The Texas Lawman's Last Stand

by Delores Fossen

  “No, we can’t,” Mattie spoke up. She huffed and pushed her hair away from her face. “Look, Ian, I’m not sure I even trust you, so we’re not on the same side. And I’m not going to have any private conversations with you.”

  The color drained from the lawyer’s face. “You’re choosing Bo Duggan over me? Over your own family?”

  “Bo protected me this morning. He put his life in danger for me. So, yes, I’m choosing him over you.”

  Kaplan sputtered out a few syllables before he finally seemed to regain his composure. “Call me when you change your mind.” The man practically ran into Bo as he hurried out.

  Mattie immediately leaned against the wall. Maybe it was the adrenaline catching up with her, or maybe this meeting had just drained her, but Bo held her because she looked ready to slide straight to the floor.

  “I didn’t expect this,” she mumbled.

  Neither had he. Bo slipped his arm around her waist and eased her to him. Her heart was pounding so hard, he could feel it against his chest.

  “You think your uncle could be telling the truth about wanting a truce?” Bo asked.

  “I don’t know.” She dropped her head onto his shoulder and gave a weary sigh. She leaned against him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  It certainly felt natural, and that set off huge alarms in his head. He couldn’t get this close to Mattie. But he didn’t move, either.

  “I just want the danger to be over,” she whispered.

  Bo was about to agree when he heard the footsteps. He pulled away from Mattie, but not before Captain Shaw Tolbert appeared in the doorway. His captain blinked and obviously noticed the close contact between Mattie and him.

  “Rough meeting with her uncle,” Bo managed to say, but explaining himself wasn’t high on his priority list right now. “Who’s with the children?”

  “Several officers. Don’t worry. They’re safe.”

  “But for how long?” Mattie asked, her voice filled with emotion.

  “For as long as it takes,” the captain assured her. “I watched most of the meeting through the two-way. I already have someone working on a background check for the marshal, and I’ll see what I can do about getting a search warrant so we can look through Kendall Collier’s recent business records.”

  Good. The ball was already rolling.

  “Cicely’s family might be the business associates that Kendall was referring to,” Mattie volunteered. “I don’t have any proof, but her family is a lot like mine, and they’ve had dealings with Kendall in the past.”

  The captain and Bo exchanged glances. This hadn’t come up in the original trial. They knew that Collier had received funding for the illegal arms deal, but the Justice Department had never been able to identify the source of that funding. Maybe it was Cicely Carr’s family.

  Or Carr herself.

  “So what about their marriage?” Bo asked Mattie. “Is that legit?”

  Mattie shrugged. “Could be. Even though Cicely is eighteen years younger than Kendall, she’s always had a thing for him. Plus, I think her family always tried to push them together, but I had no idea that Kendall even thought of Cicely as a prospective partner. He usually goes for the flashier, more glamorous type.”

  Bo gave that some thought. “Maybe he’s marrying her to appease her family and make peace with them.”

  “I’ll look into that, too,” the captain volunteered. He turned to Mattie. “Bo and I have to start making some security arrangements. A safe house for the twins,” he clarified. “Why don’t you wait in my office while we’re doing that?”

  She looked at Bo, and he nodded, only because the captain had suggested it. “Since you didn’t get a chance to eat this morning, I’ll have someone bring you some breakfast. And when the captain and I are done, I’ll come and get you.”

  “My office is just up the hall.” The captain pointed in that direction.

  Mattie gave another hesitant glance before she walked away.

  “Okay, what’s wrong?” Bo immediately asked. “Did something happen to the twins?”

  “No. Nothing like that.” Captain Tolbert glanced out into the hall as if to make sure no one was listening. “I thought you might like to hear this without Mattie around.”

  A lot of bad things started to go through his mind. “What?”

  The captain took out a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to Bo. “These are the results of the DNA tests we ran on Holly and Mattie.”

  Chapter Nine

  Something was wrong. Mattie could feel it, and better yet, she could see it on Bo’s face.

  Bo was doing everything he should be doing—making the final arrangements for a safe house, checking on the investigation into Cicely’s family and Marshal Larry Tolivar. He was even doing the paperwork about the explosion. From the moment he’d collected her from the captain’s office and moved her to his, he’d been dealing with nonstop calls and questions.

  What he hadn’t done was look her in the eye.

  And that meant something was wrong.

  Mattie nibbled on the sandwich and chips that one of the uniformed officers had brought her, and she waited for an opening to question Bo about what had put him in such a mood. She even listened to the way he responded to the callers, but she couldn’t hear anything specific that she didn’t already know.

  Was this about the kiss at his house and the embrace in the interrogation room?

  Maybe.

  Bo could be dealing with some guilt over what he was feeling for her and his loyalties to his late wife. Mattie was certainly dealing with some of that, too, but Brody had been dead nearly two years now. While a part of her would always love him, being on the run had taught her that life was too short to live in the past. She really wanted a chance at living in the present and planning a future.

  “The safe house is nearly ready,” Bo relayed to her when he finished his latest call. “It shouldn’t be more than another hour at most. Setting up furniture and food for the twins is taking more time than we anticipated.”

  Of course. And that led her to something else that was on her mind. “Will I be at the safe house with all of you?”

  There. She saw the flicker in his jaw. Something was definitely wrong, and that caused her heart to ache. Mercy, was he planning on sending her somewhere else just so she wouldn’t be around Holly?

  “You’ll come with us,” he mumbled and continued to stare down at the paperwork he had positioned in front of him.

  The relief was instant. “Thank you. I know that couldn’t have been an easy decision for you to make, but I really appreciate—”

  “The captain got the DNA test results back,” Bo blurted out.

  Mattie’s pulse was suddenly thick and throbbing. She dropped the rest of the sandwich onto the wrapper and stood. Just getting to her feet was an effort. She felt as if all the bones in her body had crumbled on the spot.

  Oh, God. This was why Bo had been dodging her gaze.

  “And?” she prompted, though speaking was an effort, too. Everything inside was on hold, waiting.

  “The test was a match.” Bo looked at her now, and he stood, as well, facing her. “Holly is your biological child.”

  The breath whooshed out of her, and Mattie heard herself make some kind of sound. Part gasp, part sigh, but mostly it was a sound of relief. Even though she’d never doubted it, that precious little girl was hers.

  When she started to laugh, she pressed her fingers to her mouth. She wanted to celebrate, jump for joy and shout it out so the world would know.

  Holly was her baby.

  But her joy went south when she saw Bo’s expression. She’d never seen anyone in that much pain.

  “I’m sure Nadine intended to tell you,” Mattie said. But it was the wrong thing to say, because Bo only shook his head. Maybe there was no right thing to say in a situation like this.

  Mattie walked closer to him, reached out and caught on to his hand. He pulled
back, or rather tried to, but she held on. “I can’t say I’m sorry about the test results. But I am sorry for what this is doing to you.”

  He glanced around as if he might tear out of the room. Or curse. Or yell. Or do a dozen other things to vent the emotion he was feeling. But he simply groaned and dropped back down into the chair.

  “I didn’t know,” he mumbled. “I swear, I didn’t suspect a thing until you showed up yesterday.”

  Mattie believed him. Nadine hadn’t lived long enough to tell him the truth, and Mattie hadn’t been in a position to try to claim her child.

  She still wasn’t.

  “I can’t just give her up,” Bo insisted, his voice and face now tight with anger. “I can’t just hand her over to you.”

  “I know.” And it took every ounce of her courage to say that.

  Bo blinked and stared up at her. “Then what the hell are we going to do?”

  She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “We’re going to take the children to the safe house. We’ll protect them, and when we know who’s responsible for the danger, we’ll work out what needs to be worked out.”

  That didn’t appease him as she thought it would. He jerked away from her and cursed. “I’m the only father she’s ever known. The only thing that needs to be worked out is for her to stay with me.”

  Mattie couldn’t totally dismiss that. Bo had been part of her daughter’s life since day one. “Holly loves you.” She tried to keep her voice calm. Hard to do with the anger and emotion radiating from Bo. “I wouldn’t dream of cutting you out of her life. I think we can work out visitation—”

  “I don’t want damn visitations!” he shouted. “I want my baby girl.”

  When he got up and bolted for the door, Mattie just grabbed him and held on. That put them body to body, of course, and they stood with her back against his closed office door and with Bo against her. The energy between them was so dangerous and strong that it frightened her.

  But she wasn’t scared of Bo.

  Mattie was more frightened of her own reaction.

  She had no intentions of giving up her child to this man, to anyone, but she couldn’t deny this pull between them. It was too strong.

  “Don’t,” Bo warned, but she had no idea what he was specifically warning her about.

  Maybe she was giving off a signal of her intentions. And her intentions were apparently to kiss him, because that’s what she did. Mattie came up on her toes and put her mouth to his.

  Bo was stiff at first, and she thought he might pull away again. But he didn’t. He ran his hand into her hair and jerked back her head so he could deepen the kiss. It was brutal and punishing, his mouth pressing hard and desperate while his body did the same to hers.

  He didn’t stop there.

  He grabbed both her wrists in his other hand and pinned them against the door. He pinned her, too, giving her all his weight.

  And all his anger.

  While the kiss raged on, the middle of his body ground against hers. In the back of her mind, Mattie considered that she should be stopping this. Anger and kissing shouldn’t be mixed, but with Bo, the mixture worked just fine. Yes, she was reeling from the news about her daughter. Yes, she was worried about the danger.

  But she was also aroused beyond belief.

  She wanted Bo, and she wanted him now.

  Her body was on fire, and the kisses and body contact made her feel like a pressure cooker ready to go off. Until that moment, she hadn’t been sure that Bo and she would become lovers, but she was certain of it now.

  But now would have to wait.

  She tore her mouth from his at the exact moment that someone knocked on his door. Bo stepped back, repeated some profanity and stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Mattie was having trouble believing it, too, but she hoped it would happen again. And that made her very stupid. She shouldn’t be playing around with Bo. No. He was too dangerous for that.

  She moved to the side and tried to level her breathing before he threw open the door. It was the captain, and he gave them the same look as when he had caught them embracing in the interview room several hours earlier.

  “I told Mattie,” Bo admitted.

  “And?” the captain asked when Bo didn’t add anything else.

  “We’ll work it out.” Bo seemed to issue that as some kind of challenge to her and to himself. “Are you here about the safe house?”

  The captain shook his head. “I need you to come down to my office. Larry Tolivar just showed up, and he’d like to talk to both of you. Especially you,” he said, looking at Mattie.

  Well, Mattie wanted to talk to him, too. She wanted the truth about Kendall’s accusation that the marshal had sold information about her in the Witness Protection Program.

  “By the way, Tolivar already knows we’re digging into his background,” the captain explained. “And he’s not very happy about it.”

  “He’ll be even less happy about it when he talks to me.” Bo started down the hall, and the captain and Mattie followed.

  She considered asking the captain to postpone this little chat. After all, Bo was dealing with the fact that Holly wasn’t his daughter. Hardly the time to be interrogating a suspect, but Mattie knew she stood no chance of stopping him. He needed somewhere to aim the emotions brewing inside him, and he might as well aim them at Tolivar.

  The marshal was indeed in the captain’s office, and he was pacing.

  “Still alive, I see,” Tolivar grumbled.

  “Yes.” She made sure her voice didn’t waiver. Hard to do with everything she’d been through in the past twenty-four hours. “SAPD’s taking good care of me.”

  Tolivar made a grunt of disagreement and aimed his glare at Bo. “You’re having me investigated. Bad idea, Duggan. You don’t want to play games with me.”

  “You’re right. No games. I just want some answers. Did you send an explosive device to my house this morning?”

  “I won’t dignify that with an answer,” Tolivar snarled.

  “But you will,” the captain insisted. “Answer Lieutenant Duggan’s question.”

  That earned the captain a glare. “No. Of course not. I’m a peace officer, just like you, except I’m not some local yokel. I work for the federal government, and Mattie is in my protective custody.”

  “Not any longer,” Bo said. “She left the program. I called your boss and let him know that about two hours ago.”

  Mattie hadn’t heard him make that call, but then he’d apparently made some before he moved her into his office. Good. She didn’t want any association with Witness Protection or this man.

  “Kendall Collier’s hired someone to kill you,” Tolivar insisted. “Investigating me or leaving protective custody isn’t going to stop that.”

  “It might if we learn you have a connection to him,” Mattie quickly pointed out. Suddenly all eyes were on her. “Kendall and perhaps someone close to him are the only ones who would have wanted to know my new identity and location. And you would have had access to it.”

  Tolivar aimed his index finger at her. “Someone hacked into the system. If you want to start assigning blame, then look to your uncle. He paid someone to do it, and it wasn’t me.”

  “Then who?”

  “Somebody close to Kendall Collier. Maybe his lawyer, Ian Kaplan, or maybe one of his hired henchmen.”

  “Funny,” Bo remarked. “Kaplan said you were responsible for hacking into those files.”

  Tolivar flinched, obviously not expecting that. “Then he’s lying through his teeth.”

  Bo shrugged. “Somebody is. That’s why we’re investigating anyone associated with this case. If you’ve got nothing to hide, then why don’t you give us access to all your computer and financial records?”

  The room got so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop.

  “I don’t share personal information with local cops,” Tolivar finally barked. “And my advice is to back off, or I’ll bring some heat dow
n on SAPD.”

  The captain put his hands on his hips. “Is that a threat, Marshal?”

  Maybe it was the steely look in the captain’s and Bo’s eyes, but Tolivar seemed to back down. “I just want to do my job and keep Mattie alive.”

  “She’s no longer your job,” Bo countered immediately. “In fact, you have no reason to be anywhere near her. Got that?”

  The staring contest started, and Tolivar even took some steps so he’d be in Bo’s face. “Yeah, I got that, Lieutenant. And when somebody blows her brains out, don’t come crying to me.”

  With that, the marshal muscled his way past them and headed out.

  “I want him followed,” Bo said to the captain.

  “Legally, we can’t do that.” The captain watched the marshal walk away. “But there’s nothing that says I can’t have an officer in Tolivar’s general vicinity. I’ll get someone on him.” He took out his cell and made a call.

  “Thanks.” Bo put his hand on the small of Mattie’s back and got her moving toward his office. They hadn’t gotten halfway there when Bo’s phone rang.

  She held her breath, as she did with all the calls he received, but she always thought of the children. Of the danger. And Tolivar’s visit had drilled home just how close that danger could possibly be.

  “Everything’s there?” Bo asked the caller. Whatever the answer was, it caused his forehead to bunch up. “Yeah. I’ll tell her.”

  When Bo hung up, Mattie tried to brace herself for more bad news. “What now?”

  It took him several moments to answer. “The safe house is ready. The twins… The children,” he corrected, “are already en route.” He motioned for her to follow him, and they reversed direction. “There’s a car waiting to take us there so we can be with them.”

  It hit Mattie then as she was following Bo up the hall. This wasn’t about the danger or the investigation. It wasn’t even about the move to the safe house. It was about what would happen at the safe house.

  “Yes,” Bo said, as if he could read her mind.

  Tear sprang to her eyes, because Mattie knew that soon, very soon, she would finally have her baby in her arms.