The Bodyguard's Assignment. Amanda Stevens

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 cartel, uppermost on their minds these days.

      “There’s still been no word of Daniel,” Mitchell said gravely, referring to the missing agent. “But we may finally have a break in the case.”

      Beside him, Brady sensed Jake’s sudden tension. Jake had a long history with both Rialto and Calderone. They’d taken something from him that he could never get back, and Brady alone knew that this case wasn’t just personal for Jake. It was a vendetta.

      Jake leaned forward in his chair, his gaze riveted on Mitchell. “What kind of break?”

      Mitchell nodded to the man seated next to him. “This is John Kruger. He’s assigned to the HIDTA office in Houston, but he’s also worked closely with the drug squads in El Paso.” The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA, was a task force set up by the Narcotics Service of the Department of Public Safety. The agents who worked in this area were highly trained in undercover, surveillance, and interception. Brady glanced at Kruger with new respect.

      “John will be our point man at the DPS,” Mitchell continued. “I’ll let him fill you in on the details.”

      For the first time, Kruger looked up from the folder he’d been studying, his gaze cool and assessing as he glanced around the table. He was about Brady’s age—thirty-five—with brown hair and blue eyes so light, they almost appeared transparent. The illusion was a little disconcerting, and as his gaze met Brady’s for an instant, Brady experienced a twinge of unease.

      “I’ll get right to the point, gentlemen.” Kruger closed the folder and stood. “We think we’ve found a way to get to Stephen Rialto through a Dallas drug dealer named Lester Kane.”

      This time, it was Brady who tensed. Lester Kane was his old nemesis, a devious bastard who had eluded the Dallas P.D.—and Brady—for too many years. “What’s Kane got to do with Rialto?” he asked sharply.

      He could feel Mitchell’s steely gaze on him. Besides Jake, Mitchell was the only other person in the room who knew the whole story behind Brady’s sudden departure from the Dallas police force.

      “We believe Kane has forged an alliance with Rialto,” Kruger explained. “In recent months, southeastern Texas has become the hottest transit zone for illegal drugs in this country. The Calderone cartel has become second only to the Juarez cartel in terms of volume. We estimate that each cartel ships upward of two hundred million dollars worth of drugs across the border a week. As a distributor for Calderone, Rialto’s business has literally exploded, and he’s looking to branch out, which is where Kane comes in. He wants the Dallas and Fort Worth area, and with Rialto’s help, he’s already muscled out most of his competition.

      “We believe Rialto and Kane are positioning themselves to take over Calderone’s entire southwestern operation. The DPS and the DEA have monitored a flurry of recent meetings in both Dallas and Houston between the two organizations. One of those meetings took place the night before last in a warehouse owned by Kane. The place was torched afterward, and a body was found in the rubble. The victim has been identified as Alec Priestley, an associate of Kane’s. He was shot twice at close range before the fire was set. There was a witness.”

      A witness.

      Brady had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had a score to settle with both Lester Kane and Stephen Rialto, but he didn’t like the sound of this. Witness protection, the kind neither the U.S. Marshals Service nor the DPS was willing to provide, was Brady’s specialty. Or had been, until Rachel.

      “Kane and Priestley go back a long way,” Kruger continued. “They both started dealing in college, and afterward, Kane expanded the operation. Priestley went on to law school, but a few years later, he rejoined Kane in the business. Priestley was always the nervous type, but he went along with whatever Kane wanted so long as they kept the operation low-profile. It was a way to rake in a lot of extra cash, selling mainly to friends and clients, people he could trust.

      “Then Kane became involved with Rialto and the Calderone drug Mafia, and the business, which had been a sideline for Priestley up until then, got serious. Priestley got scared. He wanted out. He started feeding information to a local reporter about Kane’s connection to Rialto and Calderone, and he arranged for her to be in the warehouse the night he was killed. Not only did she witness Priestley’s murder, but she got everything on tape, including the voice of a man