by Julie Miller
A moment passed while the others digested that.
“You should’ve woken us when you saw him.” Wyatt scowled.
“I thought maybe... I figured Dakota had a...gentleman caller. Didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.” Even as he said the words, he knew he shouldn’t have.
She stared at him, then her cheeks pinked, outrage widening her eyes. “In the middle of the night? Like a thief? With Cody in the house? Seriously?”
Way to go with trying to win her over. He should have shut up right then and there, but for some suicidal reason, he felt the need to explain. “I saw someone, I’m pretty sure the same guy, coming out of the cabin when I drove up earlier. Then you ran out a little later in nothing but a bathrobe....”
She looked like she might smack him. “You thought I was entertaining some guy in here while my son was nearly trampled in the corral. Is that the kind of mother you think I am?”
No, actually. On second thought, he really didn’t. He lifted his hand in a defensive motion. “I’m sure you’re a great mother.”
“Damn right,” Justice spoke up suddenly, his tone full of bluster. “I’ll not have you insult her on my ranch.”
“No insult meant, I just—” Before he could put his other foot into his mouth, Bull came downstairs with Julio, a kid of maybe twenty, with short black hair and sleepy, scared eyes, his clothes wrinkled and looking as if he’d pulled them on in a hurry.
Bull held out the gun, handling it with a piece of plastic he must have picked up in Julio’s room. “Beretta with the serial number filed off. Silencer. I’ll send it off first thing in the morning for ballistics. Maybe we’ll get something there.”
Morgan nodded, then looked at the kid. “You didn’t come out when you heard the noise at your door. That’s good. That was the right thing to do.
Julio shrugged. “Sleep with the iPod.”
“You’ll be sleeping in the main house from now on,” Morgan told him. “And someone will be with you at all times.” He looked at his father.
He expected the old man to bristle at the veiled order, but Justice just nodded.
Morgan drew a slow breath. “I’ll be staying at the cabin, upstairs, in case our man comes back. I don’t want Dakota and Cody out here alone,” Morgan said.
“I can stay with you,” Wyatt offered immediately.
“Not unless you added a second bedroom upstairs since I’ve last been up there, and a second bed.”
Wyatt looked disappointed. When they’d been kids, he’d always wanted to be in the middle of the action, but, since he was the youngest, had rarely gotten the chance.
“Thanks for the offer, anyway,” Morgan told him. “The main house is bigger. Needs more people to cover it. You’re needed there.”
That seemed to put Wyatt in a better mood.
“Are you okay with this?” Justice asked Dakota. “You could come over to the main house, too, with the boy.”
She looked at Justice, then at Morgan, and considered her response for a second. “If Julio is over there, we might be safer staying here.”
She was right about that.
* * *
DAKOTA WAITED FOR MORGAN until he came back with his duffel bag, after the men had moved Julio over to the main house. In the meantime, she’d checked on Cody, glad that he’d gone back to sleep.
Morgan came to her door instead of going straight upstairs. Good. She wanted to see him. Her heart had about stopped when he’d tumbled down the stairs.
“I want to see your wound,” she repeated.
“Next time you hear noise outside your door, I want you to stay inside.”
“I want to see your wound.”
He scowled at her. “No.”
“It’s bleeding. I can see the wet spot on your shirt.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“But it’s easier for me, because I will actually be able to see what I’m doing. Plus, I have a fully stocked first-aid kit.” She stepped back to reveal the box on her kitchen table. “You come in and sit down right there.”
He looked her over and a smile came to play above his lips as he finally did as she asked, “When did you become so tough and bossy?”
“When I became a mother.”
He sat at the table and shrugged out of his shirt, revealing the blood-stained bandages that wrapped around his chest. He started unraveling them.
“Let me do it.”
But he finished on his own, stubborn as always. She stared at the black and blue marks on his bare skin. But the six-inch gash looked the worst, the stitches torn out, probably from the roll down the stairs.
“You should have this restitched.”
He didn’t look the least perturbed. “You got any butterfly bandages?”
She nodded. “Dare I ask how you got hurt?”
He didn’t answer right away, but then he shrugged and said, “Tribal dagger. Nasty little thing.”
“If it went in a few inches higher...” She didn’t want to think about that. Until now, his elite commando job seemed a concept. But here, at her kitchen table, reality stared her in the face.
Along with his chest. Oh, dear. He had very nice muscles. A lot of them. The testosterone cloud that came off him messed with her head big time. He was a warrior, a hero, a cowboy, the first man who’d ever made love to her....
Was the kitchen getting hotter?
She pulled her shirt away from her skin a little, then finished removing his torn stitches, cleaned the wound and put on the butterfly strips. “I have clean Ace bandages,” she offered, and dug them out of the bag.
Putting them on proved to be trickier than she’d thought. As he held his arms up and out of the way, she had to put her arms completely around his torso, over and over again, as she passed the roll from one hand to the other.
For a second she closed her eyes, but she couldn’t close her nose. He smelled like soap and gun oil and Morgan. Oh, God, she was so doomed here.
Mercifully, the roll ended at last, so she could finally secure the end and pull away. Except he wouldn’t let her.
He pushed forward in his chair and draped his arms loosely around her waist. “I did miss you.”
His low voice tickled something behind her breastbone.
She wasn’t sure what was happening between them, only that it was happening too fast. Yet she didn’t have it in her to pull away. “Don’t kiss me again. It makes me feel weird.”
“Me, too.” And then he kissed her.
Heat suffused her body at the touch of his lips. When he pulled her onto his lap, she didn’t protest. His body was hard and warm around hers, familiar.
Need filled her. Hot hunger.
They’d never had a problem with this part. It was the rest, communication and other pesky things that had been off between them.
“You never wrote,” she said when they pulled apart for air.
Confusion crossed his gaze.
“When you went away for basic training.” He’d joined the army straight out of high school. Went to college through them.
“I came back to you after. I came here on every single leave I had.”
“All we did was have sex.”
“Great sex. Lots of it.” He leaned forward for another kiss, but she pushed him back.
“Is that all I was to you?”
He stilled. His voice dropped lower as he said, “You were everything to me.”
The words sliced through her. Her eyes burned for a second. “You never said it.”
He waited a moment as he searched her gaze. “I didn’t know how to say it. I was an idiot.”
She closed her eyes and leaned against him, surrounded by his strength. “We both were. When you left...the last time...I thought you’d come back now and then.”
“I couldn’t,” was all he said.
“You must have lived in danger every day since. Do you ever regret going away? Joining the military?”
His response was immediate and sure
. “No. I’ve done some things that were important. Things that needed to be done. This is who I am.”
They sat in silence.
“Do you ever regret... Billy?” he asked after a while.
“No. He was a good man, for all his faults. I’m not perfect, either. I have Cody because of him.”
But Billy was gone now, and Morgan was home, and here she was sitting on his lap in her kitchen.
She lifted her head, her gaze seeking his, not liking how unsure she felt of herself. “Morgan, what are we doing here?”
That smile she loved came to play above his masculine lips. “Catching up. Making up for lost time.”
“It can’t go anywhere. As soon as you have Brittany back you’ll go away.”
“I won’t stay away again. I can come back, between missions. And this job won’t last forever.” He gave her a sour smile. “I’m one of the oldest on the team. It’s a young man’s game.”
They were discussing the future. Things were moving so fast her head was spinning.
Yet somehow Morgan in her life seemed inevitable. Hadn’t she secretly dreamt of this, of him coming home and this time somehow loving her as much as she had loved him years ago?
Except, it seemed he might have loved her, after all, even back then.
God, she couldn’t think about that. They’d been so young. Truly idiots, the both of them.
She slipped off his lap with so much reluctance it was ridiculous. But it had to be done. “I better get to bed. Cody will be up in a couple of hours, expecting his pancakes.”
He nodded and stood. “We’ll talk about this again.”
He dipped his head and kissed her, one last time, so sweetly and full of tenderness that her head was spinning by the time he finished. This time he didn’t claim, he didn’t take, he gave.
In his old bedroom earlier she’d told him she’d missed him, but she hadn’t realized until now just how much. How much she wished...
No. She had a son to think of. “Good night, Morgan.”
Her hands shook on the doorknob as she locked the door behind him and listened to his footsteps as he went upstairs to Julio’s apartment.
Chapter Four
“Howdy.”
Morgan took in Cody, sitting cross-legged at the top of the landing, mini cowboy boots and mini Stetson, worn jeans. If he’d ever thought of kids, he thought of them as strange little people, but he had to admit, Cody had character. He held a plate on his lap with half a pancake and traces of something sticky that looked like it could have been maple syrup at one point.
“Cody.”
The kid scrambled to his feet, balancing the half pancake precariously, sticking his tongue out with the effort. “I brought you breakfast.” He held out the plate once he was standing. “Mom said I couldn’t wake you up because you had a late night. But she said it would be okay to wait for you here.”
“Appreciate that.” He’d been up for hours, actually, working on his laptop, researching Calderón, calling in favors. He would have come out earlier if he knew the kid was waiting. “Would that be my breakfast?”
“I had some. I had to wait a long time. But I left you plenty.” The kid gave an angelic smile.
“No problem, buddy.” He took the plate and shoved the half pancake into his mouth on his way down the stairs.
He wore jeans and a worn shirt he’d found in his old room last night, and a cowboy hat. The ranch hands would talk to him more easily if he looked like one of them.
Dakota stuck her head out the door. She was freshly scrubbed, hair in a ponytail, ready for the day.
He licked the syrup from his bottom lip and thought about how much he wanted to kiss her again. How much he wanted to do more than kiss her. Soon, he promised himself.
She held out her hand for the empty plate, a smile playing on her amazing lips. “Look who found his inner cowboy.”
“Thank you for breakfast.”
“Can I go over to Maria’s with Morgan?” Cody wanted to know.
“Maria is Miguel’s wife. She watches Cody sometimes while I work.” Dakota adjusted the kid’s hat. “I usually walk him over.”
“I’m heading that way anyway.”
“Thank you.” She bent to Cody, gave him a big smacking kiss on the cheek. “You mind Maria. I expect you to be good.”
The little boy hugged her back with full enthusiasm, not a drop of awareness yet at that age. The love between the two was palpable, and it set off some strange longing deep inside Morgan.
“I’ll come over later and we’ll have lunch together.” Dakota stood. “You have a fun day. Both of you.”
“You be careful to keep your door locked,” Morgan said, when all he wanted was a send-off like Cody had gotten. “And you have fun, too,” he added.
“Sure.” Dakota flashed a half smile as she drew back into her place. “Doing the year-end accounting is usually a laugh riot.”
He wanted to stay, to talk with her more, but Cody took his hand and was pulling him forward. “Maria has new kittens behind the kitchen. She lets me feed them.” He looked toward the corral. “Will you take me riding later?”
His tone was so full of wistfulness, it made Morgan smile. “We’ll have to talk to your mom first about that.”
His little hand felt strange hanging on to Morgan’s calloused fingers. He wasn’t used to being around kids. For the first time in a long time, it made him think of family. He was definitely in the wrong profession for that. Then again, as he’d told Dakota, the job wasn’t going to last forever.
“I asked Santa at the feed store for a horse,” the boy confided in him, his eyes wide with hope and excitement. “And I’ve been really good. Brush my teeth every night and every morning. I even comb my hair.”
“I’m sure Santa appreciates that,” he said, not having any idea what kind of response the kid expected.
“I just don’t want the horse to get hurt when Santa drags him down the chimney.”
“I’m sure he...uh...has his ways.”
“Like magic?”
“Sure.”
“Can he shrink a horse?”
“I bet he could.”
The kid thought about that for a few seconds. “Can he make it grow back big? If he can’t, I’d just have a pony. I want a big horse. I’m a big boy, not a baby.”
Sure looked like a baby to him, but Morgan was wise enough not to say that.
“If you see Santa, can you tell him I was good? Really, really good.”
He nodded solemnly. “I’ll tell him the whole combing and everything.”
He delivered Cody to the kitchen where, to his surprise, he got a goodbye hug and kiss on the cheek. And a look full of admiration, as if he was a hero or something.
Immediate, unconditional acceptance and unreserved love. He was humbled, wasn’t sure if he deserved the vote of confidence, but it felt incredibly good all the same, after what he’d been through in the last couple of weeks.
He was still thinking about that as he went to find Julio, who wasn’t the least excited to see him. They had a long chat. Morgan needed to make sure he knew everything the kid knew, that Julio wasn’t hiding anything. At least the assassination attempt the night before spooked the youngster enough so he was fairly forthcoming. Albeit not terribly useful. He knew this and that about Calderón, but nothing about where the man might have moved Brittany. No workable leads.
When Morgan was done with him, he went to find his brothers. He found them on the deck in the back, drinking coffee. Wyatt was cleaning a rifle. They had the door open behind them, with a clean line of sight to the front door. They were positioned so they could keep an eye on both who was coming into the main house, and the cabin, too, at the same time.
Morgan appreciated the guard duty. “Where’s Justice?”
“In town picking up medicine for one of the horses.”
“Anything serious?”
Bull shrugged. “Didn’t sound like it.”
On a ranch this
size, there were always sick animals, the vet a weekly guest.
“When are you leaving for Mexico?” Wyatt asked.
“We’ll see.” After he’d gotten up, he’d connected with a friend at his unit. He was expecting close-up footage from a military satellite, information that would narrow his search area on the other side of the border. But after what had gone on last night, he wasn’t sure now was the best time for him to leave. “We need to figure out who Calderón’s man is on the ranch.”
Wyatt pulled some papers from his pocket. “Here is a list of all the employees. The dozen men we hired for the cleanup are in bold.” He gave one sheet to Morgan, one to Virgil.
“I’ll talk to them.” Morgan ran through the names, glanced at the clock. The men would be out and about by now, but he didn’t want to wait until they all came in for dinner. He didn’t mind driving out. It would give him a chance to see how much damage the fire had done on McCabe land.
Wyatt stood. “I’ll drive into town and run background checks from the office.”
Bull turned to Morgan. “What do you want me to do?”
“Watch the house and make sure Julio stays alive,” Morgan said. “Keep an eye on the cabin, too.” Handing that job off cost him. He didn’t want to let Dakota and Cody out of his sight, but he trusted Bull. “You’re pretty damn quick with a gun, if I remember right.”
“We’re going to work this as a team.”
“Rusty will pop,” Wyatt said suddenly. “He has a record.”
Morgan almost asked why, then remembered. Rusty used to have a brother. They’d gotten into a ton of trouble when they’d been kids, even went to jail together. Rusty chose the straight and narrow at one point, while the brother headed deeper into bad business. He’d died in a shootout with the cops the year Morgan had left the ranch. He’d forgotten all about that.
Bull’s phone rang. He picked it up, listened. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
Wyatt got up. “Anything about Brittany?”
“Her cell was used yesterday in a small village on the other side of the border.” Bull looked at Morgan.
Morgan had planned on taking the Mexican side, was planning to head over this morning. But last night had changed things. Until the assassin on the ranch was caught, he wanted to stick around here. “I can take care of background checks. You drive down and see about that phone. If anything pops, if you need me, you give me a call. Wyatt can stay here to watch the ranch.”