Three Cowboys

Chapter Three

Morgan couldn’t fully concentrate on anything else until Dakota left after dinner. She needed to put Cody to bed. She’d taken Julio’s dinner to him, so Julio wouldn’t have to leave the cabin. For a moment Morgan hesitated whether to go after her. He wanted more time with her, and had plenty of questions for Julio. But he had plenty of questions for his family, too. He would leave Dakota and Julio for the morning.

The ranch manager—who had joined them at the table, an old custom at the ranch—hesitated in the doorway on his way out, worrying his hat in his knobby old hands, his white hair slicked back. “If you have a minute, Justice.”

“Sure thing, Shane.” Justice followed him out to the porch.

Morgan walked back to the living room with his brothers and sat on the sofa, ready to tackle the reason for his return. “So all we know for sure is that our rescue target is somewhere in Mexico.”

“Her name is Brittany,” Wyatt said as he sank into one of the oversize armchairs.

“Most likely somewhere in Mexico,” Bull corrected. He remained standing. “Calderón could have moved her back across into the U.S., but I don’t think it’s likely. His main strength is on the other side of the border where he has law enforcement in his pocket.”

Morgan considered that for a moment before he nodded. “Agreed.” He measured up his brothers. They looked as capable as any of his commando team members. “We’re going to get her back.”

“Of course we will. She’s a McCabe.” Bull emphasized the last word, as if Morgan needed a reminder. “Somebody messes with a McCabe, he messes with all of us. Although, some of us ride to the rescue a little faster than others, I suppose.”

“I was busy.”

“All important, hotshot-commando stuff, I’m sure.”

Annoyance flashed through him. He didn’t owe anyone an explanation. “Carrying my best friend’s body out of the Afghan mountains,” he said anyway.

Bull didn’t have a comeback for that.

“Were you hurt?” Wyatt asked.

Morgan shrugged.

Which snagged Bull’s attention. “I want to know what shape the man who’s going to have my back is in.”

“Better than you are, even with a couple of cracked ribs.” Hell, they’d been hurt worse at the junior rodeos they’d attended as kids. All the more to feel guilty about. Ricky had lost his life, while Morgan had walked out without being as much as grazed by a bullet, just the cracked ribs when they’d tumbled down the face of the mountain in the dark. Ricky was dead, and he was alive.

Sheer stupid luck. It could just as easily have been him in that coffin he’d flown back to the States with.

He opened the laptop. “I got some satellite images of the area Calderón controls in Mexico and in the U.S.”

Bull nodded, but glanced at the clock on the wall, checking the time from the corner of his eye.

Annoyance shot through Morgan. “Got a hot date?”

Bull gave a cocky grin. “As a matter of fact.”

“Tracy Cobb. High school English teacher,” Wyatt put in helpfully, then gave a wolfish whistle.

Instead of shutting him up, or at least threatening to shut him up, Bull didn’t seem to mind. His cocky grin softened into a goofy smile. It looked a lot like love.

“That bad?” Morgan asked, a little jealous. Bull had that satisfied look of a man who loved and was loved back.

“I think she’s the one.” Bull spoke the words serious-like, not a hint of mockery. “You ready to settle down yet?”

“No reason to rush.”

Bull laughed out loud. “I saw you looking at Dakota over dinner.”

He flashed his best leave-it-alone-or-die look. “Leave Dakota out of this.” He wasn’t ready yet to discuss her with his brothers.

“Afraid she’ll kick you to the curb for another guy again?”

Morgan was standing before the last word was out, pulling his body to full height. He didn’t care one bit that Bull was taller. He had plenty of commando combat tricks up his sleeve to make up for that.

“Not to worry,” the idiot kept taunting with a superior grin. “There are other women out there. Could be one even crazy enough to take you on. Your day will come, big brother.”

Morgan stepped closer, pretended to pass by Bull and smoothly swiped his brother’s feet from under him.

But Bull didn’t fall. He shifted his weight toward Morgan, jabbing his elbow between two cracked ribs. Then they did go down, together.

Wyatt whooped and jumped on top of them.

And then it was as if they were little school kids again, rolling in the dust of the backyard. Except with much better fighting skills.

Morgan put Wyatt in a headlock. “Haven’t learned anything, have you? When the big boys are fighting, you should stay out of it.”

But Wyatt had learned a thing or two over the years, it seemed, because he flipped and somehow managed to switch Bull between them.

Someone knocked over the coffee table.

Then the standing lamp.

Morgan got on top of Bull at last, his elbow in the man’s windpipe. “Forfeit.”

“Look at that. Must have found some sense of humor overseas. Did you buy it at an Arab bazaar?” Bull struggled to get up and shoved him away. “Hope you didn’t spend all your combat pay on it. I’m still funnier.”

“But I’m still the best-looking,” Wyatt put in, twisting Bull’s leg while kicking at Morgan at the same time.

Morgan and Bull exchanged a look and went after him together.

By the time they lay, panting, scattered on the rug, the living room looked as if a Texas tornado had swept through.

Bull rubbed his shoulder. “If Mom was here, she would tan our hides.”

“Nah,” Wyatt said, grinning. “She would threaten to tan our hides, then try to protect us when Dad actually did it.”

Morgan pressed a hand against the pain that pulsed in his ribs. “Better clean up before Justice gets back.”

The tension was gone. They were brothers again, triplets of trouble. He might not have missed home over the years, but he’d missed this, he realized suddenly. Maybe he wouldn’t wait quite so long before he came back home again. For the first time, he actually regretted not coming back sooner.

“You’re it.” He pointed at Wyatt as he stood. “Cleanup duty.”

“Why me?”

“I’m going to set up my laptop so we can start working. Bull is getting us some cold beer from the fridge.”

“Only because I want to. Don’t think you’re the boss.” Bull sauntered away.

They had everything back in order and the three of them around the laptop by the time Justice strode back in, his face a shade more somber than when he’d stepped outside.

“Everything okay with Shane?” Wyatt asked.

“He quit. He’s moving to San Antonio with his wife to help his daughter. She’s expecting twins and her husband just left her.”

“She already has two toddlers.” Wyatt shook his head. “What a jerk.”

“Yeah,” Morgan couldn’t resist putting in. “It’s a shame when fathers have no love for their children.” He might have found the old tone with his brothers, but he was far from ready to embrace his father, to forgive and forget.

Tension filled the room all over again. And a long stretch of silence.

“I’m doing the best I can, son. I’ve made mistakes. I’ll be the first to admit that,” Justice said at last and without bluster.

Maybe he had mellowed.

“Are you hiring a new manager?” Bull asked, probably in an attempt to change the conversation.

Justice nodded. “As soon as I can.” He glanced at Wyatt. “I want to help them with the move. And see if we can do something for them financially. The man deserves a parting bonus.”

Wyatt nodded, then started talking about ordering more feed for the horses and other ranch business.

Morgan turned from them and brought up the first of the satellite images. The four of them in the same room, working together and talking mission seemed oddly normal. Even borderline comfortable. He wasn’t sure how to relate to that.

“So here is the area we’re looking for. The size of a small state,” he said, bringing everyone’s focus to their mission. “We’re going to split it up. I’ll be going to Mexico. You three are taking this side of the border.”

* * *

THEY DIDN’T ADJUST TO HIS leadership easily. Morgan stared at the ceiling as he lay awake in bed a couple of hours later. They didn’t adjust to his leadership at all, truth be told. Stubborn, every last one of them—a McCabe trait.

But they would hang together and do what had to be done, because Brittany, who was one of them, was in danger.

He reached for the glass of water on the nightstand. Empty. He kicked the covers off and headed off toward the bathroom. Slowed in front of the window.

What little moonlight there was illuminated the cabin. The original ranch building had been upgraded and a whole top floor added on, before another McCabe realized it was never going to be big enough for the ever-growing ranch and finally built the main house.

There weren’t any lights on in any of the small windows, but he could see the glint of Christmas decorations—Dakota’s work, no doubt. She must have decorated the main house as well. She seemed at home here, fit right in at dinner, like family. Hell, she fit in more than he ever had. And her son, too.

Cody had made them all laugh at dinner. It was strange, hearing laughter around the dinner table. When the McCabe brothers were younger, Justice used to use dinnertime to point out all their faults, list all the mistakes they’d made during the day, and discipline them.

Morgan was about to turn from the window when he caught a shadow moving toward the cabin’s front door. Boots and a cowboy hat. Could be pretty much anyone at the ranch. Maybe even her lover.

He remembered suddenly the man he’d seen sneaking out of the cabin when he’d arrived, just before Dakota had run outside in nothing but a robe.

He put two and two together at long last and hot jealousy filled his chest.

He shrugged into his jeans and shirt and tugged on his boots. Julio was at the cabin, too. Better check on things. He strode out the door, knowing Julio was just an excuse. Nobody knew that Julio was hiding at the ranch.

He glanced at his gun on the nightstand and left it there. He was home, not in a combat zone. And maybe he didn’t trust himself if he found some snot-nosed cowpoke with his hands all over her.

He would just walk by, make sure everything was okay.

He made it down the stairs in complete silence, then out the front door. Outside, he kept to the shadows, his training taking over.

Her light still hadn’t come on. Maybe she didn’t want to wake Cody. What the cowpoke had come for could be done in the dark. His muscles tightened at the thought. Over his dead body.

The dark taste of jealousy was back in his mouth, the same as when she’d brought Billy home from college. He didn’t want to think about that now. He put his hand on the doorknob and pushed it open slowly. He had no idea what he would do once he was inside. He had no right to toss the guy out on his ear. But he wasn’t going to let the bastard touch Dakota, either.

Once he was inside, he caught a flash of gunmetal at the top of the stairs, at Julio’s door. He couldn’t make out the bastard’s face in the dark. Morgan acted on pure instinct.

He was on the top landing and on top of the guy in three leaps, the two of them wrestling for control of the weapon.

By chance, the man managed to kick his busted ribs. Morgan ignored the pain that sliced through him. The small landing offered way too little space to maneuver, and the guy had some lean muscle on him, a tough cowboy used to wrestling steers and bar fights, judging by the way he grappled. But Morgan got the better of him, little by little.

The door opened downstairs.

“Julio?” Dakota stuck her head out. She stepped forward, reached for the light switch, but nothing happened when she flipped it on.

“Who’s that, Mom?” Behind her, Cody peeked out for a quick look.

“Get back in there and close that door!” Morgan snapped, just as the man—using the distraction—tripped them both over the edge.

The long roll down didn’t make his ribs feel any better. He saw stars by the time they’d landed with a loud thump at the bottom. He had a hand on the man’s right wrist, his other hand going for the bastard’s throat. But then Dakota’s door burst open again and whacked him hard enough on the head to jar his teeth.

“Stop!” she yelled, aiming a rifle at nothing in particular in the darkness.

“Don’t shoot.” No way could she aim in the dark. Morgan shook his head, trying to get rid of his sudden double vision, glancing back, making sure she was moving away.

Instead, she took a big step forward, nearly putting his eye out with her toe. He jerked away.

The momentary advantage was enough for the intruder to get loose and dive through the front door into the moonless night.

“Sorry. Here.” She thrust the weapon at Morgan as he pushed to his feet and lurched at the door.

He checked to make sure the rifle was loaded, then stepped outside carefully, barrel first. The few seconds that had passed would have been enough for the man to take cover and pick Morgan off right at the door.

Just because he’d taken one gun off the bastard—which lay somewhere at the top of the stairs—it didn’t mean the man didn’t have another. He’d come to kill Julio. No assassin worth his salt would walk around without a backup weapon.

Something scraped by the stairs behind him. “He flipped the circuit breakers,” Dakota said.

“Leave them.” Last thing he wanted was for the light to come on and make them an easy target. “Are you okay?”

“You’re the one who crashed down the stairs. I’ll call your brothers.”

“I can handle one man. Get back inside and lock the door,” he said, then moved forward.

He ducked low as soon as he was outside and moved into the darkest shadow. He didn’t even breathe as he watched for movement. Nothing. No cars hiding out back, either, just the ranch hands’ pickups by the bunkhouses where they’d been earlier.

He snuck forward. Justice had expanded the stables and added on here and there over the years. Back in the day, Morgan could have walked around blindfolded. Not anymore. The assassin probably had a better grip on the place now than he did. He would have bet good money that Calderón’s man had himself hired on when Justice had brought in all those temporary workers to help with the cleanup and the recovery of the herds.

He moved to the stables first. The inside seemed deserted. The horses didn’t act as if anything was amiss. Then again, they wouldn’t if someone familiar was hiding among them.

He checked the place, stall by stall. Nothing.

Of course Bull, Wyatt and even Justice were out there by the time he stepped outside, the three men stalking in the shadows. Dakota must have called them anyway.

Another hour passed before they went through every one of the buildings. But they didn’t find anyone out of place. Whoever had been out there had either escaped or made it back to one of the bunkhouses where the ranch hands slept, and was now indistinguishable from the others.

When Morgan turned back toward the cabin, his brothers and Justice followed. Light came through the windows now. Dakota had turned the power back on.

“I’ll check on Julio.” Bull headed up the stairs as they walked through the front door.

Better him than Morgan. At least the kid knew Bull.

“Get the gun at the top of the stairs. See if you can avoid getting any of your prints on it,” Morgan called after his brother.

“I think I can handle that.”

Dakota opened her door before they had a chance to knock. She’d gotten dressed and was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. “Come in.”

Bull banged on the door upstairs.

Morgan handed her the rifle. “Thanks for this.”

“It was Billy’s. I kept it for Cody for when he grows up.”

Billy. He still hated the name, and the very memory of the man. Somehow he didn’t think that would ever change.

“You okay?” he asked, his tone brusque, wishing they were alone. He strode in, Justice and Wyatt behind him.

Cody peeked out the bedroom door, holding a bedraggled stuffed horse.

“Back to bed, honey,” Dakota said.

“Mo-om.”

She just stood there and looked at him while he gave the most crestfallen expression a kid could make. Morgan would have caved.

“Yes’m,” Cody said at last, then pulled back.

“What happened?” Justice wanted to know once the door closed behind the kid.

“Got up for water, saw one of the ranch hands sneaking into the cabin,” Morgan said. “Came after him. Caught him at Julio’s door with a gun. I’m guessing Calderón sent an assassin.”

“Who was it?”

Morgan scratched the back of his neck. “Not a clue, unfortunately.”

“You didn’t see any of his face?”

“He had his hat pulled low, walked in the shadows.”

Justice’s eyes looked hard again for a moment. “You sure it was one of my men?”

The more Morgan thought about it, the more he was sure. “No strange cars anywhere around. Didn’t hear any engines start after he ran off. He disappeared pretty fast when I gave chase. Only place he could have gone is the bunkhouses. We searched those. Found nobody in there but the men that belong. The assassin has to be one of them.”

The old man’s forehead furrowed. “We’ll have a talk with the men in the morning.”

“And if he disappears by then?” Dakota asked, her arms wrapped around herself.

“He won’t,” Morgan reassured her. “He thinks he outsmarted us. And his job is unfinished. Nobody wants to go back to someone like Calderón and tell the man he failed in his mission.”

A moment passed while the others digested that.

“You should’ve woken us when you saw him.” Wyatt scowled.

“I thought maybe... I figured Dakota had a...gentleman caller. Didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.” Even as he said the words, he knew he shouldn’t have.

She stared at him, then her cheeks pinked, outrage widening her eyes. “In the middle of the night? Like a thief? With Cody in the house? Seriously?”

Way to go with trying to win her over. He should have shut up right then and there, but for some suicidal reason, he felt the need to explain. “I saw someone, I’m pretty sure the same guy, coming out of the cabin when I drove up earlier. Then you ran out a little later in nothing but a bathrobe....”

She looked like she might smack him. “You thought I was entertaining some guy in here while my son was nearly trampled in the corral. Is that the kind of mother you think I am?”

No, actually. On second thought, he really didn’t. He lifted his hand in a defensive motion. “I’m sure you’re a great mother.”

“Damn right,” Justice spoke up suddenly, his tone full of bluster. “I’ll not have you insult her on my ranch.”

“No insult meant, I just—” Before he could put his other foot into his mouth, Bull came downstairs with Julio, a kid of maybe twenty, with short black hair and sleepy, scared eyes, his clothes wrinkled and looking as if he’d pulled them on in a hurry.

Bull held out the gun, handling it with a piece of plastic he must have picked up in Julio’s room. “Beretta with the serial number filed off. Silencer. I’ll send it off first thing in the morning for ballistics. Maybe we’ll get something there.”

Morgan nodded, then looked at the kid. “You didn’t come out when you heard the noise at your door. That’s good. That was the right thing to do.

Julio shrugged. “Sleep with the iPod.”

“You’ll be sleeping in the main house from now on,” Morgan told him. “And someone will be with you at all times.” He looked at his father.

He expected the old man to bristle at the veiled order, but Justice just nodded.

Morgan drew a slow breath. “I’ll be staying at the cabin, upstairs, in case our man comes back. I don’t want Dakota and Cody out here alone,” Morgan said.

“I can stay with you,” Wyatt offered immediately.

“Not unless you added a second bedroom upstairs since I’ve last been up there, and a second bed.”

Wyatt looked disappointed. When they’d been kids, he’d always wanted to be in the middle of the action, but, since he was the youngest, had rarely gotten the chance.

“Thanks for the offer, anyway,” Morgan told him. “The main house is bigger. Needs more people to cover it. You’re needed there.”

That seemed to put Wyatt in a better mood.

“Are you okay with this?” Justice asked Dakota. “You could come over to the main house, too, with the boy.”

She looked at Justice, then at Morgan, and considered her response for a second. “If Julio is over there, we might be safer staying here.”

She was right about that.

* * *

DAKOTA WAITED FOR MORGAN until he came back with his duffel bag, after the men had moved Julio over to the main house. In the meantime, she’d checked on Cody, glad that he’d gone back to sleep.

Morgan came to her door instead of going straight upstairs. Good. She wanted to see him. Her heart had about stopped when he’d tumbled down the stairs.

“I want to see your wound,” she repeated.

“Next time you hear noise outside your door, I want you to stay inside.”

“I want to see your wound.”

He scowled at her. “No.”

“It’s bleeding. I can see the wet spot on your shirt.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“But it’s easier for me, because I will actually be able to see what I’m doing. Plus, I have a fully stocked first-aid kit.” She stepped back to reveal the box on her kitchen table. “You come in and sit down right there.”

He looked her over and a smile came to play above his lips as he finally did as she asked, “When did you become so tough and bossy?”

“When I became a mother.”

He sat at the table and shrugged out of his shirt, revealing the blood-stained bandages that wrapped around his chest. He started unraveling them.

“Let me do it.”

But he finished on his own, stubborn as always. She stared at the black and blue marks on his bare skin. But the six-inch gash looked the worst, the stitches torn out, probably from the roll down the stairs.

“You should have this restitched.”

He didn’t look the least perturbed. “You got any butterfly bandages?”

She nodded. “Dare I ask how you got hurt?”

He didn’t answer right away, but then he shrugged and said, “Tribal dagger. Nasty little thing.”

“If it went in a few inches higher...” She didn’t want to think about that. Until now, his elite commando job seemed a concept. But here, at her kitchen table, reality stared her in the face.

Along with his chest. Oh, dear. He had very nice muscles. A lot of them. The testosterone cloud that came off him messed with her head big time. He was a warrior, a hero, a cowboy, the first man who’d ever made love to her....

Was the kitchen getting hotter?

She pulled her shirt away from her skin a little, then finished removing his torn stitches, cleaned the wound and put on the butterfly strips. “I have clean Ace bandages,” she offered, and dug them out of the bag.

Putting them on proved to be trickier than she’d thought. As he held his arms up and out of the way, she had to put her arms completely around his torso, over and over again, as she passed the roll from one hand to the other.

For a second she closed her eyes, but she couldn’t close her nose. He smelled like soap and gun oil and Morgan. Oh, God, she was so doomed here.

Mercifully, the roll ended at last, so she could finally secure the end and pull away. Except he wouldn’t let her.

He pushed forward in his chair and draped his arms loosely around her waist. “I did miss you.”

His low voice tickled something behind her breastbone.

She wasn’t sure what was happening between them, only that it was happening too fast. Yet she didn’t have it in her to pull away. “Don’t kiss me again. It makes me feel weird.”

“Me, too.” And then he kissed her.

Heat suffused her body at the touch of his lips. When he pulled her onto his lap, she didn’t protest. His body was hard and warm around hers, familiar.

Need filled her. Hot hunger.

They’d never had a problem with this part. It was the rest, communication and other pesky things that had been off between them.

“You never wrote,” she said when they pulled apart for air.

Confusion crossed his gaze.

“When you went away for basic training.” He’d joined the army straight out of high school. Went to college through them.

“I came back to you after. I came here on every single leave I had.”

“All we did was have sex.”

“Great sex. Lots of it.” He leaned forward for another kiss, but she pushed him back.

“Is that all I was to you?”

He stilled. His voice dropped lower as he said, “You were everything to me.”

The words sliced through her. Her eyes burned for a second. “You never said it.”

He waited a moment as he searched her gaze. “I didn’t know how to say it. I was an idiot.”

She closed her eyes and leaned against him, surrounded by his strength. “We both were. When you left...the last time...I thought you’d come back now and then.”

“I couldn’t,” was all he said.

“You must have lived in danger every day since. Do you ever regret going away? Joining the military?”

His response was immediate and sure. “No. I’ve done some things that were important. Things that needed to be done. This is who I am.”

They sat in silence.

“Do you ever regret... Billy?” he asked after a while.

“No. He was a good man, for all his faults. I’m not perfect, either. I have Cody because of him.”

But Billy was gone now, and Morgan was home, and here she was sitting on his lap in her kitchen.

She lifted her head, her gaze seeking his, not liking how unsure she felt of herself. “Morgan, what are we doing here?”

That smile she loved came to play above his masculine lips. “Catching up. Making up for lost time.”

“It can’t go anywhere. As soon as you have Brittany back you’ll go away.”

“I won’t stay away again. I can come back, between missions. And this job won’t last forever.” He gave her a sour smile. “I’m one of the oldest on the team. It’s a young man’s game.”

They were discussing the future. Things were moving so fast her head was spinning.

Yet somehow Morgan in her life seemed inevitable. Hadn’t she secretly dreamt of this, of him coming home and this time somehow loving her as much as she had loved him years ago?

Except, it seemed he might have loved her, after all, even back then.

God, she couldn’t think about that. They’d been so young. Truly idiots, the both of them.

She slipped off his lap with so much reluctance it was ridiculous. But it had to be done. “I better get to bed. Cody will be up in a couple of hours, expecting his pancakes.”

He nodded and stood. “We’ll talk about this again.”

He dipped his head and kissed her, one last time, so sweetly and full of tenderness that her head was spinning by the time he finished. This time he didn’t claim, he didn’t take, he gave.

In his old bedroom earlier she’d told him she’d missed him, but she hadn’t realized until now just how much. How much she wished...

No. She had a son to think of. “Good night, Morgan.”

Her hands shook on the doorknob as she locked the door behind him and listened to his footsteps as he went upstairs to Julio’s apartment.