Camouflage Cowboy. Jan Hambright

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СКАЧАТЬ disappeared as he shuffled his paperwork into the file on the table. Who would visit him at CSaI headquarters? Most of his work was accomplished in the field, without the trappings of a storefront that could overexpose the CSaI team. He’d only given out a couple of business cards with the information on them since he’d become a part of the group….

      His muscles tensed between his shoulder blades as he stepped around the table, listening to Amelia’s voice in the outer office as it amplified.

      “Right this way, Miss…?”

      “Marshall. Grace Marshall.”

      Nick braced himself for another face-to-face with the unsuspecting focus of his investigation for Governor Lockhart. Rarely did a mark come to him, and a measure of curiosity zipped across his nerves.

      Did she know he’d been watching her home this weekend? Had she made him and believed he was some sort of crazy stalker? Was she here to tell him to flake off, or that she planned to call the cops?

      Every scenario he could use to justify her visit vanished from his mind as she stepped into the conference room.

      She looked beautiful this morning with her long hair let loose in sexy blond strands, her tentative blue-eyed gaze locking with his.

      He was in some serious trouble.

      “I’ll let you two speak in private.” Amelia stepped out and pulled the door closed.

      “I’m sorry to just show up like this,” Grace said as she fingered his business card in her left hand. “But I desperately need your help.”

      Chapter Four

      A wave of concern washed over him. He shrugged it off as he reached out to take her hand.

      “I’m not sure what I can do for you, Grace.” Their palms touched and he closed his fingers around hers. Her grip was firm, her hand delicate but strong. An instant surge of protectiveness consumed him. He released her hand and stepped back. “Have a seat.”

      “Thank you.” Grace eased herself into a chair at the massive table, thankful that her legs hadn’t collapsed from underneath her the moment she entered the room. Every wall she’d erected to protect herself and Caleb was being compromised by her own hand at this moment, but she had no choice. She couldn’t let her son die because she was afraid to reach out when she needed help, and Nick Cavanaugh was the first man she’d met in Freedom who gave her a sense of hope.

      He sat down at the table across from her. She was grateful for the distance that separated her from the handsome man who now studied her with eyes that seemed to calculate every aspect of her. It didn’t help, either, that she could smell the lingering scent of his clean aftershave in the room.

      “I don’t normally do things like this, but as I told you in the hospital parking lot, my son, Caleb, needs a bone-marrow transplant. I’m desperate to find a donor, Mr. Cavanaugh.”

      Leaning forward, he put his arms on the table and said, “Please, call me Nick.”

      She nodded, trying to force down a lump that formed in her throat. She tried not to stare at him, at the hunger in his clear blue eyes, or the strength in his powerful body. He made her feel safe simply by being close to her.

      “He won’t make it to his fifth birthday if he doesn’t receive a transplant soon. He has an added complication—he’s AB negative.”

      “So his blood type isn’t easily matched?”

      “Yes. It’s not impossible to find a matching donor, but it’s not that simple. Their HLA, or human leukocyte antigens, need to match on lots of points, as well, or his body will reject the stem cells, but the odds of it happening before…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t deal with the prospect of living without her little boy. “I was given up for adoption as an infant. And even though I’m not a donor match for Caleb, my birth mother could be. There’s a high probability that she has the same rare blood type as him, and their HLA profile will match up. I managed to trace her to Freedom two years ago. She could save his life. That is, if I can find her.”

      She watched his facial features soften for the first time since she’d entered the room. One unguarded moment from the man of steel sitting across from her was better than none at all.

      “The only problem is, I don’t know who she is. That’s what I need you to find out for me.” Grace dug into her purse where she’d placed it in her lap. “I have a redacted copy of the adoption paperwork signed by the judge. That’s how I traced her to Freedom. But other than a Jane Doe of a designated age, I don’t have much else.” She pulled out the copy and slid it across the table toward him. “I can pay you a small retainer.”

      Nick’s gut cinched in a knot he wasn’t sure he’d ever get untied. He should have seen this coming, known how to react, like a soldier on a mission. Duty. But he was sitting across the table from a woman with a dying child. It didn’t get more real than that. Had his years on the battlefield turned him into a heartless monster?

      “Please help me find her.” The plea in her voice cut like a knife.

      Slowly he nodded, unsure whether voluntarily or involuntarily; he only knew it felt good in his soul to take up on the side of honor. “I’ll see what I can come up with.” He picked up the adoption paperwork and flipped it over. “Where can I contact you?”

      A shallow smile pulled at her mouth and he found his thoughts wandering to her lips for an instant.

      She rattled off her cell number. “I work at Cradles to Crayons most mornings, so you could leave me a message there, and starting next Monday, I’ll be working a couple nights a week at Talk of the Town Café if you’d like to speak to me in person.”

      Nick wrote down her number, new information to him, but he already knew her work schedule at the preschool.

      “You’re going to go to work for Faith Scott?”

      “Yes.” Grace put her purse on the table, pushed back her chair and stood up. “I don’t know how to thank you enough, Nick.”

      Staring across at her, he could see the relief in her eyes.

      “Just tell Caleb to hang in there, would you?”

      “I will.” She picked up her purse and without a backward glance, opened the door and left the conference room.

      Dammit. What had he done? He rocked back in his chair and closed his eyes. This was one ambush he’d willfully landed himself in. Just like the firefight his bogus intel had drawn his buddies into in Iraq. There were lives at stake.

      Frustration ignited a powder keg of guilt inside of him. He had to get it right this time.

      Caleb Marshall’s life now rested in his hands.

      NICK TRIED TO GET COMFORTABLE in one of the oversize leather wingback chairs clustered in the long gallery leading to Governor Lila Lockhart’s office, but it was useless. His body was simply reacting to the agitated state of his thoughts.

      Succumbing to frustration, he stood up and took to pacing back and forth as he fingered the DNA analysis report in his hand.

      The СКАЧАТЬ