Rustling Up Trouble

Before Blue could get out of bed and do something to convince her that he wasn’t the bad guy here, the door flew open. Blue reached for his gun again. Cursed when it wasn’t where it belonged.

However, Rayanne pulled her Colt from her shoulder holster.

False alarm. It was Dr. Howland, but he wasn’t alone.

The sandy-haired, linebacker-sized guy who came through the door spared her and then her gun a glance as he flashed his badge and made a beeline for Blue. Thankfully, this man wasn’t a blurry memory.

It was Blue’s boss, Agent Caleb Wiggs, from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—ATF.

At least, Caleb had been his boss five months ago. With everything else going on, Blue figured he could be wrong about that, too.

Rayanne seemed to know him, as well, and judging from her scowl, Caleb wasn’t on her list of friends, either. She reholstered the Colt as if she’d declared war on it, but she watched him with those cop’s eyes.

“You all right, Blue?” Caleb asked. He set a bag on the foot of the bed.

No way could Blue answer yes to that question. It might garner him a lightning bolt for such a big lie. “What’s going on?”

Caleb didn’t answer, but he looked at Rayanne and the doctor. “I need to talk to Agent McCurdy in private.”

“Agent McCurdy?” Rayanne questioned. She huffed. “Don’t you mean former agent?”

That got Blue’s complete attention. Great day in the morning. Along with his mind and gun, had he managed to lose his badge, too?

“I mean agent.” And Caleb didn’t sound any friendlier than Rayanne. “Blue still works for me.”

“Wait a minute,” Blue said, trying to figure this out. It didn’t help that his shoulder started clamoring for more pain meds. “What’s the date?”

“October 6,” the doctor provided. “And I hope everyone remembers that I just dug a bullet out of my patient here. He needs some peace and quiet so he can recover.”

“And he’ll get it,” Caleb insisted. “I’ve already made arrangements to have him moved.” He tipped his head to the bag. “Figured you could use a change of clothes for the drive to another hospital. One where I can make sure you have some security.”

“He’s not going anywhere, not until I get some answers first,” Rayanne insisted right back.

That started a staring match between his boss and the deputy he’d apparently crossed lines with. Big ones.

All four of them volleyed glances at each other. “I’ll give you a few more minutes,” the doctor finally said. “After that my patient will get some rest.”

Dr. Howland shot Caleb and Rayanne a warning glance that only an experienced doctor in charge could have managed, and he walked out.

Even with the doc’s latest exit, Caleb didn’t answer right away, and when he finally did open his mouth, he looked at Rayanne, not Blue.

“I can’t wrap all of this up in a neat little package for you,” Caleb started. “I honestly don’t know why Blue disappeared.”

“You said it was because he had ties to criminals,” Rayanne reminded him.

Oh, man. And Blue just kept mentally repeating that.

“He did have criminal ties.” Caleb’s gaze finally came to Blue’s. “If you’ve got an explanation about that, I’d like to hear it, because you didn’t just disappear five months ago. You walked away from your job at the Justice Department, and the only reason you’re still on payroll is because I’ve covered your butt and put you on a leave of absence.”

Hell. This just kept getting worse. Not the leave-of-absence part but the reason Caleb had been forced to do something like that for him.

Criminal ties?

No way. He didn’t need his memory to know that.

“The doc must have given me some meds that messed with my head.” A head that Blue now shook. “Because the last thing I remember was finishing up a case with Rayanne. After that, it’s just bits and pieces that don’t make sense. Why did I leave? And why did I come to the McKinnon ranch today with gunmen after me?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Rayanne mumbled, but then she waved off any answer he might give. “My brother Seth got IDs on the two dead guys. The bodies are being examined now, and there’s a CSI team searching the woods for evidence.”

Seth, an FBI agent. Blue had never met him, but he’d heard Rayanne mention him.

“The dead men’s names are Leland Chadwell and Brian Kipp,” Rayanne continued, and she watched his face. Maybe to see if there was any sign of recognition.

There wasn’t.

Blue had to shake his head again. “Who are they?”

“They’re hired thugs,” Caleb provided, “and, among other criminal sorts, they often work for Rex Gandy.”

Now, that was a name that rang bells the size of Texas.

Could this mess possibly get any crazier?

Gandy wasn’t just a thug—he was a rich one and had all kinds of nasty ties to gunrunners, money launderers and drug traffickers. As an ATF agent, Blue had dealt with Gandy on several occasions but always when he’d been undercover, and Blue had never been able to find evidence to arrest the piece of dirt.

“Gandy hired these men to come after me,” Blue said like gospel. “Why?”

Caleb gave him an odd look, as if the question had come out of left field. “You don’t know?”

Since it seemed the answer was clear to both Caleb and Rayanne, Blue went with the obvious answer. “Because Gandy’s riled that I keep investigating him.” But he investigated a lot of people, and that didn’t spur an attack to kill. “Why come after me now?”

Again, he got that look. Obviously, he was missing something here.

“I’ve arranged to have Gandy brought in for an interview,” Caleb added.

That was a good start, but Blue wanted a whole lot more. “You plan to answer my question about why Gandy would want me dead now?”

Caleb shrugged. “I figure it’s connected to whatever the heck you’ve been doing for the past five months, and I don’t have any details about that.” He mumbled something that Blue didn’t catch and scrubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “I need to talk to Dr. Howland and see how long this memory problem of yours is going to last.”

Caleb added some really bad profanity and made a swift exit. Only then did Blue see the cop outside his door. Local, no uniform, but he had a badge clipped to his belt and was wearing a sidearm.

That didn’t do much to ease the already twisted knot in Blue’s gut.

Of course, a cop-bodyguard was only partially responsible for that. The main reason for the knot was the woman standing beside his bed and glaring at him.

“All of this is true?” he came out and asked.

She nodded. Her jaw muscles stirred. And she studied him. “Is this memory thing an act?”

“No.” He couldn’t say it fast enough. “I have no reason to fake memory loss.”

He hoped.

Though he knew it would hurt, Blue lifted his head off the pillow and levered himself up. It wasn’t pretty, and he did a lot of wobbling to get to a sitting position.

“What the heck do you think you’re doing?” Rayanne snarled, and she reached out to take him by the arms.

Probably to force him back down. But being flat on his back wasn’t much of a bargaining position, and if he hoped to get answers from her and not smart-mouthed comebacks, he needed to try to soothe some things with Rayanne.

If that was possible.

She continued to protest, even called him a bad name, but Blue got his feet off the bed. He also reached for the metal pole that held his IV so he could use it for support.

That, however, ended a lot faster than he’d planned.

Everything started to spin, and the dark spots winking in and out prevented him from seeing much. Or keeping his balance. He would have pitched forward if Rayanne hadn’t caught him.

“Don’t make this worse than it already is,” Rayanne snapped.

She put her hand on his back to steady him. Bare skin on bare skin.

The hospital gown hardly qualified as a garment with one side completely off his bandaged shoulder. Judging from the drafts he felt on various parts of his body, Rayanne probably got an eyeful.

Of course, it apparently wasn’t something she hadn’t already seen, since according to her they’d slept together five months ago.

“Will saying I’m sorry help?” he mumbled, and because he had no choice, he ditched the bargaining-position idea and lay back down.

“Nothing will help. As soon as you’re back on your feet, I want you out of Sweetwater Springs and miles and miles away from McKinnon land. Got that?”

Oh, yeah. It was crystal clear.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t know why he’d done the things he had, but he’d screwed up. Maybe soon Blue would remember everything that he might be trying to forget.

Her phone rang, the sound shooting through the room. And his head. Rayanne fished the phone from her pocket, looked at the screen and then moved to the other side of the room to take the call. It occurred to him then that she might be involved with someone.

Five months was a long time.

And this someone might be calling to make sure she was okay.

Blue felt the twinge of jealousy that throbbed right along with the pain in various parts of his body, and he wished he could just wake up from this crazy nightmare that he was having.

“No, he doesn’t remember,” she said to whoever had called. She turned to look back at him, but her coat shifted to the side.

Just enough for Blue to see the stomach bulge beneath her clothes.

Oh, man.

It felt as if someone had sucked the air right out of his lungs. He didn’t need his memory to understand what that meant.

Rayanne was pregnant.

Chapter Three

Rayanne heard the low groan that Blue made, and she whirled around, expecting to see some evidence that the pain had gotten significantly worse.

It wasn’t pain, though, that made him groan.

His mouth was partly open, his attention fastened to her stomach, and she knew the reason for his reaction. He’d clearly noticed that she was pregnant.

Now it was her turn to groan. She hadn’t intended for him to see the bump and had thought it was hidden well enough. Apparently not. It was getting harder and harder to hide it these days.

“Hold on a sec,” she said to her brother Seth, who was waiting on the other end of the line with what no doubt was important info.

Probably not as important as this, though.

“Is that my baby?” Blue came right out and asked.

He’d put one and one together pretty darn fast for a man with supposed memory issues and a concussion.

Rayanne considered lying, only because she didn’t want to deal with the truth right now, but if there was any trace of the real Blue left in his banged-up head, he wouldn’t let go of this.

Plus, she was fed up with this whole lying mess from Blue. It’d be like the pot calling the kettle black if she started telling whoppers, too.

“Yes, the baby’s yours,” she said, holding her hand over the phone so Seth couldn’t hear.

Her brother already knew, of course, but she hadn’t shared the news with a lot of people, only her doctor, mother and siblings. Not the estranged ones, either: Cooper, Colt and Tucker. Nor her father, Roy. Though she was certain that they, too, had noticed her growing belly.

Blue didn’t exactly take the news well. He sucked in a quick breath, nearly choking on it. Rayanne wanted to blast him for his reaction, but the truth was, she’d been stunned, as well, when she’d seen that little plus sign on the home pregnancy test. She’d done her own share of quick breaths and head shakes.

“For the record, this is my baby, and you just happened to be the one who fathered it.” She might have added more of a warning, something along the lines that Blue had zero claim to this child or any other part of her life, but she heard Seth calling out to her from over the phone.

“Can this wait a second?” Rayanne snarled to her brother.

“No,” Seth snarled right back. “I’m sending you a photo of something you need to see. And this isn’t a suggestion—it’s an order. Stay away from McCurdy. His boss is on the way there.”

With that, he hung up before she could tell him that Blue’s boss had already arrived. The quick hang-up also left her to wonder what the heck else had gone wrong now.

“When are you due?” Blue asked.

Rayanne hated to give him any details whatsoever, but it seemed a little petty to withhold something he would figure out, anyway. “In four months.”

Exactly nine months to the day since Blue and she had lost their minds and landed in bed. A big mistake, obviously one he hadn’t been able to handle, because he’d walked out on her—literally. She’d woken up to find him gone. No note on her pillow. No phone calls. No contact of any kind.

Until now, that is.

“Four months,” he repeated, sounding like a man on the verge of losing it.

She ignored him for the time being when there was a little dinging sound from her phone to indicate she had a text. Rayanne looked at it.

And looked again.

Her shoulders tightened even more, and she stared at the liar in the bed.

“What kind of sick game are you playing, huh?” she demanded from Blue.

“No game,” he assured her. “What’s going on? What’s got you so upset now?”

“This has got me upset.” She shoved the phone right in his face, but judging from the way he squinted, his eyes were still too blurry to see the small print.

“Why, Blue?” she practically yelled.

It was loud enough to get the doctor and Caleb running back into the room, but Rayanne didn’t budge even when Caleb tried to push her out of the way.

“He owes me an answer,” Rayanne said through clenched teeth, and she showed the text to Caleb.

“Where’d you find that?” Caleb asked.

She kept her glare on Blue. “It was in his shirt pocket. The one that the medics cut off him when they put him in the ambulance. They gave it to Seth so he could process it for possible evidence.”

“What is it?” Blue demanded.

“It’s a hit order,” Caleb finally said. Rayanne was glad he’d answered the question, because she might have choked on the words.

Blue shook his head. “Who was supposed to die?”

Rayanne’s glare got worse. “Me.”

She let that hang in the air for several long moments. “And the reason you were at the ranch today was because someone hired you to kill me.”

“Not a chance. I wouldn’t have agreed to do a hit on you,” Blue insisted. His intense gaze swung to Caleb. “What do you know about this?”

Caleb lifted his hands, huffed. “Nothing. But then, you’ve been off the radar for five months, remember? I have no idea what you’ve been working on or who you’ve been working with.”

And that said it all.

Maybe this was some kind of unauthorized undercover work, but it didn’t matter. Whatever Blue had gotten involved in, he’d brought the danger to her and the baby. Her family, too, since her sister, brothers and father were all living on the grounds of the ranch.

The doctor checked the clock on the wall. “Those couple of minutes have long been up. Mr. McCurdy just had a bullet dug out of him and lost too much blood. He needs rest.”

“I don’t want to rest.” Blue sat up again. Tried to stand again, too, but this time it was Caleb who stopped him. “I want to find out what’s going on.”

“I’ll do that.” Caleb’s voice didn’t exactly soften, but he helped Blue back onto the bed.

Not lying down.

Blue would have no part of that. Instead he sat on the edge of the mattress. “You really think I’d try to kill you?” Blue asked her.

Rayanne could feel the veins start to pulse in her head. “I don’t know what to think when it comes to you.”

It was impossible to keep the emotion out of that little outburst. The anger. The worry. And yes, the embarrassment. She wasn’t the sort of woman who dropped into bed with a man. Any man. But especially a work partner.

Yet she had.

Once and only once had she broken that rule and slept with Blue.

And look where that’d gotten her.

Nearly killed, pregnant and she had a coat smeared with her ex-lover’s blood. An ex who couldn’t remember diddly-squat, including the little fact that he could have fathered her child.

However, Blue apparently did remember how to be pissed off, because his nostrils flared. “I wouldn’t have killed you,” he repeated.

His voice was no longer weak. Those words had a bite to them. Maybe because she’d insulted him with the accusation.

Tough.

Because it could be more than an accusation. It could be the truth.

“Then why’d you have the hit order?” she pressed.

“Those minutes are over,” Dr. Howland growled.

They all ignored him, but Blue shook his head, looked at the doctor. “How long before my brain gets straight?”

“Probably a lot longer if you don’t get the rest you need.” He huffed. “Look, I don’t know if the memory loss is from the concussion, the bleeding or the emotional trauma of being in the middle of a gunfight. The only thing I know is that most people make a complete recovery. But they do that by resting and recuperating, not by getting in a shouting match with visitors who shouldn’t even be here.”

“It wouldn’t be from emotional trauma,” Caleb volunteered, once again ignoring the doctor. “Blue’s been in the middle of plenty of gunfights.” He, too, checked the time. “I’ll make some calls and speed up the arrangements to get you out of here.”

“Is moving him a good idea?” Rayanne asked, bringing their attention back to her. It probably sounded as if she was concerned about his health.

Okay, she was.

But not in a “welcome home, lover” kind of way. She didn’t want a move to delay the return of those memories, because she had to know what the devil was going on.

Dr. Howland opened his mouth to speak, but Caleb beat him to the punch. “I’m moving him. Blue’s a federal agent, and he needs to be debriefed.”

That got her attention fast. “Debriefed about what?” Because that was one of those fancy fed words that usually meant an agent was involved in something classified or deep undercover.

Caleb shot her a glare that could have withered spring grass. “This isn’t your concern, Rayanne.”

“To heck it’s not.” She lifted her phone screen in case he’d forgotten what was on there. “Someone hired him to kill me.”

“And we’ll get to the bottom of this. Not you. We,” Caleb repeated, tapping the shiny gold ATF badge on his belt. “I’ll be back to move him,” he added to no one in particular, and he left the room again.

“Your turn to leave,” the doctor insisted, looking directly at her.

Rayanne started to do just that. After all, she could do her own investigating from the Sweetwater Springs sheriff’s office. She wasn’t a deputy there. Her job was one county over, where she was on a leave of absence. But since her brother Cooper was the sheriff and since the shooting had happened on the ranch, she figured Cooper would be more than willing to give her some space to work.

Because something beyond the obvious wasn’t right here.

“I need to speak to Rayanne alone,” Blue said.

She combed through every bit of his expression but couldn’t tell if he was remembering something or if this was yet some other ploy. It didn’t matter. If he had anything to tell her, she wanted to hear it. Because if he did indeed confess to being a hit man, she was going to arrest his butt. And she didn’t care if this was a federal case or not.

Of course, if he confessed to something like that, jurisdiction was the least of her worries.

The doctor released a long, slow breath. “At least stay in bed when you talk,” he demanded.

Dr. Howland added a warning glance to both of them and then went into the hall. Caleb was out there, his phone pressed to his ear. No doubt making those arrangements to move Blue to another hospital.

The moment the doctor shut the door, Blue got up again, and this time it was a slightly less wobbly attempt. He took hold of the IV pole with his right hand and started walking.

“Don’t,” he mumbled as if he expected her to object.

She didn’t. But Rayanne did drop back a step when those wobbly steps brought him her way. And not just her way but directly in front of her. She resisted the urge to back up some more and held her ground. No gaze dodging. No fidgeting. She put on her lawman’s face and watched as he did the same.

For a second or two, anyway.

“I need to do something,” he said.

That was all the warning she got before he reached out, slid his hand around the back of her neck and put his mouth on hers.

Rayanne gasped, but the sound got trapped between their lips, and Blue ignored it. He kept on kissing her. Kept on moving his mouth over hers as if he had a right to do that.

Just kept on stirring heat that should have been stone cold.

It wasn’t.

And that riled her to the core.

Damn him for bringing all the heat and the memories flooding back. She’d buried Blue five months ago. Not just him, either, but that one hot night they’d shared. Rayanne intended for that to stay dead and buried.

She would have knocked him senseless, but apparently he already was. She didn’t shove him away, not with all his injuries, but Rayanne slapped her palm on his stomach and then backed up.

“What the heck are you doing?” she snapped. And thank goodness it sounded gruff and not breathless. Somewhat of a miracle since her breath was indeed a little thin.

“Still think I’d try to kill you?” Blue asked.

The cocky voice had returned in spades. Cocky demeanor, too. Blue was a pro at that in part because of his hot cowboy looks. Sadly, he was the best-looking man she’d ever met, and her stupid body wasn’t going to let her forget that.

Rayanne managed to hang on to her glare. “You kissed me to convince me that you don’t want me dead?”

He lifted his shoulder. The one that’d been shot. And he winced enough to wipe that cocky look off his face. “In part. I was hoping it’d make me remember.”

“Did it?”

That prompted him to run those sizzling gray eyes over her face and then lower. To her breasts. Then lower still. She didn’t know how he managed it, but a once-over like that from Blue felt like foreplay despite her pregnant belly.

“No,” he finally said. “But trust me, I’m pretty sure every part of me but my brain remembers you.”

Oh.

That felt like foreplay, too, and since that was the last thing she wanted, she did step back. She’d already had a big dose of Blue, and she wasn’t sure she could survive another round with him.

Best to think about the other mess. The one that involved those gunmen, living and dead. “Why’d the shooting happen? Give me something to go on. Anything to go on,” she added when he just stared at her.

Blue kept staring. “The last solid memory I have is the evening when we finished up that case over in Appaloosa Pass.”

She knew exactly which evening he meant. Rayanne had gone over the detail dozens of times. “The investigation had gone wrong. An innocent bystander was killed.”

He studied her. “We were upset.”

Oh, yeah. Rayanne had never broken down before. Not in front of anyone, anyway. But she had that night, and she’d ended up in Blue’s arms.

And with him in her bed.

He cleared his throat as if he’d filled in the blanks of his memory with some spicy details. “Afterward, did I say anything?” Blue asked. “Call anyone?”

“No, but someone called you. You said it was your good friend and fellow agent Woody Janson. You didn’t put the call on speaker, but I heard him say he wanted you to meet him in a diner in San Antonio.” Rayanne paused. “The guy sounded like he was in some kind of trouble.”

His head snapped up. “So Woody might know what happened. I need to call him.” Blue was already moving toward the landline on the metal table next to his bed, but Rayanne snagged his wrist to stop him.