by D'Ann Lindun
Maybe she could finally move on from Margot’s death and her part in it. “Thank you for rescuing me. I was so scared. And when they had you…” She shivered.
“I’m alive.” He kissed her head again. “So is Sheikha Dul Fiquar. Your team got her down to the meeting spot to where my guys were waiting. She’s in Canada now, and she’s safe.”
“Thank God. What you and your men do is so heroic, yet not something most people will never see, or probably even hear about,” she said.
“You can’t talk about it; you know that, right?” He sounded troubled.
“Yeah.” She nodded solemnly. “Some guy with a lot of stripes and medals on his uniform made that very clear.”
His chuckle rumbled under her cheek. “My boss can be pretty intense.”
“Slightly. I bet Mooney was shaking in his boots when he had his turn with the head honcho, although I bet he was a wreck when my dad was done with him. I’m glad those terrorists didn’t kill him. I still care about the guy, even if he did run away like a coward. He’s off the SAR team, though.” She sighed. “Speaking of teams, is yours still here?”
“For a few days, relaxing, skiing.”
“Our ski bunnies will never be the same.” She giggled but instantly sobered. “When do you have to leave?”
“Soon. We go to Africa…”
She placed her fingers over his lips. “We have tonight, though, right?”
His cock wedged under her thigh moved. “Yes.”
“Coltraine—”
“Jack.”
“Jack?” She arched her brows.
“My name is Jack,” he said.
“I like that,” she said.
“How would you like it if there was a Mrs. attached to it?”
“What do you mean?” Her heart pounded against her ribs so hard she could barely breathe, or find her voice.
He rolled over on top of her. “I’m asking you to be my wife.”
Joy soared in her. “Yes, yes.”
“It won’t be easy,” he cautioned. “I’m a soldier. I can’t be a farmer or a lawyer. Can you live with deployments and the uncertainty they bring families back home, Andy?”
“I can, and I’ll be your safe place to fall when you have leave,” she promised.
“I know this is sudden, but life is short. I knew almost from the moment I saw you that you were something special,” he said. “When you were begging for my life, saying you’d ask your mother for ransom, I knew we were meant to be…although I wasn’t sure I was going to live to tell you so.”
She blinked away the horrible image of the terrorist holding the sabre over his head. She wrapped her hands around his neck and kissed him. “I love you, Jack Coltraine.”
“I love you, Andy Baines, and I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you just how much.”
She spread her legs and slipped her hands from his neck, down his corded back, to his firm ass. “What are you waiting for?”
“Impatient vixen.” His chuckle vanished as he slid his cock inside her and their bodies, hearts and souls united.
~The End~
Longshot
LONGSHOT
Jamie English has sworn off men because she was left by her teenage sweetheart to raise their daughter on her own. When Jamie’s father—the sheriff—is shot chasing a human trafficker, he names Jamie as interim sheriff just before he’s placed in a medically-induced coma. Although terrified of failing, Jamie takes the job eager to prove herself. The first thing she does is call the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for assistance.
Agent Austin Varner is still shaken after the death of his last partner who died at the hands of a Mexican drug cartel. However intrigued he is by the sexy, blonde sheriff, the agent keeps his feelings strictly professional, unwilling to ever love another woman who puts herself in the line of fire.
Jamie and Austin follow a trail of clues that leads into the Colorado Mountains. After a confrontation with a killer leaves them both injured and stranded, their mutual attraction leads them to making love. Their newfound relationship is tested when Austin is shot and Jamie stolen by a human trafficker. Jamie’s near death makes both Jamie and Austin realize they love each another.
Dedicated to ~Wes and Brandi~ I love you!
With a special thank you to Kevin Hotchkiss for the technical police information. Any mistakes are mine alone!
CHAPTER ONE
Confluence, Colorado.
Tiny. Beautiful. Safe.
Not the kind of place where women vanished into thin air.
Until now.
In the last two months, a pair of teenagers, a stay-at-home mom and a waitress from the Fly Me to the Moon Saloon, had all vanished without a trace. Four women with no connection between them as far as anyone could tell.
Jamie English straightened her white Stetson, took a deep breath and pushed open the glass doors leading to the sheriff’s office. As the new law in town, she had a big job to do. One a lot of people thought a young woman couldn’t handle.
Especially one who’d left town with her head hanging.
She lifted her chin. A lot had changed in five years. She’d grown up, matured. Motherhood at a young age did that to a girl. Her opportunity to prove herself had come along in an unexpected and horrible way when Big Jim English had been shot in the back of the head and left for dead in his driveway seven days ago. Before the doctors placed him in a drug induced coma, he’d appointed Jamie as acting sheriff.
Jamie promised him she would find out who shot him and solve the disappearances of the four women. She had to. Any other outcome was unacceptable.
Hattie McDowell, an older woman with cropped gray hair, glanced up from her computer when Jamie stepped into the lobby. “Morning, Jam—Sheriff.”
Hattie had known her since she was five years old, when she tagged along with Big Jim to his office. Jamie opened her mouth to tell the secretary to call her by her name, then reconsidered. The use of sheriff was a sign of respect. “Good morning, Hattie. Would you tell everyone I want a meeting in the conference room? Ten minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Hattie had already reached for her phone.
Jamie hurried up the stairs to the second floor and down the short hall to a tiny, gray room with one small window. Big Jim’s certificates and commendations hung on the walls. His big oak roll top seemed forlorn without him.
Big Jim English would be back. He was invincible.
She pulled several pictures out of her backpack and placed them on Big Jim’s cluttered desk. Jamie smiled when her gaze landed on her daughter’s gap-toothed grin. Dani was Jamie’s mini-me with light blonde hair and dark blue eyes. In one picture, the little girl crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. In another, she’d been a little more serious, but still smirked at the camera.
Dani might not have been planned, but she was a great kid, and the reason Jamie worked so hard to put herself through the police academy. Afterwards, she’d taken a job on the nearby town of Chipeta’s police force, but hadn’t done much more than issue a few traffic tickets.
Now she was acting sheriff with four missing persons on her hands.
Big Jim’s faith scared her to death. She prayed he hadn’t made a mistake in trusting her to bring the missing women home. She’d been shocked when he named her as interim sheriff until he returned. He’d been too weak since to discuss any details of the missing girls’ cases, and his doctors quickly shooed her away before she could ask any questions. Because it was such a big case, Jamie had asked the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for help.
The CBI agent would be here today, along with the rest of her dad’s team.
She touched Dani’s face through the glass frame. Time to ride.
~*~
Damn it.
The agent had beat Jamie to her own meeting.
He sat in the right hand chair closest to hers at the head of the long table. As she approached, he stood and held out his hand. He wore a pearl snap western shirt, Wranglers
that fit oh-so-well and polished boots. A white Stetson lay on the table next to him. His dark blond hair laid a little flat from being under the hat.
A cowboy?
Weren’t CBI guys all stuffed suits and ties and polished loafers?
She took his hand. Callused. A little rough. He’d obviously worked outside, not always been stuck in an office somewhere. His palm dwarfed hers. “Sheriff English? Agent Varner.”
“Nice to meet you.” She studied him with open curiosity. Older than her by at least a decade, he had ice gray eyes and sexy, unsmiling lips. The look of frank, although brief, admiration in his gaze unnerved her. She stiffened her back. “Agent.”
“Call me Austin.”
“Jamie.”
“Good to meet you, Jamie.”
Hattie popped in with a cardboard container filled with cups from the Ute Diner, Jamie’s mom’s place. The same café where Jamie worked at as a kid. The enticing aroma of yeast and cinnamon filled the air. Hattie placed the drinks and a paper sack on the table. “Rae sent over the coffee.”
Jamie’s mom had promised she’d send over coffee and her famous cinnamon rolls each morning. She claimed staying busy kept her mind off her husband. Because there was nothing she could do at his bedside, she kept the café open. If Rae kept busy by feeding her, Jamie would weigh as much as Big Jim’s three hundred pounds in no time.
“Tell Mom thanks, please.”
“Will do.” Hattie waved and left.
Out of the corner of her eye, Jamie watched Agent Varner. He’d moved away and stood at the window studying the street below. Tall, ramrod straight, he seemed poised for instant action. He reminded her of a mountain lion. Just as beautiful and dangerous.
“Would you like coffee and a roll?”
The agent turned her direction. He studied her like she was something he couldn’t figure out right now, but was working on it. “What happened to your dad?”
Jamie blinked back a hot rush of tears. Her hands shook a little as she reached for one of the Styrofoam cups. Damn Agent Varner for making her so off kilter when she needed to be in complete control. “He was shot in the back of the head in his own driveway while Mom was at work. No witnesses.”
“Any theories why?”
She sipped her coffee. “Maybe he had a lead on these girls, but I don’t have anything to back that up.”
“I think that’s a good guess.”
To hide her brimming tears, she skimmed the reports again while they waited for the deputies to arrive. “I wish we could get started.”
“Your team’s late,” Austin said.
She glanced at the slim silver watch on her left wrist. Fifteen minutes past nine. Damn him for pointing out her team’s obvious disrespect. “I know.”
He didn’t comment further, but she could feel him waiting to see what she would do about it. For another minute, she sat still, debating. “I’ll deal with them later.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She couldn’t fire her deputies because they were employed by the town trustees. “Since the others aren’t here yet, let’s you and I go over the files again and see if there’s anything we missed.”
“You might want to wait. We’ll need their help.”
“I know,” she admitted. “But if we start without them, it may teach them to arrive on time.”
He smiled. An honest-to-goodness smile that transformed the harsh planes of his face. Softened them. Made him seem almost human. For several long seconds, she stared. Until his smile evaporated like a western sunset. “Your files?”
So handsome. Was he single?
Jamie choked on her coffee. Where had that come from? Being attracted to one of her people was out of the question. Especially this one. He was too dangerous. Too sexy. And not someone she’d want around Dani.
She’d learned her lesson the hard way. Trusting a man only got you hurt and abandoned, raising a child on your own.
To take her mind off the sudden urge to know the agent better, she opened a manila folder, then spread it out across the scarred pine table. Four pictures lay on top of the pile. Jamie ran her index finger over the first two. A petite blonde and a pretty Hispanic girl. “Carly Schroeder and Tina Vallejos. These girls went missing first, about two months ago. They’re both sixteen and would’ve been high school juniors this fall. Their families confirmed the girls went to the county fair together, but never came home.”
Austin examined the photos. “Did anyone notice anything suspicious?”
“No.” Jamie’s thoughts turned back to the fair. She’d enjoyed showing Dani the exhibits, the 4-H kids’ animals, the rodeo and the concerts. She’d loved introducing her daughter to the same sights and sounds that she’d enjoyed as a child.
It’d come as much of a shock to her as anyone else to learn of the teens’ disappearance. County fairs were generally wholesome places. Kids ran from exhibit to exhibit, to the concession stand, to the arena, all unsupervised. It just never occurred to most parents to worry much about their kids during fair week.
She’d wracked her brain, trying to remember if she’d seen the girls, but she just couldn’t place them.
“Any boys in the picture?” Austin’s deep voice close to Jamie’s ear had her mind scrambling to stay on track. Why did he have to smell so damn good? Like the outdoors?
“No. Neither girl had a boyfriend, and no one saw them talking to any strangers. The last place they were spotted was at the hotdog stand around midnight.”
“There was a carnival, right?”
“Yes.”
“Someone could have taken the girls, disposed of them and been on the move with the carnival when it packed up.” He leaned back. “Did you check with Redlands to see if any girls have gone missing there about the time the carnival was in town?”
“Not yet.”
His disapproving silence made her feel amateurish again. Everything she knew she’d had to learn on her own in the last week. Fumbling when she picked up the next picture, she handed it to him. “This is Monique Ayers. A postal worker who vanished after a trip to the grocery store. Her neighbor found her front door wide open, two bags of groceries scattered across the step—and her six-month old baby alone in his crib crying his lungs out.”
Austin’s gray eyes grew colder. “Any sign of struggle inside?”
“No. Just the groceries outside her front door.”
A blonde woman rushed in on short, chubby legs. “Sorry, ma’am. I’m running late. Hattie said we were having a meeting about the missing girls?” This had to be Daralee Thompson. According to Big Jim, she was as honest as the sun was bright. If she said she was running late, she was running late.
Jamie nodded. “Yes. Please join us.”
The three other deputies sauntered in behind Daralee. Finally. Jamie glanced at her watch. Thirty minutes late. Ignoring them, she again pointed to Monique’s image. A sweet-faced woman with kind eyes and a warm smile.
“Happily married by all accounts. Husband is Joe Ayers. He works at the market as the produce manager. Everyone I talked to says he’s madly in love with his wife and baby.”
Jamie held up the last picture. A fuzzy image of a dark-haired woman, her bare arms covered in tattoos. All American Indian symbols. “The last one is a waitress named Rosie White.”
Agent Varner glanced from the picture to Jamie. “Ute?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her story?” He took the photo and studied it. “Any of these tats have special significance for her?”
“I’m not sure. But I did learn her lifestyle is different than the others.”
He lifted his gaze from Rosie’s picture. “How?”
“She was—” Jamie’s cheeks warmed “—um, wild.”
“Liked men? Booze? Dope?”
“Booze and men. She worked at The Moon as a waitress. Apparently, she went home with a different man most nights of the week.”
She found Austin’s eyes again. “Oddly enough, on the night Rosie
vanished, she left the bar alone. The bartender reported her missing when she didn’t show up for her next shift.”
“She’s pretty enough,” Austin said. “But different than the others.”
“There doesn’t seem to be a type,” Jamie said.
“You leaving us out on purpose?” one of the men challenged.
Jamie took a steadying breath and looked into the cold black eyes of a Hispanic deputy. Benny Torres. With his close-cropped dark hair, aristocratic features and toned body, he was attractive to look at, but his insolence left her cold. “Not at all, Deputy. You’re more than thirty minutes late. From now on, if I call a meeting at 9:00 a.m., that means precisely on time. Not ten or twenty minutes later. If you can’t make it, you call. I’ll give you my cell number. The only exclusion is if you have someone stopped, or are making an arrest. Am I clear?”
He opened his mouth to speak and Jamie held up her hand. “No exceptions.”
He snapped his mouth shut. Anger simmered in his eyes. “Whatever you say.”
Ignoring his tone, she glanced around the table. “Good morning. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Jamie English.” Dragging in a deep breath, she continued. “I’m sure all of you are aware that Big Jim is in intensive care in Grand Junction.” She named the closest big town, about a hundred miles away. “He named me Interim Sheriff until he returns, and I’m counting on all of you to help me figure out who shot him.” She indicated the man at her right. “This is Agent Varner. He’s with the CBI and has a ton of experience. I’ve asked him to assist in both the investigation of Big Jim’s shooting, and also our missing women.”
Jamie made eye contact with each of her father’s deputies, staring with the rude Hispanic man. “Benny Torres.”
Torres glowered. He might be a jerk, but Big Jim said he knew his stuff. He’d been a cop in Cortez until he’d moved to Confluence this summer. “Hello.”