Camouflage Cowboy

by Jan Hambright

  She’d never seen the creepy toy before and it didn’t look like anything he’d picked up at Cradles to Crayons.

  “Where’d you get that ugly thing? Did Zachary-G give it to you?”

  Caleb reached down, pulled the toy out of his pocket by its head and wiggled it back and forth, watching its rubbery body ripple.

  “What’s a Uncle Rodney?”

  Blood iced in her veins.

  “Inside, Caleb. Let’s go inside.” Grace hauled her son up from the steps with her, locking her arms around him as she glanced around, looking for Rodney Marshall’s white Chevy.

  “Wait! I want Mister Nick,” Caleb protested, as she backed them toward the door, grasped the knob, pulled it open and hurried inside.

  NICK CLOSED HIS CELL PHONE, shot a glance in his side mirror and pulled back out onto the street.

  His early-morning grid search of Freedom hadn’t yielded a single sign of Rodney Marshall’s white Chevy. Now he knew why.

  A blade of anxiety knifed through him. Marshall had been right under his nose and he’d missed the scent. Worse yet he’d gotten close to Caleb. The message he’d sent to Grace along with the toy snake was inherently clear.

  Rodney Marshall could get to her son anytime he wanted to.

  Not if Nick had anything to do with it.

  Nick stepped down on the accelerator, hurried across town and ten minutes later pulled into the parking lot of Cradles to Crayons, where parents were in the process of picking up their children.

  Nosing the Tahoe into a parking space, he climbed out and immediately spotted Grace standing at the base of the steps, supervising the orderly exit of her pupils into their parents’ waiting arms.

  His heart jolted in his chest when she caught sight of him and they made eye contact. Like an addict desperate for his next fix, he focused on her, and her alone.

  “Hey, Nick. How are you?” Lindsay Kemp stood in his path.

  “Never better.” He paused to glance down at her and Wade’s cute twin daughters, who were having a hard time standing still despite their mom’s tight grip on their hands. They looked up at him with snapping brown eyes, and he couldn’t help but notice their messy ponytails. They were clearly a handful of willpower, he decided as he grinned at them. “Hi, girls.”

  “Are you Mister Nick?”

  “Yeah.” Caleb must have relayed the information to them, probably as part of a horse tale. Flattered, he reestablished eye contact with Lindsay.

  “I’m putting together the Community Thanksgiving Luncheon and I know your family lives in Idaho. You’ll probably be staying in Freedom like the rest of the CSaI agents because of recent troubles for the governor. But will you come and join us? No one should be alone during the holiday.”

  Like a magnet, Nick’s gaze wandered back to Grace as she released the last child to his parent.

  He didn’t plan on being alone this year.

  “What’s the date?”

  “November 23, at the community center. Noon.”

  “Sure. I’ll try to make it. Thanks for the invite.” Nodding to her, he resumed his march across the parking lot, bent on reaching Grace.

  He was desperate to satisfy the physical desire burning inside of him, as much as his emotional need to comfort her. To reassure her that he could, and would, protect her and Caleb from Rodney Marshall even if it meant he never let them out of his sight again.

  Mesmerized, he closed the distance, watching loose strands of her blond hair tangle in the Texas wind. Her blue-eyed gaze locked on his with an unwavering intensity that sent a charge through him.

  Grace Marshall was a beautiful woman. He was helpless to suppress the rush of desire that slammed into his body with the force of a hurricane.

  “Grace. Are you okay?”

  She smiled up at him, but fear widened her eyes when she diverted her gaze to scan the parking lot behind him before she refocused her attention on him. “I am now that you’re here. Come inside. I’ve made a decision.”

  Nick followed Grace up the steps and into the building. “Where’s Caleb?”

  “He’s safe in day care until I’m finished here.”

  “Finished?”

  She stopped in the corridor.

  Grace’s heart threatened to pound out of her chest. Reaching out, she put her hand on his forearm. “Let’s go to my classroom. It’s quiet there. I have something to tell you.”

  The feel of Nick’s hand pressed against her back provided a measure of comfort as she pointed to the first classroom on the right and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

  He looked around the room and immediately walked over to her desk, where he thumped the box she’d packed her things up in, before turning to study her.

  “What’s going on? You’re running again?” The glint in his eyes hardened, a wall of steel-blue she’d have to forge.

  “I always knew the day would come when Rodney would figure out that threatening Caleb was the only way he could truly torment me. And I’ve always lived up to his expectations like a timid animal, rather than fight, but I can’t run this time. Caleb will die if I don’t stay in Freedom to find my birth mother.”

  Nick’s expression softened as he stepped toward her. Reaching out, he brushed his fingers against her cheek, sending a wisp of heat across her skin. “So why the box?”

  “I’ve asked Bailey for a temporary leave of absence. She has agreed. She believes it’s solely because of Caleb’s worsening condition, and it is to some extent, but I know we’re not safe here anymore. It’s one less point of contact for Rodney.”

  “You know I’m not going to let either one of you out of my sight again. Trust me, Grace, when I tell you I’ll find a way to stop Marshall.”

  Hope worked through her thoughts as she gazed up at Nick’s handsome face and saw the determined set of his jaw. He made her feel safe, but she hadn’t told him everything. Hadn’t been as honest as she needed to be if she expected him to stand by her, and damn the consequences if anyone in Freedom ever found out her dark secret.

  She cared for Nick Cavanaugh. Caleb did, too. Nick was all he’d talked about for days. She hadn’t planned to feel like this, but she did. And now there was no going back to the way things were before he’d come roaring into their lives.

  Grace’s throat closed on the confession she needed to exorcise. Swallowing her hesitation, she leaned back on her desk for support and forced the words out into the open between them.

  “I’ve kept something from you. Something horrific from my past, but only because I couldn’t risk letting it destroy the very real chance you’ll find my birth mother before it’s too late.”

  “Grace, I—”

  “Please let me finish,” she whispered, raising her hand, stopping him from touching her when he reached out. She couldn’t let him touch her, not yet. Not without knowing what his response would be once he found out what a horrible thing she’d done. What a murderous thing….

  She saw Nick’s mouth close on his words through a screen of hot tears she was powerless to stop.

  “Rodney Marshall wants revenge because I killed his brother…. I killed my husband, Troy.”

  Chapter Nine

  “In self-defense, Grace.” Nick gathered her against his chest in a single heartbeat. She was pliant and willing, until his verbal confession sank into her mind and produced the push-back he knew would come. It was a price he was eager to pay in order to gain back a measure of his honor.

  “You knew?” She put an arm’s length between them. “And you didn’t question me?”

  “You’re being threatened, Grace. By a man who’s sworn to uphold the law, not skirt it. The word murderer spray painted on the back of your garage wall and battery acid spewed all over your bedroom convinced me there was more going on than you were willing, or able to tell me.” He sucked in a deep breath to release the tension building inside his body.

  “I’d be negligent in doing my job if I hadn’t looked into your background. I care
about you and Caleb. I was willing to wait for an explanation, but only for so long.”

  He wasn’t sure where she weighed in on the emotional scale at the moment, but her chin came up in defiance as she stared at him through teary blue eyes. He watched her lower lip quiver for an instant. The tell. The opening crack in her tough facade?

  “Does this mean you’re willing to retain my case? Because you’re free to decline if you’d like.”

  “I’m not the declining kind, sweetheart.”

  In a couple of steps she was in his arms again. Right where he needed her to be.

  HE WAS TOO DAMNED EXCITED to eat, but he pulled open Nick Cavanaugh’s refrigerator as if he owned it and stared inside. A gallon of milk, a couple of yogurts—who ate that crap anyway? Eggs…too much work. Besides they came in a dozen—easy for Cavanaugh to notice if a couple went missing…. Kitchen smells were a dead giveaway. Veggies in the crisper, too much work….

  His perusal fell on a clear plastic container sitting on the bottom shelf. Reaching in, he grabbed it, letting the door swing shut as he stepped back and lifted the lid just enough to take a whiff.

  “Mmm.” It sure smelled as if the mystery woman, who’d moved her suitcase into one of the spare bedrooms along with her brat, knew how to cook, because Cavanaugh sure as hell didn’t.

  Fingering a piece of the meat, he picked it up and took a bite, savoring the exotic flavors of cayenne pepper, fenugreek and turmeric melded in the curry-blend coating. Hell, yeah, he’d cooked stuff like this before, back in Iraq, back before things went to hell in a handbasket.

  Six bites and it was gone. He picked up the other piece and downed it, too, feeling gut-bomb full as he wiped his hand across his mouth and checked the floor for crumbs.

  With three of them in the house now, the sink was a safe bet to ditch the evidence that he’d ever been there. Not that it was going to matter after today. He was clear ing out. His IEDs were built, packed and ready to go; there wasn’t any reason to hang around and risk detection, just so he could steal food, shower and play with explosives in a CSaI agent’s house.

  Stepping across the kitchen in his stocking feet, he put the container in the empty sink, turned on the water, rinsed his hands and dried them off on the dish towel folded neatly on the counter.

  Then just for fun, he wadded it up and left it where he’d found it.

  It was almost go-time, but he damn sure needed a shower.

  “I DON’T KNOW HOW he got past me.” Nick glanced over at Grace sitting in the passenger seat. Caleb was in the back strapped in his car seat, trotting a plastic horse over every surface around him.

  “I worked a grid search this morning, never saw his car.”

  “That’s his, what do you call it? M.O. Harass, elude, then disappear.”

  “If the Chevy is still in this county, Sheriff Hale’s local APB will find it. He’s got his deputies on the lookout.”

  “Did you tell him about my past?”

  “Only need-to-know information. Hale was sympathetic, said Rodney’s Montana badge don’t mean nothin’ in Texas.”

  She let out an audible sigh. “I pray you’re right, Nick. I hope he really is gone. I think he uses vacation time from his department in Billings. He takes a week or two and makes my life hell, then heads home to write traffic tickets and crime reports until the next time he can intrude into our lives.”

  He reached over and touched her arm. “Relax. Everyone’s on their toes now. He doesn’t have anonymity anymore. When you shine the light on snakes, they usually slither into their holes.”

  Grace glanced over at Nick, enjoying the feel of his reassuring hand on her forearm. She just wished she could be as certain as he was. That her sense of an inevitable face-to-face confrontation with her ex-brother-in-law sometime in the future would melt away into oblivion, but she’d been preparing for it for a long time.

  “Thank you for supper.” Nick had taken them out to the Talk of the Town Café for dinner.

  “You’re welcome. Valerio grills a mean steak.”

  “I’m looking forward to working with him and Faith. There’s a great group of people at Talk of the Town.”

  “When do you start?”

  “Monday at 6:00 p.m.”

  “You know I’ll cover Caleb on the evenings you work.”

  “You don’t look like the babysitter type.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m the oldest of four brothers. I’m equipped to show him the ropes.” Nick slowed the vehicle and eased up next to a mailbox at the head of the driveway leading into the ranch.

  He took his hand off of her arm, put the Tahoe in Park and hit the auto-down button for the window.

  She instantly missed the feel of his fingers on her skin and battled back a surge of desire hot enough that it burned embarrassment into her cheeks.

  “If it’s scrapping, or tactical training on how to pick up his dirty socks without touching them, I can handle it.” He opened the box and took out the mail, then tossed it on the dash in front of him, before closing the box and turning to look at Caleb in the backseat.

  “What do you say, buddy? You and me, holding down the fort while your mom works at the café?”

  “I say yeah!” Caleb grinned, held up his toy horse and galloped it in the air. “Can we ride like this?”

  “Sure can.”

  “Neee-heee.” Caleb attempted to duplicate the sound of a whinny, then repeated the high-pitched call. “Neee-heee.”

  She laughed at the odd little noise, turning in amusement to look at her son. “What just came out of that horse’s mouth?” She widened her eyes and let her mouth gape open in surprise.

  Caleb grinned, proud of his skills. “Zachary-G told me that’s the sound horses make.”

  “Good job. We’ll hang out at the corral on Saturday and you can perfect it. I’ll bet old Jericho will talk back to you. What do you say?”

  “Okay.” Caleb let his head lull back against the head-rest, still grinning at Nick, but she could see his energy level beginning to wane, and hoped he’d be able to hold out until the weekend so he could enjoy talking to Nick’s horses.

  Nick turned back around, rolled up the window, put the rig in gear and pulled into the drive.

  Settling back in her seat, she let an odd sensation of comfort build inside her heart and spread to her entire body. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this secure; she had the man in the driver’s seat next to her to thank for it. He was all about strength, honor and sex appeal. If she didn’t know anything else about him, she knew that.

  NICK TRAINED HIS FOCUS on the darkening drive in front of him, on the discernible shadows of dusk gathering at the edges of the gravel lane. He reached down and flipped on his headlights, catching a brief flit of movement in his left peripheral vision.

  Unease flooded his system, raising his caution level a notch.

  Stepping on the brake pedal, he brought the SUV to a stop.

  “What is it?” Grace asked, glancing over at him.

  “I’m not sure.” He put the rig in Reverse, stared into the side mirror and backed up twenty feet to an opening in the curtain of Texas sage they’d just passed.

  “But I swear I saw someone run between a couple of sage.” Staring at the exact spot he believed he’d seen someone or something, he tried to pick them out amongst the patches of upland switchgrass and prickly pear dotting the rolling landscape.

  Movement sucked his attention to a scrub oak where a whitetail buck raked his antlers against its trunk with violent strokes.

  “Look, Grace.” He pointed. “He’s trying to shed his horns after breeding season. I’ll have to bring Caleb out here to see if we can locate them before the coyotes drag them off to chew on.”

  “He’d like that, wouldn’t you, Caleb?” She turned slightly to look into the backseat. “He’s sound asleep, Nick. I suppose it will have to wait until tomorrow.”

  “It’s been a rough day for the little guy.” Nick put the Tahoe in Drive an
d took his foot off the brake pedal.

  The deer’s movements were probably what he’d seen. Its sandy-brown hide matched the glint of color on the edge of his headlight beams, but as he eased down on the gas pedal, he realized he couldn’t be certain. For half a second, he thought he’d seen a man standing upright, wearing desert camouflage. The same broken tawny pattern he’d learned to identify with precise accuracy in Iraq. A skill he’d used a hundred times in his recon missions to avoid walking into an ambush.

  Unease raked over his nerves, bringing his senses to a heightened state of alert he couldn’t ignore. What would a man in camo be doing on the ranch besides trespassing? Was it possible Rodney Marshall had discovered Grace’s location and was waiting to confirm her identity when she climbed out of his vehicle? Still, based on his proximity to the ranch house it appeared the man had been running in the opposite direction.

  Nick’s guard was up when he pulled into the circle drive in front of the house and killed the engine. He didn’t plan on letting it down until they were safely inside.

  He snagged the mail off the dash, climbed out and went around to the passenger side, where Grace unbuckled Caleb and took him out of his car seat.

  “Here. Let me.” Nick pulled the little boy into his arms and handed Grace the mail along with his keys. “After you.” He glanced around the perimeter for visible threats, and fell in behind her up the walk to the front door. “It’s the brass one in the middle.”

  He watched Grace push the designated key into the lock and turn it, but he never heard the click of the locks release.

  “That’s strange,” Grace said as she removed the key and turned to stare up at him. “The door was already unlocked. I know I saw you lock it this morning when we left for Cradles to Crayons.”

  “Back to the car,” Nick ordered, feeling his muscles tense in anticipation of a fight. “I want you and Caleb safe. I’m going to clear the house, make sure there’s no one inside.”

  He followed her off the step landing, down the walkway and back to the vehicle with Caleb clutched in his arms. Was it possible Rodney Marshall had found a way in? It had the markings of his M.O.—get in, wreak havoc, get out. But where did the elusive man in camo fit in?