* * *
SURE ENOUGH, LATER that very day Rourke phoned Tank, who was still at the hospital, with the news.
“The woman who tried to poison Merissa had a sudden coronary, right in her holding cell,” he remarked.
“How convenient,” Tank said. He wasn’t overflowing with sympathy. Merissa could have been lying dead in her bed, thanks to that witch.
“Isn’t it?” Rourke agreed.
“Did she have any visitors, do you know?”
“There was an old man with a cane who said he was her attorney and asked to see her. He was very convincing. The jailer let him use an interrogation room to talk to her. The old man came out, hobbling on the cane, thanked the jailer warmly, talked about the weather and left. They found the woman slumped over in her chair. EMTs responded, but all attempts at resuscitation failed. DOA at the hospital. He doesn’t like loose ends apparently.”
“So there goes our case,” Tank said angrily.
“Something like that.” Rourke drew in an audible breath. “Malathion. Good God, man, there are thousands of poisons that are undetectable by taste or smell. Why use Malathion?”
“Terror tactics,” Tank replied, his voice very quiet. “Something for impact. We know he can be stealthy when he wants to. Either he’s deliberately baiting us, or he’s getting sloppy. If he gets sloppy enough, we can hang him out to dry.”
“Lovely thought, and I just seasoned a brand-new rope,” Rourke said with a lilt in his accent.
Tank laughed, but without any real humor. “Well, we’ll see what happens. But I don’t like having Carson here with her,” he added involuntarily.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, mate,” Rourke replied. “He likes loose associations. Your lovely Merissa is a forever sort of person. Not at all his type.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Rourke chuckled. “You’ll see. I’ll go now. I’ve got things buttoned up tight here at the ranch. No worries.”
“All right. I’ll take your word for it that my family is safe.”
“A word to the wise,” Rourke added. “Don’t taste anything you’ve left unattended. Tell her, too. Carson will be watching, but it never hurts to emphasize certain things. He was careless with one poison. He might not be with another, especially now that his plans have been thwarted.” He hesitated. “I’ve seen men react under those conditions. A perfectly normal man, going by a set of mental plans, can go berserk when something unplanned happens. In this case, it could be fatal to a lot of people. Watch out.”
“Good advice, and I’ll take it. Thanks.” He paused. “You’ve been a lifesaver, Rourke.”
“You’re welcome,” the other man said as he hung up the phone.
* * *
MERISSA WAS SOLEMN. Carson was pensive. Neither of them spoke when Tank went back into the hospital room. He scowled.
Carson sighed. “He thinks we’ve been having a quick affair while the nurses’ backs were turned,” he mused, “somewhere between the checking-your-vitals and doctor rounds.” He smiled at Tank, who was really glowering now. “Just for future reference, I never conduct affairs with women of faith,” he pointed out, indicating Merissa. “They just aren’t into group sex, for some reason I can’t fathom.”
Tank couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. So did Merissa, although she flushed a little at the explicit remark.
“No offense meant, if you’re into it, of course,” he told Tank dryly.
“Not me.” Tank sat down in the only vacant chair and leaned back. He met Merissa’s eyes evenly. “I’m a one-woman man.”
She stared at him with wide, soft eyes. She wondered at the words and the expression on his face. It could be just a male thing, jealous of another man. On the other hand, he was looking at her with pure delight. Could he really have meant that he only wanted friendship from her? Had he said it because he wasn’t sure of her?
“I feel decidedly like a third wheel,” Carson remarked while they stared at each other. He got up. “I’m going down the hall for coffee. Can I bring you back a cup?” he asked Tank.
“Yes, please, cream only.” Tank slid a hand into his pocket and presented him with a twenty-dollar bill. “Don’t argue,” he added. “Think of it as an expense account.”
“In that case, I’ll splurge and get a chocolate bar to go with it.” Carson chuckled.
“I like mine with cream and sugar,” Merissa told him.
Carson gave her a patient look. “The nurses would carry me into a back room and do God knows what to me if I gave you caffeine.”
“Oh, you can paint a rose on that,” a cute little redheaded nurse said as she came into the room and shot Carson a voluptuous glance. “Really terrible things. Unimaginable things.” She gave him a mock growl.
“How many cups of coffee would you like, then?” he asked Merissa with a big grin.
Tank laughed. So did the nurse. Carson shot her a wink and a smile as he went out the door.
The nurse whistled and waved her hand as if fanning herself. “If I weren’t happily married and a mother...” she mused, looking after Carson.
“He does have that effect on women,” Tank joked.
“Most women,” Merissa corrected. She looked at Tank in a way that conveyed she wasn’t one of them.
Amazingly his face changed. He relaxed. He looked...happy. Content. He let the nurse do her job, then when she left, he moved close to the bed and leaned over Merissa.
“I lied.”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
He bent his head and brushed his mouth tenderly over hers. “I don’t want you for a friend.”
“An enemy then?” she teased, but she was breathing as if she’d been running.
He nibbled her upper lip. “We can talk about it when you’re out of the hospital and all this insanity ends.”
She touched his cheek with cold fingertips and smiled while his mouth moved against hers very softly. “Okay.”
He chuckled, because that didn’t sound like a refusal.
She sighed as she looked up at his hard, gorgeous face. “You are so incredibly handsome,” she murmured huskily.
He actually flushed. “Who? Me?”
“You.” She smiled. “It’s not only the way you look. It’s the way you are.”
“You don’t really know me yet,” he pointed out.
“I know you down to your bones,” she said in an old, wise tone. “You’d lay down your life for your brothers, for their wives, for people who are close to you. In time of danger, you never run. You’re honest and loyal and you don’t even drink. Or smoke.” She shook her head. “Your only real flaw, and it’s a small one, is that temper.”
He made a face at her. “It only peeks out from time to time in extreme circumstances.”
“Like when you think Carson’s trying to charm me.” She laughed softly.
He sighed. It was impossible to deny it. “Yeah.”
She touched his chiseled mouth. “He’s very attractive. He seems like a rock sometimes, but he has a soft center. He doesn’t want to get serious about anyone ever again, but there’s a young woman somewhere who’s driving him up the wall.”
“She’ll have to get in line,” he teased, relieved to hear that Carson wasn’t mooning over his girl.
“It’s not like that,” she replied. “She’s very religious. She won’t like some of the things she finds out about him.” She searched over Tank’s face. “I think it will shock him. He isn’t used to women who don’t think of intimacy as an itch you scratch whenever you feel the need.”
“You’re that sort of woman,” he said softly.
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m not judgmental. I don’t want to make the world over into my own image of how things should be.”
�
��I know what you mean. But there will always be people of faith, and women who don’t follow the crowd over the cliff of...group sex,” he added jokingly.
She laughed.
“And what’s so funny about group sex?” Carson asked haughtily as he rejoined them. “Honest to God, you people!” He hesitated for effect. “Haven’t you ever seen an anaconda mating ball on those National Geographic specials?”
They burst out laughing.
He handed Tank a cup of coffee and looked regretfully at Merissa as he dropped into a chair on the other side of the bed. “Sorry, but they really would throw me out on my ear if I brought you a cup.”
“I know. It’s okay,” she said, smiling at him.
Tank sat down in his own chair, but his eyes never left Merissa.
“Heard anything from the sheriff?” Carson asked.
Tank shook his head. “No, but he’ll let us know if he finds anything. Shame about that woman,” he added darkly. “I expect with a little incentive, she might have given something away.”
“Or not,” Carson added. “Men like that don’t choose partners for their loose tongues.” He crossed his long, muscular legs. “However, a little background check might turn up something.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” Tank smiled at Carson, because he knew what the man was doing. He suspected there was a bug in the hospital room. He was upping the ante, giving the shadowy assassin something more to worry about.
“Unless she was working for the government in deep cover, she isn’t invisible. Someone will have known her. Your friend the sheriff will run her through the NCIC database and see what shows. I’m betting she’s got a rap sheet. Not too long, maybe. But there’ll be something there.”
“Enough, I hope,” Tank added deliberately, “to give our shadowy friend a lot of worries. I wish him as many as he’s given me lately.”
“I expect when he hears what the Texas authorities are researching, he’ll need to change his underwear,” Carson said deliberately, and stared at Tank, to warn him not to speak.
“You think so?” was all Tank asked. He sipped coffee. “This isn’t bad, for coffee out of a machine.”
“Philistine,” Carson scoffed. “This is real, honest-to-goodness coffee from a real coffeemaker.”
“How did you get that?” Tank asked, surprised.
Carson leaned toward him. “There’s this really pretty nurse. I just smiled and mentioned how much I hated coffee out of those damned machines.” He held up his cup and grinned from ear to ear.
Tank couldn’t resist laughing, too. Merissa just shook her head.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TANK HAD TO go back to the ranch to shower and shave and check in with Cody Banks. He didn’t want to talk to the sheriff in Merissa’s hospital room, in case, as he suspected, the room was bugged.
He leaned over her and kissed her tenderly. “I don’t care if he brings you a steak and a bouquet of flowers, he’s off-limits. Got it?” he teased, nodding toward Carson.
She grinned back. “Got it.”
He chuckled. He kissed her again and glanced at Carson. “You got it, too?”
“Absolutely,” Carson mused. “She’s safe with me.”
“I’ll be back in the morning, first thing, to wish you a Merry Christmas,” he told her. “Have a good night.”
“You, too,” she replied huskily.
He left, but reluctantly.
Carson followed him just outside the room.
“Why did you say that about Texas?” Tank asked Carson. “It’s a fair bet he heard you.”
“He’s pulling our chains, I’m pulling his chain,” Carson replied coldly. “He’s had a plan go wrong. Now he knows we’re looking in another direction for something about him. His girlfriend is dead. He’s got to be feeling the pressure. If he makes a mistake, we’ll get him.”
Tank relaxed a little. “You know, you’re sort of diabolical.”
Carson assumed a surprised expression. “Who, me? I have wings. You can’t see them, but they’re there.”
“Angelic, you ain’t,” Tank said.
Carson made a face. “I know. But as far as she’s concerned—” he jerked his head toward the hospital bed inside the room “—I am. You’re one lucky man.”
Tank flushed. “I know it.”
“I’ll keep her safe. Nobody’s getting past me this time,” he added.
“If you need help, call.”
Carson nodded. “Tell Rourke what I said in the room. He’ll take it from there.”
“I’m telling Cody, too.”
“The more the merrier.” He smiled enigmatically. “Isn’t it fun, putting a burr under the saddle of a murderer like this guy?”
“You know, it actually is. I just hope we can catch him before he comes after her again,” he voiced his fear. “He meant her to die this time. And there are poisons we couldn’t detect.”
“I am now your new food taster,” Carson said. “I’d prefer to test steaks, but I’ll do gelatin in a pinch. She’ll be fine.”
“Watch your own back, too,” Tank said.
“Always.”
* * *
HE CALLED CODY and met him in a grocery store parking lot.
“I don’t even trust my own damned phone anymore,” Tank said. “I think everything’s bugged.”
“It might be. No cause to apologize for being careful. What’s up?”
“Carson mentioned in the hospital room that we were looking toward Texas for answers in this case. His idea is that the man’s plan to kill Merissa flubbed, so that’s put him off his stride. Now, he knows we suspect a Texas connection, although he can’t know just how much we’ve already found out. That’s going to panic him.”
Cody nodded. “Not a bad strategy, so long as everyone’s properly guarded. It could go down hard, if he loses himself in revenge.”
“I know,” Tank said heavily. “I don’t want her hurt. I don’t want anybody hurt.”
“Neither do I.” Cody was pensive. “What if it turns his attention back to Texas and he leaves town, though? It does lessen our hopes of capturing him.”
“It also lessens Merissa Baker’s chances of meeting a sudden and terrible death,” Tank added grimly.
Cody relented. “Yes. It does. My idea would be to alert the authorities in Texas and mention this to them.”
“That’s a very good idea. I’ll do it as soon as I get home.”
“If I can help, in any way...”
“You’re already helping, as a lawman and a friend,” Tank said, clapping the other man on the shoulder. “Thanks.”
“Hey, you’re my buddy,” he teased.
“And I’m yours. You can have anything on the place except Diamond Bob.”
Diamond Bob was the famous herd sire who had his own air-conditioned, heated barn.
“Aww, darn,” Cody said, snapping his fingers. “And I do love a good steak...”
“You bite your tongue,” Tank retorted.
“Just kidding.” Cody laughed. “Drive safely.”
“I always do. See you later.”
* * *
TANK CALLED HAYES Carson in Texas and told him what was going on. Hayes approved.
“It just might do the trick,” he told Tank. “If this is the same guy who tried to have both of us hit, and who put your woman friend in the hospital, panicking him in this direction would be mostly fatal for him. We know what to look for this time.”
“I just hope we can catch him,” Tank said heavily. “It wears on the nerves, especially when a woman’s involved.”
“I know that feeling. If we can do anything on our end, let me know. I’ll fill Rick Marquez in on what’s happening. He told me about the direction the case is ta
king and the connections. He’s still chasing down leads on the prosecutor’s murder, now that you’ve given him a new angle to look at. He said he loves the chance to solve that case. He knew the guy from when he was a public defender. Damned shame.”
“Yes. Too many people have been hurt already. Thanks for the help.”
“I haven’t done much, but you’re welcome. Keep us in the loop.”
“I’ll do that.”
* * *
THEY’D PUT AS many safety precautions into effect as they could. Clara still insisted on staying at the cabin, and they couldn’t move her. But Tank did have a cowboy stay in the spare bedroom, with a gun, just in case.
Merissa got better very quickly. She and Tank had a nice meal together in the hospital for Christmas, complete with turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce. Clara joined them for it. Two days later, the doctor agreed to release her, and Tank and Carson drove her home.
She and Clara had a tearful reunion. “Oh, it’s so good to be home!” Merissa almost wept as she hugged her mother.
“So good to have you here, my darling,” Clara enthused.
“I wish I hadn’t messed up Christmas for us,” Merissa said miserably.
“We’ll have a late one. I haven’t even taken the tree down.” Clara laughed.
“I guess I can go home now?” the cowboy, Rance, asked.
“No!” several voices echoed.
Rance put up both hands and laughed. “No problem! I like it here. She—” he pointed at Clara “—can cook!”
“So can Merissa,” Tank said with a smile. “She’s in a class of her own.”
“I’ll prove that to you in a day or two, when I get stronger,” she promised him.
He grinned and bent to kiss her warmly. “Don’t get off your guard. We have to talk.”
She nodded, her eyes full of wonder. “As soon as you like.”
“Just a few loose ends to tie up first,” he said. He motioned to Carson to go with him. “I’ll see you first thing in the morning. If you need me...”
“I’ll call,” she promised.
He stared at her with such passion that she blushed. He walked back, scooped her up gently and kissed her. “See you in the morning.”
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