Undercover Cowboy

by Lynde Lakes

  “Hey, I like that. You’re starting to think like me.”

  He chuckled. “That’ll be the day.”

  His sarcasm didn’t conceal the warmth in his tone. A sense of their unity of goals sent a lightheartedness surging through her—but the feeling was short-lived. She sensed eyes boring into her back. The hair on her neck prickled. The feeling was so strong that she had to look back. A blur of a man ducked into one of the stores. A chill slid down her spine, and she rubbed her arms.

  “Something wrong?” Nick asked, looking down at her with piercing green eyes.

  “I think someone’s following us.”

  Nick glanced back and scanned the crowd. “What did he look like?” Nick’s hold on her arm tightened and he quickened their pace.

  “A husky blur.” Even if she’d seen the guy clearly, she probably wouldn’t recognize him. She thought of the masked men who had tried to grab her. God, the killer’s whole gang could be after her. And she wouldn’t recognize any of them. She shuddered, and moved closer to Nick, relieved that he was with her.

  “I wonder how those masked men who tried to grab me figure into the murder.”

  Nick gave a humorless laugh. “Probably just hired flunkies. But don’t worry, I won’t underestimate them.”

  Sara Jane moved even closer. “Who’s worried?”

  ****

  An hour later, driving home with Nick still behind the wheel, she felt both safe and energized by their success. Leila had identified the drawing as Evelyn Pikes, or Kitty as she called her. Sara Jane sent a sideways glance at Nick and raised her eyebrow. “Now what were you saying earlier about my rushing full speed into things?” She tilted her head and smiled saucily. “Admit it. If I hadn’t raced upstairs, we wouldn’t have learned the name of the murdered woman and we’d be going home empty-handed.”

  “Not exactly,” he said, gazing down on her, recharging the awareness of him that had stayed with her all day. “We still would’ve had the picture and the forensics report. But the name helped; I’ll give you that. Let’s make a deal. If you’ll promise to tell me what you plan first, we’ll figure out a safe way to deal with your rash urges.”

  She laughed. “Rash urges and safe sound like an oxymoron to me.”

  “That makes my point, doesn’t it?”

  She laughed again. “Okay. I’ll try to be more cautious.” She felt so alive with him and dangerously reckless. She wanted to cooperate—then she wanted to fight that willingness to bend to his will. One FBI man controlling her for most of her life was enough. You couldn’t choose your relatives, but…Thoughts of the bloody message on her bathroom mirror, and the suspicion that someone was following her, sent a shudder through her. For now, it made sense to accept his protection. Her breathing slowed, knowing she could get used to having him around, and with an FBI man whose job sent him jetting around the country—that would be a big mistake.

  ****

  Nick swore under his breath at the sight of the truck’s temperature gauge pushing into the red danger zone. “Think we’d better stop and let the engine cool off.”

  “I always keep a jug of water in the back,” Sara Jane said, her tone light.

  “Good. But we still have to let the radiator cool down.”

  She chuckled. “Well, at least this is a great place to stop.”

  They were on some kind of plateau with a big tree. Nick’s urge to get out of the blistering heat was overridden by his need to touch Sara Jane. He ran to the other side of the car, knowing she wouldn’t wait for help.

  She laughed when he offered his hand. “You really play the gentleman to the hilt, don’t you, UC? If you’re trying to make a helpless female out of me, it won’t work.”

  Still, she placed her hand in his. The top was smooth and soft, but her grip was strong. He detected a hint of a callus on the pad below her ring finger. He swallowed, uncertain why finding a rough spot sent heat surging through him. “Enjoy the attention, I’ll be gone soon,” he growled.

  With more thrust than necessary, he lifted the hood, wondering why the thought of leaving depressed him so damned much. Steam poured out, curling like warning signals in the breeze. He checked the hoses. “Damn!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone took a razor blade to one of our hoses.”

  “Are you sure?” She brushed against him and peered under the hood. The sense of togetherness her nearness brought cooled his anger a degree. He fought an urge to put his arm around her. He remembered the deputy asking if they had come by truck. “Wonder how many people knew we drove to the junction in this?”

  “Anyone who saw us leave the ranch.” Her baby blue eyes brightened. “My bet’s on the guy who was following us. But he’ll have to do more than cut a hose to strand us. I’ve got a first-aid kit in the glove compartment. I’ll have that slice taped in a jiffy.” She wasn’t just whistling in the wind. In about a second, she had the hose pressure-taped.

  He shook his head. “I like your style, SJ,” he said, using only her initials as payback for the UC nickname.

  “Come on,” she said, grabbing his hand. “While the radiator cools down, I’ll show you a sight that’ll make you wish you never had to leave this place.”

  Fat chance of that, he thought. He admired how she took everything in stride and accepted the cut hose like it was nothing. He wished he could. An overheated radiator in over 100-degree heat was bad enough, but some bastard cutting their hose could mean that the killer was toying with them—and that the trouble had only begun…

  He thought of the blur of a man who had followed them in town, knowing that the most dangerous enemies were the ones you couldn’t recognize.

  As they walked toward the shelter of the tree, sunlight caught in Sara Jane’s auburn hair, turning it into ribbons of gold and burgundy. In spite of his concerns, Nick felt his lips turning up in a grin. He would love to run his fingers through that thick tangle of silk.

  “This place is called Lustre Plateau,” she said, seeming unaware of how her beauty had moved him. “The Spanish settlers believed that this was a spiritual site, hence the name lustre, or glory. They felt that all the land below, as far as you could see, was blessed as well.”

  With a graceful gesture that tightened her shirt over her breasts, Sara Jane pointed over the cliff. Nick forced himself to glance briefly at the valley of sand and grass, divided by a meandering emerald stream.

  “Inspiring,” he managed to say, still thinking of the way that shirt molded to her body.

  Unable to keep his eyes off Sara Jane a second longer, Nick looked down at her. She moistened her lips. He couldn’t stop looking at them…wanting to crush them with his own. All day he’d wanted to kiss her…and, to his discomfort, the desire was growing. He cleared his constricted throat. “Can we see the ranch from here?”

  “You could if that rock formation wasn’t in the way. It’s the outer shell of Eterno Cave. Eterno means endless. The main entrance is on the other side.”

  He forced his gaze from Sara Jane to the view. The steel gray formation she had pointed to extended for miles. Beyond that lay gently rolling land, replete with scrub oak, mesquite, and cactus, and in the far distance, a haze of purple mountains. Funny, when he first arrived, the barrenness had made him long for the city. But today the cloudless sky seemed a deeper blue, the mountains more majestic, and the land, caressed by the glistening emerald stream, less lonely, and he finally understood Sara Jane’s love of the land. He tightened his jaw. Her passion somehow reduced his eagerness to leave. And that was dangerous. Maybe if he kissed her one more time. He ached to take her into his arms, but he’d promised her father. Why was he letting her get to him? They were worlds apart in experience and even more important, what they wanted out of life.

  “Better see if the radiator has cooled down enough to add the water,” he said. The raspiness in his voice came from the effort it took to keep from drawing her into his arms. Abruptly, he turned away and headed for the truck in long,
ground-eating strides.

  ****

  After they arrived back at the ranch, Nick escorted Sara Jane upstairs, checked her room, the windows, and then headed for the den downstairs to find Matt. He found him pacing in front of his desk.

  Matt stopped and furrowed his brow. “Where’s Sara Jane?”

  “Upstairs showering. Don’t worry. The doors and windows are locked and I’ll walk her down to dinner when she’s ready.”

  Matt dropped to his chair. “Someone breaking into her room and leaving that bloody message makes me edgy.”

  “Me, too.” Nick wondered if he should plunge right in with the new problems, or ease into them after he told Matt what they’d accomplished.

  Matt studied him. “Did she behave herself today?”

  Nick laughed. “She was a real angel.”

  Matt’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll bet. Did you learn anything, other than how determined my daughter can be?”

  Nick handed him a copy of the autopsy report. “We identified the woman. She was one of Leila’s girls. They called her Kitty, but her real name was Evelyn Pikes. I ran a check on her and couldn’t find any ties to De Fuego. An Indian girl at Leila’s told us that Erik saved Kitty from getting raped. Kitty called your nephew her knight in shining armor. That might explain why she had a photo of him in her locket.”

  Matt’s shoulders relaxed. “No problems today, then?”

  “Nothing we couldn’t handle. We might have had a tail. And some bastard sliced our radiator hoses.” When Matt’s face clouded, Nick quickly added, “But your resourceful daughter took care of that.”

  Matt grinned slightly. “That’s my girl.”

  Matt’s pride in his daughter sent a warm feeling to Nick’s heart. “I found this email from Angie when I checked my messages.”

  Matt took the printout and studied it. “Agent Dyer is worth a thousand times her one hundred seventeen pounds.”

  “And then some. As you can see,” Nick said, pointing to the list of names and dates, “De Fuego had twelve different visitors since his first day in the pen. Angie ran a check on each of them—the reports are attached. Other than his wife and mistress, the only ones who came often were Paulo Satina and Angelo De Fuego, supposedly one of De Fuego’s grandsons. So far Angie hasn’t come up with a current picture of Angelo.” Nick shuffled through the printouts. “This is what he looked like at ten. Angie’s checking out the prison’s visitor security tapes. She’ll try to come up with a clear, close-up shot for us.” Nick paused and stared at the photo of the skinny ten-year old. “Look at those eyes. Who does he remind you of?”

  ****

  When Sara Jane opened her second-floor bedroom door to go down to dinner, she spied the note someone had slipped beneath it. Frowning, she picked up the folded paper. Her hand trembled as she read the lopsided printed scrawl: Razor blades cut things beside hoses; after a slice across the neck, stopping spurting blood isn’t as easy as fixing a water leak.

  She clasped her throat, and trying to breathe normally, she glanced up and down the hallway. Boot steps pounded up the stairway toward her. When she saw it was Nick, she exhaled in relief and raced to meet him. She ached to throw herself into his arms, but being Matt’s daughter she couldn’t show any weakness. She squared her shoulders and handed the folded slip of paper to Nick.

  As he scanned it, a tendon in his jaw twitched. “Notes can’t hurt you.”

  She held his gaze, often shadowed by a darkness or sadness that brewed deep in his eyes. “So why do you look so worried?”

  “It’s my job to worry, so you won’t have to,” he said, putting a comforting arm around her and leading her toward the dining room.

  “I’m not worried,” she said, hating the waver in her voice. Unfortunately, it very much bothered her that some lowlife could walk right up to her bedroom door unseen and slip a note beneath it. One kick and he would have been inside. “I think whoever Dad assigned to watch the house needs to find a new line of work.”

  Nick sent her a sharp look as though he thought her put-down included him.

  “I didn’t mean you.”

  “Right,” he growled. When they entered the dining room full of family, he said, “We’ll discuss this later. Right now, I want to talk to your dad about adding security cameras to the hallway outside your room and one for the stairway.”

  She nodded, painfully aware of the loss of his warmth as he moved away, and wondering what more there was to discuss.

  Alicia dashed through the doorway, and pulled Sara Jane aside. “Cuz, we have to talk!”

  Sara Jane forced a smile. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I’m sorry I got mad at you for refusing to go to Paris. If we’d gone, I wouldn’t have been home today to get the call from Mr. Jenkins, head of the Miss Rodeo Pageant committee. They want me to cover the pageant in San Antonio next week! Can you imagine? I’ve been on the phone since noon, getting the lowdown and faxing my credentials and stuff. And if the trouble here isn’t over, Lloyd will go with me. Dad has already agreed.”

  Sara Jane hugged Alicia. She knew how much getting a news assignment like this meant to her cousin. Still, it worried her that Alicia seemed naïve about how much danger they both might be in—as clueless as she’d been until the break-in. “Watch yourself, Alicia. A guy followed me today and someone cut the radiator hose on the truck. And just minutes ago, some sneaky creep shoved a threatening note under my door.”

  Alicia frowned. “Where was Nick? That’s why we have our big, broad-shouldered bodyguards—to keep us safe.”

  “He and Lloyd can only do so much.” Sara Jane understood now that she’d have to do her part, too, and quit giving Nick such a bad time. “We have to help, too.”

  Alicia laughed and winked. “Hey, I’ll do my part. I’ll go sit extra close to Lloyd so he won’t have to work so hard to keep an eye on me.”

  Sara Jane shook her head. “You’re incorrigible.”

  All during dinner Alicia played her usual role of the carefree flirt. Was it only yesterday that she had acted much the same way? Sara Jane glanced up at Nick. The concern in his eyes made her heart beat faster. Today their relationship had deepened. They weren’t just two people who had to put up with each other—now they were friends. Maybe more than friends…She shivered, realizing how far they’d come in such a short time.

  After dessert, she and Alicia went outside and sat on the front steps to have their coffee. Nick and Lloyd followed and positioned themselves on the railing nearby but didn’t intrude on their girl talk.

  “Oh, Sara Jane, I’m so excited. I just know my pageant cover story will open lots of doors. I’ve already done a rough draft from what I learned today.”

  “What’s your story angle?”

  “That it isn’t just the horses that get put through their traces. The contestants really have to hit all their marks in a certain specified way.” She paused and grinned. “Unless, of course, I uncover a scandal. You know, something about one of the judges and one of the girls.”

  “Dream on. No one is allowed to talk or discuss the contestants at any time with the judges, and the judges avoid the young ladies like the plague.”

  “Hey, that’s right. You were queen in the SA pageant when you were sixteen. Maybe I should interview you.”

  “Forget that. I just entered for the riding competition. I knew I wouldn’t have any trouble riding a strange horse, and no judge could invent an arena pattern that I can’t handle.”

  “Do you still have your sexy outfit? I remember it was very soft calf leather. Maybe I could borrow it?”

  “Sure, but you’d better take good care of it.”

  “Oh, this is so cool. I understand that the girls’ outfits cost anywhere from nine hundred to five thousand dollars.”

  “I made mine. But my design was top drawer, so treat it like high-end merchandise, or your name will be mud.”

  Alicia shivered in delight. “Thanks, Cuz. Now I’ll be dressed fit to kill.” She hugged
Sara Jane. “Nothing, absolutely nothing, will keep me from covering this pageant.”

  Something about her cousin’s words “dressed fit to kill” sent a shudder through Sara Jane. She took a deep breath. She was being ridiculous. To distract herself from her downer thoughts, she glanced over at their bodyguards. Darkness had turned them into silhouettes. She felt Nick’s gaze on her. Could he see her hair rustling in the welcome breeze? He could probably see Alicia’s better. Moonlight played in her cousin’s hair like ribbons of phosphorus. Last night, Alicia had said that Nick hadn’t paid any attention to her. That was probably because her cousin wasn’t his responsibility. Sara Jane knew he was staring her down and making her squirm, only because it was his job.

  “So how’s it going with Lloyd?” she asked, hoping he was a better bodyguard than he was a person. “He was awfully quiet during dinner for a guy who just last night had put his foot in his mouth.”

  Alicia beamed. “You scared the wise-guy right out of him.”

  Sara Jane laughed without humor. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  “No kidding. We talked a lot last night. He couldn’t apologize enough. He’s not really a bad guy. He hasn’t had it easy.”

  “You’re not falling for him, are you?”

  Alicia laughed. “I fall for all the hunks that come sniffing around. Don’t worry, it’s not terminal—my interest never lasts.”

  Sara Jane wished she were more like Alicia. Love ’em and leave ’em had never been her style. If her heart ever got involved, it would be for keeps. That was what made her friendship with Nick so tricky.

  But she couldn’t think of that now. She had to be sure her cousin was in good hands, especially when she was going off to San Antonio soon. “What’s Lloyd like as a bodyguard?”

  “He stays close, but doesn’t smother me. When I got busy today, I even forgot he was around.”

  Sara Jane couldn’t imagine ever forgetting that Nick was around. For a moment her mind went crazy imagining what it would be like to kiss him again. The memory of their previous kiss drove everything else out of her head. Her body relived the fire that had ignited between them, the nerve-quivering thrill of his mouth on hers. What if later tonight he heard a noise, and seeing her shivering under the sheets, he crawled into her bed to quiet her tremors…She imagined moonlight glistening on his bare shoulders as he gathered her into his arms…Her thoughts turned so fiery that she actually imagined she smelled smoke.