The Bodyguard's Assignment. Amanda Stevens

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СКАЧАТЬ Brady as ominous. It was as if she’d been waiting for him, watching for him from one of the front windows of the ranch house.

      As she approached, Rowan began to prance and snort, bucking at the reins wrapped around the cedar rail.

      Penny said irritably, “Why do you keep that damn horse? He’s dangerous.”

      “He’s a pussycat around anyone but you,” Brady teased, his breath frosting on the cold air. “You bring out the beast in him.”

      Penny gave him a dour look behind her wire-rimmed glasses. “God knows I should be used to working with animals.”

      Brady grinned. Penny’s disdain for the agents—all male—with whom she worked was legendary. She didn’t take much guff from any of them, except maybe for Rafe Alvarez. She tried to pretend his good-natured ribbing didn’t get to her, but Brady had seen the way she looked at the agent when she thought no one was watching. He wondered if Rafe had any idea Penny was in love with him. He wondered if Penny even knew.

      “Mitchell wants to see you ASAP,” she told him.

      “What’s up?”

      She shrugged. “How should I know? He never tells me anything. I’m just the gofer around here.”

      Yeah, right. Penny was more than that and she knew it. As Mitchell Forbes’s assistant, she kept the ranch and the Texas Confidential running as smoothly as a well-tuned engine. She knew everything there was to know about each case they took on, and her air of innocence this morning didn’t wash. A bad sign that she was keeping something from him, Brady thought.

      “I’ll be in as soon as I see to Rowan,” he told her.

      She shrugged again. “Okay, fine. Suit yourself. Mitchell said for you to come immediately, but it’s your hide, not mine. I’m just the messenger.”

      Brady’s foreboding deepened as he led the horse toward the barn. Mitchell Forbes wasn’t one for idle conversation. If he wanted to see Brady this urgently, it was because he had an assignment for him. And Brady wasn’t ready for that.

      After Rachel, he wasn’t sure he ever would be.

      BY THE TIME Brady got to the ranch house, the rest of the agents had already assembled in the war room—that section of the special-built basement which had become Command Central for the organization. The Confidential was not a secret group per se, but as a specialized division of the Department of Public Safety, they worked cases that were highly sensitive. Discretion was vital, literally a matter of life and death, and the possibility of a mole, someone who had tipped off Rialto to Rachel’s whereabouts—who might also be responsible for the recent disappearance of one of their agents—had them all concerned.

      “Señor Brady!” Rosa, the Smoking Barrel’s housekeeper, bustled into the library as Brady summoned the elevator.

      For security purposes, the elevator was hidden behind a bookshelf that slid away with the push of a button, then rolled back into place once the elevator was activated from inside the car. The high-tech and secretive nature of the organization always made Brady feel a little ridiculous, a little too 007-ish. He was basically just a cop, although the undercover work wasn’t that different from the assignments he’d had as a narc. But that was a long time ago. A part of his life he didn’t much like to think about.

      Gratefully, he accepted the steaming mug of coffee the housekeeper handed him. “You read my mind, Rosa.”

      She beamed. “You’ve been out in the cold all morning. You need some of Rosa’s good coffee to warm you up. I make it just the way you like. Black and strong enough to grow hair.”

      “I think you mean strong enough to put hair on my chest,” he said dryly.

      She muttered something in Spanish Brady couldn’t quite catch. He sampled the bitter, chicory brew which no one else at the Smoking Barrel could abide. Wusses, he thought scornfully. Wranglers and secret agents aside, a man wasn’t a man until he could drink a cup of coffee strong enough to…grow its own hair.

      Rosa planted a hand on one generous hip as she waited for his response.

      “Perfecto. Rosa, I do believe I’d ask you to marry me if I didn’t think you were sweet on ole Slim.”

      At the mention of the grizzled ranch hand, Rosa let out a string of rapid-fire Spanish which Brady suspected might have not only grown hair but curled it as well, had he been able to keep up. A few English words were intermixed, something about an old flirt or an old fart, or a combination of the two.

      Sipping his coffee, Brady rode the elevator down to the basement. He was greeted warmly by the other agents, and in spite of his trepidation at this impromptu meeting, he couldn’t help responding to the camaraderie. He hadn’t been a part of a family since he was a kid, but in the nearly five years he’d been with the Confidential, he’d become closer to the other agents than he had with anyone since his mother died.

      And Mitchell Forbes, the white-haired ex-Texas Ranger who had been in the Hanoi Hilton with Brady’s father, had become, if not a surrogate parent, at least a man Brady looked up to and admired. Mitchell had recruited Brady at a time when his confidence was badly shaken—a time not unlike now.

      He took a seat at the conference table next to Jake Cantrell, a former FBI agent. “What’s going on?”

      Jake shrugged. “Beats me, but it must be something big. Mitchell looks worried.”

      Brady had to agree. Normally, Mitchell Forbes was a man to be reckoned with on the range or in the war room, but today his face was drawn with tension. As he sat at the head of the conference table, gazing at the assembled agents, his thumb worked back and forth on an ornate silver lighter, a sure sign of his anxiety.

      A man Brady didn’t recognize was seated to Mitchell’s right. He studied an open folder on the table in front of him, and unlike the others, he hadn’t glanced up when Brady entered the basement.

      Rafe Alvarez, ever irreverent no matter what the situation, said into the waiting silence, “Hey, Mitchell, what happened? Maddie stand you up last night?”

      Maddie Wells, a widow who owned the neighboring spread, was something of a sore subject with Mitchell, and when Cody Gannon gave a hoot of laughter at Rafe’s impertinence, Mitchell pinned him with an icy glare. Cody’s smile faded, and for a long moment, the two of them remained locked in a silent battle of wills until finally the younger man glanced away.

      Brady didn’t understand why Mitchell always picked on Cody. He was the youngest Confidential, and basically a good kid, even if he was a little on the wild side. But, hell, they’d all been young once. And if local talk was to be believed, Mitchell Forbes had sown his share of wild oats.

      There’d been a few times when Brady had been tempted to point out that fact to Mitchell, to ask him to lighten up on the kid, but it wasn’t any of his business. And Cody was just muleheaded enough to take offense at the interference. Whatever burr the two of them had under their saddles, Brady figured they’d have to work it out for themselves. Besides, he had his own problems to deal with.

      Mitchell flicked open the lighter and touched the flame to the clipped end of his cigar. The puffs of smoke drifting through the room signaled the meeting had come to order. Everyone grew deadly serious, the absence of their colleague, who had vanished a month ago while investigating the Calderone drug СКАЧАТЬ