Shielded by the Cowboy SEAL

by Bonnie Vanak

  They grinned at each other. Then his grin faded. “It must be tough for you being back here.”

  His insight startled her. “Yes. All those memories.”

  Cooper nodded. “I felt that way about my sister’s cottage. It was her refuge, a place where she could be alone. So many memories in that place.”

  “Good memories.” She ran her hand along the desk surface. “I wish I’d never met Prescott, never married him. Your sister would still be alive if I hadn’t founded that company.”

  Cooper gently circled his fingers around her wrist.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said about accountability. Maybe there’s a part of me that wanted you to take the full blame, so I could have a target. But that’s not fair and it’s not right. Truth is, Brie was a cop. If Brie hadn’t been wearing that vest, yeah, maybe she’d still be alive for a while longer. Or maybe there would have been another time. She chose to work in a dangerous area of the city.”

  Meg said nothing, let him talk.

  “She was my kid sister, but she’d made tough choices before. Bad ones. I wanted to protect her, shield her with all I had. But I couldn’t be there for her all the time. And that’s a hard reality for me to accept.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered.

  He gave her a steady look. “Any more than her death was yours, Meg.”

  “Do you believe that I never intended to hurt her, or anyone else?” She had to hear it from his mouth.

  Cooper drew in a deep breath. “Yeah, I do. I tease you, Princess, about your designer shoes and clothing, but you don’t strike me as the type of woman who cares more about material items than human lives.”

  She gave him a ghost of a smile. “Thank you.”

  He turned his attention back to the monitor.

  “Let’s go back to the kitchen. I want to take another look, see if I can dismantle that camera.”

  When they returned to the kitchen, Cooper climbed on the polished black granite counter and examined the camera.

  If they were caught, how could he explain this?

  He checked the housing, rapped on the ceiling. “Got a screwdriver handy?”

  Meg’s heart pounded hard as she flung open the junk drawer where Randall had kept small tools.

  “Hurry,” she told him, handing him the screwdriver. “That woman wants us out of here. You don’t have much time.”

  He managed to pull free the camera and peered upward. “Just as I thought. It’s not wired into the system. Nothing else up here, though. Have to check further. There may be a hidden compartment.”

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway. “Cooper,” she whispered. “Hurry up, she’s coming back!”

  He screwed the housing back, pocketed the screwdriver. Then he dropped down and sat on the granite just as the two women started to enter the kitchen. Oh damn, this didn’t look good.

  Cooper pulled Meg into his arms and kissed her. Deep. She melted into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck. His mouth moved over hers, not a subtle claiming, but a bold declaration.

  Mine.

  She was caught in the storm, helpless to do anything but go along. And she didn’t want to fight him or these feelings. Swept away on a tidal wave of pleasure and sensation, she kissed him back with everything she felt for this man, everything she’d ever longed for and never dreamed she could have in life after her marriage went south.

  Someone cleared their throat. But Cooper kept kissing her. Finally he slowly separated them. Meg felt a flush warm her cheeks as both real estate agents looked at them, Karen with amusement, the other agent with disapproval.

  Cooper climbed off the counter and nodded. He rapped on the granite with his knuckles. “Sturdy enough. Meets with my approval.”

  “Sturdy enough for what?” the listing agent snapped.

  “Sex. Table gets boring after a while, so I always make sure the counters are rock solid in case I get in the mood.”

  Blood drained from the agent’s face as Cooper placed a possessive hand on the small of Meg’s back and escorted her out of the kitchen.

  But she couldn’t help the smile on her face as they left the house. That kiss was not playacting.

  It was real, and the passion behind it as solid as the man himself.

  * * *

  The pleasure of Cooper’s kiss lasted through most of the day, up until the time he told her he was returning to the house at night.

  For a “special” visit.

  She insisted on going, and argued with him about being left behind. If Cooper was going to break in and find the documents, she had to be there. What if the documents implicated her?

  She had to see them first.

  At eleven, they set out for Randall’s house. Meg couldn’t believe they were breaking inside. As he drove, Cooper assured her they’d leave no trace behind. Black leather gloves covered his big hands. He looked grim in his black trousers, soft-soled black shoes and black long-sleeved T-shirt.

  Cooper parked his truck a good distance from the house. “Trust me, Princess. I’m real good at sneaking in and out.”

  She turned to him with an arch look. “As good as you are at sex in the kitchen?”

  His gaze turned intent as he switched off the ignition. “Maybe soon, you’ll find out.”

  The words sent a pleasant tingle rushing down her spine.

  Meg hung back in the trees as Cooper dismantled the alarm and then the security cameras, and then joined him at the side door leading into the laundry room. He picked the lock and left the door partly open. The house was cold and unwelcoming. As they walked through the laundry room to the kitchen, she thought of all the times she’d been here for corporate meetings.

  While Gran and Prescott talked business with Randall and other company executives, she had kept the liquor and drinks flowing and overseen meals. It was the only reason Prescott wanted her to join them. Randall, who was happily divorced, had readily agreed to her playing hostess.

  No one ever asked her what her needs were. She, the granddaughter of the company’s founder, was invisible. Taylor Sporting Goods and the Taylor name meant more to Gran than Meg had. Letticia Taylor had been obsessed with following her husband’s last wishes to take the company public. She’d had little time for Meg.

  When would someone finally put her first? She’d always been shoved to the back, an afterthought. Doing what everyone expected of her, not following her own dreams because pleasing others always came first.

  She deserved better.

  While she remained downstairs, he went into the upstairs to the attic, using a map he’d obtained of the house plans with the help of Karen.

  When he returned, silent as fog, he had a triumphant smile.

  “Just as I thought. No wiring connected to that camera, or anything stored near that space. But the attic floor is pretty high. I believe our friend Randall created a storage space to hide things.”

  “He always bragged about how his family custom-designed this house for storage with secret compartments,” Meg told him.

  They headed for the kitchen, using the thin beam of the penlight she held out. Cooper gazed at the security camera. “If the camera is a prop, then it’s not the camera itself, but what it’s pointing to. And it would have to be a place where Randall could easily reach. How tall was he?”

  “About your height.”

  Good.

  She turned. Cooper gestured to the kitchen chandelier with its showy ceiling medallion.

  He climbed atop the island, and Meg set his bag of tools on the counter and shone the flashlight upward. In a few minutes, the chandelier was on the counter. Cooper pointed the light up.

  “Got it,” he said with satisfaction. “There’s a hidden compartment up here.”

  He reac
hed up and fished out a shoe box and handed it to Meg.

  Then he reattached the chandelier and ceiling medallion and climbed down.

  Meg stared at the box. This was it. She’d sweated over this, had nightmares about it. Her trembling hand touched the box.

  “I’m almost afraid to open it.”

  Shadowed by the pencil-thin beam of light, Cooper’s expression was grim. “Do you want me to do it?”

  He’d asked her. That alone said a lot about him, that he didn’t grab it and open it, considering how angry he’d been about his sister’s death. “No.” She drew in a deep breath. “After I read the documents and we return to the inn, I want you to call the FBI.”

  He recoiled. “Meg...”

  “I suspect Prescott implicated me in this on purpose. He put my name on the corporate papers when the lawyer set up the LLC. Not his. I was too big of a fool to even know what was going on.”

  “Not a fool.” He gently touched her cheek. “You were a victim.”

  Not anymore. Never again. She took a deep breath and opened the box.

  Her heart dropped to her stomach.

  “Dear God,” she whispered.

  Stacks of wrapped hundred-dollar bills met her gaze. Not a few thousand. Cooper thumbed through them. “There has to be at least $250,000 here.”

  He set the money aside. Beneath the bills was a photocopy of a newspaper article about a man convicted of poisoning his wife by spiking her sports drink with antifreeze. And a receipt from an auto parts store for antifreeze, dated exactly a week before her grandmother first fell ill.

  The receipt had Randall’s elegant, curved signature on it.

  At the top of the newspaper article was a scribbled note also in Randall’s handwriting: Letticia Taylor board meeting, Monday 3 p.m. Sweet tea.

  The clipping dropped from Meg’s trembling fingers and clattered to the floor. “It wasn’t proof of defective vests, after all,” she whispered, suddenly nauseated. “But proof of murder.”

  Her grandmother had drunk, as she always did, a glass of sweet tea at the annual board of director’s meeting at Randall’s summer home in New Hampshire a few months ago. Sweet tea Meg herself had served from a pitcher in Randall’s refrigerator. Sweet tea only Gran drank, because everyone else hated the pure sugar cane syrup she liked in the drink. Hours later, she’d started throwing up.

  And then she got better, only to get worse weeks later. At the time Meg blamed it on her grandmother’s age and growing frailty.

  Now she could see the truth clearly. Gran rallying, only to fall sick again after drinking the sweet tea, the tea Randall insisted on giving her whenever she came to the office because he knew how much she enjoyed it.

  Her grandmother hadn’t died from old age after all. She had been poisoned. And Randall, the man who helped Meg escape, the man she trusted, had done it.

  Chapter 14

  Meg lost it.

  All these days she’d held it together, and he’d watched her face each challenge with chin held high. Even when she confessed her true purpose in coming to New England, she never faltered.

  That ramrod spine remained solid steel. Except now.

  She slid down to the floor and sat, hugging her knees, and began to cry.

  Cooper stared helplessly at her, wanting to gather her close, wipe away her tears and promise things would be all right.

  But not here. Not now.

  In the distance, he heard the crunch of gravel beneath tires. He raced to the living room doorway, careful to avoid the security camera pointing toward the front door. Through the partly drawn drapes, he saw a car silhouetted by moonlight driving up to the house.

  No headlights. Damn!

  Cooper returned to the kitchen. Meg sat on the floor, moaning, tears trickling down her cheeks. “He killed her, he killed her... Why wasn’t I more careful? I should have known!”

  “Meg.” He clasped her shoulders. “C’mon, Princess, get it together. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  That car pulling into the driveway wasn’t a late-night visit from a real estate agent. Someone was coming into the house for the same reason he and Meg had returned.

  He stuffed the items they found into his knapsack, slung it over one shoulder. “Now,” he ordered. “Let’s go.”

  But she sat there, rocking back and forth, her sobs heart-wrenching. Cooper’s own heart twisted. No time for grief.

  A car door slammed.

  Cooper crouched down, squeezed her shoulders. “Meg, now!”

  Taking her hand, he pulled her upward. The front doorknob rattled.

  Whoever was outside wasn’t being very quiet. Cooper glanced at her. “Go to the laundry room, open the outside door and run for that big oak closest to the house. It’ll provide good cover. Can you do that?”

  Meg nodded.

  He touched her tearstained cheek. “I’ll be right there, Princess.”

  As soon as she left, Cooper turned his attention back to the living room and the front foyer. Withdrawing his pistol, he waited, hidden by the bookcases in the living room. On the stately grandfather clock near the entranceway, the pendulum swung back and forth, its ticking echoing his heartbeat.

  He needed to see the intruder.

  The front door opened and closed. No light switch turned on. He peered around the corner and his grip tightened on his weapon. That scrunched face and hunched shoulders were immediately recognizable.

  Richard Kimball, the nature photographer. What the hell was he doing here? And how did he get a key, or the combination to the lockbox? Doubtful he wanted to photograph the fish in the aquarium upstairs.

  Kimball turned toward the kitchen. Coop raced into the pantry and squeezed himself into the back, crouching down by stacked boxes. The pantry door opened, but no light came on. Instead, Kimball reached for the stepladder stored near the front.

  Cooper waited, heard the man return to the living room. He sneaked out and looked around the corner.

  Using the stepladder, Kimball climbed up and reached for the security camera in the front foyer. He removed it and began to check the housing.

  Silent as fog, Coop backed up, headed for the laundry room and fled outside. He stayed around the trees for cover until reaching Meg. She crouched down by the oak, shivering. He knew it wasn’t from the cold.

  Coop pointed in the direction of the truck. They hugged the trees, staying in the shadows in the woods, until reaching the truck. Once inside, Meg’s shoulders slumped in absolute dejection.

  Cooper drove back to the farm, careful to watch his rearview mirror in case they were followed. Just to be extra cautious, he took an indirect route.

  Finally she looked at him. “Did you see who it was?”

  Coop glanced at his mirrors again. “Richard Kimball. The guest at the inn. He was dismantling the living room security camera.”

  The statement seemed to startle her. “What for?”

  It wasn’t to check the system and make sure the cameras worked. “I bet he was there for the same reason we were. Maybe he works for your ex, and was looking for the proof Randall left. For all we know, Kimball killed Jacobs and wants to make sure no evidence is left behind.”

  Meg buried her face in her hands. “I’ve been such a fool to trust Randall. He was the only one wanting to help me. And all this time, he was working with Prescott to kill her.”

  “Maybe,” he said carefully. “But if he did, what was his motivation? Randall had money. And why would he take precautions to tell you where the documents were? Why tell you anything?”

  She lifted her face and stared out the window. “I don’t know.”

  They didn’t return to the cottage. Instead, Coop parked his truck by the barn and they walked to the inn. When Kimball returned, he’d be waiting for him.


  The inn was quiet when they entered. Late-night guests had a key to the front door, so he knew he’d hear Kimball return. Coop settled Meg in the kitchen, making her a cup of hot chocolate. She kept shivering, her expression woebegone.

  He set the steaming mug on the table before her and pulled up a chair next to hers. Coop wiped away the tearstains on her cold cheeks. “Meg, talk to me,” he urged.

  Her gaze was dull and listless when she finally looked at him. “It’s over, Cooper. There was no evidence, no documents. Randall lied to me. He wanted me to find the proof he helped to murder Gran.”

  Tears shimmered in her big green eyes once more. “I’m all alone. I always was.”

  A fierce need to protect her surged. He scooped her into his lap and held her close. “No, you’re not alone. I’m here, Princess.”

  Gently he brushed back a lock of her hair from her face. “I’m not letting go, either. You’re safe. I’m sticking to your side. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “Randall killed my grandmother.” Fresh tears threatened. “But if that’s the case, where are the documents we searched for?”

  “We’ll find them. And answers.”

  For a long few moments, he held her close, stroking her back and murmuring reassurances. Meg laced her hands around his neck and rested her head against his chest. Having her this close stirred another feeling in him, but he forced himself to focus on her.

  Her needs.

  So small and fragile, like glass. She felt good in his arms, soft and perfect. He wanted to keep her there forever, protect her from anyone or anything. She rubbed her cheek against his chin, catlike, and finally stopped trembling. Coop needed to gentle her to his touch. Like a skittish horse, he needed to gain her trust and give her assurance he would not harm her.

  But he needed to take action to protect his family as well. With Kimball returning to the inn, he didn’t want to place his mom or Aimee near the man.

  And kicking him out of the inn meant he’d lose his chance of finding out what the hell Kimball was doing with the security cameras. Changing them out? Or looking for hidden documents?