Texas-Sized Secrets

Texas-Sized Secrets
Elle James

MILLS & BOON

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To Megan Kerans, thanks for sending me the article about

cattle rustling. Thanks to all my family and friends who

help feed my writing habit with great new ideas.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Wanted: Cowboy. Must be able to ride, rope and fence. Can’t be afraid of hard work and long hours. Most of all, must know how to handle a gun. Position considered dangerous. See M. Grainger at the Rancho Linda.

The want ad sounded more like something out of the Wild West, not the new millennium. Who the hell advertised for a hired gun in this day and age? And how many nutcases would come out of the hills in response?

Reed Bryson stared one last time at the crumpled paper before he stepped down from his truck. Jobs were scarce in Briscoe County. It wasn’t as if he had a lot of choices.

For the second time this year he was interviewing for work. Although he’d gone thirteen years without riding a horse, he knew he’d have no trouble riding. Roping would come back, and moving cattle was as natural as breathing to him despite the time lapse. He met all the requirements of the job notice he’d picked up at Dee’s Diner. Even the last one. Twelve years on the Chicago police force had honed his ability to fire a gun and to know when.

A shiny white dually stood next to his truck with Teague Oil & Gas printed on the doors. He’d seen the truck in Prairie Rock over the past couple months. Oil speculators were as thick as horseflies in the panhandle.

He settled his Stetson on his head and strode to the two-story, white, wood frame house. It probably dated back to the nineteenth century, with its wide wraparound porches, tall windows and doors designed to catch the breeze. A place built for air movement back when air conditioners weren’t yet invented.

The front door was open, with the screen door firmly in place to keep the pesky horseflies out.

When Reed raised his hand and knocked, two men in tailored business suits appeared in the doorway.

“We’ll be back tomorrow same time. Hopefully, Grainger can meet with us then.” They stepped through the screen, each running a narrow-eyed glance over Reed as they descended from the porch without so much as a howdy-do. They climbed into the pickup and drove off, leaving a trail of dust floating over the prairie grass.

Footsteps echoed in the foyer and a short, plump Hispanic woman smiled a greeting. “Buenos días, señor.”

“Habla inglés?”

“Sí. I speak very good English. What can I do for you?” Her English was excellent and laced with a charming hint of Mexican accent. She opened the door and held it with her hip while she dried wet hands on her apron.

“I’m here to see Mr. Grainger about the job.”

The woman’s gaze followed the dually as it left. When the oilmen disappeared out of sight, she switched her perusal to him, her glance traveling from hat to boots before she spoke again. “Check with my husband down by the barn. He’ll know where to find the boss.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“De nada.”

As Reed rounded the corner of the house, he could feel the woman’s gaze following him. He couldn’t blame her. After the oil speculators’ visit, he’d be cautious too, as he was with all salesmen.

The barn stood two hundred yards from the house. As Reed approached, a dark-haired, dark-skinned man led a bay mare out of the building. The man stopped as he cleared the doorway and turned to adjust the saddle girth beneath the horse’s belly.

“Excuse me.” Reed slowed as he approached.

The man looked up and nodded, but continued tightening the strap.

“I’m looking for Mr. Grainger. I’m here about the job.”

The man’s brows rose up his forehead. “I’m going there now. Saddle up, you can come along.” He led Reed into the dark interior of the barn and stopped in front of the second stall. A black horse with a white star on his forehead leaned over the stall door. “You ride Diablo.”

When Reed hesitated, the man smiled.

“Don’t worry. His name is worse than his reputation.” A chuckle echoed through the interior of the big barn.

“That’s good to know.”

The man held out a hand. “I’m Fernando Garcia, the foreman.” His words rolled off his tongue with the natural ease of one who’d grown up speaking Spanish as his first language.

“Reed Bryson.” He clasped the man’s hand in a firm handshake. Then he moved to the stall, holding out his fingers for the horse to sniff.

“Careful, amigo, he may not be a devil to ride, but he’s been known to have a helluva bite.”

Reed jerked his hand back and opened the stall door. He snagged the horse’s halter and led him out into the center aisle.

Fernando tossed a blanket over the gelding’s back and followed with a saddle. Reed quickly cinched the saddle in place and slid a bridle over the horse’s head, slipping the bit between stubbornly clamped teeth.

Fernando nodded. “I’ll wait outside. We need to hurry, it’s getting close to dark and I haven’t seen the boss in a couple hours.”

Reed braced a boot in a stirrup and swung his right leg over the saddle. When he emerged into the waning sunlight, he blinked at the brightness after being in the dark interior of the barn.

As soon as Reed exited the barn, Fernando took off.

Reed pressed his heels into Diablo’s flanks and the beast took off at a gallop. As if it hadn’t been thirteen years since Reed had been on the back of a horse, he settled into the smooth rhythm. He urged his mount forward until he rode side by side with Fernando.

Galloping wasn’t the best time to quiz the man, but Reed wanted to know more about the job before he committed to it—if the boss saw fit to hire him. “Has there been trouble on the ranch?”

“Sí.” The foreman either was in a big hurry or he wasn’t sharing what kind of trouble. The older man nudged his horse faster, racing across the low range grasses of the Texas panhandle.

Knowing he wasn’t getting any more information out of the man, Reed dropped back, content to follow. His questions would be answered soon enough by the ranch owner himself.

Fernando topped a rise and dropped down behind it.

When Reed reached the top of the slope, his heart leaped into his throat at the steep drop on the other side.

As if anxious to catch the other horse, Diablo danced to the side, straining against the reins.

“Okay, go for it.” Reed gave the horse his head and held on while the animal plunged downward into a small canyon tangled with a maze of ravines and fallen rocks.

He thought he heard someone’s shouts echoing off the canyon walls, but the sound of the horse’s hooves slipping and sliding down the rocky path could have been playing tricks on his hearing.

Fernando had eased his horse into a walk, picking his way through the rocks and bramble that spooked his mount. With the skill of one born to ride, the man held his seat and urged his mount to continue down the hill to the bottom of the canyon.

A riderless horse passed Reed and leaped over the top of the hill behind him. He assumed it was the boss’s horse and spurred his own forward at a lethal pace for the downhill slide.

When Reed reached the canyon floor, he just caught a glimpse of Fernando’s horse rounding the corner of a sheer bluff wall.

Without hesitation, Reed dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and raced after him, wondering, not for the first time, if this was some kind of test or trap. He reached beneath his denim jacket and flicked the safety strap off his Glock. Whether he was being led into an ambush or the boss of the Rancho Linda was really in trouble, he’d be ready.

When he rounded yet another corner of rocky wall, he pulled up sharply, narrowly avoiding a collision with Fernando and his mount.

Diablo reared and screamed.

Fernando’s bay mare danced to the side but refused to go forward.

Ahead a hundred yards was a cow, lying on her side, clearly in the midst of a birthing gone bad. In front of her was a herd of wild hogs. Between the downed cow and the canyon wall stood a small woman with flowing black hair and brown-black eyes. She waved her straw cowboy hat at the angry animals and yelled. As small as she was, she wasn’t making much of an impression on the three-hundred-pound swine circling her and the distressed cow.

Fernando pulled his rifle from the scabbard on the front of his saddle and aimed it in the air. A round exploded, the sound echoing off the canyon walls.

While most of the hogs jumped and scattered, a few of the larger, more aggressive males turned their attention from the girl to Fernando. Fearless, or too mad to care, two of the beasts charged.

The older man’s horse reared and spun. In order to stay in the saddle, Fernando had to drop the rifle and hold on. His horse lit out with several of the hogs in pursuit.

Reed’s horse danced to the side behind a stand of rocks. A scream ripped across the canyon walls, chilling his blood.

The largest of the boars rammed into the cow’s swollen belly. The cow bellowed and tried to roll to her feet. With a calf lodged in the birthing canal, she wasn’t going anywhere.

The woman behind the cow shouted and waved her hat. “Get the hell away from her. Get!”

What did she hope to accomplish? Her little bit of flapping served as a red cape waved in front of a bull. The boar lowered his tusks and rammed the cow again.

The woman leaned across the cow’s belly and beat at the boar’s snout.

“Move back!” Reed shouted. “Move back!” He leaped to the ground, yanking his pistol from the holster beneath his arm.

“No! Don’t hurt the cow!”

The boar rammed the cow again.

Since the woman still leaned over the downed bovine, the force of the boar’s impact catapulted her backward. She hit the rock wall behind her, sliding down to land hard on her butt.

When the boar backed away, preparing for another charge, Reed aimed at the hog’s head and fired.

The hog dropped where it stood.

Reed raced to where the woman sat, rubbing the back of her head, her eyes glazed.

“You all right?” He held out a hand.

She ignored him and scrambled to her feet. “Move!” Shoving him to the side, she ran a few steps along the base of the bluff before doubling over and throwing up in the dirt.

Reed hurried over to her and held her hair out of her face until she was done, hesitantly patting her back. He wasn’t sure what to do. Something inside him made him want to comfort this woman who’d gone through a particularly scary event.

When she straightened, her face was pale, but her lips were firm. She looked like a woman with a tentative grasp on her control and the determination to maintain it. “Can you give me a hand with the calf? It’s stillborn and stuck.”

Reed stared into her eyes until he was sure she was going to remain on her feet, then he turned to the laboring cow.

He’d seen this happen before when a cow tried to give birth to a calf too big for the birth canal. Half the time, they lost cow and calf. With the calf already dead, the best they could hope for was to save the cow.

He sat in the dirt behind the cow, braced his feet against the animal’s backside and grabbed hold of the dead calf’s legs.

Too tired and battered to help, the cow lay on her side, breathing hard. When the next contraction hit, she bellowed, and tried to push with what little strength she had left.

Reed pulled with all his might. The calf slid out a little farther.

“You’re doing good.” The woman squatted beside the cow and smoothed a hand over her head. “Hang in there.”

Another contraction rolled over the cow’s belly and her legs stretched straight out, her stomach muscles convulsing.

Reaching down to the calf’s shoulders, Reed tugged as hard as he could and the calf slid out the rest of the way.

For several long moments, the cow and Reed gathered their strength. Then the cow rolled to a sitting position and nudged the dead calf.

“Sorry, girl, this baby didn’t make it.” The woman patted the cow’s neck.

While the cow licked at the calf’s face, Reed stood and wiped his hands on his jeans.

The woman straightened, the top of her head only coming up to Reed’s shoulders. “You here about the job?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She walked around the cow to stand beside the dead boar. “Was I mistaken or did you drop that boar with one shot?”

“You were not mistaken, ma’am.”

She dusted her hands on her jeans and reached out. “I’m Mona Grainger. You’re hired.”

Chapter Two

The man with the sandy-blond hair, moss-green eyes and a square jawline stood with his cowboy hat in hand, staring at her. “You’re M. Grainger? The owner of the Rancho Linda?”

She had to give this guy a little credit. He asked without the usual shocked look. “That would be me.” She’d gotten the shocked response from all the applicants thus far. They expected a wiry, grizzled hulk of a man like her father. Not a petite young woman who barely topped five feet three inches.

Her father had died less than a year ago in a riding accident, leaving her as the sole surviving heir to the ranch. She couldn’t change her sex or size. What you saw was what you got. “Do you have a problem answering to a female boss?”

“Not at all.” He grinned. “I just didn’t expect M. Grainger to be so…pretty.” He stuck out his hand. “Reed Bryson.” He glanced at his dirty hand. “Never mind.”

When he started to drop his hand, she grabbed it and shook it with as firm a grip as she could muster. She may be small, but she didn’t want him to think she wasn’t tough. “A little dirt never hurt me.”

Now that she had time to really study him, she wasn’t as pleased as she’d been at first to hire him. Although not exactly what she’d hoped for, Mr. Bryson had proven he could ride and shoot, and he hadn’t balked at helping a cow with a stillborn calf. The roping part could be taught. It was the rest of the package that bothered her.

Mona’s gaze ran the long length of the cowboy who stood at least six feet two in his faded denim jeans and blue chambray shirt. A twinge of apprehension gnawed at her now-empty gut. She didn’t like men who were too good to look at. She’d fallen into that trap before and she sure as hell wasn’t going there again. Some mistakes were harder to live with than others.

Reed dropped her hand and squatted next to the boar. “Should be good eating. Want me to fieldstrip him?”

The stench of the hog wrapped around her olfactory nerves and her stomach rebelled. For the second time in the past ten minutes, she ran a couple steps and then hurled the last of the contents of her belly.

“On second thought, why don’t we get you back to the house. I can come back here later and take care of him and check on the cow.”

Fernando raced around the corner, brought his horse to a skidding halt and dropped to the ground. “Miss Mona, are you all right?” He hurried across the floor of the canyon and wrapped an arm around the woman as if she would break.

With a grimace, she pushed him away. “I’m all right. Nothing’s broken.”

He snatched her hat from the ground and pounded it against his leg before he handed it to her. A deep frown marred his dark forehead. “You should have waited for me to come help you with the cow. It’s not something a—”

“I’m fine.” She shot a glance at Reed. Fernando worried too much about her and her condition. Let the new hand get adjusted to working for a woman before he learned more about her.

Her foreman followed her glance and nodded. “This kind of work takes more than one to accomplish. Especially when you’re in the canyons. Wild boars aren’t the only animals you have to worry about.”

She knew all too well the risks. But she refused to lose any more livestock to man or beast. Mona turned to the new hand. “When can you start?”

“It seems I’ve already started.” He glanced down at his dirty jeans and the cow, just lumbering to her feet. “Is today all right with you?”

“Perfect. How are you for working nights?”

“I spent twelve years on the force in Chicago and the past few months as a deputy for Briscoe County. I know how to pull night duty, but tell me—” Reed frowned “—what kind of cattle ranching are you doing at night?”

Her rosy lips twisted. “Call it ranch security.” She turned to Fernando. “I don’t suppose Sassy stopped at the edge of the canyon, did she?”

“No. She’s probably back at the barn by now.” He removed his toe from the left stirrup. “You take the saddle. I’ll ride behind.”

With her bottom bruised from the fall, Mona didn’t argue. She stretched high to reach the saddle horn. Before she knew it, hands grasped her waist and lifted her into the saddle. Hands bigger and stronger than Fernando’s.

Heat filled her cheeks as she fitted her boots into the stirrups. She hadn’t had someone lift her so effortlessly into a saddle since she was a little girl. And damned if she didn’t like it a little too much. A frown settled between her brows. “I can manage on my own.”

“Yes, ma’am. I reckon you can, but my mamma taught me to help a lady. It’s kind of a habit.” As he stared up at her, a smile tipped the corners of his lips.

Her insides warmed, the heat spreading up her neck. Then a gray haze filtered her vision, blackness creeping around the edges. Oh no. Not again.

The blackness claimed her.

“ARE YOU SURE you’re up to this tonight?” Reed sat behind the wheel of the ranch pickup truck, bumping along the dirt road that ran parallel to the inside of the fence.

“Look, I didn’t hire you to give me advice. I needed a ranch hand, period.” He was learning fast, Mona Grainger didn’t mince words.

“Normally I wouldn’t worry about another human being except you happened to get knocked on your butt by an angry hog today and then you passed out. And you haven’t even had a doctor check you out for concussion.” He’d carried her all the way back to the ranch house on his horse before she’d woken up. Despite their brief acquaintance, he’d been scared half to death for her. With her limp body leaning against his the entire way, he’d had too much time to think up reasons for her to pass out and none of them were good.

“I was hungry and tired. That’s all. Besides, we’re not riding horses. What we need to do tonight can be accomplished in a truck. I didn’t ask to drive, so drop the worried-employee act. If I pass out, you won’t be required to carry me anywhere.”

“I didn’t mind carrying you.” Hell, his hands still tingled from lifting her into the saddle and holding her snuggly against his chest. Her hips were narrow, she had a cute bit of a belly, but she didn’t weigh much more than a bale of hay. How could someone so small be so tough…and so sexy? Her long black hair had hung to her waist in wavy disarray. He could tell by the crease at her nape that she must have had it secured earlier in a ponytail. Though he liked it loose.

The long strands had brushed against his face when he’d lifted her into the saddle. Silky smooth and smelling of prairie grass. A man could lose himself in her scent. Reed shifted in his seat, disturbed by the direction of his thoughts.

Focusing on his surroundings, he committed to memory the few landmarks he could see in the fading light. Once away from the ranch house and its lone stand of trees planted as a windbreak, the terrain looked pretty much the same. Gently rolling plains stretched for miles with not another tree in sight. With the window down to let in the cool night air, the smell of dry grass and sagebrush filled the interior of the truck. The scent brought back recollections of growing up on his father’s ranch just a county over from Briscoe.

He had to admit they weren’t all bad memories. He’d had free run of thousands of acres, and a horse he could escape on whenever he got the chance. For that reason he missed his father’s ranch. Too bad his father didn’t own it anymore.

Mona’s hand reached out and touched his sleeve. “Slow down.” She pointed to a slight rise in the prairie. “Park the truck behind that hill and turn off the lights.”

He pressed the brake, slowing the truck to a halt at the same time as he flicked the lights off. For several moments, they sat in the dark, until their eyes adjusted.

When Mona opened the door, Reed’s hand shot out. “I know you told me ranch security, but what exactly do you mean by that?”

She stared at his hand until he released her arm. “We’ve had several instances of cattle rustling in the past month. With over six thousand acres of land to manage, I can’t do it all on my own. There are too many places to be at once.” She grabbed her rifle from the gun rack behind her head and slid off the truck seat, dropping to the ground.

Reed reached for his rifle and followed suit. “Why don’t you go to the sheriff?” Not that he’d trust the sheriff to handle anything more than a speeding ticket.

“No.” No explanation, no reasons.

Mona Grainger moved up a notch in Reed’s esteem. He didn’t care for Sheriff Parker Lee. “Okay, if not the sheriff, why not the DPS?”

An unladylike snort escaped her. “Public Safety referred me to local law enforcement.” As she neared the top of the small rise, she knelt in the grass and dropped to her hands and knees, inching toward the ridgeline.

Following her lead, Reed did the same until he’d crawled up beside her in the grass. A moonless night had settled in, with a million stars lighting the heavens. On the other side of the hill, a dark ribbon of road stretched for miles, disappearing in the blackness.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Reed made out tiny red dots in the distance just as they disappeared over the horizon. Possibly the blink of brake lights on a tractor-trailer rig.

“Did you see that?” Mona asked.

“Yeah.”

“Hundred bucks says that’s a truck full of Rancho Linda cattle.” She stood and fired a shot at the retreating vehicle, not that her rifle had that kind of distance.

An answering shot echoed through the darkness.

Reed grabbed Mona and pulled her to the ground.

“Some of them are still down there. I’d like to keep my job for longer than a day, if you don’t mind.”

The sound of a small engine revving carried across the hill.

“Come on!” Mona leaped to her feet and scrambled back down the slope to the truck.

Right behind her, Reed climbed into the truck and switched it to four-wheel drive. They topped the hill doing thirty and plunged downward to the field below.

Taillights glowed red on the road over a mile away. The rustlers had a head start on them. If they had any kind of horsepower in their vehicle, they’d be gone before Reed and Mona made the highway.

“Damn.” Mona held on to the handle above the door as the truck bounced over uneven terrain, small bushes and rocks on its descent to the bottom of the hill.

Meanwhile, the taillights disappeared into the night.

Reed eased across the cut barbed-wire fence, careful not to get wire wrapped around the axles. When he pulled up onto the pavement, he turned to Mona. “Want me to follow?”

“Hell, yeah.” Mona slammed her palm against the armrest. “They can’t get away with this. Those are my cattle.”

With the lead the rustlers had, Reed didn’t think they had a chance, but he gunned the truck and flew down the road, gaining speed until the pickup traveled at over one hundred miles per hour. For the next thirty minutes, they raced over deserted highways and back roads, but the truck and tractor-trailer rig had disappeared.

When he came to a crossroad where the county road T-junctioned onto a state highway, Reed pulled to a stop and turned to his new boss. “Which way?”

Instead of looking at the highway stretching to the left or right, she stared straight ahead across an open field in front of them. The lights from the dash glinted off the moisture in her eyes. Once again, her hair had escaped the confines of the elastic band she’d worn earlier and laid across her shoulders in shiny waves of ebony.

Tempted to reach out and touch the strands, Reed gripped the steering wheel tighter. He wanted to comfort her, give her reason to hang on. Something told him she wouldn’t appreciate any sympathy from him or any other man.

She sat there, her jaw firmed, her lips thinning into a straight line. “In case you haven’t gotten the hint, this is the reason why I hired you. Tomorrow we come up with a plan to stop these thieves. Do you still want the job?”

More than ever. The challenge excited him, almost as much as his new boss. “Yes.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She opened the door, climbed down from the truck and threw up in the ditch.