“You don’t have to trust me, Texas Ranger. You just have to stay out of my way.”

Bennet Stevens will do anything to prove himself. But the ranger never expected a cold case lead like Alyssa Jimenez, a wild-card bounty hunter. Or that someone would target her. The only safe place she can hide is in Bennet’s elite world. But Alyssa’s gutsy maneuvers and surprising vulnerability are putting Bennet’s heart at passionate risk…

Alyssa barely survived her drug-cartel family’s machinations. She knows all too well that trusting anyone can get you dead. Still, Bennet is the only way she can finally put her mother’s unsolved murder to rest. But posing as his lover is seductive—and risky. And exposing the truth could guarantee they won’t live to celebrate Christmas.

“Love is always a weapon, Bennet.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he replied steadfastly, his blue eyes an odd shade in the light of the laptop screen.

Alyssa’s chest felt tight, and her heart felt too much like it was being squeezed. She’d wanted to feel something, but not this. Not anything to do with love.

Before Alyssa realized what he was doing, Bennet had his hand fisted in her shirt and tugged her down. Then his mouth was on hers. Gentle, and something that kind of made her want to cry because there’d been so little of it in her life. His lips caressed hers, his tongue slowly tracing the outline of her bottom lip, and all she could do was soak it up. . .

Stone Cold Christmas Ranger

Nicole Helm

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NICOLE HELM grew up with her nose in a book and the dream of one day becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, she gets to follow that dream—writing down-to-earth contemporary romance and romantic suspense. From farmers to cowboys, Midwest to the West, Nicole writes stories about people finding themselves and finding love in the process. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.

To late-night train whistles when everyone else is asleep and

the Janette Oke books that introduced me to romance.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Bennet Stevens had learned how to smile politely and charmingly at people he couldn’t stand before he’d learned to walk. Growing up in a family chock-full of lawyers and politicians, and many of the Texas rich and powerful, he’d been bred to be a charming, cunning tool.

His decision to go into police work had surprised, and perhaps not excited, his parents, but they weren’t the type of people to stand in someone’s way.

Everything was far more circumspect than that, and after five years as a Texas Ranger, easily moving up the ranks beyond his counterparts, Bennet was starting to wonder if that’s how his parents were attempting to smoke him out.

Make everything too damn easy.

He was as tired of easy here at the Texas Rangers headquarters in Austin as he was of political parties at his parents’ home where he was supposed to flirt with debutantes and impress stuffed suits with tales of his bravery and valor.

Which was why he was beyond determined to break one of the coldest cases his Texas Ranger unit had. The timing couldn’t be more perfect, with his partner in the Unsolved Crimes Investigation Unit taking some extended time off giving Bennet the opportunity to solve a case on his own.

He glanced over at said partner, Ranger Vaughn Cooper, who was leaning against the corner of their shared office, talking on his cell in low tones.

No amount of low tones could hide the fact taciturn Ranger Cooper was talking to his very pregnant wife. Bennet could only shake his head at how the mighty had fallen, and hard.

Vaughn said his goodbyes and shoved his phone into his pocket before he turned his attention to Bennet, assessing gaze and hard expression back in place. “Captain won’t go for it,” Vaughn said, nodding at the file on Bennet’s desk.

“He might if you back me up.”

Vaughn crossed his arms over his chest, and if Bennet hadn’t worked with Vaughn for almost four years, he might have been intimidated or worried. But that steely-eyed glare meant Vaughn was considering it.

“I know you want more...”

“But?” Bennet supplied, forcing himself to grin as if this didn’t mean everything. When people knew what it meant, they crushed it if they could. Another Stevens lesson imparted early and often.

“I’m not sure this case is the way to go. It’s been sitting here for years.”

“I believe that’s the point of our department. Besides that, I’ve already found a new lead,” Bennet said, never letting the easy smile leave his face.

Vaughn’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You have?”

“There was a murder around the same time as this case that the FBI linked to the Jimenez drug cartel. That victim’s wounds were the same as the victim’s wounds in our Jane Doe case. If Captain lets me take on this case, I want to find a connection.”

Vaughn blew out a breath and nodded. “You have the FBI file?”

Bennet turned his laptop screen so Vaughn could read. Vaughn’s expression changed, just a fraction, and for only a second, but Bennet caught it. And jumped. “What? What did you see?”

Vaughn sighed heavily. “I didn’t see anything. It’s just...Jimenez.”

“What about it?”

“Alyssa Jimenez.”

“I know that name.” Bennet racked his brain for how, because it hadn’t been in any of the files he’d been poring over lately. “The Stallion. Oh, she was with Gabby.” Vaughn’s sister-in-law had been the kidnapping victim of a madman who called himself The Stallion. Vaughn had worked the case to free Gabby and the handful of other girls she’d been in captivity with.

Including Alyssa Jimenez. “Wait. Are you telling me she has something to do with the Jimenez drug family?”

“I don’t know that she does. But based on what I do know, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“But you haven’t followed up?” Bennet asked incredulously.

“Natalie and Gabby took her in after Gabby’s release. They’ve adopted her like a sister, and I have yet to see anything that points to her being involved with any of the many members of the Jimenez drug cartel family.”

“But you think she is,” Bennet pressed, because Vaughn wouldn’t have brought it up if he didn’t.

“Alyssa is...different. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had connections to this family. She’s built something of an underground bounty hunter business, and the contacts she has?” Vaughn shook his head. “I promised Gabby and Nat I wouldn’t interfere unless it was directly part of my job.”

“You? You, Mr. By-the-Book, promised not to investigate something?”

“She hasn’t done anything wrong, and believe me, I’ve watched. If she’s connected to that family, it’s only biological. Not criminal. She’s been through a lot.”

“Wait. Wait. Isn’t she the one who fought the FBI when they raided The Stallion’s compound to release the women?”

Vaughn stood to his full height, disapproval written all over his face, but Bennet wouldn’t let it stop him. Vaughn’s family leave started tomorrow, and he couldn’t stand in Bennet’s way for weeks.

“She didn’t fight them off. She just didn’t exactly drop her weapon when they demanded her to do so. There is a difference. Now, Bennet, I need you to understand something.”

Bennet held himself very still, especially since Vaughn rarely called him by his first name. They were partners, but Vaughn was older, more experienced, and Bennet had always looked up to him like something of a mentor.

“Do not let your need to do something big compromise your job, which is to do something right.”

The lecture grated even though Bennet knew it was a good one, a fair one. But he didn’t particularly want to be good or fair right now. He wanted to do something. He wanted a challenge. He wanted to feel less like this fake facade.

He would do all that by doing that something right, damn it. “I want her contact information.”

“I didn’t say I’d back you up. I didn’t say—”

“I want her contact information,” Bennet repeated, and this time he didn’t smile or hide the edge in his voice. “I have found a lead that no one else has found, and I will rightfully and lawfully follow up on it once Captain Dean gives me the go-ahead. Now, you can either give it to me and smooth the way and let this be easy—for me and for her—or you can stand in my way and force me to drag her in here.”

Vaughn’s expression was icy, but Bennet couldn’t worry about that. Not for this. So, he continued.

“You’re out for a month to spend with your wife and your upcoming new addition. Take it. Enjoy it. And while you’re gone, let me do my job the way I see fit.”

Bennet couldn’t read Vaughn’s silence, but he supposed it didn’t matter. Bennet had said his piece, and he’d made it very clear. He would not be dissuaded.

“If you get Captain Dean’s go-ahead, I’ll give you Gabby’s contact information. It’ll be the best way to get ahold of Alyssa.”

When Bennet frowned, Vaughn’s mouth curved into the closest it ever got to a smile on duty.

“Best of luck getting anything out of Gabby Torres.”

Bennet forced himself to smile. “I can handle your sister-in-law.” And he could handle this case, and the potential to crack it wide open. Starting with Alyssa Jimenez.

* * *

ALYSSA NEVER KNEW what to do when Gabby went into full protective mode. While Alyssa had grown up with five intimidating older brothers, they had protected her by throwing her in a room and locking the door, by teaching her to use any weapon she could get her hands on. They had protected her by hiding her.

Not ranting and raving about some half-cocked Texas Ranger wanting to talk to her.

Not that Alyssa needed Gabby’s protection, but it was still interesting to watch.

“The nerve of that guy, thinking he can question you about something that doesn’t even have anything to do with you!”

Alyssa sat with her elbows resting on her knees in a folding chair in the corner of her very odd little office. It was a foreclosed gas station in a crappy part of Austin, and Alyssa hadn’t made any bones about making it look different from what it was. Shelves still stood in aisles, coolers stood empty and not running along the back wall. The only thing she’d done was add some seating—mostly stuff she’d found in the alley—and a desk that had a crack down the middle.

Her clientele didn’t mind, and they knew where to find her without her having to advertise and attract potential...legal issues.

The only time the office space bothered Alyssa was when Gabby insisted on showing up. Even though Alyssa knew Gabby could take care of herself—she’d recently graduated from the police academy, and she’d survived eight years as a prisoner of The Stallion to Alyssa’s two—Alyssa hated bringing people she cared about into this underworld.

“Alyssa. Are you listening?”

Alyssa shrugged. “Not really. You seem to be doing an excellent job of yelling all by yourself.”

Gabby scowled at her, and it was moments like these Alyssa didn’t know what to do with. Where it felt like she had a sister, a family. People who cared about her. It made her want to cry, and it made her want to...

She didn’t know. So, she ignored it. “I can talk to some Texas Ranger. I talk to all sorts of people all the time.” Criminals. Law enforcement. Men who worked for her brothers, men who worked for the FBI, including Gabby’s fiancé. Alyssa knew how to talk to anyone.

Maybe, just maybe, it made her a little nervous someone so close to Natalie and Gabby had possibly discovered her connection to one of the biggest cartels operating in the state of Texas, but she could handle it.

“Crap,” Gabby muttered, looking at her phone. “Nat went into labor.”

“Well, hurry up and get to the hospital.”

“Come with me.”

“No.”

“Alyssa, you’re ours now. Really.”

“I know,” Alyssa replied, even though it had been almost two years since escaping The Stallion and she still wasn’t used to being considered part of the family. “But all that pushing and yelling and weird baby crap? I’m going to have to pass. I’ll come visit when it’s all over, so keep me posted. Besides, I have some work to catch up on. My trip to Amarillo took longer than I expected.”

She’d brought a rapist to justice. Though she’d brought him in for a far more minor charge, the woman who’d come to her for help could rest assured her attacker was in jail.

It wasn’t legal to act as bounty hunter without a license, but growing up in the shadow of a drug cartel family, Alyssa didn’t exactly care about legal. She cared about righting some wrongs.

Some of that pride and certainty must have showed in her expression because Gabby sighed. “All right, I won’t fight you on it. Get your work done and then, regardless of baby appearance, at least stop by the hospital tonight?”

“Fine.”

Gabby pulled her into a quick hug, another gesture Alyssa had spent two years not knowing what to do with. But the Torres sisters had pulled her in and insisted she was part of their family.

It mattered, and Alyssa would do whatever she could to make sure she made them proud. She couldn’t be a police officer like Gabby, or a trained hypnotist assisting the Texas Rangers like Natalie, but she could do this.

“See you tonight,” Gabby said, heading for the door.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Gabby left, and Alyssa sighed. Maybe she should have gone. Natalie had had a difficult pregnancy, enough so that her husband was taking almost an entire month off work to be home with her and the baby the first few weeks. And, no matter how uncomfortable Alyssa still was with the whole childbirth thing, they were her family.

Her good, upstanding chosen family. Who don’t know who you really are.

Alyssa turned to her work. There was some paperwork to forge to collect her fee for the last guy she’d brought in, and then she had to check her makeshift mailbox to see if any more tips had been left for her. She worked by word of mouth, mostly for people who couldn’t pay, hence the forging paperwork so she could pretend to be a licensed bounty hunter and collect enough of a fee to live off of.

Her front door screeched open, as the hinges weren’t aligned or well oiled. She glanced over expecting to find a woman from the neighborhood, as those were usually her only word-of-mouth visitors.

Instead, a man stepped through the door, and for a few seconds Alyssa couldn’t act, she could only stare. He was tall and broad, dressed in pressed khakis and a perfectly tailored button-down shirt, a Texas Ranger badge hooked to his belt. He wore a cowboy hat and a gun like he’d been born with them.

Alyssa’s heart beat twice its normal rhythm, something unrecognizable fluttering in her chest. His dark hair was thick and wavy, and not buzzed short like most Texas Rangers she’d come into contact with. His eyes were a startling blue, and his mouth—

Wait. Why was she staring at his mouth?

The man’s brows drew together as he looked around the room. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, are you... You are Alyssa Jimenez, aren’t you?”

“And you must be the Texas Ranger Gabby’s trying to hide me from,” Alyssa offered drily. “How did you find me?”

“I followed Gabby.”

She laughed, couldn’t help it. She’d expected him to lie or have some high-tech way for having found her not-publicly-listed office. But he’d told her the truth. “Awfully sneaky and underhanded for a Ranger.”

His mouth curved, and the fluttering was back tenfold. He had a movie-star smile, all charm and white teeth, and while Alyssa had seen men like that in her life, she’d never, ever had that kind of smile directed at her.

“You must know Ranger Cooper, antithesis of all that is sneaky and underhanded. We aren’t all like that.”

Something about all that fluttering turned into a spiral, one that arrowed down her chest and into her belly. She felt oddly shaky, and Alyssa had long ago learned how to ward off shaky. She’d grown up in isolation as part of a criminal family. Then she’d been kidnapped for two years, locked away in little more than a bunker.

She was not a weakling. She was never scared. The scariest parts of her life were over, but something about this man sent her as off-kilter as she’d ever been.

It wasn’t fear for her life or the need to fight off an attacker, but she didn’t know what it was, and that was the scariest thing of all.

“Why are you here?” she asked, edging behind her cracked desk. She had a knife strapped to her ankle, but she’d prefer the Glock she’d shoved in the drawer when Gabby had stormed in an hour earlier.

She wouldn’t use either on him, but she didn’t want him to think she was going to do whatever he wanted either. He might be a Texas Ranger, but he couldn’t waltz in here and get whatever he wanted. Especially if what he wanted was information about Jimenez.

“I have some questions for you, Ms. Jimenez, that’s all.”

“Then why is everyone trying so hard to keep you from meeting me?” Alyssa returned, sliding her hand into the drawer.

The Ranger’s eyes flicked to the movement, and she didn’t miss the way his hand slowly rose to the holster of his weapon. She paused her movement completely, but she didn’t retract her hand.

“Maybe they’re afraid of what I’ll find out.”

She raised her gaze from his gun to those shocking blue eyes. His expression was flat and grim, so very police. Worst of all, it sent a shiver of fear through her.

There were so very many things he could find out.

Chapter Two

Bennet didn’t know what to make out of Alyssa’s closed-down gas station of an office. Could anyone call this an office? It looked like nothing more than an abandoned building, except maybe she’d swept the floors a little. But the windows were grimy, the lights dim, and most of the debris of a convenience store were still scattered about.

Then there was this pretty force of a woman standing in the midst of all of it as though it were a sleek, modern office building in downtown Austin.

She wore jeans and a leather jacket over a T-shirt. The boots on her feet looked like they might weigh as much as her. Her dark hair was pulled back, and her dark eyes flashed with suspicion.

Something about her poked at him, deep in his gut. He tried to convince himself he must have dealt with her before, criminally, but he was too practical to convince himself of a lie. Whatever that poke was, it wasn’t work related.

But he was here to work. To finally do something worthwhile. With no help from any outside forces.

She didn’t take her hand off what he assumed to be a weapon in the drawer of her desk—though it was hidden from his view—so he kept his hand on his. Alyssa might be a friend of people he knew, but that didn’t mean he trusted her.

“I guess what you find out depends on what you’re looking for, Ranger...” She looked expectantly at him.

Though she was clearly suspicious, defensive even, she didn’t appear nervous or scared, so he went ahead and took his hand off the butt of his weapon. He held out his hand between them. “Bennet Stevens. And I don’t know why your friends are being so protective of you. All I’m after is a little information about a case I’m working on. If you have no connection to it, I’ll happily walk away and not bother you again.”

Nothing in her expression changed. She watched him and his outstretched hand warily. She was doing some sort of mental calculation, and Bennet figured he could wait that out and keep his hand outstretched for as long as it took.

“What kind of case?”

“A murder.”

She laughed, and something in his gut tightened, a completely unwelcome sensation. She had a sexy laugh, and it was the last thing he had any business noticing.

“I can assure you I have nothing to do with any murders,” Alyssa said, still ignoring his outstretched hand.

“Then what do you have to do with?” he asked, giving up on the handshake.

She cocked her head at him. “I’m pretty sure you said that if I didn’t have anything to do with your case, you’d leave me alone. Well, you know where the door is.”

He glanced at the door even though there was no way he was retreating anytime soon. His initial plan had been to come in here and be friendly and subtle, ease into things.

It was clear Alyssa wasn’t going to respond to subtle or friendly. Which meant he had to go with the straightforward tactic, even if it ended up offending his friends.

He held up his hands, palms toward her, a clear sign he wouldn’t be reaching for his weapon as he slowly withdrew two papers from his shirt’s front pocket.

He unfolded the papers and handed the top one to her. “Is that you?”

It was a picture of a young girl, surrounded by five dangerous-looking men. Men who were confirmed to be part of the Jimenez drug cartel.

Bennet had no doubt the girl in the picture was Alyssa. Though she did look different as an adult, there were too many similarities. Chief among them the stony expression on her face.

She looked at the picture for an abnormally long time in utter silence.

“Ms. Jimenez?”

She looked up at him, and there wasn’t just stony stoicism or cynicism in her expression anymore, there was something a lot closer to hatred. She dropped the picture on her ramshackle desk.

“I really doubt I need to answer that question since you’re here. You’ve decided it’s me whether I confirm it or not. You clearly know who those men are, decided I’m connected to them. I doubt you’ll believe me, but let me head you off at the pass. I have not contacted anyone with the last name Jimenez since I was kidnapped at the age of twenty.”

He wouldn’t let that soften him. “Then I guess it’s fitting that the case I’m looking into is sixteen years old.”

Confusion drew her eyebrows together. “You want to question me about a crime that happened when I was eight?”

“Yes.”

She made a scoffing noise disguised as a laugh. “All right, Ranger Hotshot. Hit me.”

“Sixteen years ago, a Jane Doe was found murdered. She’s never been identified, but I found some similarities between her case and a case connected to the Jimenez family. Your family. I’d like to bring some closure to this cold case, and I think you can help.”

“I was eight. Whatever my brothers were doing, I had no part in.”

“Brothers?”

She didn’t move, didn’t say anything, but Bennet nearly smiled. She’d slipped up and given him more information than he’d had. He’d known Alyssa was connected, but he hadn’t known how close.

Yeah, she was going to be exactly what he needed. “I’d like you to look at the picture of the Jane Doe and let me know if you remember ever seeing her with your brothers. It’s not an incredibly graphic picture, but it can be disconcerting for some people to view pictures of dead bodies.”

Alyssa rolled her eyes and snatched up the picture. “I work as a bounty hunter. I think I can stand the sight of a...” But she trailed off and paled. She sank into the folding chair so hard it broke and she fell to the ground.

Bennet was at her side not quite in time to keep her ass from hitting the floor. “Are you okay?”

She was shaking, seemed not to have noticed she’d broken a chair and was sitting in its debris, the picture fisted in her hand.

“Alyssa?”

When she finally brought her gaze to his, those brown eyes were wide and wet and she was clearly in shock.

“Where’d you get this?” she demanded in a whisper, her hands shaking. Hell, her whole body was shaking. Her brown eyes bored into his. “This is a lie. This has to be a lie.” Her voice cracked.

“You know her?” he asked, gently rubbing a hand up and down her forearm, trying to offer something to help her stop shaking so hard.

Alyssa looked back down at the picture that shook in her hands. “That’s my mother.”

* * *

THE TEARS WERE sharp and burning, but Alyssa did everything she could to keep them from falling. She forced herself to look away from the picture and shoved it back at the Texas Ranger, whatever his name was.

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Her mother had left her. She’d been seduced away by some rival of her father’s. That was the story.

Not murder.

It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. She tried to get ahold of her labored breathing, but no matter how much she told herself to breathe slowly in and out, she could only gasp and pant, that picture of her mother’s lifeless face seared into her brain forever.

Murder.

She realized the Ranger had stopped rubbing her arm in that oddly comforting gesture and instead curled long, strong fingers around both her elbows.

“Come on,” he said gently, pulling her to her feet.

Since the debris of the rickety chair that had broken underneath her weight was starting to dig into her butt, she let him do it. Once she was standing somewhere close to steady on her feet, he didn’t release her. No, that strong grip stayed right where it was on her elbows.

It was centering somehow, that firm, warm pressure. A reminder she existed in the here and now, not in one of the different prisons her life had been.

She blinked up at the Texas Ranger holding her steady. There was something like compassion in his blue eyes, maybe even regret. His full lips were downturned, slight grooves bracketing his mouth.

He was something like pretty, and she’d rather have those cheekbones and that square jaw burned into her brain than the image of her dead mother.

“If I’d had any idea, Alyssa...” he said, his voice gravel and his tone overly familiar.

She pulled herself out of his grasp, pulled into herself, like she’d learned how to do time and time again as the inconsequential daughter of a criminal, as a useless kidnapping victim.

She’d spent the last two years trying to build a life for herself where she might matter, where she might do some good.

This moment forced her back into all the ways she’d never mattered. What other lies she’d accepted as truth might be waiting for her?

She closed her eyes against the onslaught of pain. And fear.

“My brothers didn’t murder my mother, Ranger Stevens,” Alyssa managed, though her voice was rusty. “I know they’re not exactly heroes, but they never would have killed my mother.”

“Okay.” He was quiet for a few humming seconds. “Maybe you’d like to help me find out who did.”

She didn’t move, didn’t emote. She’d worked with law enforcement before, but she was careful about it. They usually didn’t know her name or her friends. They definitely didn’t know her connection to the Jimenez family.

This man knew all of that and had to look like Superman in a cowboy hat on top of it. The last thing she should consider was working with him.

Except her mother was dead. Murdered. A Jane Doe for well over a decade, and as much as she couldn’t believe her brothers had anything to do with her mother’s murder—murder—she couldn’t believe they didn’t know. There was no way Miranda Jimenez had stayed a Jane Doe without her family purposefully making sure she did.

Alyssa swallowed. Making sure her mother had stayed a Jane Doe, all the while making sure Alyssa didn’t know about it. Her brothers had always claimed they were protecting her by keeping things from her, and it was hard to doubt. They had meant well. If they hadn’t, she’d have been dead or auctioned off to some faithful servant of her father’s before she’d ever been kidnapped.

Ranger Stevens released her, and she felt cold without that warm, sturdy grip. Cold and alone. Well, that’s what you are. What you’ll always have to be.

“Take some time. Come to grips with this new information, and when you’re ready to work with me, give me a call.” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and handed her a card from it.

She took the card. That big star emblem of the Rangers seemed to stare at her. It looked so official, so heroic, that symbol. Right next to it, his name, Bennet E. Stevens. Ranger.

She glanced back up at him, and was more than a little irritated she saw kindness in his expression. She didn’t want kindness or compassion. She didn’t know what to do with those things, and she already got them in spades from Gabby and Natalie and even to an extent from their law enforcement significant others.

Everyone felt sorry for Alyssa Jimenez, but no one knew who she really was. Except this man.

“Do you have a phone number I can reach you at?” he prompted when she didn’t say anything.

She didn’t want to give him her number. She didn’t want to give him anything. She wanted to rewind the last half hour and go with Gabby to the hospital. She would have avoided this whole thing.

Not forever, though. She was too practical to think it would have lasted forever.

“Fine,” she muttered, because, as much as she knew she’d end up working with this guy, the promise of solving her mother’s murder was too great, too important, and she didn’t want to give him too much leverage. She’d make him think she was reticent, doing him a favor when she finally agreed.

She grabbed a pen and scrap of paper from her desk and scrawled her number on it. He took it, sliding it into his pocket along with the pictures he’d retrieved. She’d wanted to keep them, but she had to keep it cool. She’d get them eventually.

“I’ll be in touch, Alyssa,” he said with a tip of his hat. He paused for a second, hesitating. “I am sorry for your loss,” he said gravely, before turning and exiting her office.

She let out a shaky sigh. The worst thing was believing that kind of crap. Why would he be sorry? He didn’t know her or her mother. It was a lame, placating statement.

It soothed somehow, idiot that she was. She shook her head and collected her belongings. She’d stop by the hospital to check on Natalie and Gabby, and then she’d go home and try to sleep. She’d give it a day, maybe two, then she’d call Ranger Too-Hot-For-Her-Own-Good.

She locked up and exited out the back, pulling her helmet on before starting her motorcycle. It was her most expensive possession, and she treated it like a baby. Nothing in the world gave her the freedom that motorcycle did.

She rode out of the alley and onto the street that would lead her to the highway and the hospital. Within two minutes, she knew she was being followed.

Her first inclination was that it was Ranger Stevens keeping tabs on her, but the jacked-up piece-of-crap car following her was no Texas Ranger vehicle.

She scowled and narrowed her eyes. Of course, anyone could be following her, but after the Ranger’s visit and information, Alyssa had the sneaking suspicion it was all related.

Maybe her brothers had ignored her existence since she’d been kidnapped and then released, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t find her if they wanted to.

If they were after her now, they wouldn’t give up until they got her. But that didn’t mean she had to go down easy. Certainly not after they’d abandoned her.

She took a sharp turn onto a side street, then weaved in and out of traffic the way the car couldn’t. She took a few more sharp turns, earning honks and angry middle fingers from other drivers, but eventually she found herself in a dark, small alley. She killed her engine and stood there straddling her bike, breathing heavily.

Did her brothers know Ranger Stevens was investigating their mother’s death? Did they have something to hide?

She squeezed her eyes shut, finding her even breathing. They couldn’t have killed their mother. They couldn’t have. Alyssa couldn’t bring herself to believe it.

Her phone rang and she swore, expecting it to be news about Natalie’s baby. Instead, it was a number she didn’t recognize. Her brothers?

She hit Accept cautiously, and adopted her best take-no-crap tone. “What?”

“You’re being tailed.”

She scowled at Ranger Steven’s voice. “I’m well aware. I lost them.”

“Yeah, well, I’m tailing them now.”

“Idiot,” she muttered. How had this man stepped into her life for fifteen minutes and scrambled everything up?

“What?” Ranger Stevens spluttered.

Alyssa had to think fast. To move. Oh, damn the man for getting in the way of things. “Listen, I’m coming back out. I want you to let them follow me. And when they take me, I need you to not get in the way.” Her brothers had never come for her, and she’d stopped expecting them, but if they were coming for her now...she was ready.

As long as she could get rid of the Texas Ranger trying to protect her.

Chapter Three

Bennet wanted to argue, but he had to keep too much of his attention on following the men who’d been following Alyssa to try to outtalk this girl.

Let them take her? “Are you crazy?”

“We both know it’s someone from my family, or sent by them anyway. If I let them take me, I get information.”

“And end up like your mother.” Which was probably too blunt when she’d only just found out about her mother, but he couldn’t keep compassion in place when she was talking about getting herself abducted.

He heard a motorcycle engine roar past him, and swore when Alyssa waved at him.

He tossed his phone into the passenger seat and followed. It was reckless and possibly stupid not to call for backup. But while Captain Dean had given him the go-ahead to take on this case, Bennet wasn’t ready to bring in other people yet. He needed more information. He needed to know what he was dealing with.

The fact of the matter was he had no idea what he was dealing with when it came to Alyssa Jimenez.

She cut in front of the car that had originally been following her. He watched the streetlights streak across her quickly moving form, and she waved at those guys too.

She was crazy.

While Bennet had been worried in the beginning that the tail’s goal had been to hurt Alyssa, it was clear they were after something else. If they wanted to hurt her, they could run her off the road and drive away. No one would know the difference except him, and Bennet didn’t think they knew they had a tail.

It was clear they wanted Alyssa. Whole. She had wanted him to let them take her, so it seemed she knew she wasn’t in imminent danger from these people, as well.

Was she working with them? Was he the fool here?

Except when she finally quit driving, he could only stare from his place farther down the street. She’d led them to the public parking of the Texas Rangers headquarters.

What on earth was this woman up to?

She parked in the middle of the mostly empty parking lot—employees parked in the back and public visitors rarely arrived at night. The car that had been following her stopped at the parking lot entrance. Clearly her followers didn’t know what to do with this.

Bennet made a turn, keeping the parking lot in view from his rearview window. When the car didn’t follow, the occupants instead kept their attention on Alyssa, he knew they hadn’t seen him following them.

He made a quick sharp turn into the back lot and then drove along the building, parking as close as he could to where Alyssa was without being seen. He got out of his car and unholstered his weapon. He crept along the building, keeping himself in the shadows, watching as the car still idled in the entrance while Alyssa sat defiantly on her motorcycle in the middle of the parking lot, parking lights haloing her.

That uncomfortable thing from before tightened in his gut at the way the light glinted off her dark hair when she pulled off her helmet. Something a little lower than his gut reacted far too much at the “screw you” in the curve of her mouth. She looked like some fierce warrior, some underground-gang queen. He should not be attracted to that even for a second.

Apparently some parts of his anatomy weren’t as interested in law and order as his brain was.

“What are you guys? Chicken?” Alyssa called out.

Bennet nearly groaned. She would have to be the kind of woman who’d provoke them.

“How about this—you send a message to my brothers. You tell them if they want me, they can come get me themselves. No cut-rate, brainless thug is going to take me anywhere I don’t want to go.”

The engine revved, and Bennet moved closer. He wasn’t going to let these men take his only lead on this case. Even if she was trying to get herself killed.

But in the end, the car merely backed out and screeched away.

Leaving him and Alyssa in a mostly empty parking lot.

She turned to face him as if she’d known he was there all along. “I bet that got their attention, huh?” she said. She didn’t walk toward him, so he walked to her.

“Yes. How smart. Piss off your criminal brothers you claim to have nothing to do with so they come after you.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“I thought you wanted me to let them take you.” Which he never would have done.

“I was going to, but then I saw what cut-rate weaklings they sent after me. Afraid of a little Texas Ranger parking lot.” She made a scoffing sound. “The only way to really get some answers is to get inside again, but guys like that? Dopes with guns? Yeah, I’m not risking my life with them. My brothers can come get me themselves if it’s that important to them.”

“You’re not going back inside that family.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Since when did you become my keeper?”

“Since I’m the reason you think you need to go back there. We’ll investigate this from the outside. You don’t need to be on the inside.” He’d sacrifice a lot to actually accomplish something, but not someone else’s life.

“Shows what you know. Not a damn thing. I’ve been gone a long time, but I still know how the Jimenez family works. I can get the answers we need.”

“We need?”

She looked at her motorcycle, helmet still dangling from her fingertips. He’d watched her shake and tremble apart after seeing her mother’s picture, but she was nothing but strength and certainty now.

Again, Bennet couldn’t help but wonder if he was the sucker here, if he was being pulled into something that would end up making a fool out of him. But he’d come too far to back out. Gotten the okay on this case, gotten to Alyssa. He had to keep moving forward.

“My brothers didn’t murder our mom,” she said, raising her gaze to his. Strong and sure. “I know they didn’t. I’m going to prove it. To you. And when you find out who really did it, you can bring them to justice.”

Her voice shook at the end, though her shoulders-back, chin-up stance didn’t change.

He couldn’t trust her. She was related to one of the biggest drug cartels in the state. And while Gabby and Natalie had befriended her, and Vaughn thought she hadn’t had contact with her brothers in years, this felt awfully coincidental.

She must have seen the direction of his thoughts. “You don’t have to trust me, Ranger Stevens. You just have to stay out of my way.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” No matter what it took, he had knocked over whatever domino was creating these events. He was part of it, and whether he trusted her or not, he had some responsibility for bringing her into this.

“They must have my office bugged,” Alyssa said, scowling. “The timing is too coincidental, too weird. It’s been two years since the kidnapping rescue, and they’ve left me alone. They had to have heard you questioning me. So, they know. You have to stay out of my way so we can know what’s really going on.”

“How can you think they had nothing to do with it if they’re stepping in now when they supposedly know what I’m after?”

“They didn’t kill our mother, but cartel business is tricky. Complicated. Their never identifying her when she was Jane Doe, it could be purposeful or they feel like they can’t now or... I don’t know, but I have to find out. I’m going in. You can’t stop me, and God knows you can’t stop them.”

He didn’t agree with that. He could put a security detail on her, keep her safe and away from her brothers for the foreseeable future. Even if the Rangers pulled support, he had enough of his own money to make it so.

But it’d be awfully hard to make it so when she was so determined, and it’d make it harder to get the information he needed. It would make it almost impossible to solve this case.

He studied her, looking at him so defiantly, as if she was the one in charge here. As if she could stand up to him, toe-to-toe, over and over again. Some odd thing shuddered through him, a gut feeling he didn’t want to pay attention to.

He’d made his decision, so there was only one way to settle this. “If you’re going in, then I’m going in with you.”

* * *

AND THIS TEXAS Ranger thought she was crazy.

“You think you’re going to come with me. You think in any world my brothers would allow a Texas Ranger into their home or office or whatever without, oh, say killing you and making sure no one ever found out about it?”

“Except you.”

Unfortunately, he had a point. Also unfortunately, her last name might keep her safe for the most part when it came to the Jimenez family, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt, if she outright betrayed her family, she’d be killed.

Like your mother.

She couldn’t get over it, so she just kept pushing the reality out of her mind as much as she could. Still, it lingered in whispers. Murdered. Murdered. Murdered. How on earth could Mom have been murdered? It didn’t make any sense.

Except she left. Betrayed your father. Maybe it makes all the sense in the world.

She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She couldn’t focus on possibility. She had to focus on truth.

“I can handle this,” Ranger Stevens said resolutely.

“No. You can handle being a Texas Ranger. You can handle being a cop. You can’t handle being inside a drug cartel. Even if they let you, you’d want to arrest everyone. And trust me, that wouldn’t go well for you.”

“They didn’t hurt you. They ran away.”

“Of course they didn’t hurt me. Even if I’m not involved in the business, I’m the daughter of a cartel kingpin. I’m the sister of the people who run it. They hurt me, they’re dead. It’s a matter of honor, but that doesn’t mean that protection extends to you.” Or to her, if she betrayed Jimenez.

“So we’ll have to find a way for them to think it’s a matter of honor not to kill me.”

“How on earth do you suggest we do that?”

“I have a few ideas, but I’m not discussing them here in this parking lot.” He gestured toward the Texas Rangers building.

Alyssa laughed. “I’m not going in there. My brothers are going to think I’m working with you on a lot more than Mom’s...” she cleared her throat of the lump “...murder.”

“You know it isn’t just me at stake here. Natalie and Gabby. Their families. They’re a part of your life, and now—”

She took a threatening step toward him—or it might have been threatening, if he wasn’t about six inches taller than her and twice as wide. “You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I have made my life very separate so they would never get pulled into this if I had to be?”

“I don’t know you at all, Alyssa. I don’t know what your plans are.”

“My plan is to live a normal life. That’s all I want.” She realized, too late, she’d yelled it, shaking all over again. Normal had seemed almost within reach lately, and then this Texas Ranger had walked into her office and everything had changed.

She was Alyssa Jimenez again. Not bounty hunter and friend, not even kidnapping victim, or the inconsequential relative of very consequential people. She was in danger and in trouble, and she couldn’t do anything about it.

He reached out, and she hated that something like a simple touch on her arm could just soothe. She’d never understood it, but Gabby would hug her back in that bunker, and even out here in the open, and everything would feel okay. This guy, this stranger of a Texas Ranger, touched her, and it felt like she could handle whatever came if he was touching her.

It was insanity.

“If they bugged your office, it’s likely they’ve bugged your house.”

Alyssa thought of her little apartment above Gabby and Jaime’s garage. Was it bugged? Was the whole house bugged? Had she brought all of her family’s problems into the house they’d been kind enough to open up to her?

Guilt swamped her, pain. Tears threatened, but she wouldn’t be that weak. She’d fix this. She had to fix this.

“Come home with me.”

She jerked her head up to look at Ranger Stevens and carefully pulled herself out of his grasp. Everything in her rebelled at the idea of going home with him. His house. His life. Him.

“I have a big house. Multiple rooms. You can have your own bathroom, your own space. We can get some sleep, and in the morning we can talk knowing that no one has bugged my place.”

“They know who you are now. If they bugged my place, they know your name. They know what you’re after.”

He seemed to consider that with more weight than she thought he would. “All right. I have somewhere else we can go. It might require a little bending of the truth.”

Alyssa frowned at him. “What kind of bending of the truth?”

“We’ll just need to pretend this isn’t related to my job. That you’re not so much a professional acquaintance but a, ah, personal one.”

“Where the hell are you taking me?” she demanded, touching her bike to remind herself she was free. He couldn’t take her anywhere unless she agreed.

And if you go home, would you be putting Gabby and Jaime in jeopardy?

“My parents have a guesthouse. I use it on occasion when necessary. I can say I’m having my house painted or remodeled or something and they’ll believe it, if they’re even home. But if I’m bringing you with me, they’re going to need to think...” He cleared his throat.

Alyssa’s mouth went slack as it dawned on her what he was suggesting. “You want me to pretend to be involved with you like...sleeping-over involved?” Her voice squeaked and her entire face heated. Her whole body heated. She’d never been sleeping-over involved with anyone, and she was pretty sure that was a really lame way of putting it, but she didn’t know how else to say it.

She didn’t know how to wrap her head around what he was suggesting.

“My parents aren’t invasive exactly. Actually, they’re incredibly invasive, but like I said, it’s unlikely they’re there. They have some of the best security in Austin, so we’ll be safe, or at least forewarned. Should one of the staff mention I had a woman over, then they’ll assume it’s personal and we’ll just go with it.”

“Your parents have a guesthouse and staff?”

“Your father runs a drug cartel?” he returned in the same put-off tone.

She wanted to laugh even though it wasn’t funny in the least little bit. “No one’s going to believe I’m involved with...you.”

Something in his expression changed, a softening followed by an all-too-charming smile that had her heart beating hard against her chest.

“Am I that hideous?” he asked, clearly knowing full well he was not.

“You know what I mean. I look like a street urchin,” she said, waving a hand down her front. “You look like...” She waved her hand ineffectually at him.

He cocked his head. “I look like what?” he asked, and there was something a little darker in his tone. Dangerous. But cops weren’t dangerous. Not like that.

“I don’t know,” she muttered, knowing she had to be blushing so profusely even the bad lighting couldn’t hide it. “A guy who has servants and guesthouses and crap.”

“They’ll believe it because there’s no reason not to. Street-urchin chic or no, my parents wouldn’t doubt me. They might assume I’m trying to give them an aneurism, but they won’t suspect anything.”

Alyssa looked at her bike. She could hop on, flip him off and zoom away. Zoom away from everything she’d built in the past two years, zoom away from everything that had held her prisoner for the first twenty-two.

But she hadn’t left Austin on her release from her kidnapper, and she had people to protect now. She couldn’t leave Gabby and Natalie in the middle of this, even if they were both married to men or living with men who would try to protect them.

She studied Ranger Stevens and knew she had to make a choice. Fight, and trust this man. Or run, and ruin them all.

It wasn’t a hard choice in the slightest. “All right. I’ll go.”

Chapter Four

Bennet drove from the Texas Ranger offices to his parents’ sprawling estate outside Austin. It wasn’t the first time he’d been self-conscious about his parents’ wealth. Most of the cops and Rangers he knew were not the sons and daughters of the Texas elite.

Nevertheless, this was the life he’d been born into, and Alyssa hadn’t been born into a much different one. Just on opposite sides of the law, but if her father was the Jimenez kingpin, then she’d had her share of wealth.

She followed him, the roar of her motorcycle cutting through the quiet of the wealthy neighborhood enough to make him wince. There would be phone calls. There would be a lot of things. But the most important thing was they were going somewhere that couldn’t have been infiltrated.

He drove up the sprawling drive after entering the code for the gate and hoped against hope his father was in DC and his mother was at a function or, well, anywhere but here. Because while they might ignore his presence, maybe, they would never ignore the presence of the motorcycle.

Parking at the top of the drive, he got out of his running car and punched the code into the garage door so it opened.

“This is a guesthouse?” Alyssa called out over the sound of her motorcycle.

Bennet nodded as the garage door went up. He walked back to his car and motioned for her to park inside the garage. Maybe if the evidence was hidden, and it was late enough, it was possible no one would notice the disturbance. A man could dream.

Alyssa walked her motorcycle into the garage and killed the engine. She pulled off her helmet. It seemed no matter how often her hair tumbled out like that, his idiotic body had a reaction. He really needed to get a handle on that.

“Follow me,” he said, probably too tersely. But he felt terse and uncomfortable. He felt a lot of things he didn’t want to think about.

He slid the key he always kept on his ring into the lock of the door from the garage to the mudroom. He didn’t look back to see how she reacted to the rather ostentatious guesthouse as they walked through it. It wasn’t his.

He led her into the living room. “Feel free to use anything in the house. The fridge probably won’t be stocked, but the pantry is. The staff keeps everything clean and fresh for visitors, so—”

“You keep saying ‘staff,’ but I have a feeling what you mean is servants.”

He gave her a doleful look. “I’ll show you to a bedroom and bathroom you can use. I suggest we get some sleep and reevaluate in the morning.”

“Reevaluate what?”

“How we’re going to handle getting me into see your brothers with you.”

“There’s no way. There’s no way. They’ll kill you on sight knowing you’re a Texas Ranger. They have all this time while we’re ‘reevaluating’ to plan to kill you and make it look like an accident, make you just disappear.” She snapped her fingers. “It will be suicide. I don’t think you get that.”

“I told you I had some ideas.”

“Like what?”

“Like what we’re doing right here.”

She threw her arms up in the air, clearly frustrated with him. “What are we doing right here?

“If your brothers think that we...” He cleared his throat, uncomfortable with his own idea, with telling it to her, with enacting it. But it made sense. It was the only thing that made sense. No matter how much he didn’t want to do it. “If your brothers think we are romantically involved, there’s a chance they wouldn’t touch me. If I were important to you.”

Alyssa blinked at him for a full minute. “First of all,” she said eventually, “even if that was remotely true, if they have my office bugged, they know we just met. It was part of that conversation.”

“We’ll say it was a lure.”

“You can’t be this stupid. You can’t be.”

That offhanded insult poked at a million things he’d never admit to. “I assure you, Ms. Jimenez, I know what I’m doing,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and giving her a look that had intimidated drug dealers and rapists and even murderers.

Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Spare me the ‘Ms. Jimenez’ crap. It makes far more sense for me to go there on my own and handle things my own way. You can trust me when I say I want to get to the bottom of my mother’s murder more than you do. I have no reason not to bring you whatever information I find so my mother’s murderer can be brought to justice.”

“I think you’re bright enough to realize all of this is so much more than a murder case. The things your brothers are involved in aren’t that easy. It’s not something I can trust a civilian to go into and bring me back the information I need to prosecute. I need to go in there with you. I need to investigate this myself.”

She shook her head in disgust, but she didn’t argue further. Which was a plus.

“How far are you willing to go?” she demanded.

“As far as I need to. This case is my number one priority. I won’t rest until it’s solved.”

She sighed while looking around the living room. “I can’t sit anywhere in here. I’ll stain all this white just by looking at it.”

He rolled his eyes and took her by the elbow, leading her to a chair. It was white, and it was very possible she’d get motorcycle grease or something on it, but it would be taken care of. Stains in the Stevens world were always taken care of.

He pushed her into the chair. She sat with an audible thump. “What about this? You tell them I’m a double agent. That I want to be a dirty cop.”

“They wouldn’t believe that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are the antithesis of a dirty cop. You look like Superman had a baby with Captain America and every other do-gooder superhero to ever exist. No one would believe you want to be a dirty cop.”

“Have you ever had any contact with a dirty cop?”

“Well, no.”

He took a seat on the couch, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. He never took his eyes off her—this was too important. “It has nothing to do with what you look like and everything to do with how desperate you are. How powerful you want to feel. Cops go dirty because... Well, there are a lot of reasons, but it’s not about how you look or where you’re from. It’s about ego, among other things.”

“Okay, it’s about ego, which I’ll give you you’ve got, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to believe any of it.”

“It doesn’t mean they won’t.”

“You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”

“We can do it the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is where you work with me. The hard way is where you work against me. Either way, I’m doing it.”

She sighed gustily, but he could see in the set of her shoulders she was relenting. Giving in. One way or another, she was going to give in.

“Fine. But we’re not doing it your way. If we’re doing it together, when it comes to my brothers, we do it my way. I tell them I’m using you to get information. I don’t know if they’ll buy it hook, line and sinker, but it’s better than all your ideas.”

“Gee, thank you.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave your ego at the door, Mr. Texas Ranger.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Alyssa rubbed her temples. She had to be exhausted and stressed and emotionally wrung out from the things she’d found out today.

“Let’s go to bed. We’ll work out the details in the morning.”

She sighed and pushed herself out of the chair. “Fine. Lead me to my castle.”

“You’re awfully melodramatic for a street urchin.”

“I’m not the one living in this place.”

“I don’t live in this place,” he muttered, standing, as well.

“You also don’t live in an apartment above a garage.”

“Is that where you live?” Which was neither here nor there, knowing where she lived or anything about her current life. All that mattered was her connection to the Jimenez family.

“Yes. I live in an apartment above the garage of my friends’ house. My friends who are now in danger because of me, because of this.” She let out a long sigh and faced him, her expression grave, her eyes reflecting some of the fear she’d kept impressively hidden thus far. “I need them safe, Ranger Stevens.”

“I may not know Gabby very well, but I’ve worked with Jaime on occasion, and Vaughn has been my partner for a long time. I care about your friends. They’re my friends, too. Nothing’s going to happen to them.”

“My, you are a confident one.”

But no matter how sarcastically she’d said it, he could see a slight relaxation in her. His confidence gave her comfort. “Confidence is everything.”

“Except when you have nothing.”

Bennet didn’t know what to say to that, so he led her down a hallway to the bedrooms. The farthest one from his. It would be the best room for her, not just for keeping her far away from him. He wasn’t that weak to need a barrier, or so he’d tell himself.

“That door back there leads to a private bathroom. Feel free to use it and anything in it. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Hey, have you heard anything from Vaughn about Nat?”

Bennet looked down at his phone. “I don’t have any messages.”

“I don’t know what to tell them. They’ll expect me to visit, and...” She shook her head, looking young and vulnerable for the first time since she’d seen the picture of her mother.

He wanted to help. He wanted to soothe. Which was just his nature. He was a guy who wanted to help. It had nothing to do with soft brown eyes and a pretty mouth.

“You’re a bounty hunter, right? Well, an unauthorized and illegal one, anyway.”

She frowned at him. “Yes. I have my reasons.”

“Criminals always do.” But he grinned, hoping the joke, the teasing, would lighten her up, take that vulnerable cast of her mouth away. “Tell them you had an important case, and you’ll be back as soon as possible. You’re not going back to your place, so it’s not like they’ll have any reason to believe you’re in town.”

“I don’t like lying to them.”

“It’s not my favorite either, but—”

“I know. It’ll keep them safe, and that is the most important thing to me.”

“It’s important to me, too. Never doubt that.”

She nodded, hugging herself and looking around the room. “You know this kind of insane show of wealth is usually the sign of a small dick, right?”

He choked on his own spit. That had not been at all what he’d expected her to say, but from her grin he could tell that’s exactly why she’d said it.

“I suppose that’s something you’d have to take up with my father, since this is neither my show of wealth, nor is that a complaint I’ve ever received.”

Two twin blotches of pink showed up on her cheeks, and Bennet knew it was time to close the door and walk away before there were any more jokes about...that.

“Are you sure your parents won’t get wind of this?”

“Unless it furthers their political agenda, my parents won’t be sticking their nose anywhere near it. They’ll stay out of it and safe.”

“Political agenda?”

“Oh, didn’t you put it together?” he asked casually, because he knew much like her small-dick comment had caught him off guard, this little tidbit would catch her off guard.

“Put what together?”

“My father is Gary L. Stevens, US senator and former presidential candidate. My mother is Lynette Stevens, pioneer lawyer and Texas state senator. You may have heard of them.”

She stared slack-jawed at him, and he couldn’t ignore the pleasure he got out of leaving her in shock. So he flashed a grin, his politicians’ son grin.

“Good night, Alyssa.”

And Bennet left her room, closing the door behind him.

* * *

ALYSSA TOSSED AND TURNED. Between trying to come to full grips with the fact that Bennet Stevens was the son of two wealthy and influential politicians, and Gabby being mad about her taking a job before coming to see the baby, she couldn’t get her mind to stop running in circles.

She hated when someone was mad at her and had every right to be. She hated disappointing Gabby and Nat. But this was keeping them safe, and she had to remember that.

And more than all of that, the thing she kept trying to pretend wasn’t true.

Her mother had been murdered. She knew Ranger Stevens suspected her brothers. No matter what horrible things they were capable of, though—and they were enormously capable—Alyssa rejected the idea they could be behind the murder of her mother. Their mother.

Maybe she could see it if her father was still in his right mind, but he had succumbed to some kind of dementia before she’d even been kidnapped. He was nothing but a titular figure now, one her brothers kept as a weapon of their own.

Once it was finally a reasonable hour to get up, Alyssa crawled out of the too-comfortable bed and looked at herself in the gigantic mirror. She looked like a bedraggled sewer animal in the midst of all this pristine white.

It was such a glaring contrast. Though she’d grown up surrounded by a certain amount of wealth, it had all been the dark-and-dirty kind. She’d lived in a sketchy guarded-to-the-hilt home for most of her life, and then been kidnapped into a glorified bunker.

But what did contrasts matter when she was simply out for the truth? She tiptoed down the hallway, wondering where Ranger Stevens had secreted himself off to last night. What would he look like sleep-rumpled in one of those big white beds?

She was seriously losing it. Clearly she needed something to eat to clear her head. She headed for the kitchen, but stopped short at the entrance when she saw Ranger Stevens was already sitting there in a little breakfast nook surrounded by windows.

“Good morning,” he offered, as if it wasn’t five in the morning and as if this wasn’t weird as all get out.

“Morning,” she replied.

On the glossy black table in front of him, he had a laptop open. He was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt, and while the button-down shirt he’d been wearing last night hadn’t exactly hidden the fact this man was no pencil pusher, this was a whole other experience.

He had muscles. Actual biceps. Whether it was on purpose or not, the sleeves of his T-shirt hugged them perfectly and made her realize, again, how unbearably hot this man was. And how unbearably unfair that was.

“There’s coffee already brewed. Mugs are in the cabinet above it. As for breakfast, feel free to poke around and find what you’d like.”

“Not much of a breakfast eater,” she lied. She didn’t know why she lied. She just felt off-kilter and weird and didn’t want to be here.

“I’d try to eat something. Got a lot of work to do today.”

“Don’t you have to go to, like, actual work?”

“My actual work is investigating this case.”

“If my brothers get ahold of you and you don’t report for work, what’s going to happen then?”

He looked at her over his laptop with that hard, implacable Texas Ranger look she thought maybe he practiced in the mirror. Because it was effective, both in shutting her up and making those weird lower-belly flutters intensify.

“I’ll handle my work responsibilities,” he said, his voice deep and certain.

Alyssa rolled her eyes in an effort to appear wholly unaffected. She walked over to the coffeepot. She didn’t drink coffee, but she figured she might as well start. That’s what adults did after all. They drank coffee and handled their work responsibilities.

“Sugar is right next to the pot. No cream, but milk is in the fridge.”

“I drink it black,” she lied. She tried to take a sophisticated sip, but ended up burning her tongue and grimacing at the horrible, horrible taste.

“You take it black, huh?” And there was that dangerous curve to his mouth, humor and something like intent all curled into it. She wanted to trace it with her fingers.

So, she scowled instead. “Let’s worry less about how I take my coffee and more about what we’re going to do.”

“First things first, we’re going to go back to your office and check for a bug. We need to know exactly what your brothers know about me and what I’m looking for.”

She wasn’t in love with him deciding what they were going to do without at least a conversation, but unfortunately he was right. They needed to know for sure what was going on.

“Once we’ve figured that out, we’ll move on to trying to lure your brothers out.”

“I’m guessing my leading their cronies to Texas Rangers headquarters and yelling probably did it.”

“Probably, but we need to make sure. We also need to make sure it seems like we don’t want to be caught.”

She studied him then because there was something not quite right about all this.

“This is official Ranger business, right?”

He focused on the computer. “What do you mean ‘official’?”

“This isn’t on the up-and-up, is it?”

His mouth firmed and his jaw went hard and uncompromising. He was so damn hot, and she kind of wanted to lick him. She didn’t know what to do with that. She’d never wanted to lick anyone before.

“I’ve been okayed to investigate this case,” he ground out. “It’s possible we’ll have to do some things that aren’t entirely by the book. I might not tell my superiors every single thing I’m doing, but this is one of those cases where you have to bend the rules a little bit.”

“Doesn’t bending the rules invalidate the investigation?”

“Depends on the situation. Do you want to find the answers to your mother’s murder or not?”

Which she supposed was all that really mattered. She wanted to find the answers to her mother’s murder. Everything else was secondary. “Okay. Well, let’s go, then.”

His mouth quirked, his hard, uncompromising expression softening. “Aren’t you going to finish your coffee?”

She glanced at the mug, and she knew he was testing her. Teasing her maybe. She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “You make shitty coffee.”

He barked out a laugh, and she was all too pleased he was laughing at something she’d said. All too pleased he would tease her. Pay attention to her in any way.

It was stupid to be into him. So she’d ignore that part of herself right now. Ignore the flutters and the being pleased.

A door opened somewhere, and Bennet visibly cringed when a voice rang out.

“Bennet? Are you here?”

It was a woman’s voice. Did he have a girlfriend? Something ugly bloomed in her chest, but Bennet offered some sort of half grimace, half smile. “Well, Alyssa, let’s see what kind of actress you are.”

He pushed away from the table, and an older woman entered the room. He held out his arms.

“Mother. How are you?”

“Surprised to find you here.” She brushed her lips across the air next to Bennet’s cheek.

Alyssa pushed herself into the little corner of the countertop, but Bennet wasn’t going to let her be ignored. He turned his mother to face her.

“Allow me to introduce you to someone,” he said easily, charmingly, clearly a very good actor. The woman’s blue gaze landed on Alyssa.

“This is Alyssa... Clark,” Bennet offered. “Alyssa, this is my mother, Lynette Stevens.”

“Alyssa Clark,” Mrs. Stevens repeated blandly.

Alyssa didn’t have to be a mind reader to know Mrs. Stevens did not approve. She might have squirmed if it didn’t piss her off a little. Sure, she looked like a drowned sewer rat and was the daughter of a drug kingpin rather than Texas royalty, but she wasn’t a bad person. Exactly.

Alyssa smiled as sweetly as she could manage. “It’s so good to meet you, Ms. Stevens. I’ve heard so much about you,” she said, adopting her most cultured, overly upper-class Texas drawl.

Mrs. Bennet’s expression didn’t change, but Alyssa was adept at reading the cold fury of people. And Mrs. Stevens had some cold fury going on in there.

“I didn’t realize you were seeing anyone at the moment, Bennet,” Mrs. Stevens murmured, the fury of her gaze never leaving Alyssa.

“I don’t tell you everything, as you well know.”

“Yes, well. I just came by to see what all the noise complaints were about. If I’d known you were busy, I wouldn’t have bothered you.”

“It was no bother, but I do have to get ready for work.”

“And what’s Ms. Clark going to do while you work?”

“Oh, I have my own work to do,” Alyssa said. She smiled as blandly and coldly as Bennet’s mother.

“Yes, well. I’ll leave you both alone then. Try to avoid any more noise disturbances if you please, and if you’re around this evening, bring your young lady to dinner at the main house.”

“I’ll see if our schedules can accommodate it and let Kinsey know,” Bennet replied, and Alyssa had not seen this side of him. Cool and blank, a false mask of charm over everything. This was not Ranger Stevens, and she didn’t think it was Bennet either.

“Wonderful. I hope to see you then.” She gave Alyssa one last glance and then swept out of the kitchen as quickly as she’d appeared.

Alyssa looked curiously at Bennet. “That’s how you talk to your mother?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Why did she hate me so much?”

“You’re not on her approved list of women I’m allowed to see.”

“She doesn’t have a list.”

Bennet raised an eyebrow. “It’s laminated.”

Alyssa laughed, even though she had a terrible feeling he wasn’t joking. “So, she wants you to get married and have lots of little perfect Superman babies?”

“It’s a political game for her.”

“What is?”

“Life.”

Which seemed suddenly not funny at all but just kind of sad. For her. For Bennet. Which was foolish. She’d grown up in a drug cartel. What could be sad about Bennet’s picture-perfect political family?

“Why’d you give her a fake name when you introduced me?”

“Because her private investigators will be on you in five seconds. If you’ve ever stripped, inhaled, handed out fliers for minimum-wage increases, I will know it within the hour. But a fake name will slow her down.”

“She checks out all your girlfriends?”

“All the ones I let her know about. Which is why I don’t usually let her know. Which I imagine is why she’s here at five in the morning and overly suspicious. But you don’t have to worry.”

“Because you didn’t give her my real name?”

“Because I think you can eat my mother for lunch.”

Alyssa glanced at the way the woman had gone. She didn’t think so. She might be a rough-and-tumble bounty hunter, but Mrs. Stevens had a cold fury underneath that spoke to being a lot tougher than she looked.

Still, Alyssa didn’t mind Bennet thinking she could take his mother on.

“Let’s head over to your office.”

Alyssa nodded and followed along, but Bennet’s mother haunted her for the rest of the day.

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