The Bodyguard's Assignment

He took her wrist and placed the handcuff around it.

He expected her to put up a fight, but instead, she lay back on the bed. He placed a knee on the bed, leaning over her to fasten the other handcuff to the iron railing of the headboard.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I’m only doing this because I can’t trust you not to bolt. I meant what I said earlier. It’s dangerous out there. You can get seriously hurt on this mountain. I can’t allow that to happen.”

“No,” she whispered. “We can’t have you botching an assignment, can we?”

“Stop it, Grace. I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work.”

“Then why are you still here?”

She had a good point. If he had half a brain, he’d move away from her, now, before he remembered the sweetness of her lips, the silkiness of her skin—

Who was he trying to kid? He didn’t have to remember, because he’d never forgotten anything about Grace’s lovemaking. The way she kissed. The way she touched him. The way she moved against him…

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

Harlequin Intrigue has such an amazing selection this month, you won’t be able to choose—so indulge and buy all four titles!

We’re proud to present an exciting new multi-author miniseries, TEXAS CONFIDENTIAL. By day they’re cowboys; by night they’re specialized government operatives. Men bound by love, loyalty and the law—they’ve vowed to keep their missions and identities confidential.…Amanda Stevens kicks off the series with The Bodyguard’s Assignment (#581).

Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York has added another outstanding 43 LIGHT STREET story to her credits with Amanda’s Child (#582). When sexy Matt Forester kidnapped Amanda Barnwell from her Wyoming ranch, he swore he was only protecting her. But with her unborn baby’s life at stake, could Amanda trust her alluring captor?

We’re thrilled to bring you Safe By His Side (#583) by brand-new author Debra Webb. This SECRET IDENTITY story is her first ever Intrigue and we’re sure you’ll love it and her as much as we do. Debra has created The Colby Agency—for the most private of investigations—and agent Jack Raine—a man to die for!

In Undercover Protector (#584) by Cassie Miles, policewoman Annie Callahan’s engagement to Michael Slade wasn’t going to lead to the altar. Michael’s job was to protect Annie from a deadly stalker. But nothing would protect Michael from heartbreak if he failed.…

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

The Bodyguard’s Assignment

Amanda Stevens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amanda Stevens has written over twenty novels of romantic suspense. Her books have appeared on several bestseller lists, and she has won Reviewer’s Choice and Career Achievement in Romantic/Mystery awards from Romantic Times Magazine. She resides in Cypress, Texas, with her husband, her son and daughter and their two cats.

Books by Amanda Stevens

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

373—STRANGER IN PARADISE

388—A BABY’S CRY

397—A MAN OF SECRETS

430—THE SECOND MRS. MALONE

453—THE HERO’S SON*

458—THE BROTHER’S WIFE*

462—THE LONG-LOST HEIR*

489—SOMEBODY’S BABY

511—LOVER, STRANGER

549—THE LITTLEST WITNESS**

553—SECRET ADMIRER**

557—FORBIDDEN LOVER**

581—THE BODYGUARD’S ASSIGNMENT

HARLEQUIN BOOKS

2-in-1 Harlequin 50th Anniversary Collection

HER SECRET PAST

The Confidential Agent’s Pledge

I hereby swear to uphold the law

to the best of my ability; to maintain the

level of integrity of this agency by my

compassion for victims, loyalty to my

brothers and courage under fire.

And above all, to hold all information and

identities in the strictest confidence….

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Brady Morgan—An agent for the elite Texas Confidential. His assignment is to protect Grace Drummond at any cost—but can he save her life without compromising his heart?

Grace Drummond—She’s running for her life, and the only person who can save her is the man she once betrayed.

Lester Kane—A Dallas drug dealer, he murdered a man in cold blood, and now he will stop at nothing to eliminate the witnesses.

Stephen Rialto—A ruthless businessman pursued by Texas Confidential, he has ties to the Calderone drug cartel.

Helen Parks—Grace’s best friend, she warned Grace not to go after a story connecting Lester Kane to Calderone.

Burt Gordon—Grace’s boss at the newspaper. Would he sell her out for the sake of a story?

John Kruger—A Department of Public Safety agent who is working closely with Texas Confidential on this case.

Mitchell Forbes—The head of operations of Texas Confidential.

Angeline Drummond—Grace’s ailing mother has become an innocent pawn in a very dangerous game.

Contents

Prologue

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

Prologue

“I can’t believe you’re going through with this. Do you know what those people will do if they catch you? They’re killers, Grace. Vicious, cold-blooded murderers.”

Her friend’s warning echoed inside Grace Drummond’s head as she tried to settle into a more comfortable position behind the giant pallets of carpet rolls. The fibers made her want to sneeze, and even though she was alone in the warehouse, she pinched her nose painfully until the urge passed.

She pressed the button on her watch to light the dial and noted the time. One forty-three. According to her contact inside Lester Kane’s operation, the meeting between Kane and a representative from Rialto Industries was set for 2:00 a.m., a time when most people would be home sleeping. Grace had seventeen minutes, less than half an hour, to hightail it out of there, but she knew she wasn’t going to run. As a reporter for the Dallas Examiner, she’d been in hairy situations before. This one was no different from a dozen others.

Right.

“Don’t you remember what happened to those DEA agents who came up against the Calderone drug cartel down in Mexico? They cut out their eyes and gave them to the local witch doctor. I shudder to think what they did with the rest of them.”

Grace didn’t need Helen Parks’s graphic reminder to know she was walking a fine line between bravery and stupidity. If she got the story, she’d be able to prove Lester Kane’s connection to Rialto Industries, a Houston-based oil company with secret ties to the Calderone drug cartel in Mexico. Calderone’s entire Gulf Coast operation could be jeopardized because once Grace got the goods on Kane, he’d cooperate with the authorities to save his own sleazy hide—if the police could keep him alive long enough.

Of course, if she didn’t get the story—if she was caught—Grace figured it wasn’t much worse being dead and stupid than being just plain dead. At least she would have tried to make things right.

But no matter how much she might wish to, Grace knew she couldn’t go back and erase the mistakes she’d made five years ago. Because of her, Lester Kane had eluded a sting operation the Narcotics Division of the Dallas Police Department had been working on for months. And because of that, a cop named Brady Morgan had walked out of her life forever.

Tonight, she finally had a chance to make amends for what she’d done, but she doubted it would matter to Brady. He’d told her back then he never wanted to see her again, and he’d kept his word. In the years since he’d left town, Grace had not heard one word from him.

Glancing around, she assured herself once more that she was well-hidden. The warehouse, one of several owned by Kane, was stacked with rolls of carpeting piled more than fifteen feet high. A row of dirty windows beneath the ceiling allowed in a pale dripping of moonlight, just enough so that once Grace had become accustomed to the gloom, she could make out shapes and silhouettes but little else.

Her contact had left a side door unlocked near the back of the warehouse, and Grace had used her flashlight only long enough to plant a remote microphone and then find a hiding place. There was nothing more she could do now but relax and wait, two things she wasn’t terribly good at.

The minutes crept by. Grace glanced at her watch again. Nearly two. Any moment now…

As if on cue, the overhead door rumbled open, startling her so violently she almost dropped her tape recorder.

Quickly she checked to make sure the switch was on, then settled back, willing the beat of her heart to slow. Her contact inside Kane’s operation was a man named Alec Priestley, who not only worked for Kane, but had been his childhood buddy. They’d grown up together in Grapevine, a small community north of Dallas. Kane had been the best man at Priestley’s wedding. Grace had no reason to trust Priestley except for what her own instincts told her about him. He wanted out. She’d seen the desperation in his eyes, could almost smell his fear when he’d approached her with his proposition. Either he was telling her the truth, or he was a very good actor. In a few short minutes, she would know which.

A black Mercedes sedan swept silently into the warehouse. Instinctively Grace shielded her eyes from the glare of the headlights as she scrunched lower into her hiding place. A second car followed immediately, this one a silver Jaguar coupe that Grace knew belonged to Kane.

As soon as the overhead door closed, the lights on the Mercedes were turned off and three men in dark suits got out. Kane and Priestley climbed out of the Jag and approached the other three warily. They all met in the amber glow of the Jaguar’s parking lights—the only illumination in the warehouse.

Grace shifted her weight until she could see through a narrow opening between the carpet rolls. She recognized Kane and Priestley, but the other three were unfamiliar to her. She thought one of them might be Stephen Rialto, but he kept his face turned away from her. She had to imagine the cruel set of his mouth, the coldness in his eyes. From everything she’d learned about Rialto, she suspected he would slit her throat—or order it done—without batting an eye if he found her there.

He was flanked on either side by the other two men who had gotten out of the Mercedes. Grace couldn’t see their features clearly, either, but she had the impression of dark eyes and swarthy complexions. Bodyguards, she decided. Trained thugs whose orders were to shoot first and ask questions later.

Her gaze shifted to Priestley. He stood at the periphery of the group, white-faced and jittery as he glanced around the warehouse.

Come on, Grace urged. Stay cool. Don’t give us away.

She prayed the others would be so busy forging their unholy alliance they wouldn’t notice his nervousness. But neither Lester Kane nor Stephen Rialto had gotten as far as he had by being careless. Grace couldn’t hear much of what was being said, but she could tell they were all tense.

Kane was talking in low, persuasive tones, and Grace strained to hear him. The other man’s voice rose as he responded tersely, “Then prove your loyalty, Kane. We have to know we can trust you.”

“If that’s what it takes, then so be it,” Kane said.

From her vantage, Grace saw what none of the others could see. Unobtrusively, Kane reached around and drew a gun from the waistband of his trousers. Grace had only a split second to wonder why Rialto’s men didn’t react before Kane swung his arm toward Priestley. He fired the silenced weapon twice. A soft spit, spit, and Alec Priestley, husband, businessman, father of two, crashed back into a wooden pallet, his face and chest a crimson explosion.

Grace clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from gasping in shock. She watched in horror as the other men began to swing back to their cars. “Torch the place!” someone ordered.

One of the bodyguards grabbed a gas can from the trunk of the Mercedes and began dousing the carpet rolls while Kane reversed the Jag from the warehouse. The other two men climbed into the Mercedes and followed. The first bodyguard finished his job, then tossed the empty gas can aside. Running to the open doorway, he stood gazing around for a moment before flicking a lit match toward a trail of fuel on the floor. Then he disappeared through the opening, and the door immediately closed.

As the ribbon of fire raced toward the drenched carpet rolls, Grace grabbed her recorder and scrambled through the narrow channel between the pallets. The natural carpet fibers would burn quickly, but the synthetic rolls were potentially even more dangerous. The nylon would melt and smolder, causing black smoke to build inside the warehouse. The acrid smell already burned her eyes and throat.

The side door was somewhere just ahead of her. Don’t panic, she told herself. She had plenty of time to get out. Just a few more yards…a few more feet…a few more inches…

Her hand closed around the metal knob and she pulled. When the door wouldn’t budge, she gave it a fierce yank, and then another and another, each more desperate than the last until she realized the exit had been padlocked from the outside. Other than the overhead door through which the cars had driven, there was no other way out of the warehouse.

Grace whirled to retrace her steps, but the flames had spread quickly. The entire warehouse was ablaze, the smoke nearly opaque. In another few moments, she would be overcome.

A few yards in front of her, the smoke curled upward, fanned by a breeze. Grace’s gaze followed the writhing trail, and she realized that a pane in one of the windows was missing. The night air was drawing the thick haze like a flue. It was also showing her what might be another way out.

But the windows were a good twenty feet from the ground. Grace wasn’t at all certain she could reach them. Knowing it was her only hope, she began to climb the wooden pallets, her lungs searing in agony. She wouldn’t let herself look down, or think about the flames that were licking toward her, the rolls of carpeting that were melting beneath her feet.

She wouldn’t contemplate the reality that if she died in this warehouse, she would never be able to redeem herself in Brady Morgan’s eyes.…

Chapter One

The landscape was as vast as it was empty, a wasteland of rugged plains made even more bleak by the dead of winter. In the distance, mist settled over the craggy peaks of the Davis Mountains, softening the jagged edges until gray rock melded almost seamlessly with slate sky.

Brady Morgan huddled in his sheepskin coat as he watched a hawk circle overhead. He’d been living and working on the Smoking Barrel Ranch for almost five years now, but he still hadn’t gotten used to the loneliness of the place.

West Texas was a world unto itself, and he guessed he was still a city boy at heart. He’d grown up in a rough area of Dallas, had been a street cop for several years before joining the Narcotics Division. During those years, he’d seen the worst human nature had to offer, and sometimes the best, but nothing he’d experienced as a cop had ever made him as aware of his own mortality, of his insignificance in the whole scheme of things, as the boundless isolation of the ranch.

He’d been riding fence all morning, and in spite of the thick cowhide gloves he wore, his hands were numb from the cold. The white ranch house was hardly more than a speck on the endless horizon, but Brady could imagine the curl of smoke from the chimneys, the rich aroma of Rosa’s strong coffee permeating the warm kitchen. He gave Rowan a nudge, urging the red chestnut homeward across the rocky turf.

They’d stayed out too long. Rowan’s breath rolled from his nostrils like steam hissing from a locomotive, and the dull ache in Brady’s knee had turned into searing pain. But he wouldn’t give in to that pain. He’d had enough drugs and doctors to last him a lifetime, and besides, none of them could fix what really ate at him anyway. A shot-up knee would heal in time, but a young woman he’d sworn to protect couldn’t be brought back to life.

Idly, he watched a tumbleweed roll across the frozen tundra in front of him, but in his mind’s eye he pictured a cloud of dark hair and soft, soulful eyes. Rachel had been a good person, but she’d gotten herself mixed up in a bad business. A nasty business. When she’d wanted out, her ex-lover, a Houston drug lord named Stephen Rialto, hadn’t thought twice about sending his goons to storm the safe house where Brady had taken her until she could testify. Brady’s leg had been shot to hell in the raid, but Rachel had been killed. She’d died in his arms.

The burning throb in his leg was a grim reminder of how powerful and dangerous Stephen Rialto had become. Obviously he had a mole somewhere—in the FBI, the Department of Public Safety, maybe even in the Texas Confidential. But Brady didn’t think the latter was too likely. The Confidential was a tight-knit organization. He knew all the agents personally. In some ways, they’d become his family. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe that one of them had betrayed him. But then, betrayal could come where and when you least expected it. He’d learned that lesson a long time ago.

As he drew near the sprawling, two-story ranch house, he saw the front door open, and a figure stepped out onto the wide front porch. She waited until Brady had dismounted and tied Rowan to the cedar rail outside the bunkhouse before running lightly down the porch steps.

Protected from the cold by a dark blue parka, Penny Archer strode toward him with purpose, the flat soles of her boots thudding on the hard ground. The hood of her coat hid her expression, but something about the way she hurried toward him struck Brady as ominous. It was as if she’d been waiting for him, watching for him from one of the front windows of the ranch house.

As she approached, Rowan began to prance and snort, bucking at the reins wrapped around the cedar rail.

Penny said irritably, “Why do you keep that damn horse? He’s dangerous.”

“He’s a pussycat around anyone but you,” Brady teased, his breath frosting on the cold air. “You bring out the beast in him.”

Penny gave him a dour look behind her wire-rimmed glasses. “God knows I should be used to working with animals.”

Brady grinned. Penny’s disdain for the agents—all male—with whom she worked was legendary. She didn’t take much guff from any of them, except maybe for Rafe Alvarez. She tried to pretend his good-natured ribbing didn’t get to her, but Brady had seen the way she looked at the agent when she thought no one was watching. He wondered if Rafe had any idea Penny was in love with him. He wondered if Penny even knew.

“Mitchell wants to see you ASAP,” she told him.

“What’s up?”

She shrugged. “How should I know? He never tells me anything. I’m just the gofer around here.”

Yeah, right. Penny was more than that and she knew it. As Mitchell Forbes’s assistant, she kept the ranch and the Texas Confidential running as smoothly as a well-tuned engine. She knew everything there was to know about each case they took on, and her air of innocence this morning didn’t wash. A bad sign that she was keeping something from him, Brady thought.

“I’ll be in as soon as I see to Rowan,” he told her.

She shrugged again. “Okay, fine. Suit yourself. Mitchell said for you to come immediately, but it’s your hide, not mine. I’m just the messenger.”

Brady’s foreboding deepened as he led the horse toward the barn. Mitchell Forbes wasn’t one for idle conversation. If he wanted to see Brady this urgently, it was because he had an assignment for him. And Brady wasn’t ready for that.

After Rachel, he wasn’t sure he ever would be.

BY THE TIME Brady got to the ranch house, the rest of the agents had already assembled in the war room—that section of the special-built basement which had become Command Central for the organization. The Confidential was not a secret group per se, but as a specialized division of the Department of Public Safety, they worked cases that were highly sensitive. Discretion was vital, literally a matter of life and death, and the possibility of a mole, someone who had tipped off Rialto to Rachel’s whereabouts—who might also be responsible for the recent disappearance of one of their agents—had them all concerned.

“Señor Brady!” Rosa, the Smoking Barrel’s housekeeper, bustled into the library as Brady summoned the elevator.

For security purposes, the elevator was hidden behind a bookshelf that slid away with the push of a button, then rolled back into place once the elevator was activated from inside the car. The high-tech and secretive nature of the organization always made Brady feel a little ridiculous, a little too 007-ish. He was basically just a cop, although the undercover work wasn’t that different from the assignments he’d had as a narc. But that was a long time ago. A part of his life he didn’t much like to think about.

Gratefully, he accepted the steaming mug of coffee the housekeeper handed him. “You read my mind, Rosa.”

She beamed. “You’ve been out in the cold all morning. You need some of Rosa’s good coffee to warm you up. I make it just the way you like. Black and strong enough to grow hair.”

“I think you mean strong enough to put hair on my chest,” he said dryly.

She muttered something in Spanish Brady couldn’t quite catch. He sampled the bitter, chicory brew which no one else at the Smoking Barrel could abide. Wusses, he thought scornfully. Wranglers and secret agents aside, a man wasn’t a man until he could drink a cup of coffee strong enough to…grow its own hair.

Rosa planted a hand on one generous hip as she waited for his response.

“Perfecto. Rosa, I do believe I’d ask you to marry me if I didn’t think you were sweet on ole Slim.”

At the mention of the grizzled ranch hand, Rosa let out a string of rapid-fire Spanish which Brady suspected might have not only grown hair but curled it as well, had he been able to keep up. A few English words were intermixed, something about an old flirt or an old fart, or a combination of the two.

Sipping his coffee, Brady rode the elevator down to the basement. He was greeted warmly by the other agents, and in spite of his trepidation at this impromptu meeting, he couldn’t help responding to the camaraderie. He hadn’t been a part of a family since he was a kid, but in the nearly five years he’d been with the Confidential, he’d become closer to the other agents than he had with anyone since his mother died.

And Mitchell Forbes, the white-haired ex-Texas Ranger who had been in the Hanoi Hilton with Brady’s father, had become, if not a surrogate parent, at least a man Brady looked up to and admired. Mitchell had recruited Brady at a time when his confidence was badly shaken—a time not unlike now.

He took a seat at the conference table next to Jake Cantrell, a former FBI agent. “What’s going on?”

Jake shrugged. “Beats me, but it must be something big. Mitchell looks worried.”

Brady had to agree. Normally, Mitchell Forbes was a man to be reckoned with on the range or in the war room, but today his face was drawn with tension. As he sat at the head of the conference table, gazing at the assembled agents, his thumb worked back and forth on an ornate silver lighter, a sure sign of his anxiety.