Cowboy's Texas Rescue

“Hey, are you okay?”

She forced a grin. “Yeah, I… It all just hit me. We could have died. Brady could have killed us…What if he comes back here?”

“Then I’ll be ready for him. I won’t let him hurt you, Chelsea. I promise.” Jake reached for her cheek and dried a tear with his thumb. A warm tingle spun through her. His blue eyes held hers, lit with a hard-edged but reassuring determination. A sense of security flowed through her. After the way he’d come through for her already this afternoon, she had no trouble believing Jake could protect her from the escaped convict, should he return.

She studied Jake’s face, admiring the way the fire’s glow highlighted the rugged cut of his cheekbones and square jaw. Good Lord, but he was handsome.

“Who are you, Jake Connelly? And what put you at the right place at the right time to stumble into my nightmare?”

Black Ops Rescues: Putting lives—and hearts—on the line

Dear Reader,

It’s Jake’s turn! in Cowboy’s Texas Rescue, black ops pilot Jake Connelly takes on a Texas-size blizzard and an escaped convict in order to rescue girl-next-door Chelsea Harris. Chelsea’s worst nightmare, being kidnapped at gunpoint by an escaped murderer, turns to fairy tale when ultra-handsome Jake swoops in to save the day. As they survive a massive winter storm together and pursue an escaped felon, Chelsea and Jake learn lessons about unconditional love, sacrifice and redemption.

Cowboy’s Texas Rescue is the last book in my Black Ops Rescues series, and I’ve had so much fun creating these sexy and dangerous guys that I’m sad to see the series end. Action and adventure scenes are my favorite to write, and the Black Ops Rescues series gave me many opportunities to indulge that love. I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know Alec, Daniel and Jake and seeing them find true love. These guys will always be near and dear to my heart. What’s coming up? Three Louisiana brothers. Three babies in jeopardy. Three emotional stories of lost love, edgy danger and the courage to give love a second chance. Watch for the Mansfield brothers coming soon!

Happy reading,

Beth Cornelison

BETH CORNELISON started writing stories as a child when she penned a tale about the adventures of her cat, Ajax. A Georgia native, she received her bachelor’s degree in public relations from the university of Georgia. After working in public relations for a little more than a year, she moved with her husband to Louisiana, where she decided to pursue her love of writing fiction.

Since that first time, Beth has written many more stories of adventure and romantic suspense and has won numerous honors for her work, including a coveted Golden Heart Award in romantic suspense from Romance Writers of America. She is active on the board of directors for the North Louisiana Storytellers and Authors of Romance (NOLA STARS) and loves reading, traveling, Peanuts’ Snoopy and spending down-time with her family.

She writes from her home in Louisiana, where she lives with her husband, one son and two cats who think they are people. Beth loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at PO Box 5418, Bossier City, LA 71171, USA, or visit her website, www.bethcornelison.com.

Cowboy’s Texas

Rescue

Beth Cornelison

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For Paul, who loves me just the way I am.

Thanks to Rita® winner and author extraodinaire Darynda Jones for lending her name to Chelsea’s neighbor and for sharing her dog Dooley for the story. Thanks, Darynda, for supporting the NOLA STARs!

Thanks to Jodi Israel, who won the chance to be a secondary character through the Brenda Novak Diabetes Auction for the Cure in May 2012!

Thanks also to Aida Alberto for allowing me to feature her cat Nela in the story.

Thank you to Carmen Parks, who won the chance to have her dog Sadie featured through the PAWS of Northeast Louisiana online auction.

Prologue

Jake Connelly crept down the corridor of the underground bunker, his senses on full alert and his Colt M4A1 assault rifle at the ready. When his black ops team reached the reinforced steel door at the end of the dim passageway, they moved silently into position—or as silently as they could while wearing CBRN suits. The military issue, head-to-toe protective clothing, designed to protect a soldier from chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear contamination, was cumbersome but critical for this op.

His team leader signaled for the men up front to work their magic and get them past the relatively low-tech security on the door. Or low-tech for a U.S. black ops team. Not so low-tech for a developing nation, even if that nation’s government had the means to kidnap a nuclear scientist and consign him to work in this hidden bunker developing a dirty bomb.

With the door breached, the team leader led the charge into the underground lab, barking in Farsi, “Everyone down! On the floor!”

“Now!” Jake shouted when the lab workers hesitated. “Hands on your head!”

One of the protective suit–clad workers tried to run, and one of Jake’s teammates stepped from the corridor to block the man’s escape. Jake tackled the fleeing worker, landing with a knee-jolting crash on the floor.

The team leader aimed his assault rifle at another man’s head. “On the floor!”

Jake quickly frisked the worker beneath him for weapons and, finding none, jerked the man to his feet. He bound the man’s hands behind him and led the lab tech into the corridor with a rifle muzzle between the man’s shoulder blades.

“Clear the room! Let’s get ’em to the helo.” The team leader whipped out a riot cuff and bound the wrists of the lab worker he had pinned to the floor. “All right, guys, set the fireworks.”

“Move!” Jake shouted in Farsi when his captive resisted. Grabbing the man’s arm, he ran, hauling the combative lab tech behind him. The rest of the team was on Jake’s heels as he sprinted back down the tunnel they’d just cleared of guards and out into the predawn darkness.

Their driver was waiting in an armored SUV, and the team piled into the vehicle, shoving their captives in first, then crowding onto the bench seats, even as their driver hit the gas. They tore away from the nondescript brick building that hid the entrance to the underground bunker, leaving the last two team members to follow in a second vehicle once the C4 and detonators were set.

Their SUV sped through the night-darkened desert the short distance to the helicopter that would get them all out of Dodge. Jake’s copilot, Bruster, had the helo’s turbines whirring, the rotor blade spinning. The bird was ready to take off.

The doors of the SUV popped open as their driver skidded to a stop, and the team disgorged from the vehicle, shoving the captive laboratory workers toward the helicopter.

“All yours, cowboy!” the team leader called to Jake as Jake handed off his prisoner and climbed in the pilot’s seat. “I want us in the air the second the rest of the team gets here.”

“Roger that,” Jake replied, tugging off the hood and breathing mask of his CBRN suit and checking the helo’s controls. When everything was set, he peered through the windshield, searching the night for his teammates’ vehicle. Under his breath he muttered, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. Hurry, guys.”

“Connelly,” Bruster shouted over the noise of the turbine, “HQ radioed earlier for you. You had an emergency call from the States. You’re supposed to report in as soon as we get back to base.”

A chill nipped the back of Jake’s neck as he remembered a different emergency call his family received years before. He frowned as he fastened his seat belt. “What kind of emergency?”

Bruster shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t know. Just delivering the message.”

Jake jerked a nod and scanned the terrain again for their teammates, but his thoughts dwelled on the worrisome message. An emergency call from the States? That didn’t bode well.

“There they are!” the team leader shouted, yanking Jake back to the danger at hand. “Let’s go!”

Jake’s teammates appeared like specters crossing the barren landscape, and Jake had the helo in the air even before the other agents finished clambering aboard.

“Twelve seconds!” the explosives specialist barked, and the team assumed brace positions while Jake and Bruster goosed the helo to move faster, climb higher, get out of range. Now.

Jake swung the bird in a wide arc, gaining as much altitude and latitude as quickly as he could.

“Five seconds,” his teammate called.

Jake took over the countdown in his head.

Four. Three. Two.

He gripped the cyclic tighter. Braced.

One.

Below them, a flash of explosives rocked the tiny building above the bunker. A fraction of a second later, the shock wave hit the helicopter, and Jake steadied the bird as it shuddered and pitched.

Bruster whooped. “How’s that for a kick in the ass?”

“Nice flying, cowboy,” the team leader shouted from behind Jake. “Now let’s go home.”

“Roger that, chief.”

Two hours later, once the nuclear scientist had been secured at the black ops team’s Mideast base and the other lab workers had been detained for debriefing, Jake marched into the communications center. He’d changed out of the CBRN suit into jeans, a T-shirt and his trademark cowboy hat. Scanning the room, he found the officer in charge. “I was told I had an emergency call from the States. What’s up?”

The chief of communications nodded and directed Jake toward a phone near the center of the room. “Your sister called. She’s standing by at the Dallas office to talk to you. Let me patch you through.”

Jake’s heart drummed an anxious rhythm as his call was connected via satellite to a secure line in the States. Moments later, he heard his older sister come on the line, her voice rife with emotion. “Thank God they reached you, Jake. I wasn’t sure they’d find you in time.”

The mission group’s bus was attacked by a militant gang, a long-ago voice echoed in his memory.

Jake squeezed the phone receiver and furrowed his brow. “What’s wrong, Michelle? They told me there was an emergency.”

“There is. It’s Dad.”

Jake’s stomach dropped to his toes, and he held his breath. Not even the shock wave from the bunker explosion had shaken him this hard. “Tell me.”

“He’s had a massive heart attack, Jake. He’s in intensive care at Northwest Texas Hospital in Amarillo and…” She sighed heavily.

Jake swallowed hard. “Will he make it?”

“It’s touch and go. The doctors think…” Michelle paused, clearly struggling to speak. “Jake, you need to come home.”

Chapter 1

A brutal winter storm was looming.

As she crossed the grocery store parking lot, Chelsea Harris cast a worried gaze to the dark clouds rolling in from New Mexico and quickened her step. She still had to stop for gasoline, or her mother’s boat of a car wouldn’t make it all the way back to their rural West Texas ranch house. the gas-guzzling 1985 Cadillac Fleetwood had been her father’s wedding gift to her mother. Despite the worn seats—held together by the always-ready duct tape kept in the glove box—the rusting body and the seemingly monthly repair bills, her mother treasured the car and refused to give it up. Chelsea was babysitting the car, along with her parents’ house, while her folks took a well-deserved and overdue three-week cruise to Hawaii.

An icy wind buffeted her as she keyed open the driver’s door. Hawaii would be nice right about now.

Shivering, Chelsea brushed her long, wind-blown hair from her face and huddled deeper into her pullover sweater. This morning she’d raced out of her parents’ ranch house without a coat, because the temperature had been a balmy sixty-five degrees. But since she’d left for work at the blood center, the temperature had plunged as a cold front moved through town. Thank you, fickle West Texas weather.

Dropping a grocery sack and her purse on the seat beside her, Chelsea cranked the Caddy’s engine, coaxing the car with a muttered, “Come on, Ethyl. I know you hate the cold, but we gotta get home before the storm hits.”

She breathed a sigh of relief when the engine finally caught, and she backed out of her parking space and headed to the gas station down the block. Her own apartment was only a few blocks from the blood center where she worked as a phlebotomist, so she usually rode her bike to work. But her parents’ home, the ranch house she’d grown up in, was twenty-two miles from town, necessitating pressing Ethyl into service. the cost of gasoline to and from town was eating her paycheck for lunch. But how could she refuse her parents’ ranch-sitting request after all they’d done for her through the years?

Chelsea pulled up to the gas pump, cut the engine and gritted her teeth, dreading stepping out into the wintery wind again. The sooner you fill up, the sooner you’ll be home in a hot bath with a glass of wine. The promise of unwinding sounded heavenly, so Chelsea shouldered open the car door and stepped out into the cold.

As she turned toward the gas pump, she almost collided with a disheveled man in orange coveralls who appeared from nowhere. “Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t see—”

“Get in the car!” he growled, jamming something hard in her belly.

She glanced down at the object poking her, and a chill that had nothing to do with the weather raced through her.

A gun. The man had a gun!

Chelsea’s throat dried. Her heart rate spiked. “I d-don’t have any money. I—”

He crowded her, forcing her to step backward, and he opened the driver’s door on the Caddy. “Get in!”

She jolted when he barked the command at her. He shoved the gun harder into her ribs, and panic flooded Chelsea’s brain. Sheer survival instinct kicked in. With her heart pounding a frantic cadence, she slid back onto the driver’s seat.

The gunman climbed in the backseat, moving the muzzle of his weapon to the base of her skull, and grated, “Drive.”

“But—”

“Drive!” His shouted order brooked no resistance.

Hands shaking, Chelsea cranked the engine again and pulled away from the pump. “Wh-where are we going?”

“Just drive! And don’t try anything stupid. I’ve already killed two cops today to make my getaway. I’ll shoot you without blinking if you give me trouble.”

He leaned over the front seat and snatched her mother’s GPS from its mount on the dashboard. After he’d pushed a few buttons, the disembodied voice of the GPS intoned. “Go home?”

He tapped the screen, and the GPS voice said, “Continue west on Highway 244 for one point six miles, then turn left.”

Chelsea’s stomach pitched. The last thing she wanted was for this cretin to know where her parents lived. She bit her lower lip and met the guy’s dark glare in the rearview mirror. Okay, maybe the last thing she wanted was to be raped and tortured to death. But having him know where she was staying ranked near the top.

“You live with anyone?” he asked.

“Wh-what?” Dividing her attention between the road and monitoring the man in her backseat, Chelsea fought the panic swelling in her chest. She needed to keep her head if she was going to survive, but the constant pressure of his gun against her skull made it difficult to think calmly.

“It’s an easy question. Do you live with anyone? Will there be anyone else at your house when we get there?”

“It’s my parents’ house.”

He jabbed her again with the gun. “And are Mommy and Daddy home?”

She considered lying for a moment, but the gun poking the base of her skull gave her pause. She wasn’t a good liar, and if he guessed she was bluffing…“N-no. I’m house-sitting while they’re out of town.”

A leering grin twisted his mouth. “Perfect.”

The lettering stenciled on the breast pocket of his jumpsuit caught her attention. Texas Department of Criminal Justice—Inmate. Her pulse spiked, and she sputtered, “Y-you’re a prison inmate?”

He leered at her via the rearview mirror. “Not anymore.”

Her mouth dried remembering his warning that he’d already killed two cops today. No doubt the gun he wielded had been stolen from one of the cops.

“Wh-who are you? What do you want from me?”

“For now, all I want is a ride out of town, maybe a place to hole up for a little while, until I can plan my next move.”

She noticed he didn’t give her his name. Not that she really expected him to.

“Then you don’t h-have any place in mind you’re heading? No one on the outside is helping you?”

“You’re helping me now, aren’t ya?” Another leer.

Chelsea swallowed hard. Dear God, she was aiding and abetting a criminal. But under duress. They wouldn’t convict her for helping a prisoner escape under duress, would they? Her heart stutter-stepped. Lord, she hoped not.

As she approached the turn for the highway to her parents’ house, she considered driving straight. The road to her parents’ ranch was long and nearly deserted. She had a much greater chance of finding help if she stayed on this road. She accelerated as they neared the turnoff, then cringed when her mother’s GPS reminded her to turn left.

“Turn, damn it!” he yelled as they reached the intersection.

Gulping oxygen, she cut the wheel hard, and Ethyl’s tires squealed as they whipped a sharp turn at the last second.

The man shot her a dark look and jabbed harder with the gun. “You weren’t gonna turn, were ya?” He smacked the back of her head with the butt of his gun, and pain ricocheted through her head.

Narrowing a lethal glare on her, he growled, “I warned you not to pull anything! Drive me to your house, or I will shoot you and drive myself! Got it, girlie?”

Chelsea drew a shuddering breath and nodded. Just do as he says, and you might stay alive, the voice of fear and caution whispered to her.

Tears filled her eyes as a sense of futility and helplessness rushed over her the farther she got from town. She didn’t want to die. But she didn’t want to go down without at least attempting to save herself either.

As her initial shock and panic settled into an even level of terror, Chelsea mentally raced through her options. Could she crash the car into something and make a run for it?

She glanced around the isolated stretch of ranchland and saw nothing but miles of flat, empty earth. No trees, no roadside buildings, not even a highway sign substantial enough to make Ethyl undrivable. And if she did crash her mother’s Caddy out here, where would she run? her captor would shoot her before she took three steps.

Despair wrenched her chest, and she blinked back the tears that gathered in her eyes. Could she somehow get the gun away from him? He didn’t look all that well muscled, but he was taller and was most likely stronger than she was.

She cut her eyes to her purse, where her cell phone was nestled in a front pocket. If she could distract him, could she dial 9-1-1 before he stopped her?

She met his gaze in the mirror again, and his eyes narrowed with suspicion before darting to her purse.

“Don’t even think about it, girlie.” He grabbed her purse and dragged it into the backseat with him. “You got a gun in here or something?”

“N-no.”

He started rifling through her purse, and Chelsea’s skin crawled, seeing him touch her personal things. She squeezed the steering wheel, searching for another plan of escape when Ethyl’s engine coughed.

The man’s head came up. “What was that?”

“I don’t—”

The motor sputtered again, and a sinking realization settled over her, as dark as the clouds rolling in from the west.

Ethyl choked again as the man leaned over the front seat to scan the dashboard lights and gauges. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing. But we—”

The engine sputtered loudly and cut off. Icy dread shimmied through Chelsea.

Her captor ground the muzzle into her nape and grated, “Don’t screw around with me, sister. I’ll blow your damn head off!”

Chelsea whimpered fearfully and cleared her throat as she coasted to the side of the road and stopped the car. “It’s not me! I swear. W-we’re out of gas!”

“A winter storm warning has been issued for the Texas panhandle and parts of New Mexico and Oklahoma, with accumulations of two feet or more of snow and ice possible tonight along with high winds and temperatures dropping into the mid-twenties,” the radio announcer droned from the speakers of Jake Connelly’s F-150.

“No kidding.” Jake leaned forward to peer through his windshield at the line of dark clouds gathered on the horizon. The readout on his truck’s thermometer said the temperature outside had dropped ten degrees just in the past thirty minutes. The cold front was closing in fast. He checked his truck’s clock and mentally calculated his arrival time at his dad’s house near Amarillo. He might just make it before the storm hit, if he hurried.

“In other news, an inmate escaped this afternoon from a Texas work detail, killing two police officers in the process.”

Jake turned the radio volume down and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he sent another considering glance to the clouds and hedged. Maybe he should go straight to the hospital and ride out the storm there. Michelle had said time was of the essence.

“Authorities are still searching for Edward Brady, convicted six years ago for armed robbery and two counts of second-degree murder. The public is warned that Brady is armed with a handgun belonging to one of the fallen officers and should be considered extremely dangerous. Brady is described as having—”

Jake snapped off the radio. Even the suggestion that he might not get home in time to see his dad made Jake’s chest tighten. Regret and concern sat heavily on his lungs. His dad had been so proud of him for being chosen for the elite black ops team, but the demands of the job kept him away from his family for months at a time. He’d missed last Christmas and hadn’t made time to visit his father in more than a year. When Jake had apologized to his dad during their two-days-late Christmas call, his father had dismissed Jake’s absence, saying, “The work you’re doing is important. You’re making a difference. I understand.”

But Jake had heard an undertone of disappointment in his dad’s voice in that call that knifed his heart now.

Time is of the essence.

Jake nudged the gas pedal, bumping up his speed. He’d never forgive himself if he didn’t make it home before his dad died.

Chelsea cringed as the escaped inmate cursed a blue streak, railing in her face. Spittle flew from his mouth as he blasted her with invectives and blamed her for their predicament.