by Jean Barrett
“I’m training a replacement.”
“But not family. It won’t be the same.”
No, Roark silently agreed after ending the call a moment later, it wouldn’t be the same. He regretted that. If it happened. He still had that tough decision to make, and he figured that a cattle drive, out there away from everything, would be a good place to deal with it. He promised himself that by the end of the drive he would have the answers, both for himself and his client. Providing, that is, he wasn’t too distracted on a personal level.
Samantha Howard. Oh, yeah, she definitely qualified as a distraction, a risky one for a man who needed to concentrate on what might be his last case.
Getting to his feet, Roark went to the window behind his desk. The agency’s fourth-floor location offered an appealing view of the city, but it wasn’t San Antonio that interested him as he stood there unconsciously exercising the fingers of his right hand. His mind was entirely occupied with the image of the woman he had escorted back to her office less than an hour ago. He couldn’t get her out of his head.
Not beautiful, he decided. Not in the conventional sense, anyway, but eye-catching all the same with her mane of burnished chestnut hair. The kind of hair a man longed to release from that tight coil so that it tumbled into his hands, his fingers sifting through its mass while those velvet-brown eyes stroked him with her gaze. Eyes that were vulnerable but at the same time wore a strength of character.
He tried to remember her face, and all he could picture was pride and a composure that he wanted to believe concealed hot emotions. The wild fires that challenged a man.
Careful, Hawke. You’re letting an imagination you can’t afford control your senses. You’re being hired to protect her, not seduce her.
Damn, he was getting himself all aroused. There were problems enough in this case without involving himself in that direction. He reminded himself that he needed to be concerned not with those long, silky legs and a pair of tantalizing breasts but with the welfare of the woman behind them. He had guessed almost from the start she was hiding some painful secret and that maybe it was connected with her resentment of him.
Issues from the past were bound to complicate things on this fool cattle drive. Yeah, he could count on it. And why, in the first place, had he ever urged her to accept the terms of her grandfather’s will, particularly now when they knew the threat to her was real? So real that he had a man watching out for her while he made preparations for his absence from the agency.
Roark thought about the snake. Someone was playing a deadly game, and he’d have his work cut out for him safeguarding her. But it was too late to retreat. Not when he’d promised the old man, not when his granddaughter was determined now to win that inheritance.
He was still absently clenching and unclenching his hand, still thinking about Samantha when the door opened behind him. He swung away from the window, one eyebrow climbing in amusement as Wendell entered the office huffing like a wounded bull, his flushed face nearly the color of the hair that flamed on his head.
“That stinking elevator!” he gasped.
“Not working again?”
“The next time we lease office space, can it please be at ground level?”
Roark’s young trainee dumped his load of parcels on the surface of the desk. Roark came around the desk to inspect them. “Are we in business?”
“Managed to get everything you wanted. The map was the hardest. You have any idea how tough it is to locate a simple thing like a detailed map of Colorado? Bet I went into three stores before I found it.”
“Necessary, Wendell. I should be able to keep in contact with you by cell phone, but we’ll need to locate and agree on any places along the route where I stand a chance of picking up your e-mails.”
“I’ll be sending them,” his eager young trainee promised.
“This is your chance, Wendell. While I’m investigating on my end, you’re going to be investigating for me on this end, which makes you my eyes and ears back here while I’m on that trail.”
“And your legs.”
“And my legs,” Roark conceded, knowing the trainee was thinking of the three destinations he had assigned him to look into. “Just be careful how and where they carry you. Remember, Wendell, until we know otherwise, we assume we’re dealing here with someone who’s desperate enough to kill. And maybe he’s not alone.”
Because if there is more than one of them, Roark thought, Wendell could be as much at risk back here in Texas as he and his client were in Colorado.
Samantha Howard. The thought of sharing anything with her on the long trail, even danger, already had his blood racing. With that kind of temptation to be resisted, it was going to be one hell of a cattle drive.
HE CAME HERE whenever he was in town. It wasn’t just because he admired the structure, though the Tower of the Americas was a marvelous feat of engineering. Like a gigantic, long-stemmmed mushroom, it soared above the humble and the mundane.
What he relished was standing here like this, all alone on the observation deck hundreds of feet above the sprawling city, gazing out at the far horizon. It represented the pinnacle of success he was striving for, and he wasn’t going to be cheated of it. Not this time.
He’d failed before, and the reminder of that failure, the crushing sense of disappointment, made him feel sick all over again. Made him grip the rail of the lofty deck with rage and frustration.
But he was going to correct all that. He had already begun. He’d hoped to scare her off with the snake, but it wasn’t enough. He’d have to get serious now. Only, he had to be careful, not risk anything that would direct suspicion at him.
She had to be stopped, though, before someone learned of the secret he was protecting. The timing was critical, and she stood in his way. He promised himself that before it was all over, she would no longer be an obstacle.
“You can count on it, Samantha,” he whispered into the wind.
And then he smiled. Yeah, he liked being here on top of the world. The height exhilarated him, made him feel tall and powerful. Made him feel he could do whatever he had to do.
Chapter Three
It’s a long way to fall.
She would go and tell herself that, Samantha thought wryly. It was something she wouldn’t have done if the bridge under here had been solid, because heights didn’t ordinarily bother her.
There were no guardrails, and the planks over which they bumped felt about as secure as toothpicks. She supposed that’s why the gorge they were crossing seemed much wider than it probably was and the river at its bottom an unnerving distance below them.
“Don’t worry, folks,” their young driver assured them from the front seat. “There’s a brand-new steel structure supporting us. The boards are just temporary until the crews get around to pouring the floor and installing the rails. Now, the old bridge this one replaced…that was something to worry about.”
He had been cheerfully informing them of the progress of the road’s reconstruction ever since he had collected them from the airport in his sturdy SUV. That had been miles ago. Long miles through a spectacular mountain wilderness of dizzy ascents and breathless turns.
The Morning Star Ranch, where the other drovers were waiting for them, was their destination. It had been purchased by a company that was developing the property into Colorado’s next ski resort. The company was responsible for the new road and this hellish bridge that was making her giddy, Samantha thought. Would they never finish crawling across its length?
“You okay?” Roark asked beside her. He had to have noticed how rigid she was.
“Couldn’t be better.”
Oh, you’re just great. If you can’t handle this, what are you going to be like piloting a couple of hundred longhorns?
But she didn’t want to think about that. Not until she had to. Anyway, it wasn’t just the condition of the route that had her on edge. Her companion squeezed in beside her was partly to blame for that.
With every jolt in the
road, every sharp bend, his solid bulk had come bumping up against her side. Making her far too aware of the heat of his hard body, of the distinctive scent that she already associated with him—a masculine blend of faint musk and the stronger odor of a woodsy soap. Heady stuff, and on him far too arousing.
“Sorry,” he kept apologizing, though she wondered if those contacts were sometimes deliberate.
She might have challenged them, except the SUV was carrying so many supplies from town, along with their own gear piled beside the driver, that she and Roark had a minimum of space on the back seat. And with so little room for them to occupy, she could scarcely blame him for his closeness, even if it did leave her light-headed.
Samantha was able to breathe easier when the vehicle reached the other side of the gorge. The bridge behind them, they traveled another half mile along the rough gravel and then were halted where the crew was working with heavy equipment that blocked the road.
“Looks like we’ll be sitting here for a few minutes,” their driver indicated.
“Care to stretch your legs?” Roark asked Samantha.
She welcomed his suggestion. It would be a relief to escape the disturbing intimacy of their position on the crowded back seat. They left the driver with the car and strolled back along the road, away from the dust and roar of the machinery.
There was a gap in the evergreens, and they stopped at an overlook that commanded a view of the mountains. Along the lower slopes were groves of aspen, their thick ranks so golden with autumn tints that the sight was almost blinding.
For a moment they were silent, their attention focused on the dazzling display, and then Roark turned to her and said quietly, “Want to talk about it?”
Stretching their legs had been just an excuse then, Samantha realized. He had sensed she was worried, that the closer they got to the ranch the more troubled she became.
“What’s bothering you?” he persisted. “Besides this god-awful road, I mean? It’s the risk of the cattle drive, isn’t it? The fear that someone wants you out of the way and that this drive could give him an opportunity to strike? Look, I know that’s a very real possibility, that the threat is there, but I want you to know I’m going to stick close to you. I’m going to see to it that, whoever he is, he doesn’t touch you.”
It would be easy to lie, to let him think this was exactly what had her so unhappy. But why bother when tomorrow he would see the truth anyway? All right, so her pride was going to suffer, but it was better to get it out in the open now.
“That should be what’s worrying me, but it isn’t.” Samantha drew a slow breath, released it and confessed her fear. “It’s the horse.”
He was clearly perplexed. “Are we talking about a particular horse?”
“Yes, the one I’m going to be expected to mount tomorrow morning when we move those cattle out.”
He stared at her. “Are you telling me you don’t ride? That you’re about to join a cattle drive, and you have no experience in the saddle?”
“Let’s just say I’m not comfortable in the saddle. That I hate being in the saddle and that the horse, any horse, knows it.”
“How can that be when you grew up on the Walking W? Or was I misinformed about that?”
“Yes, I was raised on the ranch, and I was taught to ride. I wasn’t given any choice about that. But there was never a moment when I wasn’t plain scared up there in those stirrups. You can imagine how my grandfather liked that.”
“Yeah, Joe Walker wouldn’t have appreciated a granddaughter who wasn’t at home in the saddle. I guess that explains why the two of you ended up being alienated, why you didn’t visit him in the hospital or attend his funeral. Or does it?”
It didn’t begin to explain Samantha’s estrangement from her grandfather, barely touched on the reasons for her intense dislike of everything connected with ranching. But those wounds were too deep, too personal to discuss with Roark Hawke. She avoided the subject by giving him another truth. One she shared in an angry voice.
“I did try to visit him when I learned he was ill. But he made it clear through his lawyer that he didn’t want me there. I shouldn’t have been surprised. To the end he was too stubborn to want anything from me, especially my sympathy. That’s how it was with us.”
“I didn’t know that.”
No, and you didn’t know that I was at his funeral. Or as close anyway, Samantha remembered, as she could bring herself to go. Unnoticed by the mourners, she had watched her grandfather’s burial from a hill overlooking the cemetery before fleeing from a scene she could no longer handle. The memories had simply been too painful. But Roark didn’t have to hear this either.
“A real joke, isn’t it?” she said grimly. “I’ve got to climb up on a horse—a horse, mind you, that isn’t going to like me being on his back any more than I want to be there—and pretend I know what I’m doing while I escort two hundred unwilling cows through a howling wilderness. Now that qualifies as funny, don’t you think?”
“You’ll manage.”
“You sound very sure about that.”
“Why not?” His gaze traveled from her face down the entire length of her figure, his appraisal so slow and thorough that Samantha could feel herself flushing. “You have a body built for the saddle.”
And other things. That’s what his hot eyes seemed to be telling her. Before she could stop him, he reached out and captured her hands, imprisoning them in his own big hands as he bent his head to inspect them.
“And you have a pair of hands meant for holding reins. Strong hands, I’d say.”
His touch was warm and steady and far too provocative.
“What you learned as a girl will come back to you. You won’t have forgotten those lessons, whether you liked them or not. And if this time around you have a little patience with yourself…yeah, you’ll manage just fine.”
His easy confidence in her was hard to resist, his husky voice and deep, blue-eyed gaze even harder.
“Besides…”
“What?”
“You won’t be alone out there in that howling wilderness. I’ll be riding beside you.”
Not as close as he was now, Samantha hoped, which was too close. She could smell his scent again, and she swore that this time she detected more than just musk and soap. That he bore the odors of leather and horses. Aromas that had poignant associations for her. They set off a warning inside her head.
He’s not just a PI and a bodyguard. He’s also a cowboy who was your grandfather’s friend. Stay away from him.
Their driver sounded the horn of the SUV, signaling them that the road was clear again. It wasn’t necessary to snatch her hands away. To her relief, Roark released them. The cattle drive was waiting for her, Samantha remembered as they walked back to the car. She was still nervous about it, but determined. She could do it. She had to do it. If for no other reason, she needed to overcome the ghosts of her past.
NONE OF THEM QUESTIONED his presence. And Roark wondered about that. Asked himself if any of them around the table suspected his real reason for being here. That he’d been hired to protect Samantha on the drive because of a threat to her. That there was someone who might want her eliminated.
Just how had the lawyer explained him to the others who had arrived here from Texas ahead of Samantha and him? Had he told them Roark Hawke was joining the outfit simply to help out? Well, that wasn’t so improbable. He was a rancher himself, a neighbor of Joe Walker’s. After all, another neighbor, who was caring for the Walking W in their absence, had sent his son for that same purpose. The young Alex McKenzie was seated on the other side of Samantha.
Whatever the members of the company supposed, Roark had no intention of enlightening them. They would understand soon enough. For now, it was enough they accepted him as one of them. This they’d readily done when he’d been introduced to them. It had occurred as they’d gathered at the picnic table under the cottonwoods for the last kitchen-prepared supper they would enjoy before they reach
ed Alamo Junction a hundred miles south of here.
The faces around the table were familiar to Samantha. She had known these people from the Walking W and could share their easy camaraderie. But for Roark, who had been too busy every weekend on his own spread to meet more than a handful of his neighbors, they had yet to emerge as distinct individuals. Observant, which he had to be as a PI, he worked now on their identities as he listened to their exchanges.
“How much trail you reckon we can cover per day?”
The question was issued around a chunk of steak, which had replaced the wad of chewing tobacco that had earlier been parked in a corner of the speaker’s mouth. It came from Cappy Davis, whose face was as seamed as bark. He’d been a fixture on the Walking W since his boyhood, which, if his tough old frame was any indication, must have been before the Flood.
Shep Thomas, the Walking W’s earnest ranch foreman who was serving as the drive’s trail boss, considered the question that had been directed at him. “Anywhere from ten to twenty miles a day. Depends on what we encounter. Most of it is public land, and we have permission to cross that, as well as the private stuff. But I won’t kid you. This country is some of the meanest in the Rockies.”
Cappy grunted and went back to his steak.
“Problem is,” Shep continued, cradling his mug of coffee, “we got us a time line. A crucial one. We either deliver the cows to Alamo Junction by the contract date, or those stock cars don’t wait for us. It will call for some hard driving.”
The man across from Shep, as jocular as the trail boss was sober, treated the outfit to a long, slow whistle. Roark knew he was the Walking W’s horse wrangler in charge of the drive’s remuda, but for a moment he couldn’t recall his name. Brewster? That was it. Dick Brewster.
“I know what that means. Our butts will be in slings from all that riding.”
Samantha was silent, but Roark could see that Brewster’s comment had her worried all over again. Not that she needed any reminders of tomorrow’s ordeal.