TWICE A TARGET
Task Force Eagle - Protecting their country & the women they love
Book 4
Although part of a series, this is a stand-alone with its own conclusion.
Book 4
Although part of a series, this is a stand-alone with its own conclusion.
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WINNER: Write Touch Readers' Award “TWICE A TARGET gives you heart-pounding excitement from beginning to end.” –Fresh Fiction “Plenty of mystery and intrigue... The characters are fantastic.” –Crystal Lanham on Goodreads Coming Jan. 29, 2025 from The Wild Rose Press Also available here: Amazon Kindle - Amazon print - Barnes & Noble - iTunes/Apple - Kobo - BooksAMillion - Indiebound |
He doesn’t want a woman he can’t trust, and she doesn’t want a man who won’t let himself trust her.
DEA Agent Holt Donovan’s mission to trap Mexican cartel kingpin El Águila ends in a disastrous gunfight. Before the task force can regroup, the death of Holt’s younger brother and sister-in-law in a car crash sends him home to run the family’s debt-burdened Colorado ranch and raise his infant nephew. Grief-stricken and suspicious, he sets out to prove the crash was no accident but murder. He has to fend off a custody suit by the baby’s grandparents and needs
child-care help in a big way, but not from the pampered female who jilted his brother eight years ago.
Enter Maddy McCoy, Holt’s first love and his brother’s ex-fiancée. Emailed by a friend about the deaths, she arrives to offer condolences.
The world-traveling photographer never expected to return to Colorado but couldn’t resist returning to the Rockies, the only real home she ever had and to the man she never forgot. Holt taunts her about her past defection and her jet-set ways until her grief over his brother’s death makes him back off. Looking to Maddy for help is Holt’s last resort and he expects her to bolt at any time, but he asks her to stay on as nanny. Burned out from covering too many starving children and refugees, short on funds, and stranded, Maddy agrees, but she’ll remain only as long as she can keep her heart safe.
What neither knows is that by bringing Maddy into his home, Holt has placed her in the cross-hairs of a vengeful killer. As Holt and Maddy cope with their desire for each other and the resentments of the past, their investigation into the brother’s death leads them into escalating danger and a shocking discovery.
***Below the excerpt is a downloadable recipe, the Turkish Vegetable Stew Maddy cooks for Holt. I make this on a regular basis, a great winter meal!
DEA Agent Holt Donovan’s mission to trap Mexican cartel kingpin El Águila ends in a disastrous gunfight. Before the task force can regroup, the death of Holt’s younger brother and sister-in-law in a car crash sends him home to run the family’s debt-burdened Colorado ranch and raise his infant nephew. Grief-stricken and suspicious, he sets out to prove the crash was no accident but murder. He has to fend off a custody suit by the baby’s grandparents and needs
child-care help in a big way, but not from the pampered female who jilted his brother eight years ago.
Enter Maddy McCoy, Holt’s first love and his brother’s ex-fiancée. Emailed by a friend about the deaths, she arrives to offer condolences.
The world-traveling photographer never expected to return to Colorado but couldn’t resist returning to the Rockies, the only real home she ever had and to the man she never forgot. Holt taunts her about her past defection and her jet-set ways until her grief over his brother’s death makes him back off. Looking to Maddy for help is Holt’s last resort and he expects her to bolt at any time, but he asks her to stay on as nanny. Burned out from covering too many starving children and refugees, short on funds, and stranded, Maddy agrees, but she’ll remain only as long as she can keep her heart safe.
What neither knows is that by bringing Maddy into his home, Holt has placed her in the cross-hairs of a vengeful killer. As Holt and Maddy cope with their desire for each other and the resentments of the past, their investigation into the brother’s death leads them into escalating danger and a shocking discovery.
***Below the excerpt is a downloadable recipe, the Turkish Vegetable Stew Maddy cooks for Holt. I make this on a regular basis, a great winter meal!
Excerpt from Chapter 1
Colorado
Holt stared at the mountain vista he’d missed like a lost limb. April’s snow-edged meadows rose into the verdant shades of Ponderosa pines and budding aspens. To the distant southeast, the lowering sun painted a magenta wash on the slopes of Pikes Peak. He swore in this valley he could hear the heartbeat of the mountains.
He should be enjoying the spring with Rob. Grief squeezed his heart. A man wasn’t supposed to lose his younger brother. And sure as hell not the way he’d planned to return and take up the reins of the ranch. With his mug of coffee in hand, he turned away and sank onto a chair at the kitchen table.
“I’d stay if I could, you know I would.” Esperanza O’Grady folded the dishtowel on its rack over the sink and flicked off the country music radio station she favored. She cocked her head and smoothed back raven hair edged with silver. The housekeeper’s Ute heritage shone in her burnished visage. “Two days a week is all I can give you from now on.”
“That’s okay, Espie. Two days is all I can afford after this. You’ve done more than anybody else, and I appreciate it.”
Espie’d worked part-time on this ranch since he was a kid. Her tenure began before his and Rob’s mother left and continued after Rob married. Gradually, her cleaning business expanded with her family. Cleaning wasn’t what he needed the most, even if he could afford full time.
“I’ll lose my other customers if I put them off any longer. You won’t need me forever, and I need to keep the fridge stocked. Danny and Sean would devour the shelves.” She slipped on her jacket, and then lifted her leather tote to her shoulder.
“I’ve left you a casserole for tonight and a chicken dish in the freezer. See that you eat proper, now. You need your strength.” She wagged a finger at him.
“You’re not kidding.” He levered to his feet, removing his broad-brimmed black hat and holding it over his heart. “My hat’s off to single parents everywhere.”
“Single is the key word. What you need is a wife.”
The word made him shudder. “A wife would only complicate a situation already as convoluted as a Rocky Mountain pass.”
He needed help big-time, and fast, but not the kind she meant. He slapped his hat on the table and crossed to the door. “Before you can say it, not a mother either. Last person on earth I’d call.”
At the bitterness he never could quite conceal, Espie reached up to pat his cheek. “Time you let that go. Bonnie wasn’t cut out for ranch life. Not every woman’s tough enough. Many can’t take the isolation.”
At least Maddy had bailed out on his brother before the wedding. She couldn’t take it either. Lit out for the big time. Violet eyes and a filly’s long legs flickered in his mind. He shook away the vision, but the memory stung like a picked scab.
“No wife. No mother. I have a good hand to help me on the Valley-D. The rest I’ll figure out as we go.”
“A good hand.” She gave a snort as she eased out the door. “If that old coyote works half as much as he flaps his jaw, I reckon he’ll do. Don’t you tell him I said so neither.”
Holt watched from the porch as she left in her pickup. He rubbed a hand over his gritty eyes. Running the Valley-D on the scant sleep he’d had the last few weeks was taking its toll. Most of the cows and the bred heifers had calved, so the damn midnight vigils were close to being finished.
The ones outside, anyway.
“That ornery female gone yet?” Bronc Baker, spare and weathered as an old fence post, sauntered toward the house.
“Ornery? Bronc, I thought you liked Espie. Besides, we couldn’t have made it these last few weeks without her.”
“Shee-it, I know that.” Bronc removed his tan Stetson from his grizzled head and whacked it against his grimy jeans. A dust cloud rose from both hat and pants leg. “But the woman talks all the time. A man can’t pry in a word with a crowbar. Bronc this and Bronc that. Asks about the calves, have we got heifers or bulls and will we have a good hay crop and—”
“Whoa, I get the picture.” Holt’s mouth twitched, but he held back a laugh. Between them, those two jabbered so much a conversation could kick up a dust devil.
The older man settled his wide-brimmed hat on his head. “Um, I did mention to her we might need her boys to help with the brandin’.”
“Good idea. Nothing better than calf roping for teenaged boys.” Calf roping had kept Rob and him out of trouble for many years. The memory tightened his chest.
“Anyways, I come to tell you things look peaceful in the calving pen. Moms and babies is doin’ okay. Lower pen’s quiet too. No signs of more labor right away.”
“So it looks like I get the night off. I can use it.”
Bronc nodded. “And you’ll get to the field truck tomorrow? You’re a better mechanic than me.”
“Or Rob, I reckon. The tractor needs some work too.” Holt scratched his head. His brother’s ranch management was an oxymoron. “Back east, they thought all we did was ride around on horseback and herd cattle.”
The ranch hand barked a laugh. “City folks don’t know a rancher’s got to be a mechanic, a vet, and a farmer.”
“Don’t forget shoestring businessman.”
Holt offered to share Espie’s casserole. Bronc excused himself, saying he had stew on the stove in the mobile home that served as a bunkhouse.
The peaks beyond the valley drew a lingering look before grief pulled Holt’s gaze toward the aspen-topped knoll behind the house. A neat brown scar in the greening grass, Rob’s grave was the newest one beside their father and two sets of grandparents.
Past regrets and present burdens heaped on his shoulders, he plodded into the house.
He dug into his dinner like a wolf on fresh kill. Five o’clock. His daily chores on the land were done, but his nightly ones were about to begin. Maybe fate would grant him a peaceful evening.
The first plate was finished and a second heaped before he took time to savor the spicy beef, tortillas, and cheese. He was rinsing his plate when he heard the engine. He expected no one, and the hairs on his nape lifted in warning. Lately every new arrival, every phone call heralded more trouble.
A glance out the window in the kitchen door revealed the back view of a long drink of female. Mile-long legs in tight jeans and running shoes, sweetly curved butt, and short blond hair. She was waving good-bye to the deputy sheriff’s white Cherokee as it chugged down the gravel drive.
What the hell? He snatched open the door and stalked outside.
When the woman turned around, the sight of her face sucker-punched him in the solar plexus.
“Hi, Holt. Guess you never expected to see me here again.” Madelyn McCoy propped her hands on her hips and gave him a crooked smile.
Sweat popped out on his brow. Had he somehow conjured up Maddy? Same sassy mouth, violet eyes the exact shade of the pansies Espie planted every May in the window boxes.
“McCoy, you’re the last person I want to see. What the hell are you doing here?” He stopped before his temper got the best of him. The mere sight of her pushed all his hot spots.
She’d lit out eight years ago a twenty-year-old girl, pretty and tempting as a mountain spring, but the female who stood hip-sprung before him was all woman—and twice as sexy.
And twice as deceitful. He’d bet the next newborn calf on it. The sooner she left the better.
Maddy held out open hands in a peace declaration. “Look, I know with you I’m persona non grata.” Her shoulders slumped, and her sass slid to sorrow. “Faith Rafferty emailed me . . . about Rob. I had to come to pay my respects.”
Faith and Maddy used to be close. So that’s how she knew. His throat clutched, and he gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to share his loss with the woman who’d broken Rob’s heart.
Facing Holt showed a measure of unexpected courage. As children, they’d all been friends, Rob and Maddy and him—kids running wild during the summers. Even if she didn’t love Rob enough to marry him and stay on the Valley-D, she once cared for him. Holt had to admit that, at least to himself.
Much as the sight of her troubled him, he’d accept her condolences.
He stared at the dust settling on the driveway. She had no transportation. “Why did Luke Rafferty drive you here? You in some kind of trouble?”
A shadow flickered across her eyes. Or it could be his imagination. His DEA work dealing with lowlifes made him as suspicious as a calf at branding time.
“Just car trouble,” she said lightly, picking up the metal case at her feet. A fancy camera case, if he wasn’t mistaken. “My Range Rover broke down in Rangewood. Luke happened to see me at the diner.”
Close up, he saw exhaustion in her eyes. “Reckon I could drive you back later.”
“How did it happen, Holt? The accident. All Faith said was a car accident.” She marched up the porch steps toward him like an invading Amazon.
Damn, he had to tell the story again. His gut twisted with the prospect. He ran his tongue around his teeth and focused on the distant peak, still rosy with sunlight. “The crash happened about a month ago. Rob and his wife were headed down to Cripple Creek for a night out. They took the shortcut from north of Rangewood that leads southeast to the state road. Went off the road on a mountain curve and rolled into a ravine.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, Holt, how horrible. Did they. . .were they—”
“Rob and Sara died quick, I reckon.” He couldn’t let himself think about their pain and fear. “That old truck barely had seat belts, let alone air bags.”
There was more to the story. A lot more. Including the crash was no fucking accident. He had no proof yet, but he knew. Dammit, he would find the bastard who’d murdered his family. He couldn’t tell Maddy any of that, and she didn’t need to know. He cleared his throat before he turned back to her.
Her voice caught on a sob. “I’m so sorry. What a terrible loss.”
He swallowed his pride. “I appreciate that. You didn’t have to come all this way though, from Timbuktu or wherever you were.”
“Malibu.” A wobbly smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “I figured if I telephoned you’d hang up on me. I had to come in person . . . to see the grave.”
“Fine. You know where the family plot is.” He sketched a wave in that direction.
“You don’t give an inch, do you?” Maddy shook her head, the movement lifting her short blonde hair like a buckskin fringe on a sleeve. “I’d appreciate the use of your bathroom before I go sit by Rob awhile.”
Holt’s first instinct was not to let her in the house, but he couldn’t act the ogre about it. Besides, she was shivering in her denim jacket. He stepped back and held the door as she sashayed in.
Colorado
Holt stared at the mountain vista he’d missed like a lost limb. April’s snow-edged meadows rose into the verdant shades of Ponderosa pines and budding aspens. To the distant southeast, the lowering sun painted a magenta wash on the slopes of Pikes Peak. He swore in this valley he could hear the heartbeat of the mountains.
He should be enjoying the spring with Rob. Grief squeezed his heart. A man wasn’t supposed to lose his younger brother. And sure as hell not the way he’d planned to return and take up the reins of the ranch. With his mug of coffee in hand, he turned away and sank onto a chair at the kitchen table.
“I’d stay if I could, you know I would.” Esperanza O’Grady folded the dishtowel on its rack over the sink and flicked off the country music radio station she favored. She cocked her head and smoothed back raven hair edged with silver. The housekeeper’s Ute heritage shone in her burnished visage. “Two days a week is all I can give you from now on.”
“That’s okay, Espie. Two days is all I can afford after this. You’ve done more than anybody else, and I appreciate it.”
Espie’d worked part-time on this ranch since he was a kid. Her tenure began before his and Rob’s mother left and continued after Rob married. Gradually, her cleaning business expanded with her family. Cleaning wasn’t what he needed the most, even if he could afford full time.
“I’ll lose my other customers if I put them off any longer. You won’t need me forever, and I need to keep the fridge stocked. Danny and Sean would devour the shelves.” She slipped on her jacket, and then lifted her leather tote to her shoulder.
“I’ve left you a casserole for tonight and a chicken dish in the freezer. See that you eat proper, now. You need your strength.” She wagged a finger at him.
“You’re not kidding.” He levered to his feet, removing his broad-brimmed black hat and holding it over his heart. “My hat’s off to single parents everywhere.”
“Single is the key word. What you need is a wife.”
The word made him shudder. “A wife would only complicate a situation already as convoluted as a Rocky Mountain pass.”
He needed help big-time, and fast, but not the kind she meant. He slapped his hat on the table and crossed to the door. “Before you can say it, not a mother either. Last person on earth I’d call.”
At the bitterness he never could quite conceal, Espie reached up to pat his cheek. “Time you let that go. Bonnie wasn’t cut out for ranch life. Not every woman’s tough enough. Many can’t take the isolation.”
At least Maddy had bailed out on his brother before the wedding. She couldn’t take it either. Lit out for the big time. Violet eyes and a filly’s long legs flickered in his mind. He shook away the vision, but the memory stung like a picked scab.
“No wife. No mother. I have a good hand to help me on the Valley-D. The rest I’ll figure out as we go.”
“A good hand.” She gave a snort as she eased out the door. “If that old coyote works half as much as he flaps his jaw, I reckon he’ll do. Don’t you tell him I said so neither.”
Holt watched from the porch as she left in her pickup. He rubbed a hand over his gritty eyes. Running the Valley-D on the scant sleep he’d had the last few weeks was taking its toll. Most of the cows and the bred heifers had calved, so the damn midnight vigils were close to being finished.
The ones outside, anyway.
“That ornery female gone yet?” Bronc Baker, spare and weathered as an old fence post, sauntered toward the house.
“Ornery? Bronc, I thought you liked Espie. Besides, we couldn’t have made it these last few weeks without her.”
“Shee-it, I know that.” Bronc removed his tan Stetson from his grizzled head and whacked it against his grimy jeans. A dust cloud rose from both hat and pants leg. “But the woman talks all the time. A man can’t pry in a word with a crowbar. Bronc this and Bronc that. Asks about the calves, have we got heifers or bulls and will we have a good hay crop and—”
“Whoa, I get the picture.” Holt’s mouth twitched, but he held back a laugh. Between them, those two jabbered so much a conversation could kick up a dust devil.
The older man settled his wide-brimmed hat on his head. “Um, I did mention to her we might need her boys to help with the brandin’.”
“Good idea. Nothing better than calf roping for teenaged boys.” Calf roping had kept Rob and him out of trouble for many years. The memory tightened his chest.
“Anyways, I come to tell you things look peaceful in the calving pen. Moms and babies is doin’ okay. Lower pen’s quiet too. No signs of more labor right away.”
“So it looks like I get the night off. I can use it.”
Bronc nodded. “And you’ll get to the field truck tomorrow? You’re a better mechanic than me.”
“Or Rob, I reckon. The tractor needs some work too.” Holt scratched his head. His brother’s ranch management was an oxymoron. “Back east, they thought all we did was ride around on horseback and herd cattle.”
The ranch hand barked a laugh. “City folks don’t know a rancher’s got to be a mechanic, a vet, and a farmer.”
“Don’t forget shoestring businessman.”
Holt offered to share Espie’s casserole. Bronc excused himself, saying he had stew on the stove in the mobile home that served as a bunkhouse.
The peaks beyond the valley drew a lingering look before grief pulled Holt’s gaze toward the aspen-topped knoll behind the house. A neat brown scar in the greening grass, Rob’s grave was the newest one beside their father and two sets of grandparents.
Past regrets and present burdens heaped on his shoulders, he plodded into the house.
He dug into his dinner like a wolf on fresh kill. Five o’clock. His daily chores on the land were done, but his nightly ones were about to begin. Maybe fate would grant him a peaceful evening.
The first plate was finished and a second heaped before he took time to savor the spicy beef, tortillas, and cheese. He was rinsing his plate when he heard the engine. He expected no one, and the hairs on his nape lifted in warning. Lately every new arrival, every phone call heralded more trouble.
A glance out the window in the kitchen door revealed the back view of a long drink of female. Mile-long legs in tight jeans and running shoes, sweetly curved butt, and short blond hair. She was waving good-bye to the deputy sheriff’s white Cherokee as it chugged down the gravel drive.
What the hell? He snatched open the door and stalked outside.
When the woman turned around, the sight of her face sucker-punched him in the solar plexus.
“Hi, Holt. Guess you never expected to see me here again.” Madelyn McCoy propped her hands on her hips and gave him a crooked smile.
Sweat popped out on his brow. Had he somehow conjured up Maddy? Same sassy mouth, violet eyes the exact shade of the pansies Espie planted every May in the window boxes.
“McCoy, you’re the last person I want to see. What the hell are you doing here?” He stopped before his temper got the best of him. The mere sight of her pushed all his hot spots.
She’d lit out eight years ago a twenty-year-old girl, pretty and tempting as a mountain spring, but the female who stood hip-sprung before him was all woman—and twice as sexy.
And twice as deceitful. He’d bet the next newborn calf on it. The sooner she left the better.
Maddy held out open hands in a peace declaration. “Look, I know with you I’m persona non grata.” Her shoulders slumped, and her sass slid to sorrow. “Faith Rafferty emailed me . . . about Rob. I had to come to pay my respects.”
Faith and Maddy used to be close. So that’s how she knew. His throat clutched, and he gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to share his loss with the woman who’d broken Rob’s heart.
Facing Holt showed a measure of unexpected courage. As children, they’d all been friends, Rob and Maddy and him—kids running wild during the summers. Even if she didn’t love Rob enough to marry him and stay on the Valley-D, she once cared for him. Holt had to admit that, at least to himself.
Much as the sight of her troubled him, he’d accept her condolences.
He stared at the dust settling on the driveway. She had no transportation. “Why did Luke Rafferty drive you here? You in some kind of trouble?”
A shadow flickered across her eyes. Or it could be his imagination. His DEA work dealing with lowlifes made him as suspicious as a calf at branding time.
“Just car trouble,” she said lightly, picking up the metal case at her feet. A fancy camera case, if he wasn’t mistaken. “My Range Rover broke down in Rangewood. Luke happened to see me at the diner.”
Close up, he saw exhaustion in her eyes. “Reckon I could drive you back later.”
“How did it happen, Holt? The accident. All Faith said was a car accident.” She marched up the porch steps toward him like an invading Amazon.
Damn, he had to tell the story again. His gut twisted with the prospect. He ran his tongue around his teeth and focused on the distant peak, still rosy with sunlight. “The crash happened about a month ago. Rob and his wife were headed down to Cripple Creek for a night out. They took the shortcut from north of Rangewood that leads southeast to the state road. Went off the road on a mountain curve and rolled into a ravine.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, Holt, how horrible. Did they. . .were they—”
“Rob and Sara died quick, I reckon.” He couldn’t let himself think about their pain and fear. “That old truck barely had seat belts, let alone air bags.”
There was more to the story. A lot more. Including the crash was no fucking accident. He had no proof yet, but he knew. Dammit, he would find the bastard who’d murdered his family. He couldn’t tell Maddy any of that, and she didn’t need to know. He cleared his throat before he turned back to her.
Her voice caught on a sob. “I’m so sorry. What a terrible loss.”
He swallowed his pride. “I appreciate that. You didn’t have to come all this way though, from Timbuktu or wherever you were.”
“Malibu.” A wobbly smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “I figured if I telephoned you’d hang up on me. I had to come in person . . . to see the grave.”
“Fine. You know where the family plot is.” He sketched a wave in that direction.
“You don’t give an inch, do you?” Maddy shook her head, the movement lifting her short blonde hair like a buckskin fringe on a sleeve. “I’d appreciate the use of your bathroom before I go sit by Rob awhile.”
Holt’s first instinct was not to let her in the house, but he couldn’t act the ogre about it. Besides, she was shivering in her denim jacket. He stepped back and held the door as she sashayed in.
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