Trouble with a Badge

by Delores Fossen

  “You can stay at the ranch,” Levi offered. “There’s a guesthouse, and you can use it as long as you need. The protection detail can go ahead and take you there, and Alexa and I can meet you.”

  “Thank you.” That brought on more happy tears, and Tasha hugged him, then Alexa before Tasha took hold of Jericho and got them moving.

  “You think you can talk Tasha into moving to Appaloosa Pass?” Levi asked.

  Despite everything that’d happened, Alexa smiled again. “Probably. She doesn’t really have any other place to go. Why? Do you want to keep Violet nearby?”

  “Absolutely.”

  His quick answer widened her smile, and Alexa slipped into his arms, causing him to smile. “So do I.” And she kissed him. Or maybe he kissed her. They moved toward each other at the same time and sort of met in the middle.

  As all their kisses were, this was darn good, but before it continued, Levi had to make sure of something. “Are you okay, really?”

  “Well, that kiss helped. You help,” Alexa added, giving his arm a gentle squeeze.

  Levi stared at her, waiting for the truth. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  She hesitated. “I suppose I should feel bad that so many people are dead.”

  “No, you shouldn’t, since two of those people probably would have come after you again if they’d been given the chance.”

  Alexa stayed quiet a moment, nodded. “At least this way you and your family are safe. Tasha and Violet, too.”

  That was a huge deal as far as Levi was concerned, and he wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep over the death of a piece of scum like Scottie.

  “Let’s get out of here and get some rest,” Levi offered. “It’ll be a couple hours before Tasha makes it to the safe house and then back to the ranch.”

  Levi called out to Dexter to let him know they were leaving, but then Alexa stopped in her tracks. “Wait, I don’t have any place to go, either.”

  “Yeah, you do.” He kissed her to give her a hint of where that place might be. His house. His bed.

  “You’re sure?” she asked.

  He was. But Levi was also positive of something else. “I don’t want this to be temporary.”

  “What? The sex?” she asked in a whisper.

  It probably wasn’t a very manly reaction, but Levi huffed. “Yes, the sex is important, but I don’t want any of this to be temporary.” He made a circling motion around them.

  She stared at him for what seemed to be an eternity. “Good. Because I’m in love with you, and it’s not temporary.”

  And with the bombshell she would have headed out the door if Levi hadn’t hooked his arm around her waist and stopped her. “Wait a minute. What did you say?”

  “I’m in love with you,” she repeated as if it were the easiest thing in the world to say. It wasn’t.

  “Does this have something to do with us nearly dying tonight?” he asked.

  “No.” She dropped a kiss on his lips, caught on to his hand and got him moving toward the back door. “I figured it out before that. When we were in bed.”

  Oh.

  “Well, hell,” he grumbled.

  Alexa stopped, faced him and flinched a little. “Look, if you’re not happy about my being in love with you—”

  Levi cut off the rest of that with a kiss. A really hot, long one. “I’m happy about it, all right. I’m not happy that it took me longer than you to figure it out.”

  Her smile came. Slow and easy. “But you did figure it out. That takes us out of the temporary zone for sure.”

  It did. But Levi wanted a heck of a lot more than that. He only hoped he could convince Alexa of it as he led her out of the building and toward his truck.

  “We could take things slowly, just date for a while,” he tossed out there. “And my family would have to work through each event—also slowly. You coming to Sunday dinner with all of us. You sleeping with me, of course.”

  Alexa stared at him. “Will I be doing all that?”

  Levi nodded. “And with you moving in with me, too. I want you to move in with me. Tonight.”

  “Is that your idea of taking things slowly?” Alexa asked.

  “Well, we don’t have to make the sex slow. We can manage that after you’ve had some rest. The moving-in part, too.”

  Alexa kissed him, pulled him to her and, feeling her body against his, Levi thought maybe that rest was seriously overrated.

  “Then what will we take slowly?” she pressed.

  “Getting married. I figure that’s the next step to us getting our little version of Violet. Which, of course, means lots and lots of sleeping with me.”

  “Best plan ever,” she said, making him a very happy man indeed. “So, just how slowly should this go?”

  He checked his watch. “When we wake up in the morning, I’ll ask you to marry me. Is that slow enough?”

  Alexa laughed. Kissed him. “Perfect timing. Because in the morning, I’ll say yes.”

  Levi figured that gave him about eight hours, more or less, and he scooped up Alexa in his arms so they could get started.

  * * * * *

  USA TODAY bestselling author Delores Fossen’s

  APPALOOSA PASS RANCH miniseries continues

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  HARD RAIN,

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  New York Times bestselling author

  B.J. Daniels’s series

  THE MONTANA HAMILTONS.

  When Brody McTavish sees Harper Hamilton’s runaway horse galloping across the pastures, he does what any good cowboy would do—gives chase and rescues her. But they soon have bigger problems when they make a gruesome discovery—human remains that will dredge up old Hamilton family mysteries...and bring about a scandal that could threaten all Harper’s loved ones.

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  Hard Rain

  by B.J. Daniels

  CHAPTER ONE

  Thunder cracked overhead in a piercing boom that rattled the windows. As she huddled in the darkness, rain pelted down in angry drenching waves. Lightning again lit the sky in a blinding flash that burned in her mind the image before her.

  In that instant, she saw him crossing the field carrying the shovel, his head down, rain pouring off his black Stetson. It was done.

  Dark clouds blanketed the hillside. Through the driving rain, she watched him come toward her, telling herself she could live with what she’d done. But she feared he could not. And that could be a problem.

  * * *

  BRODY MCTAVISH HEARD the screams only seconds before he heard the roar of hooves headed in his direction. Shoving back his cowboy hat, he looked up from the fence he’d been mending to see a woman on a horse riding at breakneck speed toward him.

  Harper Hamilton. He’d heard that she’d recently returned after being away at college. Which meant it could have been years since she’d been on a horse. He was already grabbing for his horse’s reins and swinging up in the saddle.

  Runaway horse.

  He’d been on a runaway horse when he was a kid. He remembered how terrifying it had been. With that many pounds of horseflesh running at such a deadly speed, he prayed hard she could hang on.

  He had to hand it to Harper. She hadn’t been unseated. At least not yet.

  Harper, yards away on a large bay, screamed. He spurred his horse to catch her and as he raced up beside her, her blue eyes were wide with alarm.

  Acting quickly, he looped an arm around her, dragged her off the horse and reined in. His horse came to a stop in a cloud of dust. Her horse kept going, disappearing into the foothill pines ahead.

  Brody let Harper slip to the ground next to his horse. The minute her feet touched earth, she started screaming again as if all the wind had been knocked out of her when he’d grabbed her but was back now.

  “You’re all right,” he said, swinging out of the saddle and stepping to her to try to calm her.

  She spun on him, leading with her fist, and caught him in the jaw. He staggered back more from surprise than the actual blow, but the woman had a pretty darned good right hook.

  He stared at her in confusion. “What the devil was that about?”

  Picking up a baseball-sized rock, she brandished it as she took a few steps back from him, all the time glancing around, seeming either to expect more men to come out of the foothills, or looking for a larger weapon.

  Had the woman hit her head? He spoke as calmly as he would to a skittish horse—or a crazy woman. “Calm down. I know you’re scared. But you’re all right now.” It had only been a few months since the two of them were attendants at her sister Bo’s wedding, not that they hadn’t known each other for years.

  She peered under the brim of his hat as if only then taking a good look at him. “Brody McTavish?” She stared at him as if in shock. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Brody frowned, since this hadn’t been the reaction he’d expected. “Ah, correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “But I don’t think this is the way most women would react after a man saves her life.”

  “You think you just saved my life?” Her voice rose in amazement.

  “You were screaming like either a woman in trouble or one who has lost her senses. I assumed, as any sane person would, that your horse had run away with you. No need to thank me,” he said sarcastically.

  “Thank you? For scaring me half to death?” She dropped the rock and dusted the dirt off her hand onto her jeans. “And for the record, I wasn’t screaming. I was...expressing myself.”

  “Expressing yourself at the top of your lungs?”

  Harper jammed her hands on her hips and thrust out her adorable chin. He recalled her sister’s wedding back at Christmastime. While both attendants, they hadn’t shared more than a few words. Nor had he gotten a chance to dance with her. His own fault. He hadn’t wanted to get in line with all her young suitors.

  “It was a beautiful morning,” she said haughtily. “I hadn’t been on a horse in a long time and it felt so good that I couldn’t resist expressing it.” She looked embarrassed but clearly wasn’t about to admit it. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Nope. But when I see a woman riding like a wild person, screaming her head off, I’m going to assume she’s in trouble and needs some help. My mistake.” Didn’t she know how dangerous it was riding like that out here? If her horse had stepped into a gopher hole... A lecture came to his lips, but he clamped his mouth shut. “You have a nice day, Miss Hamilton.” He tipped his hat, grabbed up his reins and started to walk back toward his property.

  “You’re just going to walk away?” she demanded to his back.

  “Since you aren’t in need of my help...” he said over his shoulder.

  “I thought you would at least help me retrieve my horse.”

  He stopped and mumbled under this breath, “If your horse has any sense he’ll keep going.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Brody took a breath and turned to face her again.

  Her blond hair shone in the morning sunlight, her blue eyes wide and filled with devilment. He recalled the girl she’d been. Feisty was an understatement. While nothing had changed as far as that went, she was definitely no longer a girl. He would have had to be blind not to notice the way she filled out her jeans and Western shirt.

  She shifted her boots in the dust. “I’d appreciate it if you would help me find my horse.”

  “By all means let me help you find your horse then. As you said, it’s the least I can do. Would you care to ride...Miss Hamilton?” He motioned to his horse, glad he hadn’t called her Princess, even though it had been on the tip of his tongue.

  Looking chastised, she shook her head. “And, please, my name is—”

  “Harper. I know.”

  “Glad you didn’t mistake me for my twin.” She sounded more than a little surprised. “Not even my own father can tell us apart at times.”

  He could feel her looking at him, studying him like a bug under a microscope. He wondered what she’d majored in at college. Nothing useful, he would bet.

  “Thank you for helping me find my horse,” she said into the silence that fell between them. “I really don’t want to be left out here on foot if my horse has returned to the barn.”

  He thought the walk might do her some good but was smart enough not to voice it. “The last I saw of your mare she was headed up into the foothills. I would imagine that’s where we’ll find her, next to the creek.”

  She glanced up at him. “I apologize for hitting you.” When he said nothing, she continued. “With everything that’s
been going on in my family, I thought you were... Anyway, I’m sorry that I hit you and that I misunderstood your concern.” He could hear in her voice how hard that apology was for her.

  And, he had to admit, her family had recently definitely been through a lot. The family had seemed to be under attack since her father, Senator Buckmaster Hamilton, had announced he would be running for president. Three of her sisters had been threatened. Not to mention the mother she’d believed dead had returned out of the blue after twenty-two years—and her stepmother had been killed in a car accident. It was as if tragedy was tracking that family.

  “Apology accepted,” he said as he picked up her cowboy hat from the dust and handed it to her.

  As they walked toward sun-bleached cliffs and shimmering green pines, he mentally kicked himself. He’d had a crush on Harper—from a distance, of course—for years, waiting for her to grow up, and now that she finally had and he’d managed to get her attention, he couldn’t imagine a worse encounter.

  Not that he wasn’t knocked to his knees by her crooked smile or the way she had of cocking her head when she was considering something. Not to mention the endless blue of her wide-eyed innocence—all things he’d noticed from the first time he’d laid eyes on her. He smiled to himself, remembering the first time he’d seen her. She’d just been a freckle-faced kid.

  Somehow, he’d thought... She’d be grown-up and one day... He told himself someday he and Harper would have a good laugh over this, before he mentally kicked himself.

  And to think he thought he’d rescued the woman of his dreams—until she’d hit him.

  * * *

  BRODY MCTAVISH. HARPER grimaced in embarrassment. She’d been half in love with him as far back as she could remember. Not that he had looked twice at her. He’d been the handsome rowdy teen she used to spy on from a distance. She’d been just a girl, much too young for him. But Brody had come to parties her older sisters had put on at the ranch. She and Cassidy were too young to attend and were always sent up to bed, but Harper often sneaked down when everyone else, including her twin, thought she was asleep.