Cowboy Brigade. Elle James

nothing to hold on to, Lila bounced in her seat, flung from side to side like a rag doll.

      Barely able to view out the tinted windows, Lila didn’t see the fencepost until the side of the car slammed into it. The bodyguard beside her crashed against the door, his head thumping the window. Bulletproof glass held true, even as the metal frame of the limo bent around the post. The bodyguard went limp.

      Lila’s seat belt held her in the middle, but the bodyguard on her other side hit her shoulder, jolting her hard, pain shooting through her neck and back.

      When the world finally came to a jarring halt, the limo horn blared. Lila blinked and dragged in a deep breath, not having realized she’d been holding it since the first pop. The limo listed to the left, pointed back down the embankment at a forty-five degree angle. If not for the seat belt, Lila would have gone through the front windshield.

      “Jimmy?” she called out to the driver.

      His body slumped over the steering wheel, the source of the horn’s blare.

      “Jimmy!” Lila fiddled with the belt buckle.

      “Governor Lockhart, please stay put.” The bodyguard beside her reached out a hand too late to catch her.

      The buckle opened and Lila fell across the open space between the driver and where she and the bodyguards perched in the rear compartment, slamming headfirst into the back of the driver’s seat.

      Stunned, she pushed against the seat so that she could see Jimmy, her driver. Blood dripped down over his arm.

      “Jimmy?” Lila felt for a pulse. For a moment she didn’t feel one and her own heartbeat skittered to a halt. A second later, she could have cried out with joy. The faint thump of blood passing through a vein gave her hope that Jimmy would live.

      “Help me out of here.” She crawled up the side of the limo, pulling herself along by gripping the upholstery. “We have to get him help.” She stared up at the bodyguard and across to his partner who hung like a crash dummy from the restraints. “What about Tom?”

      “He’s out, but his heartbeat is strong.” The bodyguard above gave her a stern glare. “You have to stay inside the car while I check for trouble outside.”

      “I can’t stand by and do nothing.”

      “Then find your cell phone and dial 9-1-1.”

      Her heart hammering against her ribs, Lila searched the tilted interior of the limo. It took her three precious minutes to locate her cell phone and even longer to reboot it to get it to work.

      Her finger hit the speed dial for 9-1-1 and she relayed her location and the condition of the vehicle’s occupants. Then she put the dispatcher on hold and speed dialed Bart.

      “Lila?” Bart answered. “What’s wrong?”

      “It happened again.”

      Chapter One

      Wade Coltrane stepped out of his truck and stared at the ranch house. Five years hadn’t changed much. The paint was a little more worn, flaking off in a few places. The lawn could use cutting and the barn out behind the house had that weathered, old-wood look, but other than that, it appeared the same.

      He tried to push back the feeling of having come home. He hadn’t returned to the Long K Ranch to get comfortable and reminisce about old times, or to pick up where he’d left off. In many ways you could never go back. Time had a way of changing people, places and perspective.

      Wade had come to secure employment with the ranch owner as cover for his real mission—spying on the one suspected of carrying out threats against Governor Lila Lockhart.

      Second thoughts about his task had no place in his life. After the disaster of his military career, he needed this job and he needed to redeem himself. If not to anyone else, then in his own mind. He had a lot to atone for and nothing and nobody would get in the way of that atonement.

      A pang of guilt sat like a wad of soggy sweat socks in his gut. Old Man Kemp had been his father’s employer, the grumpy ranch owner had been tough but, for the most part, fair.

      Wade had grown up on the ranch, playing in the barn, riding horses and swimming in the creek. Kemp’s granddaughter had tagged along, getting in his way almost every step of the way.

      Being the boss’s kin, he’d put up with her.

      An image of a redheaded hellion riding bareback at breakneck speeds across the pasture flashed across his memories.

      Lindsay Kemp. Beautiful, passionate and fiercely independent and loyal. The boss’s granddaughter. Completely out of his league, only he hadn’t been bright enough to recognize it until too late.

      A sigh rose up his chest and he swallowed hard. History had no place in the present other than as a reminder not to repeat one’s mistakes.

      Lindsay had forgotten him as soon as he left for boot camp. By the time he’d built his career in the Army and returned to ask her to marry him, she’d up and gotten herself engaged to a local doctor.

      Just as well that she married a doctor. She’d have hated the life of a military spouse. And he hadn’t been willing to give up his Army career. Then.

      In five years, a lot could change.

      Wade knocked at the door. When no one answered, he rounded the house and headed for the barn. He spied movement in one of the training pens and altered his course.

      A white-haired man, astride a sturdy bay gelding trotted around a well-worn circle inside the round pen. When he spied Wade, the old guy drew back on the reins, bringing the big gelding to a stop. Henry Kemp glared down at Wade with rheumy blue eyes. “We ain’t buying anything.”

      “I’m not selling.”

      “You’re trespassin’.”

      “I’m here to apply for the ranch hand job you posted at the Talk of the Town.”

      The old man’s gaze traveled Wade’s length. “Why should I hire you?”

      “Because I know this ranch as well as you do, Mr. Kemp.” Wade forced a grin he didn’t feel. “Do you remember me, Mr. Kemp? Wade Coltrane. Jackson Coltrane’s son.”

      “Little Wade Coltrane?” Henry slung his leg over the horse and eased to the ground. For a seventy-five-year-old man, Mr. Kemp got around pretty good.

      Wade looked closer. The old guy got around but was it good enough to be a real threat to Governor Lockhart? This was the man suspected of hiring Rory Stockett to take a shot at her. The man who might have seeded the highway with horseshoe nails to cause the governor’s limo to crash late last night?

      Granted the old guy was a perpetual grump, a loudmouth and generally cantankerous, and he loved his granddaughter. A big plus in Wade’s estimation.

      But if Bart Bellows had good reason to believe Henry Kemp was threatening Governor Lockhart, who was Wade Coltrane, ex-soldier, to argue? He needed the job Bart offered, not only for the money, but also for a second chance.

      Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Why you hiding behind that beard?”

      Wade rubbed the neatly trimmed facial hair. “Not hiding. The ladies tell me it’s sexy.”

      The old man snorted. “That flyer must be three months old. I hired a ranch hand a long time ago. What do I need another one for?”

      “I hear you’ve got some fences in need of repairing and roundup next week.”

      “And some people have big mouths. Where’d you learn all that?”

      Wade reached out to stroke the soft muzzle of the gelding. “A couple of mutual acquaintances.”

      “I’d bet my Sunday shorts that was Stan and Fred. Those old coots ain’t got a lick of sense.”

      “So…do