Foster Justice

Book 1: Texas Rangers

by Colleen Shannon

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Suspense; Western Romance

Synopsis

"Intense romantic suspense with a sexy edge." --Tanya Anne Crosby One Riot, One Ranger… That's the Texas Ranger motto, but when Chad Foster's rebellious brother goes missing, it's time to put his elite training to use investigating a crime that strikes much closer to home. Turning Los Angeles inside out to retrieve Trey and save their ranch from a ruthless land grab is a no brainer, even if it puts his badge at risk. His only lead is a heart-stoppingly sensuous exotic dancer with a very tempting butterfly tattoo, the woman who helped scam his brother out of their ranch. But staying on top of this redhead's every suggestive word and sensual move means putting his case--and his heart--right in the line of fire . . . A Texas Ranger, complete with quarter horse, is as out of place in downtown L.A. as a lawman is in the bed of a suspect, but with both their lives at risk, Chad has to put his trust in the one woman who could bring him down for good, and pray that somehow hard evidence is really just a pack of lies. . . 81,900 Words

Release date: December 1, 2014

Publisher: eOriginals

Print pages: 244

Sample

As rustlers went, they were better’n most, Chad Foster decided, caressing his AR-15 rifle mounted with a night vision scope. The thieves, probably the same ones he’d been chasing all over the Panhandle, had herded his cattle up to this plateau far above the canyon floor, giving the Black Angus little room to escape being forced into the huge trailer. Still, pursuing lawbreakers as part of his job and finding them rustling his own private stock were two different things.

Keeping his spirited stallion, Chester, still with his knees, Chad peeked around the outcropping, gauging distance and angle. If he aimed just right, he should be able to take out enough tires on one side to cripple their rig. Then what? He was one man, on a horse, against three hardened criminals in a huge tractor trailer.

While he contemplated his options, a Texas sunset painted Palo Duro Canyon in golden and red hues of blood and glory. The rays winked off his distinctive Texas Ranger Lone Star badge like a warning light. But the scroungy wannabe cowboys were too busy to notice, zipping around on ATVs, corralling steers toward their cattle trailer. Chad’s lip curled. No matter how fancy their rig, likely stolen, too, Chad viewed rustlers on a par with worms and strippers: the only critters too low to fall down.

Cattle prices had finally gone up enough to make it worthwhile for a part-time rancher. Should be just enough profit to catch up on those back taxes Trey had let slide. He wasn’t about to lose the cattle now—even if he was outgunned and outnumbered. Hell’s bells, the old Ranger motto was still as valid today as it had been when coined over a century ago: “One riot, one ranger.” His decision made, in his usual to-hell-with-the-consequences fashion, Chad eased out of hiding while the rustlers were busy with the trailer latch. He reined Chester around the outcropping to take careful aim at a huge rear tire.

A stray steer spooked Chester. The stallion whinnied and reared. Looking up, the rustlers spotted him. In his cowboy hat, chaps, and spurs, with the rearing sorrel quarter horse reddish against a violet sky, Chad was an image right out of the Old West, when retribution was more than a fancy word. Getting the message, they abandoned their ATVs for the truck.

Chad needed both hands to calm Chester, the rifle slung over his shoulder, and by the time he was able to take steady aim, the perps had fired up the huge diesel and stirred up a cloud of dust, leaving him choking in their wake. He squinted, his eyes tearing as he tried to sight, but the scope was useless in all this dust. He shouldered the rifle and kicked Chester into a gallop, moving at an angle that would cut them off at the dirt road leading off the plateau.

Then, to his shock, he realized the huge vehicle, with a screeching of brakes and spitting of dirt and rock, had done a one-eighty, driving back toward the canyon edge. Chad wheeled Chester around to keep pace. The truck’s lights pierced the haze of dirt and dusk, blinding spooked and confused cattle. Behind them was the canyon rim; in front loomed that huge mechanical monster.

While Chad stared, trying to figure out what in tarnation the rustlers were trying, the truck lurched forward, Klaxon horn honking, lights blinking, rock chunks spitting as it came, startling several steers. The confused cattle took the path of least resistance and ran away—straight toward the canyon edge, less visible in the growing gloom.

God Almighty, they were forcing the steers over the edge just to spite him! Chad looked frantically around, but he had no backup and little inspiration, only hard choices.

Lose his herd, or risk his life to stop the stampede. On horseback.

In the end, the choice wasn’t difficult. He had no wife, no kids, and no girlfriend. In fact, he only had three things he valued in life: one little brother who hated his guts, the fourth-generation Amarillo ranch that had bred them both, and The Job. And if he let these assholes buffalo him, he’d risk all three.

The truck gained speed, horn blaring, and the milling cattle went from a lope to a panicked stampede. At this rate they’d be over the rim in minutes. Spurring Chester into a flat-out gallop, Chad bent low over his stallion’s neck, leaping over boulders, down a small gully, back up the other side. But the rough path allowed him to cut in front of the truck and ride alongside the herd, perilously close to the canyon edge.

However, Chester had been a cow pony all his life, and he’d herded panicked cattle before. They wove through the milling herd, slowing some of the laggards a bit more with their diagonal passage. Chad pulled his rifle and fired at boulders above the lead steer’s head. Bits of rock sprayed the steer in the face, making him snort and slow a bit, but that damnable horn blared again.

Roaring, the engine revved into a higher gear, brights flashing, and the slowing stampede picked up speed. They were halfway to the edge now, a sheer drop two hundred feet to the canyon floor.

Chad sped up again. He could risk everything and try to get in front far enough to herd them around, or take on the truck now and to hell with the herd. Or he had one shot to do both. Urging Chester to the edge of the stampede again so he could gain speed on the outside, Chad guided Chester with his knees and sighted back over his shoulder as he rode, trusting his horse with his life.

Holding his breath and letting the rhythm take him, Chad became part of Chester, feeling the rise and fall of each step, his hands steady on his rifle. He sighted at the horn as it blew a fresh clarion. Bam! The shot landed dead center, killing the horn’s bellow with a gush of air.

Next he aimed at the headlights. He hit one before Chester stumbled slightly, and Chad almost went flying. He had to let the rifle sling back over his shoulder while he grabbed the reins. They were galloping even with the lead cattle, and he urged Chester faster, putting distance between him and the head of the herd.

Ten feet, twenty, thirty, fifty . . .

Just before the canyon rim, Chad wheeled Chester like the quarter horse he was, damn near on a dime, sighting again before he stopped. Chester’s hooves broke rock off the crumbling edge. One part of Chad registered the rockslide he’d started and how long it took the rocks to hit the canyon floor, but the coolest part of his brain calculated distance and angle.

The other headlight was smack dab in his crosshairs. Pling! The last light went out. The truck slowed, downshifting again. Taking advantage of that hesitation, Chad shot repeatedly now at the rocks littering the path of the stampede leader. The steer blinked and bawled as rocks scoured its face, slowing as it shook its head.

Chad shot a scrubby tree into bits, more litter blocking the lead steer’s path. It slowed again. The cattle in back, now that they weren’t blinded and spooked by the horn and lights, had also slowed. But the truck, idling for an ominous moment, began to speed up again, gears grinding. The cattle in back shied away.

Glad he’d put in his biggest clip, Chad fired at the lead cattle again, grazing hooves. They stumbled. A couple fell, slowing the ones behind.

But they were close, too close, a mere thirty feet away now.

He had one chance to avoid being swept over the canyon rim by his own herd, and he took it, firing at the rig’s tires. One blew, two, three on one side, and the truck began to lurch, slowing as the front axle hit the ground.

Chad tried to fire in front of the lead cattle again and cursed when he heard an empty click. They’d slowed a lot, but were still coming. Using the only weapon he had left, Chad cued Chester into a rear and roared at the top of his lungs, wildly waving his rifle over his head, hoping he loomed large and terrifying against the dying sunlight.

Chester whinnied, pawing the air. Ten feet away, the lead steer veered to the side rather than face the angry quarter horse.

The rear cattle milled around again, confused.

Chad was able to whack the last few cattle away from the rim and make his way toward the rig. It lay skewed on one side as Chad quickly put in another loaded clip and reined Chester toward the driver-side door, rifle pointed.

He was expecting it, so when he saw movement in the gloom, he fired. Yelling in pain, the driver dropped the pistol he’d been aiming at Chad’s head. Chad fired at the passenger-door side, too, and it slammed shut.

Holding the rifle steady on the driver, Chad appeared at the window, his angular, grimy face as hard as the landscape around them. “Haven’t you heard, boys? Beef’s bad for you. Especially when it isn’t yours.” He waved the rifle at them. “Out. This side, all of you.”

The driver got out first, cursing a blue streak Chad ignored. His men followed. “Put your hands on the side of the truck.” They did so. Still seated on his horse, Chad ignored his handcuffs and pulled his lariat.

“Lean back away from the truck.” When they obeyed, Chad neatly hooked the leader around the waist, and got down and tied the hands of the next two men with the same rope, turning them into a cowboy-style chain gang. He cinched the other end of the rope around Chester’s saddle horn.

“Hey, mister, what you doing? You don’t mean to walk us back all that long way! In the dark?” protested the lead rustler.

Chad kneed Chester, forcing them to stumble along behind. “You put me in a mind to herd something. It’s only, say, twenty miles back to headquarters. We’ll see how much piss and vinegar you have then.” Settling back in his saddle, Chad ignored their bitching and walked them down the road, through peacefully grazing cattle.

He debated calling Trey to let him know he wouldn’t be in until morning, but it was a useless courtesy since little brother was probably stone-cold drunk. Like usual. Over a woman not worth a hat tippin’, as his daddy would say.

At the Foster homestead, Trey Foster swigged the last of his rum and Coke, swimming in a fog that dulled the enormity of what he was about to do. But it was time, past time, to get the heck out of Dodge, back to LA where he belonged.

Back to the only girl he’d ever loved, ever could love, even if she was someone his big brother would never approve of. Bleary-eyed, Trey looked from the paint on the tips of his fingers to his masterpiece, glistening with wet oil in the bright lights of his studio.

It was some of his best work. A lovely, mysterious woman, her face half shielded by a long fall of deep auburn hair, was depicted from the waist up. She wore only a lace shawl arrayed low over a luxurious bosom. On the lower slope of her right breast was a small but alluring butterfly tattoo, its blue and yellow wings so vivid it looked about to take flight every time she breathed.

He’d painted her from memory, with such lust and longing that the redhead seemed Woman incarnate, the temptress responsible for the downfall of Man since time immemorial. Yet he’d also perfectly captured weariness and longing in her blue eyes . . . as if the hopeful romantic lurking inside the temptress still slumbered, waiting to be awakened by the right man.

Lost in memory, he almost didn’t hear the knock until it came a second time, more insistently. He stumbled as he moved off his stool, knocking against his favorite easel with the splintered leg. He’d repaired it so many times it was rickety. He had to catch the wall as he weaved from room to room in the old ranch house. By the time he made it to the front door, the visitor was pounding harder.

“All right, all right,” Trey muttered as he flung open the door to Thomas Kinnard’s impatient face. As soon as he saw Trey, Kinnard smoothed his scowl into a smile. He pumped Trey’s hand.

“Good to see you again, Trey. We’ve missed you in LA. You ready to finalize the deal?”

Trey stood aside, still clutching the door, but guilt sucker punched him the minute he let into his ancestral home the Beverly Hills businessman Chad would despise. The mere thought of facing Chad after this deal was done made him sick at his stomach. But then Chad belonged here. Trey never had.

Avoiding the stern stares of his ancestors, arrayed in chronological order around the living room walls—most of the severe-faced men garbed in various uniforms and badges—Trey waved Kinnard into a chair and slumped onto the couch. Kinnard pulled a thick sheaf of papers from his pocket and handed them to Trey.

Trey unfolded them and made every pretense of reading, but the truth was, he couldn’t even focus past the heading: “Bill of Sale: Transfer of Land and Mineral Rights.”

Kinnard stood without being invited and poured them each a drink from the tray. “Mind if I take a look at what you’ve done since you’ve been here?”

Trey waved him toward his studio, still trying to concentrate.

It seemed a long time before Kinnard returned. Trey sniffed his drink, confused that all of a sudden it smelled like paint thinner, but then a blur of movement caught his gaze and he realized Kinnard was wiping his paint-smeared fingertips on a rag.

Trey blinked, his voice slurred, but he wasn’t too drunk not to be suspicious. Like most artists, he found art gallery owners a necessary evil, but he sure as hell didn’t like giving them more than half of every dime he made. “You become a painter all of a sudden?”

“I got a little too close to that portrait you did of Mary. It’s stunning. Can I show it after you get to LA?”

“It’s not for sale, too private. And I’m not finished with it anyway.”

“That’s easy to fix. Just give it Jasmine’s face instead of Mary’s and we’ll make a fortune with it. But I like it.”

“You’re meant to. But I don’t want to share her with anyone.”

Kinnard scowled, but Trey turned back to the contract, pretending to read. He wished there was some other way . . . but Chad was too damned stubborn, just like their daddy. They were sitting on a gold mine—who the hell cared if it ruined their grazing? Plenty of other ranchers combined cattle and oil. Besides, even though he’d only sold his half, Trey planned to split the income with Chad.

Kinnard wandered the living room, appraising the pictures on the walls. When he came to the picture of a Texas Ranger in full uniform, the last in the line before Chad, in a similar uniform, Kinnard raised his glass.

The movement caught Trey’s attention, and through a haze, he saw the businessman in profile staring at Gerald Foster’s picture. In twenty years, Chad would look just about like their father. Ever sensitive to emotions, Trey picked up on something not quite right in the way Kinnard stared at Daddy.

The clean shaven, arrogant jaw flexed. Trey saw Kinnard’s knuckles grow white as he clutched his highball glass so tightly ice rattled.

His vague sense of unease growing, Trey blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. When he looked again, Kinnard was walking back toward him, wearing the smooth smile that complemented his five-thousand-dollar silk suit. “The deal structure’s exactly what we discussed. With the price of oil and gas, you and your brother will soon be rich. The preliminary geologicals indicate over a billion metric cubic feet of natural gas and over one hundred million barrels of oil.”

Trey hesitated.

“Mary can’t wait to see you. And I’ve already made room on my gallery walls for some of your paintings. We’ll schedule the unveiling as soon as we’ve built up some buzz.” Kinnard waited. “Any questions, Trey?”

Yeah, Trey thought glumly. One. Will Chad ever forgive me? Trey pulled a gold nugget necklace out of his shirt, worrying at it. He knew he was doing the right thing for both of them, but he also knew Chad would consider him a sellout and a traitor.

Kinnard picked up the necklace and read aloud the inscription on the smooth bottom: “‘Family’s all that lasts. Mama.’ Cute.” Kinnard dropped the necklace back. “That and millions in the bank.” When Trey still fingered his necklace, Kinnard’s voice grew impatient. “Which is worse? Possibly messing up your grazing land or losing everything to foreclosure?”

Taking a deep breath, Trey accepted Kinnard’s fancy fountain pen and focused blearily. However, he signed his name with less than his usual flair.

Chad was going to be pissed.

A day late and way more than a dollar short, Chad showed up at the Foster homestead gate just as dawn dew was burning off the scrub. No such thing as a lawn at their place because neither he nor Trey had either time or interest in caring for it. However, the jasmine their mother had planted had taken over one entire side of the porch. Its lush scent aroused visceral memories of home, and happier times, but conversely depressed him more.

Resting his arms on his saddle pommel, Chad sat an equally drooping Chester. He knew he was only avoiding another argument with Trey, but then the sound of a cranky engine roared up the road. Barbed-wire fences lined their ranch. Signs were posted every so often: No Trespassing. No Oil Transport Allowed Across Foster Land.

Chad’s hackles lowered as he realized it wasn’t a derrick truck from the adjacent oil leases shortcutting across their land as usual, but . . . a moving van. Dread kicked him in the gut as the van passed him and veered into their long, red clay driveway.

Chad kicked Chester into a gallop and drew him to a rearing stop just as the front screen door, rickety on its hinges, slammed open and Trey came out. Chad took one look at him and recognized the signs of a hangover. He was about to tear him a new one when the movers got out of the van and entered the house. Trey spotted him and ducked back inside.

So furious he didn’t bother to tie Chester up, Chad stumbled with weariness as he leaped off his still-moving horse and slammed after Trey. It had been a long night, first the grueling trip across the mesa to town, then half a night’s worth of paperwork. He’d had no sleep. He was dirty, exhausted, and depressed, and watching Trey flee his obligations snapped the last strand of Chad’s frayed patience, which was never strong at the best of times.

Across the width of the hall filled with moving boxes and pictures of their ancestors, Trey and Chad stared at one another. They looked nothing alike, never had, and both knew it.

As Chad scowled at the packed suitcases, a bitter smile curled the edges of Trey’s pretty-boy mouth, which had always reminded Chad of their mother. But then, Trey never had much of the grit and determination of the male side of the Foster clan. He was the “sensitive” one. The sight of the easel and painting supplies packed most carefully of all told Chad everything he needed to know.

Trey didn’t plan on coming back.

For once, Trey didn’t flinch from that accusing, judgmental look. He stared right back. “Big brother’s watching.”

Chad said evenly, “You know, I figured you for lazy, and maybe even stupid sometimes when your heart’s involved, but—”

“At least I have one—”

“But I never figured you for a coward. I taught you better. You gone plumb loco to run out on me when we’re facing foreclosure?”

“In loco parentis, big brother. That’s what you’ve always pretended to be since Mama and Daddy died. But you’re not my father, you’re not my conscience, and you’re sure as hell not qualified to be my judge and jury.” Trey turned away dismissively and went back into the bedroom he used for a studio on the west side of the house. He moved toward a painting on an easel and stopped dead, staring.

Close on his heels, Chad stared, too.

A bosomy redhead wore only a lacy shawl, and the way the light fell made her alluring form all the more striking because the face was carved away. Chad felt a jolt below the belt, right where he was supposed to, but that only pissed him off. The woman couldn’t possibly be that sensual in person. Even decimated, the picture was one of Trey’s finest, and he had quite a repertoire. “Your Beverly Hills stripper?” Chad asked. “Why’d you carve her face away?”

Trey grabbed a tossed-aside palette knife and stared down at the same colors he’d used on the face in the portrait, now dried on the knife. “Damn him! He’s just trying to teach me who’s boss since I wouldn’t let him show her. We’ll see when I get out there . . .”

Not for the first or last time when Trey was around, Chad was lost. He felt like he’d stepped into The Twilight Zone meets Days of Our Lives. “Out there? Out where?” He’d assumed Trey was moving into Amarillo, as he’d threatened for years.

Trey carefully rolled up the painting, as if he held the Mona Lisa, resolving Chad’s last doubt as to the redhead’s identity. It was definitely that floozy Trey had talked about one night in a drunken fit. He’d recounted his broken heart, and how the one girl he’d ever loved had visited the ranch while Chad was on assignment, but she hated the isolation and had scurried back to Beverly Hills, leaving Trey a drunken wreck. Chad’s cooped-up fury with the girl increased. She’d met Trey when he’d gone to the West Coast to show his art, dangled him like a fish on a hook, then deserted him just as he was about to ask her to marry him. Typical female. The visceral response came before he could stop it. “Dammit, boy, how many times do you have to dip your wick before you learn you can’t burn the candle at both ends and run a ranch?”

Trey stopped dead, and the wounded look that flashed across his face took some of the sting out of his retort. “At least I have a date once in a while.”

He bent to fiddle with a suitcase, concealing his expression. Chad squelched another remark. No matter how much he deserved it, now was not the time to alienate Trey even more. He was a Foster, belonged here as much as his older brother, even if he was an artist, not a rancher. Chad could almost hear his mother pleading with him to mend fences, to protect what was left of their family.

Chad was about to say something conciliatory when Trey bent to put the rolled painting in a tube he’d obviously left for that purpose. A sheaf of papers fell out of Trey’s jacket.

Chad caught one glimpse of the top heading: “Bill of Sale: Transfer of Land and Mineral Rights” before he literally saw red, forgetting everything but Trey’s betrayal.

When Trey pocketed the papers, not meeting his eyes, and turned to exit, Chad grabbed his brother’s slight shoulder and spun Trey to face him. He shook him for good measure.. . .