Most Eligible Spy (8 page)

She cleaned up, gave the poor dog some cold water. “You’ll feel better now that it’s out. What do I always tell you about eating only what I put in your dish?” She ran her fingers through the dog’s fur and scratched behind her ear.

She didn’t like how Skipper’s brown eyes were glazed over. Or the way her muscles suddenly began to shake.

“All right. We’re going to the doc.” She grabbed her purse and walked out, really worried now. “Come on.”

Skipper staggered after her. She didn’t make it to the pickup. For the last couple of yards, Molly had to carry her.

She called the other dogs and they came running. They seemed fine, no signs of any sickness. Didn’t look as if they’d eaten whatever Skipper had.

“When you recover from this, you’re going on a diet.” She struggled to get the dog onto the passenger seat.

All Skipper did was give her a pitiful look and an even more pitiful whimper.

“You’ll be fine, okay? Just relax. We’ll fix this,” she said once she was in the driver’s seat. But her heart was racing.

Nothing could happen to Skipper. She’d been a graduation present from Dylan. She’d been with Molly most of her adult life. She was Logan’s favorite, the most faithful dog in the universe.

She called the vet from the road, got the receptionist. “I’m bringing Skipper in.”

“We have a substitute today. Won’t be in until this afternoon. Dr. Miller is off.”

“It’s an emergency. Can I go out to his place?” She’d done that before. Dr. Miller didn’t keep strict hours.

“He’s at a conference in San Antonio. The sub will be in by noon.”

Skipper couldn’t wait a couple of hours. And Molly did know another vet, someone who had just recently passed her last exam and got her license.

Grace Cordero, her once best friend.

“I’ll figure something out,” she told the receptionist and hung up, then took the turn that would lead her to the Cordero ranch.

Whatever their differences were these days, she was willing to set them aside when Skipper’s life hung in the balance.

But would Grace? For some reason Grace thought Dylan had tried to hurt her. Cold panic tingled down Molly’s spine. If Grace didn’t help...

They hadn’t talked since the night Dylan died. When Grace had finally spread her own brother’s ashes a few days later, Molly hadn’t gone to the funeral. And Grace hadn’t come to Dylan’s. Nobody had.

Molly hadn’t put an obituary in the paper. People were calling him a criminal, for heaven’s sake. She had kept the funeral private. All she wanted in the paper was an official apology from the sheriff’s department.

The drive to the Cordero ranch didn’t take long. By the time she pulled up the driveway, Skipper’s shaking had quieted. Grace’s car was there. A good sign. Molly beeped the horn.

Grace opened the front door, took one look at her face through the windshield and came running. “What is it? Is it Logan?”

“Skipper,” Molly said as she opened the door and jumped from the car, relieved to see only concern on Grace’s face instead of any kind of resentment.

She was right there helping. A good thing, since it took the two of them to carry the listless dog into the house.

Grace lay Skipper right on the living-room floor and ran her hands all over the dog. “Muscle spasms. What happened? Snake bite?”

“I think she ate something again.”

“Vomited?”

“Yes.”

Grace probed the dog’s belly with her fingers. Skipper squirmed and gave a humanlike moan.

“Did she have any shakes worse than this?”

“Yes.” And just as she said that, the dog started shaking harder again.

Grace looked into her mouth, at her tongue, then ran to the laundry room and came back with her medical bag, measured out some medicine and dribbled the liquid into Skipper’s mouth little by little. She kept examining the dog while Molly shifted on her feet.

“So how are
you
doing?” Grace asked without turning around, probably to distract her from the panic that was filling her chest.

What was a safe topic? “I think I kind of went on a date.”

That earned a look and a tentative smile. “Mo?”

“Kenny,” she said quickly.

“Oh. Ryder said Mo was kind of keeping an eye on your place. I thought...” Grace hesitated, as if wanting to say something about him, but then seemed to change her mind and only said, “I’m glad you’re getting out. It’s about time you stopped punishing yourself for the past.”

Her defenses, barely lowered, went right back up. “I wasn’t punishing myself for anything.”

“You deserve love. How many guys have you turned down over the years?”

She shrugged. “I was busy with Logan and the ranch.” But part of her, deep down, thought she didn’t deserve some fairy-tale happily ever after.

She’d messed up when she’d been young. And worse than that, she was responsible for her family’s falling apart, for her father’s death. Just because nobody knew her darkest secrets, it didn’t mean she didn’t carry that guilt.

Grace was running her probing fingers over Skipper’s abdomen again. “You keep any heavy-duty pesticides lying around?”

“No.” She wouldn’t dare have poison with Skipper getting into everything. And her gardening was strictly organic, her biggest selling point.

Grace gave her a quiet look. “Have any enemies?”

A chill ran through her. “You think she was poisoned?”

“I’m pretty sure. I’d like to keep her for a few days.”

Dismay and anger filled her chest. “Why would somebody hurt her?”

“Maybe Dylan—” Grace started to say, then stopped.

No way could they discuss her brother.

Molly stood. “How much do I owe you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

And then they had nothing to say. The night of Dylan’s death stood like an unbreachable stone wall between them once again.

She thanked Grace for the help and drove home, worrying about Skipper, trying to figure out what this all meant. So people believed the lies and thought Dylan had turned bad. But why take it out on her? And even if someone was doing just that, what had Skipper ever done to anyone? She was the best dog in the universe.

She was still worrying about the dog when she reached home and spotted a pickup and trailer in her driveway. Looked as if Kenny had brought his horse. He was coming from the stable, talking on his phone.

Bum date or not, she was happy to see him. The two-hundred-dollar boarding fee was a welcome addition to the ranch’s budget. Knowing she had that little extra money would make her sleep easier.

He ended the call and put the phone away when she pulled up. “I put Charlie in the stall you made ready for him. Much obliged. Missed your call last night. By the time I saw it, I didn’t want to call you back. I figured you’d be asleep.”

“I had someone sniffing around.” She told him about the man in her backyard, about the possibility that Skipper might have been poisoned. “At least
you
believe that Dylan was innocent. I really appreciate that.”

“Whatever you need from me. I want to be there for you.” He stepped closer. “I mean it.”

“Thanks. And I’ll take good care of Charlie. I promise. I’ll have him out in the back corral. I’m going to keep him separated from the others for a couple of days, until they all get used to each other.” They should be fine. She didn’t have another stallion, just a gelding and a couple of mares, and her mares weren’t in heat.

“I’ll be stopping in to check on him. Want to make sure I ride him. He needs the exercise.”

“Come and go as you please. If I’m not here and you want to ride, just go straight back. I’ll probably be putting padlocks on the outbuildings, but I’ll give you a key.”

He shook his head with an apologetic smile. “I was supposed to bring those locks, wasn’t I? Don’t know where my mind is these days. Next time I come out, I’ll have them. I promise.”

“Thanks, Kenny.”

“You need to be safe.”

“I need to find a way to prove that Dylan was framed and had nothing to do with smuggling. Whoever is coming around probably believes Dylan was guilty, and the idiot is trying to mete out some vigilante justice. Or they figure there may be some drugs or whatever other contraband hidden on the property, left over from the smuggling—easy pickings.”

Once Dylan was exonerated, people would no longer have a reason to bother her. So that was what she had to achieve and in a hurry.

Kenny reached out to take her hand, a sympathetic expression on his face. “Listen—”

Her stomach sank. She pulled her hands away. “Don’t tell me they talked you into this idiocy. Dylan was framed.”

“Of course he was. But I was thinking, too, and...he might have had some link to something. Maybe he didn’t even know it was bad. Somebody asking him for a favor. You know how he was.”

“He would help anyone if they asked him.”

“The wrong kind of people could take advantage of someone with a big heart like he had.”

“Exactly.”

“If someone asked him to store something for them for a while...”

She stilled. “Like drugs?”

“That man here last night.” Kenny patted her hand again. “Sure sounds like he was looking for something. And...” He looked uncomfortable again.

“What?”

“I don’t want you to be offended. I’m not accusing Dylan of anything.”

“What is it?”

“I heard something through the grapevine this morning. An old informant called in.”

Cold spread through her chest. “About Dylan?”

“No. But this guy says the local drug runners are looking for a missing shipment.”

“My brother was no drug runner.”

“Of course not. I’m just saying someone could have asked him to store something and he might not even have known what it was.”

“But there’s nothing like that here. I would know.”

He tilted his head. “Would you?”

She thought of the bags and bags of feed, hay bales, the unused haylofts she hadn’t climbed in ages, the covered-up grease pit in the garage. It was probably full of rattlers. “Maybe not,” she admitted reluctantly.

Kenny gave a slow nod. “We got time. How about I help you look around? If we find something, I’ll take care of it. I’ll take it in. Your name or your brother’s name doesn’t have to come up.”

Gratitude filled her. “You really are a good friend, Kenny.”

Chapter Five

Mo squinted against
the sun as he drove down the road, coming in from border surveillance, deciding to drop by the Rogers ranch. He was talking on the phone with Jamie, who was at the office, and turned up the Bluetooth so he could hear him better.

“Tell me you’re doing something exciting and I can be there in ten minutes. Tell me you busted someone.”

They were all itching for action.

“Barely any movement. The shipments are definitely on hold.”

“The big boss probably figured out surveillance was stepped up. We did take two tunnels out of commission.”

Right. They’d covered that ground before. It made sense. Except... Mo tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he rethought their theory.

“CBP does raids and surges all the time. The smugglers just move to another method. When border surveillance is stepped up, they switch to transporting contraband hidden in trucks, right through the checkpoints. When checkpoints get extra agents, they switch to swimming the river. When the river is monitored, they go to the tunnels. They don’t just stop everything all at once.”

“Okay,” Jamie said on the other end. “So why the moratorium now?” He paused and spoke to someone in the office, away from the phone, for a second before getting back to Mo. “So, um, Ryder’s in. He says Grace says Molly Rogers’s dog was poisoned last night. He thought you might want to know.”

Cold filled his stomach. “Thanks. I’ll talk to you when I get in.” He hung up and pushed down harder on the gas pedal.

He pulled up to the house, wrestled with the greeting committee, two dogs only, when he got out of his SUV, then went looking for Molly.

She was in the garden, harvesting summer squash, her curves encased in jeans shorts, the heels of her cowboy boots and her cowboy hat giving her an extra couple of inches in height. She was okay.

The tension in his stomach relaxed. She was better than okay. The top two buttons of her short-sleeved shirt were unbuttoned in deference to the heat, the bottom of the shirt tied in a knot at her waist.

He tried not to stare at her bare midriff. Nothing motherly about her today. With all her curves, she looked like a pinup girl.

She straightened, buttoned up the shirt one button and let the bottom down to cover her skin as she watched him approach. He wished she hadn’t.
Focus on the business at hand.

A flash of anger replaced the worry inside him. “Skipper was poisoned. Why didn’t you call me?”

She pushed her hat out of her eyes.

Even as his fingers itched to reach for a stray strand of hair. He didn’t.

“You’re not a vet,” she said. “There was nothing you could have done to help.”

“Anything happens here, I want to know about it.”

“I’m not involved in smuggling.” Her full lips pressed into a scowl. “I thought we were past that.”

“We are. I know you’re not involved. But you’re still linked to it through your brother.” That sounded more official than saying that the thought of her coming to harm put a lead ball in his stomach. “You’re still part of the investigation.”

Fire came into her eyes as always when he brought up that subject. She picked up her bushel of squash and came out of the garden, closed the gate behind her. She marched up to the house, went in through the back door, leaving it open for him.

She set the bushel down just inside the door, then stepped out of her boots and took off her hat. “Kenny says whoever was out here last night might have been looking for drugs or something. Dylan had a lot of friends. One of them could have given him a package or whatever to keep. If that’s what happened, Dylan wouldn’t even have known what was in it.” She blew the hair out of her eyes. “I checked around.”

“Find anything?”

Her shoulders fell. “Nothing. And I looked hard. Kenny helped me, too. We looked for hours.”

Kenny the ever-helpful.

He shifted closer. She smelled like sunshine and her lemon-verbena shampoo, the two of them standing barely two feet from each other in the narrow back entryway. He wanted to reach out and pull her to him.

“So Kenny and you...” He left the sentence hanging.

“Kenny went to school with Dylan,” she said as she turned and walked away from him. “He’s boarding his horse here now.”

He waited, but she said nothing more, nothing about them seeing each other socially. He wasn’t going to ask. It was none of his business. “Are you seeing him?” The words snuck out anyway.

She stopped by the fridge and opened the door, but turned back. “He’s a friend.”

She looked into his eyes as she said that. He didn’t think she was lying. Still, she might think Kenny was her friend, but Kenny wanted more. The way the sheriff had looked at her at Gordie’s... The thought tightened the muscles in Mo’s jaw.

Kenny seemed to be spending a lot of time here lately, he thought as he walked over to the kitchen table where she set out a glass of sun-brewed iced tea for him.

He liked sitting in her kitchen and drinking sweet tea. He could easily imagine doing a lot more of that. Doing other things, too.

Except, when his op was over, he would be out of here. He’d be going to Washington to work for the CIA, then probably out of the country on his first assignment.

To start something with Molly under the circumstances wouldn’t be right. Despite the gossip, he knew what kind of woman she was—the family kind. She wasn’t out looking for a temporary lover. She deserved nothing less than a husband, and a father to Logan, someone who would stick by her, help her run the ranch.

And Mo couldn’t give her that. He had a schedule. CIA first, while he was young enough to do active duty overseas—another ten years, he figured. Then he would be transferred to desk duty in the States. That was the time when he would be looking to settle down and start a family.

Molly was great, but he wasn’t there yet, wasn’t ready. Which was why he needed to get the idea of kissing her out of his head.

If only it was that easy.

* * *

H
E
HAD
THE
KIND
of presence that filled up a place. Mo in her kitchen drinking her iced tea and making appreciative noises created tingles in her stomach. She wished Kenny could do that—Kenny, whom she’d known forever, who was actually interested in her.

Kenny believed in her brother’s innocence. Kenny would still be around next year and the next and the next. Kenny was a normal person, not part-owner of a multimillion-dollar company like Mo.

She’d done the “most eligible bachelor” thing. She’d fallen in love with the son of the richest man in town, let herself be blinded by her teenage crush and be thoroughly seduced by him.

When she’d told him she was pregnant, he refused to believe he was the father. He refused to have anything to do with her. He’d threatened to take her son away if she ever breathed his name in connection with paternity. And he had enough money to hire all the lawyers he needed to get the job done.

Rich people lived by a different set of rules than the rest of the world. They got what they wanted, any way they wanted it. Smartest thing to do was to stay out of their path. When you hooked up with someone like that, they had all the power. She would never let that happen again. She was not an impressionable seventeen-year-old anymore.

Whatever attraction she felt for Mo, she was more than capable of resisting it. She would never be more than a temporary plaything to him, to fill his time while here on assignment. When this job ended, he would go away and leave her heartbroken. She needed that like a rattler in her boots.

“Listen, I should—” She was trying to politely tell him that she needed to get back to work—these little moments in her kitchen had to end—but the phone rang before she could finish the sentence. She stepped over to the counter to pick it up.

“Hi, is this Ms. Rogers? I’m Betty from the principal’s office.”

Her whole body tightened in an instant. “Did something happen to Logan?”

“He’s okay, but he was in a fight a little earlier. Mr. Talbot would like you to come in.”

Not again.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. “I’ll be right there.” She hung up then turned to Mo. “Sorry, I have to go.”

He emptied his glass as he stood. “What happened?”

“Logan got in trouble at school for fighting.” She glanced down at her clothes. Other than one minor smudge of dirt from the garden, they were passable. She hurried to the pegs by the back door and grabbed her purse.

“I’ll go with you.” Mo was right behind her.

“It’s not necessary. It’s—”

“Why don’t I just come anyway?”

She didn’t have time to argue with him. She pulled on her summer sandals and rushed through the door. He drove.

She didn’t mind that. She was distracted—all the things that had been happening at the ranch, then Skipper and now Logan... “He’s a good kid.” Her tone came out defensive.

“I know.”

“He’s taking Dylan’s death really hard.”

Mo nodded, his SUV gobbling up the miles. He drove faster than she would have normally been comfortable with, but under the circumstances, she didn’t mind.

They sat in silence as she worried.

“Find any tire tracks from the other night?” she asked eventually. “I keep forgetting to ask.”

He nodded. “They led east for half a mile then cut back to the road. I took some casts. Generic tires you can buy at any gas station. Not much of a lead.”

She filled her lungs. “I just want everything to go back to normal.”

“Give it time. Things will settle down.” He slowed as they reached the school and pulled into the visitors’ parking lot right by the front door.

She was unbuckling the seat belt even before he shut off the engine. “Thanks. You don’t have to come in.”

“I don’t mind.” He followed her to the principal’s office.

Mr. Talbot was waiting for them. Logan, with a split lip, sat in the corner, his head hanging.

She wanted to rush up to him and ask if he was okay. She didn’t. He had behaved badly, and he knew it. She wasn’t about to coddle him. Positive reinforcement had to be reserved for positive behavior. Parenting was hard business.

He hung his head even deeper as the door closed behind them. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Ms. Rogers.” The principal stood, then looked at Mo.

“Moses Mann,” Mo introduced himself. “Friend of the family. What happened?”

“A fight in the bathroom, apparently. The other child involved has already been sent home. Both boys are receiving suspensions for the rest of the week.”

Molly bit her lip. “I’m so sorry. It’s not like Logan at all. He’s been having a hard time lately.” They were going to have a long talk about this. Again.

“I know,” Mr. Talbot agreed. “And from what I hear, he didn’t start the fight. Regardless, we don’t condone violence.”

Logan stood and shuffled over to her. While she didn’t approve of his actions, she hated the crushed look on his little face. She put her hand on his shoulder, wanting nothing more than to get out of there.

But Mo said, “Do you condone bullying?”

The principal frowned. “Of course not.”

“Were you aware that Logan has been bullied on multiple occasions over his uncle’s death?”

“Mr. Mann—”

“Would you mind sharing with us what steps have been taken so far to stop it?”

The principal swallowed. He was a head shorter than Mo and probably a hundred pounds lighter. And it wasn’t just Mo’s physique that was impressive. He could turn his voice into tempered steel, his eyes hard and cold in a way that really made you want to not mess with him. She knew that voice and look, had the bad luck to experience it in the interrogation room.

He kept on pushing. “Do you think it’s wise to allow bullying to go on in your school and then punish the victim? Have you thought about what kind of message you’re sending to the children? To their parents? Do you take the safety of your students seriously, Mr. Talbot?”

“Well, Mr. Mann—”

“The law does allow for self-defense.”

“Of course.”

“So there should be no reason at all for Logan’s suspension. Seeing how he didn’t start the fight.”

A strained silence stretched between them.

“Yes. I think you’re correct.” Mr. Talbot adjusted his tie then looked at her. “You can, of course, still take him home for the rest of the day.”

Since Logan did look as if he could use a little cleaning up, she said, “Thank you. I will.” And watched as her son stared at Mo as if he was some hero straight out of the comic books, an expression very similar to the one he used to regard Dylan with.

She hoped she was controlling her own expression a little better. She couldn’t remember the last time someone, other than her, had stood up for her son. The look on his smudged face told her how much that meant to him.

They stepped out of the principal’s office just as the bell rang, kids filling the hallway. More than a few curious glances were directed toward Mo and his commando swagger. He put a friendly smile on his face, then a hand on Logan’s shoulder as they walked out.

The kids pulled back respectfully. Logan seemed to grow several inches.

She glanced at his split lip. “Are you okay?” That her son had been cornered in the bathroom broke her heart. Maybe Mo was right and it wasn’t always possible to walk away from trouble. She didn’t want Logan hurt.

“No big deal.” He shrugged, playing the tough guy.

But he shouldn’t have to. He shouldn’t have to suck up a beating, and she shouldn’t have to worry about sending him to school.

“If the offer still stands,” she told Mo as they walked out, “maybe you could teach him just a little bit about how to defend himself.”

“I’d be happy to. Hope you don’t mind that I spoke up in there. Punishing Logan didn’t seem right or fair.”

She shook her head. Honestly, she could have kissed him.

* * *

“A
NYTHING
INTERESTING
so far?” Mo asked Jamie over the radio the next morning.

The air shimmered in the heat, the ground nothing but dust. What few bushes and grass still clung to life weren’t terribly impressive. His SUV left a pretty big dust cloud behind as he drove over the landscape. He was probably visible from miles away. He doubted he’d be catching anyone today.