Secret Agent Dad. Metsy Hingle
where they had been held hostage had not been an easy task. But he’d done it. He’d rescued the motherless babies and thwarted Prince Ivan’s plans to use them in his plot to gain control of the kingdom of Oberland. And in less than two hours, weather permitting, his end of the mission would be completed. They would be in Royal, Texas, and he would gladly turn the pair over to their aunt.
Another whimper cut through his musings. Despite the November cold, sweat beaded across his brow. He lifted his gaze heavenward. Please. Don’t let them wake up again. The whimper escalated to a wail. “So much for prayers,” he muttered.
“Hang on a second, sugar britches,” he soothed, dividing his attention between the blue-eyed babies seated behind him and the storm-ravaged road stretched out before him. He negotiated the sedan around another curve and swore as a fist of wind came at him and nearly tossed them off the road. Gripping the steering wheel, Blake fought to steady the car while he braced himself for the second baby to join its twin’s protests. As if on cue the other baby began to howl, and the wails continued in chorus. Blake still didn’t know which was worse—the nerve-wrenching cries of the twins or driving through the worst rainstorm to hit West Texas since Noah had piloted his ark.
Sighing, he darted another glance at the healthy-lunged duo seated behind him. An unexpected warmth spread through him as he looked at the tiny pair all bundled up in the ugly camouflage jackets he’d put on them in their escape from the palace. Miranda—he was sure it had to be that future heartbreaker—stretched out her little arms toward him.
Blake’s heart did a nosedive.
“Shh. It’s okay, sugar. Uncle Blake’s here.” Unfastening his seat belt, he stretched one arm behind him to stroke her tiny hands with his finger. Despite the contact, she continued to sob. And each one of those pitiful sobs ripped right through him. Nearly frantic, he tried to think what to do. “Pacifiers!” Groping in the diaper bag on the seat beside him, his fingers closed around a rubber nipple. “Here you go,” he said, managing to pop it in her mouth.
He was debating whether to stop and get the other nipple for Edward, when the baby stopped crying, and started to doze off. Relieved, Blake directed his attention back to the road and frowned. The weather appeared to be worse now than when he’d started out from the airport where he’d landed his plane earlier. The usually dry gullies were filling rapidly. Never once in his thirty years could he remember weather like this in West Texas. But he couldn’t stop and wait for it to blow over. He had to get home—to Royal—tonight. His brother Greg and the Alpha Team, all members of the exclusive Texas Cattleman’s Club, were counting on him. So was Princess Anna.
Another glance at the backseat revealed the twosome were asleep. Anger twisted inside him as he thought about Prince Ivan and his attempts to use them. From what he’d learned of the man, the prince would not be a gracious loser. “Don’t you two worry. Uncle Blake won’t let him get anywhere near you again. I promise.”
Rain pummeled the car like fists, making it nearly impossible to see the road. The windshield wipers worked furiously, offering him only split-second views of the road. His thoughts still on the prince, Blake didn’t see the shattered arm of a windmill in the road until he was almost on top of it. He whipped the wheel to his left, just missing it. Struggling to maintain control, he began applying the brakes. A blast of wind slapped at the car from behind and sent the sedan skidding sideways across the road. Blake fought to keep the car from flipping over, but there was no way to avoid hitting the low bridge over the creek. He slammed into the railing, and the car pivoted and began skidding down the shoulder. The babies screamed. Blake lurched forward, cracking his head against the windshield before the car came to a halt.
Dazed, blood trickling down his forehead, the frightened cries of the babies pierced his fogged senses. The twins! He had to get the twins. Fighting pain and the darkness that threatened to engulf him, Blake shoved against the door. It opened, and he fell to his knees in mud and water. He tried to stand, but the wind slammed him back against the car. His head struck the door, and pain exploded in his skull. His vision blurred. Clutching his head in his hands, he slumped to the ground, unaware of his wallet falling beside him, of the wind tossing the black billfold down toward the creek and into the rushing water.
And as the rain beat down over him, Blake succumbed to the beckoning darkness.
One
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Josie Walters smacked her fist against the steering wheel of her aging Explorer and glared at the windshield wipers as they waged a losing battle with the punishing rain. Slowing to little more than a crawl, she pointed the blue truck down the dark, empty road. “I should never have waited so long to leave Royal,” she grumbled.
She should have been home hours ago, safe and warm in her farmhouse, not driving through this monster-size storm. And she would have been, if she hadn’t listened to that Pollyanna voice in her head again.
“What made me think that placing an ad for a farmhand would be the answer to my prayers? Some answer!” Clenching the steering wheel with her fingers, Josie mocked her own foolish optimism.
“You’re a first-rate idiot, Josie Walters.” Because only an idiot would have convinced herself to wait for that last job applicant, believing he would be any different from the other five men she’d interviewed and ruled out. Not only had number six, a drifter named Pete Mitchell, been just as incapable and overpriced as the others, but the man had actually expected access to her bed as a fringe benefit.
“The jerk! Sex-starved widow, indeed!” Remembering the remark, she fumed, and prayed that Forrest Cunningham, a member of that ritzy Texas Cattleman’s Club, hadn’t overheard him. Everyone else in the diner probably had, though. How would she ever be able to set foot in Royal again? The fact that she’d even allowed the beady-eyed excuse for a man to finish making the proposition with his hand on her rear end before she’d dumped her coffee m his lap proved what a desperate fool she was. At the admission, some of the fight went out of her, and she sighed.
When will you learn, Josie? You are not Cinderella. Not even close. Didn’t all those years of being passed over for adoption teach you that much? If you had any doubts, surely that cheating man you married hammered home the message. After all, it wasn’t you he’d taken with him to Dallas when he wrapped his car around that utility pole. You didn’t quite measure up, remember? That’s why he’d taken that pretty new waitress from Midland with him. Face it, Josie girl. The only fairy-tale endings or princes you’re likely to find are between the covers of a book.
Pushing the painful memories aside, Josie focused on today’s blunder while she continued to creep down the road. Not only was she out the cost of the ad, she’d also lost another day. A day she could ill afford to lose when so much work still needed to be done before the bank’s inspection. How was she supposed to get the farm in shape if she couldn’t find help that she could afford? And what would she do if the bank turned down her request for a loan and she lost the farm?
Acid churned in Josie’s stomach at the thought. She wouldn’t lose the farm. She couldn’t. Regardless of her disaster of a marriage, at least Ben had left her the farm. And despite its run-down condition, the place was her home. Home. For the first time in her twenty-nine years she actually had one she could call her own. And she wasn’t about to give it up without a fight. Somehow, some way, she would find a way to keep it with or without the loan. She had to.
Suddenly a speed limit sign flew into her path, and Josie swerved to miss it. Her heart slamming in her chest, she pulled onto the shoulder of the road and noted for the first time that the storm was getting worse. When she’d left Royal there had only been a stiff wind. But now sheets of rain had joined the howling wind, whipping across the landscape and her truck. Josie shivered and turned up the collar of her denim jacket. Maybe she’d be wise to shelve her worries about the farm for the time being and concentrate on getting home in one piece.
Shifting the truck out of Park, she carefully eased it back onto the road. She’d never seen weather like this before—not in this part of Texas, where rain was such a rarity. Thinking back on how often she’d wished