Kenderly to his chest, feet dangling in the air. She tasted as good as he remembered. Her response showed that she’d missed him as much as he’d missed her.

  He let her slide down the length of him and kept her close. “Damn, I missed you.”

  “Me, too. They said it might be months before we go to trial. Will you be able to visit or write or call? Or forget about me altogether?”

  “That’s never going to happen, and you don’t have to worry about visits. I’m going with you.” He was more determined than ever. Nothing would keep him from loving her.

  “What? No one mentioned anything about you. But wait. Are you sure? I mean, they’re talking about months. Are you going to be away from crime fighting the entire time?”

  “You don’t want me on the detail?”

  “Oh no, that’s not it at all. I want you to be on my detail for life. I mean...you don’t have to, if you don’t want to.” Kenderly looked so forlorn, yet hopeful.

  “Sweetheart, you know what happens if I leave you alone. There’s no tellin’ what trouble you’d find.”

  “That is so true.” She laughed, making him want to kiss her again.

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight.” He kissed her again before any of his superiors marched into the room. “Besides, it’ll give us plenty of time to create more of those porch swing stories for the grandkids.”

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss the next book in Angi Morgan’s miniseries,

  TEXAS RANGERS: ELITE TROOP,

  when SHOTGUN JUSTICE goes on sale next month.

  You’ll find it wherever Harlequin Intrigue books

  and ebooks are sold!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from BLUE RIDGE RICOCHET by Paula Graves.

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  Blue Ridge Ricochet

  by Paula Graves

  Chapter One

  Sleet rattled against the windshield, a staccato counterpoint to the rhythmic swish-swish of the windshield wipers. Outside, night had fallen in inky finality, as if it planned to stay awhile, the Jeep’s headlights the only illumination as far as the eye could see.

  Nicolette Jamison forced herself out of a weary slouch behind the steering wheel and concentrated on the curving mountain road revealed in her head
lights, well aware of the treachery that lay ahead for a careless driver. The switchbacks and drop-offs in the Blue Ridge Mountains could be deadly if you weren’t paying attention. Not to mention the occasional reckless deer or coyote—

  “Son of a—!”

  The man loomed in the Jeep’s headlights as suddenly as if the swirling mist had conjured him up, a tall, lean phantom of a man who turned slowly to face the headlights as she hit the brakes and prayed she wouldn’t go into a skid this dangerously close to a steep drop-off.

  The Jeep’s wheels grabbed the blacktop and hung on, the vehicle shimmying to a stop just a yard away from the apparition gazing back at her through the windshield. For a second, she had a strange sense of recognition, as if she knew him, though she was pretty sure she didn’t.

  Then his eyes fluttered closed and he dropped out of sight.

  Nicki’s heart stuttered like a snare drum against her rib cage as she stared at the misty void where, seconds earlier, she’d seen the staring man.

  Ghost, her inner twelve-year-old intoned, sending her heart rate soaring steeply for a few seconds before her grown-up side took charge. She checked the rearview mirror for coming traffic, saw only the faint red glow of her own taillights, and put the car in Reverse, backing up carefully until she could see what the front of the Jeep had concealed—a man lying in a crumpled heap in the center of the narrow two-lane road.

  She pulled the Jeep to the shoulder on the mountain side of the road and parked, engaging her hazard lights and trying to calm her rattled nerves. The man could be hurt.

  Or it could be a trick. Maybe she should call the sheriff’s department and let them handle things.

  Except...

  Buck up, Nicki. This is the life you chose.

  Her weapons of choice these days were pepper spray and sheer nerve, and so far, she’d survived on their one-two punch. But something about the man lying crumpled on the road in front of her made her nerve waver. There was still something eerily familiar about him, a memory tugging at the back of her mind, trying to make itself known.

  Holding the pepper-spray canister out in front of her, she approached the man, easing into a crouch just beyond reach. She shifted position so that the glow from the Jeep’s headlights fell across the man’s face.

  He was younger than she’d thought, in his midthirties at most. His pallor, combined with the sunken cheeks and shadowed eyes that came with illness, had made him look older. He was still breathing, she saw with relief.

  “Mister?”

  He stirred at the sound of her voice, his eyelids flickering open to half-mast, then drifting shut again. He muttered something that sounded like a string of numbers, but she couldn’t quite make them out.

  Gingerly, she reached out to check his pulse. Fast but steady and stronger than she’d anticipated. “Where are you hurt?”

  He murmured numbers again. She made out a two and a four before he stopped.

  She pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her jeans and tried to dial 911, then realized she didn’t have any reception. “Damn it.” She pocketed the phone and stared at him for a second, considering her options. Leaving him here in the road wasn’t an option. And without cell phone reception, calling for help wasn’t an option, either. The temperature was right at the freezing mark, and his skin was cold to the touch, which suggested he might already be suffering from exposure.

  He was breathing. He was at least semiconscious. His heart rate was a little fast but steady as a rock, so he didn’t seem likely to go into cardiac arrest anytime soon. And he’d definitely been mobile before he collapsed in front of her vehicle, so he didn’t seem to have any spinal issues.

  She had to get him warm, and the Jeep was the best bet. The old Wrangler had seen better days, but its heater still worked.

  But how was she supposed to haul this man into her Jeep?

  “Mister, think you can stay with me long enough for me to get you to my car?”

  He opened his eyes, looking straight at her, and that niggle of recognition returned. “Who’re you?”

  “My name’s Nicki. What’s yours?”

  “Dallas.”

  For a brief second, she wondered if he’d misunderstood her question. Then the memory that had been flickering in and out of the back of her mind popped to the front, and she sat back on her heels, almost toppling over.

  Dallas. As in Dallas Cole, missing for almost three weeks now and presumed by most people as either dead and buried somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains or wintering somewhere on the coast of Mexico, a cerveza in hand and a pretty girl by his side.

  The last place she’d figured on running into the missing FBI employee was on Bellwether Road in the middle of Dudley County, Virginia.

  Now she could see the resemblance between the man lying in the road in front of her and the missing man whose disappearance had caused a stir all the way from Washington, DC, to the little town of Purgatory, Tennessee, where a man named Alexander Quinn ran a security agency called The Gates.

  “Oh, hell,” she murmured.

  A frown furrowed his brow. “Where am I?”

  “Ever heard of River’s End, Virginia?”

  His voice rasped as he answered. “No.”

  “Not surprising.”

  He struggled to sit up. Not quite sure she could trust him yet, she let him do so without her help, her gaze sweeping over him in search of injuries. She spotted healing bruises dotting his jawline and the evidence of old blood spotting the front of his grimy gray shirt, but no sign of recent injuries.

  Mostly, he looked exhausted and cold, and while she was no doctor, she could help him out with those two ailments. “Think you can stand?”

  He pulled his legs up and gave a push with his arms, wincing as his left arm gave out and he landed on his backside. “Something’s wrong with my shoulder.”

  Could be a trick, her wary mind warned, but she ignored it, following the demands of her compassionate heart. He couldn’t fake the unmistakable look of ill health. Something had happened to this man, no matter what crimes had led him to this place, and the least she could do was get him somewhere warm and dry before feds came swarming into River’s End.

  She started to reach for him, planning to help him to his feet, when her last thought finally penetrated her brain.

  She pulled back, staring at him with alarm.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, slanting her a suspicious look.

  “Nothing,” she lied, even as her mind started scrambling for a solution to her unexpected dilemma. There was no way she could leave him to fend for himself out here in the sleet. There was supposed to be snow before midnight, and the temps were going to plunge into the midtwenties before morning. Dressed as he was, without even a coat to ward off the chill, he’d never survive the night.

  But if she took him to the hospital in Bristol...

  She couldn’t. They’d call the FBI, who’d want to talk to her. There’d be a lot of terribly inconvenient questions and all her work for the past few months would be out the window.

  Or worse.

  But how to explain that to the hypothermic, battered man sitting in the road in front of her? “Look, I tried calling 911—”

  “No.” His gaze snapped up sharply, catching her off guard.

  “No?”

  “I don’t need medical help.” His lips pressed to a thin line. “I’m okay. I just need to get warm.”

  Well, she thought, that wasn’t exactly a comforting reaction.

  “Are you sure?” Not that she wanted to contact authorities any more than he did, but his reluctance didn’t exactly fit the picture of a man wrongly accused, did it?

  Maybe that was good, though, considering the dangerous game she was playing herself. Dealing with bad guys was less complicated than dealing wit
h good ones, she’d discovered. Their motives were easier to glean and usually involved one sin or another. Greed, gluttony, lust, hate—oh, yeah, she definitely knew how to deal with sinners.

  Saints, on the other hand, were a cipher.

  “Let’s get you out of the cold, Dallas.” She pushed aside questions of his particular motives. There’d be time to figure him out once she got him back to her cabin, where she could provide the basic comforts anyone in his condition needed, whether sinner or saint.

  Avoiding his bad shoulder, she pulled his right arm around her shoulder and helped him to his feet. He stumbled a little as they made their way across the slickening blacktop to the Jeep, but she settled him in the passenger seat with little fuss and watched with bemusement as he fumbled the seat belt into place. Sinner or not, he apparently took seat belt safety seriously.

  She circled around, slid behind the Jeep’s steering wheel and cranked the engine. Next to her, Dallas sighed audibly as heat blasted from the Jeep’s vents.

  “Good?” she asked, easing back onto the road.

  “Heaven,” he murmured through chattering teeth.

  He couldn’t have been out in the elements for long, she realized as his shivering began to ease before they’d gone more than a mile down the road. So where the hell had he come from?

  “Should I be worrying about pursuit?” she asked.

  His gaze slanted toward her. “Pursuit?”

  “Anybody after you?”

  He didn’t answer at first. She didn’t push, too busy dealing with the steady buildup of icy precipitation forming on the mountain road. Thank God she didn’t have much farther to travel. The little cabin she called home was only a quarter mile down the road. They’d be there before the snow started.

  “There might be,” he answered finally as she slowed into the turn down the gravel road that ended at her cabin.

  “Are they nearby?”

  “Probably,” he answered.