Clandestine Christmas. Elle James

settled for long.”

      Sadie smiled. “I know because I can see what a good man you are.”

      Chase led the way out the back door and around the side of the building onto Main Street. The wind had picked up, sending a chilling blast from the snowcapped peaks surrounding them down to the streets. Bowing his shoulders, Chase did his best to block the wind from Sadie as they crossed Main Street, their feet making sharp clicking sounds on the icy pavement.

      “When are you going to find yourself a woman to share your life with?” Sadie asked.

      “Again, my parents weren’t the best advertisement for marriage. I’m not the least in a hurry to find a woman to settle down with. I like my solitude and I’m beginning to like the seclusion of the Lucky Lady Ranch.”

      At the middle of the street headlights shined in Chase’s eyes. He lifted his hand to block the brilliant glare blinding him. “We’d better hurry.” Chase gripped Sadie’s arm and guided her toward the other side of the street.

      Before they reached the sidewalk, tires squealed and the vehicle sped up, aiming directly for them.

      “Run!” Chase shouted, shoving Sadie toward the sidewalk, then he turned to face the oncoming vehicle.

      * * *

      KATHERINE RIVERS BLINKED tired eyes as she entered the outskirts of Fool’s Fortune, the quaint Colorado town in the middle of the Rockies. It was well past eleven o’clock, Texas time, and she’d been on the road since four that morning.

      All she wanted was to get to the Lucky Lady Saloon, find a bed to crawl into and save the introductions to her new assignment, Chase Marsden, until after she’d had a decent night’s sleep. She wasn’t even due in until tomorrow. Surely a good night’s sleep would boost her spirits and set her on the right path with this new job and her first CCI assignment.

      The streets, cheerfully decorated in bright Christmas lights, were pretty much deserted with the occasional car passing. Small town life would suit her fine after the insanity of Houston traffic and crime.

      Her GPS indicated she was two blocks from the saloon on Main Street. She could see the neon lights of a building ahead and presumed it was her destination. Two shadowy figures emerged from the entrance and started across the street. Good. Maybe the place would be empty and she wouldn’t have to speak to anyone but the desk clerk.

      Her back ached and the scar on her belly twinged at the enforced inactivity of driving across Texas and New Mexico all day. She needed to move, to perform the stretching exercises the physical therapist had armed her with after her surgery.

      She snorted. A broken-down Texas Ranger, medically retired after a shoot-out gone wrong. Some bodyguard she’d be.

      Faced with finding a job sitting behind a desk, Kate had been more than happy to accept Hank Derringer’s offer of employment in his supersecret organization, Covert Cowboys, Inc. Although, being female, she wasn’t sure how that worked. Technically, she was a cowgirl, born and raised in the panhandle of Texas on a four-thousand-acre ranch.

      She knew her way around horses, cattle and a barnyard. The fourth daughter of a rancher, she had never felt she was a disappointment to her father, who would probably have preferred sons to carry on the Rivers name.

      Her father treated her like any other ranch hand, only with a whole lot of love and care. She could ride as well or better than any man on the ranch and she’d done her share of roping, branding and castrating steers. Her sisters had preferred to work in the house, but knew how to ride and feed the animals.

      Her father boasted she was as good or better than any son he might have had and he wouldn’t have changed a thing. When she left the ranch to join the Texas Rangers, Kate Rivers wasn’t afraid of anything.

      All that had changed in one night, one fateful shoot-out.

      Resisting the urge to floor her accelerator and finish this trip, Kate pushed away thoughts of that night eight months ago and maintained her speed, her goal in sight.

      A dark SUV darted out in front of her from a side street.

      Kate slammed her foot on the brake pedal and skidded to a halt.

      The SUV’s tires spun, screeching against the pavement, and then it sped toward the saloon.

      Kate fired off a round of curses and hit the accelerator, her adrenaline pumping, angry at the idiot’s disregard for other traffic on the road.

      As quickly as her heart leaped, it came to an abrupt halt when she noticed the two people who’d left the saloon running toward the other side of the street.

      The SUV driver seemed to head straight for them, increasing his speed instead of slowing to allow them to make it to the other side.

       No.

      Kate punched the gas pedal, a gasp lodged in her throat as she watched the scene unfold, unable to stop it.

      One figure pushed the other toward the sidewalk and then turned to face the oncoming vehicle.

      “Fool!” Kate yelled inside the confines of her truck cab. She slammed her hand onto the horn. “Get out of the way!” she screamed.

      The SUV swerved at the last minute, ran up onto the sidewalk, clipped the man in the side and hit the other figure head-on.

      “Oh my God!” Kate’s stomach lurched.

      Thrown by the impact, the figure landed hard on the concrete and rolled to a stop against the front of a brick hardware store.

      The SUV bumped back onto the pavement and sped away, disappearing out the other end of town.

      Heart rampaging inside her chest, Kate skidded to a halt, grabbed her cell phone and jumped down from her truck.

      Dialing 9-1-1, she ran toward the two people on the ground, reliving a nightmare she’d hoped never to experience again.

      A dispatcher answered on the first ring.

      “We have a hit-and-run on Main Street in front of the Lucky Lady Saloon. Two people down, send an ambulance ASAP!” Kate barked into the phone. Without waiting for a response, she shoved the phone into her pocket and bent to check the first person she came to in the middle of the street.

      A ruggedly handsome young man pushed to a sitting position. “Don’t waste your time on me, for God’s sake, check Sadie,” he said, his voice raspy.

      Altering her direction, she pushed on, leaping up onto the sidewalk.

      An older woman, possibly in her forties, wearing a long faux-fur coat, lay tragically still at an odd angle against the side of a building.

      Kate dropped to her knees, swallowing hard on the lump lodged in her throat, her eyes blurring. The last time she’d hurried toward a body, it had been her partner’s.

      For a moment, she froze, paralyzed by her memories. She’d thought the nightmares would have stopped by now. But she was awake and she was seeing Mac’s face, his eyes open, his expression slack in death.

      Kate closed her eyes for a second and forced herself back to the present and the woman lying in front of her. When she opened her eyes, she reached out and touched her fingers to the base of the victim’s throat. For a long moment, she felt nothing, and her heart sank into the pit of her damaged belly.

      Then a slight pulse bumped against her fingertips and a hand reached up to grasp her wrist.

      Kate flinched and would have pulled back, but the woman’s eyes opened and she stared up at her. “Jake.”

      The man who’d been hit stumbled to his hands and knees and crawled to Kate’s side. “Sadie?” He knelt beside her and took her other hand. “I’m sorry. I should have seen that coming.”

      Sadie gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. “Not...your...fault.” Her fingers tightened on Kate’s hand. “Jake.”

      “He’ll