Someone To Protect Her

Only an idiot would have kissed the stubborn scientist…

And maybe Frank was. What had he been thinking? This was no romantic tryst, but a serious situation. Not that romance was his specialty, anyway. Every man had deficiencies, and that happened to be his.

Realizing she hadn’t budged from her precarious spot on the edge of the slope, he cursed. He had to get her down. “What are you waiting for?”

“For hell to freeze over!” she yelled back in a very unladylike manner.

“Consider it frozen! Don’t make me come up there, C.J., or so help me—”

“What? What is it you’ll do to me?”

He heard the panic in her voice, and thought quickly of how he could defuse it. “I’ll kiss you again! Only I won’t stop there—I’ll touch you in places you didn’t know you had. Before I’m through, you’ll be begging me to make love to you!”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

What’s bigger than Texas…? Montana! This month, Harlequin Intrigue takes you deep undercover to the offices of MONTANA CONFIDENTIAL. You loved the series when it first premiered in the Lone Star State, so we’ve created a brand-new set of sexy cowboy agents for you farther north in Big Sky country. Patricia Rosemoor gets things started in Someone To Protect Her. Three more installments follow—and I can assure you, you won’t want to miss one!

Amanda Stevens concludes her dramatic EDEN’S CHILDREN miniseries with The Forgiven. All comes full circle in this redemptive story that reunites mother and child.

What would you do if your “wife” came back from the dead? Look for In His Wife’s Name for the answer. In a very compelling scenario, Joyce Sullivan explores the consequences of a hidden identity and a desperate search for the truth.

Rounding out the month is the companion story to Harper Allen’s miniseries THE AVENGERS. Sullivan’s Last Stand, like its counterpart Guarding Jane Doe, is a deeply emotional story about a soldier of fortune and his dedication to duty. Be sure to pick up both titles by this exceptional new author.

Cowboys, cops—action, drama…it’s just another month of terrific romantic suspense from Harlequin Intrigue.

Happy reading!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Someone to Protect Her

Patricia Rosemoor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Patricia Rosemoor is the recipient of the 1997 Career Achievement Award in Romantic Suspense from Romantic Times Magazine. To research her novels, Patricia is willing to swim with dolphins, round up mustangs or howl with wolves…. “Whatever it takes to write a credible tale.” She even went to jail for a day—as a guest of Cook County—to research a proposal. Ms. Rosemoor holds a Master of Television degree and a B.A. degree in American literature from the University of Illinois. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Edward, and their three cats.

Books by Patricia Rosemoor

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

38—DOUBLE IMAGES

55—DANGEROUS ILLUSIONS

74—DEATH SPIRAL

81—CRIMSON HOLIDAY

95—AMBUSHED

113—DO UNTO OTHERS

121—TICKET TO NOWHERE

161—PUSHED TO THE LIMIT

163—SQUARING ACCOUNTS

165—NO HOLDS BARRED

199—THE KISS OF DEATH

219—TORCH JOB

243—DEAD HEAT

250—HAUNTED

283—SILENT SEA

291—CRIMSON NIGHTMARE

317—DROP DEAD GORGEOUS

346—THE DESPERADO

361—LUCKY DEVIL

382—SEE ME IN YOUR DREAMS*

386—TELL ME NO LIES*

390—TOUCH ME IN THE DARK*

439—BEFORE THE FALL

451—AFTER THE DARK

483—NEVER CRY WOLF*

499—A LOVER AWAITS

530—COWBOY JUSTICE

559—HEART OF A LAWMAN†

563—THE LONE WOLF’S CHILD†

567—A RANCHER’S VOW†

629—SOMEONE TO PROTECT HER

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Frank Connolly—The former military pilot vows to protect his charge with his life.

C. J. Birch—The brilliant scientist is knowledgeable about everything but men.

Gilad—The mercenary’s mission is to convert or kill C.J. His reputation is on the line, and he has never failed yet.

Jewel McMurty—The adolescent experiences the pangs of first love for Frank.

Daniel Austin—The Montana Confidential team leader is faced with stopping danger from several directions at once.

Knowing nothing about planes, flying or transporting horses by air when I started this book, I must give credit to those who gave me the information I needed to select the correct plane that could both transport horses and land in the mountains and to write a realistic controlled crash.

Thanks to writers Vickie Spears, Cassandra Blizzard, Mary Adamski and Harriet Robbins Ackert. To pilot Clifford Wells and his wife, D.J. And to horse transporter Carl Webster.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Prologue

The photograph didn’t do her justice.

He studied the woman hiding behind the too-big lab coat and glasses. Innocent and unsuspecting, she was standing before the building nestled into the Rocky Mountain foothills, shading her eyes against the brilliant Colorado sun as if she were looking for someone.

Him?

He imagined her letting go of her too-obvious inhibitions, letting down her hair and begging him to thread his fingers through the honey-blond strands. He could almost see her throwing back her head and arching her long, elegant throat in invitation.

He chuckled…merely a way to amuse himself while waiting. Nothing got in the way of business—neither the job he was being paid for or his own agenda.

He ran a forefinger over the photograph. “The subject is in view.”

“She doesn’t see you watching her, does she?” came the hollow voice through his headset.

Keeping himself from turning off the cell phone clipped to his belt in irritated response, he clenched his jaw and said, “I’m invisible.”

“Invisible” being one of his specialties, the reason he had been hired.

At the moment, he was camouflaged behind the handicapped card dangling from his rearview mirror. Physically fit people avoided looking at those with disabilities, as if the condition were contagious. And the card was his invitation to a parking spot right near the entrance of the National Center for Aquatic Research, where British scientist C. J. Birch worked.

For the moment, anyway.

“What is she doing?”

Other than taking a candy bar from her pocket and breaking off a chunk of chocolate?

“Leaving the premises, I assume.”

“Well, don’t let her get away!”

Watching the chocolate disappear into her full, unpainted mouth made him stir in his seat.

He could take her here. Now. Right from under the noses of the unsuspecting employees who threaded the grounds. But that might call attention to himself, the last thing he wanted.

Besides, he had a personal debt to collect and this situation would give him the opportunity for which he’d been waiting.

Two men, also in lab coats, exited the building and stopped to talk to the woman. Had she been waiting for them? It seemed so when they all started for the parking lot together.

“She won’t get away from me,” he murmured more to himself than to his contact. “She’s not alone now, but I’ll find the right moment to get to her and soon.”

“How soon—”

“I’ll let you know when I have her.”

Ripping the headset from his ears, he turned off the cell phone and cut the connection before the impatient man could make any more ridiculous demands.

He turned the key in the ignition. The engine hummed to life and his vehicle quietly slid from its spot to stalk her.

The woman was walking with the men and yet not, he noticed. She kept to one side of the pair and left a gap that bespoke volumes about her comfort zone with the opposite sex. An incentive—like any predator, he enjoyed playing with his prey before consuming it.

He was a professional, hired but not hurting for money, not needing the work. What he needed—demanded—was stimulation. Excitement. A challenge. Something clever to add to the mystique of his reputation.

He never duplicated a job.

Never failed, either.

Never.

Chapter One

“Gran told me you’re originally from South Dakota, not Montana. How come you didn’t say so? What about your family?” Jewel McMurty asked in her rapid-fire style. “You don’t have a wife and kids, do you?”

The twelve-year-old’s bright green eyes pinned Frank Connolly as he washed the dust from a chestnut quarter horse named Sierra Sunrise, who’d topped his racing career at more than a million dollars in winnings. Now the lucky devil would be standing at stud, getting his chance with a different vixen or two on a daily basis.

“Just a brother. He’s the one with the wife and kids. And his own ranch.”

“So why aren’t you there?”

“Got a job to do.” Ostensibly to work with the horses on Lonesome Pony, though his real job as a Montana Confidential agent was equally vital and a lot more dangerous. He’d barely had time to stow his gear before he was put to work when he’d arrived several days before. “Which you’re keeping me from doing.”

Lonesome Pony. He knew all about being lonesome. Figured the girl did, too. Her parents were divorced, and she’d been bundled off to live with her grandparents for a while—no one her own age to hang with. Desperate for attention, she’d been following him around like a lost puppy ever since he’d arrived, and he hadn’t been hardhearted enough to discourage her. Like all kids, she had a million questions, mostly personal, mostly about the past he didn’t want to talk about. Damned if he’d be telling her his sob story. He didn’t want to think about Bosnia, no less share the nightmare with a kid.

He gave Jewel a playful squirt with the hose. While she shrieked with laughter, she stayed put.

“I can help, you know.”

“These boys think they’re hot stuff,”

Frank said, indicating the trio of stallions that had been delivered barely an hour before. “I wouldn’t want a little thing like you to get trampled.”

“Little?” All gangly limbs, she drew herself up as tall as she could and still missed the five-foot mark. “I’m nearly a woman!”

Thinking she’d be insulted if any laughter dared escape his lips, Frank bit the inside of his cheek. “You could do me a big favor, then.”

“What?” she asked, young voice ripe with suspicion.

“Take care of Silver over there.”

He indicated the pasture across from the main house, where an old gelding that had been sent over from a nearby spread stared out at the action he couldn’t join.

He looked lonesome, too.

“Yeah, I saw him come in this morning,” Jewel said. “Why is he all by himself? And how come he limps? What’s wrong with him?”

“He got hit by a truck on a ranch road a while back. This here’s gonna be his retirement range.”

“Hit by a truck?” Jewel’s expression went solemn. “He’s going to be okay, though, right?”

As okay as a thirty-year-old, badly injured horse could be, Frank thought.

What he said was, “He’ll always have that bum hip. Can’t keep up with his pals, so he could use some human attention—lots of good grooming, tasty treats and smooth talk. You up to that?”

Jewel nodded and eyed the mottled white horse. “I’m very reliable. Ask Gran or Gramps. They’ll tell you.”

Gran and Gramps were Dale and Patrick McMurty, the elderly caretakers who lived in the main house with Daniel Austin, head of operations for Montana Confidential. Dale cooked and kept house, while Patrick was a crack handyman.

Patrick also happened to be a retired military man who knew how to keep his own counsel about what really was going on underground at Lonesome Pony—that the ranch was a cover for Montana Confidential, a division of the Department of Public Safety.

Frank dug into a pocket and pulled out a plastic bag filled with apple chunks. Sierra Sunrise nosed his arm and Frank slipped him a treat. He stored a few pieces in a vest pocket and held out the bag.

“You can start with these.”

Jewel’s smile was brilliant. Snatching the offering from his hand as eagerly as had the stallion, she whipped around, her long blond ponytail bobbing.

And, now uninterrupted, Frank quickly went to work. The horses enjoyed the spray of water and soapy scrub. And they didn’t refuse the apple chunks he’d kept back for them. He always carried treats when working around horses. And being big-money boys, these stallions were used to lots of pampering and attention.

He wondered if they’d miss the track. They’d spent their young lives running fast, being caught in the limelight. He knew a little about that, too. But he’d gladly left the limelight to others—so maybe the boys would feel the same.

Besides, Frank thought, catching sight of a pretty golden mare nosing her way through the slats of the pasture fence, they had compensations. The soft-eyed mare peered out at them and whickered flirtatiously. The stallions snorted and stomped and did their best to look studly in return. Frank grinned. The mating dance had begun. Slipping the boys into their own individual paddocks outside the barn, he checked his watch—just about time for the meeting.

Awaiting him was the fancy log house with its wide porch overlooking the pasture, and beyond that, the mountains. He could get used to living in Yellowstone country with its spectacular alpine scenery. The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness lay to the east, the foothills of the Gallatins to the west. A man couldn’t ask for a prettier home.

Or a more unusual one.

Lonesome Pony had been a guest ranch for decades—hence a bunch of rifle and archery ranges and horseshoe pits plus a fancy circular corral for those former Friday night rodeos still lined the fine-gravel walk between the house and barn. On the other side of the property, a hut well-stocked with gear stood near the bend in Crooked Creek, which provided some of the most spectacular fly-fishing in the country. But the oddest thing to Frank was the swimming pool surrounded by cabins, providing separate living quarters for him and the other agents.

At least he would have his privacy, something he treasured after months of enforced communal living in a stinking hole.

Ahead, the McMurtys stood in the small garden to one side of the house.

Wisps of thinning white hair sticking out from the brimmed hat pulled low over his sun-leathered face, Patrick dumped a sack onto the ground. “Are you gonna stand there so you can tell me every move to make, woman?”

“Only if I want you to get it right the first time,” Dale said, fists on her ample hips.

“If you don’t like the way I do things—”

“I know. Do it myself. But if I don’t participate, you’ll think I’m ignoring you.”

“We could try it that way and see for sure,” Patrick suggested slyly.

Frank figured they’d keep things lively for his boss—if they didn’t drive the man crazy with their bickering.

Dale spotted Frank. “I don’t know why I’ve put up with this old buzzard for nearly forty years. He can’t keep a civil tongue around me.”

Patrick mimicked her. “If I did, you’d think I was ignoring you.”

“Sounds to me like true love,” Frank said, pushing back painful memories of his own.

Before the McMurtys could respond, a shrill voice came from the other direction. “No, Daddy! No!”

Carrying his cranky daughter from the cabin area, Kyle Foster, one of the other agents, spoke to her in a low, soothing voice. “Mrs. Mac is going to take good care of you for just a little while.”

The blond moppet screwed up her face and began to wail “Da-a-a-d-dy!” as she fisted his shirt. She looked so fragile pressed against her father’s broad, solid frame.

“Shh, honey. You be a big girl and I’ll let you ride your pony later. You want to ride Ribbons, don’t you?”

Molly rubbed her eyes with balled fists. Even to an old bachelor like Frank, it was evident the three-year-old needed a nap. He caught Kyle’s attention and indicated he was heading for the house. Looking as if he were about to tear out his sandy brown hair, Kyle nodded.

“You take a nice nap for me,” Dale chimed in, “and when you wake up, I’ll have some homemade oatmeal cookies with lots of raisins for you.”

Frank didn’t know if it was the promise of the pony ride or the cookies that sealed the deal, but Molly finally allowed the housekeeper to take her from her father. Kyle caught up to him at the long porch that fronted the main house.

“I don’t know if I was cut out for this—not the job, but being a single father.”

“Being a responsible parent takes more work than any profession, that’s for certain. But I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it.”

Frank knew all about Kyle Foster, bomb specialist. He’d been a hero until a bomb scare had gone wrong and his partner had died in the explosion. Guilt had plummeted Kyle out of the L.A. force, but law enforcement was obviously in his blood, for he hadn’t resisted Daniel’s recruiting tactics. Frank didn’t envy Kyle’s having to balance a dangerous job with parental responsibilities, but, unfortunately, his wife had left him no choice when she’d dumped her child as well as her husband for a Hollywood film producer.

They entered the house. The big open living area bespoke its past as “Dude Ranch Meeting Central.”

The former lounge and lobby rose two stories, as did the massive fireplace constructed from local river rock. A moose head balefully looked down at them through glass eyes. Over the middle of the room hung a chandelier of elk horn. And a cast-iron bighorn sheep challenged them from the windowed area where Daniel stood, back to them, phone to his ear.

“Yeah, Mitch, so far, so good. The locals don’t suspect anything.”

Frank knew Daniel was talking to Mitchell Forbes, who had run the Texas Confidential operation. Daniel had worked as an agent there, and though he had retired from active duty, he’d been asked to start a branch of the agency in Montana where a serious terrorist threat had the Department of Public Safety worried.

“They just figure I’m a crazy man for wanting to become a rancher at my age in this economic climate. They treat me with friendly tolerance.” Daniel turned and silently greeted his two agents. He indicated he’d only be a minute. “Uh-huh.”

Frank threw himself onto one of the club chairs upholstered in a Navajo pattern and appreciatively gazed at the framed photographs lining the opposite wall—a turn-of-the-century chronicle of the railroad, rodeos and roundups of the area.

“I’m not looking forward to baby-sitting her, that’s for certain,” Daniel was saying. “I’m only doing it as a favor to the director. Listen. Frank and Kyle are here, and I want to meet with them, fill them in and make sure that we have what we need.”

The Montana Confidential operation was just getting off the ground. So far, the men had been busy building their cover. Frank didn’t mind working with the horses—a side benefit of the job, actually—but he was eager for an assignment.

When Daniel hung up, Frank asked, “So who are you baby-sitting?”

“Whitney MacNair.”

“Of the Washington and Martha’s Vineyard MacNairs?” Kyle asked.

The nation’s second family of American politics, Frank knew. As a MacNair, Whitney had grown up privileged and pampered and in the spotlight. Her face was better-known to him than any cover girl’s.

“The same,” Daniel agreed. “Her family was furious when the press ran with the story about her accepting gifts from her boss and they quickly yanked her out of the limelight.”

Her boss being the very married Senator Ross Weston. Frank mused, “Odd that she’s being sent here, to Weston’s home state.”

“Her father asked the Director of the Department of Public Safety for a favor, and since I needed an assistant…” Daniel ran a hand through his blond hair and shrugged. “We’ll make it work somehow. Weston’s not from these parts, anyhow, so I don’t imagine him showing up on our doorstep anytime soon. Now, gentlemen, let’s get down to business.”

“Down” being a secret room built below the study.

They followed Daniel into a room off the main living area. It appeared to be a typical if spacious office with a computer desk and seating area and a spectacular view of the mountains. The walls were lined with builtin bookshelves. Daniel went to an inner wall and reached behind a book of Montana photographs. A click and the section of bookshelf swung open.

“Gentlemen…”

Frank led the way into an elevator car, Kyle following, Daniel bringing up the rear. He slid the bookshelf unit back in place and hit the down button. The machinery no more than whispered its presence as the car descended to the secret “war” room below.

“I haven’t even had time to check out the equipment,” Daniel said. “I’m sure we’ll have to shake out some bugs in the system before we’re operating smoothly.”

Computers, fax machines and telephones awaited in the communications center. The men split up and for the next hour or so thoroughly checked out the electronics.

Frank put one of the computers through its paces. Once satisfied all was as it should be, he left the area to check out the rest of the quarters. Locked cabinets—weapons and ammunition—lined one of the lowceilinged walls. Another work area held listening devices and cameras. He noted a red warning light perched over a nearby closed door. Lab for surveillance photography, he guessed. They had everything they would need to do their jobs and then some.

Daniel and Kyle caught up with him; they took seats around a large conference table where materials were already laid out. Enough for four men, Frank noted, when only the three of them were present.

He asked, “So are we it for now?”

“For however long it is until Special Agent Court Brody arrives,” Daniel agreed.

“FBI,” Kyle muttered. “Suit-and-tie law enforcement. Yeah, he’ll blend in with the locals, all right.”

“Actually, he’ll blend better than any of us.” At the far end of the table, Daniel fiddled with what looked to be one of several dossiers spread out in front of him. “Brody grew up in this neck of the mountains—a positive for us. And he’s only on loan from the FBI until I can recruit another permanent agent.”

“As long as he doesn’t think he’s in charge and doesn’t get in our way,” Frank said.

He had no fondness for special agents, not after the Bosnia debriefing.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to stay out of your way.”

As one, all three men at the table turned toward the deep voice coming from the other side of the room.

Speaking of the devil…

Court Brody had sneaked up on them all. He stood at the elevator, arms crossed over his chest, eyes hidden by sunglasses undoubtedly meant to intimidate.