Operation: Endeavor (When The Mission Ends) (26 page)

Colton reached over and shook Michael’s hand and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Likewise, although I’ll admit, I never thought I’d see the day where this one introduced me to a boyfriend.” Michael cocked an eyebrow at her and she grinned as she interlaced her fingers through Colton’s. “I’d given up on that a long while ago. There may be hope for my boys to settle down yet.” Michael looked him over and seemed pleased with what he saw.

Penelope smiled. “They just haven’t met the right girls yet. Don’t give up hope.”

Ethan walked up behind Michael, brushing off his hands. “And this is Ethan, the only guy on the ranch without the Martin name. I’m not sure what he does besides cause trouble, but they seem to think he does something valuable here.” She smiled at the easy-going young man who grinned at her, obviously not bothered by her teasing.

Michael added, “He may not have the Martin name, but he’s definitely part of the Martin ranch. Ethan does as much work here as any of us.”

“It’s a good place to work with good folks running it.” Ethan gave an easy smile.

“Well darling, it’s awfully good to have you back. We’ve missed you the last couple of weeks. The boys need a female presence every once in a while. It keeps them calmer.” Michael gave her shoulder a squeeze before turning back to Colton. “Nice meeting you, son. You take good care of this girl. She’s a keeper and I hope we see you out here with her often.”

“Yes sir. I appreciate the invitation and will take you up on that as often as Pen is willing to bring me.”

After they got the horses saddled and Pen spent some time reacquainting herself with the other horses, they settled into riding a well-worn trail around the fields of the ranch.

Colton turned to her to ask, “So tell me about the Martin’s and how you know them.”

“Michael is the head of the Martin family. This is the ranch that’s been in their family for several generations. There are four boys: Andrew’s the oldest. You didn’t meet him. He works on the ranch too, but he’s here less than the others because he’s also a Texas Ranger. Scott is the second oldest. He’s a part-time paramedic with the volunteer fire department, but mainly runs the ranch with the rest of them. You met Thomas. He’s third in line. We dated for a few weeks before deciding we made better friends than lovers. The baby is Matthew. Hopefully, we’ll run into Matthew and Scott out here riding so you get to meet them.”

“No females? No significant others?”

She gave a sad smile. “Nope, not yet, although Michael keeps hoping. He wants the boys to settle down with wives. His wife died in a car wreck when the boys were still little. Thomas was in the car with her and still has nightmares about it. I don’t know the whole story, but I do know that things are strained between him and Michael because of it. He blames his dad for her death.”

After riding a while, they rode up to the old homestead, which had been abandoned by the family years ago. Penelope loved the ramshackle old house with the big wide porch. She confided in him, “I have daydreams of owning a porch like this where I can watch the sunset in the evenings and rise in the morning. Me sitting out here in a rocking chair with my cup of tea and a good book.”

“Is it just you or are there a few kids running around in the yard and a husband inside making dinner?”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Hmm, he’s making dinner?”

He nodded.

She shut her eyes as the image of Colton standing at the kitchen with a boy and a girl playing in the yard with his eyes assailed her. What was she thinking? A husband and kids were not in her future. She needed to get that fantasy under control immediately. She shook her head to dispel it. “Nope, it’s just me. I like the quiet and don’t want a husband and kids to disturb it.”

“But just imagine it… he makes dinner, they put the kids to bed, and then make mad passionate love on the swing on the porch.”

“There’s a swing on the porch?” Why was her heart suddenly galloping faster than this horse ever would? Why was it so easy to imagine? This was dangerous territory and she didn’t need to think along these lines. These kinds of dreams would lead to heartache.

“Of course. Every porch needs a swing. I bet this one had one. Look you can see where it hung.” He pointed toward the empty eyehooks in the ceiling of the porch. “It looks like the house has been abandoned for a while.”

Penelope was grateful for the change of subject to less personal things. “Yeah, I don’t think the Martins have used it in over fifty years. They built the other house on the other side of the ranch, closer to the highway. I just love this house though.”

Colt looked over at her. “So explain to me how this happened.” He gestured up and down to her riding a horse.

“I’ve lived in Texas my whole life and have never really been out of the city. I was working on a project…” she hesitated, “for the bookstore, and a friend thought the Martins might be able to help me out. I fell in love with them and the ranch and have been coming out ever since. I try to come out as often as I can. They board a lot of horses, so if I can come out and ride a few of them, it leaves them to do other chores on the ranch. In the summer, I help with camps to teach kids how to ride and care for the horses. I love coming out here.”

“I can tell. You’ve been smiling ever since we arrived.”

“How can you be anything but happy when you are surrounded by all this? I’m continually amazed by how beautiful it is out here once you drop off the caprock.”

“You’re constantly a surprise, Ms. Penny.”

“Hopefully, I stay that way. A girl has to maintain some of her mystique. Although I have to admit, I never saw you as a cowboy either.”

“When I was in college at A&M, I worked part-time on a ranch. I’ve always managed to find some place to ride almost everywhere I’ve been stationed except England. I just never could find myself wanting to try my hand at riding English-style.”

She giggled. “Yeah, for some reason the idea of you posting to the trot doesn’t quite do it for me either. I’m glad to know that you enjoy riding because I love coming out here. I’m happy I can share this with you.”

“Me too, sweetheart. Me, too.”

She had another flash of Colton and her, relaxing on their own big, rambling porch. It was a disturbing one, only in the fact that it felt so right and natural.

It was late by the time Colton and Penelope headed back toward Lubbock. The night was cooling off, which was a relief for Colton. He needed as much cool air as possible to deal with Penelope’s wandering hands. She was obviously in a sexy mood after so much fresh air. At first, she’d just taken advantage of their position on the motorcycle by lightly tracing her fingertips along his abs, but the longer they rode, the more daring those fingers had become. As they wandered dangerously close to his ever-hardening cock, his breath hitched.

Finally they hit the edge of Lubbock and Colton couldn’t drive fast enough to get back to the loft parking lot. He was ready to detonate by the time he turned the motor off. He quickly swung off the bike, got his helmet off, and waited impatiently as Penelope removed hers. He didn’t miss the flash of surprise which crossed her face as he pinned her to the wall of the parking garage for a soul-scorching kiss. She was just as turned on as he was because she quickly wrapped those long legs around his hips.

Her breasts pressed up against his chest were exactly what he wanted. What he needed. He groaned low and hard as her heat pressed up against him. She was soft in all the places where he was hard and he couldn’t resist the urge to push his cock against her even more.

Both of them were breathing raggedly by the time he pulled back. “Sweetheart, we need to move this upstairs before our neighbors get an X-rated show down here in the parking lot.” Despite his words, he still wasn’t pulling back as he fingered the snaps on her jeans. It would be so easy to strip her and pump into her right here, right now. Judging from the dazed look on her face, she wouldn’t have a problem with that. either.

He took a deep breath to regain control of his arousal and gently lowered Pen’s legs to the floor. “Come on. Let’s move this upstairs.”

Penelope licked her lower swollen lip and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

He chuckled. She seemed a bit dazed. He liked that he could do that to her. In fact, he loved that he could do that to her. As they rode the elevator up, she began to nibble on his neck. He closed his eyes against the rapture of Penelope’s warm breath on his neck and earlobe. She whispered right into his ear, “Do you know what my favorite part of making love to you is?”

He shook his head, too aroused to even speak.

“There’s a moment right before you come, when I can feel your dick inside me thicken and pulse. It’s like you’re reaching my soul. We’re standing on the edge of an incredible cataclysmic event and it’s just you as deep into me as you can go. There is no better feeling in this world.” Her voice was low and hoarse with emotion and desire. She gently nibbled and licked at his ear lobe.

His cock throbbed. They would be lucky if they made it past the doorway before he was inside her. He was desperate with need. Hopefully, she was just as aroused as he was, because he wasn’t going to last long once he finally got inside her.

He reached up under her shirt to fondle her breast, just as the elevator dinged that they’d reached their floor. He basically ran out of the elevator dragging Penelope behind him. He had his keys in the door. She had her hand in his pants and on his cock, when he swung open the door to the loft.

He’d been in the process of swinging around to pin her to the wall when he spotted the utter devastation within. Books were strewn everywhere, cushions shredded, chairs overturned, everything they owned, broken and flung throughout the room.

Penelope was so intent on getting him out of his pants, she didn’t see it.

“Pen, sweetheart,” God, he sounded like he’d swallowed rocks. He cleared his throat and tried again, this time reaching down to pull her hands out of his pants. “Penelope.”

His urgent tone got through her fog of lust and she looked up at him in question. “We need to call the police. Someone’s broken in.” He gave her a quick, hard kiss and then set her behind him. His senses were telling him the loft was empty, but he wasn’t going to risk her while he checked it out to make sure. If someone was going to try to hurt her, they’d have to come through him.

Her eyes widened in surprise as she gasped and took in the destruction of their space. “Colton? Oh my God.”

“It’s okay. Just stay here while I make sure whoever did this is gone. Don’t touch anything, and call Brian.” He quickly tucked himself into his pants and zipped up. The quick search confirmed his original thought. Whoever had done this was gone, but they’d been very thorough. Every room in the apartment was destroyed, their belongings littering every available scrap of floor-space in utter disarray.

The desolation in Penelope’s eyes as he walked back into the room was heartbreaking. He felt a surge of primal anger that someone had hurt her like this. No one was allowed to hurt her. He wanted to kill someone. Slowly. Painfully.

She looked at her bookshelves where books were torn and scattered everywhere. They’d definitely taken the brunt of the assault on the loft. Her eyes filled with tears, so he lifted her chin and kissed her softly. “It’s okay. It’s only stuff and can be replaced.”

She nodded her head. “I know. Thank God we weren’t here.”

He wrapped his arms around her and she shivered. He shuddered to think that she could have been here when this happened. Who the hell was doing all this? There wasn’t a note this time. At least not one h
e’d seen. So did that mean this was related to the Bus break-in or not? And what about whoever pushed her down the stairs at the bookstore? Were all these things related or did Penelope just have really rotten luck? Maybe this was just a random break-in. He didn’t think so though. Was it wrong that he wanted to pack her away someplace hundreds of miles from here? He wanted her safe. Then he would kill whoever was doing this.

He glanced back around the apartment and tried to hide his simmering anger from Penelope. “Do you see anything missing?” The TV was still there…shattered, but still there. As was the stereo system. This wasn’t just a random break-in.

“It’s so hard to tell, with everything tossed everywhere, but I don’t think so.”

There was a knock at the door. He pulled Penelope with him as he answered the door and she seemed quite content to cling to his side. It was Brian with a couple of police officers in tow, including Officer Pete Larson.

“Hi, Detective. Come on in, guys.” Colton held the door open so all three could enter.

As they did so, Brian whistled low. “Whoa, they did a number on this place didn’t they? Where were y’all when this happened?”

Penelope said, “We’ve been gone all day. We went out east of town to a ranch called the Rocking M Ranch.”

“You just arrived home?”

“Yes, we called you pretty much immediately after we walked in the door. We haven’t touched anything, although Colton did walk through the apartment just to make sure they were gone.”

Brian nodded and looked over at the police officers. “Go ahead and start photographing things. Look and see if you can find any prints, evidence, or anything that seems out of place.”