Secret Twins For The Texan

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Yeah, hi. I’ll see you later?

Dani and the two boys were turning and walking away from him. He had to hurry. Or maybe just lunge for Dani. Without thinking, he reached past several people and grabbed her arm. The crowd parted and she whirled around.

“Cole? What in the world?” She tore off her sunglasses and nearly pierced his very being with her blazing brown eyes.

His heart was about to pound its way out of his chest. “I’m sorry. I just...” You just what? Saw her and thought you’d wrap your hand around her? “I wanted to say hello.”

“Oh, well, hi.” Dani looked down at the two boys who were right at her hips. One was clutching the skirt of her light blue sundress, the other holding on to her hand.

“Can we talk? Over here?” With a nod, he suggested a bench in front of the Royal Diner.

She pursed her lips tightly. “We said all we needed to say the other night.”

He should’ve known he’d have to put some elbow grease into this. “It’s a hot day. Probably not a bad idea to sit and take a break.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

He pointed down at one of the two boys. “I think he could use some time out of the sun. His cheeks are pretty pink.”

Horror crossed Dani’s face and she leaned down to check on the boy. “Are you okay, honey?”

He nodded. “Just hot. And thirsty.”

“Fine, Cole. But just for a minute.” She took the boys’ hands and led them over to the bench. They both climbed up and sat, swinging their legs. Dani pulled a bottle of water from her bag and offered it to them.

“Who’s this you have with you?” Cole asked.

She hesitated for a moment. “These are my sons. Cameron and Colin.”

Her what? Cole nearly had to pick his jaw up off the sidewalk He was as confused as could be right now. Dani had painted herself as a single woman without a care in the world aside from her career. One would have thought the topic of having two children might have come up while they’d talked the other night. Was this why she’d glossed over part of her time in New York? And if so, what was she hiding? He crouched down in front of the boys, knowing he had to play it cool. Dani had little patience for him right now. “Hi, guys. I’m Cole. Now which one of you is Cameron and which one is Colin?”

The boy in the red-and-white-striped shirt thrust his hand up into the air. “I’m Cameron.”

“So you must be Colin.”

In a blue-and-white-striped shirt, Colin seemed more reticent than his brother. He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Cole peered up at Dani, who was beaming at the boys. “I guess there were a few things we didn’t have a chance to talk about the other night.”

She cleared her throat. “A few things.”

Cole straightened to his full height. Dani was flat-out stunning today, but he couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by the way she looked in that sundress with the skinny straps, all glowing skin and luscious lips. “How old are the boys?”

She took a step away from her sons. “Uh. Four. About to turn five.”

Cole turned and looked at them again, doing the math in his head. Like most brothers, they were horsing around, poking and prodding each other. Cole was no expert, but they looked ready to go to school. He wasn’t buying the idea that they were four, but he couldn’t ask them in front of their mom. “You putting them in kindergarten this year?”

“No. One more year of preschool. They’re not quite ready yet.”

“I see.” He took another glance at them. Their coloring was just like his own. Hair color? Remarkably similar. It was even thick like his, not fine like most young children’s. “Your relationship with Taylor Blake must’ve been a lot more serious than you let on.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it, Cole.”

If he wasn’t standing in the middle of a packed sidewalk, Cole would ask Dani all sorts of questions. He might even ask for a paternity test. But he had to be glad that she wasn’t kicking him in the shins right now or calling him names. After the other night, he did not think a calm conversation with Dani would be possible, but here they were. He was prepared to do anything to preserve the peace.

But were these boys his? Was it possible that Dani had been pregnant when she packed up and left for New York? They’d had no contact whatsoever, except for a letter Dani sent six months after she left, asking if he wanted to talk. Unable to open that door and wanting to protect her, he hadn’t responded.

He looked at the boys again. There was a feeling deep in his gut that was saying they could be his. Even if that might not be the case, he had to have the chance to get to know them better. They were one half a woman he still cared for very much.

He crouched down one more time. “Do you boys like horses?”

Colin, the quieter of the two, jumped right off the bench, nearly knocking Cole back onto his butt. “I do.”

Cameron nodded eagerly. “I do, too. Do you have horses?”

“I do. I have longhorns, too. I even have chickens and goats.”

“Do you have a real farm, Mr. Cole?” Cameron asked. It was incredibly adorable how polite these two boys were. Dani had done a good job.

“It’s a ranch. A big one. Would you like to come see it some time? Maybe tomorrow?”

Dani stepped forward and placed her hand on Cole’s shoulder, digging her fingertips into his skin. If she thought it would dissuade him, she was sorely mistaken. Her touch made his pulse quicken and filled his head with ideas of taking off the dress she was wearing today. “Surely you’re busy, Mr. Cole.”

He shook his head. “Nope. Not at all. I always have time for some aspiring young ranchers.”

“Can we, Mommy? Can we?” Colin was jumping up and down, tugging on Dani’s hand.

Cameron got off the bench and joined in. “We never got to see horses in New York.”

“We did when we went to Central Park,” Dani countered. She was so good at digging in her heels.

“That’s not the same. We couldn’t ride those horses.” Cameron turned to Cole. “Can we ride your horses?”

“A few of them you can.” Cole had to disguise his smile. The boys were doing his arguing for him.

Dani dropped her shoulders and sighed. “It’ll have to be Thursday. I need to be at the restaurant tomorrow, and I have plans with Megan on Wednesday.”

Cameron and Colin began jumping up and down again, squealing with delight.

“What time do you want us?” Dani asked.

I want you any time I can get you. Again, Cole’s mind flashed to the other night and how amazing it felt to touch her velvety bare skin.“Nine? Before it gets too hot? We can have lunch. Hungry cowboys need their food.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“What?” Cole asked.

“I’m just trying to figure out how you’re so good at talking me into things I don’t want to do.”

“You don’t want your boys to have a fun morning enjoying some of the finest things Royal, Texas, has to offer?”

The smile that spread across her face held a familiar edge. It was as if she was whispering, Damn you, Cole Sullivan. Good God, how he’d missed that sight. “No. You’re right. It’ll be fun.”

He reached out and grasped her elbow, trailing his fingers down the underside of her arm. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

She cocked both eyebrows. “I have two young boys to keep an eye on, Mr. Cole. May I present a prime example of how much supervision they need?” Dani pointed down the sidewalk. The boys had found an older man with a dog several storefronts away. They were gleefully petting it, oblivious to how far they’d wandered.

“I was talking about ice cream. I was thinking we could go out for some after lunch.”

Dani pressed a finger, hard, right in the center of his chest. “Don’t push your luck.”

Cole put his sunglasses back on, feeling as happy as he’d felt in a long time. “I won’t need luck. The minute I mention ice cream to those two boys, it’ll be all over.”

Dani just shook her head and hitched her purse onto her shoulder. “Boys, we should go now,” she called.

“Oh, and bring your swimsuits Thursday. I have a slide at my pool.”

Dani cast him an incredibly hot look of disapproval. “You’re terrible.”

“I try.”

Four (#u6d5bc439-e6e0-5e93-8a7b-5f4236e6f4dd)

The day after Labor Day, Cole pulled up outside the Texas Cattleman’s Club. This visit was no social call, nor was he here to talk ranching or catch up on the latest gossip in Royal. Cole was here to propose a plan to his team, involving going undercover and hopefully catching Billy Orson, the crooked sheriff who had helped Richard Lowell by falsifying death records and saying that Rich had died in the plane crash that claimed Jason Phillips’s life. Orson had received several large influxes of cash since then, which they were certain had come from Rich. It was a bit crazy, but Cole was prepared to do anything to catch Sheriff Orson.

After speaking with Aaron Phillips the other day and then receiving the results of the DNA testing of the ashes in the urn that were once believed to belong to Will Sanders, they knew for certain that it was Aaron and Megan’s brother, Jason, who had died in that plane crash. This was a murder investigation. There was a lot on the line, and time was not on their side. Rich was on the run, and it was only a matter of time before he fled the country with the money he’d siphoned off from Will’s personal and business accounts, as well as the TCC. They had to catch him. And fast.

But as he strode into the TCC, Cole’s run-in with Dani and the revelation that she had twin sons wouldn’t stop running laps in his mind. Had his eyes played tricks on him? His gut was telling him no. His gut was telling him that those boys might look like Taylor Blake, but they looked even more like him. And the timeline—especially if Dani was lying—worked. Had she gone to New York and discovered she was pregnant? Was that what the letter she’d sent six months after she’d left was really about? Had it been a call for help?

If any of this was true, he and Dani had a holy mess between them, one that would demand untangling. But for the next hour or so, Cole needed to focus on work. He had to set aside one potential headache for an entirely different one.

He entered a small meeting room down one of the long halls at the back of the building. They were keeping a tight lid on the investigation, but this was the best central meeting place. Too many flapping mouths at the sheriff’s office.

Will Sanders was speaking to Sheriff Battle and his deputy, Jeff Baker. Several other deputies were on hand as well, in addition to new full-time members of the task force, courtesy of the FBI—Special Agents Thomas Bird and Marjorie Stanton. Cole had pulled some strings to bring these two on board, but the new DNA evidence had helped convinced the bureau that he needed the extra hands. Bird and Stanton were a crucial part of cracking this case.

Thomas Bird, a reedy man with a thick mustache, was an expert in money laundering, having made his name working on cases involving organized crime. He fully understood the intricacies of the money trail Rich had left behind, especially everything uncovered by Luke Weston’s financial tracking software. Marjorie Stanton, a poker-faced redhead, was a tactical expert specializing in sting operations and undercover work. She was also expecting her first child in three months. Her pregnancy had left her doing investigative work and less of the hands-on work she loved. She wasn’t happy about it, or so she had mentioned to Cole several times when they’d talked.

Sheriff Battle gave Cole the high sign and informally called the meeting to order. “Now that we have Cole Sullivan on hand, we can get down to business. Cole, why don’t you brief everyone on where we stand?”

Cole stood at the front of the room while everyone took a seat. “Sure thing. I believe Deputy Baker has given out the latest brief, but DNA tests have confirmed that Jason Phillips was killed in the plane crash in Durango City, California. We believe Richard Lowell was on that plane and managed to escape. We also believe that he bribed Sheriff Billy Orson to have Phillips’s body cremated before it could be identified. Orson identified the body as Will Sanders. Of course, we all know that Will Sanders is alive and well. Shortly before the plane crash, we got an eyewitness report from Abigail Stewart of an argument between Jason Phillips and Richard Lowell posing as Will Sanders. That was the last time Jason Phillips was seen alive. We believe now that Jason was confronting Rich, and that’s what got him killed. Although we don’t have direct evidence linking Sheriff Orson to the cover-up, it seems pretty clear that he did it. The information given to us by his deputy was invaluable and all pointed to him.”

Stanton raised her hand. “This deputy. Is she a credible source? How do we know she isn’t trying to lead us on a wild goose chase?”

“Her father was the sheriff before Orson. He was a good man, and she hates seeing her father’s legacy ruined like this. She actually put herself in great danger by going to Aaron in the first place. Orson has eyes and ears all over that county.”

Stanton nodded and scribbled down a few notes while her partner, Bird, raised his hand. “We’re still tracing the payoffs from Lowell to Orson. There’s a chance that some of it was cash, but I have to think for this big of a cover-up, it would’ve been too much money to go that route.”

“Orson is a greedy man,” Cole said. “He has a massive house up in the hills. He’s got his fingers in everything within his jurisdiction. The more I dig, the more dirt I find. All kinds of shady dealings and a lot of evidence of bribes and kickbacks. I’m sure Rich had to make a substantial payoff.”

“Everything hinges on Orson right now,” Sheriff Battle said. “If we can find a way to get him to talk and admit that Rich bribed him to have Jason’s body cremated and falsely identify the body as Will, we could blow the case wide-open.”

“And find the money,” Bird added. “We still have to find where Lowell has stashed the small fortune he stole. That’s crucial to our case against him. A big part of his apparent motive for impersonating Will Sanders was to siphon cash from his personal and business accounts. My search for offshore and shell accounts has turned up nothing. I think we’re looking for a physical stash, and my gut is telling me we’re looking for gold.”

“Really?” Deputy Baker asked. “Isn’t that a little impractical? How do you skip the country with gold?”

“It’s not about the how. It’s about the why. It’s the one currency that works anywhere. The disclosure laws are easy to work around, especially if you know what you’re doing, and gold is untraceable by electronic means.”

This really got Cole’s mind going. Did Rich have a stash somewhere in or around Royal? That might explain why they were still sporadic Rich sightings, most recently when Aaron thought he saw Will at the Glass House, when the real Will was miles away at the Ace in the Hole. Was Rich still trying to hide in plain sight, waiting for the perfect time to get to his money? If so, they had to act quickly.

Cole cleared his throat. Time to make his pitch. “Orson is hosting a cocktail party in a few days for potential investors in a pipeline project he’s trying to get in his county. It just reeks of more kickbacks and skimming. What if I posed as a bigwig money guy and wore a wire and tried to get him to say something stupid?”

“Yes. That’s an amazing idea. I could go with you,” Bird offered.

Stanton cast him a doubtful glance. “At a cocktail party for rich people? You’re too socially awkward. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”

Bird pressed his lips into a thin line. “Thanks for that.”

“Hey. I call ’em like I see ’em.” Stanton tapped her pen against her pad of paper. “You need bait. You need a lure. You’re a handsome guy, but something tells me you aren’t Sheriff Orson’s idea of a good time.”

Cole leaned back against the wall and crossed his legs at the ankle. “What’d you have in mind?”

“If you do an internet image search for the guy, you get a lot of pictures of him with women, and they are never the same. We’re talking a real revolving cast of characters. I think we need to send you with a female. A damn good-looking one.” Stanton rubbed her round belly. “I’d do it myself if I wasn’t carrying around a baby disguised as a bowling ball.”

For a split second, Cole had an idea, but it was crazy. Maybe it was the mention of a “damn good-looking” woman that had him thinking of Dani. But she was a mom with two small kids. That was too crazy to make any sense. He couldn’t put her in that kind of danger.

“Sheriff, you have any female deputies right now?”

Sheriff Battle shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. We had one last year but she moved away.”

Stanton eyed Cole, but he could see that the gears in her head were churning. “I doubt the bureau will let me steal an extra agent right now. But I can look into it. Otherwise, you might have to find someone, Sullivan.”

“You really think it’s necessary?” Cole was truly drawing a blank on who he should ask. His brain just wanted to circle back to Dani.

“Honestly? I think it’s essential. I don’t see you catching this guy without a beautiful woman on your arm.”