Undercover Cowboy

by Beverly Bird

  His heart was moving hard. Too hard. When was the last time he had spoken about his father? How come kids couldn’t figure out when something was off-limits? And the hell of it was, you couldn’t really snap at them for it, either.

  “You got a picture of him?” Holly called out.

  “If I show it to you, will you leave me alone?”

  She looked crushed for a moment, then she brightened. “Sure.”

  Jack swung the ugly-eared gelding back to the fence. He reached into his jeans pocket, and his heart slugged his ribs.

  His wallet was gone.

  For a moment the cold feeling came back, drenching everything inside him. He shook it off. There was nothing in there that could come back to haunt him. That old picture of Carly Castagne was in a small pocket sewn into the inside of his left boot, though God only knew why he had felt compelled to bring it along. His agency credentials were in a similar pocket in his right boot. No sweat. No problem.

  What bothered him was that he had lost his wallet in the first place.

  It was sloppy, unforgivable. It wasn’t like him. He had never, ever, done such a thing before, not while on a job, not while it mattered. God, he really was losing his edge. He no longer had any idea whether it was thoughts of the woman or worries about a new scar that were unfocusing him. He just knew that he wasn’t himself, and that that was dangerous.

  He’d been a fool to let Paul talk him into this.

  “What’s the matter?” Holly asked.

  “I left my wallet in my room,” he said tightly.

  “Want me to go get it?”

  He was saved from answering by Carly herself. She slammed out the back door and came toward them, and for a moment he thought she looked alarmed when she noticed them talking. Then, almost visibly, she forced herself to relax and she turned away to look at the others.

  “Okay, everybody,” she called out. “Come on over here where I’m standing. Let’s see how much you’ve learned.”

  Before an hour had passed, Carly decided that at least half the guests wished they had never heard of Seventy Four Draw. At the very least, they were all beginning to wonder why they had spent perfectly good money for the pleasure of killing themselves. But she wasn’t as pleased as she thought she’d be.

  There was certainly no question that she needed this ride to be a success. But now she realized that she was beginning to take Michael’s whole crazy idea as some kind of personal challenge as well. Could she keep these people on horses and get them into Kansas without losing any cattle on the way? Could she pull it off without it costing the ranch anything beyond what the guests were paying them? Could she pull it off period?

  Maybe.

  At ten-thirty, Winston finally fell off his horse. It had pretty much the effect that Carly had hoped for. Sure, it hurt. Sure, it jarred his teeth. But he’d broken no bones and there wasn’t a scratch on him. His fear of the animal eased considerably.

  At eleven, Myra’s horse ran off with her. That was a godsend, too, Carly figured. Myra learned her lesson in a hurry. If she fidgeted too much while she was astride, the animal was going to take it as a cue to run.

  At noon, Brad called out to her. “Are we stopping for lunch?”

  Carly scowled at her watch. “Not yet.”

  She wanted to use the lunch hour to take Holly to the roller rink. She had decided that she wasn’t going to back out on the promise. If nothing else, that fire last night had driven a few precious truths home to her. The ranch just didn’t give her back enough to sustain her if she lost Holly, or even Theresa. They were all she had left, all that mattered.

  Sorry, Daddy. The thought she’d had standing in the kitchen last night came back to her again. Let it burn. It had been right from her heart, she realized now. The truth was, the Draw had become like a cruel, selfish lover, sucking the lifeblood right out of her, leaving her hollow.

  When had it happened? When had she started wanting, needing something more? She looked at Jack and realized that she didn’t think she liked the answer to that. It had been recent, she realized. Very recent.

  “No?” Jack repeated.

  “What?” She couldn’t seem to bring her thoughts back together.

  “You said, no, we’re not stopping for lunch.”

  “I said not yet,” Carly corrected. “We lost half an hour getting Myra back from the next county. We have time to make up.”

  “What is this? Boot camp?” Jack demanded.

  “We’ve still got a lot of work to do,” she answered, unperturbed.

  “The scenery sure makes it a lot easier,” Brad said suddenly.

  Carly glanced at him sharply. She could swear he was flirting with her today. Even now he was sending her a sly, sideways grin. Then again, for all she knew, he had decided that aliens were invading the earth and had started by taking control of her. Those sales tags on his clothing continued to bother her. They were just…weird.

  She dug a firecracker out of her back pocket, lit it and tossed it roughly in Jack’s direction. When it went off, his horse skittered and reared.

  “What was that for?” he shouted.

  Her heart thumped as she realized that he was genuinely angry. “Easy, cowboy. If Gofer or Plank or I should have to discharge our guns on the trail for some reason, then I want to make sure you all stay on your horses when it happens.” None of their mounts was especially gun-shy, but there were exceptions to every assumption, and she was pleased to see that they had all weathered the explosion very well.

  “You might have warned me,” Jack muttered. There was still an edge to his voice, even though gun-broken horses weren’t a bad idea, lie thought, all things considered.

  “That would defeat the purpose,” Carly pointed out sweetly. She wondered why he was in such a foul mood today. “I might not be able to tell you first if the real thing happens,” she went on. “Come on, everybody, keep riding.”

  Jack didn’t, at least not right away. He gave her a long, measuring look before he finally cued his horse onward again.

  He kept one wary eye on her in case she had another firecracker in her pocket, trying to keep his other eye on Scorpion at the same time.

  At two o’clock she let them stop for lunch. Jack noticed that Holly looked pleasantly stunned when Carly grabbed a set of keys off a nail beside the stairs and waved her daughter outside. She was gone for nearly an hour and came back without Holly.

  She worked the guests until five o’clock before she finally called out to them to stop riding. She’d put them through hell today, Jack thought. The firecrackers had been the worst of it, but then she’d forced their horses through some drainage ditches and a sizable trench to the east of the house. She said she wanted to prepare them for the rough terrain. He was beginning to think she was just sadistic.

  Everyone, including Scorpion, watched her warily as she motioned to them to gather around her. Carly read their expressions and actually laughed again.

  “Oh, come on. I’m not that much of an ogre. I’m even going to let you stop now so that you can all get some time to clean up before dinner. We only have two bathrooms, as you’ve probably already noticed, so don’t anyone hog them. Wash up, do what you have to do, then find your way back to the dinner table. We’ll eat at six-thirty.”

  She started for the house.

  “Are we still leaving on Friday?” Scorpion called out. “Did you decide?”

  Carly looked back at the man and her mouth quirked into another smile. It made Jack’s skin crawl even as he thanked God that she didn’t seem to know who or what she was grinning at. And then something happened to him, something so unexpected and alien that he might have fallen off his horse if he hadn’t already dismounted.

  It started as a tightening in his gut. It moved to his throat, squeezing. Then it rushed, hot, up into his temples. And it hurt.

  He was jealous.

  Carly nodded. “We’ve made good progress,” she answered, “and I’ve decided there’s no reason I have
to stay here to oversee the generator repairs. It makes more sense for Theresa to do it. I don’t see why we can’t leave on schedule.”

  She finally went back to the house. Jack’s gaze swerved back to Scorpion.

  The man was watching her intently, and suddenly Jack realized that he did have an instinct, a strong and clear one that hadn’t been muddied by the events three months ago in São Paulo. Scorpion was going to make contact with Carly Castagne tonight.

  And there was no way Jack was going to allow it.

  It had nothing to do with the way she had smiled at the man, he told himself. It had nothing to do with the fact that he could count her smiles—her true smiles—on one hand, and now at least one of them had been earned by Scorpion, a man she had once been married to. It had everything to do with the fact that it just made more sense to get this game over with as expeditiously and with as few additional complications as possible.

  If he prevented Scorpion from getting Carly Castagne alone, then there was no way the assassin could involve her in this. Sooner or later, the man would simply have to take his money and go, or all chances would be lost to him. Scorpion had to know that the longer he delayed, the more certainly he would be pursued, if not by the agency, then by the guys he had turned on.

  Jack was reasonably sure now that the assassin’s move would be to tell Carly who he was. He’d been flirting with her mildly all day, but not so much that he’d be able to sweep her off her feet all over again and get her to run off into the sunset with him. No, Jack thought, that was not something a woman like Carly Castagne would easily do, and Scorpion had to know, or have relearned it, by now.

  Unfortunately, Jack thought, he really had no idea what Carly would do if Scorpion managed to tell her the truth. She had just smiled at the bastard. What would her reaction be after her shock and anger wore off? Would she realize she was still in love with him?

  No, Jack thought, no way. He wasn’t going to take the chance.

  Jack didn’t find his wallet in his room. He retraced his innumerable steps of the night before and finally located it in the parlor sofa.

  Someone had rifled through it.

  He always kept one automatic teller receipt between the third and fourth plastic picture windows. If the wallet was opened, there was no way it could not fall out. He, of course, always put it back between the proper windows. A stranger would not.

  It was in the front now, with two other receipts, not anywhere near the picture windows at all.

  Something clammy moved over his neck. Scorpion? Or Carly? It could even have been Holly. But if it was her mother or the assassin, then one of them had figured out enough to be suspicious, and that bothered him.

  As a result of his search, Jack was the last one to get into a bathroom. He made quick work of it, while the question of who had snooped through his wallet continued to nag at him. Still, by the time he had showered and shaved, his mood had improved somewhat. There was comfort in knowing that whoever it was hadn’t found anything important.

  Then he pulled open the bathroom door, and all thoughts of the job at hand fled from his mind. Carly came out of the bathroom directly across from him. Her eyes were down on the towel and the clothing she carried. She didn’t immediately notice him.

  Her hair was free again, wet and sleek this time from her shower. She was barefoot. She had tiny, narrow feet. And she wore whíte. It was some little robe that barely touched her thighs. It couldn’t be called sheer, not by any stretch of the imagination, and he suspected that Leigh Bliss had far more potent clothing in her arsenal. But if he squinted and angled his head just right, when she turned to flip off the light switch behind her, Jack could just make out the outline of brief bikini panties beneath the cotton.

  He could not make out any trace of bra straps.

  His breath snagged as completely and suddenly as if he were a teenager. Desire, that heat of hunger, ambushed him. Suddenly he could feel her wet hair sliding through his hands. He could smell the faint trace of soap on her body.

  She turned around and this time she noticed him standing just inside the other door. He dragged his gaze up to her eyes again.

  “You’re going to be late for dinner,” she managed, her voice sounding breathless. Faint, delicious color came to her cheeks.

  “So are you.” She was beautiful, he thought. God help him, she was Scorpion’s woman and he couldn’t be noticing things like whether or not she’d immediately put on a bra after she got out of the shower. He couldn’t get into a contest with his nemesis, with this woman as the prize, because it was too twisted, too sordid, and there were far too many other issues at stake as well. She wasn’t right for him. He was all wrong for her.

  “What?” he asked hoarsely.

  “I said, see you downstairs,” she repeated.

  Jack watched her mutely as she made her way to her room. “Yeah, right,” he finally remembered to answer, but she was too far away to hear him.

  He clenched his jaw and went to his own room to comb his hair and get some kind of grip on himself. Then they reached the kitchen at the same time, Jack from the front stairs and the hallway, Carly by way of the back stairs.

  He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw her hesitate when she saw him.

  Good, basic, sexual attraction, he reminded himself. He was sane now, in control, and he knew that that was all it was. And such a thing could certainly be handled with common sense and restraint by two sane adults who didn’t need to get tangled up in each other’s lives. Still, he was barely aware of the hum of the conversations around him as he sat down.

  “What kind of wildlife might we expect to find?” Myra asked.

  “I have a deck of cards in my suitcase,” Reggie volunteered. “Does anyone feel like a game?”

  “Do we have to use candles again tonight?” Winston wondered.

  Carly looked at Theresa. “Were you able to do anything about the generator?” she asked.

  Theresa shook her head and stammered. “I—I called the repairman. I—he’ll be out tomorrow. No, maybe Friday. I mean, he’s busy. We’ll just have to rough it again tonight and tomorrow,” she finished lamely, looking miserable.

  Jack felt something in his gut harden warily. What had all that been about?

  Then Holly burst in through the charred back door, and he heard a car take off outside.

  “Did you have fun?” Carly asked her, and Jack shut out the distractions again, trying to think. Besides, the flushed look of happiness on the kid’s face touched something in him, something he really didn’t want touched, and Carly’s answering smile made him tell himself harshly that he definitely did not care, didn’t wonder, what had happened to make each of them so damned happy. It wasn’t any of his business. He wasn’t involved.

  He thought about the generator. The arrival of the repairman was all the more reason to get them out of here as soon as possible, he decided. He didn’t want Scorpion around when the guy noticed that an incendiary device had been installed in the box. He looked at Scorpion, wondering if this had occurred to the assassin as well. The man kept his eyes on his plate, eating diligently. His expression revealed nothing.

  Dinner was scarcely over when Carly stood up. “I need to look at the books again,” she said to no one in particular. “Excuse me.”

  Jack watched as she slipped into the hallway. She had changed into shorts and a T-shirt. He studied her legs briefly, then he caught himself and pulled his attention back to the others.

  The cowboys were easily cajoled into a card game. They cleared the kitchen table and sat down to deal the first hand. Leigh complained of a headache and went to lie down. Jack suspected she was just disgruntled at being excluded from the hub of male activity, though by her own admission, she knew nothing about poker. Myra wanted to know if she could peruse the library at the front of the house, maybe take something to read up to her room.

  Jack waited.

  When the poker game was well under way and the sky outside was deep purple
and mauve, Scorpion leaned back in his chair, stretching. The assassin watched one more hand idly, then he, too, excused himself to go upstairs.

  Jack felt something hot and ready scoot through him, and this time it had absolutely nothing to do with wanting Carly Castagne.

  Oh, yeah, he thought, Scorpion was going to make contact with Carly tonight. He waited until Scorpion had gone, then he begged out of the game as well. He went up the hallway, looking into the various rooms as he passed them. He wondered if he would have to go upstairs to Carly’s bedroom to find her, but then he located her in the parlor again.

  She was pouring at the sideboard, and he wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved that he wouldn’t have to track her upstairs to her room. He wondered what she slept in.

  “Hey,” he said from the hallway.

  Carly’s head snapped up. She reached for another snifter and filled it halfway with brandy without commenting. She handed it to him as he stepped into the room.

  Jack shut the door carefully behind him. She didn’t comment on that either.

  “Expecting me?” he asked finally, sipping.

  “Resigned to it, more like.”

  You could have been upstairs in your room half an hour ago, he thought.

  She could probably have gone upstairs half an hour ago, Carly thought. She could have avoided all this. She did feel much, much better about him now that she had snooped through his wallet and his suitcase. But she was still curious about why he had wanted to leave a day early, and she wondered if he would bring it up again if given the chance.

  That was what she told herself. She didn’t want to consider that maybe she just wanted to give him a chance to look at her that way again, the way he had last night and outside the bathroom.

  She leaned her elbows on the sideboard behind her, waiting. Jack sat on the sofa, stretching out his legs with a laziness that belied his tension. He rolled his brandy around on his tongue and the silence stretched out.

  Carly began to feel uncomfortable. “Did you want something in particular?” she asked.