Camouflage Cowboy

by Jan Hambright

  A bleating beeper.

  “Good morning, Caleb. Give Mommy the beeper.”

  “Seat drop,” he yelled, kicking his legs forward and landing squarely on his bottom. “Here.” Hand outstretched, he opened his fist.

  Grace’s heart rate picked up as she took it like a nugget of gold and turned the tiny viewing screen so she could read it.

  Holy Cross Hospital.

  Excitement churned in her veins. “Hurry, little man. Get dressed. We’ve got to go to the hospital right away.”

  “I don’t wanna go there anymore.” His mouth turned down.

  She reached out and pulled him to her, settling him on her lap. “The wait is almost over, sweetheart.” She stroked his hair and gazed into his big blue eyes. “Someone has decided to give their bone marrow to you, Caleb. This will be your most important adventure ever. What do you say? Can you cowboy up for Mommy?”

  “Yeah.” A weak little smile turned his mouth, and she hugged him to her before letting him climb down onto the floor next to the bed.

  “Now get dressed. We need to get going.”

  NICK PACED THE HALLWAY outside transplant coordinator Melissa Johnson’s office, waiting for Grace and Caleb to step off the elevator and come down the corridor.

  Hours of negotiations with Governor Lockhart had taken a toll on his brain, but he knew they’d turned a corner this morning when her test results had come in, and a match was made.

  Grace could hate him for the rest of her life, but he could sleep at night now, knowing he’d taken a stand on the side of honor.

  The sound of little bootsteps pounding in the hallway brought his attention around, and he watched Grace and Caleb come in his direction.

  Caleb spotted him first. “Mister Nick!” he shouted, as he bolted forward before Grace could catch hold of him.

  Nick’s throat tightened. Putting his focus on Caleb, and not on the look of anguish on Grace’s beautiful face, he scooped him up unto his arms.

  “How are you, buddy? You feeling okay these days?”

  “Yep. Where’s your horse?”

  “At home in the pasture.”

  “Can I go there, to see him?”

  “Caleb,” Grace scolded.

  “It’s okay.” He stared at her, trying to read her body language, trying to gauge where she stood as far as he was concerned, but he got nothing.

  “They’d like you inside.” He motioned to the coordinator’s office door. “Governor Lockhart is waiting with the news you’ve been anticipating.”

  Gratitude washed across her features, but she masked it in a matter of seconds. “I suppose I have you to thank for this?”

  “I may have had something to do with it, but in the end it was her decision. She wants to see you, Grace.”

  Her eyes watered for a moment, and a hint of a smile materialized on her lips.

  “Caleb is scheduled for his transfusion down in the first-floor pediatric ward in ten minutes. I’ll have to take him down first, so they can get started.”

  “I’ll take him down,” Nick offered, watching a brief look of uncertainty set a crease between her brows before it relented.

  “Nurse Brinkley handles his prep. He likes her best. She’s so gentle with him that—”

  “Go inside, Grace. I’ve got him.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered before she turned, opened the office door and went in.

  Battling an ache in his chest the size of a small country, Nick headed for the pediatric ward with Caleb in his arms, but he wanted Grace there, as well.

  GRACE’S NERVES TWISTED into a knot as she stared at the tough-looking two-man security detail standing outside the door of Melissa Johnson’s office.

  The waiting area had two more men in suits sitting at attention in chairs on either side of the room, and the assistant who normally worked behind the desk greeting people wasn’t present today.

  Governor Lila Lockhart was important, and Grace couldn’t even begin to imagine what it took to keep her safe, but she did know that she risked a media blitz if word leaked out. This all had to be part of her strategy to assure she controlled the news cycle.

  “Miss Marshall.” An official-looking gentleman wearing a black suit and an earpiece stepped out of Melissa Johnson’s office and approached her.

  “I’m Jim Scarborough, Governor Lockhart’s chief of security when she’s in Austin.” He reached out and she shook his hand.

  “Come with me.”

  She followed him through the door leading into the interior office, an office she’d been in two dozen times since moving to Freedom, but she found it almost impossible to focus on the familiar setting when Lila Lockhart was the woman behind the desk today.

  “Governor,” Jim said, pausing next to the door while he motioned Grace deeper into the room.

  “I’d like total privacy with Miss Marshall, Agent.”

  “Certainly. I’ll be right outside.” The agent left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

  “Please sit down, Grace,” Lila said in an official tone suitable to her position.

  Heart pounding, Grace was grateful to make contact with the padded seat of the chair in front of the desk before her legs wobbled out from underneath her. “Thank you, Governor.”

  Palpable tension excited the molecules in the air around them and forced her stomach into a tight knot she could feel clinch inside her.

  “First let me start by saying you have a beautiful son.”

  Grateful for the verbal opening, she felt some of the choking tension inside of her release its grip.

  “Yes, he is. His name’s Caleb.”

  “CSaI Agent Nick Cavanaugh told me all about him, in the vein of a proud father.”

  Grace’s heart squeezed in her chest. “He’s very fond of Caleb, and Caleb’s fond of him.”

  “Cavanaugh has been very persuasive. I’m not a heartless woman, but we must necessarily deal with this entire situation very carefully. I’ve got my trusted media team working on a solution, and I need to speak with my family.”

  Grace met the governor’s intense gaze and watched her smile through a veil of tears, as her official persona dissolved like chalk in the rain.

  “I’ve often wondered about you, child, since the morning I let them take you from my arms. I was young and foolish, and believed myself to be in love with your father, who’s gone now. But my family would have none of it. They’d already planned my entire future. Tell me, Grace, did you have a good childhood? Were your parents kind and loving to you?”

  Lila inched her hand across the desk, and Grace pushed forward in her chair. Through a blanket of tears, she grasped her mother’s fingers, as the dam broke on Lila’s emotions and her clear blue eyes loaded with moisture.

  “Yes. They were wonderful to me. I always knew I was loved.”

  “You’re a beautiful young woman, Grace. Can you ever forgive me for letting you go?”

  “I already have.” It wasn’t enough for her to hold her mother’s hand any longer.

  She stood up and hurried around the desk to meet Lila on the other side, where they fell into each other’s arms.

  GRACE SHIFTED IN HER SEAT, the third pew from the back of the packed church, glancing around at all the people who had come to witness Faith and Matteo’s marriage.

  Half the town of Freedom by the looks of it. Her sense of community swelled and she realized that this was her home, too.

  On the opposite side of the aisle, one row in front of her, she’d spotted him. The neat clip of his hairline across the back of his neck. The crisp white of his dress shirt against the fading tan of his complexion. If she closed her eyes and conjured it, she could even smell the male scent of his skin, spicy and warm.

  A surge of longing battered her emotions and sent a wave of heat through her body. She swallowed and diverted her gaze, only for it to return to him, and find him staring back.

  Nick Cavanaugh had come through for Caleb, and for her in the end. She just wished
she could find a way past the feelings of betrayal resonating inside of her.

  He broke the visual connection first and turned to face forward, as the first notes of the bridal march echoed from the piano at the front of the church, and everyone rose to their feet for the bride’s procession.

  Grace pulled in an excited breath and focused on Faith as she made her way up the aisle. She looked charming in her grandmother’s antique wedding gown and veil. She’d contributed to Faith’s traditional something borrowed, and loaned her the diamond earrings left to her by her adoptive mother.

  Joyous tears welled in Grace’s eyes. Faith had found happiness with a man she loved, and they would raise baby Kaleigh together.

  There were great things in life, and she was thankful they’d found them.

  At the head of the aisle, Faith paused, and Matteo reached for her. She hooked her hand in the crook of his arm. Then together they took two steps forward together and stopped in front of the minister.

  “Please be seated.”

  A collective whisper of movement filled the candlelit church as everyone settled into their seats.

  “We are gathered here today to unite Faith and Matteo in the bonds of holy matrimony.”

  Grace tried to still the workings of her mind as she listened to the minister’s words, but it was impossible. The phrases—in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer—applied to her and Nick. Hadn’t he cared for her and Caleb in all of those circumstances? Hadn’t he provided her with all those things that Faith and Matteo were pledging to one another right now? Hadn’t he proven he was a good man, who loved honor?

  Her heart squeezed in her chest as the reality of her feelings for him solidified. She loved him, in spite of the secrets he’d withheld from her, and Caleb loved him, too.

  Blinking back tears, she glanced his way and found him looking back at her with a grin on his lips.

  She smiled back.

  Perhaps she would stay for the reception after all.

  It was a place to start.

  “ALL UNITS. UNIT ONE, please respond to a stolen-vehicle sighting at milepost 117, Highway 83 northbound. I’m in pursuit of a black van, tag number BELLOWS, for failure to stop.”

  “Copy that, Unit One. Unit Five en route, southbound at milepost 109. I’ll deploy spike strips.”

  “Affirmative, Unit Five. Go ahead. Our ETA is eight minutes to your location.”

  Nick stepped down on the gas pedal of his pickup and broke the boundary of Freedom proper, as Nolan reached and turned up the volume on the police scanner from his shotgun position in the passenger seat.

  Fortunately Sheriff Hale had spotted Bart’s stolen van twenty minutes earlier and the chase was on when the driver of the vehicle refused to pull over.

  “Looks like Sheriff Hale plans to put the squeeze on him, sir.”

  “Let’s hope he doesn’t find a way to slip through the noose. This guy’s a slippery bastard.”

  Glancing up into his rearview mirror, he focused on Harlan and Wade in the Tahoe behind them. The entire team wanted in on the takedown, save Parker, who was behind locked doors with the governor and her family right now, learning that they had an illegitimate sister; someone they knew. Matteo was absent, too, because he was spending a couple of days away with his new bride, Faith.

  Nick’s gut pulled taut as he considered the dangers of a high-speed chase. Especially one with Corps Security and Investigations founder Bart Bellows strapped in a wheelchair in the back.

  Gritting his teeth, he pushed down on the accelerator, determined to get there as fast as he could.

  With good police work, Hale would nab the man who’d taken Bart before he had a chance to escape, and solve the mystery of who’d executed the attacks against Governor Lockhart, along with committing three murders, all in one fell swoop.

  It was a lot to hope for, but he did it anyway. Anxious to see Wes Bradley, aka unknown, take a hard fall.

  Nick caught the flash of emergency lights in his side mirror and eased over to let a responding patrol car fly past. Glancing at his speedometer he clocked the guy at 70 mph and saw his brake lights come on.

  “Oh, hell, would you look at that,” Nolan said from next to him, as he leaned forward to stare out the windshield at the chaos two hundred yards in front of them.

  He let off the accelerator and the pickup slowed before he applied the brakes, flipped on his blinker, eased over onto the shoulder, stopped and turned on his hazard flashers.

  The dust was just beginning to settle a hundred yards up the strip of asphalt as they climbed out of the vehicle and were immediately joined by Wade and Harlan.

  “This doesn’t look good,” Wade said from next to him.

  “Not if he hit that spike strip doin’ ninety.” Nick knew blown tires could send a rig haywire, and Bart’s van was top-heavy.

  The wail of another siren blared behind them as they broke into a jog on the side of the highway, and an ambulance rolled past.

  Had Bart been injured in the crash, or worse?

  Nick couldn’t keep his pace from stepping up, but he wasn’t alone, as his fellow team members sprinted next to him.

  They all cared about the man who’d seen something in each of them that they hadn’t been able to see in themselves. They all loved Bart Bellows like a father.

  Nick focused on the path of a set of black skid marks carved into the asphalt at the point the van’s tires had exploded on the spike strip. The van had careened across the center line and disappeared over the edge of the roadway, down into the deep borrow pit on the opposite side of the highway.

  “Oh, no,” Nick said as they all four pulled up short in the loose gravel on the side of the road and stared at Bart’s crushed van. It had obviously rolled several times before slamming into the earth.

  One by one they shuffled down the steep embankment and rushed to the crash scene, where Sheriff Hale was busy handcuffing a scruffy-looking kid with a bleeding gash across his forehead before turning him over to EMS.

  He was no Wes Bradley, hell, far from it, but he’d been behind the wheel of Bart’s van.

  “I’m sorry, boys,” Hale said, shaking his head.

  Nick held his breath, dreading the Sheriff’s next words as if he knew what every one of them were.

  The crash had been violent. What were the odds Bart had survived?

  “Bart Bellows isn’t inside, gentlemen. His wheelchair’s locked in place, but he’s not there.”

  Relief shattered Nick’s nerves, but just to be certain, he hustled to the pile of wreckage that had once been a state-of-the-art vehicle, squatted down and stared in through one of the shattered rear windows.

  Bart’s power-driven wheelchair was still locked in place in its track system, designed to keep the chair stationary during travel.

  Nolan was beside him in an instant, followed by Wade and Harlan, all determined to confirm the fact for themselves.

  “What’s that?” Nick pointed to a bead of moisture balling on the downhill side of the black leather chair seat and oozing out of a crease in the padding.

  In slow motion he watched the droplet collect, then break free and drop to where it spattered against the inside panel of the van, revealing its composition.

  “Get Sheriff Hale,” Nick said, glancing back at the team and feeling his caution level raise. “This entire wreck is a crime scene. That’s blood.”

  Harlan turned and headed for the sheriff, with Wade on his heels. In a matter of seconds, Hale joined them, staring in at the ever-growing pool of dark red blood that oozed from Bart’s wheelchair.

  “I’ll be damned. I’ll get the forensics team out here before we flip this rig back up onto its wheels.”

  “What did the driver have to say?” Nolan asked, staring back to where the kid sat handcuffed to a gurney.

  “He claims some guy gave him five hundred bucks to get in the van and drive north on 83 like he stole it. Says he gave him another five hundred to outrun any law-enforcement o
fficer who tried to stop him.”

  “Can we question him?” Wade asked, working the knuckles on his right hand with his left.

  “Now keep your cool, Mr. Coltrane. I know this kid. He’s a local, been in plenty of trouble, but he’ll give me a good description. He took a heavy-duty bump on the head in that crash.”

  “Relax, Wade,” Nolan advised. “We know this fits Wes Bradley’s M.O. He’s a master at diversionary tactics. He’s got Bart and they’re probably halfway to hell and gone by now.”

  Nick hated to think of Bart Bellows in that situation. Bleeding and helpless without his wheelchair. Subject to a madman’s terror. They had to find him—before it was too late. And judging by the amount of blood dripping off of Bart’s wheelchair, that was already a possibility they had to consider.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The mood in the conference room was somber, as each member of the team stared at the Texas highway map Nolan had rolled out and affixed to the wall the moment they’d made it back to CSaI headquarters.

  “We know the Highway 83 incident was a diversionary tactic to throw us off the scent. My guess is Wes Bradley headed east or west on 287, or went north and picked up Interstate 40.”

  Concern adhered to Nick’s insides as he studied Nolan. He was making himself sick over Bart’s disappearance. Hell, they were all upset, but it wouldn’t make Bart Bellows suddenly appear in the room.

  “Did the kid give any indication that he knew what kind of vehicle the guy was driving?” Wade asked, then added, “I’d have liked to beat it out of him.”

  Harlan nodded. “Me too, but Bradley doesn’t make very many mistakes.”

  “Sheriff Hale is dusting the entire van for prints. Maybe we’ll get something to go on. In the meantime, I’d like to spearhead the investigation and search for Bart. I owe him…” Nolan’s voice broke. He cleared his throat and continued. “My life.”

  “We’re all beholden to him, Nolan, in one way or another, but you know as well as we do that Bart wanted you in D.C. personally taking care of Governor Lockhart’s first national fundraiser. He didn’t want it any other way.” Nick finished saying his piece and glanced around the table at his fellow team members, who were nodding in agreement.