Covert Cowboy

Maybe some of what he’d heard was true, but he’d already seen enough of the woman to put the lie to at least two of the labels that had been pinned on her. She cared about the child—cared enough that she was being torn apart by Sky’s abduction, judging from what he’d witnessed moments ago. And if she was an ice queen, it was only because the right man hadn’t come along to melt her yet.

You gon’ be the one who does that, Cap?

The jeering voice inside his head held the same skepticism he’d heard from the late-night denizens of the Canal Street clubs he’d trolled when he’d been young enough that even hardened gamblers had felt a momentary pang of conscience before dealing a tough Creole urchin in on a game of five-card stud. He’d taken them and their consciences to the cleaners, Con recalled without regret. But back then all he’d been risking was money.

The stakes were higher here. And the odds were more overwhelmingly against him than they’d ever been in his life.

F’sure. One of these days I’m gonna come back here and give it my best shot, he answered the jeering voice with a determination that disconcerted even himself. But whether she knows it or not, tonight the lady just needs someone to be with her. And maybe if that someone gets her good and angry it’ll ease her pain for a few hours. Before I leave I can do that for her, at least.

“Let’s get back to the matter you say brings you here, Detective.”

Her voice was like everything else about her, he noted—crisp and unemotional on the surface, but shadowed with a hint of vulnerability that the casual observer wouldn’t catch. He wasn’t a casual observer, Con thought. Not when it came to Marilyn Langworthy. With no enthusiasm he took advantage of that vulnerability.

“Tony Corso,” he agreed. “Word is he was your—how did I hear it?—your good right-hand man, cher’,” he drawled insinuatingly. “That true?”

If she’d stiffened before, now her posture was rigid. Two warning flags of color flew high on her cheekbones, and when she answered him, five generations of Beacon Hill aristocracy on her mother’s side came through in every clipped word.

“I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re just referring to his position at Mills & Grommett, Detective—” She made a show of frowning in forgetfulness. “I’m sorry. Your name again?”

“Ducharme.” He deliberately took a step onto thinner ice. “But call me Con, sugar. The other’s a mouthful.”

Even if he hadn’t been trying to goad her he wouldn’t have been able to resist letting his gaze linger on the mouth in question, he admitted. Those lips weren’t Beacon Hill at all. They didn’t go with the prim white blouse and the straight skirt she wore, and they didn’t go with the smoothly brushed hairstyle. Those lush lips went with black fishnet stockings, half-undone bustiers, bed-messy tangles of hair obscuring a gleam of blue eye. They were lightly and invisibly glossed—another Beacon Hill legacy, Con guessed. He wondered what that mouth would look like slightly smudged from his kisses.

You’re wondering way too much here, Cap, for a man who doesn’t intend to do anything about it, the voice inside his head warned. Maybe you better back off a little and—

“What is it about me, Detective?” The lips he’d been fantasizing about thinned. “Why do I seem to present a challenge to men of a certain kind, like you and Tony Corso?”

He blinked, feeling obscurely outraged. “Me and Corso, cher’, we’re not two of a kind. I’ll let you take a look at his file sometime and you’ll see just what—”

“His references were solid and when he left he certainly didn’t abscond with the company’s payroll. Whatever you’re trying to charge him with, you’ve obviously made a mistake,” she interrupted him. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I wasn’t Tony’s type, I know now. But just the fact that I wasn’t particularly interested in him when we met made him determined to get some response from me, whatever it took. Even so, his approach was nowhere near as fast and crude as yours, Detective,” she added coldly.

She tipped her head to one side. “The innuendoes, the barely veiled insults. Tell me, do you ever get results with them?”

He’d given in to a reckless impulse by coming here in the first place, Con told himself tightly. He’d compounded that recklessness when he’d revealed himself to her. About the only admirable urge he’d acted upon was his hasty decision to take her mind off her nephew’s disappearance by rousing her ire, and that mission, it was all too obvious, had been accomplished.

He’d always known enough to fold his cards and get up from the table when logic and reason told him his run of luck was about to expire. Right now logic and reason were telling him it was time to walk away from Marilyn Langworthy.

Fast and crude? he thought, a tiny spark flaring inside him. Hell, I could have left you thinking anything else of me, sugar, but not that.

“You bet I do,” he said easily. “And if you were honest, you’d admit that sometimes you wish you could slip out of that ice-water manner of yours and into a little Big Easy fast and crude yourself. If you ever feel a lapse in good taste coming on, look me up, cher’.”

“And you’ll what?” Her tone was edged. “Be my—how did you put it?—my right-hand man? I don’t see my taste lapsing that badly.”

Her gaze lasered him. “But I guess I can understand how you work it, Detective. Some women probably just see a big man with dark eyes and black hair when they look at you. Some women might go for that drawl and the riverboat gambler air you put on.”

“I was born in St. Tammany Parish, honey. We all talk like this where I come from,” Con interjected. “And I put myself through college relieving high rollers of their cash on the riverboats, so that’s legit, too. I’m not the one pretending to be something I’m not.”

He smiled into her furious eyes. “Those shoes. Killer heels, sugar, and barely-there straps. They’re your secret sexy vice, aren’t they? They’re the real Marilyn. And deep down I think the real Marilyn could go for a big man with black hair and gambler’s hands if she wasn’t so damn scared of letting loose.”

Shrugging, he turned away. “Too bad for both of us that you’re such a coward, cher’. If Corso contacts you, try to set aside your fears long enough to let me know, will you?”

He felt suddenly angry with himself. If anyone had been a coward here it had been him, Con thought as he strode toward the door. He hadn’t meant to walk into her life this way, had always known there were reasons why Marilyn Langworthy’s path and his should never cross at all. And still he hadn’t been able to resist this encounter. That was bad enough.

But lying about who he was had been worse.

Didn’t have the guts to watch your dreams die right in front of your eyes, did you? the jeering voice said. Letting her think you’re a cochon is preferable to what you know she’d feel if she ever found out who you really are.

“Is it so obvious?”

Her question was so low he almost didn’t hear it. He turned and saw she was still standing by the couch, but that was all that was unchanged from a moment ago.

The self-possession she’d exhibited during their barbed exchange was no longer in evidence. Her cool demeanor had fled. And something had replaced the anger in her gaze with total and absolute devastation.

“I keep telling myself it wasn’t my fault, Con.” She didn’t seem to realize she’d used his name. “But it was.”

“What are you talking about?”

Frowning, he crossed the distance between them and stood before her. There was something wrong here, he thought—something badly wrong. Lightly he grasped her shoulders.

“What’s your fault?”

“I should have been there the day he was kidnapped.” Her whisper was raw, her words more directed to herself than to him. “If I had been, maybe I could have prevented it. But I turned around and came home again, because I was too afraid.”

Under his palms her shoulders trembled. She turned haunted eyes to him. “It’s like you said—I’m a coward. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Sky since the time I visited him and Holly. I hadn’t expected to feel that way about a baby, but I took one look at him and I just fell in love,” she added softly. “So I decided I’d set aside my pride and call on Holly that day, put things right between us after all these years. Except I lost my nerve. That must have been just about the time they—just about the time—”

The blue of her eyes sheened over. “I might have saved Sky, Con, and it’s tearing me apart that I didn’t!”

“Don’t say that, cher’,” he began, but with a quick shake of her head she overrode him.

“It’s true. By choosing to keep myself sealed off I put a little boy in terrible danger. And God help me, if you were anyone but a complete stranger, I wouldn’t even have the courage to admit that much.”

Guilt lanced through him. It was way past time to tell her, he thought. If he left it any longer the consequences could be disastrous.

Even as he opened his mouth to speak she forestalled him.

“And maybe I wouldn’t have the courage to go through with this, either,” she said hoarsely.

Her fingers fumbled with the top button of her blouse. She slipped it free and immediately began working on the second one, her movements clumsy with urgency.

“Holly has family and friends to support her.” Her head was bent to her task as if it required her full attention. Without looking at him she continued speaking, her voice little more than a thread. “My father has his wife. Josh may not have found the woman he wants to share his life with yet but he always has someone—someone to hold, someone who can help him keep the nightmares at bay. But I’m the Ice Queen, Con. And ice queens don’t have anybody.”

He had to stop this, Con thought. Whatever she thought she was doing, it was a sure bet she’d hate herself for it before twenty-four hours had passed. His hands moved from her shoulders to grasp her wrists. The edges of her blouse gaped open to reveal a swell of creamy skin, a delicately erotic edging of lace.

Immediate desire burned through him. He swallowed, and forced his gaze to hers.

“I had no right to say what I did, cher’,” he said huskily. “I had no real right to come here at all. I should go now.”

“No!” The single word exploded from her with the desperation of a plea. The blue eyes meeting his were dark with unimaginable pain. “Don’t you get it, Detective? I need to make the nightmares go away for a few hours. Sky’s disappeared. I might have saved him. For nineteen days that knowledge has been tearing me apart, and I just want to blot it out for tonight.”

She undid the last button. His hands slipped away from her wrists, and when she shrugged out of her blouse and let it fall to the floor he made no move to stop her. Cupped by the lacy bra, her breasts rose and fell quickly.

“Take the pain away, Con.” Her whisper was raw. “Please take it away, just for tonight.”

She needed a stranger. She needed someone who would walk away without a second thought after this was over. She needed someone who wouldn’t recall her name a month from now.

And he wasn’t that someone, Con thought. He was just the man who’d loved her for as long as he could remember. If he did what she was asking, after tonight she wouldn’t only have his heart but she’d own his very soul, and any faint hope he might have had for a future with her would have to be forgotten forever.

Take the pain away, Con. Please take it away…

His arms gathered her tightly to him and his mouth came down on hers.

Chapter Two

With a frown Conrad Burke looked around the massive and rustic great room of the Royal Flush Ranch. It had been three months and two weeks since his encounter with Marilyn Langworthy, he reflected, although encounter came nowhere close to describing the conflagration that had consumed the two of them that night in her office. Three months and two weeks of burying himself in his work, of drinking too much, of falling asleep, drunk or sober, with the memory of her haunting his dreams.

He’d promised himself he wouldn’t return to Colorado, but when his old friend Wiley Longbottom had come to him yesterday with a request to meet with a certain Colleen Wellesley here at her ranch, located a couple of hours outside Denver, even the fact that Wiley had refused to reveal what the meeting was about and who Wellesley was hadn’t given him pause. He’d caught a red-eye flight out of Louis Armstrong Airport, touched down in Denver, and the first damn thing he’d done after renting a vehicle had been to head for the city’s lively and upscale LoDo district. He’d parked near the corner of Blake Street and 33rd, within sight of the converted-to-lofts warehouse where he knew Marilyn lived, and had sat behind the wheel of his car all afternoon hoping to catch a glimpse of her. Only when the early November dusk had begun to fall had he left the city, taking I-285 until it hooked up with Highway 9 near Fairplay, just north of the Royal Flush.

Although apparently the house itself had been a bordello in the wild old days, to his mild surprise he’d realized when he’d arrived that the Flush was definitely a working ranch. He was willing to accept that as an excuse for the Wellesley woman’s absence so far, Con told himself, walking over to the antique portrait hanging above the gilded mirror running the length of the heavily varnished and well-stocked pine bar.

He gazed without interest at the rest of the decor, an obvious holdover from those same wild days when this room’s red velvet furnishings and saloon fittings had probably been the last word in decadent luxury for woman-hungry cowboys. Ranch duties or not, if Wiley hadn’t been there, he would have driven back to the airport, Con thought with growing impatience. And this time he wouldn’t have indulged in a foolish and futile side-trip to Marilyn Langworthy’s neighborhood.

It had ended as he’d known it would. After the third time they’d made love she’d fallen asleep in his arms on the sofa, the cashmere throw they’d been lying on pulled lightly over her hips, her head tucked into the hollow of his neck. He hadn’t slept himself, but had spent the few hours before dawn just drinking in the sight of her and breathing in her scent.

During those hours he’d hoped against hope he was wrong. As soon as she’d opened her eyes, hope had died.

Of course she regretted it. What she did with you went against everything she ever thought she was. The only way she could live with herself when she realized she’d made love with a stranger—made love with a stranger and liked it, for God’s sake—would have been to wall herself up again behind the ice that’s protected her all her life. Even before she told you to get out you knew that. Even before she started crying you knew.

So it had ended with her hating herself and hating him, he thought. And if he had it all to do over again, for the life of him he didn’t see how he could have acted differently.

She’d needed someone to love her for a few hours. What she would never realize was that with him she hadn’t had to ask.

“Ray called through to the horse barn and didn’t get an answer.” Balancing a thick china plate heaped high with a Dagwood-size sandwich and a huge dill pickle, Wiley Longbottom walked into the room. He made a beeline for the bar and set his precarious burden onto its scarred surface. “Melody insisted on fixing me a little snack, as she calls it. Not that I need it,” he said, giving his stomach a rueful pat.

“The Castillos are the ranch’s housekeeper and caretaker,” he went on. His next words were spoken around a mouthful of roast beef. “Ray said he’d try the foreman’s quarters, find out if Dex knows where the devil Colleen’s disappeared to.”

“So while we’re waiting for her to grace us with her presence why don’t you fill me in on a couple of details?” Con suggested, shooting his old friend a sharp look. “Like what the hell am I doing here in the first place? You know I don’t like the cold, Wiley, so you must have had one hell of a good reason for dragging me away from New Awlins and into the snow belt at this time of year. You’ve got mustard on your tie,” he added in irritation.

“That might be from lunch. I never was the dandy you are, with your boutonnieres and those extravagant vests.” The older man nodded with a grin at the yellow flower in Con’s lapel. Under bushy brows his gaze remained hooded. “As for my reasons for dragging you away, yeah, I’d say they’re justified, but I think it’s best if Colleen’s in on this discussion.”

“Aren’t you playing your cards a little closer than you need to?” Con kept his voice even with an effort. “Dammit, Wiley, this is me. We go back a long way, to before you were appointed director of public safety and when I was just starting out in the Marshall Service. At least give me some background on the mysterious Colleen Wellesley I’m about to meet.”

“I haven’t given her much on you,” the older man informed him with a sidelong glance. “All she knows is that in the past when I’ve run into a particularly thorny problem I’ve consulted with my ‘conscience’ to come up with a solution. She’s not aware said conscience is a reformed cardsharp who cooks up the best crawfish étouffée in the French Quarter, bar none.”

Con grinned reluctantly. “I appreciate the cover even if it isn’t one I’d have chosen myself. And even though you’ve obviously decided it’s time to blow it,” he added, more soberly. “She can be trusted, Wiley?”

“With your real identity, and a whole lot more.” His friend nodded and took another bite of his sandwich. “Wellesley started out as a cop on the Denver force and made detective in record time. She was a damn good one, too, until a bribery scandal derailed her career ten years ago.”

“Nice knowin’ you, Longbottom.” Con pulled the gold watch that had been a legacy from his great-uncle Eustache out of his pocket. “If I break the speed limit all the way back to Denver I should be able to catch a flight home tonight.” His lips tightened. “You know how I feel about dirty cops, Wiley.”

“The same way Colleen feels about them,” the other man replied testily. “She was the whistle-blower, Burke. Except she wasn’t believed, since the son of a bitch she blew the whistle on was a superior officer and the rot went a lot higher than even she’d suspected. She handed in her badge when she realized the corruption was just going to be covered up.”

Slowly Con slipped the watch back into his waistcoat pocket. “That took guts, f’sure,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “So she bought this place and took up ranching?”

“The Royal Flush was left to her when her father died,” Wiley corrected him. “She’s got a brother, Michael, but he’s just come back from time in the special forces and hasn’t been involved with the ranch. Colleen herself delegates most of the day-to-day responsibilities to Dexter Jones, her foreman. Until recently she’s concentrated her energies on running an operation in Denver called ICU, which is short for Investigations, Confidential & Undercover.”

“You taught me a long time ago always to listen for what the other fellow was leaving out,” Con observed. “If she’s been operating a private investigation firm until recently, that means she’s currently doing something else, am I right?”

“She works for us now,” Wiley said flatly. He popped the last bite of dill pickle into his mouth. “The Royal Flush is the headquarters of Colorado Confidential, and Colleen heads the operation. ICU is still operating, but it’s also a front for Confidential activity.”

Con gave a low whistle. “F’true, Cap? So those cryptic e-mails you’ve been sending me asking my advice in a case one of the Confidential organizations was working on—they’ve been about Wellesley’s outfit? I knew about the setups in Chicago and Texas, but this is the first I’ve heard that Confidential had moved into Colorado.”

“Don’t forget Montana,” the other man reminded him. “Yeah, it’s for true, Captain.” He grinned as he played back Con’s slang to him. “You know, Burke, you’re living proof that you can take the boy out of New Orleans but you can’t take the New Orleans out of the boy.”

“And you’ll only get this boy outta dat sweet Crescent City under protest,” Con told him with an answering smile. “All kidding aside, Wiley, what’s any of this got to do with—”

He stopped as if he’d been shot. Then he shook his head decisively. “It ain’t in the cards, old pal. Check with the Marshalls and see what my boss writes in his reports about me. ‘Does not play well with others,’ that’s what. No way am I interested in joining Wellesley’s merry band of undercover cowpokes, not even if our tardy hostess gets down on her knees and begs me to—”

“I’m tardy because I’ve been in the birthing shed with Dex, saving the lives of a mare and a foal who decided to come out feetfirst.”

The crisp explanation came from the slim, fortyish brunette entering the room. Walking past them to the business side of the bar, she pulled a bottle of scotch from the array in front of the antique mirror and produced a cut-glass tumbler from under the counter. Pouring a hefty shot of the amber liquor, she set the bottle down and favored Con with a piercing look.

“As for the getting on my knees and begging part, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. The members of my merry band—” her gaze frosted over even further as she quoted him “—are all solid team players. By your own admission it’s obvious you wouldn’t fit in. Can I get you men a drink?”

She raised the tumbler to her lips. Con studied her through narrowed eyes as she took a healthy swallow of her scotch.

Beneath the ranch-woman exterior of jeans and chambray shirt, Colleen Wellesley was still all cop. It showed in the spit-and-polish neatness of her attire, the no-nonsense short cut of her hair—her damp hair, he noted, realizing that she’d taken time to clean up before she’d joined them.

But a change of clothes and a few minutes under a hot shower hadn’t been enough to obliterate all evidence of what she was trying to conceal, he thought. Her lips were still slightly swollen. Although her gaze had been sharp when she’d directed it at him, as she set her glass down on the bar he caught an unguarded flash of warmth in her eyes.

Colleen Wellesley probably had been helping her foreman deliver a foal, Con decided. But their maternity ward duties had been completed a little earlier than she was admitting.

“Bourbon, if you’ve got it.” From his waistcoat pocket he extracted a silver dollar, its surface smooth from long handling. Idly he passed it under his index finger and over his middle one, then let it slip under his ring finger. The worn silver gleamed and disappeared as he lazily passed it back and forth in his hand. “He must be quite a man, cher’.”

Her head jerked up and a drop or two of the bourbon she was pouring splashed onto the bar. “I’m sorry?”

Con ignored the warning in her tone. “Your foreman,” he elaborated. He picked up his bourbon and looked blandly at her over the rim of his glass. “He must be good at what he does to have saved your mare’s life and delivered her foal safely. Breech births can be tricky, or so I hear.”

Dark eyes held his a moment longer. “Very tricky,” Colleen said finally. “And I don’t like tricky, Mr. Burke. I presume you’re Wiley’s fabled ‘conscience’?”

“Conrad Burke, Colleen Wellesley.” Wiley had been watching them during their exchange. “Why don’t the two of you start all over again, and this time let’s keep it civil. There’s a child’s life at stake here, people.”

“I hadn’t forgotten that, Longbottom,” Colleen snapped, but before she could continue Con broke in.

“A child’s life?” he demanded sharply. “Like when you’ve asked my advice about cases in the past, Wiley, your e-mails on this one just dealt with details. You never gave me the whole picture. What child?”

“Schyler Langworthy.” Wellesley barely glanced at him. “He’s the six-month-old son of Holly Langworthy, and in this state the name Langworthy carries a lot of weight. By election day I guess we’ll see just how much weight, since Holly’s brother’s running for governor against the incumbent, Todd Houghton.” She exhaled tightly. “Sky was kidnapped almost four months ago. Colorado Confidential took on the case a few weeks later, when the police and the feds ran out of leads.”