Wyoming Brave

by Diana Palmer

  “Sure there is. I just made it up. It’s my word. I own it.” She struck a pose. “And don’t try to appropriate it, or I’ll accuse you of artistic theft.”

  “Whatever you say. Barbaricism,” she scoffed, shaking her head.

  “I’m going to take my new word into town and share it with Brand Taylor,” Merrie told her. “Come on. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  Sari gave in with a sigh. “Okay. Maybe you’re right.”

  “I’m always right,” Merrie assured her. “I’m an artist. We know stuff!”

  “I won’t argue with that.”

  * * *

  THE CHAUFFEUR WAS kind and polite. Sari had hired him on Paul’s recommendation. When the bodyguards weren’t around, Mr. Jones was.

  He dropped Merrie off at Brand Taylor’s gallery in Jacobsville and waited outside in the vehicle for her.

  “Miss Grayling,” Brand greeted her. He grinned as he shook hands. “I was hoping you might stop by one day. I understand that you might be in the market for an art gallery, and I want to retire to the Bahamas.”

  “The Bahamas?” she exclaimed, laughing.

  “Yes. I’m going to become a professional beachcomber. I may never put on a suit again,” he added, indicating the elegant one he was wearing.

  “I would love to buy you out, if you’re serious,” Merrie replied with a smile.

  “In that case, shall we discuss options?”

  * * *

  MERRIE WAS ON top of the world when she came out of the art gallery. She and Mr. Taylor had agreed on a price. Of course, an evaluation of his inventory would have to be done, and two Realtors would also chime in on the property itself. Merrie told him she’d match the higher estimate, just to make sure his beachcombing dreams could really come true. He was delighted.

  She climbed into the backseat of the limo, her head spinning with dreams and ambitions that she’d never before had a chance to realize. Her father would never have allowed her to buy an art gallery, any more than he’d let her date.

  It was going to be a poor substitute for Ren. But she would have something to keep her busy. Something to help bury her broken heart in.

  Maybe eventually she could forget how it felt to lie in Ren’s strong arms and feel his mouth devouring hers. He’d been hungry for her, almost starving. It had probably been a long time since he’d been with a woman, she reminded herself. No wonder he’d been starving. It wasn’t even personal.

  She was so lost in thought that she didn’t even realize that Mr. Jones was speaking to her.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry! I was lost in dreams of business ownership,” she said with a laugh. “What was that, Mr. Jones?”

  “I said, where do you want to go now?” he asked with a smile.

  “To Barbara’s Café,” she said. “I’m going to get one of her chocolate cakes to take home for lunch.”

  “Not a bad idea,” he said.

  “Absolutely,” she agreed.

  * * *

  REN WAS CLIMBING DOWN from the cab of a huge hay feeder, a machine that took the big round bales of hay and churned them up into feed, along with additives, and pushed the feed out into troughs through a long curved tube.

  “Hey, boss,” J.C. called.

  Ren tugged his hat lower and his scarf tighter as he joined the other man. It was even colder than the day before, and snow was still driving down. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I went to see Beakly,” J.C. replied.

  “And?”

  “You were right. He was paid two thousand dollars to back up the truck driver’s story about a delivery,” the other man said curtly.

  Ren blew out a breath, idly watching it steam in the vicious cold as it left his warm mouth. “Maybe it’s a good thing Meredith went home, after all,” he said quietly. It still hurt to recall what he’d done to her. If he thought about it very much, he’d go mad.

  “Maybe. I hope they’re watching her closely. Contract killers are crafty and meticulous, and they don’t usually strike until your guard is down.”

  “How would you know about that, Calhoun?” Ren mused.

  J.C. didn’t say a word. He just looked at Ren, his odd silver eyes as cold as the snow around them.

  “I’m sure she’s well protected,” Ren replied. “Her brother-in-law is an FBI agent, and the family is wealthy.”

  “None of that will matter,” J.C. told him. “This man’s a chameleon. He popped up out of nowhere, with a disguise that fooled both of us. He came onto the ranch right under our noses and disabled two closed-circuit cameras. Yes, we have it on tape,” he added. “We had a hidden camera that he didn’t see. It caught a good shot of him, close up.”

  Ren’s cold lips made a thin line. “Print it out. I’m going to fax it to the FBI agent at his office in San Antonio,” he said. “It might not do a lot of good. I’m sure they have a pretty accurate description of him by now. But it might help.”

  “Good idea,” J.C. said. “You never know what will break a case wide-open.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MERRIE LAID HER head back against the seat, smiling at her good fortune. Brand Taylor was quite knowledgeable about art, and he had a reputation for astute appraisal. He’d taught Merrie a thing or two about painting as well, during her infrequent trips to his store to buy her art supplies. He sold them in a separate room of his gallery, Jacobsville being such a small town that he needed the diversity to stay afloat financially.

  She hoped he’d agree to stay on long enough to teach her the management end of the business. She knew the art side fairly well. Managing a retail business on a daily basis, however, was another matter. That was going to take some training. She might do well to sign up for a few business courses at the local community college where she’d done her art classes.

  But that thought had little appeal. She had no interest in numbers or keeping records. That would turn a new and exciting job into something incredibly boring and tedious.

  Alternatively, she might just hire a business manager. Her spirits lifted. Sari had suggested obtaining the services of a good certified public accountant, as well. That wasn’t a bad idea. If other people could handle the day-to-day management of the business, Merrie could do what she loved best. She could buy and sell art. And she could paint!

  At least worrying about her new business would keep her mind off the one thing it kept gnawing on: Ren. Without him, life lost all color. The thought of never seeing him again made her sick to her stomach. She’d loved him. The way they’d parted was still painful to recall.

  When she closed her eyes, she could envision the portrait she’d done of Ren, the one that had captured him so perfectly. He’d been surprised and delighted with the end result. She wondered what he’d do with the canvas now. Probably hide it in a closet, because he wouldn’t want to be reminded of her. He wouldn’t like remembering how badly he’d treated her, even if he’d only wanted to have sex with her. He was a kind man inside, where he hid that part of himself beneath a gruff exterior.

  She knew him down to his bones. He’d been hurt so much that he withdrew from the world, from people. He lived isolated from the world and spent his life taking care of livestock. He loved animals. Animals couldn’t hurt you, and his business gave him something to nurture, to protect.

  He loved the land as much as he loved cattle. He’d talked to her about his plans for pasture improvement, for experimenting with native grasses and water conservation on his property. He was a good steward of the land. They had a lot in common. Merrie loved gardening and animals, as well. If he hadn’t hurt her so badly, she might still be in Wyoming, learning more about him.

  But that hadn’t been in the cards. He didn’t want someone to live with him and love him. He just wanted a woman for the occasional night, when he needed a body. Maybe
he’d loved Angie, who’d treated him like dirt. He certainly didn’t love Merrie.

  She wished she could smother her feelings for him. It would make her life easier. It would take time, she told herself. She couldn’t expect a hurt that went so deep to be healed in a matter of days. She just had to get through the worst of the emotional pain, and then she could start to heal.

  The limo slowed down. Idly, she glanced out the tinted windows. Mr. Jones was pulling into a parallel parking space near an intersection headed out of Jacobsville. It was at a convenience store, the only spot parallel to the highway, with no other parking spaces around it.

  “Mr. Jones, why are we stopping here?” she asked.

  He didn’t turn his head. “Just need to check the tires, Miss Grayling,” he said with a reassuring smile. “It feels like one may be going flat. Only take a sec.”

  “All right,” she said, leaning back against her seat. She hoped he wouldn’t take long. She was hungry and eager to go to the café.

  She didn’t notice that Mr. Jones wasn’t bending down to look at a tire. He was speaking on his cell phone and looking out toward the long, straight highway that led to Victoria Road.

  He started walking away from the limo. Merrie’s eyes were closed. She didn’t see him go. She didn’t realize what was happening, even when she felt the impact and glass shattered around her in what seemed like slow motion. She was being shaken violently. She’d forgotten to put on her seat belt. She was thrown against the other door from the force of the impact. The last thing she saw was the formidable grille of what looked like a huge pickup truck before she fell unconscious.

  * * *

  “WHAT A HELL of a stupid thing I did,” Paul groaned while he and Sari paced the waiting room outside the surgical suite at the Jacobsville hospital. “What a hell of a thing! I took a former police chief’s word for gospel. I should have checked him out, too!”

  “You couldn’t have known that he had mob ties, Paul,” Sari said, sliding her arms around him. Her eyes were red from crying. Merrie was in bad shape. The impact had bruised her lungs and her stomach. They were currently repairing her lung and removing her spleen and appendix, which had been damaged in the impact. She had badly bruised ribs, and one hip was traumatized. On top of all that, she’d suffered a mild concussion. But she was alive. Thank God, she was alive!

  “I should have suspected everybody.” Paul hugged her close. “I’m so sorry!”

  She hugged him back. “She’ll be all right. Dr. Coltrain is the best surgeon on staff.”

  “I know. I know, baby.”

  They sat back down. The waiting was the worst part. They didn’t know what else Coltrain might find when he went in to repair the other problems. He hadn’t said much, but that in itself was a statement to anyone who knew him well. Sari did. He’d been her doctor, and Merrie’s, for years.

  “Where’s Cousin Mikey?” Sari asked.

  “Yelling at people,” he said simply. “Calling in markers. He’s gotten fond of our Merrie.”

  “He’s not such a bad man,” Sari said.

  “Yes, he is,” he said quietly. “But it’s good to have a bad man in your corner, sometimes. He’s talking to his mob boss buddy. He thinks they might relent if he asks nicely.”

  “You said that the contract killer would consider it a point of honor to make good on the job he took.”

  “That’s true. But he’ll have ties to Jersey,” he said. “He may have ties to the big boss. If he does, that man could be induced to put pressure on him to end the contract.”

  “So there’s hope,” she said, grasping at straws.

  He caught her hand in his and lifted it to his mouth. “There’s always hope.”

  She smiled at him.

  He drew in a breath. “Should we call that Wyoming rancher?” he asked. “He was pretty torn up when I told him the truth about Merrie. He had some sort of feelings for her, I know.”

  “If he wants to know anything about her, he can call and ask,” Sari said, still resenting the way he’d treated Merrie.

  “I guess so.”

  Paul went to get coffee for them. Sari rubbed one eye, and he knew what that meant—a threatening migraine headache. She had them more often when she was stressed. Strong coffee might stave it off until they had a report on the extent of Merrie’s injuries.

  While he was gone, Sari noticed a tall, well-built man coming toward her in a police chief’s uniform. She smiled. Cash Grier was over forty, but he could have passed for thirty. He’d lived a life that many men envied, and he was married to an honest-to-goodness movie star. They had a daughter and a new baby son.

  “How is she?” Cash asked, dropping into a chair across from Sari’s.

  “We don’t know. There’s a lot of bruising, and she’ll lose her spleen and her appendix.” She shook her head. “The driver took off. Paul checked him out. He had an ex-police chief lie for him when Paul did a background check.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” Cash said. “Anybody can slip up once. We’ve got a BOLO out for your limo driver,” he added coldly. “We’ll find him.”

  “He set her up, didn’t he?” Sari asked, still disbelieving what had happened.

  “Yes. From the info we’ve gathered from eyewitnesses, he parked the limo in a spot where it could easily be broadsided by a speeding vehicle, got out, called somebody and walked away just before the impact.”

  “The other vehicle...?”

  “A 1996 Dodge Ram truck, stolen of course. The driver dived out in the nick of time. He conveniently disappeared.”

  “Of course.”

  “We’re checking area hospitals for a man with a lot of bruises, and possibly broken bones,” Cash continued. “Just between us, this guy is too smart to be caught that way.”

  “That’s what we’ve been told.”

  “I believe your houseguest knows something about the contract killer,” Cash added. “Can I come over and talk to him again?”

  Sari managed to smile. “Of course. Come on out to the house anytime you like.”

  “Thanks. We’ll wait until you have some news first, though,” he added. He cocked his head. “It’s mostly the bruising they’ll have to monitor,” he told her. “When Tippy was beaten by her stepfather in New York, she was in the hospital for several days. She had bruised lungs. They put her on antibiotics. She did fine. Merrie will, too.”

  Sari nodded. “Thanks.”

  “I wanted to...just a sec.” His cell phone was vibrating. He stood up, pushed the button and listened, and replied with a grim expression on his face. He put the phone back in its holder. “They just found a body out on the Victoria Road.”

  “Let me guess. Was he tall and silver-haired and called himself Mr. Jones?” she asked wearily.

  He raised both eyebrows. “You’re good. Ever thought about getting a job as an assistant district attorney?”

  “If I weren’t so miserable, I’d laugh,” she said with a faint smile. “So I guess there’s no way to question him about who hired him.”

  “Or where his boss went,” Cash agreed. “Well, he might have something on him that would give us a clue.”

  “How was he killed?” she asked.

  “Double tap,” Cash replied. “Execution-style. First rule of assassination. Kill the assassin.”

  She just nodded. She drew in a breath. “Oh, I wish time went faster,” she moaned.

  “When you’re my age, you won’t be wishing that,” he said with twinkling eyes. Paul came down the hall with two cups of coffee. “Hey, chief,” he said when he saw Cash. “Want a cup? I can go back.”

  Cash made a face. “I am a connoisseur of fine coffee. We have a nice little hospital, but that vending machine should be arrested for counterfeiting caffeine products.”

  Paul smiled. “I w
ant to watch you try to handcuff it.”

  “It’s not as bad as that poor soft drink machine over in Palo Verde that Garon Grier told me about.”

  Paul lifted both eyebrows.

  Cash chuckled. “Happened before he and Grace married. It seems that the machine had a habit of taking money and not giving out soft drinks. So it was accidentally hit with a baseball bat—several times.” He held up a hand when Paul started to ask how somebody could accidentally hit a vending machine with a bat. He smiled broadly, then continued. “Garon didn’t inquire about the perp, but I’d bet money that he was wearing a uniform at the time.”

  Paul laughed in spite of himself. “I had a vacuum cleaner once that met with the same sort of accident.”

  “So did I,” Cash replied with a grin. “Kindred spirits.”

  “I shot mine.”

  “I stomped mine,” Cash said.

  “Feeling better, sweetheart?” Paul asked Sari, who was holding the cup of hot coffee against her temple.

  “Not a lot, no,” she said miserably. “I didn’t bring my migraine capsules with me today, either.”

  “I’ll call Mandy and have her send them over with one of the Avengers.” Paul stepped away for a moment to place the call.

  “I’ve never had a migraine,” Cash said, sobering, “but I know people who do. Tough luck, counselor.”

  “Story of my life,” she replied, wincing. “They get closer together, and worse, when I’m under pressure.”

  Paul came back. “Mandy’s sending them over with Barton,” she said.

  “Thanks, honey,” she said, squeezing the hand he put on her shoulder.

  “I’ll get back to work,” Cash said. “It goes without saying that if Tippy and I can help, we will, even if it’s just sitting up with Merrie while she’s recovering.”

  “Thanks,” Sari said. “I mean that.”

  He shrugged. “We have to look out for each other. It’s one of the really great things about small towns.” He looked at Paul. “You weren’t here when I told her,” he indicated Sari. “We found Mr. Jones in a ditch near the city limits sign on Victoria Road.”