Kitabı oku: «Riley's Retribution»
He had an unsettling effect on her—like no one she’d ever met
He was so damn self-contained, yet below the surface she could sense his mind working. An aura of danger surrounded him that she couldn’t quite resist.
Too bad he was the sexiest man she’d met in a long time. That was another major problem. He made her feel hot and needy, just by the way he looked at her.
And she knew that he found her attractive. That was part of the lure of the man for her—the exhilaration of knowing that he was responding to her…even in her condition.
Her lips firmed. She should be focused on the baby, not on this cowboy who had mysteriously stepped into her life.
Riley’s Retribution
USA Today Bestselling Author
Rebecca York
Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York
MILLS & BOON
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning, bestselling novelist Ruth Glick, who writes as Rebecca York, is the author of close to eighty books, including her popular 43 Light Street series for Harlequin Intrigue. Ruth says she has the best job in the world. Not only does she get paid for telling stories, she’s also the author of twelve cookbooks. Ruth and her husband, Norman, travel frequently, researching locales for her novels and searching out new dishes for her cookbooks.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Riley Watson—He was known as the chameleon, but could he pull off the charade of his life?
Courtney Rogers—Was she an innocent bystander, or was she working with the terrorists?
Jake Bradley—He hated Riley for reasons no one knew.
Kelly Manning—Was he loyal to Courtney, or did he have another agenda?
Cameron Murphy—Would the leader of Big Sky get his bounty?
Boone Fowler—Why was he hiding out on a ranch in Montana?
Greg Nichols—What exactly happened after Courtney fired him?
Sheriff Bobby Pennington—He stood for law and order in Spur City…or did he?
Prince Nikolai of Lukinburg—He claimed to have good reasons for coming to Montana. But a hidden agenda lurked just beyond the fringes of his policy.
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 Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Even the weather was fighting her, Courtney Rogers thought as she pulled the pickup truck out of a skid on the two-lane highway.
If she’d known this freak storm was blowing up like a nasty surprise from the gods of the north, she never would have gone into Spur City.
“No, be honest. You would have left at five in the morning to beat the storm,” she muttered.
Since Ernie Hastings, her damn unreliable ranch manager, had quit six weeks ago, she’d been too short of help to send anyone else for food and other supplies. And too short of money to leave the buying to someone who might choose sugar cereal instead of oatmeal.
Only, the trip into town hadn’t quite turned out the way she’d expected. Midge Buckley had walked rapidly in the other direction when she’d seen Courtney coming, and Jeb Bittner at the general store had given her a hard time—just for the heck of it.
“Well, I guess you never really know your neighbors,” she muttered, then switched on the radio.
An antique Hank Williams song filled the cab. Unfortunately, it was the wrong choice, since old Hank was singing about lost love, and she couldn’t stop herself from reacting to the sadness of the lyrics.
When her vision blurred, she blinked her eyes.
“Get a grip,” she ordered herself. “You’ve come through bad times before. You’ll do it again.”
The swirling flakes and another recent snowfall hid the craggy Montana landscape, but she knew this stretch of road as well as she knew the vegetable garden in back of the ranch house.
She’d been born and raised in this country, and she’d been traveling back and forth to Spur City since her mom had strapped her into an infant car seat for the trip.
The Golden Saddle horse farm where she lived was a legacy from her parents. Mom had died five years ago. Dad had lived three years longer. And she’d been back home for the past two years—while her marriage was coming apart at the seams.
Her own lost love. Buried under a clash of lifestyles and values. And finally…buried for good.
She didn’t want to think about that. She’d loved Edward Rogers, even when she’d told him it was all over between them.
But she’d still prayed they could work things out. And after their divorce, her former husband had come to see her one last time before shipping out to an overseas assignment in Lukinburg.
Could they have made the out-of-kilter relationship work? She didn’t know. Because Lieutenant Edward Rogers hadn’t come home alive. He’d left her with a load of guilt and…
She tightened her hands on the wheel.
“Like Daddy always said, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. You’ve got to clean up the mess and go on from there.”
All she could do was go forward and try to dig herself out of the mess that had become her life.
Maybe her new ranch manager, Riley Watson, would make a difference.
And maybe he’d be just another piece of bad news.
Up ahead, the road crossed under a bridge, and she squinted because she thought she saw a figure on the span above her—just visible through the whirlpool of flakes.
A man was looking toward her. She couldn’t see him very well, but his posture looked strangely rigid…as if someone had fashioned him out of ice.
She squinted into the storm, trying to work out what the guy was doing out here in the middle of nowhere. Was he in trouble and looking for help from a passing motorist down here on the highway?
If so, she felt obligated to stop, because in this open country he could freeze to death if his vehicle had broken down.
She slowed, still dividing her attention between the man and the highway. Come to think of it, she didn’t see a vehicle. Had he walked to the bridge from farther down the highway?
As she squinted up at him, he moved. She blinked, trying to figure out what she was seeing. It looked as if he’d raised a rifle to his shoulder and was aiming it down toward her.
There was no other car or truck on the road.
If that guy was really planning to shoot at someone—it was her.
“No,” she whispered into the silence of the car.
Her heart was thumping as she sped up, trying to swerve out of the way or make it under the bridge before he could fire.
But she was too late. A rifle shot cracked. And the slug tore into the glass just above her head and to the right.
It was as though a stone had hit the windshield. Only that was no stone.
She skidded on the snow-covered road, skidded under the bridge, then kept barreling forward. Fighting the wheel, she managed to keep from crashing into the concrete abutment on her right. Defensive driving lessons her dad had given her leaped into her mind, and she pumped the brakes to slow her speed. But she still wasn’t able to control the truck. When she shot out from under the bridge, she was heading toward the shoulder.
Her hands were clenched on the wheel as she plunged off the snow-covered blacktop, crunched across the gravel and into a field.
Lord knew what was under the snow. The truck swayed, and she fought to keep the vehicle from turning over.
Probably her efforts had little to do with the eventual outcome, but she came to a stop against something solid she couldn’t see. Probably a rock.
Quickly she cut the engine. Still clutching the wheel, she struggled to bring her breathing back to normal as she fought a terrible sense of dread.
“Think rationally,” she ordered herself. “Going into panic mode won’t do you any good.”
One by one, she gathered her mental resources. Then, slowly and deliberately, she took a physical inventory. She felt no sudden pains. And when she moved her arms and legs, they worked. With shaky fingers, she unbuttoned her coat and reached inside to press her hand against her middle. Everything seemed to be okay—no thanks to the guy up on the bridge.
Oh, Lord—the guy on the bridge! She’d forgotten about him for a moment. Would he come down here to finish her off? Or was hitting her pickup enough?
With a jerky motion she reached for the gun that she kept in the compartment of the truck door.
Seconds ticked by. Then minutes. And she began to relax a little. It looked as if the shooter had turned tail and run.
But she was still in big trouble. The windshield was a maze of cracks, the temperature was below zero, and the snow was going to bury her truck in no time flat.
With her gun across her lap and one eye cocked toward the road, she picked up the cell phone from the seat beside her and tried to make a call.
Reception out here was never great, and the snow didn’t help. All she got was a notice on the screen that the service couldn’t make the connection.
“Oh, sugar,” she muttered, slapping the phone down and peering outside.
Despite the dire circumstances, she grinned. Her campaign to improve her language was working. She’d reached for a curse and managed to say “oh, sugar” instead of something stronger.
After waiting several minutes to make sure she wasn’t being stalked, she tried to turn the motor on again. But the truck wouldn’t start. Which meant she couldn’t run the heater. And she could already feel the cold creeping inside the cab.
She peered out the window, thinking about her limited options.
She could try to walk, which wouldn’t get her far in this weather. Or she could stay put and hope someone found her—and not the guy up on the bridge who had pulled the trigger.
Neither choice was good. But she figured that staying in the truck offered the best chance of survival.
THE SMOTHERING CLOUD OF SNOW swirling out of the sky was disorienting, Riley Watson thought as he drove toward the Golden Saddle Ranch. In fact, everything about this assignment was disorienting.
Three weeks ago he’d been working as part of a team—the Big Sky Bounty Hunters. With Bryce Martin, Jacob Powell, Aidan Campbell, Joseph Brown and the rest. Now he was all alone on a Montana highway in the middle of a blizzard—and fighting a feeling of unreality.
He swallowed hard. Too bad an explosion had changed everything.
But he knew it had been Big Sky’s best option. After escaping from Boone Fowler’s torture camp on Devil’s Fork Island, they’d pulled off a pretty nifty charade. As far as the world—and the bad guys—knew, everybody on the team, including himself, had been blown to smithereens.
The rest of the men were lying low, waiting for Riley’s signal to come out of hiding.
Like a slippery eel, Fowler had slithered away. But Big Sky had pinpointed his location. He had rented some unused buildings on the Golden Saddle Ranch and reconstituted his gang as the Montana Militia for a Free America, a supposedly law-abiding group of men who only wanted to defend themselves against the forces of big government. There were other similar groups out here—which made the cover story all too plausible.
So why had ranch owner, Courtney Rogers, given Fowler a place to stay? Was she a pal of his? Was she working for a terrorist organization? Or was she an innocent bystander caught in the middle of a bad situation?
Big Sky couldn’t simply drive up to her front door, ask some pointed questions and expect straight answers. So Colonel Cameron Murphy, their leader, had devised a plan to put Riley onto the ranch where he could find out what Fowler was up to and what role Ms. Rogers was playing in the game.
Privately, Riley didn’t much like the scenario, because it could put an innocent woman in jeopardy.
If she was really innocent. He’d pored over the information they’d given him about her, trying to figure her out. She was twenty-eight. She’d been born out here in the middle of nowhere and lived all her life on the Golden Saddle—except for four years at the university, then a year in Billings after she’d gotten married. But she’d come home to the ranch when her husband had taken an overseas assignment. And her marriage had been rocky after that.
She was a rancher at heart. As a girl, she’d won a bunch of blue ribbons with her 4-H projects. And she could rope and ride, shoot and tend the stock with the best of the guys. As far as he could see, she was happy in this patch of Montana.
But Edward Rogers couldn’t stay put in one place. He liked travel—and danger. Which was how she’d ended up a widow.
And now Big Sky was messing with her life. For starters, they had paid Rogers’s ranch manager, Ernie Hastings, a large sum of money to walk out on her. Then Riley had applied for the job. His fake résumé had looked good in the e-mails he and Mrs. Rogers had exchanged. This afternoon, he was on the way to the ranch for a face-to-face interview.
His nerves were jumping. But he kept reminding himself why the colonel had picked him. He’d grown up on a ranch in Texas, so he had the skills to play the role Big Sky had assigned him.
Another point in his favor was Courtney Rogers’s situation. She was shorthanded. Her father had left the ranch in debt. And her former husband wasn’t coming to her rescue, because he’d gotten himself killed during an assignment in Lukinburg.
As Riley drove toward the Golden Saddle, his thoughts shifted from the ranch owner to Boone Fowler, and his stomach clenched.
He’d been trying not to dwell on that part of the assignment. The last time he’d seen the militia leader, Riley had been Fowler’s prisoner. Thank God he’d been in disguise. And working under an assumed name—Craig O’Riley. When they’d captured him, his hair had been long and dyed dark. Then his captors had shaved his head with a dull razor. Lucky for him, his hair was thick enough to hide the scars.
Not that he was vain enough to worry about some razor nicks on his skull spoiling his appearance. But they could have interfered with one of his biggest assets as a bounty hunter—his ability to fool his quarry into thinking he was someone else.
Among the men of Big Sky, he was known as the chameleon. For him, changing his appearance was as natural to him as changing his shirt.
Ironically, this time, he was going as himself, with sun-streaked brown hair, hazel eyes and a confident bearing he wasn’t exactly feeling. But that last part was even more important than the physical attributes. He had to convince Boone Fowler that they were equals—not former prisoner and captor. Because if Fowler cottoned on to his real identity, he was a dead man.
The stakes were too high for failure. And not just the personal stakes. Since their captivity, Big Sky had discovered that Fowler’s militia wasn’t working alone. It seemed they were tied to a terrorist movement bent on influencing American policy on Lukinburg. And the terrorists were probably in league with the former King Aleksandr Petrov—who wanted to keep his ass on the throne.
So Riley’s ultimate goal was to find out what Boone Fowler was up to, then contact Big Sky so they could scoop up him and his men and collect their bounty.
Nothing much, he thought with a laugh.
But first he had to convince Courtney Rogers to hire him so he could find out what side she was really on.
As he drove through the snow, a shape loomed above and slightly ahead of him. Uncertain of what he was seeing, he slowed.
When he drew closer, the shape resolved itself into a bridge.
The snow poured down from the sky like someone was up there emptying buckets of the stuff. But the bridge presented a man-made roof.
Once he drove into the shelter of the span, he saw something interesting—a set of skid marks on the sheltered blacktop. Obviously a vehicle had come shooting into the underpass, with the driver barely in control.
Then what?
Inching forward, he followed the trail. It emerged from the overhang and into the swirl of snow. The white stuff had almost obliterated the tire tracks on the other side, but he could follow their path as they skidded toward the right.
When he projected the trajectory to its logical conclusion, he saw a green pickup truck that had taken a header into a field.
So, had somebody rescued the driver? Or was he still inside?
Riley slowed, then pulled onto the shoulder and ahead of the vehicle.
When he climbed out, the first thing he saw was that the windshield of the truck was crazed. Maybe a rock had spun up from the road—causing a one-car accident.
Shivering in a sudden blast of cold, he was glad to be wearing a heavy shearling coat, a Western hat, boots and gloves.
The snow was up to his boot tops, making the shoulder surface slippery, and he walked carefully as he started back the way he’d come—his eyes trained on the truck.
He’d been thinking nobody was inside. Now he revised his assumption since he saw no footprints around the driver’s door and the windows were fogged. He couldn’t see much, but he did detect the vague outline of a figure behind the wheel.
He cupped his hands around his mouth as he approached. “You okay?”
Nobody answered, so he reached for the handle and pulled the door open.
Several impressions registered at once. The person inside the cab was small. A small man—no, a woman.
Her features, what he could see of them, were definitely feminine. Large camel-colored eyes. A delicate nose. Nicely shaped lips. A bit of reddish-brown hair poking from below her wool ski cap.
She was wearing a man’s heavy coat and a wool scarf. For further protection against the cold, she had wrapped a blanket around her legs. But the blanket wasn’t the main detail that smacked him in the face.
The woman held an old-fashioned, long-barreled revolver in her right hand, and it was pointed directly at his chest.
The weapon might be old, but it looked to be in excellent shape.
“Get away from me, you bastard,” she ordered in a shaky voice, “or I’ll kill you.”
Chapter Two
Riley raised his hands to shoulder level, gloved palms outward, thinking he was in deep swamp water now. Make that freezing swamp water.
He hadn’t expected an attack when he opened the door. So he hadn’t drawn his own weapon. It was a SIG-Sauer P-226—not the standard issue with Western wear. But he’d figured that enough guys carried them around here that he could get away with it.
“Put away the six-shooter. I came to help you.”
“Sure,” she answered. “That’s why you shot at me.” Her words were slurred, her face was pale, and he knew in that dangerous moment that she was suffering from hypothermia. She wasn’t thinking clearly, and she could shoot him if he blinked—or if he took a step back. On the other hand, if he stood here with snow swirling around him and tried to keep talking to her, she could drift dangerously close to death.
“Let me help you,” he said calmly.
“Get away.” Just the effort to talk seemed to be draining her remaining energy.
“Don’t do anything foolish,” he answered, edging closer. When the pistol wavered, he made his move, diving for her gun hand, pointing the weapon toward the floor even as he wrestled the gun away from her.
She had the strength of desperation, and she wasn’t willing to give up easily. As she fought him, he kept imagining disaster—one or the other of them with a gaping bullet wound turning the snow crimson.
It felt like centuries as he fought her for the gun, trying to keep either one of them from getting hurt. Probably it was only seconds.
She moaned as he twisted the weapon from her grasp. To hide it from sight, he set it on the ground below the truck.
“Oh, sugar.” She said it like a curse, and he found the combination of vehemence and ladylike language oddly endearing.
“It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right,” he murmured as he cupped one gloved hand over her shoulder.
Tears welled in her eyes, yet he saw her struggling for control. In the next moment, he found that letting his guard down was a big mistake.
Still on the offensive, she made her gloved hands into small fists, pounding against his chest and shoulders.
“Hey, cut it out,” he growled. “There’s only so far I’m willing to carry chivalry.”
The situation was still deteriorating, and he couldn’t help wondering which one of them was going to end up getting hurt.
Luckily, the hypothermia had sapped the little wildcat’s strength, and he was able to lean into the cab and wrap his arms around her, drawing her close.
“Honey?” she said.
Before he could answer, she whispered, “You came back to help me.” Whoever her honey was, he had a calming effect on the woman.
She let her head drop to his shoulder, and he cradled her against his body, thinking she felt delicate and feminine under the heavy coat she wore. Holding her was no hardship.
Her hands came up again, and he braced for an attack. But she only opened one of the buttons on his coat and slipped her gloved hand inside. When her fingers flattened against his shirtfront, he felt his heart thunk. Then she turned her face and stroked her lips against his cheek.
Easing away, he looked into her sleepy camel-colored eyes. “We need to warm you up,” he muttered.
“Oh, yeah,” she answered in a voice that had gone from panicked to sultry.
He’d climbed out of his SUV to rescue a stranded driver, and he’d expected to be greeted with relief when he opened the truck door. Instead she’d fought like a wounded tiger. Now she was coming on to him—and she probably didn’t even realize what she was doing.
Keeping his voice even, he said, “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I saw you on the road and figured you needed help.”
He watched her pull herself together and focus on him. Maybe she was really seeing him for the first time. In any event, her expression went from sexy to sharp in the blink of an eye.
“If you’re here to help me, why did you take a pot-shot at me?”
“I didn’t shoot at you,” he said, hoping he was putting the right amount of sincerity into his voice.
“Oh, yeah? If you’re on the level, then go away and leave me alone.”
He struggled to rein in his exasperation. “It’s too cold for that. Just for a minute, try to think logically. If I’d wanted to kill you, I could already have done it.”
Either the reasoning had sunk in, or she was too exhausted to keep up the struggle because he saw her shoulders sag.
He picked up her gun from the ground and shoved it into his belt. Then he reached for the lady.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Getting you out of the cold.”
She was back in fighting mode, kicking against him, and he ignored the thuds from her Western boots as he carried her back to the SUV, set her in the passenger seat and slammed the door before hurrying around to the driver’s side. To his chagrin, he almost lost his balance.
As he climbed behind the wheel, she was already reaching for the door handle,
He yanked her hand away. “Don’t do anything foolish. Let me get you out of this storm.”
She gave a sigh and leaned back against the seat as though admitting defeat.
But he wasn’t going to trust that. Not hardly. She was too far out of it—and too determined to fight him.
He tucked the blanket more firmly around her and fastened her seat belt, wishing he’d feel her shiver. That would be a good sign.
After starting the car, he turned up the heat and drove slowly down the road, squinting into a swirl of white and wondering how far he’d have to go before he found both of them shelter.
After twenty minutes, he spotted a red-and-blue neon sign just visible through the driving snow.
Leaning forward, he struggled to make out the words. Finally he saw Buckskin Motel. Vacancy.
“Thank God,” he murmured, then looked toward his passenger. She was sitting with her eyes closed, breathing slowly and evenly.
Was it safe to leave her?
He thought about the scene in the lobby if he showed up carrying her over his shoulder like a caveman dragging his mate off to make love. No. Better leave her in the car—unless she was going to make a run for it.
Wondering how fast he could get in and out, he pulled up beside the office door and cut the engine. Next to the office was a small restaurant. All the comforts of home.
“Do us both a favor and stay put, sugar,” he ordered, then quickly exited the SUV and dashed into the lobby.
“I need a room to wait out the storm, and maybe something to eat later,” he told the old man who came through a door in response to the tinkling bell over the door.
“You’re in luck. We’ve got a few rooms left. And Molly just made a big pot of her beef and vegetable soup.”
“I may try some,” Riley allowed. He kept one eye on his SUV while he filled out the form and paid with a credit card. His passenger didn’t move. And he felt reluctant to talk about her to the man behind the counter.
She’d said someone had shot at her, and she had a serious hole in her windshield. What if it wasn’t a stone that had done the damage? And what if the shooter was looking for her—and somebody talking about her led the bad guys to this motel?
He put long odds on that scenario. But in his years with the Special Forces and then with Big Sky, he’d learned caution. So he decided to keep her under wraps, so to speak, until he could have a coherent conversation with her.
Completing the transaction as quickly as possible, he hurried back to the SUV, then drove down the row of motel rooms and around the back where the old guy had directed him.
When he came around to the passenger door, the woman stirred. “What?”
“You can’t stay in the car. I’m no medic, but I know what you need. I’ve got to get you inside where it’s warm and cozy.”
She roused herself enough to slit her eyes and ask, “Are we at the ranch?”
“No, a motel.”
Her eyes blinked fully open, and she focused on him again—obviously seeing a man she didn’t know and didn’t trust. “I’m not going into any motel room with you.”
“If I had wanted to try anything funny, I could have done that in the car.”
Before she could object, he stepped away from the vehicle and unlocked the motel room door. Returning to the SUV, he scooped her up and carried her inside, where he laid her on the bed.
After bringing in a few things, he closed and locked the door, then fired up the heating unit under the window and put her gun in a drawer so she couldn’t grab it and shoot him. When he turned back to the woman on the bed, he saw that she was dozing again.
The thought crossed his mind that a warm bath might be just what she needed. It made sense in medical terms, but he canceled that plan as soon as it surfaced. No way was he going to do anything that intimate.
But he did pull off her boots, gloves, hat and jacket, tossing them in the general direction of the chair in the corner. Leaving the rest of her clothing on, he bundled her under the covers.
“Can you tell me your name?” he asked.
“No.”
Because she couldn’t remember? Or because she didn’t want to?
He hadn’t seen a purse in the truck. Maybe he’d missed it. She might have a wallet on her, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to pat her down.
She spoke again, her voice faint and urgent. “Honey?”
Apparently, she wanted them back on intimate terms again.
“I’m not your man,” he answered, looking at the mass of rich chestnut hair that had been hidden under her hat. The cloud of hair around her face totally changed her appearance, making her look feminine and seductive. But he didn’t have much time to study her, because she was speaking again, and her tone had turned high and urgent. “I need you to hold me. Please.”
She was calling out to another guy. But she sounded on the edge of panic. When she pushed the covers aside and swung her legs out of bed, he figured he’d better act before she exited the room into the cold and snow again.
“Come on, sugar, let’s get back into bed and get you nice and warm.” He kicked his own boots off and shrugged out of his coat.
Leaving his jeans and shirt on, he climbed into bed and gathered her to him, then pulled the blankets up around them and held her close, stroking her hair and shoulders, murmuring low, reassuring words.
Apparently he had calmed her fears because she closed her eyes and snuggled against him, burying her face in his shirt so that all he could see was her shining mass of chestnut hair.
Very appealing hair, with a strawberry scent that must have come from her shampoo.
“It’s been so long,” she murmured.
“Mmm-hmm.”
When she started to shiver, he figured she was warming up. She was going to be okay, and maybe he should let her go.
But he was enjoying holding her. She was soft and relaxed in his arms, and he hadn’t been in bed with a woman since forever; to be exact, not since before the damn prison camp. After getting out of that hellhole, he’d felt too needy, and he hadn’t wanted to inflict his insecurities on some random woman he picked up in a bar.
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