Most Eligible Spy (11 page)

A worry for another day. She had plenty of other things on her plate today. She put a big smile on her face. “Hey, you. How about breakfast?”

He sat in his chair and yawned as he nodded, looked toward the window and saw the men in the backyard. “Mom? Who is that?”

“Some of Mo’s friends. They’re working in the barn.” She didn’t want to scare her son with details. “Guess what?” She widened her smile as she got out the bowl to make pancakes. “Mo invited us to visit with him.”

He brightened immediately. “I bet he has a lot of video games.”

“I bet he does. And it’s not just any visit. It’s a sleepover. Probably for a few days.”

Logan jumped from his chair, looking as if someone had just told him Santa Claus was coming early. “I’m not going to school?”

“I’m pretty sure the school bus stops there, too.” She shook her head.

His enthusiasm waned a little, but not by much. “Can I pack now?”

She laughed as she stirred the pancake mix. “I think packing can wait until after breakfast.”

So they ate together and Logan talked about nothing but going to Mo’s place. They rarely went away, mostly because they had little family to visit, and also because somebody had to be here for the animals.

Since it was admin day, no school, they did go upstairs to pack. Logan finished first. She spent an eternity agonizing over which clothes to take. She didn’t want to look like a country bumpkin in front of Mo. Stupid vanity, she told herself and nearly packed her rattiest work clothes. But at the last minute, she folded her nicer dresses into the suitcase instead.

The extra SUV was gone from the driveway by the time she came downstairs. Mo was just coming in.

“Everything’s taken care of. I’ll help you do morning chores before we leave.”

And he did. And, Lord, that was nice, not just the help but the company. He was a quiet man, didn’t talk her ear off like Kenny. Quiet, but strong and efficient. He figured out everything right quick, too. She didn’t need to explain a thing.

As he mucked out the stalls, nobody would have guessed that he was some gaming-empire millionaire. She stared at him, just a little, before she caught herself. She’d been worried about Logan, but was she falling just as fast for Mo?

“Done here.” He leaned the pitchfork against the wall. “I’ll just wheel this out back.” He grabbed the wheelbarrow.

“Thanks.” She looked after him as he went, then busied herself with the cows, even as her thoughts kept lingering on Mo.

He seemed to be the type of man who could fit in anywhere, do anything and be good at it because he paid attention and gave top effort. He didn’t put on airs. He could have been dressed all in Armani, but wore simple clothes and didn’t mind getting them dirty.

By the time the chores were done, she nearly talked herself into the fantasy that they weren’t so different after all, that maybe some relationship between them could be possible while he was here.

That thought went right out the window when they finally arrived at his apartment in Hullett an hour later.

Logan walked around wide-eyed, touching everything, exclaiming over something every second. She felt the same, although held herself back. But only just. She was more than a little shell-shocked.

“You, um, have a very nice place.”

The understatement of the year. He rented in the fanciest building in town, a historical hotel on Main Street once owned by an oil baron. The whole top floor had been the baron’s private living space. Now Mo was staying there.

“Sit,” she ordered her dogs and pointed to a corner, hoping they wouldn’t mess up anything. Thank God they weren’t chewers. She couldn’t afford to replace as much as a doormat here.

“They’ll be fine.” Mo was smiling at her.

“This is very fancy,” she said weakly.

“Didn’t want it, didn’t need it.” He set down her suitcase and raised his hands palms out, in a defensive gesture. “I came to rent something small. Turns out the manager is somewhat of a gaming buff. He gets every gaming magazine. My name was familiar to him and he asked. I didn’t want to lie to his face. All he had to do was look it up on Google.”

Of course, in the gaming circles the Mann name was probably famous. And the manager would insist that Mo take the penthouse apartment, the best they had.

She couldn’t imagine who else would ever have money to rent the place. Visiting politicians? The pope?

He moved farther in, seemingly oblivious to all the fanciness. “Let me show you around so you and Logan can get settled in.”

He led her through the large living room, where the furniture was modern and well made. “At least it came furnished,” he said. “Otherwise, I’d be probably sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor.”

Logan stared at the longhorn armchairs, actually made with cattle horns. The leather couch was as big as Texas. It looked like something from one of those high-end home-design magazines she couldn’t afford to read.

The place had a full kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances, although they were so fancy she wasn’t sure she’d know how to operate them. She drew a hand over the smooth granite countertops, pure luxury.

“The place came with two guest bedrooms all set up.” Mo led them forward.

She followed him hesitantly, already overwhelmed, while Logan plowed ahead. The first bedroom had a flat-screen TV of immense proportions. In front of the TV stood some sort of a console, a leather armchair with a dashboard built in. Looked like the captain’s chair from the USS
Enterprise.

“My brother sent it over last week. Some new game he wants to put out. Space cowboys.” He shrugged. “Not exactly my area of expertise. He’s the programming genius. But from the beginning he insisted that I get a vote on everything. So I’m supposed to evaluate the
experience
.” He shook his head. “Maybe Logan could help?”

“Mom,” Logan squealed. “Can I have this room? Please?” He actually had his hands clutched together in front of him, his eyes as big as Ping-Pong balls.

“Sure,” she said weakly. She had no idea how they were ever going to repay Mo for all this.

She backed out of the room. Logan stayed behind, diving for the game console. And where she wouldn’t have had any idea how to even turn the thing on, he had a game going in less than thirty seconds.

Mo moved down the hallway, stopped in front of the next room. “This could be your room, if it’s acceptable.”

A four-poster bed dominated the space, the room decorated in grays and earth tones, sumptuous and sophisticated at the same time. So unlike her. And yet she was completely in love with it. She felt like a kid at the state fair and had an idea that she probably looked just as amazed and wide-eyed as Logan.

Mo stepped aside so she could walk into the room. “Do you need anything? All you have to do is push the number-one button on the phone for concierge.”

Concierge.
“I think we’ll be fine.”

“Bathroom is right next door.”

She stayed where she was. She didn’t want to see the bathroom. It probably had a marble Jacuzzi or something. She could only deal with so much at once.

“I’ll leave you to settle in. I’m going to go into the office for a while. My hours aren’t exactly regular,” Mo said with a smile that said he was happy to have her here and, at the same time, that he’d be happy to have her.

Heat crept up her neck.

“Call me if you need anything.”

What else could she possibly need? The suite had everything but a private butler. She’d never seen anyplace like it. That Mo lived here boggled her mind more than a little. The gap between them suddenly widened to a giant gorge. She nodded and watched him leave.

They were so not in the same league.

He strode to the front door, but then suddenly stopped and came back. “One more thing.”

Her heart leaped. God, don’t let him kiss her. She was so overwhelmed, she wasn’t sure she could resist.

But instead of trying to make a move on her, he hurried around the apartment, reached under furniture, behind sofa pillows, into a kitchen cabinet and gathered up half a dozen guns of all sizes. He carried them to an abstract painting on the wall that turned out to be a safe and locked them in there.

“I don’t want these within reach with Logan here,” he said as he moved to leave again. Then stopped again.

He reached into his pocket and handed her a key. “I’ll get another one for myself from downstairs. Make yourselves at home. Feel free to use the room service.”

And then he kissed her, a lingering brush of his lips over hers before he strode out the door, leaving her staring after him.

She was pitiful. And he was...

Room service.
Just like that. Was that how he ate? On a daily basis? A day of that probably cost more than her weekly grocery bill.

“Mom, it has alien cowboys! Want to see?” Logan called from his room.

“In a second, honey.”

She took in the place, more carefully this time, feeling more overwhelmed by the minute.

She and Mo were from different worlds. The kiss had meant nothing. She sank into the nearest chair as dismay filled her. Girls like her were nothing but playthings to men like him.

She’d learned that lesson early and wasn’t likely to forget. She’d fallen in love, let herself be seduced, then had been cast aside the day she’d found out she was pregnant. Rich men wanted women for entertainment. Mo wouldn’t want more than that from her.

Oh, God, she thought, feeling sick to her stomach. She’d done this before. Mikey had dazzled her with his money and extravagant gifts. He’d told her how much he’d cared for her. But all of that had been a setup.

And she’d almost fallen for it again. She felt so disappointed, she nearly choked on the feeling. Then she gathered herself and stood. She wasn’t an impressionable young girl anymore, ripe for the plucking.

“All right. Let’s see how those aliens fight.” She headed back to Logan, thinking about her own battles.

She might have moved into Mo’s apartment, but if he thought she was just going to waltz straight into his bed, too, he had another think coming.

Chapter Eight

Mo filed his
reports and was on his way out of the office to stop by the jail again, this time to talk to the driver they’d caught by the border, when Ryder came in.

“Can I see you for a sec?” Mo gestured with his head toward the interrogation room, the only room in the office that had a door. The rest was open space with enough desks for the six-man team.

“Sure.” Ryder followed him.

He was looking at Mo with expectation. “Everything okay?”

Mo scratched the back of his neck, not entirely comfortable. “So, about Molly Rogers.”

“You got something on her?”

“She has nothing to do with anything. Thing is...” He paused, then bit the bullet. “I moved her and her son to my place at the hotel.”

Ryder’s eyebrows slid up his forehead.

Mo thought how to best word his explanation. “She keeps getting night visitors. She has an eight-year-old son. They’re out there alone.”

“She could have gotten her own room at the hotel.”

Mo cleared his throat. “She’s not that well-off financially.”

“She has to have some friends.”

She probably did. Although some of the people in town looked down on her, there were plenty of nice folks in Hullett. “If whoever keeps searching her place decides that whatever he’s looking for is not there, they could come after her. She’s safest at my place.”

Ryder raised an eyebrow. “With you?”

Right. Slippery ground. “I’m never at the apartment. I’m either here or looking for crossing points on the border. For the next few days, I’m going to spend as many nights as I can at the Rogers ranch, see if I can catch whoever keeps going back there.”

Ryder rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I know there’s a certain irony here, considering Grace and me, but I have to ask...do you have an interest in Molly Rogers beyond the professional?”

Mo shoved his hands into his pockets. He wasn’t used to talking about stuff like this. But Ryder was team leader and he had a right to know where this was going, if it would distract from the mission. Oh, hell. He filled his lungs.

“I don’t really know. I want her and her son to be safe. And then—” He shook his head. “I have no idea what she wants.”

Maybe Ryder could give him some tips. Ryder had managed to win Grace over, and Grace Cordero was one tough cookie.

But all he gave Mo was a sympathetic look. “Rather go into armed combat myself than try to figure out a woman.”

Mo nodded. At least Grace was a soldier. She and Ryder had that in common.

Molly Rogers seemed like a whole different world to Mo. He was pretty much a killing machine, usually surrounded by violence on a daily basis. She was a mother, surrounded by chickens.

What did he know about women anyway? His birth mother had tried to drown him. His foster mother had died when he’d been a kid. He never had sisters.

But he knew enough to know that Molly was special. She would be worth any effort to win. If only the timing of all this didn’t suck so much. But maybe he could work on the timing. They had weeks before the planned terrorist crossing, if their intel was right. And even after the capture, more weeks would pass while they wrapped up everything here.

They needed to run down every last person involved, to make sure something like this couldn’t happen again. His team was determined to secure the hundred-mile section of the border that they’d been trusted with.

“Is this going to be a problem?” He didn’t define what “this” was. He had no idea what to call the instant attraction—at least on his part—between them, and those spectacular kisses, which he hoped would soon be repeated. “She’s no longer a person of interest.”

Ryder thought that over. “We’re hunting criminals here. Terrorists. If someone figures out who we are, if they come after us, everyone connected to us could be in danger. Which is why I’m keeping my relationship with Grace under wraps as much as possible.”

And Grace, after several tours overseas as an Army medic, could defend herself. Molly, on the other hand...

Mo rolled his shoulders. He hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t want Molly and her son in danger.”

Ryder’s face grew somber. “Then don’t put her in any.”

Easier said than done. “She’s fine at my place. I secured it when I moved in. Reinforced the door with Kevlar. Nobody comes through that door unless they’re let in. But while Logan is at school, she’ll be at the ranch, taking care of her garden and her animals. I want some sort of protection for her.”

“She’ll get it. We’ll make sure someone is out there with her while she’s working. Her ranch is connected to our investigation. I can justify expanding some manpower there.”

“I appreciate that.”

Ryder shook his head. “Grace is worried about her, too.”

They talked for another minute or two, then went about their business. Ryder needed to plan the schedules for the following week. Mo headed over to the county jail. After that, he’d take Molly and Logan out so she could do her evening chores at the ranch, then take them back to the hotel. Then he would return to the ranch to lie in wait, should any bad guys stop by during the night.

“I’ll be back in the morning,” he told Jamie and Shep, who were working on their computers.

“Another stakeout?” Jamie asked.

“Ready for more electroshock therapy so soon?” Shep ribbed him. “Hoping it’ll curl your hair?”

“Very funny. Want to see how you’d like a couple of hundred volts between your ribs?” he offered.

The friendly taunting didn’t really bother him. Not when Ryder had as good as given his approval. Molly would get team protection, too. And she was living at his place. He knew a grin was spreading across his face but didn’t care.

He walked through the office then outside into the heat. He pushed Molly out of his mind and organized his thoughts around what he needed to do next. He needed to get the truck driver talking. They needed the name of Dylan Rogers’s partner. They needed the man to give up the Coyote’s true identity. They needed the exact location of the planned border breach, and they needed the day.

The drive to the jail was long and hot, the visit a complete bust. The truck driver had hanged himself in his cell just minutes before Mo had gotten there. He called in the news to the office.

They’d had nothing but bad luck on this mission so far. Too much bad luck. The enemy always seemed one step ahead. His instincts prickled. There was something here they weren’t seeing. Maybe Sheriff Shane
was
involved. It sure seemed as if the bad guys were getting some help from somewhere. Except, Ryder had looked into Sheriff Shane, and the man had come up squeaky clean. He thought about that as he headed off to the hotel to pick up Molly and Logan.

He wanted to greet her with a kiss, but couldn’t in front of her son. How they handled that would have to be her decision.

“Did you find everything okay?” he asked as they were headed down in the elevator.

“Yes, thank you. And I want you to know that we will pay you back for everything.”

There was a coolness to her tone that he hadn’t heard since the first time he’d met her, when he’d been interrogating her. He winced at the memory.

“That’s not necessary.”

“Yes, it is.”

The elevator stopped and Logan darted out. Mo tried to take her hand, but she pulled away.

Okay. What was that about?

He didn’t get the chance to ask on the ride out to her place. And they didn’t have much privacy while taking care of the evening chores, either, with Logan always within hearing distance.

He gave up trying, and while she did the milking, a chore that proved him a complete klutz and no help whatsoever, he took Logan to the backyard for some extra self-defense training.

“Hey, Mo, watch this!” Logan executed a pretty good punch to his solar plexus.

“Not that hard, remember? You want to show them that you can defend yourself. The goal is to prevent a real fight, so nobody gets hurt.”

“What if somebody punches me hard?”

“You fight back just enough to make them stop. You won’t respond blindly. You gain control of the situation.”

The kid nodded solemnly.

“You can train with me as hard as you like. But only with me, okay?” Now that the kid would be cooped up in the apartment all day instead of running around the ranch, he needed a little extra exercise.

“So what do you do when someone tries to grab you from the front?” Mo stepped forward and reached out.

Logan deflected.

“What if they grab you by the foot?”

They kept on training. And he thought of his talk with Ryder, how being connected to them could put Molly and Logan in more danger. He would make sure that didn’t happen. But being prepared was the key.

“What if they have a weapon?”

Logan’s eyes went round. “I’m in elementary school.”

“Right. I meant like a stick or something.” He showed the kid a twist kick, just the right place to hit the wrist to send a weapon flying.

And then he turned and caught Molly watching.

“You shouldn’t take up so much of Mo’s time,” she told her son. And then to Mo, “I’m done. We’re ready to leave.”

Logan talked about some of the games he’d been playing on the console, all the way home. Molly barely said anything. She looked almost relieved when Mo left them at the hotel. The only thing she told him was to make sure he ate something from her fridge and didn’t go hungry.

Why did women have to be like that? Did they know how much they confused men? Did they do it on purpose?

He drove back to the ranch and pulled up the driveway. He missed the dogs running to greet him. He got out of the car and walked around, checked the buildings to make sure nobody had come by while he’d been gone.

Nelly gave him her evil look as he walked through the barn.

“Don’t think I’m going to go close enough for a kick. I’ve taken enough abuse already in this barn.” He could swear the cow grinned at him.

Mo looked in on the horses next. Paulie, the half-blind gelding, turned his good eye toward him and gave him a mournful expression.

“You’re not fooling me, buddy. I know you’re just milking this for everything it’s worth.” But he had an apple for the horse, and for Sid and Gypsy, too, and one for Kenny Davis’s Charlie.

He closed everything up behind him, then walked up to the house, went in with the key Molly had given him. Didn’t look as if anyone had been in there or tried to get in.

He opened the fridge for some tea. The leftover lasagna on the top shelf looked like heaven.
Later
.

He drank then went back outside. A couple of things about last night bothered him. The Taser for one. Not standard smuggler ammo. The people who smuggled contraband across the border were usually armed with more serious weapons and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot anyone, even each other, right in the face at the slightest sign of trouble.

So what was up with the Taser here?

He hoped the bastards would come back. Of course, now they knew that Molly wasn’t entirely defenseless and alone out here, they would be more careful. Not that they hadn’t been careful last night.

They’d come after the lights in the house were turned off. After Mo’s pickup had disappeared from the driveway.

Which meant they probably kept an eye on the place. Probably drove by a few times first, checked things out.

He sat in the deepest shadows of the porch, the scent of her yellow roses all around him, and watched the cars on the road. Traffic was sparse this time of the night. None of the cars that passed the house slowed. From where he was sitting, he had no way of telling whether any of the drivers were checking out her place.

He got his SUV out of the garage and drove to the end of the road then set up a one-man roadblock. Ten minutes passed before the first pickup rolled along. Mo stuck a CBP badge on his shirt, flagged the car down with his flashlight and asked for license and registration.

“Anything wrong?” the seventysomething man asked, pushing back his cowboy hat, his face leathered with old age. He squinted from the flashlight as Mo scanned the cab.

“Standard vehicle check. We’ve had some extra activity in the past week. More illegal shipments than we normally see.” Mo handed the papers back, making sure to remember the name. In the morning, he would run everyone through the system back at the office, see if anything popped up.

“Good luck,” the man said and drove away.

Mo checked the next car and the next. A pickup had two rifles on the gun rack in the back, but just regular hunting rifles. Almost everyone had at least one of those around here. No Tasers in sight and no serious firearms, either, nothing that would be used by professional smugglers.

Midnight passed by the time the first car rolled by that seemed out of place—a fancy SUV, close to the hundred-grand price tag. Mexican license plates. An Asian guy sat behind the wheel. He almost didn’t stop, but at the last moment seemed to decide not to drive around Mo. A very lucky decision on his part, since Mo wasn’t in the best of moods by that point.

He was tired and getting hungry. And frustrated because his mind kept returning to Molly and he had no idea why she was giving him the cold shoulder. And doubly frustrated because he was getting nothing out of the roadblock, dammit, nothing that looked suspicious or seemed like any kind of a lead.

“License and registration,” he said as he stepped up to the driver’s side window.

“I left my wallet at hotel.” The man frowned. “What is this? I’m in a hurry. I have business meetings in morning.”

Mo looked him over dispassionately, not the least impressed by the fancy car, fancy suit and tone of superiority. He panned the inside of the car with his flashlight. “You have no ID?”

“I’m Yo Tee. You call mayor about me. He tell you who I am.”

Mo glanced at his watch—almost one in the morning. “I don’t think we’ll be calling the mayor. Why don’t you get out of the car, sir.”

“I have no time. I am important person. Everyone know who I am.” He reached for the shift to put the car in Drive.

Mo reached inside and clamped his wrist. “I wouldn’t try that.”