The Spy Wore Spurs

“Here we go.” The old couch groaned under the man’s weight as she laid him down. “I’ll be back in a second.”

She dashed back to the truck for her rifle and the veterinary supply bag behind her seat. She locked the front door on her way back in, something her grandfather hadn’t done once in his life. They lived in good country, around good folks, he used to tell her.

She wondered what he would think about this. He’d have words to say. And not the kind of words you’d find in a church bulletin.

She wiped her face. No time to dry herself fully. Bag. Scissors. She cut off the man’s pants so she could do a better job at assessing and cleaning his injury. If being a field medic in the army had taught her anything, it was to be resourceful and find a way to use whatever she had at her disposal. The veterinary bag was a godsend.

“Wake up. Can you hear me?”

No response. He didn’t even flinch.

Clean the wound. Stop the bleeding. Dress the wound. Make him drink so he had enough fluids in him to get his blood pressure back up enough for him to permanently regain consciousness.

“You’re going to make it. That’s not a suggestion. That’s an order.” She snapped the same words at him as she had at soldiers on the battlefield.

She checked his limbs—everything moved, nothing felt broken. His heart beat slowly but steadily. His pupils were the same size, responding to light. His airways were open. He was in top combat shape, a big point in his favor. The patient’s physical condition always had a big impact on recovery.

Once she finished with the basics, she moved to the niceties. She washed his bloody hands, then wiped his face with a wet washcloth. She’d definitely never met him before. In the light of the lamp and without the smudges on his face, she could fully see him at last: tussled dirty blond hair, straight nose, a masculine jaw, sexy lips. The fact that he looked drawn failed to deduct from how ridiculously handsome he was.

“Ryder McKay,” she said his name out loud, then felt foolish when the cat padded in and gave her a curious look.

The scrawny feline assessed the situation while she licked her lips.

“That better not be cream on your whiskers,” Grace warned the cat, pretty much resigning herself to the fact that her Twinkie was history. “And you better not get sick from all that sugar. I’m not kidding.”

The cat flashed her a superior look then strolled away.

The man’s eyes blinked open slowly, the color of desert honey, then closed again.

“Ryder? You need to wake up. Can you hear me?”

He didn’t stir, not even when a loud banging shook the front door the next second.

Grace jumped to her feet, faced the door in a fight-ready stance, her heart lurching into a race before she caught herself. It’s not an attack. Someone’s just stopping by for a visit. Most likely.

Could be Dylan. She walked to the window, but could see only her own pickup in the driveway through the sheets of rain.

Looking sideways, she could just barely make out a shadow outside her door. Maybe Ryder McKay had a partner out there who was looking for shelter. She hurried to the door and put her hand on the key, but then hesitated. Whoever was outside could just as easily be the one who’d shot McKay.

She ran back to him and pulled the large afghan over his head, covering his entire body. The couch stood in line of sight from the front door. This way, at least he wouldn’t be immediately seen.

The late-night visitor knocked again, even louder and more forcefully.

She strode back to the door, reached for her grandfather’s rifle that she’d hung back up on the peg, then drew a deep breath. “Who is it?”

Chapter Two

The short, plump woman on the other side of the door stood soaked to the skin and poised to flee. She was unarmed and covered in mud—must have slipped a couple of times on her way here. She broke into rapid Spanish.

Grace put away the rifle and motioned her in. “Yo no habla Español. Lo siento.”

She’d forgotten ninety percent of the Spanish she’d learned in high school. And the woman spoke way too fast to even catch individual words, anyway.

But one didn’t have to be bilingual to understand that she was in trouble and ready to drop from exhaustion. Scratches covered her arms, dirt and leaves clung to her wet hair, dark circles rimmed her eyes. She rushed on with her torrent of unintelligible words.

Maybe her car had broken down somewhere. Nothing they could do about that until morning.

“Mañana, all right? We’ll figure this out tomorrow. How about you take a nice hot shower and get some sleep?”

Grace motioned her to the stairs and kept her body between her and the sofa to block the woman’s view of Ryder, barely covered by the afghan. Upstairs, she showed her to the bedroom she’d cleaned for herself earlier, pointing out the bathroom next door.

“Cómo te llamas?” She used one of the few expressions she remembered, as she pulled a dry T-shirt and sweatpants from the bag she’d brought and hadn’t unpacked yet.

The woman put a hand to her chest. “Esperanza.” Then she rushed on with plenty of things to say, unfortunately all in Spanish.

“Okay, Esperanza. Me llamo Grace. “She handed over the clothes. “Take it easy, get some rest.” She pointed to the bed. “You’re safe here.”

Esperanza, barely strong enough to stand, stopped talking and nodded. Her shoulders slumped, tears gathered in her eyes. She looked pitifully, heart-twistingly dejected, but seemed to accept at last that they weren’t going to understand each other. She moved to leave.

“No. You stay here. Mañana, we’ll take care of everything. You can’t go anywhere else tonight.” Grace pointed at the rain lashing the window. “Muy peligroso.” Very dangerous.

The woman paled, then nodded, the fight going out of her. She sank onto the bed.

“I’ll bring you something to eat, okay?” Grace grabbed her bag then left the woman and padded downstairs.

She made two sandwiches for Esperanza and grabbed a bottle of water to take to her. The woman accepted the nourishment, setting everything on the bedcover next to her.

“Good night. Buenas noches. Everything will be better in the morning. You’ll see. Mañana. “Grace gave a big thumbs-up.

But the woman didn’t cheer up in the least. She looked heartbroken beyond words.

Grace went back downstairs and mopped up the mud, exhaustion settling into her bones. She didn’t look forward to having to clean another bedroom before she could go to sleep. But by the time she changed into dry clothing and was ready to head back up the stairs, Ryder was blinking awake. She grabbed the chance and poured some orange juice into him.

“Are you with the team-building people?” In that case, she could call Dylan once her phone decided to work again, and he could get in touch with the rest of the guy’s team. They had to be looking for him.

But after clearing his throat, the man said, “border protection,” his voice hoarse and weak.

She winced, thinking of Esperanza upstairs who might or might not be from the local Hispanic community. Maybe she’d just sneaked across the border. Not something that normally happened on the ranch. The south side of the property was pretty inhospitable terrain, even discounting the impassable ravine. No shade, frequent brush fires, an endless walk and several families of ocelots in the brush were a pretty good deterrent.

There were easier places to cross, and most everybody knew it.

Yet, Esperanza was here.

And someone had shot Ryder.

Unfortunately, he passed out again before she could ask him any questions about that. Familiar anxiety, one that often stirred without warning these days, tightened her muscles. She worked her breathing to keep those muscles from locking up completely. No big deal. Just an injured man. She wasn’t in the middle of full-out war or anything.

Rain pelted the windows as she looked into the man’s pale face. He’d be gone, come morning. So would Esperanza. She would drive the woman into town where Esperanza could get back to her people or at least find someone who spoke Spanish.

Then she would take care of her brother’s remains and go home, Grace decided, and making a decision—an escape plan—relaxed her a little. She’d planned on staying a couple of days, but the peace and solitude she’d come to seek had been shattered. She looked at the urn on the mantel.

“Nothing ever turns out the way you’d expect,” she told Tommy, and missed his quiet, strong company suddenly with a sharp, heartrending pain.

RYDER WOKE TO THE SUN shining through the windows and had no idea where he was, which he found less than encouraging. His weapon was gone. Bad news number two. And he didn’t have pants on, which added to his general sense of unease. He looked around the faded living room, at the old, rustic furnishings. He recognized them and the unique fireplace from when he’d peeked through the windows last week. He was at the ranch he’d thought abandoned.

Female voices captured his attention, an indistinct chatter. There were people in the house with him. Could be good news, or bad. He needed to face the music either way.

He drank the orange juice left on the rustic side table next to the sofa, then glanced under the bandage on his leg and noted the professional-looking stitches. Obviously, at one point he’d gotten medical help. Yet he didn’t remember a trip to the hospital, or here.

Ignoring the pain, he quietly pushed to his feet and wrapped the pink-and-purple afghan around his waist—an indignity he couldn’t find a way around. He turned to look for a weapon. Yowza.

Dizziness hit him so hard, he had to brace his hand against the back of the sofa. He moved slower as he stepped forward and grabbed the poker from the fireplace, then headed toward the voices.

Two women stood by the kitchen counter, trying to communicate, one in English, the other one in rushed Spanish. Neither noticed him. The Mexican woman looked drawn and scared; the tall, lean Texan seemed exasperated.

Neither was armed, so he leaned the poker against the wall before he stepped forward. Not so far, of course, that he couldn’t easily reach back for the makeshift weapon.

All conversation stopped. Sharp tension filled the sudden silence as they turned to him.

He put a friendly smile on his face. “Ladies.”

The Texan dashed for him on legs that went on forever. “You shouldn’t be on your feet.” She propped him up, then helped him to a chair by the table. Her dark auburn hair was chin-length, a stubborn wave curled under her ear. Emerald-green eyes shone from her face.

Something about her body pressed against his felt familiar. He had a sudden flashback of the two of them in the dark, in the rain.

“Here.” She moved with purposeful efficiency as she settled him on the chair. Her soft hair tickled his jaw for a second before she pulled away. “Let me make you some eggs. You need the protein.”

He needed a lot of things, his Beretta being at the top of the list. But it didn’t seem polite to demand a handgun when someone just offered to feed you breakfast. “Where am I?”

“At the Cordero ranch. I’m Grace.”

She was pretty in a simple sort of way—no overdone makeup or freaky hairdo—her look and gestures natural, if not completely relaxed. She had a lean body that clearly saw regular exercise. She kept casting wary glances his way. “Do you remember me bringing you back here?”

“Not exactly.” He remembered running into smugglers who shot him. Then he remembered being on the brink of death, getting desperate enough to shoot his gun into the air, risking leading the smugglers back to him. The desperate act of a man who’d run out of choices.

But Grace had showed instead of the gunmen, apparently.

Must have been his lucky day.

Unless, of course, she was somehow connected to the smugglers. But then why would she save him? He decided to trust her for the time being, but moved his chair, anyway, so he’d be within reach of the knife on the counter.

A rough-looking cat appeared from nowhere and measured him up.

“Her name is Twinky,” Grace said. “She’s a stray.”

The cat sauntered closer, rubbed herself against his legs, then sauntered away.

The Mexican woman kept wringing her hands and talking all through their exchange.

Grace shot him a helpless, reluctant look. “Do you know what she’s saying?”

He asked her to slow down a little and focused on the flood of words. “She’s looking for her husband and her kids. Five-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.”

Grace paled, her gaze flying to the window. “They were out there last night with her?”

He repeated the question in Spanish, then translated for Grace.

“They came to the U.S. with her husband two months ago.”

He asked a couple more questions and got the rest of the story. Didn’t much like it.

“Her husband got a visa to come and work for the wire mill in Hullett. The whole family was supposed to get papers, but something delayed hers at the last minute. The company representative told her she had to stay behind for a few days, and then she could come after her family once everything was straightened out.”

The woman was clearly distraught and desperate, wringing her hands as she waited for him to finish translating. He didn’t think she was lying.

Grace brought him another glass of orange juice, then got a carton of eggs out of the fridge, her attention on him as he continued to translate.

“She was told the children should go ahead with the husband. School was starting. The representative even got them fully loaded backpacks and everything.”

His instincts prickled. He asked a few more questions.

“She says she last saw her family when they crossed the border. Never heard from them again. Never heard from the company representative. She can’t reach him at the phone number he’d given her. She talked to the Mexican police. She even called the Hullett police here. Neither would help her.”

Grace turned on the stove under the eggs then put a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. The small, sympathetic gesture made tears gather in the woman’s eyes all over again.

“Did you come across the border last night with a guide?” he asked in Spanish, wanting as much detail as possible.

She hung her head, her shoulders tensing as she backed away from him. For a second he thought she might make a run for the door. Grace either understood some of his words or she’d guessed them because she positioned herself so she could block him if he made a move. That she thought he might give chase was flattering, but wholly impossible. He could barely put weight on his injured leg.

Then, peeking from behind Grace, the young woman gave a hesitant nod at last, and rushed to explain.

“She’s afraid that something terrible happened to her family,” he told Grace. “All she wants is to find them and make sure they’re safe.”

“I’ll take her to town after breakfast and help her with the authorities,” Grace said immediately. “If you could, please, tell her.”

He shook his head. “When I call in and they come to pick me up, we’re going to have to detain her. Other people will want to ask her questions, too. She’s here without papers. She’s not going to be let loose, no matter what her purpose is here.”

And then it happened. In the blink of an eye, Grace Cordero morphed from a pretty hostess cooking for her guests into a stunning warrior amazon. The gentle, nurturing aura disappeared in a second. She pulled herself to full height and stalked right up to him, a steely expression coming onto her face.

Yowza. The budding interest his battered body had registered toward her earlier turned into instant, fullblown lust. Whatever blood he had left rushed south.

All right, then. Looked as if he was going to live, after all, he thought with some amusement and not a little surprise at his visceral response to her. It’d been a while since a woman made him sit up and take notice. He’d been too busy lately.

Her eyes flashed as she faced him down, her jaw tight, her shoulders stiffening. “She stays where she is.” She didn’t raise her voice, but the hard tone carried plenty of warning.

While she had a core of kindness, one that would push her out into a storm in the night to save a stranger, one that would have her take in a distraught woman without questions, she also had a whole other side. His instincts said it was a side a smart person wouldn’t mess with. He had a feeling Grace Cordero would make a bad enemy.

“Do you live here?” he asked her in a mild tone to defuse the sudden tension.

“I arrived yesterday morning,” were the words that came out of her mouth, but the flash in her eyes said: none of your business.

“How long are you staying?”

Her chin came up. “As long as it takes to help Esperanza.”

And Ryder drew a slow breath. Grace wasn’t staying. Not if he had anything to do with it. Her land wasn’t safe now, and it would be even less so in the upcoming weeks. She needed to leave.

SOMETHING ABOUT THE UTTER devastation in Esperanza’s eyes reached the grief in her own heart. She knew what it was like to lose family. She had nobody left.

Grace pulled her cell phone from her pocket and tossed it to Ryder. She’d done the best she could last night, but he still needed medical attention. “Call whoever you need, but leave me and Esperanza out of this.”

The sooner he left, the better.

She’d meant to call first thing in the morning, but hadn’t had the chance. She’d ended up sleeping in the recliner to keep an eye on him overnight. She’d woken to Esperanza coming downstairs, and drew the woman into the kitchen so they wouldn’t wake Ryder. Of course, he woke up, anyway, a few minutes later.

Unconscious, he’d been manageable. Sitting at her kitchen table, he looked fairly intimidating. He was pale and weak, but obviously well-built, a fighting machine on his better days. He had a sharp gaze, a pronounced, masculine chin, straight nose and a mouth that awakened some secret feminine longing inside her.

Not to be acted upon, obviously.

“If you work for border patrol, why aren’t you wearing their uniform?”

Esperanza watched, her face scrunched with worry, probably aware that her fate was being decided.

“I’m on a special team.”

If he thought that would impress Grace, he had another think coming. “Can’t say I trust government men as far as I can throw them.”

He kept his face emotionless as he asked, “Any particular reason?”

She didn’t mind telling him. All the anger was still there, simmering just under her skin.

“My brother was in the first Gulf War. Got sick. The government never acknowledged that he’d been exposed to biological weapons. We went through hell to get him proper health care.” She was convinced that if Tommy had gotten better help earlier, he would be still alive today.

The thought tore open a barely scabbed over wound deep inside her.

“And here you are, a doctor, unable to help him. That must have been doubly frustrating.”

She shot him a blank look.

He gestured toward his injured leg. “You put in some fine stiches.”

“I was an army medic.” And now almost a veterinarian. She could still save lives, and animals were so much less complicated than humans.

He looked at her through narrowed eyes, as if he was trying to puzzle her out. Good luck with that. These days her thoughts were such a tangled mess, she could barely make sense of them herself.

Nor could she make much sense of him, so far. Beyond his name, she still barely knew anything about him. Well, other than he was annoyingly hot.

Since he was strangely getting under her skin, she decided to go on the offensive. “What were you doing on my land?”

“That’s classified information.”

Of course it was. If she had a dollar for every time she’d heard that answer while trying to investigate just what chemicals Tommy had been exposed to…. She returned to the stove to remove the eggs from the fire.

He was dialing the phone behind her, but said very little beyond his location when the other end picked up. He was long done before she turned around with his breakfast. Maybe he’d be in a better mood to help once he was fed.

She split the eggs between him and Esperanza, who ate quickly, standing by the counter. She didn’t seem to want to go anywhere near the table and Ryder. Grace couldn’t blame her. Even in a weakened state, the man was pretty intimidating.

“Much appreciated,” he said and dug in. Whether he was hungry or simply ate because he knew he needed the energy, he did a fair amount of damage in a short time.

Grace watched him for a minute or so, wanting to give him time to eat in peace, but she ran out of patience too quickly. “Esperanza needs to find her family. I want to help her.”

“The authorities will help her,” he said between two bites, then spoke to Esperanza briefly in Spanish.

Tears rolled down the woman’s face as she set her empty plate in the sink. She looked as if she’d just been told that she’d be taken out back and shot.

“The authorities have done nothing to help her until now,” Grace argued, frustration humming through her. She hadn’t been able to help her brother, but she could help Esperanza. If Ryder didn’t stand in her way.

He finished his eggs, leaned back in his chair and watched her for a few seconds. Then his face hardened suddenly. “How long have you been aware that you have drug smuggling and human trafficking on your land?”

The air got stuck in her lungs. “We never had any of that out here.” Of course, she hadn’t lived here for years. Still, Tommy hadn’t mentioned anything. Neither had Dylan.

But Ryder had gotten shot. Had he been confronting drug runners? And Esperanza was here. What if all this was just the tip of the iceberg?

“Were you shot by smugglers?” Not that she was ready to believe that, but she couldn’t pretend that it had been a hunting accident, either. She’d known from the beginning that it had been something a lot more sinister; she just hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. She sank into the chair across the table from him.

She’d come to spread her brother’s ashes in the most peaceful, nicest place on earth, in accordance with his wishes. But suddenly, the ranch seemed a much more dangerous place than she’d remembered.

“I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

God forbid someone told her what was going on on her land. But instead of pushing for an answer about that, she decided to pick her battles. “Esperanza had nothing to do with whatever happened to you. We both know she didn’t shoot you. How about you give her a break?” “I can’t.”

“You could pretend you never saw her. I could have just hidden her upstairs until you were gone.” In hindsight, not doing just that had been incredibly stupid. They could have avoided all of this.

“I don’t play those kinds of games.”

No, he probably didn’t. He looked as serious as a longhorn stampede.

“Don’t you have a heart?” The words burst from her in a fit of frustration.

“I’m going to take her into custody,” Ryder said in a tone that bore no argument. “We’ll consider it a voluntary surrender. I might be able to arrange for her record not to be marked, so she’ll be able to get an actual visa and come back legally as soon as that’s processed.”

“And who’s going to look for her husband and children?” she challenged.

He measured Esperanza up, then turned his attention to Grace. “I will. I’m interested in criminal activity in the area. Her family’s disappearance could be connected to the case I’m investigating.”

“Which is?”

“A matter of national security.”