The Texan

by Joan Johnston

  Owen was rising, and Bay grabbed his arm to hold him in place. “What are you going to do?”

  “Find a way to talk with my brother alone.”

  “Aren’t you afraid—”

  “Clay isn’t going to hurt me.”

  “Are you absolutely sure about that?”

  Bay heard the slight hesitation before he said, “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”

  “Stay put,” he said. “I don’t want you setting off any explosives that’ll get us both killed.”

  “Let me go with you.”

  “I don’t want you getting hurt, Red.”

  There was something about the sound of his voice that gave her pause. “Don’t tell me you care.”

  He ruffled her hair as though she were five instead of twenty-five. “All right, I won’t. Just stay put.” He picked up the SIG from where he’d laid it on the ground and checked to make sure a round was chambered.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “As long as it takes,” he said.

  “How do I know you won’t hightail it with your brother and leave me and my brother here to die?”

  He gave her a quick, hard kiss. “I guess you’ll have to trust me.” A moment later he was gone, and she was alone.

  Bay drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them as much to comfort herself as to stay warm.

  Trust me.

  Was it possible that in a matter of days she’d forgotten everything she’d learned at her father’s knee and was willing to trust one of the black-hearted Blackthornes? How could she not trust Owen, when he’d saved her life at the risk of his own? Of course that might merely have been the act of a lawman doing his duty. Or the natural instinct that compelled a man to save a woman or child. The fact he’d rescued her didn’t necessarily mean that he cared for her. Or that she ought to trust him with her heart.

  But her pulse was still racing from that quick, hard kiss. And she liked the warm feeling she got inside whenever he used the affectionate nickname he’d given her. She’d never let anyone get close enough to assume that such familiarity would be welcome.

  Was it welcome?

  Bay wasn’t sure she wanted Owen to care for her. She certainly wasn’t about to allow herself to care for him. Because then she’d have to tell him the truth about herself. She’d have to dredge up all that pain and lay it open for him, and she really didn’t want to do that. In the past, she’d simply enjoyed the sexual relationship most men were willing to engage in without asking for more than the pleasure to be found in it by two consenting adults.

  It was the situation that was causing the problem. They’d been thrown together, then forced to rely on each other, when normally, she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She liked being in control of her life. She liked making her own decisions without thinking about the consequences to another person. She’d known that she would have to spend her life alone, and she’d prepared herself for it.

  Owen was making her rethink her choice. He was making her want more. And she didn’t like it one bit.

  She could avoid a lot of heartache by nipping this whole relationship thing in the bud. Sex was fine. Sex was great, in fact. More than that was not.

  Bay heard a noise in the dark and stayed perfectly still, like a fawn in the forest, or a lion cub on the savannah, knowing that if she couldn’t be seen, she would be safe.

  Then she remembered night-vision goggles and realized she might not be as invisible as she thought. If that was the case, there was no escape. And to run might cause her to trip one of the mines Owen seemed to think might be laid around the camp.

  A voice from the dark said, “It’s me.”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Bay said, launching herself into Owen’s arms as he appeared beside her.

  “If this is the welcome I get, maybe I should go away more often.”

  Bay could see his white-toothed grin in the moonlight and pulled away, embarrassed at how she’d turned to the enemy for comfort. “What are you doing back here so soon? What did you find?”

  “The camp is empty.”

  “It can’t be! We just saw your brother and mine—”

  “This place seems to be a little valley completely surrounded by limestone cliffs. Clay and Luke must have gone out through another crack in the wall. I couldn’t find it in the dark. And I wasn’t about to go stumbling around, considering what happened the last time we headed into one of those crevices.”

  “Where is everybody?” she asked. “Do you think they’ll be coming back—” Bay stopped herself in mid-speech when she heard the distinctive whine of a helicopter rotor starting up.

  “Damn!” Owen said. “I completely forgot about that chopper we heard earlier. It must be outside the cliffs.”

  “Your brother’s leaving! And he’s taking my brother with him!”

  In her anxiety over Luke’s fate, Bay forgot all about the possibility of booby traps and ran toward the camp. Hobbled was more like it, but she still moved faster than Owen. She reached the camp before he caught up to her. “We have to catch them,” she said, struggling against his hold.

  “Red, it’s too late,” he said, pointing toward the sky.

  As Bay stared upward, she saw a helicopter rising above the cliffs. In the eerie light from the instrument panel, her brother and Owen’s brother were visible in the cockpit.

  Her arms wobbled above her as she waved at them and shouted hoarsely, “We’re here! We’re here! Come back!”

  “Don’t waste your energy,” Owen said. “They can’t see you or hear you.”

  She turned on him, letting him feel the full brunt of her frustration. “You left me sitting there on my hands doing nothing while you let your brother get away! Now we’re stuck out here freezing to death and dying of thirst and—”

  “There’s plenty of food and water here,” Owen said, gesturing toward a stack of metal containers.

  “What happens when that runs out? Who knows how long it’ll be before we’re strong enough to walk out of here? What’s going to happen when they come back? We’ll be sitting ducks. And if they don’t come back, we might never get out of here!”

  “Oh, I think we can count on them coming back.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?”

  Owen pointed to a stack of crates by the limestone wall. “They left the VX mines. And a lot more munitions besides.”

  Bay stared at the huge mound of crates. “What’s in all those boxes?”

  “From what I can tell, they’re all different kinds of mines. The VX mines that were stolen seem to be a small—but admittedly lethal—part of a much larger operation.”

  Bay stared with rounded eyes at the three wooden crates Owen had indicated as the ones containing the VX mines. “Are they safe?”

  “They’ve been sitting in those crates for a lot of years. I don’t know any reason why they’d spring a leak now. Unless all this moving around has worn through some rusty spot on one of them.”

  “Don’t even think it,” Bay said, shuddering.

  • • •

  OWEN HADN’T LET ON TO BAY, BUT HE’D BEEN BOTH ASTONished and troubled to find Clay at the hijackers’ camp. Since there was no one else here, he’d been forced to conclude that either the FBI agent they’d encountered or Clay himself had worked over Luke Creed. What he couldn’t for the life of him figure out was how his brother had gotten involved in this mess.

  It wasn’t until he’d seen the stockpile of mines that Owen realized that he—and Hank—had stumbled onto an operation much larger than either of them had suspected. If all of those mines had been stolen in Texas, the Rangers would have heard something about it by now. Which meant they’d come from other depots in other states around the country. And that meant the bad guys were very well connected.

  So what the hell had Hank’s note meant? Who was the perfect lady? And how was finding her the key to finding the thief or t
hieves? Owen didn’t see anything here to explain Hank’s clue. Why the hell hadn’t he written a little more, given him a little more help?

  He knew it was entirely likely the federal government—either the FBI or ATF or the Justice Department or the military or all of them combined—had decided to conduct its own investigation of the munitions thefts without informing the Texas authorities.

  It made sense that the government wouldn’t want the American public to find out that someone was stealing mines from depots around the country. Terrorism was becoming a real fear for Americans, and judging from the quantity of mines Owen could see under the camouflage netting, someone had a real urge to see things explode.

  Since the FBI was coordinating the investigation here in Texas, maybe Paul Ridgeway had asked Clay to get involved. Since Cindy’s death, the two of them had become as close as father and son. Or maybe, since Clay was the state attorney general, the FBI had figured he had the “need to know” about the full extent of the problem, and he’d come here hoping to rescue Owen—and found Bay’s brother instead.

  Owen had known Clay was hiding something when they’d spoken at the Armadillo Bar. He just wished he’d pressed his brother for more information when he’d had the chance. It had simply never occurred to him that Clay had anything to do with the hijacked VX mines. He clung to the belief his brother was working on the right side of the law. In which case, it was reasonable to believe Clay had just rescued Luke.

  Owen opened his mouth to tell Bay the conclusion he’d reached and shut it again. She wasn’t going to believe him until she saw her brother safe and sound. And that wasn’t going to happen until they got out of here.

  Then he remembered the FBI agent who’d accosted them at the cave. James Brophy had been standing right beside Paul Ridgeway at the Alpine airport, which explained how he knew they were headed into the wilderness. But who did the man work for? Some American militia group? Some Arab terrorists? Some South American rebels? Who was running this show? Why were there so few people guarding the mines? Where was everybody?

  And when would they be back?

  Owen wished the hijackers had swiped a few M-16s. He had nothing but Bay’s jackknife and his SIG to defend them—unless he set up his own perimeter of mines.

  Which was definitely an idea worth considering.

  • • •

  BAY SPENT THE NEXT HOUR GOING THROUGH THE CAMP with Owen, figuring out exactly what supplies they had. They found bottled water and stopped to quench their thirst.

  “Go ahead and drink your fill,” Owen said. “We need to rehydrate our bodies.”

  While Bay was drinking, she kept rummaging. “Look what I found!” she said excitedly. “Tide detergent.”

  “You’re excited because we can do our laundry?”

  She pointed to the front of the box. “Tide whitens and brightens with bleach. We can use it to neutralize any remaining VX gas residue.” She read the side of the box and grimaced. “Damn. There’s no chlorine bleach in this stuff.”

  “At least we’ll have clean clothes.”

  “Sure, if we can find some clothes that haven’t been doused with VX nerve gas,” she grumbled. She rummaged some more and gave a cry of delight as she held up a small plastic bottle of Clorox. “Thank goodness. Now all we have to do is wash ourselves to be rid of whatever VX residue is left.”

  Owen threw her an army-green T-shirt and a pair of camouflage pants. “Here’s something to put on once you’re VX-free.”

  They both stopped what they were doing and washed themselves down in Clorox. Even diluted, the smell was overpowering.

  “Whew. This is one perfume I won’t be trying again,” Bay muttered. When she’d rinsed off with clear water, she pulled the army-green T-shirt over her head and knotted the excess material at her waist, then toed off her boots and pulled on the camouflage pants. They were too big in the waist, but the hips fit. She rolled them up about six inches, then pulled her boots back on.

  “The latest in Survivor fashion,” she said with a grin.

  The military clothes made Owen look like a soldier. Strong. Fit. Capable of killing.

  He started to pull down the shirt and stopped. “Ah. I think I need some help.”

  “What’s the problem?” The shirt looked like it would fit just fine. She saw Owen wincing and asked, “Are you hurt?”

  “I landed in some lechuguilla when we came flying out of that tunnel.” He turned his back to her, and in the light of the Coleman lantern she could see a half dozen puncture wounds in his back and shoulder.

  “Are the spines still in there?”

  “Yeah. I think maybe some of them are.”

  “Come over here, closer to the light, and take off that shirt.”

  He pulled the shirt up over his head, then crossed to her and turned his back to the light, so Bay could examine him. She didn’t like what she found. At least four of the wounds had razor-sharp spines broken off in them.

  “Why didn’t you say something sooner? This must have hurt like hell.”

  He shrugged. “There wasn’t anything we could do in the dark. Didn’t seem worth mentioning.”

  “You’ll be sorry if you end up with an infection,” she scolded. “I need to get these spikes out. Did you find a first-aid kit around here anywhere?”

  “There’s one in the tent,” Owen said. “I’ll get it.”

  “Let’s both go. It’ll be easier for me to work if you’re lying down on one of those cots.” She took the Coleman lantern with her and followed him into the four-man tent. It was high enough inside for her to stand easily, but Owen had to keep his head bowed. He retrieved the first-aid kit from a foot locker and handed it to her.

  “Lie down,” she said, as she set the lantern on an empty crate that was apparently being used as a bedside table. She rooted around in the first-aid kit and held up a couple of autoinjectors. “Bet I can guess what these are for.”

  “Let’s keep them handy,” Owen said, taking them from her and setting them on the crate between the two cots.

  “I was looking for tweezers,” Bay said. “You’d think they’d have a pair, considering all the cactus around here. Ah. There they are. Now, a little alcohol, and I’ll be in business.”

  Owen’s shoulders were so broad they extended to the sides of the canvas army cot, but his hips were narrow enough to leave space for her to sit beside him.

  “This might hurt,” she said, as she dabbed the first of the wounds with cotton she’d soaked in alcohol.

  “It sure as hell does,” Owen growled, as he reared up. “I thought you were supposed to be gentle.”

  “Don’t be a baby,” she said. “I have to swab these clean, or you’re going to get an infection.”

  “I don’t like doctors,” he said flatly.

  “Neither do I,” she said. “They’re always poking and prodding and giving you bad news.”

  He turned his head to look at her. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

  She didn’t answer him. The conversation had been so innocent, she hadn’t realized she was stepping into deep water. “You want some rawhide or something to bite on? This might hurt.”

  “Very funny,” he said. “I think I can keep from screaming.”

  “Here goes,” she said.

  Bay knew she was hurting him. The spines were more than two inches long and stuck deep into his flesh. She was most concerned about getting the entire spine out without breaking off part of it inside. To her surprise, after Owen’s first rumblings, he didn’t make another sound. When she was finished, she dabbed each of the wounds again with alcohol and gently covered them with Band-Aids she’d found in the first-aid kit.

  “I’m done,” she said at last. “I did the best I could to get all the spines out without doing minor surgery.”

  “I can vouch for the fact you were thorough, Doctor.” He rolled over, and she saw that sweat had beaded on his forehead and upper lip. “If there’s anything left in there, it’ll w
ork itself out in time.”

  Bay untied the knot in her shirt and used the cotton cloth to dab his face dry. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  He caught her wrist and pulled her toward him. “You can kiss me and make it better.”

  She leaned over and gave him a peck on the lips. “There. Happy?”

  “You sure are stingy with those kisses, Red.”

  “What’s for supper?” she asked, rising and heading for the zippered doorway to the tent. She heard the cot creak as he rose and followed after her.

  “You can pick your own poison,” Owen said, as he crossed to one of several cardboard boxes stacked next to the table, reached inside, and held up a dozen MREs, each one a hardy Meal, Ready-to-Eat.

  Bay inspected each package, reading the labels aloud. “Creamed Ground Beef. Yuck. Spaghetti with Meat Sauce. Maybe. Meat Loaf. Nope. Lentil Stew. No, no, no. Pork Chow Mein. Promising. Oh, here’s the one I want. Boneless Pork Ribs in Barbecue Sauce. Mmmm. Sounds delicious.”

  “You got it,” Owen said as he set up one of the military chemical heaters—a version of the sizzle sack made for use with MREs—on the table.

  “The fact military munitions have been stolen, and the presence of these MREs, suggest it’s someone in the military who’s responsible for the thefts,” Bay said. “Like your brother, the commanding officer of Bravo Company, 186th Combat Engineer Battalion.”

  “Clay is also the state attorney general,” Owen said. “He could be working for the government investigating the thefts.”

  “Are you suggesting your brother was here to rescue my brother?”

  “Maybe. This can’t be a very large operation,” Owen said as he poured water in the chemical heater and set Bay’s MRE inside. “Look around you. There’s only one tent. It’s a four-man tent, but there are only two cots—one for your brother and one for the FBI agent we left in the tunnel. Or maybe there are normally two guys here, and they left your brother tied up somewhere at night. Which means my brother might have found his way here, and when he found the camp abandoned, took off with your brother.”

  Bay wanted to believe that scenario. If it was true, it meant her brother was safe and on his way home. “Why didn’t Clay take the VX mines with him?”