Free The Millionaire Cowboy's Secret by Karen Whiddon Page B

exactly into ATF’s hands, giving them a better chance to catch him red-handed, selling ammunition to the Mexicans.
    * * *
    After she left Matt, Skylar wandered back to her trailer. She greeted an agitated and confused Talia, put her on a leash and then went outside. She sat on the steps, watching the sunrise and waiting to see the full extent of the damage. The air, which should have smelled of grass and horses, was still tainted by smoke.
    She felt restless, lonely and aching. Normally, thinking of the happy life she’d once had brought on this kind of melancholy. But this time, she hadn’t been thinking of her husband and son. She’d been thinking about Matt and the beautiful, terrified horses.
    She’d experienced all kinds of evil in her career, first as a police officer and then as a federal agent. She thought she’d grown a thick shell, able to unflinchingly experience the various malevolent wickedness of humanity.
    Except for children and animals. Innocents who couldn’t protect themselves had no place in the immoral battles of evil men.
    She’d reviewed the case files and gone over every possible scenario, from the cartel guys swarming the ranch with guns blazing to Matt trying to run a truck full of ammo secretly into Mexico.
    What she hadn’t foreseen was the possibility that they’d attack the horses. Again the scene replayed in her mind—the terrified animals, the panicked screams of the stallion, and the fire, brutal and uncaring and swift.
    Skylar took her oath to protect and uphold the law seriously. She would have died trying to get the horses out. In fact, she could have died. Only by the capricious grace of fate had she been able to escape unscathed.
    Matt had been the only person there who’d shared her exact same determination. And while she intellectually knew that most men were complex and had many sides, for the first time she couldn’t reconcile the two. How could a man who cared so much for his horses be involved with the brutal Mexican drug cartels?
    While she was an old hand at working undercover, never before had the lines been so blurred. Usually, it was pretty easy to tell the bad guy from the good. And while even villains had their reasons and never seemed to view themselves as evil, she’d always been able to spot them a mile away.
    Not this time. José, maybe. But Matt? The more she was around him, the more difficult it was to imagine him doing something like selling munitions to the Mexican cartel with full knowledge of what they’d do with the bullets.
    As an ATF agent and, more specifically, as a grieving wife and mother, she knew exactly what kind of harm bullets could do. This was one of the reasons she’d left the police force to work for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
    Sighing, she shifted her weight on the bottom step. Talia whined, her brown gaze fixed on her mistress. Absently, Skylar scratched the dog’s neck, letting her pet know not to worry. With a sigh, the border collie sank to the ground and, resting her head on her paws, dozed.
    Once again, Skylar experienced the gut-wrenching pain of losing her son. She blinked, trying not to remember the sight of his still, small body covered in blood. At that moment—hell, at any moment—if she’d been able to change places and die in his place, she would have.
    As her eyes filled with tears, she clenched her teeth. Focus. Focus. She had a job to do and she’d damn well do it right. If Matt Landeta truly was guilty of selling ammunition illegally to the Mexicans, she’d make the bust. No matter how much she liked him.
    As the sun rose higher in the cloudless sky, Skylar tried to puzzle out the problem. She couldn’t afford a mistake with potentially the biggest bust of her career.
    So what was wrong? Ever since the bank holdup that had robbed her of everything, she’d made a habit of being brutally honest with herself. She wouldn’t change that now.
    She zeroed in on the one aberration. Her attraction