Page 1 of The Rancher's Fake Fiancée

Prologue

“Far be itfrom me to complain or anything, but couldn’t we have met in a warm corner of a café or even in a car in a roadside park with the heater on full blast?” The male voice was punctuated with stomping of booted feet on the frost-laden ground and the sound of hands being shoved deeper into the pockets of a heavy down-filled jacket.

“Sure. Let’s just hang out a sign that says undercover agents at work…do not disturb.” Binoculars lowered as the dry tones of the reply were mirrored in the frosty look in the blue eyes leveled in the man’s direction. “So much for covert ops. You’ve made enough noise on your arrival to alert any living creature in a half-mile radius of our presence.” The binoculars went back up and swung into another slow arc.

The sun was rising above the horizon, resembling a perfect white globe in the early morning sky. As the minutes progressed, a golden-orange fire moved across the horizon and spread across the flat land before it slithered up the rising cliff walls of the mesas. Another day began across the area known as the Caprock…a vast region of Texas ranch and farmland bounded by Abilene to the south and Lubbock to the north. Darkness was ferreted out from the depths of the canyons and dry gullies that traversed the land. A brittle cold brought breaths out in white puffs on the chilled air. The binoculars lowered again.

“While you’re at it, do you think you could possibly find a louder truck than that one?” She nodded in the direction of the old green piece of junk that resembled something called a pickup, parked a short distance away.

“What else is a junk man supposed to drive?” Randall Keyes responded. “Besides, for its age, the old girl still has some get up and go left in her.”

“I have a news flash for you. Her get up and go has got up and went a long time ago. What year was it built? In 1930?”

“Shewas built in 1955, and she’s a collector’s item.”

“Right. She’s a real antique. The next thing you’ll tell me is thatshehas a name.” Her eyes narrowed on the tell-tale expression as it crossed her partner’s face. “You actually named that piece of junk?”

“Maddie. It was my grandmother’s name…so watch what you say,” Randall hastened to add. “Besides, she can have a name if you can have a dozen or so, right?”

The woman slowly shook her head. “I think there have been more than a dozen names over these years working undercover with you.”

Replacing the lens covers on the binoculars, she wrapped the neck strap around the eyewear and then returned it to the leather case. Opening the door of her own vehicle…a used, nondescript black Jeep…she tossed the case inside and turned back to the man. The joking was gone and Delilah Jones, a.k.a. real name, U.S. marshal, Cassie Parker was all business.

“What have you heard from our operative Galvez?” She brought their present assignment back to the center of attention.

“The next shipment will be crossing the Rio Grande in the next two to three weeks. Within twenty-four hours after that, we can expect to see a part of them move through this area. The man himself will be with the shipment. That’s been verified.”

“We’ll have a very small window of opportunity to not only intercept the shipment of guns and drugs but the human cargo as well. And above all else, this may be the best chance we have had in the last two years to trap PaPa himself. We willnotlet him slip away this time.” The determined edge in her voice as she spoke the last words conveyed the message intent loud and clear.

She had worked with him before on other teams, but she knew Randall was well aware of the level of determination the woman standing before him possessed. For almost three years, she had been on the trail of the dreaded trafficker known simply as PaPa, the most prolific coyote operating in the southwestern Border States. Not content with his human cargo of illegal aliens, he had branched out his business into a more lucrative trade…guns and drugs. The steel-jawed trap was set to spring within weeks, and nothing must happen to allow his escape again. The biggest problem also impeding the operation was that no one had a good handle on the exact identity of the elusive criminal. He was a master of disguise.

“Everything is set. The rest of the team will arrive in a few days and then it’s a waiting game. You know where to find me.” Cassie slid behind the wheel and the engine came alive.

He bent to the open window. “I hear the Aces Wild did indeed get a little wild last Friday night. Seems their business has increased since a certain curvaceous blonde bartender started working there.” Randall threw out the comment along with an amused grin and knowing lift of an eyebrow. The look she sent his way wiped the grin right off his face. Cassie knew that he would be one of the few who would know that usually that look came right before she slapped the criminal in her sights into a pair of handcuffs or laid them out cold on the floor. Either way was not an option Randall would choose to pursue. It was time for discretion to be the safest part of valor. He stepped back and the window slid shut.

Cassie, in her latest undercover part, had her fill of men and their grins, slapping their wads of cash from their freshly cashed paychecks on the bar along with their drink orders and crude invitations to do more than share a dance with them on her break. Seven weeks of undercover work waiting for a break and the trail to heat up on their quarry coupled with the three years already invested in this particular assignment was wearing thin on her patience. Cassie wanted to end it once and for all and then she could move on…except, she wasn’t sure what she would be moving on to. There was no time to dwell on that subject. Throwing the Jeep into gear she gave a toss of her hand and a bright smile in the direction of the other agent, assumed the persona of her most recent disguise, Delilah, and then sent a plume of west Texas dust swirling in her wake to shroud her departure.

Chapter One

“But Daddy, Ihave to find a yellow folder before Monday or Mrs. Patterson won’t let me have my fourth star, and if I don’t have the fourth star then I don’t get to go on the field trip to the Planetarium with the students who got all four stars for the special project.” The sound of his daughter’s plaintive vocal recitation rose a few octaves as they stood in the aisle of Schulze’s Corner Drug Store.

Cole Connors was a product of the rough Texas ranchlands that his family had forged a life from for the last seven generations. Standing a few inches over six feet tall, he was all muscle and weather-hewn skin. No one would ever mistake him for anything other than a cowboy even if he weren’t dressed in his usual work gear of well-worn jeans, sturdy brown work boots coated in a thin layer of red dust, dark blue, long-sleeved chambray shirt, along with the leather belt and large silver rodeo buckle he had won at the last Settlers’ Rodeo the past summer. Touching a slender finger to the brim of his chocolate Stetson, he pushed it back from his forehead as he bent down to rest on his haunches in front of the seven-year-old female who stood looking back at him with his same colored eyes…gunmetal gray that could either go dark as a storm cloud when upset…as they were now, or almost silver when infused with excitement.

There was no mistake, the pair were related to each other. The eyes were too much alike, as were their temperaments…much to his consternation. Patience would never be listed as one of his long suits, but he found he had to wrestle with it more and more each day since his daughter had come to live with him just over two years ago. Most of the time he thought they were doing okay…until it came to times like this one when the pint-sized female was on the verge of a meltdown over something as silly as a yellow folder for school.

“I’m sure Mrs. Patterson will understand if there are no yellow folders to be had in any of the local stores.”

“No, Daddy, she won’t! Most of the kids got theirs in Lubbock. I asked you to take me there last weekend, but you had to work, just like the weekend before that one…you always have to work.” The voice fell quiet after that last bit. Her lower lip clamped shut as she gnawed on it in her usual nervous manner.

“Yes, Emmie, I had to work. Ranch work doesn’t follow a set schedule like most other people’s jobs. Mother Nature has a lot to say about my schedule and she doesn’t wait around for excuses. I’ll have a word with Mrs. Patterson and explain.”

*

Cassie found herselfsilently shaking her head. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop on someone else’s conversation, but from her spot on the other side of the shelf in the next aisle, she couldn’t help but hear the little girl’s voice and feel a twinge of reciprocal understanding for her situation. She might be a grown-up, but she could remember a time or two when she felt the odd one out in class because she didn’t have the right materials. Of course, there had been a different reason for her not having the items than the one used by the man who blamed it on Mother Nature. Dismissing that walk down memory lane, Cassie took her basket with its four items to the cash register.

“Did you find everything you needed, hon?” Margaret Schulze, wife of the owner of Schulze’s Corner Drug Store, gave her the usual friendly greeting from behind the checkout counter. “How are things working out for you at Ozelle’s place?”

In character as Delilah Jones, she smiled in return. “Things are fine. Thanks again for pointing me in the direction of Miss Ozelle’s when I first arrived in town. She’s a real sweet lady and that small apartment I was able to rent from her is just right for me.”

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