The Last Promise You Made

by LJ Evans

Genres: Romance; Contemporary Romance; Small-town Romance; Romantic Suspense; Second Chance Romance

Synopsis

When it’s impossible to forget the last promise you made…

RYDER HATLEY
After my ex stole from me and took off, I swore off anything that even looked like a relationship.

I survived by devoting myself to the ranch and my family, keeping my head down, and accepting some of us just aren’t meant for happily ever afters.

Until a spitfire undercover agent shatters everything I believed by introducing me to a little girl who’s supposedly mine.

Now, my world centers around keeping the child safe from the danger in her past and keeping my hands off the sexy agent who is guaranteed to do what all the women in my life have done before her—leave.

Until then, I have to protect them both while somehow guarding my heart.

GIA KENT
I’d already cleared Ryder Hatley and his family from ties to the cartel I’m hunting. But when a dead woman in a hotel leaves behind a little girl who appears to be his, I’m sent back to the wilds of Tennessee to investigate once more. What I can’t do is let the arrogant cowboy see how he makes my heart race.

I’m only in this middle-of-nowhere town until I make sure the girl is safe. To do that, I need to uncover the secret her mother was hiding. There’s no way I’ll get attached to the grumpy rancher turned doting father. No way I’ll see the three of us tucked into his home as the family I never wanted.

Not even a common enemy can force us to trust each other after our rocky start.

Desire is an inconvenience I won’t cave into.

Falling in love is absolutely out of the question…

Inspired by Brothers Osborne’s "A Little Bit Trouble,” this fast-paced, standalone, heartfelt adventure is sure to make you hold your breath and keep turning the pages.

Release date: May 29, 2024

Publisher: LJ Evans Books

Print pages: 466

Sample

Chapter One

Ryder

 

WHAT HURTS THE MOST

Performed by Rascal Flatts

 

When I dragged myself out of bed, I had no idea I’d be holding a funeral for a crow before the day was over. I’d been given marching orders from my mother to stop the birds from eating the last of her crabapples. To ensure they were extra sweet, she’d waited to harvest them until after the first snow, and now the damn beasts were taunting us, feasting on the fruit as if it had appeared from thin air in the middle of our Tennessee winter.

I was late getting to the ranch due to a mess-up with the plumbing supplies I’d ordered, so even though I didn’t swing by the house, I could still practically hear Mama huffing while she watched the birds destroy the last of her fruit. Forcing aside my frustration at the morning’s delays, I stomped into the ranch’s office and grabbed my shotgun from the lockbox. I loaded it, pocketed another box of ammo, and headed out. My long stride took me past the immaculately maintained blue-and-white barn with its intricately twined metal H near the roofline. Like every other addition I’d made to the family property, it had been carefully and purposefully crafted to portray the elegance our guests looked for in a luxury resort. These days, the ranch was far removed from the dusty, worn-down farm it had once been.

As I rounded the barn, my feet ground to a halt. The view bled the last of my frustration out of me as I took a deep, cleansing breath. Nothing could beat this. Nothing. Year-round, the ranch was picturesque—postcard-worthy, even—but with a peaceful dusting of snow on the fields, it held extra magic. The bare oaks slumbered under the thin blanket of white while jade peeked from beneath the frozen layer on the evergreens. The low slope of the heather-gray mountains turned the view into a smoky watercolor painting, the pastel-blue of the sky blending in with the hills.

The sun was doing its best to bring the temperatures up into the livable range, and I closed my eyes, raising my face to the timid warmth as I breathed in the ranch air I loved. The only thing I treasured more was my family. I wouldn’t give this life up for anything. Not for my long-ago dreams of architecture and design. Not for a random woman who came and went from my life in the flash of an eye. Nothing would take me from this place.

The entire morning full of annoyances left me on the next exhale. Hitching the gun over my shoulder, I strode over the field, boots crunching on the ice clinging to the sleeping grass.

The crabapple trees were just past the main pasture near the empty guest cabins. During this time of year, no smoke curled from their chimneys, and their fall-toned, craftsman-style fronts were a stark contrast to the black and white of the January landscape. Next to the ten completed cabins, two new ones sat in various stages of undress, awaiting roofs and siding.

An all-too-familiar feeling of regret attempted to worm its way in through the peace the view had settled in my veins. If I hadn’t been blinded by love, those last two cabins would have been built years ago. But they were here now and would be ready for our new season when it began in April.

Even knowing Grandfather Hatley was likely rolling over in his grave at what we’d done to the property, the transition from a cattle ranch to a dude ranch had kept the land in the Hatley name. And we’d managed to hold on to pieces of a working farm in order to give our guests the full ranch experience. We’d simply added on the outdoor resort activities they craved. Whitewater rafting, horseback riding, and hiking adventures were what drew people to us for repeated stays, along with Mama’s hearty, downhome meals to which she’d added a modern flair.

As I neared the crabapple trees, the half dozen crows feasting on the remaining fruit lifted their beaks in an unspoken dare. I’d bought a sound gun late last year that had kept the birds away from most of the crops, but the damn thing had died just before Christmas and was sitting in Willy Tate’s garage, waiting for him to fix it. Willy worked slow as molasses these days, grieving a relationship that had disappeared years ago.

I was probably the only soul in Willow Creek who understood Willy’s continued mourning. I wasn’t sure my soul would ever stop howling for what I’d lost. But dwelling on the past would do nothing except make me long to lose myself in alcohol or sex or both, and that wasn’t going to happen with a week’s worth of work piling up.

I lifted the shotgun aiming for the tops of the trees, intending to just scare the beasts away. I’d hunted with my dad and grandfather as a kid, but I’d never quite gotten a stomach for the killing. Maybe that was why I wasn’t overly sad when we’d sold off our remaining beef cattle and stuck to a handful of dairy cows.

Just as I pulled the trigger, one of the damn birds took flight. Crap timing meant the pellets collided with the bird’s chest, and it plummeted to the earth several yards away.

A high-pitched shriek broke through the air, and I whirled around, coming face-to-face with my niece, Mila. Disappointment radiated from her hazel eyes. The dark brows that didn’t match her honey-wheat-colored hair were lifted in shock.

My heart kicked into gear. Not only because of the look she was sending me but also from the memories of her last experience with guns a mere fourteen months ago.

I took a step toward her, gentling my voice and saying, “What are you doing out here, kiddo?”

Instead of replying, she took off running for the farmhouse with her blond braids flying and her cowboy boots kicking up snow and dirt.

“Shit!” I looked back at the laughing birds before hauling my ass across the field after her.

She was faster than any six-year-old had a right to be, and I hadn’t quite caught up to her by the time she rounded the barn, passed the brick-and-ivy front of the Sweet Willow Restaurant, and banged up the steps of the wraparound porch on the farmhouse I’d grown up in. The blue siding and white trim echoed the sky above it where smoke puffed out of a pair of chimneys on opposite sides of the gray shake roof. Shiny and spiffed up these days, the home had sat in that exact spot for near on two hundred years.

I hollered out for Mila to stop once more, but she ignored me, pushing inside with me on her heels.

“Nana!” she screamed. “You have to punish Uncle Ryder!”

There was a hitch to her voice that threatened tears and made my chest squeeze tight as my mother squatted down to pull my distraught niece into her arms. Flour sifted through the air, catching in a beam of sunshine from the large windows over the farm-style sink and casting them in a hazy halo.

“Bug-a-boo, what on earth?” Mama asked, brows drawing together.

“I do not like Uncle Ryder anymore. He is mean, mean, mean!”

A sob escaped her chest that tortured me a bit more as my mama met my gaze over the top of Mila’s head. Her bright-blue eyes, the same color as mine, widened in concern. The hint of wrinkles around the corners of her mouth was more evident as she frowned at me.

I pulled my black cowboy hat off, running a hand through my thick waves the same chestnut color as my mother’s before gray had decided to weave its way into hers.

“Why was she out by the crabapples?” I asked. None of us had truly let Mila out of our sight since an asshole gang member had taken her and my sister at gunpoint, put a bullet in Sadie’s thigh, and tried to use Mila as leverage against my brother several months ago.

Mama finally caught on to what had happened as her eyes landed on my shotgun just as Mila let out another devastating sob. “He killed a bird, Nana! A beautiful black bird!”

I moved toward them, and Mila shied away from me, causing my heart to twist a bit more.

“I thought we were just scaring the crows off?” Mama asked.

“Scaring them was the plan. I can’t help that one of them flew right into the shot.”

“You’re awful, Uncle Ryder! You killed a poor, hopeless little birdie!”

“I think you mean helpless,” Mama responded, her lips twitching as she realized what had happened.

I squatted down, eyes meeting Mila’s tear-filled ones. “I wasn’t trying to hurt him, kiddo. The sound gun that’s been scaring them off is broken, and I was just trying to make a loud noise. What happened was an accident.”

“It was?”

I dragged a hand over the scruff that was turning into a beard I kept meaning to shave off and said, “Sure was.”

“His family is going to miss him. You need to apologize to them.”

“Well, the crows weren’t supposed to be eating Nana’s crabapples to begin with. This is like…your dad arresting someone for breaking the law.”

“Daddy doesn’t kill people!”

I met my mama’s gaze, and neither of us mentioned the man who’d taken Mila and been shot at the ravine before dying at the hospital.

“What do you think Uncle Ryder should do to make amends?” Mama asked.

I groaned internally. Knowing Mila, she was going to come up with a harebrained scheme involving rainbows and unicorns. Maybe even pixie dust. Something nearly impossible.

My niece stepped toward me, her gaze still sad but determined as she patted my arm. “You need to have a funeral for him so his family can say goodbye.”

I looked up at Mama to see her eyes twinkling with humor just as my brother walked into the room, demanding to know what was going on. As Mama explained what had happened, his blue eyes crinkled, and he chuckled, making me want to punch him in the nose and add another crook to the one I’d given him when we were younger.

“Let me go dig a hole.” I sighed. “Maybe you and Nana can come up with some words to say.” Maddox let out a half-laugh, half-cough, and I gave him a one-fingered wave over the top of the women’s heads. “Just for that, you can help dig the hole.”

Maddox pointed to the bronze star glowing on his chest. “I’m on duty. Was just dropping Mila off for the day.”

“You’re the sheriff. No one is going to give you a lecture if you’re a few minutes late.”

“Gotta set a good example for my team.”

I wanted to grab him, put him in a headlock, rub his dark-blond hair noogie-style, and mess up his perfectly ironed, khaki-colored shirt and green pants.

He picked up his Winter County Sheriff's hat from the coat rack. “I’ll see you tonight, Bug-a-boo. Don’t give Nana too hard of a time, but make sure Uncle Ryder follows your instructions about the funeral to a T.”

I grunted in protest, following him out the door.

Once outside, I slammed my fist into his shoulder. “Damn you.”

“Don’t blame me. You’re the crap shot who took out a bird.”

“The bird flew into the shot!”

He chuckled, heading for his truck. He glanced at my step-side pickup glistening like root beer on ice sitting next to it. “I hate to admit it, because it’s a Chevy, but Willy did a great job fixing the C10 up. I wasn’t sure he’d be able to with all the bullet holes riddling it.”

The truck had been shot up after a woman tailing a U.S. Secret Service agent and his rockstar protectee had caught up to them while they’d been staying at the ranch. The agent had handed me the registration as a way of apologizing for destroying a whole section of the fence he’d run through in his attempt to get away. We’d seen a bit too much action at the ranch in the last couple of years. We were due some peace and quiet.

“Where’s McK today?” I asked.

“She took a shift at the hospital for another doctor.”

When McKenna had shown up months ago, I hadn’t thought it would end well for Maddox. I hadn’t expected her to give up her life in California to finish her residency in the one state she’d run from as a teen. Seeing the love bloom between them again had opened old wounds in my chest.

I couldn’t—wouldn’t—be like my brother, who’d gone from swearing off anything serious to falling right back head-over-heels for the one woman who’d wounded him to begin with. I’d never forgive Ravyn for what she’d done to me and my family, and I didn’t plan on getting hooked up with anyone again. While I saw nothing wrong with losing myself in the scent and feel of soft curves for a few hours, I wasn’t getting roped into thoughts of forever after.

My brother got in his truck, tooted the horn as a goodbye, and I strode back to the barn to find what I needed to bury a damn bird. After replacing the shotgun with a shovel, I grabbed an empty feed sack and went back to the crabapple trees. I about destroyed my hands and shoulders digging a hole in the frozen earth for a damned crow.

I picked up the dead bird with a gloved hand, dropped it into the sack, and stuck the bag in the ground. Last thing I needed was for Mila to see the bloody bird and burst into tears all over again. By the time I was done, I was sweaty and cussing the crows all over again as a line of the black beasts watched me from the trees.

I could almost hear them cackling.

When I looked back at the barn, Mila and Mama were making their way across the field. My niece had her two rainbow unicorns tucked in her armpits and a leftover poinsettia plant from the holidays in her hands.

When they reached me, my mama handed me a piece of paper.

“What’s this?”

“Last rites.”

Her eyes were glittering with laughter. Had it really only been an hour or so ago that I’d been looking at the ranch and thinking how much I loved my family?

Mama hit play on her phone, and Irish funeral music streamed out of it. I nearly choked out a curse before looking down at Mila’s wide, innocent eyes. Gritting my teeth, I ripped the paper from my mother’s hands.

I silently read what they’d come up with, grinding my teeth over the sweet words for a pest who shouldn’t have been in the trees to begin with.

“To the damn bird I accidentally killed,” I growled out, and Mila interrupted me with a huff.

“You owe a dollar for the swear jar, Uncle Ryder. And you don’t sound sorry at all. You have to feel it”—she reached up and patted my chest—“in here.”

I met my mama’s gaze with a glower that promised retribution. She hid her smile behind her hand. I cleared my throat, looked skyward for help that wouldn’t come, and then started over. “To the sweet crow that was ripped from his life too soon by an evil shot by a careless human.”

I somehow got through the rest of it to Mila’s satisfaction and helped her stuff a little cross in the ground supported by the poinsettia while Mama held her unicorns. When we stood back up, Mila looked at me with her hands on her hips and said, “Now promise you’ll never kill another living thing again, Uncle Ryder.”

My stomach turned. We lived on a ranch. Animals sometimes needed to be put down. It was part of the cycle, but as I looked into her innocent face, I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell her no. It would cost me a pretty penny to keep that promise if I had to hire someone to do the work for me. Still, I sighed and said, “All right, Bug-a-boo. No animal will be harmed by these hands again.”

She stuck out her little finger. “Pinky promise?”

When my large finger twined with her tiny one, my chest filled with an unexpected ache. An ache for something I’d once thought I’d have but had lost. Something I’d sworn to never let into my life again―a wife and a child.

 

Chapter Two

Gia

 

SOMETHIN’ BAD

Performed by Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood

 

The scene was about as ugly as it could get. The woman’s hands were shredded, and vicious cuts sliced her chest, blood pouring from them onto a hotel carpet already stained dark with old spills. The crime scene investigators would be hard-pressed to sort through the evidence and figure out what was related to the murder and what was residual from years’ worth of guests who’d stayed at the cheap motel on the outskirts of Denver.

The victim was dark-haired, in her early thirties, with a wild beauty evident even with the shadows under her eyes and the blotchiness of her skin. My gut twisted with something close to guilt. She’d been on the run, and I’d been one of the people chasing her.

My jaw clenched tight. Another woman’s death that would haunt me.

Logically, I knew neither this woman nor the one in D.C. two months ago had been my fault. Their deaths came from conspiring with one of the largest, most vile cartels in the Americas. The Lovatos had their hands in everything from drugs to guns to financial schemes, and they were known for ruthlessly eliminating not only the competition but any traitors or weak links.

The question was which one Anna Smith had been.

If she’d been the organization’s genius technophile, like I thought, she’d had years of the Lovatos’ secrets at her disposal. Had she decided to trade in on them? Or had the screw-up in D.C. placed a black mark on her that couldn’t be removed? 

The CSI who was bent over her turned to look up at me. “Not sure what happened here.” He waved over the blood on her chest. “Looks like something was dragged over her after she died.”

“Any ID?” I asked.

He shook his head. “And good luck getting a solid one based on facial recognition. She’s had work done, specifically to the nose-bridge area.”

The region where the nose, eyes, and forehead intersected was key to facial recognition software. I scanned her again, noticing the long strands of purple in her otherwise nearly black hair. Even with the way she’d fallen, it couldn’t hide the fact that it had been styled to cover at least one eye. And she was wearing a harsh concealer that contrasted with her skin tone. All things known to confuse the recognition software and that she’d been smart enough to use.

“Okay if I move this?” I asked, leaning down and waving a gloved hand over the purple strand sticking to her lips. He nodded, and I pushed it aside. Her face was frozen in a look that was hard to identify. Fear. Regret. Worry.

I snapped a picture of the woman, wondering if this was truly the elusive Anna Smith we’d been tracking through several countries or just some sad woman with the same name. Anna had been nothing more than a name—a ghostlike apparition—for three years, disappearing every time we caught up to her. Even her name had been an alias we could only track back eight years. Before today, there’d been no image of her anywhere, leaving her a question mark on the board in the conference room of the multi-agency task force in D.C. Maybe now that we had prints and a face, we’d come up with something more.

 Rory might be able to manipulate Anna’s image enough for us to see what she’d looked like before the cosmetic work, and once we had that, our new analyst would scour every nook and cranny of the internet for Anna’s deconstructed face. Rory was better at hacking and pulling puzzle pieces together than just about anyone I’d ever encountered. If she couldn’t turn over a hidden rock and discover the truth of Anna, no one could.

Rory may not be the Q to my James Bond, but I’d come to count on her more than the fictional character ever had on his head of research and development—and definitely more than the loner Jason Bourne had ever counted on anyone. If my life were really a novel, like Jack Reacher or Jane Blond or any of the four J-spy heroes who’d influenced my life and my career, Rory might have played the traitorous villain. Except, I’d witnessed her being the exact opposite of a villain last November.

I stood, dragging my eyes around the room, noting there was no computer. No electronic equipment at all. Not even a phone. An open suitcase full of clothes looked like it had been ransacked in the closet, but other than that, the room was empty.

My gaze returned to the victim lying on the floor with her hand extended toward the bed skirt where the white sole of a shoe was just barely visible. As I bent to reach for it, the shoe disappeared. My lungs froze, my body stilled, and my mind went into overdrive.

Local police had been the first on the scene. Sitting in the chief of police’s office, I’d been explaining about our multi-agency task force and trying to convince him to lend me some of his patrols to scour the streets for a woman we didn’t even have a picture of when he’d gotten the call about the murder. As soon as Anna’s name had left his lips, I’d jumped into the agency’s Escalade and headed for the motel room she’d rented. CSI had already been processing the scene when I’d arrived.

I slowly turned, tapping the tech on the shoulder. When his eyes met mine, I tipped my head toward the bed.

“Room was cleared, right?” I asked.

His gaze widened, but he nodded.

I pointed at the bed and then back at the cop standing watch at the door. He didn’t hesitate, bounding to his feet and whispering something to the officer as I pulled my Glock from the waistband at my back.

I reached for the bed skirt, saying calmly, “Come out nice and slow.”

Nothing. Not even a hint of movement. Had I imagined it? The space between the bed frame and the floor was mere inches. I wasn’t sure a person could actually slide under it, which was probably why the officers clearing the room hadn’t thought to check.

I pantomimed flipping the mattress to the two men and aimed my gun as they lifted it and flung it toward the back wall.

Underneath was a tangled detritus of garbage and dust balls, and in the middle of it lay a little girl. She was curled up in the fetal position, eyes wide with fear, and cheeks tear-stained. She ducked her face into her arms protectively.

What in the actual hell?

My heart skittered around in my chest, and chills coasted up my spine. We had a witness. A witness to a Lovato assassination. If we could find whoever did this and tie them to the cartel, it would be another huge win. Another chunk in the cartel’s shell.

But what had she actually seen? Would she be able to help us at all? My stomach fell… What would happen to her if the Lovatos found out she’d seen their assassin?

I put my gun away and stepped over the bed frame into the debris surrounding her. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe.”

My words made her flinch, and she drew her legs and arms impossibly closer to her body, as if willing herself to disappear. She was trembling. I could almost smell the fear radiating from her.

Cautiously, I eased closer. “My name is Gia. I’m an…officer. I promise you’re safe now. No one is going to hurt you. I won’t let them.”

The little girl’s eyes peeked out from beneath strands of long black hair. She had the same warm brown eyes as the dead woman. Except, the anguish and terror in the child’s eyes weren’t frozen in death.

I swallowed hard, squatting so I was closer to her level.

“What’s your name?”

She shook her head violently. The CSI tech shifted, and the child’s eyes darted to him. Seeing both men hovering, she jerked into action, scurrying backward toward the wall. Once she hit it, she wrapped her arms around her legs again, her gaze shifting between us in fear.

“They’re with the police,” I told her gently. “They’re the good guys. No one here is going to hurt you.”

She didn’t look like she believed me. Her look darted to the door.

“You want to leave?”

She nodded again.

“I can take you somewhere safe.”

Her eyes landed on the dead woman, and a sob broke from her tiny chest. Tears poured over her lashes and down a cheek smeared with blood. She buried her face in her knees, her skinny shoulders shaking.

Fuck.

I wasn’t a kid person. My interactions with them were always awkward and choppy. My mom was desperate for either my brother or me to give her grandbabies, but she wasn’t getting them from me for multiple reasons. I loved my life working undercover for the National Security Agency and had no plans of slowing down or staying in one location long enough for family life to get its hooks in me.

As I lowered myself to my knees, I blocked the child’s view of the dead body. I might have been screwing with evidence, but I was more worried about getting the little girl away from here than protecting what could be found in the trash around her.

I glanced at the men. “We can’t let anyone see her. No one can know she was here.” I hesitated for a beat. “Get me one of the housekeeping carts.”

The officer left the room at a jog.

I turned back to the child, doing my best to soothe her and promising again to take her somewhere safe. She didn’t respond, but she lifted her head, eyes meeting mine in a way that let me know she’d at least heard me. I kept talking softly, and by the time the officer returned with the cart, her shoulders had dropped from her ears. I told her my plan to keep her hidden by bundling her into the laundry bin and wheeling the entire cart into the back of the CSI van where we’d take her to the police station.

When I reached out my gloved hand, she just stared at it.

I moved closer, keeping my voice and expression as gentle as possible. “You can’t stay here. I think you know that, right?”

Her gaze did another search of the room, tears still slowly rolling down her sweet face. Finally, she nodded in agreement.

I extended my hand again, and this time, she accepted it. As she stood, I saw blood coated her T-shirt and her arms. None of it appeared to be coming from her, so if I had to guess, I’d say it explained the smear along the victim’s chest.

She’d hugged the dead woman to her.

Double fuck.

Standing, the child seemed somehow even smaller. She was old enough to have lost the tubbiness of toddlerhood, but not old enough for hormones to have found her, so maybe six or seven.

I helped her over the bed frame and started toward the cart the officer had placed between us and Anna Smith. We’d just gotten to it when the little girl pulled away from me and ran to the closet and the ransacked suitcase.

To my surprise, she pulled back the inner lining and withdrew a letter-sized envelope. She pressed it to her chest and then turned wide eyes at me in a face as beautiful as the murder victim’s. They had the same high cheekbones and pointed chins with a fragile, haunted look to their frames—birds with broken wings.

I pushed the cart closer to her. “Is it okay if I lift you up? Put you inside?” When she didn’t respond, I mimed lifting her into the empty laundry basket.

She gave a barely perceptible nod, and I put my hands around her waist and raised her up. She seemed impossibly light as I set her inside. The sense of fragility hit me all over again and, along with it, a deep-seated need to protect her. She sat, still clinging to the envelope before pulling her knees up against her body once more.

“We’re going to cover you with some blankets, okay?” She just stared at me, and I turned to the officer, saying, “Get some from the next room.”

He left and came back, and between the two of us, we settled the blankets over her head.

The room faced the parking lot on the first floor, and the CSI van was parked mere feet away. The officer and I rolled the cart to it, lifting it into the back, and I followed it inside. No way was I leaving her. No way I’d let an eyewitness out of my sight, regardless of her age.

I looked out at the officer from the back of the van, eyeing his nametag for the first time. “Officer Ramirez, we need someone to take us to the station immediately.”

He went to radio it in, and I stopped him. “No. Not over the scanner.”

He stared at me for a second and then headed off.

It was barely two minutes later before he returned, climbing into the driver’s seat and pulling us out of the lot. News vans were parked across the street, and a horde of bystanders stood gaping just beyond the yellow crime-scene tape. I tried to reassure myself that there was no way any of them could have seen the child. No way for them to suspect we were hiding a little girl inside.

As we drove, I talked to her, even though I couldn’t see her. I kept reassuring her she was safe, reassuring her that whatever had happened, she was going to be okay. Words I shouldn’t have been promising, but couldn’t stop myself from offering.

When we got to the downtown precinct, Ramirez drove us to a side entrance and straight into a bay in the department’s garage. I waited until the metal door clanged on the cement behind us before uncovering her. I helped her out of the cart, squatting in front of her.

“We’re going into the police station now. It’ll be safe for you there, but it might be loud and busy. We’ll find somewhere quiet for you and me to sit and talk about what happened. Do you think you can do that? Tell me what you saw?”

Her eyes grew wide, and she shook her head, fear scrolling over her features once more.

“That’s okay, kiddo. It’s okay. How about we just get you inside safe and sound for now?”

I offered her my still-gloved hand, and she took it, clinging to it so tightly it almost hurt.

We made our way out of the van, up the steps, and into the building with Ramirez following us.

“I need somewhere she’ll be comfortable,” I told him.

“We’ve got interrogation rooms, a conference room, or the lunchroom.”

I rolled my eyes at him as none of those places would make this scared girl relax.

“Assistant Chief’s office?” he offered. “He’s on vacation. There’s a couch in there.”

“That’ll work.”

He led us up the stairs and down the hall. The sounds of the station grew on us. Laughter and yelling. Doors slamming. Chairs skidding across the floor. A drunken shout from somewhere deeper inside. The little girl cowered, pushing herself into my leg. I pulled her closer, my arm tightening around her shoulders.

When we made it inside the assistant chief’s office, I led her to a couch shoved up against a wall of glass that showed the bullpen teeming with activity. The rest of the office’s furniture was bland and functional. Government-issued minimalism that made the gray leather sofa stand out as wildly luxurious.

I went to the metal blinds, shutting out the chaos of the bullpen before turning to the officer and saying, “We need blankets. Water. Maybe something to eat.”

Ramirez nodded and left, shutting the door behind him. Immediately, the noise level dropped to a muffled buzz. The guy was younger than me, probably just out of the academy, which was why he’d been guarding the hotel door, but he’d kept his wits together and helped me sneak the little girl out. My instincts said he was going to make a good cop.

By now, I’d worked with enough of them to know the difference. I was only twenty-seven, but I’d seen more things in my four years on the job than most people saw in their lifetime. Ugly and evil things. My dad had tried to ask me about it at Christmas, worried by the seriousness in my eyes, but I’d blown his questions off. He’d given me a look that the soldiers under his command would have trembled at, but that hadn’t made me budge.

Even though my family had watched me grow up wanting to be a spy, my dad was the only one who actually knew my job as an agricultural journalist was a front. I wasn’t sure if he knew which agency I worked for, but then again, as Vice Chief of the National Guard Bureau, he might have pulled enough strings to find out the truth. Either way, he hadn’t shared the news with my former-Secret-Service-agent brother or my mother. I didn’t know who would get in more trouble if Mom ever found out—me for lying, or Dad for keeping the secret.

My gaze returned to the little girl who’d curled into herself once again. Her knees were up at her chest, arms wrapped around them. She had a pair of Vans on her feet with smiling cat faces. They were a bit dirty, but not old. Blood was spattered on the sides of them—evidence we’d need. Her dark-blue jeans and white T-shirt were smeared with blood as well.

My heart nearly gave out as I thought of her watching the woman in the room being sliced up. Thinking of her hugging the dead body to her tiny frame. It was a miracle this girl was alive.

“Can you tell me your name?” I asked.

The little girl looked at me but didn’t say anything.

“Can you tell me what that is?” I asked, referring to the letter she clutched, a splotch of red staining the white envelope.

“Papa.” The word was a mere whisper. A hint of a Mexican accent gave her voice a soft, rhythmic quality.

I was thankful once more for the painful years I spent in Spanish class and for the undercover work I’d done in South America that had improved my skill with the language. I asked her in Spanish, “Is that a letter from him or for him?”

The little girl’s eyes widened, responding in Spanish. “I find him.”

“So you can find him?” My heart sputtered again. “Can I see it? So I can help you find him?”

She looked at the envelope, hesitant and fearful, and then, with a shaking hand, offered it to me.

The writing on the front was bold and feminine, but it was the actual words that hit me like a fist to my solar plexus. For Ryder Hatley.

For all of thirty seconds, my lungs forgot to breathe before the air rushed back into them, painful and raw.

Damn it. Damn it all to hell.

After a bust in Lexington had shown a relatively high amount of chemicals used by ranchers in their cattle feed on the money and the drugs, the task force had begun looking for the leader of the Lovatos at a cattle ranch. We’d divided and conquered. Some individuals went undercover at actual working farms, while I used my fake journalism connections to write an exposé on dude ranches across the country.

Once news broke about a Lovato connection to a biker gang in Willow Creek and a dude ranch there, I’d headed to Tennessee to check it out. But after spending a few weeks at the ranch, I’d cleared the Hatleys of any involvement. Sheriff Hatley was a by-the-book, upstanding kind of guy, and the resort his family ran had been theirs for generations. The money they were pulling in could all be tied neatly back to their legitimate business. The place was thriving but not overly flush.

And yet, I now held a letter in my hand that proved there was a connection.

Something I’d obviously missed. This was a direct link from the Lovatos to the ranch’s manager. The person in charge. The guy who’d gotten a burr up his ass about my questions and been angry enough to cage me against a wall when he’d caught me snooping in his office.

Blue eyes as clear as an evening sky and yet somehow still stormy flashed across my mind.

Blue eyes and dark hair that fell softly over a brow in a way that had my fingers itching to push it away.

A square jaw layered with stubble and a smile that both lit me up and made me want to wipe it off. A hard smile from lips that had punished me for daring him. For taunting him.

Lips that had liquified my insides right before he’d pushed me away as if I’d betrayed him. As if I’d had the worst kind of contagious disease.

I cleared my throat. “This man. Ryder. He’s your father?”

At first, she didn’t move at all, but then she gave a slight nod.

“And the woman in the hotel. She was your mama?”

The little girl’s eyes flooded. She nodded again, buried her face, and sobbed, shoulders shaking violently. I moved instantaneously, pulling her into me and holding on while she cried. A piece of me wanted to cry too. I wasn’t sure if it was in anger or frustration or hurt. Or maybe all three combined.

The last thing I wanted was to see Ryder Hatley again.

I certainly didn’t want to show up with a little girl in tow who was supposedly his.

A child he hadn’t told a soul he had.

A child I couldn’t understand him having and not loving when I’d seen him shower his niece with so much affection it had made me ache for things I’d sworn I’d never want.

I looked down at the letter. I had to read it because it was part of my job, and yet, it felt like another violation Ryder would somehow hold me responsible for. Whatever was in the envelope—whatever it said—I had a sneaking suspicion it was going to change everything. Not only for the task force but for me.