Her Secret Cowboy

By Debra Holt

You can’t go home again.

Devlin Braxton never thought he’d test those words and return to Braxton, Texas – the town where generations of his family had ranched honorably. Not him. As an undercover agent who spent years infiltrating the underbelly of a drug cartel with a local pipeline, everyone thought he was the devil-may-care, good-for-nothing, playboy he pretended – even his family. After the massive bust and the shoot out that nearly killed him, Devlin is ready to discover who he is and where he belongs.

Marissa Flanagan has fought for her place in Braxton. First she had to live down the pity and gossip when she was jilted by her fiance, then prove her professional worth when the town’s beloved – and male – vet retired. She’s finally made her peace or so she thinks until Devlin Braxton shows up at her door with a proposition.

They have a past, will Devlin’s blue eyes and pulse-stopping kisses convince her he’s changed and that they might have a future?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tule Publishing
• Release date: Apr 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781951786533

Book preview

Prologue

"Your brother is lucky to be alive, Mr. Braxton," the surgeon stated, switching off the X-ray panel and turning to look at the tall, silent man beside him. The fact he came from the west was evident in his dress… jeans, boots, Stetson. It was also clear he wasn’t at ease being in the hospital.

"I can see that. But the question I have now is how did he get here… lying in a hospital bed after being beaten, shot and dumped in the desert?" Chance shook his head slowly, still trying to make sense of a mystery he had landed smack in the middle of when the call from the hospital had come much earlier that day.

He had little time to think about it as he jumped on a plane and flew to Nevada, only knowing his brother was in critical condition. But the why and how of things were still not clear.

Perhaps I can supply some answers to your questions. An older man in a business suit had stepped into the room with stealth and now chose to speak. My name is Broderick Mason. I’ve been your brother’s supervising agent for the last few years. He turned his attention from Chance to the doctor. Thank you, Dr. Yen. I’ll fill in the blanks for Mr. Braxton from this point on. His gaze swung back to Chance as his hand held open the door beside him. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.

A few minutes later, coffee in hand, the two men settled into a small table in the corner of the almost deserted hospital cafeteria. Chance watched and waited.

I’m glad the weather didn’t hinder you getting here as quickly as you did.

"Mr. Mason, I don’t think either of us is interested in the weather. You said you were my brother’s supervising agent. What does that mean? The last any of us heard from Dev, he was investing in a resort in Florida. The next thing I know, a doctor is calling me from this hospital in Las Vegas telling me my brother is in grave condition from being beaten, shot, and left for dead. There appears to be a lot I am missing here."

"I’m aware that your brother kept his work with us away from his family. That was a prerequisite of this type of job. What I am about to tell you was highly classified. As your brother’s status with us changed, some of it now is available for me to share with you in this particular situation. I know you will think some, if not most, of it to be unbelievable when you attempt to join it with the brother you thought you knew. Just bear with me and I will make it as clear as I can.

We recruited your brother the latter half of his junior year of high school. He worked undercover for us in some cases involving high school drug dealers and some local citizens in the Braxton area. Many people in your small community were never aware that a large conduit of illicit drugs was being channeled through a safe house in your area to suppliers in the northern states. He paused, took a sip of his coffee, and then continued.

"Dev graduated, and he agreed to continue to work for us while he obtained his college degree. We invested a great deal of training in him. I doubt you are aware that your brother is fluent in five languages. His cases have sent him to some of the nether reaches of the world.

Thanks to his training, he has a skillset that has made him invaluable to us in many cases around the globe. For the last few years, we’ve made him the number one agent for us in bringing down one of the largest gaming syndicates in the country before it could complete a link with foreign investors backed by drug cartel monies. That ultimately could have almost cost him his life. But he completed the assignment, and we owe him quite a debt.

Chance looked at the small, white card with its insignia and two lines of plain black text. Nondescript and no fanfare… just as the man seated across from him. He was almost speechless while his brain tried to correlate all the agent said and fit it to the brother he thought he knew.

I’m trying to wrap my brain around all of this. It feels like I’ve been dropped in the middle of a parallel universe or something. None of this makes sense at the moment. My brother, from the time he was a teen in high school, has been living a double life? None of us had any idea. I don’t understand why he would do that and why keep it from us? My parents didn’t even know?

The man shook his head. No one in his world could know. Keeping it from others is part and parcel in staying alive and protecting those our agents care for. But your brother was getting out, so to speak. He had finished his last assignment for us and was to have left the area. But, he stayed in Vegas and was apparently, from what we can find out from our informants, doing some investigative work of his own… on a private matter.

Private matter? So, he wasn’t attacked by the people you spoke about that he had just closed the case on for you? There was something else he was involved in?

The agent nodded. Yes, that was what landed him in this hospital. It wasn’t one of our cases.

But what about the people who did this to him? Will they be brought to justice? Do they know he’s still alive?

"As far as we’ve been able to handle things, no one but you is aware he was found and brought here. The medical staff here at this privately funded hospital is quite good at keeping confidentiality."

You mean they’re on your payroll, too.

A small smile appeared. "I didn’t say that. But to get back to your question… no, as far as the ones responsible for his attack are concerned, he is dead. We have made certain of that. We have taken care of any loose ends."

Chance knew it was best he didn’t want to know just how those ‘loose ends’ were handled. You said he was working on a private matter. Anything you can share on that?

Bits and pieces that I know of. He was searching for the person responsible for his mother’s death. We believe that…

"Mother’s death? You’ve lost me on that one. Our mother died from an aneurysm bursting in her head one morning." Chance was beginning to get the feeling he had stumbled onto a Pandora’s Box and wishing the lid would stay shut. Very little was making sense, but what the man just said was totally off the wall.

Or was it?

Perhaps I’ve spoken out of turn, Agent Mason said, obviously choosing his words with more care at this juncture.

No, you haven’t. And I’d appreciate it if you’d just lay it all out and leave the cloak and dagger aside. It’s obvious there’s a lot about Devlin that we’re going to have to readjust to now. What mother’s death are you referring to?

The woman I speak of died under questionable circumstances in a hotel room on the strip. She had a long history of drug abuse and was often in deep debt to some of the worst characters on the strip. Devlin was just three months old at the time and had already been taken in by his father, there in Braxton. He had no knowledge of his biological mother until just over a year ago. At that time, I believe, is when he began gathering intel on the cold case on his own. Guessing by your response, you did not know about any of this?

Chance felt like the room had just turned a couple of somersaults. His brain was still trying to right itself. Dev was a half brother? And several months before, they had just found out their father had sired another son with yet another woman in New Mexico. Their half brother, Rio, had taken his place at the ranch beside Chance just a year ago. Just how many more blood brothers might be out there? What the hell had his father done? And how many times had his mother’s heart been broken?

I’m sorry if I’ve spoken of some things you evidently had no knowledge about until now. It should have been your brother’s story to share. The agent’s comment brought Chance back to reality.

It’s a shock, but then I can’t say I’m surprised by much anymore where certain members of my family are concerned. But, let’s back up to the previous part of our conversation and any threats… there were two men who came to the ranch and…

The Marins. One is dead, and one is in our witness protection. Your family is of no interest or even a memory to that case. And remember, as far as they were concerned, he was one of the bad guys. The black sheep of your family who was kicked out of the fold. You can rest assured there are no threats to either Devlin or your family. In his previous life, on his major cases, he was most often known as Deacon Lloyd. And that is pretty much all I can tell you. Except know that once we clean a person’s history with us, it is no more. Rest assured that the best doctors are taking care of him now. When he’s ready, he can walk out of here and into whatever life he chooses. He has earned that.

And I have another brother to get to know all over again. Chance stood with the man and they shook hands.

If the agent thought his words cryptic, he allowed it to slide. Chance spoke with the doctors once more before he returned to his hotel room. He was going to have to make a phone call to his wife, Josie, who was waiting anxiously back in Texas, for a report on Dev. Only she would be as shocked as he was when he told her the whole story. Dev would be returning to Braxton Ranch. The family had to stand by him and get him on his feet again. But who was he? Had they ever really known him? What would this mean for their lives going forward? Too many questions and not enough answers.

Chapter One

"Whatever life I choose." Dev had heard that more than a few times before he left the hospital… from the agents he used to work among, to the doctors who managed to put him back on his feet again, and even echoed from his brother, Chance. He and Chance… and Josie, Chance’s wife… all had some talking to do once he got settled in. It would take some time to get his plans together. But for the moment, he was headed back to Braxton, Texas. Not as the black sheep brother, but the real man. A man who would be a total stranger to so many… including himself. He had to get acquainted with the person he had buried deep inside for the last seventeen years.

As for the life he’d choose… that was a whole other problem. How did he choose when he couldn’t remember what was real life and what wasn’t? He had played so many parts for so long he had no idea where to find the real Devlin Braxton. What would he be like? Would he like himself? Would others? Lord knew he had given enough reason to a lot of the people of Braxton to not welcome him back with warm, open arms. They were glad to have seen the last of him. No one would have missed him. Except, maybe Josie… but she always did have a kind heart. And his brother had married her.

He could have flown home. Instead, he chose to drive it. Maybe because he had a sense of dread? Too many nerves? Too much uncertainty? Dev surmised it would be a mixture of all of those things. He was buying time. Maybe he would have an epiphany along the way about the future and his place in it. Or maybe he was just a coward. Either way, he was nearing his destination.

The two-lane road stretched like an endless ribbon ahead of him. But there were no answers around each bend of it… just more highway. The land alternated between flat plains, rolling hills, and rigid rock mesas. And as far as one could see in any direction, the Braxton brand was evident on fence posts, oil rigs, cattle pens, and even historical markers here and there along the roadway.

If the cattle and horses would stand still in their herds long enough, a person could see it on each hide. Past Braxton generations had settled the town along a much-awaited railroad that enabled thousands of head of cattle and horses to be shipped to the rest of the country from deep within Texas. Now, it was a far-flung empire belonging to his two half brothers and him.

He shook his head. He had a half brother he never knew about, had never seen… no one had, but dear old Dad and more recently, Chance. The patriarch certainly kept his secrets well hidden. Maybe some of that secretive gene had rubbed off on Dev. That was why he could play his parts so well… no one had a clue who he really was. Not even him.

Royce Braxton had been a hard-nosed, mean bastard who didn’t like to share… and that included affection. Dev’s memories of his days living in Braxton caused an anger to build and that increased the pressure on the gas pedal. He should have been paying more attention. But, he rounded a bend in the road and there was a scrawny mutt of a dog moving slowly across the road, his nose glued to the ground, sniffing for any trash along the way that might have been tossed out of a car window. Dev reacted but not quite quickly enough. There was a bump and Dev cringed, applying the brakes, his gaze flying to his rearview mirror.

Damn! He placed the gear in neutral.

For a moment, he considered driving on because the animal was not moving. But then there was a small sound… a whimper? One paw tapped the pavement. Damn. Dev shook his head, opened his door, and he stepped out of the truck. This he did not need. The animal showed no visible signs of trauma… no blood oozing, no bones protruding. But the fear and pain spoke volumes in the brown eyes that gave a silent howl for help in their huge size compared to the boney body of the rest of him. Dev was a sucker for animals, especially dogs. There was nothing for it, but to grab an old blanket he had in the box in the back of his truck. He would try to lift the animal without doing any more damage to him or her, and also to keep from getting bit by an animal in pain.

Dev laid the dog as gently as he could on the floorboard in the back-seat area of his truck. He hoped he still remembered how to get to Doc Hollins’s place. Reversing the truck and doing a U-turn, his reunion with his family at the ranch would have to wait.

* *

Not one more problem better come through that front door today. Grace Jarvis had maintained her position at the front desk of the Braxton Animal Clinic for the last four decades and very few people in Braxton, where she had spent all of her sixty-nine years, would dare to question any of her edicts.

But then, no one counted on Braxton’s prodigal son returning and landing smack dab on their doorstep… wounded creature in his arms.

I need to see the vet right away. I’ve got an injured dog here.

What’s the injury?

He got hit by a truck… my truck. I didn’t see him. One minute I was rounding a bend in the road and—

You were speeding. The pronouncement came with raised eyebrows behind a pair of pink-rimmed glasses that were right out of the fifties costume closet.

The tall beehive hairdo could have been formed in that same little room, also. The whole persona caught Dev off guard for a moment.

Well, I don’t—

The woman behind the desk began tapping on a keyboard. Name…

I don’t know. He’s not my dog.

"Your name." She froze him with a look over the glass rims.

Devlin Braxton. For the first time, Dev gave notice to the woman who had come to stand behind the receptionist typing into the computer terminal, and had supplied his name to the typist.

She knew who he was. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but then the dog in his arms let out another little whimper and the woman in the blue scrubs moved toward the door behind her.

She turned to look over her shoulder at him. Bring him this way.

He followed her down a long, blue-tiled hallway with doors opening off either side of it. They entered a small exam room about halfway down on the right. Dev laid out the animal, still partially wrapped in the blanket. The same sorrowful eyes implored him to not leave. Dev glanced up and watched as the woman picked up a stethoscope and began listening to the animal’s chest, then her hands were examining him in gentle, yet precise movements. Another staff member in scrubs slipped into the room and stood ready to help in the exam.

The woman, who had known his name, appeared to be about his age. The coal-black hair was long and held back in a severe ponytail from her face. Then she glanced up at him and her eyes caught his attention. They weren’t the normal shape… like most people. They were more oval, and the combination of long, black lashes and a slight upward tilt of their outer corners gave her a hint of the exotic. Their color was a deep amber, maybe with a rim of lighter caramel?

You’re staring. And I asked a question.

That brought him right back to earth with a thud. I’m sorry. I guess I was trying to place how you knew who I was. I don’t recall having met you before. Are you new to Braxton?

For whatever reason, the temperature in the small room seemed to go from civil to downright chilly with one look from her in that moment.

She straightened. I’ve lived here all my life. But I asked you if you had any idea where this animal belonged? Where did you come across her?

Out on the road to Braxton Ranch. It was just before the first bend… it’s a blind curve and she was in the middle of the road. I tried to stop, but there wasn’t any time to miss her.

"She probably was dumped out that way and has been fending for herself as best she could. She’s dehydrated, and in need of