The Spy Wore Spurs

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“She’s fine. Kids are so big you wouldn’t recognize them. I heard about Tommy. I’m awful sorry about that. He was a real stand-up guy, your brother.”

“He was.” Grace’s voice turned somber.

Ryder couldn’t see her from where he was sitting, but he would recognize her voice anywhere. She had a melodious tone, not silky and seductive, yet still somehow sexy and feminine, except when she got herself all worked up and her voice turned hard and clipped.

“You back for good, then? Mattie would love that.”

“For a week or two, at least. I’ll stop in to see her and the kids.”

“Anything I can help you with, sweetheart?”

Ryder rolled his eyes. Quite a bit different reception from the one he’d gotten.

“I’m looking for a guy by the name of Paco Molinero. He might have come to town with his two small kids, Miguel and Rosita.”

“You hired someone for the ranch?”

“I know his wife in a roundabout way. He’s gone missing.”

“She ought to report that. I can send a deputy out to her house.”

“She’s on the other side of the border.”

A moment of pause came. “You can file a missing person report, I suppose. You got the details?”

“Most of them. I also have a picture.”

Ryder’s ears perked up at that.

“Joey,” the sheriff called out. “I want you to run this man through the system right now. Let’s see if we get a hit.”

“Yessir.”

“How about a cup of coffee while we wait?” the sheriff offered next. “There might even be a couple of cookies left.”

“Mattie’s?” she asked in a kid’s Christmas-morning voice.

Ryder stood and strode out, but all he could see was their disappearing backs as they walked down the hallway, chitchatting like two old friends. He decided to avoid the indignity of chasing after them.

She laughed and put her hand on the sheriff’s shoulder as he said something amusing. Which annoyed Ryder more than it should have.

He wanted to go after them and demand the information he needed, but he had a feeling the sheriff would resist anyone who challenged his authority here, in his own little kingdom. So he strode out of the station, calling Shep, one of his teammates back at the office, for an update.

The news was less than encouraging. They couldn’t find the tunnel.

“Any luck in Hullett?” Shep wanted to know.

“I’ll get what I came for.”

“Locals proving too difficult for you?”

“The usual small-town stuff.”

“Maybe you’ll find yourself a nice small-town girl.”

Telling the guys that he was looking to settle down had clearly been a mistake. “Maybe you’ll step on a rattler.”

Shep laughed. “Come on now. What was her name again? Vivien?”

“Victoria.” He bit out the single word. On a long night patrol with Shep, he’d unfortunately shared his vision of what he was looking for: tough, athletic, ready to go, a partner in fight as well as in the bedroom. Tough enough to survive his kind of life, but soft enough to be the mother of his children, basically.

He might have shared that he was partial to blondes with long hair, the longer the better. And since they’d been talking about her, it was easier to give her some sort of name, for convenience’s sake. Not that he meant she had to be named Victoria, of course, which would be idiotic. But since then, even to himself, he’d begun to refer to this dream woman as Vicky.

GRACE TUCKED HER SHORT, dark bob behind her ears as she ran down the front stairs of the police station. She frowned at the man leaning against her pickup. His color was better than the day before. He was better dressed, too. This time, Ryder McKay wore a dark gray suit with a dark blue shirt and dress shoes instead of the combat boots.

His hair had a little wave to it so it managed to look tussled even short-cut. He wasn’t the best looking man on his team, although he was plenty hot, but he had the kind of energy, a presence that drew her as the others hadn’t. All the more annoying since she hated him for taking Esperanza away.

He was the last person she wanted to see today.

He limped toward her. Looked as if he’d been waiting for her and his presence here wasn’t just an unhappy accident. Great.

“You should be resting that leg.”

“Let’s sit in your truck for a second.”

As he looked her over, she suddenly wished that she’d bothered to slap on some makeup that morning, or that the jeans she wore didn’t have a hole above her left knee. “What happened to Esperanza?”

“She’s on her way back home. Why don’t we see if we can come to some agreement about how to help her?” His desert-honey gaze held hers.

Awareness zinged up her spine. She went around him and yanked the driver’s-side door open.

“You should keep that locked.”

“You should mind your own business.” She wasn’t used to having to lock anything around here.

He got in next to her, taking up way too much space. “These are different times.”

So maybe they were. Smugglers. People getting shot. People disappearing. Things like that didn’t normally happen in Hullett. Even if she no longer lived around here, she hated the idea of the place changing for the worse. Dylan’s sister, Molly, was usually the one who hated change and wanted everything to stay the same, but for once, Grace agreed with that sentiment wholeheartedly.

She tried to take shallower breaths as Ryder’s faint masculine scent, soap and aftershave filled the cab and tickled something behind her breastbone. He smelled as good as he looked. His eyes never left her face.

She reached for the cooler behind her seat and grabbed two bottles of strawberry iced tea. Homemade, her mother’s recipe. Rose Cordero had been gone close to fifteen years now, taken by breast cancer. Grace’s father had been trampled to death by a bull at the rodeo the same year.

She closed her eyes for a second to shut away those memories, then said, “How about a cold drink?”

He smiled at her, and she just barely held back a groan. Was that a dimple in his cheek? The way those amazingly sexy masculine lips stretched over all those white teeth…

Holy Jehoshaphat. And he hadn’t even meant to dazzle her. If he ever tried to seduce a woman in earnest… She put that thought out of her head. She didn’t need to think about Ryder McKay and seduction. She had things to accomplish.

“Thanks,” he said, accepting the bottle. “How well do you know the local sheriff?”