A Man for All Seasons: The Texas Ranger\Garden Cop [NOOK Book]

( 18 )

Overview


The Texas Ranger

When Texas Ranger Marc Brannon returns to the line of duty, a high-profile murder mystery pits him against a vibrant junior investigator from his past. He and Josette Langley had parted on explosive terms, but this time a lot more is at stake than just their hearts. Can they set aside past hurts and see justice served? Or will they both be caught in the cross fire?

Garden Cop

On a case to ...

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A Man for All Seasons: The Texas Ranger\Garden Cop

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More About This Book

Overview


The Texas Ranger

When Texas Ranger Marc Brannon returns to the line of duty, a high-profile murder mystery pits him against a vibrant junior investigator from his past. He and Josette Langley had parted on explosive terms, but this time a lot more is at stake than just their hearts. Can they set aside past hurts and see justice served? Or will they both be caught in the cross fire?

Garden Cop

On a case to find a missing informant, FBI Agent Curtis Russell notices that his mother's neighbor is growing something suspicious in her front garden. Mary Ryan, a deputy D.A., can't believe her eyes when she comes across him attacking her tomato plants! The crazy mix-up leads to romance, but the missing man that Curtis is looking for is also wanted by the mobÂ…and they'll kill anyone who gets in their way.

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Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
"Palmer demonstrates, yet again, why she's the queen of desperado quests for justice and true love."

—Publishers Weekly on Dangerous

"The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense."

—Booklist on Lawman

Palmer knows how to make the sparks fly...heartwarming."

—Publishers Weekly on Renegade

"Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be."

—Affaire de Coeur

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781459213913
  • Publisher: Harlequin
  • Publication date: 9/27/2011
  • Series: Long, Tall Texans Series
  • Sold by: Barnes & Noble
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 384
  • Sales rank: 87,756
  • File size: 607 KB

Meet the Author



Diana Palmer is a former newspaper reporter with 16 years' experience on both daily and weekly newspapers. She began selling romance novels in 1979 and currently writes for HQN Books (mainstream romances) and Silhouette Books (contemporary series romances).

Diana Palmer has over 40 million copies of her books in print, which have been translated and published around the world, and she has written over 100 books for Silhouette, MIRA and Harlequin Books.

Her awards include 10 Waldenbooks national sales awards, four B. Dalton national sales awards, two Bookrak national sales awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award for series storytelling from Romantic Times Magazine, several Affaire de Coeur awards, and two regional RWA awards.

In 1998, a Japanese Harlequin reader poll gave her Silhouette Desire novel The Patient Nurse its favorite-book-of-the-year award.

She is listed in numerous publications, including Contemporary Authors by the Gale Group, Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers by St. James Press, The Writers Directory by St. James Press, the International Who's Who of Authors and Writers by Melrose Press, Ltd., and Love's Leading Ladies by Kathryn Falk.

She is a member of the Native American Rights Fund, the American Museum of Natural History, the National Cattlemen's Association, the Archeological Institute of America, the Planetary Society, the Georgia Conservancy, the Georgia Sheriffs' Association, and numerous conservation and charitable organizations. Her hobbies include gardening, archeology, anthropology, iguanas, astronomy and music.

She has been married to her husband, James, since 1972. They have one son, who is in college studying to pursue a law enforcement career.

Diana herself went back to college as a day student at the age of 45, inspired by her husband, who had quit a blue-collar manufacturing job to return to school and get his diploma in computer programming. He retired from his own computer business in 1998, and now enters skeet-shooting competitions in local, state, national and international competition.

Diana graduated summa cum laude from Piedmont College, Demorest, Georgia, in 1995 with a major in history and a double minor in archeology and Spanish. She was named to two honor societies (the Torch Club and Alpha Chi) and was named to the National Dean's List.

In addition to her writing projects, she is currently working on her master's degree in history at California State University. She hopes to specialize in Native American studies.
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Read an Excerpt


There were framed black-and-white photographs of Texas Rangers on the walls of the San Antonio Texas Ranger office. Like sepia ghosts of times gone by, they watched over the modern complex of telephones and fax machines and computers. Phones were ringing. Employees at desks were interviewing people. The hum of working machines settled over the office, oddly comforting, like an electrical lullaby.

Sergeant Marc Brannon was sitting kicked back in his swivel chair, his wavy blond-streaked brown hair shimmering under the ceiling lights as he pondered a stack of files on his cluttered desk. His narrow, pale gray eyes were almost closed as he thought about a disturbing recent mishap.

A close friend and fellow Texas Ranger, Judd Dunn, had been almost run over by a speeding car a few weeks earlier during a temporary assignment to the San Antonio office. There were rumors that it had something to do with a criminal investigation into illegal gambling that the FBI was conducting on local mob boss Jake Marsh in San Antonio. Dunn had been working with the FBI on the case, but shortly thereafter, Dunn had transferred down to the Victoria office, citing personal problems. Brannon had inherited the Marsh investigation. The FBI was also involved—rather, an agent Brannon knew was involved; a Georgia-born nuisance named Curtis Russell. It was curious that Russell should be working on an FBI case. He'd been with the Secret Service. Of course, Marc reminded himself, men changed jobs all the time. He certainly had.

Apparently, Russell was knee-deep in the Marsh investigation. Attorney General Simon Hart had spoken with Brannon on the phone not two days ago, grumbling about Russell's tenacity. The former Secret Service agent was now in Austin giving the local officials fits while he dug into state crime lab computer files on two recent murders that he thought were tied to Marsh.

And who knew, maybe he was right. But pinning anything on the local mobster was going to take a miracle.

Marsh had his finger in all sorts of pies, including blackmail, prostitution and illegal betting, mostly in San Antonio, where he lived. If they could get something on him, they could invoke the state's nuisance abatement statute, which permitted any property to be closed down if it were used as a base of operations for criminals. Since Marsh was known to be involved in prostitution and illegal betting at his nightclub, all they had to do was prove it to oust him from the premises. Considering the real estate value of that downtown property, it would hit Marsh right where he lived. But knowing he was conducting illegal operations and proving it were two whole different kettles of fish. Marsh was an old hand at dodging investigators and searches. Doing things by the book sure seemed to give career criminals an advantage.

Pity that you couldn't just shoot the bad guys anymore, Brannon thought whimsically, eyeing a hundred-year-old framed photograph of a Texas Ranger on horseback with a lariat pulled tight around a dusty and wounded outlaw.

His lean hand went to the dark wood butt of the Colt .45 he wore in a holster on his hip. Since Rangers didn't have a specified uniform, they were allowed some personal choice in both dress and weaponry. But most of the men and women in the office wore white shirts and ties with their star-in-a-circle signature badge on the shirt. Most of them also wore white Stetsons and boots. To a Ranger, they were neat, conservative, polite and professional when they were on the job. Brannon tried very hard to adjust to that image. Well, he tried to, most of the time. He was more cautious about his job now than he ever had been before. He'd made the mistake of his life two years ago, misjudging a woman he'd grown toÂ…care for, very much. His sister said that the woman didn't blame him for the mess he'd made of her life. But he blamed himself so much that he'd quit the Rangers and left Texas for two years to work with the FBI. But he'd learned that running from problems didn't solve them. They were portable. Like heartache.

He could still see her in his mind, blonde and sassy and full of dry wit. Despite the miseries of her life, she'd been the brightest, most delightful person he'd ever known. He missed her. She didn't miss him, of course. And why should she? He'd hurt her terribly. He'd ruined her life.

"Nothing to do, Brannon?" a female Ranger drawled as she passed him. All the women thought he was a dish, lean and slim-hipped, broad-chested, with that square sort of face that once graced cowboy movie posters. He had a sensuous mouth under a nose that had been broken at least once, and an arrogant sort of carriage that excited more than it intimidated. But he wasn't a rounder, by anybody's estimate. In fact, if he dated, he was so discreet that even the office gossip couldn't get anything on him.

"I am doing something," he drawled back with a twinkle in his eyes. "I'm using mental telepathy on escaped criminals. If I'm successful, they'll all be walking into law enforcement offices all over America as we speak, to turn themselves in."

"Pull the other one," she chuckled.

He sighed and smiled. "Okay. I just got back from testifying in a court case. I've got half a dozen cases to work and now I have to decide on priorities," he confessed. He flicked a long finger at the file stack. "I thought I might flip a coinÂ…"

"No need. The captain has something urgent for you to do."

"Saved by new orders!" he joked. He jerked forward and his booted feet slammed to the floor. He got up and stretched enormously, pulling his white shirt with the silver Ranger badge on the pocket tight over hair-roughened, hard chest muscles. "What's the assignment?"

She tossed a sheet on his desk. "A homicide, in an alley off Castillo Boulevard," she told him. "White guy, mid-to-late-twenties. Two detectives from CID and a medical examiner investigator are already on scene, along with a couple of EMTs and patrol officers. The captain said you should go right now, before they call a contract ambulance to transport the dead body."

He scowled. "Hey, that's in the city limits. San Antonio PD has jurisdiction." he began.

"I know. But this one's tricky. They found a young white guy with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, execution-style. Remember what's on Castillo Boulevard?"

"No."

She gave him a smug look. "Jake Marsh's nightclub. And the body was found in an alley two doors down from it."

He broke into a smile. "Well, well! What a nice surprise to drop in my lap, and just when I was feeling sorry for myself." He hesitated. "Wait a minute. Why's the captain giving it to me?" he asked suspiciously, glaring toward the head Ranger's closed door nearby. "The last assignment he gave me was looking into the mysterious death of a mutilated cow." He leaned down, because he was a head taller than she was. "They thought it was aliens" he whispered fervently.

She made a face. "You never know. Maybe it was!"

He glared at her.

She grinned. "He's just ticked because you got to work with the FBI for two years, and they turned down two applications from him. But he said you could have this murder case because you haven't embarrassed him this month. Yet."

"It won't be uncomplicated. In fact, I'll bet a week's pay that by dark it's going to turn into a media feeding frenzy," he said.

"I won't take that bet. And, by the way, he said you should stop getting gas at that new all-female gas station downtown, because it's giving the department a bad name."

He lifted both eyebrows. "What's he got against women pumping gas?" he asked innocently.

"Gas isn't all they're pumping." She flushed when she realized what she'd said, gestured impotently at the assignment sheet and exited in a flaming rush.

Brannon grinned wickedly as she retreated. He picked up the sheet and went out of the office, grabbing up his off-white Stetson on the way.

In Austin, a slender woman with her long blond hair in a bun, wearing big gold-rimmed glasses over her twinkling dark brown eyes, was trying to console one of the state attorney general's computer experts.

"He really likes you, Phil," Josette Langley told the young man, who was in the first month of his first job out of college. He looked devastated. "Honest he does."

Phil, redheaded and blue-eyed, glanced toward the door of Simon Hart, Texas Attorney General, and flushed even redder. "He said it was my fault his computer locked down while he was talking to the vice president online about an upcoming governors' conference. He got knocked off the network and couldn't get back on. He threw the mouse at me."

"Lucky you, that it wasn't attached to the CPU at the time," she said with a wicked grin. "Anyway, he only throws things when Tira's mad at him. It doesn't last long. Besides, the vice president is his third cousin," she pointed out. "And mine, too, come to think of it," she added thoughtfully. "Never mind, Phil, you have to learn to just let it wash over you, like water on a duck's back. Simon's quick-tempered, but he gets over it just as fast."

He gave her a baleful look. "He never yells at you."

"I'm a woman," she pointed out. "He's very old-fashioned about yelling at women. He and his brothers were raised strictly. They don't move with the times."

"He's got four brothers and he says they're all just like him. Imagine that!" he said.

She remembered that Phil was an only child, like herself. "They're not just like him. Anyway, they live in Jacobsville, Texas. The married ones are a lot calmer now." She didn't dare allow herself to think about the two remaining Hart bachelors, Leo and Rey. The stories about their homemade biscuit-craving and the things they did to satisfy it was becoming legendary.

"The bachelor ones aren't calm. One of them carried a cook out of a Victoria restaurant kicking and screaming last week, and they sent the Texas Rangers after him!"

"They sent Judd Dunn," she replied. "He's our cousin, too. But it was a joke, sort of. And she wasn't exactly screamingÂ…Well, never mind. It's not important." She was talking too fast. She felt her face go hot at the mention of the Texas Rangers.

She had painful memories of one particular Texas Ranger, whom she'd loved passionately. Gretchen, Marc Brannon's sister, had told her that Marc Brannon had gone on a drunken rampage two years ago, just after they broke up and ended up on opposite sides of the courtroom in a high-profile murder trial. Marc had left the Rangers shortly afterward and enlisted with the FBI. He was back in San Antonio now, back with the Rangers again. Gretchen also said that Marc had almost driven himself crazy with guilt over an even older incident when Josette was fifteen and he was a policeman in Jacobsville. Odd, she thought, remembering the painful things he'd said to her when they broke up.

Josette had told Gretchen that she didn't blame Marc for his lack of belief in her innocence. Part of her didn't. Another, darker part wanted to hang him by his spurs from a live oak tree for the misery of the past two years. He'd never really believed her story until their last disastrous date, and he'd walked out on her without another word, after making her feel like a prostitute. She'd loved him. But he couldn't have loved her. If he had, he'd never have left Texas, not even if the murder trial had set them at odds.

She cleared her throat at the erotic images that flashed through her mind of her last date with Marc and turned her attention back to poor, downcast Phil Douglas.

"I'll square things with Simon for you," she promised him.

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 3.5
( 18 )
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Sort by: Showing all of 19 Customer Reviews

  • Posted February 14, 2012

    Highly Recommended

    Diana Palmer is a writer that grabs you from the very start of her books. This book contained two stories that were a great read. Anyone who loves to be able to escape, I recommend that they read ANY book by this author. It would be enjoyed for people of all ages.

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  • Posted December 15, 2011

    Good book, but not great

    Too much repeating but ending is good.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 1, 2011

    not what I expected

    I bought this book because I like Diana Palmer stories BUT the first story was just the same things over and over again. If you read the first couple of chapters just skip to the end cause it is the rehash of their problems in the middle. The second story was ok but not like her other books

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  • Posted October 23, 2011

    you got to read these two

    diana palmer writes amazing 'love with a cowboy' stories, and these two are no exception! if you want to feel good after reading a love story, these two are for you!

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    Posted November 8, 2011

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