Trouble in Texas Read online

  “Unless you have a license to care for protected species, I’m afraid I’ll have to shut you down.”

  As he spoke, Mark pinned his new neighbor with a look.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I suggest you talk to the Fish and Wildlife Service before you threaten me.”

  “Lady, I am the Fish and Wildlife Service.”

  “Forgive me,” she said sarcastically, “but you’re not exactly dressed for the part. Where’s your ID?”

  He glanced down at his ripped T-shirt and cutoffs. “Up there. You don’t want to make me get it.” He didn’t like to advertise his exact position with the FWS. A secret agent should be secret. Something he should have thought about before he shot off his big mouth. “Now let’s see the permit.”

  She sighed. “It would be a lot easier if you simply called the local FWS and checked with them. They gave me these birds to rehabilitate.”

  She was right. Her story would be easy to check. Since she didn’t appear stupid, he figured she had to be telling the truth. “You’re legit.”

  “Afraid so. I’m Cat Randolph. And we seem to have gotten off to a bad start. How about a cup of coffee?”

  He’d kill for a cup of coffee. But if he took her up on it, he’d feel obligated to apologize, and just now any thought of apology stuck in his craw. It looked as if getting shot was only the start of his bad luck.

  Dear Reader,

  The grackle started it all.

  One day I was sitting at my computer, working on a book. Actually, I was struggling with a book, so instead of looking at the computer screen, I was looking out the window for divine inspiration. What I found was a dead grackle lying on the ground. A few minutes later, his head came up. Okay, not dead, but injured. Well, crud, I thought. What am I supposed to do now?

  I called my friend Sue Gordon who happens to rehabilitate birds. Sue took the grackle home, nursed him and came back over to release him the next day. I watched him fly away and I saw the joy my friend received from being able to help this bird. And I felt good, too, because not only had I helped save a bird—he certainly would have been some cat’s meal if we hadn’t rescued him—but I had an idea for a new book.

  So, if my heroine, Cat Randolph, rehabilitates birds, who would the hero be? Well, a secret agent. No, not that kind of secret agent. Mark Kincaid is a secret agent for the Fish and Wildlife Service, one who busts bird-smuggling rings.

  During my research I discovered that the worldwide illegal exotic animal trade is a huge business. Second only to drugs. The methods used to smuggle these animals are unconscionably inhumane, and countless animals die during the process. I’m an animal lover—to say I was horrified is putting it mildly. So it seemed appropriate to me that the hero of my book, and the man my bird-lover heroine falls for, would be a person who works to put a halt to this terrible crime. Of course, it didn’t turn out to quite be that easy….

  Eve Gaddy

  I love to hear from readers. Write me at P.O. Box 131704, Tyler, TX 75713-1704 or e-mail [email protected]. Check out my Web site, www.evegaddy.com, or the Superromance authors’ Web site, www.superauthors.com.

  Trouble in Texas

  Eve Gaddy

  This is for my father, David McMahon.

  I miss our trips to the bookstore, Dad, and those Sunday-night steak dinners and being able to call you up and yell about politics, or ask you obscure questions you always knew the answers to. I even miss the football games, because you’re not here watching them and hollering for the Longhorns. I promise, during UT’s first game next season I’ll say a great big “Hook ’em Horns” in your honor. I miss you, Dad.

  Acknowledgments:

  My thanks go to Sue Gordon, because I wouldn’t have had the original idea for this book without her, and also for sharing her love of birds and stories about them with me.

  And to Rosalyn Alsobrook, for talking about the book, critiquing the book, listening to my tortured ramblings, helping me figure out those pesky problems (and I still can’t write a decent synopsis, so you’re not off the hook in the future). And especially, for all our talks about your mom and dad. Thanks, Roz, for being there when I really needed a friend who understood.

  Contents

  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

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE SHAPELY BLONDE in Mark Kincaid’s arms whispered an erotic suggestion that sent his blood pressure rocketing eight miles high. Smiling, he murmured an appreciative yes. She sighed and snuggled closer. Ran her hand over his chest and began a slow journey south, her talented fingers tracing a warm, steady path to paradise.

  Until she screeched in his ear.

  Mark shot up in bed with an explosive oath and a wild-eyed glare for the blonde—who was nowhere to be seen. His heart rate slowly steadied. He’d been dreaming. But the obnoxious noise that woke him continued, joined by others, equally loud and grating. No illusion, that. Even in his half-asleep state he recognized the sounds. Of course he recognized them. He spent fifty weeks a year putting up with sounds just like that.

  Birds. A lot of birds. Damn, couldn’t he ever get away from his job?

  Especially since he wasn’t even on the job, but still on sick leave. He rolled out of bed, wincing as a bedspring poked him in the rear, and stumbled over to the open window of the second-story room. He scrubbed his hands over his stubbled face, then propped them on the windowsill and grimaced as the screen fell off and crashed to the ground below. Bleary-eyed, he trained his gaze on his next-door neighbor’s yard. He blinked. Blinked again. Then shuddered at the sight that met his eyes. Raising his eyes skyward he muttered, “Oh, man, what did I do to deserve this?”

  An aviary. A very large aviary, taking up nearly the entire yard.

  And a female caretaker, he realized, his gaze narrowing. She was about as far from the luscious blonde of his dreams as it was possible to get. Chin-length dark hair, and a nice, curvy little body. Young, he thought, but somehow he didn’t think those curves belonged to a teenager. Too far away to see her face clearly, but man, oh, man, that body was definitely worth looking at. Nice, if you liked your women small, dark and sexy.

  Which he did. But sure as hell not at six in the flipping morning after four hours of sleep on a mattress made of gravel.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted. She didn’t hear him. Not surprising, since the birds made such a racket. He shouted again, and again, until she finally glanced up at him. For a moment she looked startled, then smiled and waved—just as if she hadn’t been responsible for blasting him out of the best dream he’d had in a month of Sundays—and turned happily back to her business. Which seemed to be stirring up a dozen species of birds.

  Gritting his teeth, he snatched up a pair of cutoffs, yanked them over his hips and fastened them. On his way out of the room he grabbed his gray T-shirt from the chair and pulled it over his head.

  An aviary. His frown deepened as his annoyance increased. He’d do something about that. There had to be some ordinance against so many animals at one residence, or if not, surely there was one about excessive noise, even in this godforsaken little town tucked away on the Texas coast. He’d go over there and very
politely tell bird lady that if her birds woke him up again at such an early hour, he’d call the cops on her.

  He splashed cold water on his face to force himself awake. It made sense now—the Realtor’s hesitation when he asked why there hadn’t been a whisper of interest in the house. Then the blunt reply that he’d better come down and take a look for himself.

  Which he had, finally. After being sidelined with a bullet wound to the thigh, courtesy of the case from hell, otherwise known as the Parrot Blues, Mark had decided to put his downtime to good use and take a look at the house his uncle had left him here in Aransas City.

  A small community with fishing as its major industry, Aransas City didn’t run to condos and big beachfront developments. Not yet, at any rate. Still, with the town situated only thirty miles from Corpus Christi, Mark had thought the real estate market wouldn’t be totally dead.

  Now he knew why the house hadn’t sold. Sold, hell. Nobody had even asked to see it, according to the Realtor, and it had been on the market four months. And why would they bother to look inside? The moon last night had allowed him a brief glimpse of the exterior, enough to depress him for a week. A perfect haunted house.

  Face it, he told himself, the place is a wreck. A falling-down, rat-and insect-infested, two-story, pseudo-Victorian monstrosity. Seeing it now, with its sagging ceilings and garishly dismal decor, didn’t make him any more optimistic about its prospects. As for braving the exterior in the daylight, he didn’t think he was strong enough to face that. Not before a bucket of coffee, anyway.

  So, not only had he inherited a disaster that would take him a good six months he didn’t have to make habitable, it happened to be next door to an outdoor aviary, for crying out loud. Who wanted to live next door to a bunch of noisemakers shedding feathers, bird droppings and attracting even more birds to the area?

  Nobody in his right mind.

  As he limped across the sparse grass to reach Ms. Bird Lover’s backyard, he wished he’d thought to put on his shoes. His uncle’s yard was as neglected as the house. It consisted mostly of sand, broken shells, stickers and rocks, with an occasional fire-ant mound thrown in to really keep him on his toes.

  A few feet away, he stopped and stared at the woman. Hands on his hips and his jaw twitching from irritation, he waited for her to finish feeding the heron before he spoke. She had tethered the bird to a table just outside the aviary and seemed totally unconcerned with the infernal racket coming from the rest of the motley flock.

  Unhurried, she held out a fish, and the huge gray-blue bird took it delicately from her. She had a way with birds, obviously. Mark wouldn’t have hand-fed a heron. Who knew when it would decide to take a bite out of the hand that fed it? But then, he had more experience with dead birds than live ones, unfortunately.

  Finally, she turned, looked him up and down and offered another welcoming smile. “Hi. You must be Gilbert’s long-lost nephew.”

  He didn’t bother to respond to the comment. It ticked him off even more that the smile did great things for her face. A pretty face, not gorgeous but intriguing. And, he noticed, big brown bedroom eyes. If he hadn’t been so irritated…

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?” he snarled.

  She glanced at her watch and bestowed another bright-eyed, cheery smile on him. Didn’t the woman ever stop smiling? What could there possibly be to smile about at 6:00-damn-a.m.?

  “Six-fifteen,” she said, and turned back to the bird. “Come on, Rover. You know I have to check your wing. There’s a good boy.” She took the wing gently in hand.

  Mark ground his teeth together. Another time he might have appreciated the fact that she was dressed in a pale yellow tank top, a skimpy pair of white shorts and battered sneakers. But not now. His bum leg ached and his head hurt, the squawking and chirping of the birds making him feel like Rosie the Riveter was doing a tap dance inside his skull.

  Still, he tried to be reasonable. “Could you do this later? Say, three hours or so later?”

  She let go of the wing with a murmur of approval. She turned a solemn face to him. Her dark eyes twinkled with, he was sure, ironic amusement. “No. They like to get up early and they want to eat first thing. You get used to it.”

  “I don’t want to get used to it,” he snapped. “I want it to stop. I was trying to sleep.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but they’re birds. They make their own schedule and there’s not much I can do about it.” She didn’t look particularly sorry.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. “Maybe the cops will change your mind about that.”

  She laughed, not a bit concerned. Mark couldn’t remember the last time someone had laughed at him when he was angry.

  “You have a lot of nerve for somebody who only moved into the neighborhood yesterday. Go right ahead and call them,” she said in a voice rich with enjoyment. “I’m not breaking any laws.” She gestured at her other neighbor’s house. “Besides, you really will get used to it.”

  He stared at her in his best intimidating manner, the one he usually reserved for low-life smugglers and poachers. “Excessive noise. Disturbing the peace.”

  Didn’t anything faze the woman? She openly grinned at him now.

  “That’s debatable. But it doesn’t matter. Inside the city limits, you might have a case. But—” Her smiled widened. “Notice the pavement change? Your place is city. Mine—” she raised her chin and met his glare head-on with a smug smirk “—isn’t.”

  Eyes narrowed, he stared at her, trying to figure out if she was bluffing. Somehow, he didn’t think so. He glanced at the street. Damn, she was right. The pavement changed right before it reached her house.

  A muscle in his jaw throbbed. “You’re outside the city limits?”

  “Just.” She gave a satisfied nod. “Look it up.”

  Okay, time to pull out the big guns. He motioned at the heron. “Are you aware that bird is a protected species?”

  In the process of putting the big bird back in its cage, she looked over her shoulder at him. “Of course. Why?”

  As she shut the cage door, he pinned her with The Look. The one that made grown men quake and women cry. “Unless you have a license to care for a protected species, I’m afraid I’ll have to shut down your little operation here.”

  “Is that so?” Far from crying, or even looking scared, she crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head indulgently. “I suggest you talk to the Fish and Wildlife Service before you threaten me.”

  “Lady, I am the Fish and Wildlife Service.”

  Her eyebrows drew together and she frowned, drumming her fingers on a bare arm. A moment later her expression cleared. “Oh, I get it. You must be new.”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Now, where’s the permit?”

  “Forgive me,” she said sarcastically, “but you’re not exactly dressed for the part. Where’s your ID?”

  He glanced down at his ripped T-shirt and cutoffs before he jerked his head toward his uncle’s house. This wasn’t going at all according to plan. He needed sleep or a big dose of caffeine, not to be arguing with Ms. Chirpy here. “Up there. You don’t want to make me get it.” He didn’t like to advertise his exact position within the FWS. A secret agent should be secret. Something he should have thought about before he shot off his big mouth.

  “Don’t I?” She arched an eyebrow. “Why not? What are you going to do? Arrest me?”

  “If necessary. Let’s see the permit,” he repeated.

  She huffed out a sigh and shoved her fingers, the ones that hadn’t been holding a fish, through her hair. “Look, let’s save time here. You can rant and rave all you want, but it would be a lot easier if you simply called the local FWS and checked with them. They gave me these birds—” she waved a hand to encompass the whole passel of squawkers “—among others. Which means, as you ought to know, if you’re who you say you are, that I’m fully licensed. I rehabilitate the injured birds and release them back into the wild when poss
ible.”

  Mark remained silent for a long moment, still glaring at her. “And when it’s not possible?”

  She looked away, as if she didn’t want to address the question. Maybe she didn’t. In spite of his fatigue, his professional interest stirred.

  Finally she said, “Different things. Sometimes they go to zoos, sometimes private owners. It depends. Now, are you through with the third degree?”

  Her voice sounded vexed and she’d finally quit smiling. Mark looked then, at the other birds, several different species ranging from an Amazon parrot to a scarlet macaw, to a seagull, all in varying stages of recovery.

  He didn’t like what he was hearing, and he wasn’t sure he quite bought it. But she was right. Her story would be easy to check. Too easy to check. All he had to do was call the local FWS for corroboration. Since she didn’t appear to be stupid, he figured she had to be on the up-and-up.

  Which meant he was SOL.

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. Opened them to see a seagull directly overhead, tail feathers twitching. He swore and jumped aside, hearing something that sounded suspiciously like a giggle. Spinning around, he found her watching him. That smile was back, tugging at her mouth. A mighty attractive mouth.

  “You’re legit,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.

  “Afraid so.” She let that hang a moment. “I’m Cat Randolph. And we seem to have gotten off to a bad start. Truce?” She offered a hand and smiled at him, a remarkably friendly smile considering what had just passed between them. “How about a cup of coffee?”

  Coffee. God, he’d kill for a cup of coffee. But if he took her up on it, then he’d feel obligated to apologize, and just then any thought of apology stuck in his craw. He glanced over her shoulder to see another woman bearing down on them. No way did he intend to eat crow, and sure as hell not in front of a witness. Instead of answering, he gave her his iciest glare, turned his back and left her to her feathered friends.