Spy in the Saddle
Dana Marton
It’s been ten years since soldier Shep Lewis laid eyes on FBI agent Lilly Tanner and this time they have an even bigger problem than the attraction that still burns between them.In the centre of a smuggling operation, can Shep and Lilly forget the past and focus on the mission at hand?Or will their partnership reignite the flames of their untapped passions?
He had a hollow feeling in his stomach.
The urge to run hit him, but he stood immobilized as he listened to heels clicking on the floor in the main office area. On reflex, he catalogued the weapons within range: his gun at his hip, his backup firearm in the ankle holster, the knife in his pocket.
Then the door swung open and a pair of familiar eyes, fringed with thick lashes, scanned the break room before they zeroed in on him.
Oh, heck. She was definitely his Lilly Tanner.
Yet she was nothing like the girl he remembered.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” Her voice was a sexy purr, enough to make a man sit up and pay attention
Spy in
the Saddle
Dana Marton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
DANA MARTON is the author of more than a dozen fastpaced, action-adventure, romance-suspense novels and a winner of a Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. She loves writing books of international intrigue, filled with dangerous plots that try her tough-as-nails heroes and the special women they fall in love with. Her books have been published in seven languages in eleven countries around the world. When not writing or reading, she loves to browse antiques shops and enjoys working in her sizable flower garden, where she searches for “bad” bugs with the skills of a superspy and vanquishes them with the agility of a commando soldier. Every day in her garden is a thriller. To find more information on her books, please visit www.danamarton.com. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached via email at danamarton@danamarton.com.
This book is dedicated to my amazing Facebook fans
and my fabulous editor, Allison Lyons.
Contents
Chapter One (#uc9ef2f6c-3365-5668-915d-a43ca5dbfa3e)
Chapter Two (#u9eec1c89-5559-523e-b262-d7691bff1837)
Chapter Three (#ubbfdd3e2-ed10-5582-b8ca-015c377c77c4)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
As Shep Lewis, undercover commando, strode into his team’s office trailer on the Texas-Mexico border with his morning coffee, his bad mood followed him. To do anything right, a person had to give his all—and he did, to each and every op. But it didn’t seem to make a difference with his current mission.
He adjusted his Bluetooth as Keith Gunn, one of his teammates—currently on border patrol—talked on the other end. They all took turns monitoring a hundred-mile stretch along the Rio Grande, in pairs.
“Do you think they’ll really send in the National Guard to seal the border?”
“They won’t,” Shep said between his teeth. “It would just delay the problem.” For some reason, the powers that be didn’t see that the National Guard was a terrible solution, which frustrated him to hell and back.
His six-man team had credible intelligence that terrorists with their weapons of mass destruction would be smuggled across somewhere around here, on October first—five short days away. His team’s primary mission was to prevent that. Switching out players for the last five minutes of the game was a terrible strategy.
They had the exact date of the planned border breach. If they could somehow discover the exact location, they could lie in wait and grab those damned terrorists as they crossed the river. The bastards would never know what hit them.
The National Guard coming in to seal the border could not be hidden, however. Which meant the terrorists would move their crossing to a different place at a different time and might slip through undetected. The sad fact was, even the National Guard didn’t have the kind of manpower to keep every single mile of the entire U.S. border permanently sealed.
“The op has to be small enough to keep undercover to succeed,” he said, even if Keith knew that as well as he did.
“Except, we don’t have the exact location for their crossing.”
“We will.” But he silently swore. They were running out of time, and the stakes couldn’t have been higher—national security and the lives of thousands.
There could be no more mistakes, no distractions. They had five days to stop the biggest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Failure wasn’t an option.
Keith cleared his throat. “The FBI’s guy will be here today.”
“Don’t remind me.” Frustration punched through Shep. Everybody seemed to have a sudden urge to meddle. “Where are you?”
“Coming in. Ryder’s cutting the shift short. He wanted to talk to the whole team at the office.”
“More good news?”
“He didn’t say. We’ll be there in ten.”
They ended the call as Shep strode through the empty office that held their desks and equipment, passed by the interrogation room to the left, then team leader Ryder McKay’s office. Ryder had been on border patrol this morning with Keith.
Voices filtered out from the break room in the back, so Shep kept going that way.
“She burned down his house, stole his car and got him fired from his job.” Jamie Cassidy’s voice reached him through the partially closed door.
Okay, that sounded disturbingly familiar. Shep’s fingers tightened on the foam cup in his hand as he paused midstep, on the verge of entering. His mood slipped another notch as old memories rushed him. He shook them off. No distractions.
“She broke his heart,” Jamie added.
All right, that’s enough. Shep shoved the door open, maybe harder than he’d intended.
He stepped into the room just as Ray Armstrong said in a mocking tone, “Must have been some love affair.” He glanced over and grinned. “Hey, Shep.”
Shep shot a cold glare at the three men, all hardened commando soldiers: Jamie, Ray and Moses Mann.
The latter two had the good sense to look embarrassed at being caught gossiping like a bunch of teenage girls. Jamie just grinned and reached back to the fridge behind him for an energy drink.
The fridge and wall-to-wall cabinets filled up the back of the break room, a microwave and coffee machine glinting in the corner. In front of the men, high-resolution satellite printouts covered the table.
This close to D-day, they didn’t take real breaks anymore. They worked around the clock, would do whatever it took to succeed.
Yesterday’s half-eaten pizza, which they were apparently resurrecting as breakfast, sat to the side. Jamie pushed it farther out of the way as he lifted the drink to his mouth with one hand while he finished marking something on one of the printouts with a highlighter.
“So—” He looked at Shep when he was finished, too cheerful by half. “Want to tell us about her?”
Shep stepped closer, in a way that might or might not be interpreted as threatening. They’d all been frustrated to the limit lately, and a good fight would let off a lot of pressure. “I liked you better when you were a morose bastard.”
Ray leaned back in his chair. “He’s mellowed a lot since hooking up with the deputy sheriff.” He turned to Jamie. “She’s definitely changing you, man.”
And not to his advantage, Shep wanted to add, but that wasn’t entirely true, so he didn’t say it.
Jamie didn’t seem concerned about the perceived mellowing. A soft look came over his face as he capped his highlighter. “Love changes everything.”
“Really?” Shep narrowed his gaze at them. “Four of the roughest, toughest commandos in the country and we’re going to sit around talking about love? What the hell? Are we still part of the top secret Special Designation Defense Unit, or is this now the Wrecked by Cupid Team? Have changes been made while I’ve been out?”
He believed in true love. He’d seen it work; his parents had had it. But he also knew that—like anything else important—it only worked if you gave it your all. People like him, and the other guys on his team, could never do that.
He wasn’t the type to do things halfway, anyway. He either charged full steam ahead or wouldn’t even start. Love just wasn’t in the cards for him.
“Romance is the kind of—” he began, trying to be the voice of reason.
But Mo gave a warning cough.
He would. He was another recent, unfortunate casualty.
He looked Shep straight in the eye. “Love is nothing to be ashamed of.”
Shep wished the best for him and Jamie, but in his heart of hearts, he had doubts about their long-term chances. Yet what right did he have to be discouraging? He laughed it off. “It’s sad to see battle-hardened soldiers turn sappy.” He shook his head, looking to Ray for support, a good laugh or some further needling in Jamie’s direction.
But, in a stunning display of betrayal, Ray turned against him. “So what’s this about your psycho girlfriend?” he asked between two bites of cold pizza, sitting a head taller than anyone else in the room.
If Mo was built like a tank, Ray was built like a marauding Viking—his true ancestry. Jamie, between them, was the lean and lithe street fighter.
They didn’t intimidate Shep one bit. “We’re not talking about me.”
A roundhouse kick to Jamie, then vault on Ray, knock him—chair and everything—into Mo. That would put an end to all the smirking.
Except that Ryder, the team leader, had forbidden fighting in the office after an unfortunate incident when they’d first set up headquarters here. As it turned out, even though the reinforced trailer was bulletproof, the office furniture, in fact, was not indestructible.
So Shep threw Jamie only a glare instead of a punch that would have been way more satisfying. “She was a kid, all right? I wasn’t her boyfriend. I was her parole officer. End of story.”
“He never pressed charges,” Jamie told Mo under his breath in a meaningful tone, obviously in the mood to make trouble this morning.
Shep threw his empty coffee cup at him. “Didn’t anybody ever teach you to mind your own business?”
Jamie easily ducked the foam missile. “How about you tell us about her and then it’ll all be out in the open? It’d be good to know what we’re dealing with here.”
When they built ski resorts in hell and handed out free lift passes.
“Any reason we’re discussing Lilly Tanner this morning?” Saying her name only made him flinch a little. His eyes didn’t even twitch anymore when he thought of her.
Ray suddenly busied himself with the printouts on the table. Jamie had a look of anticipatory glee on his face.
A cold feeling spread in Shep’s stomach. “How did her name come up?”
He’d made the mistake of mentioning her to Jamie when they’d been on patrol together a while back. He hadn’t expected that she would become the topic of break-room discussion. Jamie wouldn’t have brought her up for gossip’s sake. But then why?
“She’s the consultant the FBI is sending in,” Mo said with some sympathy. He might have been built like a tank, but he did have a good heart.
Shep stared, his mind going numb. Individually, all of Mo’s words made sense. But having them together in a sentence defied comprehension. “Has to be a different Lilly Tanner.”
The one he’d known over a decade ago had been a hellcat. He’d always figured she would end up a criminal mastermind or an out-of-control rock star—she had the brains and deviousness for the first, the voice and the looks for the second.
Jamie tapped the highlighter on the table and grinned. “She’s the one. I checked when I heard the name.”
He didn’t like the new, cheerful Jamie. He was used to the pre-love morose Jamie who could curdle milk with just a look. As a good undercover commando should.
The only thing he liked less at the moment was the thought of Lilly Tanner reappearing in his life. The possibility caused a funny feeling in his chest. “They’ll have to send someone else.”
“Unlikely.” Ray grimaced. “We’ve been read the riot act.”
“Sorry about that.” Jamie had the decency to look apologetic at least. “My bad.”
He’d crossed the border and taken out someone he’d thought to be the Coyote, the crime boss who set up the transfer of terrorists into the U.S. Except the man Jamie had shot had been a plant. The Coyote had gotten away, and the Mexican government was having a fit over a U.S. commando entering their sovereign territory.
Hell, none of the team blamed Jamie. But now the FBI was sending in their own man...woman.
Shep closed his eyes for a pained second.
His team would either stop those terrorists from entering the country with their chemical weapons or die trying. The last thing they needed was the FBI meddling and putting roadblocks in their way at the eleventh hour.
Ray shrugged. “D.C. city girl coming to the big bad borderlands. Give her a few days and she’ll be running back to her office, crying.”
Shep swallowed the groan pushing up his throat. The Lilly Tanner he’d known didn’t run crying to anyone. He was about to tell them that, but gravel crunched outside as a car pulled up, then another.
“Ryder and Keith are coming in early,” he told the others. Maybe Jamie was wrong. Their leader would have the correct information.
Keith, the youngest on the team, came through the door first, tired and rumpled after a long night on the border. He did the best with people they caught sneaking over. One of his grandfathers was Mexican. He had the look and spoke the language like a native. People told him things they wouldn’t have told the rest of the team.
He looked around and apparently picked up on the tension in the air because he raised a black eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”
Shep couldn’t bring himself to answer. He sank into the nearest chair and reached for a slice of cardboard pizza, then stared at it for a second. He wasn’t even hungry.
“The FBI agent who’s coming... She’s a woman,” Mo said. “She’s—”
Ryder pushed in. “I was just talking to the Colonel, too. Lilly Tanner. Isn’t it great?”
Shep’s jaw tightened. “How do you know about Lilly?” He shot a dark look at Jamie. Couldn’t he keep his mouth shut?
But Jamie shrugged with wide-eyed innocence.
“She’s Mitch Mendoza’s sister,” Ryder said.
A moment of confused silence passed as the men looked at each other, processing the unexpected information.
Jamie spoke first. “The one he’s been looking for?” His sister was married to Mendoza, so this was family business for him. “I thought her name was Cindy.”
“Got changed at one point along the way. You can ask her all about it when she gets here.”
Mo clapped Jamie on the back. “Hey, that makes her your sister-in-law, doesn’t it?”
A stunned smile spread on Jamie’s face as he nodded. “Kind of. Yeah.”
Ryder headed to the back for coffee. “Mitch found her just recently. Different name and everything, but it’s definitely his sister. They had the DNA test done to confirm it.”
Shep rubbed his temple where a headache pulsed to life suddenly.
Mitch Mendoza, another member of the SDDU, Special Designation Defense Unit, the large team that Shep’s smaller group belonged to, came from a family destroyed by drugs. He’d been a teenager when his father had sold his little sister for coke. Mitch had been looking for her ever since.
And now he’d found her at last.
Except that through some bizarre turn of events, Mitch’s Cindy Mendoza was Shep’s Lilly Tanner. Shep swallowed. And she was coming here.
He tried to remember if he had any aspirin in his desk drawer. “They’ll have to send someone else.”
Jamie lifted an eyebrow, a warning look forming on his face. “She’s my family,” he said, in case somehow Shep didn’t get that.
He did. Shoot me now.
“She can’t be my Lilly Tanner. There must be a hundred Lilly Tanners out there.” He stubbornly clung to denial.
“She’s yours.” Jamie extinguished that hope with ruthless efficiency. “I ran a background check on her when I got the name. Right age. Came from the juvie system. Right city.”
Shep pushed to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Mo wanted to know.
“Taking a break.” He needed an hour at the gym.
He needed a little time to clear his mind so he could focus fully on his work. His thoughts were all over the place, and he had plenty to get done today.
No distractions. He had to erase the picture that filled his mind: the seventeen-year-old bundle of holy terror that had made him quit the juvenile justice system. Sort of. Okay, fine, they fired him because of her.
But even as he moved toward the fridge to grab a bottle of water to go, another car pulled up outside. A throaty engine rumbled, sounding nothing like the team’s SUVs. A car door slammed.
He had a hollow feeling in his stomach.
The urge to run hit him, but he stood immobilized as he listened to heels clicking on the floor in the main office area. On reflex, he cataloged the weapons within range: his gun at his hip, his backup firearm in the ankle holster, the knife in his pocket.
Then the door swung open and a pair of familiar devil-black eyes, fringed with thick lashes, scanned the break room before they zeroed in on him.
Oh, holy hell. She was definitely his Lilly Tanner.
Yet she was nothing like the girl he remembered.
Her full lips stretched into a smile that made Ray stare openmouthed. Shep considered throwing the water bottle at the idiot to snap him out of it. Then he realized that the rest of them were just as bad, staring at her, more than a little dazed. Great.
“Good morning, gentlemen.” Her voice was a sexy purr, enough to make a man sit up and pay attention, nothing like the disdainful teenage tone Shep still heard sometimes in his nightmares.
She had stretched up and filled out, and somehow managed to look like a Playboy Playmate even in a straight-cut charcoal FBI suit. She wore her wild, dark curls pulled back into a no-nonsense bun, her five-inch heels a somber black, yet everything about her somehow spelled sex, which made Shep feel all wrong and uncomfortable.
She’d been his charge once. He was pretty sure he shouldn’t be standing there thinking how she was the hottest thing he’d ever seen.
Good thing he knew too much about her to fall for the new look. Hell, he even knew where her tattoos were—
He caught himself and tried to backpedal out of that thought. Too late. A strange heat flooded him.
She strode straight to him on endless legs, her hips swaying in a mesmerizing way. “Hey, Shep. Long time no see.”
Enough roundness was happening in that skirt to make a man’s palms itch. And her breasts, too, had come into their own since he’d last seen her. Definitely. His brain was short-circuiting, unable to reconcile his old image of her with the new.
“Are you going to introduce me to your friends?” she asked when she stood close enough for him to catch the light scent of her perfume, her head at a slight tilt, an amused look in her eyes.
He had a hard time recalling his friends.
“Ray Armstrong.” Ray came around the table and took her hand, held it longer than necessary.
Keith deftly pushed Ray out of the way. “Keith Gunn.”
She shook his hand, too, then Mo’s and Ryder’s as they came up to introduce themselves. Then she turned to Jamie. “You must be Jamie Cassidy, then.”
Jamie stood with a bigger smile than Shep ever remembered seeing on him, and walked over to her, then enveloped her in a hug that made Ray and Keith look decidedly unhappy.
“We’re family,” he said when he pulled back. “I’m glad they found you. Now maybe Mitch will learn to relax a little.” He grinned. “What are the chances?”
She stood a little stiffly, as if not entirely sure of the hearty welcome. But she said, “From what I’ve seen of him, very little.”
Jamie grinned, then shot a watch yourself look at Shep, who wished he knew where the button was to project him into an alternate universe.
Ryder and Mo looked rather protective of her, too. They both had tremendous respect for Mitch Mendoza. Both would have laid down their lives for him. Or his little sister, from the looks of it. Ray and Keith, all googly-eyed, were obviously in lust with her and didn’t care who knew it.
Shep swallowed in disgust. Less than five minutes had passed since she’d walked through the door. The disciplined, battle-hardened team of six of the best commandos in the country stood in shambles.
That was Lilly Tanner.
He drew a slow breath, careful not to inhale too much of her perfume that wreaked havoc with his senses. He was a well-trained undercover operative. He could and would figure out how to stay away from her.
He stepped back, ready to leave the insanity behind, but her voice stopped him.
“While we’re all together here, I do have some information to share.” She paused, as if to make sure she had everyone’s attention but of course she did and then some. “We have confirmed intelligence that on October first, terrorists and their chemical weapons will be smuggled across this section of the border.”
“We know that,” Shep told her.
She went on. “This team is not large enough to monitor a hundred miles.”
Ryder nodded. “But a larger force would be noticed. Then the transfer would just be delayed or moved to another location.” They’d been through this many times in the past weeks.
She held up a slim hand. “A small undercover team catching the terrorists would have been the best option,” she agreed. “However, orders have been given for the National Guard to seal the area in question. They’ll be arriving on the thirtieth. If you can’t show results by then, we do need to be ready with plan B.”
Ryder’s face darkened. “It’s been decided and approved?”
She nodded. “This morning.”
“How long will they stay?”
“An indeterminate period.”
“But an incomplete and temporary deployment?”
“Yes.”
Shep watched her. “The terrorists will just wait them out. Or find another spot.” Ryder had just said that, but it seemed she hadn’t heard him.
She pulled her shoulders even straighter. “There’s no guaranteed perfect solution.”
Her not meddling in his team’s business would have been perfect, Shep thought as Ryder asked, “And if we can pin down the exact transfer location within the next couple of days? In time to set up an ambush.”
“Capture is preferable to deterrence. If you obtain an exact location, your team will be allowed to go ahead as planned with the apprehension on the first.”
The phone rang out in the office area. Shep, already near the door, went to answer it, needing some space.
Jamie and Mo followed him. They were heading out to the border for their shift, so they went to their desks for their backup weapons and started loading up.
They had the date, but the tangos could change their minds. And catching even a regular smuggler could always turn into gold, if the guy could lead them to the Coyote.
As Shep picked up the phone, the others came out of the break room, too. He turned his back to them to focus on the call.
“Hey, I got those prints for you,” Doug at the lab said on the other end. “They belong to one Jimmy Fishburn. Petty criminal.” He rattled off the address.
Shep entered it into his cell phone GPS before turning back to the others.
Jamie and Mo were already gone. Ryder was heading into his office with Lilly. He glanced back from the doorway. “Anything important?”
“We got an ID on the fingerprints.”
They’d been supposed to catch the Coyote when he came up to the U.S. for a medical procedure two days earlier. Instead, they’d chased and shot a stand-in. The driver had escaped, but they’d gotten his car and prints.
They’d never even laid eyes on the Coyote. The crime boss was pretty good at the game he played. Too bad. Because if they had him, he could give them the exact location for the terrorists’ trip across the river. He’d know. He’d set up the transfer.
“You need someone to go with you?” Ryder asked.
Shep shook his head. He wanted to be alone to regain his composure a little, and so he could swear loudly and at length on the way. “According to the lab, he’s a small-time crook. I can handle it.”
But Lilly flashed him a dazzling smile. “I can meet with Ryder later. I’ll go with you. We can catch up on the way.”
Just what he’d been hoping for. Not really.
If he’d learned one thing in the past couple of years, it was that you always played to your strengths. You figured out what your strengths were, built on them, made them even better and used them. You didn’t go into your weak territory. Your weak territory was where bad things happened.
Women were his weak territory. Especially Lilly.
He opened his mouth to protest, then caught another look of warning from Jamie. She was his sister-in-law. Okay, that added another layer of trickiness to all this.
It wasn’t as if he couldn’t handle her. He could.
So he forced his lips into something he hoped might resemble a cool, unaffected smile. “Can’t wait.”
* * *
LILLY SAT IN the passenger seat of Shep’s super-rigged SUV and tried to suck in her stomach while doing her best not to stare at him. Not that the arid Texas countryside provided much distraction. Low brush and yellow grass covered the land they drove over, a handful of farmhouses dotting the landscape here and there.
The cool, confident FBI agent thing back in the office had been a complete sham. Truth was, he made her nervous. Very. Not that he needed to know that.
“This Jimmy is our strongest lead?” She glanced at Shep from the corner of her eye.
Life was so incredibly unfair.
He hadn’t changed any in the past decade. Okay, maybe a little. His shoulders seemed even wider, his gaze more somber. He had a new edge to him, as if he’d been to hell and back. But he could still make her heart skip a beat just by breathing.
No, she caught herself. There’d be none of that this time around. She was a grown-up, a self-possessed, independent woman. Or she would act like one, at the very least.
“Yes.” He responded to her question. “If it pans out, Jimmy could be a direct lead to the Coyote.”
She tugged on her suit top, wishing she knew how to hide the pounds she’d put on since their last meeting—thank you, office work. Being a cop had been bad like that, but working for the FBI was worse. A week’s worth of fieldwork could easily be followed by a month of debriefings, reports and other documentation, with her going cross-eyed in front of a computer.
His stomach was as flat as the blacktop they drove over, and probably as hard. Not that she’d looked. Much. She lifted her gaze to his face.
“Hot down here,” she said, then winced at how inane she sounded.
She had tagged along to catch up, maybe even apologize for her past sins, but suddenly she couldn’t remember a thing she’d meant to say. Shep still had a knack for overwhelming her.
He kept his attention on the road. “How long have you been with the FBI?” he asked in that rich, masculine voice of his that had been the center of her teenage obsession with the man.
“Five years. Police force before that.”
He turned to her at last, his eyebrows sliding up his forehead. “You were a cop?”
“For a while. After I got my act together. My juvenile record was expunged.”
He grunted, sounding a lot less impressed than she’d hoped he would be. As she tried to think of what to say next, he turned off the county road and down a winding lane, which led to a trailer park.
A hundred or so trailers of various sizes sat in disorderly rows, all in faded pastel colors. No people. Nobody would want to sit outside in this heat. Broken-down cars and rusty grills clogged the narrow spaces between trailers, garbage and tumbleweeds blowing in the breeze.
He drove to the back row, checked the address, then backed his SUV into the gravel driveway next to a derelict shed that sat between two homes.
“This one.” He nodded toward a pale blue single-wide directly across from them that had its siding peeling in places. A tan recliner with the stuffing hanging out sat by the front steps.
When Shep got out, so did she. She caught movement at last—nothing sinister. Behind the shed, in a half-broken blue kiddie pool, a little boy was giving a graying old dog a bath. The dog didn’t look impressed, but still stood obediently and let the kid dump water all over him.
The kid paid them no attention. He should be safe where he was. They weren’t expecting trouble, but even if they found some, the little boy was out of sight and out of the way.
Shep looked at her. “What do you think?”
She scanned the blue trailer, mapped all the possible venues of approach in her head. “Anybody going up the steps could be easily picked off by someone in one of the windows.” That would be the most vulnerable part of the exercise. “Do you need backup?”
“I can handle it.” He checked his weapon with practiced movements, as if he’d done this a million times before. He probably had. “You keep an eye on the kid. Make sure he stays where he is.”
She watched the trailer’s windows. If anyone moved behind the closed blinds, she couldn’t see them. “Any guess who the big boss is? Any clues to the real identity of the Coyote?”
Shep shrugged. “Our best leads have an unfortunate tendency to die before they can be questioned.”
Which was one of the reasons why she had come.
While the six-man team was made up of the best commando soldiers the country had to offer, they’d been trained to fight, and fight they did. The body count was going up. She’d been sent to tone that down a little.
They weren’t in the mountains of Afghanistan. Running an op inside the U.S. was a more delicate business. Border security was a touchy issue. International relations were at stake. They needed to catch the terrorists without starting a war.
Well, they weren’t going to lose any leads on her watch. She glanced at the boy still busy splashing in the water, then something else drew her attention. A souped-up Mustang roared down the street.
The dog barked, then jumped out of the pool to chase the car. And the little boy chased after. “Jack! Come back!”
Something about the car set off Lilly’s instincts, but there was no time to react, no time to stop what was happening.
Brakes squealing, the car slowed in front of Jimmy’s trailer, and the next second the trailer’s windows exploded in a hail of bullets.
“Get down!” Shep shouted over the gunfire and dived after the kid.
She’d never seen a superspy lunge like that, straight through the air, covering an unlikely distance in a split second as she took cover behind the SUV. She was on the wrong side to help, but at the right angle to get a look at the license plate, at least.
Shep went down, protecting the boy, rolling back into the cover of the shed with him as the dog ran off. The Mustang was pulling away already.
Her heart raced as she jumped up. “Shep!”
Was he hit?
Chapter Two
She couldn’t see him. “Shep!”
Then he popped back into sight and shot at the Mustang, blew out a window as the car picked up speed, roaring away.
Lilly rushed forward and aimed at one of the back tires, barely seeing anything from the dust cloud the car was kicking up. She missed.
“You stay right here,” she heard Shep call out, probably to the kid, then he was next to her.
“Call in the plate. Call the office.” He rushed forward, up the shot-up trailer’s steps. “Law enforcement,” he called out when he reached the top. “Don’t shoot. Are you okay in there, Jimmy?” He kicked in the already damaged door and disappeared inside.
She moved after him, glancing back as the dog returned and ran into the gap between the shed and the trailer next to it, back to the boy. One step forward and she could see the kid, his arms tight around the dog’s neck as the animal licked his dirty face. Didn’t look as if either of them had gotten hurt.
She pointed at him. “You stay there. Don’t move. Okay?”
Neighbors peeped from their homes.
She scanned them and evaluated them for possible trouble even as she held up her badge. “FBI. Please go back inside.”
She clipped the badge onto her jacket so she could dial, gun in one hand, the phone in the other, her blood racing.
The line was picked up and she summarized in a sentence what had happened, reported the license plate, listed the make and model of the car, and asked for assistance. Then she went up the stairs after Shep to help him.
She found him in the back of the trailer, standing in a small bedroom that smelled heavily like pot. Clothes and garbage were thrown everywhere. Their brand-new lead, a scrawny twentysomething she assumed to be Jimmy, lay in the middle of the floor. Frustration tightened her muscles as she took in the bullet holes riddling his body.
Shep crouched next to him, feeling for a pulse with one hand, still holding his gun with the other. He straightened suddenly, swearing under his breath, then speaking out loud what she pretty much knew already. “Dead.”
He pushed by her, out of the trailer, and she ran behind him, noting the young mother who now had the little boy wrapped tightly in her arms.
“You,” Shep called to a man in his late forties who’d also appeared, probably from a neighboring trailer, while they’d been inside. He wore denim overalls over bare skin and held a hunting rifle.
“This is FBI Agent Lilly Tanner,” Shep told him as he hurried to his SUV. “She’s deputizing you.” He turned when he reached the car. “You sit in this chair—” he pointed to the recliner by the steps “—and don’t let anyone go inside until the authorities get here. Do you understand?”
The man looked doubtful for a second, but then he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Shep jumped into his car, and she had to follow if she didn’t want to be left behind.
She snapped on her seat belt, keeping the gun out. “What happened to standing still long enough to think and come up with a plan?”
“No time.” He turned the key in the ignition.
“I’m not a sheriff. I can’t deputize people,” she said through her teeth as he gunned the engine. “You just left a crime scene to a civilian. Is this the kind of Wild West law enforcement your team is running here?”
“It’s called doing what it takes.” He stepped even harder on the gas pedal and shot down the lane at twice the speed she would have recommended, people scampering out of his way.
A grim, focused expression sat on his face, his weapon ready on his lap, rules and regulations the farthest thing from his mind, obviously.
He was a different man from what she remembered. He belonged on the battlefield, not among civilians. She pushed the thought back. She’d barely been here; the determination was too early to make. She’d give him a fair shake. He deserved that much from her.
But she would have to make that determination at some point. Her mission here had an extra component his team wasn’t aware of. She was to make recommendations whether to keep the SDDU’s Texas headquarters in operation or have one of the domestic agencies take over their duties.
The law forbade U.S. military from being deployed inside the borders of the United States. The Special Designation Defense Unit didn’t technically belong to the military—their top secret team reported straight to the Secretary of Homeland Defense—but they were a commando team, no matter how they sliced and diced it.
The few FBI and CIA bigwigs who did have knowledge of the SDDU were more than uncomfortable with them being here. And then there was, of course, the rivalry. The very existence of the SDDU seemed to imply that the bureau and the agency weren’t enough to handle the job.
She was supposed to write up an evaluation and recommendation based on her experience here. But her judgment of the small Texas headquarters would have implications for the entire SDDU team. There was some pressure on her to come up with recommendations that would restrict their operations to outside the borders, like the military.
Pressure or not, however, she was determined to keep an open mind. Even if Shep wasn’t making that easy for her.
He drove like a maniac. The Mustang was nowhere to be seen. It’d gotten too much of an advantage. Not knowing where it was headed, they would have little chance of catching up.
She cleared her throat. “We would have been better off staying and searching the trailer, I think.”
Instead of responding, Shep made a hard left without hesitation when they hit the county road, and without yielding to oncoming traffic.
“How do you know they went this way?” she asked over the blaring horns and squealing tires, her right hand braced on the dashboard, her blood pressure inching up.
“Burned rubber on the road. Wasn’t there when we came. They didn’t slow to take the turn.”
She glanced back but, of course, they’d long passed the spot. Burned rubber... She should have picked up on that. Would have, normally. She needed to snap to instead of allowing him to distract her.
He overtook a large semitrailer and nearly ran a car off the road in the process.
She had to brace herself again. “You can kill someone like this.” She might have raised her voice a little. “What happened to waiting for backup? Also known as standard procedure.”
Back in the day, he’d been a lot more balanced—the sane voice of authority and all that. Rules used to mean a lot to him. He’d had a ton of them. But not anymore, it seemed.
Which he further proved by saying, “We don’t run things by the company manual here.”
“No kidding.”
God help her if the other five were like him. She pushed that depressing possibility aside and put on her business face. The bureau had sent her here to keep this wild-card team in line, and she was the woman to do it.
Shep might have been her parole officer at one point. She might have had a crush on him so bad she hadn’t been able to see straight, but a lot of things had changed since then. She was here to do a job.
She opened her mouth to tell him that, but he pointed straight ahead, cutting her off. “There.”
The red Mustang was a speck in the distance ahead of them.
He floored the gas and did his best to catch up, scaring innocent motorists half to death in the process as he whipped around them like a race-car driver.
But when he finally reached the red Mustang, it picked up speed. So did he. Was he insane? Nobody could fully control a car at speeds like this.
She meant to read him the riot act, but he cut her off, once again, before she could have gotten the first word out.
“Take over the wheel.”
“What? No—” But she had to grab the damn thing when he let go without even looking at her.
Then he took the safety off his gun, rolled down his window, pulled the upper half of his body outside and started shooting at the men in the car in front of them.
Of course, they shot back.
* * *
SHEP TRIED TO HIT the back tire, but the Mustang sat low to the ground and he was high up in the SUV, nearly sitting in the window, so the angle wasn’t much to work with. He couldn’t shoot at the two idiots inside the car, which would have been easier. They needed them alive for interrogation.
“Coming in.” He popped back onto his seat and grabbed the wheel from Lilly, who slid back into her own seat to make room for him, shooting him a murderous look, her full lips pressed into a severe line.
He floored the gas and rammed the car in front of them.
The Mustang nearly swerved into oncoming traffic.
Lilly braced herself on the dashboard. “Slow down! You’re endangering civilians on the road. Shep!”
“Take over the shooting. It’s easier for you to use your right hand.” He needed both hands for the ramming.
“This isn’t how it’s done. Public safety always comes first.”
When the hell did she turn all prim and proper? “The public is safe. Unless you’re a bad shot.”
She said something under her breath he didn’t catch.
“Listen—” He rammed the Mustang again. “I don’t know how you do things at the FBI, but this is not white-glove law enforcement. You’re in the combat-boot section now. If you want to stay here, you’re going to have to step up to the plate.”
She unsnapped her seat belt, muttering something under her breath, then rolled her window down and leaned out.
He did his best to keep the car steady for her.
She shot at the tire, didn’t have any more luck than he’d had, with the Mustang swerving. She leaned out a little farther.
The man in the passenger seat shot back at her.
She didn’t even flinch.
Shep could see from the corner of his eye as she lifted her aim. And shot the bastard straight through the wrist.
“Good shot.” He flashed her a grin as she pulled back into the cab. But then the smile froze on his face.
Crimson covered her ripped suit sleeve.
His blood ran cold as he watched hers drip. “You’re hit.”
He slammed on the breaks and did a U-turn, tires squealing, horns beeping around them as he plowed into the opposite lane, back the way they’d come. Oh, hell.
She was shooting him the megadeath glare. “What are you doing? Are you insane?”
If he was, he was entitled to it with her showing up in his life after all these years without warning. He straightened the car on the road. “Taking you to the hospital.”
“The bullet didn’t hit bone. It’s not that serious.” She held the bloody arm up, bent at the elbow, and looked under her sleeve for a few seconds before she flexed her elbow. She winced and tried her best to hide it, turning her head.
He stepped harder on the gas. Oh, man. He’d had her for only an hour and he’d broken her already.
Jamie was going to kill him. Mitch Mendoza, too. Mitch was probably going to torture him first. “Push your seat back. Head down, arm up. I’m going to get you help.”
“I’m not bleeding out. Take it easy.”
He couldn’t. He’d been responsible for her in the past and that somehow stayed with him. Plus she was Mitch’s baby sister now.
Dammit, he should have never let her come with him to Jimmy’s place.
He glanced into his rearview mirror, but the Mustang had already disappeared. “From now on, you work out of the office.”
“I don’t think so.”
Anger rolled over him. “If you didn’t get shot, I would have those idiots by now.” She had no idea how distracting she was.
“You could have killed us with your driving,” she snapped back. “You could have killed innocent civilians.”
He swallowed a growl, hoping to God they would sedate her at the hospital. He wondered who he’d have to talk to to get her knocked out for a week.
He drew a steadying breath and focused. “When we get to the E.R., you need to keep in mind that my team is doing undercover work here. We’re consulting for CBP as far as everyone else is concerned.”
“I’m not going to the E.R. Seriously.” She paused for a moment before she continued, “If you want to, you can take me back to my hotel. I wouldn’t mind changing clothes.”
“You need a doctor.”
“I have a first-aid kit in my room. It’ll be faster. I go to the E.R. with a non-life-threatening injury, and we’ll be there for the rest of the day.”
He chewed that over. She was right. Not that he had to like it.
“Fine. I’ll take you back to your hotel. But I’m looking at your arm. Then I’ll decide if you have to go to the E.R.”
She scowled and, even scowling, managed to look beautiful. “You were always bossy.”
She was talking about the bad old days.
“I was supposed to tell you what to do. That was my job.” And he’d failed spectacularly. He didn’t like to think about that, so he asked, “Where are you staying?”
“Pebble Creek. Prickly Pear Garden Hotel. Right in the middle of town.”
He knew the place.
He picked up his phone and called the office, updated Ryder on what had happened at the trailer park. With the license-plate info Lilly had already called in, half the team was already out looking for the Mustang, and so was local law enforcement, so that was good. They’d get them. Shep told Ryder the direction the car had been headed when last seen.
“How are you doing?” he asked Lilly when he hung up. They were reaching Pebble Creek at last and he had to slow a little as there were even more cars on the road here.
The small border town was getting ready for a rodeo. There were signs all over the place and billboards with images of cowboys and bucking bulls. The rodeo circuit was a big deal around these parts, a lot of outsiders coming in, which wasn’t helping their investigation one bit.
“You’re not responsible for my well-being,” Lilly was saying. “I’m not seventeen anymore.”
“Yeah, I noticed that,” he said aloud, without meaning to.
A quick laugh escaped her, the sound sneaking inside his chest. Even her laugh was sexy, heaven help him. He turned down Main Street, drove straight to the hotel and pulled into the parking structure.
“Are you okay? Why don’t you just sit here for a minute?”
She shot him a dark look. “I’m not going to pass out.”
Good. Because he really didn’t want to have to carry her up. He didn’t think he could handle touching her.
They walked to the elevators together. He kept close watch on her from the corner of his eye. At least they were alone when they got on. Her bloody arm would have brought on some questions, for sure. But they reached her room on the third floor without running into anyone.
She had a suite, small but tidy. She walked straight to the closet and grabbed some clothes. “I’m going to clean up. Make yourself at home,” she said before she disappeared behind the bathroom door.
He looked around more carefully. The space, like any hotel room, was dominated by a bed: king-size, plenty of room for two. He cut that thought right off and turned his back to the damn thing. He blew some air from his lungs. He shouldn’t be here. He shoved his hands into his pockets and reassured himself with the thought that he was here only in a professional capacity, and this would be the last time.
He scanned the rest of the furniture: a desk and a table with chairs in the small kitchenette. Plenty enough for the week she would be staying.
The sound of running water drew his attention to the bathroom door. He bent his head, rubbed his thumb and index fingers over his eyebrows as he squeezed his eyes shut for a second. He so didn’t want to think about the new, grown-up Lilly naked under the hot spray of water.
He did anyway. Maybe he had more self-discipline than the average Joe, but he was still a man.
She kept the shower brief. Long before he could have reined in his rampant imagination, she emerged from the bathroom, wearing soft white slacks and a pale green tank top that emphasized the green of her eyes. A nasty red wound, at least four inches long, marred her lower right arm. It still seeped blood.
She went to the closet again and bent to the bottom. She grabbed a jumbo first-aid kit, then came over to sit on the edge of the bed. “I wouldn’t mind if you helped me bandage this up. I’m not good with my left hand.”
The bed? With five chairs in the suite, she had to sit there?
He almost suggested the kitchen table, but he didn’t want her to guess that she affected him in any way.
He stepped up to her, trying not to notice her fresh, soapy scent. “You travel with an emergency kit?”
She’d been a pretty haphazard person back when he’d known her, definitely not the Girl Scout type. More of a “let the chips fall where they may” sort of girl.
She popped the lid open. “I like to be prepared.”
Of course, she was an FBI agent now. She’d probably been shot at before, even if he didn’t want to think about it. Obviously, she’d lived and learned.
He looked at the brown bottle of peroxide in the middle of the box. “Let’s start with the disinfecting.”
The bullet ripped along her skin but didn’t go through, didn’t damage muscle, or not too badly. That was good. She was right—she didn’t need the E.R. Although, it might have been better if a nurse was doing this.
He hadn’t planned on seeing her in so little clothes that he would have to notice her toned arms. He hadn’t planned on getting close enough to her to touch her.
But fine—he was a soldier. He could suck it up for ten minutes. As long as he didn’t look at the curve of her breasts, which the tank top very unhelpfully accentuated.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s what they always say.”
He slipped into latex gloves and disinfected the wound then dabbed it dry. To her credit, she didn’t make a sound. He leaned closer to get a better look at the damage now that dry blood didn’t obstruct his view.
She held still. “So?”
“The missing swath of skin is too wide for butterfly bandages, but the gash isn’t deep enough to really need stitches.”
To her credit, she didn’t say I told you so.
He put on antiseptic cream then a sterile pad, wrapped her arm in gauze. “It’s going to leave a nasty scar.”
“Good thing I’m not a photo model.”
As she shrugged, his gaze strayed to her naked shoulder, to her soft, tanned skin. Feeling lust at this moment had to be wrong for at least half a dozen reasons. Trouble was, she had him so bamboozled, he couldn’t remember any of them.
He cleared his throat. “Good to go.”
She flashed a smile. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He stepped back.
“And thank you for...before,” she added with a tilt of her head, her eyes growing serious. She filled her lungs, a consternated look coming over her face for a second. “I’m sorry if I was a difficult teenager.”
Difficult didn’t begin to describe her. “You were something.”
She smiled again.
He didn’t smile back. “And by that, I mean trouble. And it was pretty obvious you’d be even bigger trouble in a couple of years. I was just hoping we wouldn’t be running in the same circles by then.”
She watched him. “And here I am.”
“And here you are.” He drew a slow breath, and the flowery scent of her soap hit him all over again.
* * *
LILLY WATCHED THE WARY expression on his face.
Being alone in a hotel room with Shepard Lewis had been her teenage dream. To have him here now seemed beyond strange, even if under vastly different circumstances than she’d spent hours daydreaming about back in the day.
She’d written songs about him, for heaven’s sake.
She pushed all that away.
“You kept insurance on the car I borrowed,” she said. Okay, stole. But seeing how they were practically colleagues now, there was no sense splitting hairs.
He shifted where he stood. “Figured you couldn’t afford it. Driving without insurance is illegal. Didn’t want you to get into more trouble if you got caught.”
“You never reported it stolen. That car saved my life. I lived in it the first year after I ran away.”
He nodded.
“How come you’re no longer a parole officer?”
His dark eyes focused a little sharper, his jaw jutting out a little, his masculine lips tightening.
Oh, God. “Did you quit because of me?” Had she been that bad?
He backed away from her, to the window, and looked out. He said nothing.
“You did?” She stared.
He did a sexy, one-shouldered shrug. “Technically, I was let go.”
She stared some more as she tried to make sense of that.
“Why? You were really good. You were the only decent person I met in the system. If anyone could have made me go straight, it was you. You just got me too late. I was... Look, nobody could’ve gotten through to me by that point. Why on earth would they let you go?”
He turned back to her, holding her gaze. “There was that letter.”
For a long second, she had no idea what he was talking about. Then it clicked. “The email I sent?”
“Work emails are not private.”
“But I was thanking you for all your help and apologizing for the car—”
And then it hit her.
Heat flushed her face. The email... Oh, God. At the end, in a fit of teenage drama, she’d confessed her undying love. She might have even mentioned that she would be saving her virginity for him.
She’d blocked that memory, apparently, until now. She cringed as she pushed to her feet and busied herself with packing up the first-aid kit. FBI agents didn’t blush, she tried to remind herself, too late.
“I’m sorry,” she said without looking at him. She couldn’t just now.
She had a fair idea what had happened. He’d probably been accused of encouraging her teenage fancy. He hadn’t. The opposite, if anything. He’d always tried to treat her as a big brother would, which used to frustrate the living daylights out of her.
“I’m really sorry,” she said again, feeling it in the bottom of her soul.
“Don’t worry about it. I found my place.”
She didn’t know what to say. She put away the white box and moved out to her kitchen to put a little distance between them. “Would you like a drink?”
“I better get going.” But he stayed where he was and watched her for a long minute. “There was one thing I could never figure out. Why did you set fire to the house?”
The air got stuck in her lungs. “Your house burned down?”
Again, he waited awhile before he spoke. “Could have been an accident.” He shook his head, then scratched his eyebrow as he thought. “I had the oil pan over to the side. You knocked a few things over when you drove the car off the metal ramp, come to think of it. Something might have thrown a spark.”
She’d burned his house down.
She sank into the nearest chair as the stark truth hit her. “I ruined your life.”
He gave a wry smile. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
For the first time in a long time, she had no idea what to say. He was armed. Why hadn’t he shot her yet?
She wasn’t about to ask him and give him any ideas.
For her, coming here, seeing Shep again meant...tying up some loose ends from her past. He’d been a good memory. She might have even looked forward to showing off to him a little...look, I’ve made it, that kind of thing.
She might have spent some extra time on her hair and makeup this morning. He’d pushed her away years ago. Now part of her wanted him to see what he’d missed and maybe even regret it.
She closed her eyes. What a fool she’d been.
All these years, he must have thought of her only as his worst nightmare.
His phone rang, breaking the silence, and he answered it. She was ridiculously grateful for the chance to gather herself.
He listened before he said, “Okay, I’ll be right there.”
“What is it?” she asked, still a little dazed by his revelations. “Did they find the Mustang?”
He slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Not yet. It’s probably hidden somewhere in a garage right now. It belongs to a Doug Wagner, who doesn’t seem to be home at the moment. Keith went out there. He got a list of Wagner’s buddies. A neighbor said Wagner likes to hang out with them at The Yellow Armadillo.”
“Which is?”
“A seedy bar in Pebble Creek. Known smuggler hangout.” He shrugged. “But he wouldn’t be out in public right now, after a hit. We’re going to run down his friends and see if he’s holed up with one of them or, at least, if one of them is holding the Mustang for him.”
He held out his phone for her, with a mug shot on the screen. The man in the picture was average-looking— beady dark eyes, greasy hair, giant chin.
She’d seen only a little of the Mustang’s driver, but enough to match him to the photo. She pushed to her feet. “That’s him. I’m coming with you.”
“No.” He said it as if he meant it, in that stern, disapproving tone she knew only too well. “You just got shot. You’re probably still tired from flying out here. And now you’re injured. Stay and rest. Just take the rest of the day off, all right? Give your body a chance to recover.”
She bristled for a moment but then, just this once, she decided to give in to him. A few hours of distance might be just what the both of them needed to put the past behind them. They needed to do that so they could move forward.
“I’m really sorry about before. Do you accept my apology?”
He nodded without having to think about it. “I’m glad it all worked out for you in the end. It’s good to see you doing well.”
“You, too.” It was a relief that she hadn’t driven him to alcohol or something. “When I come into the office tomorrow morning, we’ll start over. Could we do that?”
“It’s a deal.” He walked out the door with a brief nod at her, then closed it behind him.
She had to give it to him, he wasn’t one to hold a grudge. She wasn’t sure she could have been as understanding. She thought for a minute about their past, about where they were now, and tried to put things into perspective. Think positive.
She did that, and she also thought of something that would let her show Shep that she’d changed, that she wasn’t the same person who’d nearly ruined his life, that she was good at what she did now.
The sudden need to prove herself to him took her by surprise.
When she’d received the assignment, she got a list of the team members and a one-page memo on each. She knew she would have to face Shep and she didn’t really think she’d have any problem with it. She’d expected an awkward moment or two, maybe, but then they’d get over it.
Reality, however, turned out to be a lot more complicated.
She looked up the address of The Yellow Armadillo on the internet, then walked to her closet. Just because she’d agreed to stay away from the office for the rest of the day, it didn’t mean she was done with investigating. She wasn’t here on vacation. She wasn’t here just to observe and evaluate the team.
She was here to help them achieve their objective.
She’d come prepared, brought undercover clothes in addition to her FBI suits. She pulled on blue jeans, cowboy boots, left the tank top and combed her hair out, then pushed a cowboy hat over her head. Ready. She would hang out at the bar, nurse a beer and get a feel for local activity.
Wagner was the key. The Coyote must have sent him to take out Jimmy, a loose end. Wagner could lead them straight to the Coyote, who could take them straight to the terrorists. They needed Wagner.
Her car was at the office, but The Yellow Armadillo was just a few blocks away. A chance to clear her head was more than welcome. And she could use the walk to get a better feel for Pebble Creek. She took the stairs, adding a little more to the exercise.
Her phone rang. Unknown number.
“Hey, it’s Jamie. Shep said you got shot. How are you doing?”
Okay, that was weird. She wasn’t used to family checking up on her. “Just a scratch. Not to worry.”
“If you need anything—”
“I’m fine.” As a rule, she handled her life on her own. She didn’t depend on people.
Jamie paused for a second. “Okay. Just wanted to check in.”
The day was hot but not unbearable as she hung up and walked out onto the street from the hotel lobby. She turned right after the bank and walked down the side street until she found the bar.
Its sun-faded, chipped sign hung over a reinforced steel door, every inch scuffed, crying for a paint job. The parking lot was half-empty. Still, considering that it was before noon, that didn’t seem like bad business. But if the bar turned a profit, the owner sure didn’t invest in appearances.
When she stepped inside, the smell of beer and unwashed bodies hit her. At least a dozen people were drinking and talking at the tables. Could be they’d been out on the border, smuggling all night, then came here to grab a drink before they went home to sleep. Their gazes followed her as she cozied up to the bar.
The bartender towered more than a foot over her, drying glasses. Definitely a bruiser.
“Howdy.” He glanced at the bandage on her arm, but said nothing about it. The bar wasn’t the kind of place where people would ask questions about something like that, apparently.
“Hey.” She sat by one of the columns that extended from bar to ceiling, holding a dozen ratty ads for local services and whatever. That way, at least one side of her was protected. She scanned the short hallway in the back, could see a turn at the end that probably led to the office, then the back exit.
The bartender looked her over. “What’s your pleasure, little lady?” He raised a bushy eyebrow. She didn’t belong here and they both knew it.
She thought about a beer before lunch, and her stomach revolted. “Wouldn’t mind starting with coffee.”
He pushed a bowl of peanuts a few inches closer to her and turned to the coffee corner. He was back with her cup in two minutes, powdered creamer and sugar on the side. “You new in town?”
“Traveling through.”
A waitress sailed by and winked at her. “Looking for your next heartache?”
Lilly gave a smile, hoping like anything that she hadn’t already found it. “No, definitely not.” Letting her teenage crush with Shep reemerge would be beyond stupid. “Nice town, though. Might stay awhile,” she added, suddenly inspired by the bottom ad on the post that caught her eye. The bar band was looking for a new singer.
“If I can find a gig.” She nodded toward the ad and tried not to think how many years it’d been since she’d been onstage. But hanging out at the bar wouldn’t give her half the chance to snoop around as working here a few hours a night would. It’d make her an insider.
“You sing?” the waitress asked as she waited for her orders to be filled. She was in her early forties, a bottle blonde, slim, wearing a white T-shirt with the bar’s logo on it and a short black skirt with an apron.
“Ain’t much else I can do. I got just the voice the good Lord gave me.” Lilly tried to sound country, as if she might just fit in.
The woman looked doubtful, but she said, “Come back tonight. Brian’s the boss. He’ll be holding tryouts.”
“Thanks—”
“Mazie. And this one here’s Shorty.” She snorted as she indicated the bartender with her head. He fairly towered over the both of them, busy with the beer tap.
“Lilly. I think I might just try for that gig.”
Even if Shep was totally going to kill her for it.
Chapter Three
Night had fallen by the time Shep and Keith made their way into town and pulled up in front of The Yellow Armadillo, after a long and dusty shift on border patrol that netted them nothing whatsoever. Normally, they would have taken a break before going into the office in the morning. But as close as they were to D-day, they’d decided to snoop around the bar a little first.
Lilly’s hotel was just up the road. Not that Shep planned on stopping by for a visit. He watched for an empty space in the parking lot. He had to drive around to find a spot.
“Looks like they do good business.” Keith scanned the cars, then turned to Shep. “So, did Lilly Tanner really burn down your house and steal your car and all that?”
“Don’t want to talk about it.”
But Keith kept waiting.
Fine. “It was an accident.”
“How does somebody steal a car by accident?”
“The fire was an accident. She needed the car and...” He shrugged. There was really no good way to explain. “She wanted to start over.” He’d never really held a grudge. “She was a messed-up kid and with reason. She had rough beginnings.”
“True that. Sold for drugs by her own parents. That’s harsh. Can you imagine?”
“Not really.” He’d grown up in a happy, loving family.
“That’s why you never reported the car stolen?”
He parked the car and shut off the engine. “She was just turning eighteen—she would have gone to jail. Being locked up would have broken her. She’d always been special, always stood out. I didn’t want to see her broken.”
He was glad she’d turned out okay. He would be even gladder when she left again. He stopped for a second and turned to Keith. “And now we’re done talking about her. She’s only here for a few days. It’s not important.”
Keith flashed one of his quick grins. “Whatever you say.”
The bar sat on a side street a little back from the main drag, among service-type businesses: dry cleaner’s, key copying and photocopying, a car mechanic a little farther down. The road back here was narrower and darker, the streetlights smaller and not as fancy as Main Street’s, no lone-star flags, no advertising posters on the poles.
Keith got out. “Hope Wagner is here.”
Shep followed. “Or the guy who was with him at the shooting. Look for anyone with a damaged wrist.”
They’d put out a call to the local hospitals, but none had a patient with a gunshot wound like that. He might have gone to one of the underground clinics that served illegal immigrants. If so, they’d have no way of finding him through the health-care system.
Music filtered out to the street through the front door as they walked up, the smell of stale air and beer hitting them as they stepped inside.
Mostly men filled the bar, very few women. It seemed like the kind of place where farmhands would go to get sloppy drunk at the end of the day. A scrawny cowboy wailed on the stage, a sad song about losing his girl. The clientele paid little attention to him.
Shep and Keith bellied up to the bar and flagged down two beers. They were dressed as rodeo cowboys. With all the cowboy shirts, jeans and cowboy boots surrounding them, they fit right in.
He didn’t spot anyone suspicious at first glance, except a bookie in the far corner doing some business, probably taking bets on the rodeo that would start later in the week.
The bartender slid their beers in front of them. “In town to try your luck?”
“We’re in it to win it.” Keith gave an enthusiastic grin. “Hoping for a break in the weather. No fun trying to train in over hundred-degree heat.”
The bartender nodded with sympathy. “Where you boys from?”
“Pennsylvania.” Keith puffed his chest out a little.
The man gave a whoop of a laugh. “There ain’t no rodeo in Pennsylvania.” He shook his head as a pitying look came into his eyes.
“There sure is.” Keith grinned. “There are crazy bastards everywhere.” He managed to sound proud of it.
An older guy on Keith’s other side toasted them with his beer. “Amen to that.”
The bartender kept laughing as he walked away.
Shep didn’t mind some mocking. Being considered the village idiot was the perfect cover.
He pretended to watch the band and the out-of-tune singer onstage while he continued checking out the customers. He looked for specific faces, not just something suspicious in general. That helped. If Doug Wagner or his partner showed up tonight, they could grab him, take him in and ask him who’d paid them to shoot Jimmy.
None of his buddies had given up his location. And Shep’s team couldn’t find the Mustang, either.
The sad cowboy onstage finished his song and stood awkwardly for a lackluster applause before lumbering off the stage. The band stayed and another singer came on. This was one was a woman.
And then some.
Next to Shep, Keith gave a soft whistle.
She wore cherry-red cowboy boots, a denim skirt that was so short it was barely legal and a light green tank top that looked familiar.
He leaned forward to see better. Those curves... He didn’t want to be thinking what he was thinking. He had to be mistaken.
She stopped in front of the microphone with her hat pulled low over her eyes, her head bent. She hadn’t sung a word yet, but already she held the crowd’s attention, something the previous performer hadn’t managed. Chins were hitting the tables all over. The men ogled her as if they were ready to devour her.
Then she looked up and flashed a dazzling smile that lit up the room. She had a face to match the body, for sure. A couple of men growled with appreciation. Others let out more wolf whistles.
“Hot damn.” Even Keith couldn’t keep quiet, his voice laden with reverence.
Shep came halfway to his feet then caught himself and dropped back down just before he would have blown his cover. “What in blazing hell is Lilly doing up there?” He hissed the words between his teeth.
But Keith was too dazzled to listen.
* * *
SHE LOCKED HER KNEES so they wouldn’t shake. It’d been a long time since she’d sung onstage. And she’d never been a country singer. Lilly flashed another smile before she nodded to the three-man band behind her and started into a country ballad, similar to the one the singer before her had chosen.
She was one minute into it when she realized it wasn’t going to work for her, not at a place like this. The sweet love song was something women would listen to in the car while driving to school to pick up their kids. The rough-and-tumble men who filled the bar weren’t looking for sentimental, no matter how good the chords were.
Brian had been clear that he wanted a performance that hit the ball out of the park. Revenue was weak on band nights now that their lead singer had quit. He wanted some serious dough coming in. He wanted something that would bring people in early and make them stay until the closing bell.
She tried her best, putting all the heart she had into the song. Unfortunately, nobody was listening. A lot of the men were looking at the stage, but they were staring at her legs.
Since the audition was to be decided by applause...If the men kept staring instead of clapping when she finished, she was sunk.
Brian had asked for one song from each singer. She glanced at him as he sat up front, paging through a ledger book. He’d paid very little attention to the auditions so far. He certainly didn’t look as if he was ready to offer her the job on the spot. She needed to get his attention and she needed to do it in a hurry. Her ballad was almost over.
Oh, what the hell, since when did she play things safe? As she sang the last note, she glanced back and winked at the band, then turned to the audience.
“I like country,” she said and flashed a smile when a couple of men hooted in agreement, “but I’m a versatile kind of gal, so how about I show you a little bit of something else?”
A drunk shouted a few suggestions of what he’d like her to show him. The rest of the men laughed.
She had the lights in her eyes, so she could only make out the first row, but she knew the bar was packed. Tryouts for a new lead singer brought in some extra people, Mazie had told her just before Lilly came onstage. People liked the idea of getting a vote. Liked to check out fresh meat, too, probably.
Lilly took the ribbing in stride and tossed her cowboy hat into the audience, whipped her long hair and belted out the first line of the chorus to “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” at the top of her lungs.
There was a second of pause. This was the moment where she might get thrown off the stage. But nobody booed and the manager simply watched her.
Then the band picked up the song.
Relief flooded her as she went on singing, excitement filling her little by little, and she danced across the stage as she sang, suddenly feeling like a kid again, without any worldly possessions, just the road and her guitar. She sang her heart out like she used to, the old moves coming right back as she rocked the hell out of the place.
She’d already been thrown back to the past by seeing Shep, and now this finished the job. She felt a decade younger and couldn’t say she didn’t like it.
“Yee-ha!” someone shouted.
Boots slapped against the wood floor, the applause deafening when she finished, with a few marriage proposals thrown in, and the men demanding more.
She felt a surge of satisfaction and just plain pleasure. She’d worked so hard to make herself into something more, something serious, that she’d forgotten how good this had felt.
“You have a fun night, now!” she called out to acknowledge the support.
The manager was grinning at her, looking pleased as peaches.
She grinned back then ran backstage, passing the next act going up, another lanky cowboy who stared at her with a troubled look on his face. She set aside the buzz of adrenaline and turned her attention to her true purpose for being here: covert surveillance. She turned off the rock chick and turned on the FBI agent.
For the moment, she was alone backstage. The narrow hallway connected the main bar with the office and the kitchen that prepared a dozen food items—all well salted to keep the drinking at an optimum. Her attention settled on a closed door at the end on her other side. She’d seen that earlier, had wondered where it led. This could be her chance to investigate.
The next contestant started into a song on the stage, sounding unsure. He had a good voice, but it seemed that her performance had thrown him. He didn’t seem to be able to find his footing.
Lilly tuned him out as she hurried over to the mystery door and tried the knob. Locked. Since she was pretty sure they were close to the outside wall and there was no upstairs above the bar, if the door hid stairs, they’d be going to a basement.
She had lock picks in her pocket. She reached for them, but footsteps behind her made her spin around. The music was so loud, she hadn’t heard him in time, not until the man was right behind her.
Brian’s face was expressionless as he watched her. He said nothing, waiting for her to speak first.
She flashed him her best smile. “Is this the staff bathroom? I think somebody’s in there.”
“No staff bathroom. We all use the one by the jukebox.” He didn’t volunteer any information on where this door led.
She could have asked, but didn’t want to sound as if she was snooping. “So how did I look on your stage?” she asked instead. “Felt right—” she grinned “—I tell you that. Nice crowd, too. I sure could get used to it.”
He measured her up. “We’ve never done anything but country.” He paused. “You know, from anybody else, this might not have gone down as well. But you...” His gaze stalled on her breasts for a second. Then slid to her injury. “What happened to your arm?”
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