He had two weeks to gain the information he needed to stop terrorists with weapons of mass destruction from entering the country. But everything his six-man team had done so far had been a bust.

Undercover operative Jamie Cassidy sat with his back to the wall in the far corner at the Yellow Armadillo, a seedy, small-town bar on the backstreets of Pebble Creek, Texas. Country music streamed from overhead speakers; the place was dark and dingy, the food was fried within an inch of its life. But the beer was cold, the only nice thing that could be said about the joint.

"So you have no idea who the new boss is?" he asked the scrawny farmhand across the table.

Billy Brunswik fingered the rim of the tattered Stetson on his lap, his eyes on his empty glass. A cowboy tan left the top of his forehead white, the rest of his face several shades darker. His checkered blue shirt was wrinkled and smudged with dirt, as if he'd been wearing it for more than a day or two. He silently shook his head.

Jamie had his own cowboy hat and jeans and shirt to fit in, a far cry from his usual commando gear. In a place like this—a known hangout for smugglers—being spotted as a government man could quickly earn you a bullet in the back.

He waved the perky blonde waitress over for another round for Billy but didn't return her flirty smile. His attention was on the man across the table. "It's tough. Believe me, I know." He waited until the waitress left. "In this economy, and they cut off work. Hell, what are you supposed to do? Who do you go to now?"

"Nobody knows nuthin'." Billy set his empty glass down and wiped his upper lip with the back of his calloused hand, then pulled out a tin of chewing tobacco and tucked a pinch between gum and cheek. "I can barely buy groceries for the girlfriend and me, I'll tell you that."

Jamie watched him for a few seconds, then slid three twenties across the table. "I know how it is."

Billy was on the cash like a duck on a june bug, the bills disappearing in a flat second. He looked around nervously, licking his crooked yellow front teeth. "I ain't no snitch."

Jamie gave a sympathetic nod. "A man has to live. And I ain't asking for nothing that would get you in trouble. Just need enough to show the boss I've been working." He shrugged, playing the halfhearted customs agent role.

Billy hung his head. "I do work a little," he admitted. "When nobody's lookin'. Just some weed."

"Who do you kick up to?"

"Ain't nobody there since Kenny."

And no matter how hard Jamie pushed the down-on-his-luck farmhand after that, Billy didn't give up anything. Although he did promise to get in touch if things changed.

Developing an asset was a slow and careful business.

Jamie left the man and strode across the bar, looking for familiar faces as he passed the rows of tables. The two border towns his team watched, Hullett and Pebble Creek, had their share of smugglers, most of them lying low these days. He didn't recognize anyone here today.

He paid the waitress at the bar, stepped outside into the scorching heat then shoved his hat on his head and rubbed his eyes. He'd spent the night on border patrol, then most of the morning running down leads. His legs hurt. The doc at Walter Reed called it phantom-limb pain.

He resisted the urge to reach down and rub his prosthetic limbs. It did nothing for the pain, and he hated the feel of the cold steel where his legs should have been.

He strode up to Main Street, came out by the bank and drew a hundred out of the ATM while he was here, since Billy had cleaned him out. Then his gaze caught on the bookstore across the street. Maybe a good read would help him fall asleep. When on duty, his mind focused on work. But when he rested, memories of his dark past pushed their way back into his head. Sleep had a way of eluding him.

He cut across traffic and pushed inside the small indie bookstore, into the welcoming cool of air-conditioning, and strode straight to the mystery section. He picked out a hard-boiled detective story, then turned on his heels and came face-to-face with the woman of his dreams.

Okay, the woman of every red-blooded man's dreams.

She was tall and curvy, with long blond hair swinging in a ponytail, startling blue eyes that held laughter and a mouth to kill or die for, depending on what she wished.

His mind went completely blank for a second, while his body sat up and took serious notice.

When his dreams weren't filled with blood and torture and killing, they were filled with sex. He could still do the act—one thing his injury hadn't taken away from him. But he didn't allow himself. He didn't want pity. Foreplay shouldn't start with him taking off his prosthetics—the ultimate mood killer. And he definitely didn't want the questions.

Hell, even he hated touching the damn things. Who wouldn't? He wasn't going to put himself through that humiliation. Wasn't going to put a woman in a position where she'd have to start pretending.

But he dreamed, and his imagination made it good. The woman of his dreams was always the same, an amalgamation of pinup girls that had been burned into his brain during his adolescent years from various magazines he and his brothers had snuck into the house.

And now she was standing in front of him.

The pure, molten-lava lust that shot through his gut nearly knocked him off his feet. And aggravated the hell out of him. He'd spent considerable time suppressing his physical needs so they wouldn't blindside him like this.

"Howdy," she said with a happy, peppy grin that smoothed out the little crease in her full bottom lip. She had a great mouth, crease or no crease. Made a man think about his lips on hers and going lower.

He narrowed his eyes. Then he pushed by her with a dark look, keeping his face and body language discouraging. Who the hell was she to upset his hard-achieved balance?

He strode up to the counter and paid with cash because he didn't want to waste time punching buttons on the card reader. He didn't want to spend another second in a place where he could be ambushed like this. The awareness of her back somewhere among the rows of books still tingled all across his skin.

"I'm sorry." The elderly man behind the counter handed back the twenty-dollar bill. "I can't take this." He flashed an apologetic smile as he pushed up his horn-rimmed glasses, then tugged down his denim shirt in a nervous gesture. "The scanner kicked it back."

"I just got it from the bank across the street," Jamie argued, not in the mood for delay.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Everything okay, Fred?" The woman he'd tried to pretend didn't exist came up behind Jamie.

Her voice was as smooth as the kind of top-shelf whiskey the Yellow Armadillo couldn't afford to carry. Its sexy timbre tickled something behind his breastbone. He kept his back to her, against enormous temptation to turn, hoping she'd get the hint to mind her own business.

Then he had to turn, anyway, because next thing he knew she was talking to him.

"I'd be happy to help. How about we go next door and I'll help you figure this out?"

The police station stood next door. All he wanted was to go home and see if he could catch a few winks before his next shift. "I don't think so." He peeled off another twenty, which went through the scanner without trouble. Next thing he knew, Fred was handing back his change.

"I really think we should," the woman insisted.

Apparently, she had trouble with the concept of minding her own business. He shot her a look of disapproval, hoping she'd take the hint.

He tried to look at nothing but her eyes, but all that sparkling blue was doing things to him. Hell, another minute, and if she asked him to eat the damned twenty, he would have probably done it. He caught that thought, pushed back hard.

"Who the hell are you?" He kept his tone at a level of surly that had taken years to perfect.

The cheerleader smile never even wavered as she pulled her badge from her pocket and flashed it at him. "Brianna Tridle. Deputy sheriff."

Oh, hell.

He looked her over more thoroughly: the sexy snake-skin boots, the hip-hugging jeans, the checkered shirt open at the neck, giving a hint of the top curve of her breasts. His palms itched for a feel. If there was such a thing as physical perfection, she was it.

Any guy who had two brain cells to rub together would have gone absolutely anywhere with her.

Except Jamie Cassidy.

"I'm in a hurry."

"Won't take but a minute." She tilted her head, exposing the creamy skin of her neck just enough to bamboozle him. "I've been having a hard time with counterfeit bills turning up in town lately. I'd really appreciate the help. I'll keep it as quick as possible, I promise." The smile widened enough to reveal some pearly white teeth.

Teeth a man wouldn't have minded running his tongue along before kissing her silly.

Another man.

Certainly not Jamie.

Okay, so she was the deputy sheriff. The sheriff, Kenny Davis, had been killed recently. He'd been part of the smuggling operation Jamie's team was investigating. A major player, actually.

After that, Ryder McKay, Jamie's team leader, had looked pretty closely at the Pebble Creek police department. The rest of them came up squeaky clean. A shame, really. Jamie definitely felt like his world would be safer with Brianna Tridle locked away somewhere far from him.

She was too chirpy by half.

He didn't like chirpy.

But if she wasn't a suspect...