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Her Texas Ranger
Stella Bagwell
LOVE ON THE RANGEWith nerves of steel and a physique to match, Seth Ketchum took his job as a Texas Ranger very seriously. When he returned to his family ranch to investigate a murder, he was all business–until he encountered Corinna Dawson, the beauty who had mesmerized him since high school.Determined to discover true love, Corinna instead found herself a single mother with her heart in tatters. Once Seth unexpectedly reentered her life, everything changed–except for the old insecurities that had kept them apart for two decades. But it might be time for them to jump into the saddle of true love….
“What did you come here for?” Corinna asked bluntly.
He didn’t hesitate. “To see you. To ask you about having dinner with me tonight. Just the two of us.”
Her heart leaped with unexpected pleasure, yet she was careful to hide it in her words. “I had dinner with you last night.”
“What does that hurt?”
She decided to be truthful with him. “Seth—after last night—I don’t think it would be wise to go out with you.”
His hand tightened on hers. “Don’t be scared, Corinna,” he said gently. “Last night was nice. Very nice. And you know it.”
Yes, she did know it, and everything inside of her wanted to experience it all again, to be with this man that had lingered in her thoughts for nearly two decades.
“I can see why you became a Texas Ranger,” she commented wryly. “You like to live dangerously.”
Dear Reader,
We’re smack in the middle of summer, which can only mean long, lazy days at the beach. And do we have some fantastic books for you to bring along! We begin this month with a new continuity, only in Special Edition, called THE PARKS EMPIRE, a tale of secrets and lies, love and revenge. And Laurie Paige opens the series with Romancing the Enemy. A schoolteacher who wants to avenge herself against the man who ruined her family decides to move next door to the man’s son. But things don’t go exactly as planned, as she finds herself falling…for the enemy.
Stella Bagwell continues her MEN OF THE WEST miniseries with Her Texas Ranger, in which an officer who’s come home to investigate a murder finds complications in the form of the girl he loved in high school. Victoria Pade begins her NORTHBRIDGE NUPTIALS miniseries, revolving around a town famed for its weddings, with Babies in the Bargain. When a woman hoping to reunite with her estranged sister finds instead her widowed husband and her children, she winds up playing nanny to the whole crew. Can wife and mother be far behind? THE KENDRICKS OF CAMELOT by Christine Flynn concludes with Prodigal Prince Charming, in which a wealthy playboy tries to help a struggling caterer with her business and becomes much more than just her business partner in the process. Brand-new author Mary J. Forbes debuts with A Forever Family, featuring a single doctor dad and the woman he hires to work for him. And the MEN OF THE CHEROKEE ROSE miniseries by Janis Reams Hudson continues with The Other Brother, in which a woman who always counted her handsome neighbor as one of her best friends suddenly finds herself looking at him in a new light.
Happy reading! And come back next month for six new fabulous books, all from Silhouette Special Edition.
Gail Chasan
Senior Editor
Her Texas Ranger
Stella Bagwell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In memory of my father, Louis Copeland Cook,
a believer in doing things right. I hope he thinks I have.
STELLA BAGWELL
sold her first book to Silhouette in November 1985. More than forty novels later, she still loves her job and says she isn’t completely content unless she’s writing. Recently, she and her husband of thirty years moved from the hills of Oklahoma to Seadrift, Texas, a sleepy little fishing town located on the coastal bend. Stella says the water, the tropical climate and the seabirds make it a lovely place to let her imagination soar and to put the stories in her head down on paper.
She and her husband have one son, Jason, who lives and teaches high school math in nearby Port Lavaca.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter One
“One riot, one Ranger. Isn’t that the reputation you Rangers have down in Texas?”
The question prompted Seth Ketchum to cast a wry glance at his younger brother, Ross, who was standing just to the right of his chair.
Seth had almost forgotten what it was like to be back on the T Bar K with his family. Two years had passed since he’d seen his brother and sister. The time had slipped up on him and now as they crowded around him in the living room of the ranch house, he realized just how much he’d missed his siblings.
“That’s what the saying is—one riot, one Ranger,” Seth responded to his brother’s comment. “But I’m not a superhero, Ross.”
Ross reached down and slapped his brother proudly on the back. “That’s right, Seth. You’re better than a superhero. You don’t have to waste time racing into a telephone booth to change out of your boots and hat.”
A few feet away, from her seat on a leather chester-field couch, their sister, Victoria, groaned. “Ross, this mess isn’t funny. I don’t know how you can joke at a time like this.”
Ross chuckled as he continued to squeeze Seth’s shoulder. “Who’s joking?” Ross retorted. “Company D down in San Antonio would fall apart without Seth.”
The two men were dressed similarly in boots and jeans and long-sleeved cotton shirts. As far as resembling each other, Seth was a fraction shorter and more solidly built than his six-foot brother. Where Ross’s hair was nearly black, Seth’s was a dozen shades of brown, ranging from light to dark. But the most striking difference in the men was in their demeanor. Ross was normally all grins and teasing laughter whereas Seth had always been a quiet, serious man.
“Ross, your confidence in me is a little exaggerated,” Seth countered. “At least my captain would say so.”
Grinning, Ross waved away his older brother’s modest remark.
“You’re already a sergeant. Before long you’ll be a captain.”
Seth grimaced. Ross was still, in many ways, just like their late father, Tucker. He’d believed all Ketchums were meant to go straight to the top of the ladder.
“I don’t want to be a captain,” Seth said while gazing absently at the glass of iced tea he was holding. “I like the position I’m in just fine.”
“Seth, you—”
“Ross, will you let it rest?” Victoria interrupted. “Seth isn’t telling you how to run the ranch. And he’s only been home a few minutes! Why don’t you let him catch his breath?”
Seth glanced gratefully at Victoria. She was not only a beautiful woman, she was also a damn good doctor and as far as he was concerned, she’d always been the most levelheaded of the four Ketchum siblings. After all these years of her being single, he found it hard to believe that she and Jess Hastings had mended their differences and were now married and expecting a child. Yet that wasn’t nearly the shock he’d received when he’d heard that his playboy brother had tied the knot with Isabella Corrales, a beautiful lawyer from the Jicarilla Apache reservation.
But romance and weddings hadn’t been the only things taking place on the T Bar K. Jess, his new brother-in-law and undersheriff of San Juan County, had been shot and nearly killed. Thankfully, that case had been solved and the ranch hand that had committed the crime was now serving time behind bars. However, there was still the mystery of the murdered foreman, Noah Rider, to unravel and everyone in the family was now looking to Seth, expecting him to work a miracle in a case that, frankly, had been cold from the very beginning.
Ross moved away from Seth and took a seat on the arm of his wife’s chair. “I just want to brag a little on my brother, sis,” he said to Victoria. “I’m not trying to tell him how to do his job. Hell, that’s the reason we called him. He knows how to investigate a murder case. We don’t. That is, except for Jess. But he’s already said the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department is welcoming all the help they can get.”
Seth said, “Well, like I told you both on the phone, New Mexico isn’t exactly my jurisdiction, unless we have a Texas crime that overflows into this state.”
“It appears that you have,” Victoria spoke up. “Noah Rider lived in Hereford, Texas, at the time he was murdered. Looks to me like a Texas Ranger has every right to investigate the death of a citizen of Texas.”
A faint grin lifted the corner of Seth’s lips. “Depending on where that death occurred,” he told his sister.
“We don’t know where the death occurred,” Isabella pointed out.
Ross smiled proudly at his wife. “Good point, honey. I think I’ll keep you around, after all.”
Bemused, Seth watched his brother lift the back of Isabella’s hand to his lips. He’d never seen Ross acting so smitten and it came as a shock that his brother was really and truly in love with someone other than himself.
“Seth, you don’t really have to have jurisdiction around here to do a little snooping on your own, do you?” Victoria asked, her face wrinkled with concern. “I mean, you don’t have to work in conjunction with Jess’s office, do you?”
Seth smiled briefly at his sister. One of the reasons he’d dropped everything back in Texas and hurried out here to the T Bar K was to help ease Victoria’s mind. From what Ross had told him, Victoria had been extremely upset from the very onset of this whole murder thing and she’d continued to worry about what it might do to the family, and the ranch, if the killer wasn’t caught and brought to justice. All the anxiety couldn’t be good for the baby she was carrying. And more than anything, Seth wanted to see his sister deliver a healthy child.
“Don’t worry, Victoria. I can snoop in a way that won’t step on anyone’s toes. I just won’t have immediate access to Ranger computer data. But if I need something searched, I have a friend back in Texas who’ll do it for me.”
“A female friend?” Ross asked impishly.
Seth didn’t bother to glance at his brother. After all these years, he was used to Ross’s teasing. And now that Seth was thirty-nine, nearing forty, and still single, he expected to hear more from his newly married brother.
“No. A fellow Ranger.”
“Seth, you’re just no fun at all.”
“I didn’t come up here for fun, little brother.”
Instead of taking offense, Ross chuckled. “Okay, you don’t have any fun back in Texas and you don’t plan on having any while you’re here at home. So what are you planning to do?”
The question brought Seth’s head around and he looked at his brother squarely. “I plan to track down Noah’s killer.”
The next morning Seth was up early. After eating a big breakfast with his brother, he walked out to the front porch and there he stayed, long after Ross headed on down to the barn to start his day’s work.
He’d nearly forgotten how dry it was up here in northern New Mexico. It was such a switch from humid San Antonio that his eyes burned and the inside of his nose felt as if it was going to crack.
But it was beautiful here on the ranch. He could never deny that, he thought as he watched the sun burst over the crest of eastern mountains. It was wild and rugged land that was as harsh as the climate could be. He’d left the ranch nearly eighteen years ago when he’d been only twenty-one.
At the time, Tucker had thrown a walleyed fit. Which had been no surprise to anyone in the family, especially not Seth. His father had been a hard man with his own ideas about how to live life and how he wanted his sons and daughter to live it. The last thing Tucker had wanted was for Seth to pursue a career in law enforcement. Particularly, a Texas Ranger, which would force him to leave the state. But Seth had defied his father and followed his dream. He’d become a member of an elite group of lawmen, a feat that very few men accomplish in a whole lifetime. And he’d done it all on his own, without the help of Tucker Ketchum. A fact that left him full of pride, but always a little sad, too.
“So here you are.”
At the sound of Marina’s voice, Seth turned to see the heavyset cook step from the doorway and onto the wooden planked porch. The Mexican woman had worked for the Ketchum family for forty or more years and was considered more of a family member than an employee. Ross kept her wrapped around his little finger, but she always seemed overjoyed to see Seth, whenever he did make a rare trip up here to the ranch.
“Did you need me for something, Marina?”
She grinned at him as though just looking at him made her happy and he felt a pang of guilt for not keeping in closer touch with his family.
“I just make a fresh pot of coffee,” she said. “You like some?”
Nearly an hour had passed since Seth had eaten breakfast. He supposed he could use a little more caffeine and it would give him an opportunity to throw a few questions at Marina.
He followed the old cook through the large, rambling house, to the back where the kitchen was located. The room was warm, the breakfast mess already cleaned away from the long pine table, but the smell of fried bacon still lingered in the air, mixing with the scent of freshly brewed coffee. From atop the refrigerator, a small radio was playing country music and reporting tidbits of local news.
Aside from a few updated appliances, the room was the same as it had been when he’d been a child. Except that his mother wasn’t hovering behind his chair, ruffling his hair and reminding him to eat his oats.
His parents had been dead for some years now, along with his brother, Hugh. His brother had been the first to go—six years ago, he’d been gored to death by one of the ranch’s bulls. A year later, his mother had passed away from the lingering complications of a stroke, then a little more than a year ago, his father had died from heart failure. A big part of his family was gone now.
Shoving away the bittersweet memories, he caught Marina’s attention and patted the seat kitty-corner to his left. “Pour yourself a cup, too, Marina, and come sit here beside me.”
Marina eyed him with curious black eyes as she lifted the tail of her white apron and wiped her hands.
“I don’t need to sit. I got work to do.”
“You’re going to sit. This place won’t fall apart if you rest for a few minutes.”
Mumbling under her breath, she poured the coffee, then carried the two mugs over to the table.
“What’s the matter?” he asked as she eased down in the chair. “Don’t you want to visit with me?”
She pushed one of the coffee mugs toward him. “You don’t want to visit. You want to ask me questions. About the murder.”
A low chuckle rumbled up from his chest. “How do you know that? I haven’t said anything yet.”
She frowned. “I see the look on your face. I know you, Seth Ketchum. You might as well pin that badge of yours on your chest.”
He touched his hand to the left of his chest just above his shirt pocket. It wasn’t very often that he went without his Ranger badge. But he was basically on vacation now and as he’d told Victoria, he didn’t want to step on any toes up here in New Mexico.
“I’m not going to ask you about the murder, Marina. You couldn’t know anything about it anyway.”
Her frown deepened as though she wasn’t sure if he’d just insulted her. “Well then—what we gonna talk about? You?”
Seth chuckled again. “No. You already know all there is to know about me.” He lifted the mug to his lips, took a careful sip and lowered it back to the tabletop. “How’s your memory, Marina?”
