Page 22 of The Tracker (Cowboys of Silver Spur Security #5)

EVANGELINE

E vangeline hadn’t expected to sleep, not really.

But somewhere between Dawson’s possessive command and the heat of his body folded around hers, she drifted off—safe, sated, and held.

For the first time in what felt like forever, her mind didn’t spiral with what-ifs and whispered betrayals. Just heat. His heat.

When she woke, the space beside her was warm but empty—just enough to know he hadn't been gone long. The morning light spilled across the bed, catching the faint imprint of his body on the sheets.

For a moment, she lay still, breathing in the lingering scent of him—leather, cedar, and something uniquely Dawson that clung to her skin like memory. A quiet pang tugged at her chest, unexpected and intimate. She stretched, sore in all the right places, and she smiled.

Then she saw the note on the pillow.

Back soon. Lachlan is on patrol. Don’t leave. - D

Bossy bastard , she thought with a half-smile as she pressed the note to her lips.

Even absent, he was still managing to boss her around—still managing to make her feel something she'd spent most of her life avoiding: cherished. It irritated her more than it should and thrilled her more than she’d admit.

She sat up, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and let herself replay the night.

Not just the sex—the dominance, the roughness, the way he’d claimed her like she was the only thing that could keep him grounded.

She didn’t scare easy, but last night had shaken her.

Still, morning brought clarity. She padded over to Dawson’s spare laptop on the kitchen island, keyed in her credentials, and pulled up Shaw Petrochemical’s internal security archive.

The system was slow, dragging through layers of admin shielding and outdated encryption like molasses, but she was used to coaxing information out of stubborn tech.

A list of surveillance logs from the week Peter died loaded slowly.

She clicked the file for the executive wing and let the footage play.

For the first few minutes, everything looked normal.

People milling about, Peter stepping into his office, Ana, the Office Administrator, trailing behind him with a tablet.

Then the feed stuttered. Froze. Restarted at a timestamp ten minutes later.

Her pulse spiked. She rewound it. Froze-frame. The metadata showed two entries—one original, one overwrite. The overwrite had come from an admin login routed through the guest Wi-Fi—someone piggybacked off a temporary badge.

She traced the login string. The user ID was anonymized but terminated with a string she recognized. Ana’s workstation tag.

Betrayal twisted in her chest. Ana had brought her coffee on the morning of her first board presentation, had once loaned her a pair of flats when her heels broke just before a major investor dinner. She’d always been in the background—steady, silent, loyal. Or so she thought.

Evangeline sat back slowly, the weight of what she'd uncovered sinking in. Whether Ana had acted alone or someone else had exploited her credentials, the result was the same—deliberate, professional sabotage from someone with insider access. Either way, it wasn’t just incompetence.

It was coordinated. Clean. Professional.

Her chest tightened as she took it in. It wasn’t just a warning. It was a dare. A message that said: I see you. I know how you work. Come and find me. And twisted as it was, that sense of being measured—singled out—by someone dangerous unsettled her more than she cared to admit.

And then it all came rushing back—Peter’s pale face on her phone screen, blood slicked across the marble.

The letter opener—her letter opener—abandoned like a signature she never meant to leave.

The calculated horror of it, staged for maximum shock.

And now, Ana’s betrayal, Langley’s duplicity, and the widening circle of suspicion that pulled tighter with every breath she took.

Her stomach twisted as she pieced it together: this wasn’t just an attack on her.

It was an inside job, orchestrated by someone who knew her world inside and out.

She poured a glass of orange juice like it was any other morning. Except it wasn’t, because someone had tried to frame her for murder, and she’d be damned if she let them get away with it.

Dawson returned twenty minutes later, tension clinging to him like a storm cloud. He dropped a small paper bag on the counter—kolaches and coffee, her favorites. The man was nothing if not efficient.

She raised an eyebrow. “You bribing me with baked goods now?”

His mouth twitched. “You respond well to incentive.”

“I respond well to orgasms, but pastries are a close second.”

He stepped behind her, hand sliding around her waist. “You saying I should’ve brought both?”

Her breath hitched, but she covered it with a grin. “Too late. You set a high bar.”

He kissed the side of her neck, slow and deliberate. “We’ll revisit it tonight.”

“Planning on surviving the day first?”

He pulled back, the softness in his eyes hardening into focus. “We have a name.”

Evangeline stilled. “Who?”

“The Office Administrator, Ana Morales. Jesse flagged her access credentials in the server logs. She had top-tier admin clearance to scrub surveillance footage.”

Evangeline frowned and nodded. “That makes sense. I traced a login string back to Ana’s workstation. I found it hard to believe. She’s so sweet, quiet and efficient. The kind of person you forget is in the room...” Her voice trailed off.

"What?"

"I also just looked at a piece of security footage that stuttered and was missing ten minutes."

“There you go. That's it exactly,” Dawson said. “She's the perfect kind of ghost someone would need for digital cleanup.”

“But why would she help frame me?”

“Money. Blackmail. Leverage. We’ll find out.”

Evangeline sipped her coffee, letting the bitter warmth anchor her. “I want to go in. Talk to her myself.”

Dawson’s eyes darkened. “No.”

Evangeline crossed her arms, chin lifting. “Why not?”

“Because we don’t know who she’s working with, or if she’s the only piece in play. You showing up could spook her, or worse.”

“I’m not a child, Dawson. I’ve handled crisis calls with billion-dollar clients, put out international fires before breakfast, and turned smear campaigns into goodwill—all in three languages.

I know how to read people. I know how to take charge of a conversation.

Peter underestimated and undermined me; I’d appreciate you not doing the same. ”

He stepped closer, his voice low and steely.

“I’m not underestimating or undermining you, Evvy.

I would never do that. But this isn’t PR, and it isn’t damage control.

We’re talking about a potential co-conspirator to murder, and you’re the one they’re setting up.

One wrong move, one misread, and she could vanish—or make you the next victim. ”

Her breath hitched, but she didn’t back down. “You think I can’t handle pressure?”

“I think I can’t handle losing you,” he snapped—then cursed under his breath.

The silence stretched.

She blinked, lips parting slightly. in a soft smile “Dawson…”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “We do this my way. Carefully. Cleanly. I’m not taking chances with you.”

The sharp edges in her posture softened, but only a little. “Fine. But I still want in.”

“No.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

Dawson stepped closer, voice firm. “You are not going anywhere near her without backup. Not until we know if she’s working alone.”

“And who made you lord protector of my life?”

He leaned in. “Me. Being a Dom isn't something I just play at in the club, and it's not confined to sex. Being a Dom is being a protector—it's about taking care of your sub. So the second someone tried to frame you for murder is the second my protective asshole went into gear.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it. Damn him.

“Fine,” she said. “But I’m not staying here like some coddled heiress.” Even as she said it, the words felt like a splinter under her skin.

Trusting Dawson to lead was harder than she wanted to admit.

She’d grown up in a world where image was everything and vulnerability was a weapon best kept sheathed.

Letting Dawson take the reins chafed at something deep in her, something fierce and independent.

But she wasn’t stupid either. She’d seen what happened when pride overruled survival.

And if she was going to make it through this, she probably ought to trust the guy who'd proven himself capable.

She had to trust someone besides herself.

“You’re not,” he said. “You’re going to help. But from here. You’ve got access to the board’s travel logs, right?”

She nodded.

“Start there. Find out who was off-site the day Peter died. Who booked meetings. Who was ‘working remotely’ but pinged the internal servers. Someone’s lying. We just need to catch them in it.”

A wicked grin spread across her face. “You want me to run a digital trap.”

“Exactly. I’ve got Jesse running traces on Ana’s accounts, but you know these people better. Their tells. Their patterns.”

She drained the last of her coffee. “I can do that.”

Within minutes, she settled into Dawson’s makeshift workspace, slipping through an untraceable back door into the system. The IT team at Silver Spur had quietly built it for her. She navigated into Shaw Petrochemical’s restricted-access travel server with practiced ease.

But the back door could only get her so far.

She’d learned early-on connections and a little well-placed charm went a long way.

She had a handful of favors to call in, and one in particular—Davy Blake, a junior analyst with a not-so-secret crush—still owed her big after she’d covered for his disastrous background check two years back.

She pinged him.

EVANGELINE: Need discreet access to travel metadata. Full board-level calendar syncs. Internal server pings too. Don’t ask.