One Tough Texan

The sheriff was checking every angle. He was a close family friend and Joshua knew he was taking the news just as hard.

A warm glow, most likely a streetlight in the distance, meant Joshua was getting closer to the station. At least it wasn’t freezing cold outside like it had been recently. Christmas was three weeks away and weather this time of year was unpredictable.

Another bolt of lightning helped Joshua see that if he cut through the field he’d get to the station faster. He took a step onto the land and knee-deep grass. Heavy rain. Tall grass. Horrible luck. Looking down caused water to run off the rim of his Stetson, but he didn’t care. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, which meant he’d been on foot for a solid fifteen minutes already. The station was ahead and he stepped up his pace through the field. As he made the clearing he noticed a teen, maybe sixteen years old based on her petite build, walking ahead of him. Was someone else stranded in this crazy weather?

She seemed a little young to be out walking on a night like this. He started to call out to her when a flash of lightning blazed across the sky and he caught sight of a man watching her intently from behind the trash bins of the gas station. Thunder rumbled in the distance and Joshua counted three seconds in between the flash and the noise. That meant lightning was right on top of them.

Joshua’s pulse spiked as he spotted another man crouching at the edge of the field as the unsuspecting teen kept bebopping along. She must have no idea the amount of danger she was about to walk into. And Joshua didn’t either because he counted a third man closing in on her from the east. How many others were there?

Based on the way she made the occasional stop to shake her arms or perform some other dance move, Joshua figured that she must be wearing earbuds. That wasn’t her brightest move for a couple of reasons. For one, she didn’t need to be wearing electronics in a storm. For another, it meant she wouldn’t hear him even if he screamed at the top of his lungs. That would, however, alert the men bearing down on her like hunters closing in on a quarry.

Damn, his shotgun was locked inside his Jeep.

Dropping to crouching position, Joshua tried to make himself as small as possible—not exactly easy with his six-foot-four-inch frame—as he shifted all his attention to the teen. She kept her head down. She was wearing jeans that were plastered to her legs and a couple layers of tank tops slick from rain.

And she had no idea what was about to go down.

The big question was how Joshua was going to get her out of this mess. Staying low was his best chance of not being noticed. He palmed his cell, moving closer. Could he call his friend Tommy Johnson, the sheriff? Probably not without being seen. The light from his phone could give him away. If the men saw him, he had no idea what they were capable of doing to him and the girl. Then again, an ill-timed bolt of lightning would have the same effect.

His Jeep was too far away to run back and get his shotgun. The men would be long gone with the girl. He focused on the teen as he moved closer to the gas station. She had a tiny frame and hair for days that she was trying to wrangle into a ponytail. Even wet he could see how thick it was. With her back turned, Joshua couldn’t see the details of her face, but the rest of her looked straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. Scanning the area, watching the men, Joshua knew that this was a coordinated kidnapping attempt. Outnumbered by at least three to one, Joshua calculated the odds of getting to her and they weren’t good.

Could he use the darkness to cloak them both? One wrong move and he’d be exposed. She wouldn’t have a chance on her own. He needed a plan and yet there was no time to make one. If the men got to her first it would be all over. No way could he handle three against one without a weapon of his own. He’d turned in his service weapon and had stopped carrying his backup since he spent most of his time with cattle on the ranch.

Joshua glanced down at the gas container in his hand, sloshing around what little leftover contents were at the bottom. There hadn’t been enough to get him to the gas station, but there might be enough to create a diversion. Distract the men for a few seconds and grab the teen. If he could get her into the convenience store safely there’d be shelter and witnesses. That should scare these guys off. He hoped.

Joshua tucked away his cell and then fished his emergency lighter from the front pocket of his denim jacket. With all this water coming down everywhere, he needed something that he could use as a wick. Nothing was dry.

Lighting the plastic container on fire right next to him was too much of a risk. He cleared an area, poured a little of the gasoline out and then rolled several times until he was a few feet from the container.

Joshua flicked his lighter and then tossed it toward the spot. He didn’t wait for it to light up, he bolted toward the teenager.

As the blaze ignited, Joshua wrapped an arm around her waist.

Maybe it was fear that had her frozen but he’d expected a fight. He noted that her struggle was weak at best. Shouldn’t she be biting and kicking to get away? Other than a little squirming, she wasn’t doing much to help herself. Joshua was even more grateful that he was there to help.

He sprinted toward the gas station. Lightning struck as he scrambled onto the lot, illuminating the man by the trash bins. Joshua could see the guy’s face clearly and the dude was looking right at Joshua. Not only was his gaze fixed, but he made a move toward a weapon, a gun maybe, as Joshua barreled around the corner, memorizing the details of the guy’s face in the light. He had black-as-night hair, and an oval-shaped face. His eyes were set wide and his nose prominent. His eyebrows were bushy, his forehead large and he had a decent amount of scruff on his chin. His face was familiar but Joshua couldn’t place it.

Then he heard someone cussing at him, realized it was coming from the teen as she started actually fighting. Good for her.

“You’re okay. I’m not going to hurt you,” Joshua said, trying to reassure her. She must be confused and scared as he rounded the corner.

“I didn’t think you were, jerk,” she shot back.

What the...? Not the reaction he was expecting but then she was probably still in shock.

“Put me down,” she demanded. Her voice was a study in calm.

“Not so fast,” he said, scrambling inside the station.

Her response came in the form of twists and turns so quick he almost lost his grip around her tiny waist. Her elbow slammed into his ribs. Did she want to be taken by those scumbags?

“Call nine-one-one,” Joshua managed to say to the attendant as he shot down an aisle, trying to recover from the blow and stay on his feet. His law enforcement training had kicked in and adrenaline was on full-tilt. He’d lock them in the bathroom until help arrived.

Joshua managed to open the door to the men’s room even though the teen was fighting him like a wild banshee. Her freeze response sure made a wide turn into fight mode in a hurry.

“Cut it out. I’m trying to help, if you hadn’t noticed,” he said through heavy breaths. She wasn’t making it easy, either.

He stuffed her inside the bathroom with him and then locked the door. “Those men weren’t exactly trying to take you to prom.”

Joshua heard a familiar noise and realized he shouldn’t have turned his back on her. He whirled around. There she stood. A Glock aimed at the center of his chest.

Now didn’t that just make this night even better?

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, noticing how off his initial assessment of the teen, the woman, had been. Strips of hair clung to her neck even though most of her blond mane was in a ponytail. She had piercing crystal-blue eyes—eyes that shone like he was looking across the surface of Diamondhead Lake at first light—and she had thick, dark lashes. Her body had more curves than he’d initially realized; he’d felt those the second he’d picked her up. They were easier to ignore when he thought she was sixteen. She was closer to his age, so around thirty and his throat went dry despite water dripping from him everywhere.

She was soaked, crown to toe, and as much as Joshua didn’t like it, he felt a surge of attraction. All of which was overridden by the anger coursing through him. Even though she put up a good fight, he disarmed her quickly and then wrestled her against the wall before she could make a dive for her weapon that he’d sent sprawling across the floor.

His body had that same irritating sexual reaction when it was pressed up against hers. He captured her wrist as she nailed him in the chest and then he caught her other as it rose up in a fist. He pinned both of her hands above her head. Big mistake, a) because the move caused her breasts to rise and press against his chest harder, and b) because her knee shot up quickly.

Joshua pinned her thigh with his before she could knee him where no man wanted to be kneed.

“What’s your problem, lady?” he asked, staring into furious blue eyes.

* * *

“BACK OFF. YOU HAVE no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into,” Alice Green said, fuming that this guy had disarmed her so quickly. She was exhausted and getting rusty now that she’d been off the job for the past six weeks, having dedicated herself solely to finding Isabel. “And let go of me.”

The cowboy might be the epitome of tall, gorgeous and chivalrous but his good deed had just cost her the investigation. Alice cursed.

This was the closest she’d been to Marco Perez, aka The Ghost, in days. She’d spent long weeks before that researching crime rings to narrow it down this far, and had been abducted by two other criminal organizations. The last time she’d seen her boys was Thanksgiving Day. Since then, she’d been choked, punched and stabbed. And it had come down to The Ghost as her last chance to find Isabel.

Alice had put herself out there as bait, using her informant to plant the seed and set up the kidnapping. It had been difficult undercover work and had taken more patience than she realized she had. Perez’s organization finally bit and this jerk had just messed up weeks of damn fine police work in sixty seconds. Well, if she’d still been on the force.

Alice was furious. And frustrated. And she could think of another word she’d like to drop when it came to the cowboy’s actions but it wouldn’t do any good. The fact that he was acting on goodwill was the only reason she didn’t completely unleash hell on him.

“I have to go,” she managed to get out through clenched teeth. If the task force found out what she was up to after being warned to stay away she’d lose everything, including her twin boys. “Thanks for going all Dudley Do-Right on me but I need to follow those men out there.”

Tall, Dark and Cowboy cocked an eyebrow. “I’m sure the police would be happy to help as soon as they get here.”

“I don’t have time to lose,” she countered. “They’re getting away as we speak.”

“Then tell me what’s going on and I’ll consider letting up,” he said, staring her straight in the eye.

She ignored the shiver racing up her arms, chalking up her goose bumps to being soaked to the bone in an air conditioned bathroom. Didn’t the worker believe in turning on the heat?

Telling the truth wasn’t an option. Fighting didn’t help. She’d have to take another approach.

Alice relaxed her body against the strong cowboy, looking up at him with her most sincere expression as she prepared a lie. “I’m sorry. Thank you for helping me. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been there. That guy out there is my ex and I really need to know what he’s up to for the sake of our boys.”