Stone Cold Christmas Ranger

“You don’t have to trust me, Texas Ranger. You just have to stay out of my way.”

Bennet Stevens will do anything to prove himself. But the ranger never expected a cold case lead like Alyssa Jimenez, a wild-card bounty hunter. Or that someone would target her. The only safe place she can hide is in Bennet’s elite world. But Alyssa’s gutsy maneuvers and surprising vulnerability are putting Bennet’s heart at passionate risk…

Alyssa barely survived her drug-cartel family’s machinations. She knows all too well that trusting anyone can get you dead. Still, Bennet is the only way she can finally put her mother’s unsolved murder to rest. But posing as his lover is seductive—and risky. And exposing the truth could guarantee they won’t live to celebrate Christmas.

“Love is always a weapon, Bennet.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he replied steadfastly, his blue eyes an odd shade in the light of the laptop screen.

Alyssa’s chest felt tight, and her heart felt too much like it was being squeezed. She’d wanted to feel something, but not this. Not anything to do with love.

Before Alyssa realized what he was doing, Bennet had his hand fisted in her shirt and tugged her down. Then his mouth was on hers. Gentle, and something that kind of made her want to cry because there’d been so little of it in her life. His lips caressed hers, his tongue slowly tracing the outline of her bottom lip, and all she could do was soak it up. . .

Stone Cold Christmas Ranger

Nicole Helm

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NICOLE HELM grew up with her nose in a book and the dream of one day becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, she gets to follow that dream—writing down-to-earth contemporary romance and romantic suspense. From farmers to cowboys, Midwest to the West, Nicole writes stories about people finding themselves and finding love in the process. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.

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To late-night train whistles when everyone else is asleep and

the Janette Oke books that introduced me to romance.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Bennet Stevens had learned how to smile politely and charmingly at people he couldn’t stand before he’d learned to walk. Growing up in a family chock-full of lawyers and politicians, and many of the Texas rich and powerful, he’d been bred to be a charming, cunning tool.

His decision to go into police work had surprised, and perhaps not excited, his parents, but they weren’t the type of people to stand in someone’s way.

Everything was far more circumspect than that, and after five years as a Texas Ranger, easily moving up the ranks beyond his counterparts, Bennet was starting to wonder if that’s how his parents were attempting to smoke him out.

Make everything too damn easy.

He was as tired of easy here at the Texas Rangers headquarters in Austin as he was of political parties at his parents’ home where he was supposed to flirt with debutantes and impress stuffed suits with tales of his bravery and valor.

Which was why he was beyond determined to break one of the coldest cases his Texas Ranger unit had. The timing couldn’t be more perfect, with his partner in the Unsolved Crimes Investigation Unit taking some extended time off giving Bennet the opportunity to solve a case on his own.

He glanced over at said partner, Ranger Vaughn Cooper, who was leaning against the corner of their shared office, talking on his cell in low tones.

No amount of low tones could hide the fact taciturn Ranger Cooper was talking to his very pregnant wife. Bennet could only shake his head at how the mighty had fallen, and hard.

Vaughn said his goodbyes and shoved his phone into his pocket before he turned his attention to Bennet, assessing gaze and hard expression back in place. “Captain won’t go for it,” Vaughn said, nodding at the file on Bennet’s desk.

“He might if you back me up.”

Vaughn crossed his arms over his chest, and if Bennet hadn’t worked with Vaughn for almost four years, he might have been intimidated or worried. But that steely-eyed glare meant Vaughn was considering it.

“I know you want more...”

“But?” Bennet supplied, forcing himself to grin as if this didn’t mean everything. When people knew what it meant, they crushed it if they could. Another Stevens lesson imparted early and often.

“I’m not sure this case is the way to go. It’s been sitting here for years.”

“I believe that’s the point of our department. Besides that, I’ve already found a new lead,” Bennet said, never letting the easy smile leave his face.

Vaughn’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You have?”

“There was a murder around the same time as this case that the FBI linked to the Jimenez drug cartel. That victim’s wounds were the same as the victim’s wounds in our Jane Doe case. If Captain lets me take on this case, I want to find a connection.”

Vaughn blew out a breath and nodded. “You have the FBI file?”

Bennet turned his laptop screen so Vaughn could read. Vaughn’s expression changed, just a fraction, and for only a second, but Bennet caught it. And jumped. “What? What did you see?”

Vaughn sighed heavily. “I didn’t see anything. It’s just...Jimenez.”

“What about it?”

“Alyssa Jimenez.”

“I know that name.” Bennet racked his brain for how, because it hadn’t been in any of the files he’d been poring over lately. “The Stallion. Oh, she was with Gabby.” Vaughn’s sister-in-law had been the kidnapping victim of a madman who called himself The Stallion. Vaughn had worked the case to free Gabby and the handful of other girls she’d been in captivity with.

Including Alyssa Jimenez. “Wait. Are you telling me she has something to do with the Jimenez drug family?”

“I don’t know that she does. But based on what I do know, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“But you haven’t followed up?” Bennet asked incredulously.

“Natalie and Gabby took her in after Gabby’s release. They’ve adopted her like a sister, and I have yet to see anything that points to her being involved with any of the many members of the Jimenez drug cartel family.”

“But you think she is,” Bennet pressed, because Vaughn wouldn’t have brought it up if he didn’t.

“Alyssa is...different. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had connections to this family. She’s built something of an underground bounty hunter business, and the contacts she has?” Vaughn shook his head. “I promised Gabby and Nat I wouldn’t interfere unless it was directly part of my job.”

“You? You, Mr. By-the-Book, promised not to investigate something?”

“She hasn’t done anything wrong, and believe me, I’ve watched. If she’s connected to that family, it’s only biological. Not criminal. She’s been through a lot.”

“Wait. Wait. Isn’t she the one who fought the FBI when they raided The Stallion’s compound to release the women?”

Vaughn stood to his full height, disapproval written all over his face, but Bennet wouldn’t let it stop him. Vaughn’s family leave started tomorrow, and he couldn’t stand in Bennet’s way for weeks.

“She didn’t fight them off. She just didn’t exactly drop her weapon when they demanded her to do so. There is a difference. Now, Bennet, I need you to understand something.”

Bennet held himself very still, especially since Vaughn rarely called him by his first name. They were partners, but Vaughn was older, more experienced, and Bennet had always looked up to him like something of a mentor.

“Do not let your need to do something big compromise your job, which is to do something right.”

The lecture grated even though Bennet knew it was a good one, a fair one. But he didn’t particularly want to be good or fair right now. He wanted to do something. He wanted a challenge. He wanted to feel less like this fake facade.

He would do all that by doing that something right, damn it. “I want her contact information.”

“I didn’t say I’d back you up. I didn’t say—”

“I want her contact information,” Bennet repeated, and this time he didn’t smile or hide the edge in his voice. “I have found a lead that no one else has found, and I will rightfully and lawfully follow up on it once Captain Dean gives me the go-ahead. Now, you can either give it to me and smooth the way and let this be easy—for me and for her—or you can stand in my way and force me to drag her in here.”

Vaughn’s expression was icy, but Bennet couldn’t worry about that. Not for this. So, he continued.

“You’re out for a month to spend with your wife and your upcoming new addition. Take it. Enjoy it. And while you’re gone, let me do my job the way I see fit.”

Bennet couldn’t read Vaughn’s silence, but he supposed it didn’t matter. Bennet had said his piece, and he’d made it very clear. He would not be dissuaded.

“If you get Captain Dean’s go-ahead, I’ll give you Gabby’s contact information. It’ll be the best way to get ahold of Alyssa.”

When Bennet frowned, Vaughn’s mouth curved into the closest it ever got to a smile on duty.

“Best of luck getting anything out of Gabby Torres.”

Bennet forced himself to smile. “I can handle your sister-in-law.” And he could handle this case, and the potential to crack it wide open. Starting with Alyssa Jimenez.

* * *

ALYSSA NEVER KNEW what to do when Gabby went into full protective mode. While Alyssa had grown up with five intimidating older brothers, they had protected her by throwing her in a room and locking the door, by teaching her to use any weapon she could get her hands on. They had protected her by hiding her.

Not ranting and raving about some half-cocked Texas Ranger wanting to talk to her.

Not that Alyssa needed Gabby’s protection, but it was still interesting to watch.

“The nerve of that guy, thinking he can question you about something that doesn’t even have anything to do with you!”

Alyssa sat with her elbows resting on her knees in a folding chair in the corner of her very odd little office. It was a foreclosed gas station in a crappy part of Austin, and Alyssa hadn’t made any bones about making it look different from what it was. Shelves still stood in aisles, coolers stood empty and not running along the back wall. The only thing she’d done was add some seating—mostly stuff she’d found in the alley—and a desk that had a crack down the middle.

Her clientele didn’t mind, and they knew where to find her without her having to advertise and attract potential...legal issues.

The only time the office space bothered Alyssa was when Gabby insisted on showing up. Even though Alyssa knew Gabby could take care of herself—she’d recently graduated from the police academy, and she’d survived eight years as a prisoner of The Stallion to Alyssa’s two—Alyssa hated bringing people she cared about into this underworld.

“Alyssa. Are you listening?”

Alyssa shrugged. “Not really. You seem to be doing an excellent job of yelling all by yourself.”

Gabby scowled at her, and it was moments like these Alyssa didn’t know what to do with. Where it felt like she had a sister, a family. People who cared about her. It made her want to cry, and it made her want to...

She didn’t know. So, she ignored it. “I can talk to some Texas Ranger. I talk to all sorts of people all the time.” Criminals. Law enforcement. Men who worked for her brothers, men who worked for the FBI, including Gabby’s fiancé. Alyssa knew how to talk to anyone.

Maybe, just maybe, it made her a little nervous someone so close to Natalie and Gabby had possibly discovered her connection to one of the biggest cartels operating in the state of Texas, but she could handle it.

“Crap,” Gabby muttered, looking at her phone. “Nat went into labor.”

“Well, hurry up and get to the hospital.”

“Come with me.”

“No.”

“Alyssa, you’re ours now. Really.”

“I know,” Alyssa replied, even though it had been almost two years since escaping The Stallion and she still wasn’t used to being considered part of the family. “But all that pushing and yelling and weird baby crap? I’m going to have to pass. I’ll come visit when it’s all over, so keep me posted. Besides, I have some work to catch up on. My trip to Amarillo took longer than I expected.”

She’d brought a rapist to justice. Though she’d brought him in for a far more minor charge, the woman who’d come to her for help could rest assured her attacker was in jail.

It wasn’t legal to act as bounty hunter without a license, but growing up in the shadow of a drug cartel family, Alyssa didn’t exactly care about legal. She cared about righting some wrongs.

Some of that pride and certainty must have showed in her expression because Gabby sighed. “All right, I won’t fight you on it. Get your work done and then, regardless of baby appearance, at least stop by the hospital tonight?”

“Fine.”

Gabby pulled her into a quick hug, another gesture Alyssa had spent two years not knowing what to do with. But the Torres sisters had pulled her in and insisted she was part of their family.

It mattered, and Alyssa would do whatever she could to make sure she made them proud. She couldn’t be a police officer like Gabby, or a trained hypnotist assisting the Texas Rangers like Natalie, but she could do this.

“See you tonight,” Gabby said, heading for the door.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Gabby left, and Alyssa sighed. Maybe she should have gone. Natalie had had a difficult pregnancy, enough so that her husband was taking almost an entire month off work to be home with her and the baby the first few weeks. And, no matter how uncomfortable Alyssa still was with the whole childbirth thing, they were her family.

Her good, upstanding chosen family. Who don’t know who you really are.

Alyssa turned to her work. There was some paperwork to forge to collect her fee for the last guy she’d brought in, and then she had to check her makeshift mailbox to see if any more tips had been left for her. She worked by word of mouth, mostly for people who couldn’t pay, hence the forging paperwork so she could pretend to be a licensed bounty hunter and collect enough of a fee to live off of.

Her front door screeched open, as the hinges weren’t aligned or well oiled. She glanced over expecting to find a woman from the neighborhood, as those were usually her only word-of-mouth visitors.

Instead, a man stepped through the door, and for a few seconds Alyssa couldn’t act, she could only stare. He was tall and broad, dressed in pressed khakis and a perfectly tailored button-down shirt, a Texas Ranger badge hooked to his belt. He wore a cowboy hat and a gun like he’d been born with them.

Alyssa’s heart beat twice its normal rhythm, something unrecognizable fluttering in her chest. His dark hair was thick and wavy, and not buzzed short like most Texas Rangers she’d come into contact with. His eyes were a startling blue, and his mouth—

Wait. Why was she staring at his mouth?

The man’s brows drew together as he looked around the room. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, are you... You are Alyssa Jimenez, aren’t you?”

“And you must be the Texas Ranger Gabby’s trying to hide me from,” Alyssa offered drily. “How did you find me?”

“I followed Gabby.”

She laughed, couldn’t help it. She’d expected him to lie or have some high-tech way for having found her not-publicly-listed office. But he’d told her the truth. “Awfully sneaky and underhanded for a Ranger.”

His mouth curved, and the fluttering was back tenfold. He had a movie-star smile, all charm and white teeth, and while Alyssa had seen men like that in her life, she’d never, ever had that kind of smile directed at her.

“You must know Ranger Cooper, antithesis of all that is sneaky and underhanded. We aren’t all like that.”

Something about all that fluttering turned into a spiral, one that arrowed down her chest and into her belly. She felt oddly shaky, and Alyssa had long ago learned how to ward off shaky. She’d grown up in isolation as part of a criminal family. Then she’d been kidnapped for two years, locked away in little more than a bunker.

She was not a weakling. She was never scared. The scariest parts of her life were over, but something about this man sent her as off-kilter as she’d ever been.

It wasn’t fear for her life or the need to fight off an attacker, but she didn’t know what it was, and that was the scariest thing of all.

“Why are you here?” she asked, edging behind her cracked desk. She had a knife strapped to her ankle, but she’d prefer the Glock she’d shoved in the drawer when Gabby had stormed in an hour earlier.

She wouldn’t use either on him, but she didn’t want him to think she was going to do whatever he wanted either. He might be a Texas Ranger, but he couldn’t waltz in here and get whatever he wanted. Especially if what he wanted was information about Jimenez.

“I have some questions for you, Ms. Jimenez, that’s all.”

“Then why is everyone trying so hard to keep you from meeting me?” Alyssa returned, sliding her hand into the drawer.

The Ranger’s eyes flicked to the movement, and she didn’t miss the way his hand slowly rose to the holster of his weapon. She paused her movement completely, but she didn’t retract her hand.

“Maybe they’re afraid of what I’ll find out.”

She raised her gaze from his gun to those shocking blue eyes. His expression was flat and grim, so very police. Worst of all, it sent a shiver of fear through her.

There were so very many things he could find out.

Chapter Two

Bennet didn’t know what to make out of Alyssa’s closed-down gas station of an office. Could anyone call this an office? It looked like nothing more than an abandoned building, except maybe she’d swept the floors a little. But the windows were grimy, the lights dim, and most of the debris of a convenience store were still scattered about.

Then there was this pretty force of a woman standing in the midst of all of it as though it were a sleek, modern office building in downtown Austin.

She wore jeans and a leather jacket over a T-shirt. The boots on her feet looked like they might weigh as much as her. Her dark hair was pulled back, and her dark eyes flashed with suspicion.

Something about her poked at him, deep in his gut. He tried to convince himself he must have dealt with her before, criminally, but he was too practical to convince himself of a lie. Whatever that poke was, it wasn’t work related.

But he was here to work. To finally do something worthwhile. With no help from any outside forces.

She didn’t take her hand off what he assumed to be a weapon in the drawer of her desk—though it was hidden from his view—so he kept his hand on his. Alyssa might be a friend of people he knew, but that didn’t mean he trusted her.

“I guess what you find out depends on what you’re looking for, Ranger...” She looked expectantly at him.

Though she was clearly suspicious, defensive even, she didn’t appear nervous or scared, so he went ahead and took his hand off the butt of his weapon. He held out his hand between them. “Bennet Stevens. And I don’t know why your friends are being so protective of you. All I’m after is a little information about a case I’m working on. If you have no connection to it, I’ll happily walk away and not bother you again.”

Nothing in her expression changed. She watched him and his outstretched hand warily. She was doing some sort of mental calculation, and Bennet figured he could wait that out and keep his hand outstretched for as long as it took.

“What kind of case?”

“A murder.”

She laughed, and something in his gut tightened, a completely unwelcome sensation. She had a sexy laugh, and it was the last thing he had any business noticing.

“I can assure you I have nothing to do with any murders,” Alyssa said, still ignoring his outstretched hand.

“Then what do you have to do with?” he asked, giving up on the handshake.

She cocked her head at him. “I’m pretty sure you said that if I didn’t have anything to do with your case, you’d leave me alone. Well, you know where the door is.”

He glanced at the door even though there was no way he was retreating anytime soon. His initial plan had been to come in here and be friendly and subtle, ease into things.

It was clear Alyssa wasn’t going to respond to subtle or friendly. Which meant he had to go with the straightforward tactic, even if it ended up offending his friends.

He held up his hands, palms toward her, a clear sign he wouldn’t be reaching for his weapon as he slowly withdrew two papers from his shirt’s front pocket.

He unfolded the papers and handed the top one to her. “Is that you?”

It was a picture of a young girl, surrounded by five dangerous-looking men. Men who were confirmed to be part of the Jimenez drug cartel.

Bennet had no doubt the girl in the picture was Alyssa. Though she did look different as an adult, there were too many similarities. Chief among them the stony expression on her face.

She looked at the picture for an abnormally long time in utter silence.

“Ms. Jimenez?”

She looked up at him, and there wasn’t just stony stoicism or cynicism in her expression anymore, there was something a lot closer to hatred. She dropped the picture on her ramshackle desk.

“I really doubt I need to answer that question since you’re here. You’ve decided it’s me whether I confirm it or not. You clearly know who those men are, decided I’m connected to them. I doubt you’ll believe me, but let me head you off at the pass. I have not contacted anyone with the last name Jimenez since I was kidnapped at the age of twenty.”

He wouldn’t let that soften him. “Then I guess it’s fitting that the case I’m looking into is sixteen years old.”

Confusion drew her eyebrows together. “You want to question me about a crime that happened when I was eight?”

“Yes.”

She made a scoffing noise disguised as a laugh. “All right, Ranger Hotshot. Hit me.”

“Sixteen years ago, a Jane Doe was found murdered. She’s never been identified, but I found some similarities between her case and a case connected to the Jimenez family. Your family. I’d like to bring some closure to this cold case, and I think you can help.”

“I was eight. Whatever my brothers were doing, I had no part in.”

“Brothers?”

She didn’t move, didn’t say anything, but Bennet nearly smiled. She’d slipped up and given him more information than he’d had. He’d known Alyssa was connected, but he hadn’t known how close.

Yeah, she was going to be exactly what he needed. “I’d like you to look at the picture of the Jane Doe and let me know if you remember ever seeing her with your brothers. It’s not an incredibly graphic picture, but it can be disconcerting for some people to view pictures of dead bodies.”

Alyssa rolled her eyes and snatched up the picture. “I work as a bounty hunter. I think I can stand the sight of a...” But she trailed off and paled. She sank into the folding chair so hard it broke and she fell to the ground.

Bennet was at her side not quite in time to keep her ass from hitting the floor. “Are you okay?”

She was shaking, seemed not to have noticed she’d broken a chair and was sitting in its debris, the picture fisted in her hand.

“Alyssa?”

When she finally brought her gaze to his, those brown eyes were wide and wet and she was clearly in shock.

“Where’d you get this?” she demanded in a whisper, her hands shaking. Hell, her whole body was shaking. Her brown eyes bored into his. “This is a lie. This has to be a lie.” Her voice cracked.

“You know her?” he asked, gently rubbing a hand up and down her forearm, trying to offer something to help her stop shaking so hard.

Alyssa looked back down at the picture that shook in her hands. “That’s my mother.”

* * *

THE TEARS WERE sharp and burning, but Alyssa did everything she could to keep them from falling. She forced herself to look away from the picture and shoved it back at the Texas Ranger, whatever his name was.

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Her mother had left her. She’d been seduced away by some rival of her father’s. That was the story.

Not murder.

It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. She tried to get ahold of her labored breathing, but no matter how much she told herself to breathe slowly in and out, she could only gasp and pant, that picture of her mother’s lifeless face seared into her brain forever.

Murder.

She realized the Ranger had stopped rubbing her arm in that oddly comforting gesture and instead curled long, strong fingers around both her elbows.

“Come on,” he said gently, pulling her to her feet.

Since the debris of the rickety chair that had broken underneath her weight was starting to dig into her butt, she let him do it. Once she was standing somewhere close to steady on her feet, he didn’t release her. No, that strong grip stayed right where it was on her elbows.

It was centering somehow, that firm, warm pressure. A reminder she existed in the here and now, not in one of the different prisons her life had been.

She blinked up at the Texas Ranger holding her steady. There was something like compassion in his blue eyes, maybe even regret. His full lips were downturned, slight grooves bracketing his mouth.

He was something like pretty, and she’d rather have those cheekbones and that square jaw burned into her brain than the image of her dead mother.

“If I’d had any idea, Alyssa...” he said, his voice gravel and his tone overly familiar.

She pulled herself out of his grasp, pulled into herself, like she’d learned how to do time and time again as the inconsequential daughter of a criminal, as a useless kidnapping victim.

She’d spent the last two years trying to build a life for herself where she might matter, where she might do some good.

This moment forced her back into all the ways she’d never mattered. What other lies she’d accepted as truth might be waiting for her?

She closed her eyes against the onslaught of pain. And fear.

“My brothers didn’t murder my mother, Ranger Stevens,” Alyssa managed, though her voice was rusty. “I know they’re not exactly heroes, but they never would have killed my mother.”

“Okay.” He was quiet for a few humming seconds. “Maybe you’d like to help me find out who did.”

She didn’t move, didn’t emote. She’d worked with law enforcement before, but she was careful about it. They usually didn’t know her name or her friends. They definitely didn’t know her connection to the Jimenez family.

This man knew all of that and had to look like Superman in a cowboy hat on top of it. The last thing she should consider was working with him.

Except her mother was dead. Murdered. A Jane Doe for well over a decade, and as much as she couldn’t believe her brothers had anything to do with her mother’s murder—murder—she couldn’t believe they didn’t know. There was no way Miranda Jimenez had stayed a Jane Doe without her family purposefully making sure she did.

Alyssa swallowed. Making sure her mother had stayed a Jane Doe, all the while making sure Alyssa didn’t know about it. Her brothers had always claimed they were protecting her by keeping things from her, and it was hard to doubt. They had meant well. If they hadn’t, she’d have been dead or auctioned off to some faithful servant of her father’s before she’d ever been kidnapped.

Ranger Stevens released her, and she felt cold without that warm, sturdy grip. Cold and alone. Well, that’s what you are. What you’ll always have to be.

“Take some time. Come to grips with this new information, and when you’re ready to work with me, give me a call.” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and handed her a card from it.

She took the card. That big star emblem of the Rangers seemed to stare at her. It looked so official, so heroic, that symbol. Right next to it, his name, Bennet E. Stevens. Ranger.

She glanced back up at him, and was more than a little irritated she saw kindness in his expression. She didn’t want kindness or compassion. She didn’t know what to do with those things, and she already got them in spades from Gabby and Natalie and even to an extent from their law enforcement significant others.