Under the Rancher's Protection
“Let me clarify. You and your damned lips are the reason I’m here. Or maybe you’ve forgotten what happened in my barn last week?”
Something utterly delicious shot through her veins with all the speed of a medical injection. He was here about their kiss? A kiss he felt the need to visit her about?
“I haven’t forgotten anything.”
“Good. Then I’ll plan on picking you up at seven this evening.”
“For what?”
“A date.”
All the delicious heat coursing through her veins cratered in her stomach with a huge crash. “I’m not going on a date with you.”
“Yeah, you kind of are. Consider it payback for cornering me in my own stable and reminding me of how good things used to be between us.”
“But I can’t go to dinner tonight.”
“You have other plans?”
Damn him. “No.”
“Then you’d better come up with something else pretty quick.”
* * *
We hope you enjoy the Midnight Pass, Texas miniseries
* * *
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Dear Reader,
I’m so happy to welcome you back to Midnight Pass, Texas. For those of you who’ve already met the Reynolds family, thanks for joining me once more. If you’re new to town, settle in and let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a fifth-generation Texan ranching family...
Actually, all you really need to know is that the Reynolds men are some of the finest cowboys in the state of Texas. Everyone knows this, including large-animal vet Veronica Torres. The gorgeous Doctor Torres had a wild love affair with the eldest Reynolds brother, Ace, nearly a decade ago. But when their volatile personalities ultimately drove them apart and Veronica into the arms of another man, both buried that love way down deep.
Only now, Veronica is back in the Pass. Divorced and determined to pick up the pieces of her life, she’s built a strong practice caring for the animals on the various ranches and farms in the area. Her life is just as she wants it—calm, quiet and wildly different from the chaos she experienced during her time in Houston.
Except Veronica doesn’t know the danger that had doomed her marriage has been keeping a vigilant eye. Now, just as she and Ace are teetering on the edge of finding one another, that long-quiet enemy makes itself known.
I hope you enjoy Under the Rancher’s Protection, and I look forward to sharing the final book in the series about Ace’s sister, Arden, in the near future.
Best,
Addison Fox
UNDER THE RANCHER’S PROTECTION
Addison Fox
Addison Fox is a lifelong romance reader, addicted to happy-ever-afters. After discovering she found as much joy writing about romance as she did reading it, she’s never looked back. Addison lives in New York with an apartment full of books, a laptop that’s rarely out of sight and a wily beagle who keeps her running. You can find her at her home on the web at www.addisonfox.com or on Facebook (www.Facebook.com/addisonfoxauthor) and Twitter (@addisonfox).
Books by Addison Fox
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Midnight Pass, Texas
The Cowboy’s Deadly Mission
Special Ops Cowboy
Under the Rancher’s Protection
The Coltons of Grave Gulch
Colton’s Covert Witness
The Coltons of Mustang Valley
Deadly Colton Search
The Coltons of Roaring Springs
The Colton Sheriff
The Coltons of Red Ridge
Colton’s Deadly Engagement
The Coltons of Shadow Creek
Cold Case Colton
The Coltons of Texas
Colton’s Surprise Heir
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.
For Beth Gaddis
College might have made us roommates, but I’d like to think fate (and our shared love of romance novels!) made us lifelong friends. I’m so fortunate to have you in my life.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Excerpt from Colton 911: Desperate Ransom by Cindy Dees
Chapter 1
Ace Reynolds didn’t consider himself a particularly superstitious man, but even he couldn’t shake the spooked feeling by midafternoon when his horse threw a shoe.
The shoe had been the last in a steady line of increasing problems, starting with the rattler that had curled around his boots that morning as he’d sunned himself on the back porch of the Reynolds ranch house. It was only quick thinking and a stroke of good fortune that had him reaching for a shovel all while getting his bare feet out of striking range. If he were honest with himself, that was purely a stroke of dumb luck. He knew better than to blithely stroll around outside the ranch without protection on his feet.
The dead rattler had been followed by a problem with one of their calves, who even now still showed signs of a rapidly progressing problem that had the little guy lethargic and breathing heavily past his lolling tongue. Ace and two of his ranch hands had tried to restrain him and move him on one of their large transport carriers, but the calf’s mother was having none of it. Which had resulted in moving the rest of the herd out of range so they could get the vet out to where the calf needed attention.
And then Walter had thrown the shoe.
“Doc Torres is on her way.” Ace’s youngest brother, Hoyt, came up next to him, his gaze on the calf. “You have any idea what has him down?”
“I’ll give the doctor her due, but for my money it’s theileriosis.”
“He’s the right age for it.”
“And we’ve had a bad tick season so far.” While a mature cow could handle ticks with little or no side effects, the calves weren’t so lucky. And they were most vulnerable in their first three months of life.
“Doc Torres will know.”
“That’s why we pay her,” Ace said, careful to keep any and all traces of, well, anything from his voice.
Hoyt shot him a side-eye but didn’t respond, for which Ace was grateful. His youngest brother knew how to keep his thoughts to himself—better than most and certainly better than Ace’s two other siblings, Tate and Arden. None of it meant Hoyt wasn’t sizing up the situation and coming to what was likely a highly accurate conclusion.
Ace dreaded the arrival of their vet, Veronica Torres. The woman was dedicated and competent, one of the best large-animal vets in the entire state of Texas, but he still wished there was someone—anyone—else in Midnight Pass they could work with.
Or, more to the point, someone he hadn’t seen naked.
Seen. Touched. Tasted.
An electric series of memories that he had the benefit of reliving each and every time he was in the woman’s company. Memories that, even after more than eight years, he could still recall at will and in exquisite detail.
“Tate just texted me. She arrived a few minutes ago and he’s driving her out here.”
Ace’s quick calculation meant they had no more than ten minutes based on their distance from the ranch house. Which meant it was time to get his game face on.
Veronica Torres had once been a fixture around the ranch, his girlfriend and if he’d had the chance nearly his fiancée before he fouled it up in a rush of jealousy and temper. She’d deserved neither and the apology he’d attempted last year, after she’d returned to Midnight Pass, had fallen on stone-deaf ears.
Since the apology was nearly eight years overdue, he’d figured it was his responsibility to give it, but she’d had none of it, brushing off their shared past as if it had been little more than a blip in the history of her life.
It had taken him a damn week to screw up the words to give that apology. Between the overwhelming pain of his father’s betrayal and the general all-around asinine behavior he’d swaggered about with in his midtwenties, the apology was not only overdue, but the words were as much about seeking forgiveness as it was purging his soul.
He wasn’t that same man and he’d spent the last eight years proving it to himself, even if Veronica hadn’t been around to see any of it.
He’d loved her once and he’d let the shame of his father’s betrayal burn a hole through him. When it only added fuel to the heat that flared between them, fiery passion had eventually incinerated everything they shared.
“You think we’re going to lose the calf?” Hoyt asked, interrupting the spears of annoyance that always accompanied the memory of standing in Veronica’s clinic, hat in hand.
“I hope not.” Ace eyed the calf. “One of the hands spotted him early and I’m hoping we got to this in time.”
“And the others?”
“No signs of distress
in any of the other calves, which also reinforces the nasty tick theory.”
“’Suppose so.” Hoyt kneeled down next to the calf, his attention focused on the fast-growing body that had already doubled in size since birth. He ran his hands gently over the heaving chest cavity, and even from fifteen feet away Ace could hear the labored breathing.
And once again, that spooked feeling settled into his bones, a portent he neither believed in nor cared to imagine.
Even if he couldn’t shake it.
That odd anticipation ratcheted up another few notches as one of the ranch trucks came bumping toward them in the distance.
Reynolds Station was large—one of the biggest working cattle ranches in the state of Texas—and covered thousands of prime acreage in the Rio Grande Valley, just north of the US-Mexico border. The land had been in his family for generations and he felt the weight of that heritage in every fiber of his being. The Reynolds brand was as stamped on his DNA as it was the cattle they sent to market each year. He cared about his work and the product they produced.
Maybe a little too much, of late.
The thought poked at him, much as it had the last few times it had cropped up at odd moments, and for a few seconds, Ace gave it the room to linger. He wasn’t one to mull things over or dwell on his problems—he far preferred action and activity—but something had changed of late. Both his brothers were in relationships—Tate about to marry his old flame, Detective Belle Granger, and Hoyt married to pretty high school teacher Reese Grantham. He’d added two sisters to the fold with Belle and Reese, in addition to Arden, his sister by blood, and the house was full to brimming with new energy.
New female energy.
And a shocking amount of hormones, Ace admitted to himself, since Reese was growing by the day in the full bloom of her pregnancy.
Women were plentiful in the Pass, but he wasn’t interested in the ones who quickly sidled up at the bar or made flirtatious comments at the town diner. He’d long been aware a pair of jeans and a cowboy hat did something to the female libido and he’d be a liar if he didn’t cop to taking full advantage of that fact from time to time, especially in his younger days.
But in the past year, something had changed. It wasn’t just his brothers’ steady march to the altar, either.
It was him.
The lack of commitment in his personal life had always been a fine thing. He’d had his grand romance and learned a ton from the broken wreckage that came after, ensuring he had no desire to wade into those deep waters ever again. You didn’t get perfect twice and he’d long come to accept that. Add on that his business was his life and he’d learned to put women in a category his heart and his head could handle.
He respected them. He was up front and honest. And he made it clear that sex and time spent together was a fun distraction. That attitude had been enough. More than enough, for the past eight years.
Until she’d come back.
“Doc Torres is here.” Hoyt pointed toward the horizon as a Reynolds Station truck came bouncing over the dirt path.
“So she is.”
Ace shook off the weird sensation that he’d been thinking about Veronica Torres’s arrival back in his life, only to have her physically appear, but he knew it was more than simple coincidence that they needed her today. She really was the best damn large-animal vet in all of Texas and, in a state where the management and sale of cattle still reigned supreme, there were a lot of good veterinarians.
But she was the best.
And the best was the only thing he wanted for Reynolds Station.
He couldn’t see her yet but he knew what to expect when she got out of the truck. Her dark hair would be pulled back in a high ponytail and her long, lithe frame would be covered head to toe in some sort of work shirt and khakis. It was damn near a uniform and he’d never, ever seen a woman who could pull off such drab clothes with Veronica’s elegance.
Of course, drab clothes couldn’t hide knockout curves, nor could they dim the beauty of her soft, flawless, olive-toned skin.
But it was the competence, Ace had to admit, that wrapped up the whole package. She was smart. Dedicated. And absolutely devoted to the animals under her care. She loved them as much as she did the art and science of treating them.
There was no doubt about it, Dr. Veronica Torres had it all.
And once upon a time, they’d had each other, too.
* * *
Veronica appreciated Tate Reynolds’s ability to keep up a steady drone of friendly conversation, but even the company of a very attractive cowboy with a big grin couldn’t assuage her nerves at what was to come.
Ace Reynolds.
The one man she’d spent most of the last decade doing her level best to forget.
Or, if she was being truly honest, exorcise.
She wasn’t a person who looked to the past. Her profession, while steeped in history and reliant on experience, was forward-facing. Science and technology led the way. New ways of examining a problem, new treatments and always—always—that focus on the next big breakthrough.
While she’d chosen animals over treating people, the goals of her profession were still in lockstep with all other facets of modern medicine.
Survival.
Comfort.
And the advancement of life.
She’d made it her life’s work, even if that had come at the expense of the rest of her existence. Her marriage certainly hadn’t managed to survive it, either, and its demise, as well as a shocking act of violence, had had her fleeing Houston as fast as her legs could carry her.
Why she’d picked Midnight Pass as her landing spot still surprised her at times.
It shouldn’t have, since she’d taken over the practice of her old mentor, but she had come to realize it was a bit of an ill-conceived decision. The offer of the practice, just as she was trying to escape Houston, had seemed like the perfect answer to her troubles. Instead of running with her proverbial tail tucked between her legs, she’d had a business opportunity that called her to South Texas.
It was only after she arrived and realized just how much time her mentor had spent out at the three largest ranches in the southern portion of the state—all denizens of Midnight Pass and the majority of the practice’s clientele—that she’d realized her mistake.
Working with the Vasquez family, no problem. Same with the Crown Ranch. But Reynolds Station?
Was it just her imagination or did they have need of her services more often than the others?
The thought had bugged her so badly she’d made a point to look it up, reviewing all her case files a few weeks back to see how often she’d had appointments at Reynolds Station. Not only was that assumption false—the Crowns had faced a bad patch of infection that had caused considerable issues for their herd and the Vasquez family was still struggling with a bad run of herd births that had reduced their stock for the season—but she’d actually spent far less time at Reynolds Station than she’d have expected for clients of their size.
And even if she didn’t see Ace each time she was at the ranch, why did Reynolds Station feel so present?
The thought haunted her as Tate turned off the dirt path and onto a rich patch of land, ripe with verdant grass. She took in the lush pasture and already began running through a mental list of things that could be wrong with the small but solid calf laid out on the grass between several watchful ranch hands and their boss.
Ace Reynolds.
Since her body came to life with anticipation at the very thought of him, seeing him was almost painful. Heavy pulse, racing thoughts and shocked-to-the-core nerve endings all lit up in full tempo, like a manic orchestra, as she took in the thick, muscular form, long legs clad in worn jeans and about an acre of chest covered in a white T-shirt under a long-sleeved blue shirt.
If she had a camera, she’d have called the resulting shot the Quintessential American Cowboy.
And then she’d have privately titled it Emotional Train Wreck because that’s what resulted every freaking time she saw him.
Goodness, how did he manage it? Every. Single. Time.
She’d seen good-looking men before. Her ex-husband had been an attractive man. Mild-mannered and more refined than Ace, but attractive all the same. Yet neither Mark nor anyone else she’d ever met could leave her feeling quite so breathless.