One Tough Texan

by MJ Rodgers

  She noted that he hadn’t said he’d hate her being strangled, only having to break the door down. This concern over someone else’s property, as opposed to her neck, did not bring a whole lot of cheer to Jamie’s heart.

  “We’ll grab some chow tomorrow morning before making the casino rounds to see if we can spot Tony. I’ll knock on the door right about six-thirty. Be ready.”

  And with that warm parting endearment, he disappeared through the connecting door and closed it behind him.

  Jamie sighed in disappointment. It was at herself, though, not Matt He was acting true to form. It was she who kept forgetting her resolve to wipe out the memory of his kiss.

  She checked her watch. It was almost ten-thirty. It had been a long day, and tomorrow would likely be one, too. She got ready for bed, but when she lay down she felt too restless to sleep. Tomorrow could be the day when she found Tony.

  And lost Matt.

  She had set the locket Tony had given her those many years before on the nightstand. She leaned over to retrieve it. She turned it over in her hand. It was big and chunky and just made of cheap metal.

  Still, its value was far beyond measure. She had cleaned and polished it until it shone. The original chain had turned green long ago. She’d replaced it with links of eighteen-karat gold.

  The day Jamie told Cade she’d marry him, she’d put the locket away. It was only the week before that it had once again surfaced to become a part of her life.

  She opened it and looked inside. But this time it wasn’t Tony she was thinking about. It was Matt.

  Part of the impetus that had driven her to find Tony after all these years had come from that feeling of missing something vital in her life-a force or energy that should be there but wasn’t.

  The moment Matt had taken her into his arms and kissed her, Jamie understood what she had been missing.

  Passion. In Matt’s arms the power of it had filled her, shaken her, brought her to life. She knew that Tony would never be able to do that. Only one man could. And that one man was Matt.

  But he hadn’t even done it intentionally. And he wasn’t ever going to do it again. Somehow, some way, she was going to have to get that message to sink into her thick skull.

  Matt said he was going to be with her tomorrow when she saw Tony. He should be prepared for what might happen. Before they went to Sweetspring, she had kept some important things from him. That had been a mistake. She didn’t want to make another one. It was time to tell him about the locket. She snapped it closed in her hand.

  Jamie slipped her silk robe over her matching nightie and drew it tight at the waist. She stepped into her slippers and approached the connecting door, clutching the locket in her hand.

  Would he be upset that she had not told him about the locket before? More than likely. She could almost hear that gruff tone of his voice, see the busy pulse pumping in his jaw.

  Well, putting it off any longer wasn’t going to help matters. She knocked, ready to face him in whatever mood he chose to greet her.

  But there was no answer.

  Jamie knocked harder and called out. “Matt?”

  When there still was no response, she turned the knob and opened the door. The room was dark. Was he already in bed?

  Jamie leaned over to switch on the table lamp. The light flooded the room. Her eyes traveled to the bed. It was empty. So was the room. Matt was gone.

  MATT HAD PURPOSELY entered Jamie’s room when they returned to Harrah’s to give their follower the impression that he was spending the night with her. If their tail was a professional, he still wouldn’t leave his post. But if he was sloppy, he’d retreat for the night, figuring Matt and Jamie wouldn’t be emerging before morning.

  Matt intended to find out which he was. He slipped out of his shirt and pulled on a worn black sweatshirt. He discarded his Stetson and grabbed a black baseball cap. He opened his door just seconds after leaving Jamie to look out into the hall. It was empty. Matt quickly exited his room and rushed toward the elevators.

  All he knew of their tail so far was that he was about fiveten and was wearing a gray shirt and slacks. It was enough.

  He caught a side view of the man as he got on the elevator going down. Now Matt knew more. His quarry was dark haired, wiry, late forties or early fifties. Matt watched the elevator descend all the way to the lobby with no stops in between.

  He took the next elevator going down. His quarry had a good head start Still, Matt was determined to find him.

  Matt was pleasantly surprised a couple of minutes later to see the man he sought leaning over the hotel counter, saying something to the clerk that was making her blush.

  This guy was definitely no professional. Professionals knew better than to leave a post and to mix business with a little something on the side. Who was this amateur anyway?

  Matt took a small camera out of his pocket and unobtrusively took a few shots of his profile. The clerk said something to another clerk at the desk. She then circled around the counter to join the man. As Matt’s quarry wrapped his arm in the clerk’s, a group of late arrivals charged up to the counter to check in.

  Matt took advantage of the situation by quickly joining the group and swept past his quarry, deftly picking the room-key card and his registration packet out of his pocket. The man

  never noticed. He was too busy focusing all his attention on the woman on his arm.

  As the couple headed for the bar, Matt noted the room number in the registration packet. He also noted the name: Stedman.

  Matt stepped into the men’s room for some privacy and dusted Stedman’s registration packet and room-card key with his portable fingerprint kit. The prints were too smudged to be identifiable.

  Matt left the men’s room and checked the couple at the bar. Stedman was in a corner booth with the clerk. Full drinks on the table. Cigarettes in their hands. They should be there a while.

  Matt made for the elevators.

  He wanted to search Stedman’s room before the lothario talked the clerk into joining him there.

  Matt caught the next elevator up. He was down the hall and at the door seconds later. After making sure no one was around, he slipped the key card in place and quietly let himself inside.

  The room was dark and smelled of something heavily floral. Matt was just reaching for the light switch when he heard a noise from inside the darkness.

  He froze.

  A second later he heard the rustling of covers and an irritated snort, the kind that came from someone whose sleep had been disturbed.

  Matt remained perfectly still, barely breathing, alert to the slightest sound. The bed covers rustled again. The minutes ticked by.

  Gradually, Matt detected the sounds of deep, rhythmic breathing that told him that the room’s occupant had fallen back asleep. He let out a silent, relieved breath.

  Matt left Stedman’s room even more quickly and quietly then he had entered.

  He took the elevator back to the lobby. He took the key card out of his pocket, wiped it of his fingerprints and placed it back in the registration packet. He turned it in to the clerk at the registration desk, telling him he’d just found it on the carpet.

  When Stedman found it was missing, he’d probably figure it had dropped out of his pocket.

  Matt didn’t want to alert these two that they had been spotted. Not until he found out who they were.

  Since he didn’t want them following him and Jamie tomorrow morning either, he realized a hotel change was in order.

  Matt made his way back to his own room. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights when he entered. The glowing dial of his wristwatch told him it was eleven. He took off the baseball cap and pulled off the black sweatshirt.

  He was reaching for his dress shirt when suddenly the connecting door to Jamie’s room swung open. Matt jumped.

  She stood there in a diaphanous peach robe, her gentle curves and long golden hair haloed by the light pouring in from her room. She was a soft and supp
le vision of glowing femininity. Every male cell in his body instantly snapped to happy attention.

  “You must be wondering why I dropped in?” she asked.

  Her husky tone was sweet and liquid, with just a twist of tartness.

  Matt tried to clear his throat to answer. He couldn’t.

  “I just wanted to let you know that fifteen minutes ago I was being strangled.”

  Matt was torn between humor at her words and the hum of desire rising in his blood. He tried to clear his throat again. This time he managed to find his voice, albeit a gruff one.

  “I’m glad to see all your self-defense classes have paid off.”

  Jamie leaned over to turn on the lamp. Matt followed the swift gracefulness of her movement. Her long hair flowed past her waist like a glistening waterfall. Then the light flashed in his eyes.

  Jamie straightened and crossed her arms over her chest. One delicate slippered shoe was tapping impatiently on the carpet. There was a good bit of color in her cheeks. And nothing less than a combative sparkle in her deep blue eyes.

  If she had come to his room to seduce instead of scold, she couldn’t have done a more thorough job. She lured him like nothing else in the entire world ever could or ever would. He wanted nothing more than to go right to her and wrap her in his arms. He forced himself to remain standing where he was.

  “Why did you go out without telling me?” she asked.

  “How did you find out I had gone?”

  “I knocked on the door. When I didn’t get an answer, I came inside.”

  “And why would you do that, Jamie?”

  “Because I wanted to see you, of course. I…”

  Matt knew the instant Jamie’s voice trailed off was the instant that she did see him, really see him.

  Her foot stopped tapping. Her arms uncrossed and dropped to her sides. She stood rigid as her eyes widened to stare at his bare chest in surprise.

  But the surprise was quickly replaced by an intense, openly frank approval that drained the blood from Matt’s head and sent it soaring through his veins. She took a step toward him. Then another.

  His heart stopped.

  “Matt, your shoulder! Dear, sweet heaven, what did you do to your shoulder?”

  Matt was absolutely astounded to see the look of horror on her face and hear the immeasurable distress swallowing her voice.

  He followed her stare to look at his left shoulder in a kind of automatic response. Then it dawned on him what she meant. He’d forgotten about the angry bruise that capped it. He opened his mouth to explain, but no words came out.

  Because in that instant, Jamie’s warmth floated to his side like a lover’s caress. Her gown rustled against his pant leg. He drank in the sweetness of her honeyed scent and breath as she exhaled on a long, heartbreakingly sad sigh.

  “It was Wrey, wasn’t it?” she asked, staring at his purple bruise. “You took the blow he’d meant for me. Oh, Matt! He hurt you!”

  Her hair felt like cool fire against his bare arm. The heat of her was licking inside him like an eager golden flame. She was so close. So damn close.

  He forced the words through his lips. “Jamie, go get dressed. We have to leave the hotel.”

  She ignored his words. She reached up to gently trace the bruise that began on his shoulder and spread to his upper chest.

  The incendiary feel of the light brush of her fingers on his bare flesh caused Matt to suck in a hard breath.

  She instantly withdrew her hands and stepped back. “I’m so sorry! That must have hurt. I didn’t think.”

  Matt closed his eyes and fought for control. No other woman had ever made him want her like this-to the point of pain. And beyond.

  “It didn’t..hurt,” he said carefully, his hands balling into fists by his sides.

  “You’re only saying that to try to make me feel better. Matt, why didn’t you tell me you’d been injured?”

  The continuing concern for him in her sweet voice was uncoiling the tight hold he kept on himself with such swift ease that every alarm bell in his brain was clanging. If he remained near her like this much longer, his body’s emphatic demands were going to prevail and he’d be molding her to the ravenous length of his body without thought or mercy.

  His voice was low and thick and hoarse.

  “Jamie, my shoulder is fine. Go back to your room and pack. We have to leave.”

  “Your shoulder is not fine. I can see that for myself.”

  Those beautiful, luminous blue eyes of hers were looking right up at him.

  He had never begged a living soul for anything in his life before, but he was begging now.

  “Jamie, please go back to your room.”

  “But I wanted to tell you—”

  “We’ll discuss it later.”

  “But it has to do with—”

  “Damn it, Jamie, go back to your room”

  She blanched and stepped quickly back, just as if he had struck her.

  He felt as if he had. He had never used that tone of voice on a woman before in his life.

  But Matt knew that the hurt and shock on her face were nothing compared to what she was going to feel if he lost any more control. And he was so close to losing it now that he was shaking.

  She turned and fled through the open connecting door, slamming it behind her.

  For the next several minutes Matt just stood where he was and concentrated on breathing in deeply. It was all he could do. When he had recovered sufficiently to move, he stumbled over to the connecting door and locked it.

  Then he leaned his forehead against it and swore so hard beneath his breath that he was certain the oaths would be etched on the walls.

  Chapter Ten

  “Time to saddle up, ride out and get ‘em, Jamie.”

  It was the first thing Matt had said to her since he knocked on the connecting door between their rooms at the Flamingo Hilton that morning.

  Jamie rose from the booth at the coffee shop in the hotel, knowing she should feel excited and expectant that her search for Tony might soon be over. But all she felt was tired. Her coffee cup had been filled and emptied twice. The scrambled eggs and toast remained untouched on her plate.

  He’d explained why they had to change hotels. The idea of two people following them should have kept her awake all night. But it hadn’t kept her awake all night. Matt had.

  Every time Jamie closed her eyes, she kept seeing every smooth muscle ridge and contoured valley of Matt’s magnificent naked chest in breathtaking detail. And she kept seeing that awful purple bruise from the blow he had taken to protect her—and never even mentioned. And every time she saw these things, her pulse went wild.

  Not even the cold, steely anger in his voice when he had finally ordered her out of his room could cool the heat beating inside her blood.

  Lord, no wonder Matt had to fight off women.

  Jamie tried to refocus her attention to the business at hand as they left the coffee shop and started on the casino route that Wendy had guided them through the night before. She’d been through a lot to get here. If she was going to talk to Tony this morning, she had to prepare what she was going to say.

  But it was Matt she couldn’t keep out of her mind.

  Jamie skirted around a vacuum cleaner rolling down the aisle as her eyes scanned the features of the men they passed. Tony’s computer-aged face had etched itself in her memory. Unfortunately, when she looked at the men trying to find a match, they looked back as though she’d issued an invitation.

  She knew if it hadn’t been for Matt beside her, she would probably have been having to fight off a lot of unwelcome advances. But Matt—all six foot six of him in boots and Stetson—was right beside her.

  And there wasn’t one man crazy enough to approach her.

  They walked through the first casino. The second. The third. Jamie’s eyes kept scanning the faces, looking for that one specific arrangement of features that belonged to a thirtyyear-old Tony. But he was nowhere to be fo
und.

  It was a few minutes after eight when they entered Harrah’s, the second to the last casino on Wendy’s route. Matt and Jamie headed as usual for the slot machines, once again having to dodge the early morning march of vacuum cleaners.

  Jamie began to realize what a thin trail they were following. It wasn’t real likely that Wendy had seen Tony. Someone who looked a little like him maybe, but not Tony. After all, what were the odds it had been him? Pretty slim. She doubted any gambler in any of the casinos they’d been in would have taken them.

  Then, suddenly, she looked over and there he was. For a moment, the unexpectedness of seeing Tony made her unsure of her own eyes. She stopped still as a statue and stared.

  He was talking to a man. She saw only Tony. His dress shirt and dark slacks. His black hair combed back, neat and shiny beneath the subdued interior lights of the casino. His olive skin smooth, line free. His teeth white. He looked exactly as she remembered him. Exactly.

  The age-enhanced photo had been wrong. Tony hadn’t changed.

  He turned and looked directly at her. She had not expected him to recognize her. Not in a million years. But he did. She saw it in the brief flash of surprise that he instantly quelled.

  “Tony.”

  She didn’t even know she’d called his name until she heard the sound of it reverberating in her ears.

  He smiled, smooth and impersonal, his face a stranger’s mask. “I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else.”

  He turned to go. Jamie took a step toward him, holding up the big, chunky piece of cheap metal still hanging around her neck.

  “Tony, I found a secret compartment in the locket. I have to tell you what’s inside.”

  Even though his back was now to her, she knew he had heard her because of the slowing of his step. But he quickly resumed his stride and walked swiftly away.

  Jamie stood motionless, cold, feeling as though someone had dumped an ice bucket over her head. Tony didn’t want to see her. He didn’t even want to talk to her.

  “I’ll get him back for you,” Matt said.

  Jamie grabbed Matt’s arm as he moved forward. “No. I couldn’t…not now. Let him go.”