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Clandestine Christmas
Elle James
Sexy cowboy ropes in stunning secret agent!A wickedly handsome billionaire rancher, Chase Marsden is past his dissolute playboy days. With Covert Cowboy's Kate Rivers posing as his fiancée, he's determined to find the culprits trying to murder an old–and notorious–friend many would kill to keep silent.From the moment Chase eyes Kate—beautiful, tough, but vulnerable—he knows she's the one. Kate, a former Texas Ranger, fears nothing but Chase's reckless kisses. As they investigate together, each clue puts their lives further in jeopardy. Will Christmas find them under the mistletoe…or escaping kidnappers and dodging hit men?
“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll call it a night.”
“Not yet.” Chase reached up and brushed her cheek with his thumb. “I’d give anything to know why you were crying.”
Kate froze. The touch of his thumb on her cheek and the warmth of his hand surrounding hers sent a rush of heat all the way through her body and out to the very tips of her ears and toes.
She tugged at the hand held tight in his.
He refused to let go. “Tell me what made you sad. Please.” His rich baritone wrapped around her like a lush, sexy blanket, warming her in the chill night air.
Her gaze shifted from his eyes to his lips and a new fire burned from the inside. Chase Marsden was a good-looking man with full, sensuous lips that begged to be kissed.
“Let me help you.”
“I’m supposed to be here to help you,” she whispered, feeling herself fall into the man’s eyes.
Clandestine Christmas
Elle James
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ELLE JAMES, a New York Times bestselling author, started writing when her sister challenged her to write a romance novel. She has managed a full-time job and raised three wonderful children, and she and her husband even tried ranching exotic birds (ostriches, emus and rheas). Ask her, and she’ll tell you what it’s like to go toe-to-toe with an angry three-hundred-and-fifty-pound bird! Elle loves to hear from fans at ellejames@earthlink.net (mailto:ellejames@earthlink.net) or www.ellejames.com (http://www.ellejames.com).
This book is dedicated to all my readers.
You make it possible for me to follow my dreams.
I love you all!
Contents
Cover (#u100e9574-031f-5164-b725-969d85b47406)
Introduction (#u753eae03-37db-5080-b3d6-5af22726a5fb)
Title Page (#u5b9c362f-f243-5486-9fa7-bf03ead2880c)
About the Author (#u27b91435-a220-5e64-b9ba-b3f6edf24672)
Dedication (#u910fe84d-4dcf-5f70-838c-bb1f3f8a93aa)
Chapter One (#uf3651201-0772-5e82-ad2e-cda688ce266f)
Chapter Two (#u65d43273-02f2-5259-88a2-019ccb7a2a77)
Chapter Three (#uc8802529-46bb-586e-86bd-49bcdad684ea)
Chapter Four (#uc8245f83-088e-52a5-a5b1-da42156cd7ca)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_aee8cf81-cbbd-5df4-907a-87f0df3220cb)
Chase sat back in his chair at the Lucky Lady Saloon in Fool’s Fortune, Colorado, letting the three-hundred-dollar-a-bottle whiskey and the lilting sound of Sadie Lovely’s voice wash over him.
Today marked the anniversary of his obligation to his grandfather’s will. In order to inherit all of what his grandfather left him, he had to agree to live at the Lucky Lady Ranch for two entire years without leaving for more than one month out of each year.
Finally, he was free to choose wherever he wanted to go, whatever he wanted to do and whomever he wanted to do it with.
But he wasn’t really. In the past two weeks, he’d gone from anticipating leaving the ranch to his overseer to promising to stay until things settled down with Sadie.
Fifteen years older than him, she was a friend from his former playboy life, really an acquaintance who’d saved him from being mugged by thugs and drowning in a gutter when he’d been too drunk and stupid to help himself.
Tough as nails, with a heart of gold, Sadie had held off the thugs with a .40-caliber pistol she kept strapped to her thigh beneath her evening dress. She’d dragged him into her home, sobered him up and asked for nothing in return.
He’d offered her his friendship, and even got to know her grandson, Jake, a cute little boy with curious green eyes. He wasn’t sure what had happened to cause Jake’s mother to crash her car, hadn’t asked and Sadie hadn’t volunteered the information. It was clear she was raising the boy to the best of her ability.
When she’d come to him two weeks ago, scared and in need of his help, he’d opened his doors to her, set her up with a job at one of the businesses he’d inherited from his grandfather and helped her move her and her grandson into his big empty house on the Lucky Lady Ranch until she could get set up in a place of her own.
Sadie ended her song and descended from the stage to sit in the chair opposite Chase. In her late forties, she was still an attractive woman, with smooth curves and a sultry smile. “I’m glad you came.”
Chase sat forward, the mild buzz from the alcohol clearing as he leaned forward. “I came as soon as I got your message. I must say I’m surprised you agreed to perform tonight.”
She shrugged. “I never know when a threat is real or just a threat. All I know is that I can’t live my life like this. I have to work to support my grandson. Speaking of which.” She bit her lip, the lines around her eyes more pronounced than usual. “I want to make sure you’re still good for my backup should anything happen to me where Jake’s concerned.”
“I’m his godfather now. I’d do anything for the kid.”
She reached across the table and touched his arm. “Even raise him as your own?” Sadie held his gaze.
Chase’s chest tightened. “That won’t be an issue. He’s got you.”
“I’m serious. I have a bad feeling.”
“We moved you from Leadville to give you a new start. Hopefully, whoever burned down your house won’t follow you here. You should be okay.”
She smiled. “I have a limited number of skills. Changing my name and hair color hardly constitutes going incognito when all I’m qualified to do is sing and...”
Chase covered her hand. “Look, Sadie, you’re done with that other life. You don’t have to go back to entertaining men. You have a good job here, where all you have to do is sing for a living.” Though he subsidized her earnings, he wasn’t telling her. He owed her his life.
She nodded. “Thanks to you. I’m just afraid my past is catching up to me.”
“Why? What has you scared?”
“I had another empty message on my voice mail. On my new cell phone.” She bit her bottom lip.
“It was a computer-generated sales call gone bad.” Chase shook his head. “What else do you have?”
“I feel like someone is following me. Watching me.” She turned her head and stared out at the practically empty barroom. “Especially today. Every time I turned around I saw nothing, yet I can swear someone is there. Waiting. Watching.”
“Sweetheart, after having a stalker following you around for the past few weeks, you have a right to feel paranoid.”
She pulled her hand away from his. “It’s more than that. When I left my dressing room earlier, I locked the door behind me. I went back because I forgot my throat spray. The door was open. I know I locked it.”
“Perhaps the janitor?”
“He doesn’t come on until after midnight.”
Chase’s anger simmered just beneath the surface. Sadie was his friend and he hated seeing her so distraught. “I placed a call to a man I know of who provides specialized, undercover bodyguards. I asked specifically for a woman to blend in with you and the saloon.”
Tears welled in Sadie’s eyes. “A bodyguard?” Then she shook her head. “I can’t pay you back. Not yet.”
“No need. I don’t like the idea of you and Jake in danger. At least you’ll be safe at the ranch until you find a place of your own. And hopefully, we’ll discover who’s stalking you and nail the jerk before you move back to town into your own place.”
She smiled. “In the meantime, I need to know that you’ll be there for Jake, if anything happens to me. You’re the only one he trusts besides me and the Quaids.” She leaned closer to him. “Chase?”
“Yes, Sadie?”
“If anything should happen to me, I want you to have this.” She pressed something cold and hard into his palm and curled his fingers around it.
“What is it?” He could tell by the shape, it was a key, but to what?
“It’s the key to my safe-deposit box at the First Colorado Bank in Denver. You, me and my attorney are the only ones who have access to the box. He has authority to turn it over to the police should you and I disappear.”
“Which you aren’t, and I’m not,” he assured her.
Sadie took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I haven’t told you everything about me. The safe-deposit box has information in it that would explain a lot. I can’t say that I’ve lived a perfect life. Far from it. Basically, it’s a compilation of my secrets and Melissa’s, Jake’s mother.”
Chase snorted. “As if I would be the one to judge.”
Sadie gave him one of her gentle smiles. “You’ve changed in the past two years, Chase.” Her forehead crinkled. “I’m glad you’re not drinking as heavily, but I think you’ve lost some of your fire.”
It was his turn to smile at her. “The last time you gave me advice, I slowed down. Are you telling me I slowed down too much?”
“You did the right thing. You were on a suicidal path. Your grandfather’s will was just the ticket to get you back on track, not me.”
“I wouldn’t have come back to Fool’s Fortune if it hadn’t been for you.”
Her mouth twisted. “Sure you would have, if for nothing else but to spit on your grandfather’s grave for the way he disinherited your mother.”
“My parents might still be here if he hadn’t been so hard on my mother.”
Sadie clucked her tongue. “You don’t know that.”
“Well, they wouldn’t have been living in New York City. My mother never liked living anywhere else but Colorado.”
“That’s the past. As a wise man once said to me, you have to let go of your past to live in the present or you will have no future.”
Chase sat across the table from Sadie, the woman who, despite her former trade, reminded him of the mother he’d lost six years ago. He pocketed the key, determined to guard Sadie’s secrets. “Thanks, Sadie. Rest assured. I’ll take care of Jake if anything happens to you.”
She nodded. “That’s all I ask.”
“Now let me take you home.”
“I drove my car here. I can drive it home.” She pushed to her feet, a tired smile curving her lips. “I should be okay.”
Chase shook his head. “I won’t take no for an answer.” He, too, rose from his seat. “Besides, I’d like the company on the drive back to the ranch.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind that Jake and I are staying with you at the ranch?”
“The house is too big for just me and the Quaids.” With a smile, Chase added, “Jake should be sound asleep by now. Knowing Frances, she’s plied him with homemade cookies and read him several books by now. Probably let him stay up late, despite his nine o’clock bedtime.”
Sadie’s lips twisted. “I’d be angry at her, but she’s so good with Jake and he adores her. The poor boy needs a mother.”
“He’s got you.”
“And I love him with all my heart. Too bad Melissa didn’t live to watch him grow into a man. Hard to believe she’s been dead almost six months.”
“Still hurts, doesn’t it?” Chase slipped an arm around the older woman and hugged her to him as they walked to the little room behind the stage where Sadie had left her faux fur jacket hanging on a coat rack.
