by Diana Palmer
She smiled. “I might, later on. I could never dare do it when Daddy was alive. He hated the very idea of us doing anything that drew attention to him. He was...a very private person.”
“Sounds like he was a lunatic,” Ren said flatly, “and he should have been sitting in a jail cell. What the hell is wrong with the community you live in? Don’t people care about what happens to their neighbors? Hell, I punched a guy two years ago for hitting on my wrangler’s twelve-year-old daughter. I fired him to boot. It wasn’t my problem, but I made it my problem. We take care of our own in small communities. At least, here in Wyoming we do.”
She drew in a long, slow breath. “You don’t know how it was,” she said finally. “Daddy had friends in the mob. He could use them for all sorts of terrible things. People were afraid of him. Even people in positions of power. Not so much now, of course. We’re a hotbed of retired mercenaries and former military, and Eb Scott runs an internationally known counterterrorism school a few miles down the road from our house. He loaned us two of his guys when someone tried to kill Sari.”
He made a sound deep in his throat. “Someone tried to kill Sari?”
“Morris. He was one of Daddy’s guys who’d do anything for money. This woman’s son hired him to kill my sister.”
He was shocked. “Why would he want to kill your sister?”
She frowned. “Didn’t Randall tell you why he asked me to stay here, on the ranch?” she asked worriedly.
“He said you were being stalked by a rejected admirer,” he said, and his eyes told her that he found that almost unbelievable. She was pretty, but she wasn’t a beauty.
Merrie sighed. “My father...killed a woman. She turned him in to the FBI because he was involved in money laundering. Her son was, is, unbalanced. He loved his mother very much. She left him a lot of money, money that the Feds couldn’t touch. He thought Daddy must love us both terribly because he was so overprotective, so he put out contracts on both of us.”
Ren just gaped at her. Obviously he hadn’t been told anything.
“Morris had worked for Daddy for a long time and he knew us. When he shot at Sari, he missed. The second time he did it, Paul, Sari’s husband now, recognized the tire track pattern of the car where the shells were found. It was a car from our garage. So Morris was arrested and we thought that was the end of it.”
His face was hard. “Go on.”
She grimaced. “But Paul found out that Morris was only hired for Sari. For me, he went to Brooklyn and hired someone well-known in mob circles for success as a cleaner. The woman’s son thought I was the youngest, so I was more precious to Daddy than Sari was. Paul said the man had been in the business for almost two decades, and he had an impeccable reputation for killing people. He’s after me now.”
Ren sat back in the chair, just staring at her with troubled black eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Merrie said. “I thought Randall had told you the truth. I shouldn’t be here. You’re all in danger. I should go...”
“No.”
She was shocked by his simple reply.
“I have state-of-the-art security here,” he continued. “We have eyes all over the ranch, at every single gate. We have recognition software to filter everyone who comes on the place. We have infrared cameras everywhere.” He drew in a breath. “My bulls are worth millions. I don’t take chances with their safety. But it also means you’ll be safe here. Damn my brother for hiding the truth!” he cursed. “I wouldn’t have sent you home.”
She bit her lower lip, hard. She fought tears. “Thanks. It isn’t that we don’t have protection at home, we do. Plus two of Eb Scott’s guys moved into the house and Sari defied Daddy and told him they weren’t leaving. He left in a huff, but he was arrested soon after and had to make bail.” She shook her head, smiling sadly. “He planned on marrying off Sari to a Middle Eastern prince. So that he’d have millions for his defense attorneys. His ill-gotten gains were confiscated by the Feds, you see.”
“What did she say to that?”
“That she wasn’t going. He’d locked her in the den with him. We were worried, but he promised he just wanted to talk to her. Then we heard him snap the belt.” She closed her eyes and shivered, oblivious to the pained look of the man near her, who was eaten up with guilt for frightening her with his own belt early in their acquaintance.
“Our bodyguards heard her scream and broke into the office. Sari’s arm was bleeding where he hit her with the belt. Daddy was sitting in a chair where he fell, stone dead.”
“Good grief!”
She stuck her hands in the pockets of her robe. “Sari said she’d killed him. Paul assured her that she hadn’t. The autopsy found evidence of heavy drug use and a lesion in his brain. The combination produced a heart attack. But we had to watch Sari for a couple of days. She locked herself in her room. Paul had to fly back from Brooklyn, because he was the only person she’d listen to.” She smiled. “She’d loved him for years and years. He went away suddenly. He’d given Daddy a ridiculous reason for leaving, you see. He said that he was married—actually he was a widower—and that Sari had flirted with him, like young girls do. Daddy accepted his resignation, and gave him severance pay. Then after he was gone, Daddy called Sari into his office...”
Ren leaned forward. What he was learning about his houseguest made him furious on her behalf. He was sorry her father was dead, because he’d have liked to have a physical discussion with him about using a belt on a woman.
“What did he do?” he asked quietly.
“He almost beat her to death,” Merrie said unsteadily. “I heard her screaming. Mandy had been sent off on a long shopping holiday by Daddy, so she wouldn’t know what he did to us. I ran into the office and tried to stop him, but he turned on me.” She closed her eyes against the painful memory. “He had a doctor on his payroll, one who’d lost his medical license. He stitched the wounds and gave us antibiotics to take and took care of us while we healed. When Mandy came back, we didn’t dare tell her. Daddy said he’d killed people and got away with it, and how would we feel if something happened to Mandy? So we pretended that it never happened.”
Ren sat back in the chair with his legs crossed. He couldn’t believe a man could be that cruel to his children. And the dead woman’s son must have hated Grayling with a passion to hire hit men to go after his daughters.
“Didn’t the man who hired the killers know that Grayling was dead?”
“He found it out after he hired the man to kill me. Great timing, wasn’t it? They said he collapsed and started crying. He’s done everything he could to help them catch the guy. He’s in jail, waiting for trial. Even the cooperation won’t keep him from serving time.”
“And it shouldn’t,” Ren said coldly. “What a damned cowardly thing to do.”
“Daddy killed his mother,” she said simply. “He got drunk and hired people to get even with him.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe it’s happening. It’s like watching an old movie about gangsters on television.”
“It must seem that way to you.” He got up from the chair and stood in front of her. “I promise, you’ll be safe here.”
She looked up into his black eyes and felt her stomach drop to the floor. He was so handsome. She thought she’d never tire of looking at him.
“Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire of watching you,” she said absently as she looked at him. She flushed from chin to forehead when that slipped out.
CHAPTER FIVE
REN ACTUALLY LOOKED AMUSED. “Are you quoting Rupert Brooke? He died in 1915, so the poem was published after he died in World War I.”
She smiled shyly. “It’s a beautiful poem. I didn’t mean to blurt it out...”
He moved a step closer and touched her long, soft blond hair. “Do you remember the last line of that poem?”
“Yes. I didn’t mean...”
“And turn, and toss your brown, delightful head amusedly, among the ancient Dead,” he quoted.
“Well, if I didn’t watch people, I couldn’t paint them,” she said, flustered.
His eyes slid sideways, to the painting turned to the wall. “Come on, coward. Show it to me,” he teased.
She ground her teeth together. He made her nervous. She was unsure of herself and he was...he was flirting with her. Wasn’t that flirting? She’d had only Randall do that with her. No, that cowboy of Ren’s, what was his name? Tubbs. Yes, Tubbs had flirted with her. She didn’t know how to handle it.
Reluctantly she picked up the canvas, turned it around and placed it on the second easel in the room. She stepped back and let him look at the portrait.
It was him, immortalized in oils, sitting in front of a campfire, his hat pulled low over his eyes. He was looking toward the fire, holding his big beautifully masculine hands toward it. Beside him lay a scrolled-barrel skeet gun and a knife in a fringed leather sheath, of a soft tan color. In the background were tall lodgepole pines, and in the distance, a teepee, barely visible on the horizon.
Ren was almost too stunned to speak. The painting showed the man, not the persona he showed to the world. Everything he felt was there, in his eyes: the despair, the grief, the buried hatred, but also the strength and solidness and authority that radiated from him.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said finally. “It’s... I can’t even find the words.” He turned to her. “You can name your own price for that.”
She shook her head. “I give them away. I don’t sell them.”
“You should sell them,” he persisted. “Nobody in the world can turn down money in these hard times.”
“I have all I need.” It was true. She wasn’t telling him, but she had two hundred million in a Swiss bank account.
She was a conundrum. Ren wanted her and hated himself for it. She was Randall’s. She had to be experienced. But when he got close to her, she backed away, as if he frightened her. Was it an act? He was going to find out, very soon.
“It’s a gift,” Merrie said. She handed the canvas to him. She hated to part with it, because she’d done it for herself. She couldn’t admit that.
“Thank you,” he said formally. “You’re sure you won’t accept a check?”
“I’m sure.”
“All right. The one you’re doing of Delsey...”
“I’m going to give it to her,” she interrupted with a grin. “She’s so nice. I don’t know how I’d have managed without her.”
“Yes. The small cooler in your room that you keep stocked with sandwiches and bottled water...?” he teased.
She flushed. “Oh, gosh, I didn’t think you’d know!”
“I know everything that goes on around here. I’m the boss.” He drew in a breath. “Oh, hell, be as late as you like for meals. I’ll tell Delsey. There’s no way to rein in artists. It would be like herding cats!”
She laughed helplessly. “I’ll try harder,” she said.
He shrugged. “No problem. Good night.” He looked back at her with something in his black eyes that kept her awake for a long time afterward.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING at breakfast, Ren asked her to ride out with him, to see the ranch.
“Gosh, you mean it?” Merrie exclaimed.
“I mean it,” he said, trying not to show how her enthusiasm touched him.
She grinned and dug into her breakfast. Delsey, watching, hid a smile.
Ren frowned when she came out in her usual lightweight coat. She had on one of her little knitted hats, in shades of yellow and blue and pink, to keep her head warm. Her long blond hair flowed from it like silk. “It’s snowing, and the temperature is well below freezing,” he pointed out. “You’re going to freeze in that.”
“Oh, no, I’ll be fine!” she protested, frightened that he might change his mind if he thought she might get sick from the cold. “Really!”
He was debating, and she saw it in his face.
She moved a little closer to him, her pale blue eyes intent on his tanned face. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”
Her voice sent echoes of pleasure through his body. Since Angie, he hadn’t even looked at a woman. But Meredith made him feel younger, optimistic; things he hadn’t felt in many years.
“Really,” she repeated.
He drew in an exasperated breath and pulled his hat low over his eyes. “All right. But if you get sick, I’ll never let you forget it. Got that?”
She just grinned.
* * *
HE PUT HER on one of the older saddle horses, a palomino he called Sand. He rode a black gelding, a beautiful shiny horse that looked much like Hurricane. She mentioned that.
He chuckled. “He should look like him, he’s Hurricane’s brother. He’s just four years old.”
“He’s beautiful.”
“Catch up,” he called as his horse moved ahead down the long path that led past the barn and stables, with their adjoining corrals.
She coaxed her mount to go faster. She loved to ride. It was a shame that she’d never had the opportunity to do much of it. Her father hadn’t liked either of his daughters to go out on the ranch, where there were men working.
“How big is the ranch?” she asked, idly lifting her face to the soft snowflakes that were raining down.
“Thousands of acres,” he said.
“Our little place is only a couple of hundred acres,” she commented. She didn’t add that their little place ran some of the most famous Thoroughbreds in the world.
“You couldn’t run many head of cattle there, could you?” he asked idly.
“Daddy had horses. He never liked cattle.”
He glanced back at her with a wry grin. “I like horses because they’re necessary to work cattle. Drives Tubbs nuts when I say that. He’s in love with every horse on the place.” He grimaced. “He’s still kicking himself for hiring the man who beat Hurricane.”
“Anybody can slip once in a while,” she said. “It’s hard to see what’s inside a person by just looking.”
He pulled up his horse and studied her. “You can.”
She flushed. “I always thought it went with painting. You can’t paint what you don’t see.”
He searched her pale eyes as snowflakes passed between them. “You should be exhibiting in galleries.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I might do that, when I get back home.”
Home. He felt uncomfortable at the thought of her leaving. Then he had to remind himself, again, that she was Randall’s girl. He turned the horse and started off again.
Merrie followed along behind him on the trail, feeling a little uncomfortable at the way he looked at her. He couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether he liked her or not. She wished she knew more about men.
He took her through the big barn to show her the prize bulls he kept. “They have heating and air-conditioning, and one cowboy stays with them most of the time. They’re worth a fortune.”
“They sure are pretty,” she said.
He smiled. “I think so. We breed for superior bloodlines, for conformation, weaning weight, birth weight and weight gain ratios. I took several courses in genetics when I first came back here to stay with my father. He had the practical know-how, but it took a little science to move us up the chain of purebred sires.”
“Where are the cows?” she asked innocently.
He chuckled. “Out in the pastures. We don’t put the bulls on them until they’re ready to be bred, to drop spring calves. That happens in August, so our calf crop will drop in April, when the lush grass is just coming up. Of course, we have to hope that the weather doesn’t do something crazy, like it’s doing r
ight now.” He indicated the heavy snow falling outside the barn. “This is late October, but the temperature is unusually low, and that snow is getting deep fast.”
“It’s so beautiful.” She sighed wistfully. “We’re lucky if we get an inch of snow every ten years back home.”
“We get sick of it some years,” he mused. “We have to carry hay out to the far pastures if snow gets deep enough. Have to make sure we break the ice in the water troughs so the cattle can drink. Have to have men check the herd two or three times a day. That time doubles when we’ve got pregnant cows or, especially, heifers. Some of them have to be brought up near the barn, in case they have trouble calving.”
“It sounds very complicated.”
“It is. Complicated, and beautiful.” He looked around him. “I lived in Boston for four years while I went to college. Hated every minute that I wasn’t in class or studying.”
“I guess I’d have liked college. But I didn’t really have a career in mind like my sister did. She wanted to be a district attorney from the time she was a teenager.” She sighed. “I did get so sick of watching endless Perry Mason reruns with her,” she laughed.
“You said she was an assistant district attorney.”
“Yes. She just took her bar exam a few months ago. Passed it on the first try, too. Plenty of her classmates didn’t. I was so proud of her.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Daddy actually went to her graduation. He was away on business when I graduated from high school.”
He leaned against one of the gates, his arms folded over his sheepskin jacket. “I remember my graduation day,” he mused. “None of my family came, but my classmates and I treed a local bar afterward.”
“Sari’s classmates had a big party. Of course she couldn’t go. Daddy got furious when she even mentioned it...” Her voice trailed away. “One of her classmates was moving in with her boyfriend. Daddy called her a slut and dragged us away from her. People stared at us like we were from the ice age.”
“He didn’t think people should live together?”
“Only if they were married.” She looked up. “Mama took us to church. It was the only place outside of shopping with Daddy that we were ever allowed to go. We were raised with an old-fashioned morality. We took a lot of heat for it in school.” She touched her sweater, where the small cross lay underneath. “Religion was all we had. It kept us going through some hard times, when Daddy lost his temper.” She sighed. “It’s so nice to be someplace where I’m not watched every single minute of the day.”