by Diana Palmer
She laughed, too. “What a charming dog!”
He pursed his lips. “Want to meet him? You could come to the ranch one day for lunch.”
Her eyes met his. She bit her lower lip.
He slid a big hand over hers. “I know. You don’t feel what I do,” he said quietly. “But at least you like me, so that’s something. Maybe,” he added slowly, “one day, you’ll feel something more.”
She drew in a long breath. “That won’t happen. I’m really sorry, but it’s best to be honest about these things. So, if you’d rather not fly me to New York, I’ll understand.”
Both eyebrows arched. “Oh no,” he teased, “you don’t get rid of me that easily. I’ll be your second-best friend after Bart, and I’ll teach you about restaurants.”
She laughed. He was incorrigible. “Okay,” she said.
He relaxed. “Okay.” He wasn’t giving up. But he knew how to do a strategic retreat. “So, how about trying their house dessert? It’s a waffle with strawberries and sour cream and syrup.”
“It sounds wonderful,” she said, relieved that he knew how things stood. “I’d love to try it.”
“You won’t be sorry,” he replied, and signaled to a passing waitress to take their order.
* * *
AFTER THEY FINISHED EATING, they sat out on the long patio that faced the Gulf of Mexico and stared out at the waves rolling lazily to shore, whitecaps breaking on sugar sand.
“It’s beautiful here,” she remarked.
“I love beaches,” he replied. “I collect them. So far, my favorite one is down in Cancun, on the Mexican Caribbean. It’s one of the most exquisite views I’ve ever seen. My second favorite is in Nassau, right on the beach, where you can watch little tugboats turn big ocean liners to head them back out of port when they’re ready to leave.” He smiled. “I’ve been everywhere.”
“I’m just starting to go everywhere,” she remarked.
He laughed heartily. “Your favorite places, as I recall, are in some of the most dangerous jungles on earth, carrying an AK.”
She grinned. “Well, if you want to learn how commandos do stuff, you ask to do stuff with them.”
“Commandos, mercs, U.S. Marshals, FBI agents, cops, Texas Rangers,” he mused. “And once, I believe, an actual head man of the Outfit—a euphemism for the Mafia—in New Jersey.” He shook his head. “You like to live on the edge, don’t you?” he added seriously.
She nodded. “I’ve never lived a really safe life. It warps you. But honestly, what I write needs good research. I like to see what I’m writing about, in real life.”
“As I recall, you took a bullet when an insurgent came a little too close to you in one of those incursions.”
“Just nicked me,” she said with magnificent disdain. “Hardly even bled.” She grinned, because she liked having a battle wound. She pulled up her sleeve and showed it to him. There was a scar that was indented on her upper arm, evidence of a bullet wound.
“That looks a little more serious than a flesh wound,” he replied. He knew, because he had wounds of his own from the war in the Middle East.
She shrugged. “Some minor surgery, a few days in the hospital and some physical therapy. But it wasn’t as bad as it looks.”
He chuckled. “Pull the other one, kid,” he teased. “I’ve got wounds of my own. I know a bad one when I see it.”
She grimaced. “Well, I couldn’t show weakness around the guys, could I? Who wants to be thought of as a wimp?”
He grinned at her. She really was unique.
She noticed that rapt stare, but she smiled back. Plenty of time to convince him that she meant what she said about not wanting a serious relationship.
* * *
JAKE WAS GOOD company and she liked him. As he loosened up and stopped staring at her as if she were the Golden Fleece, she relaxed, too.
“You text me two days before you have to be in New York,” he reminded her when he left her on her doorstep. “I want to be sure I’m not tied up when you want to go.”
“I’ll do that,” she promised. She smiled at him. “I had fun. Thanks so much.”
“Oh, I had fun, too,” he said, grinning. He bent and kissed her cheek. “Good night, gorgeous.”
“You flatterer, you,” she teased. “Good night.”
He waved as he went back to the waiting limousine.
She relaxed as it drove away. If he could be just a friend, she wouldn’t mind going out with him anytime he liked.
She turned to go inside and found Jerry Fender coming up the steps on the other side of the porch.
“Good evening,” he said pleasantly. “Just getting home, boss lady?”
She smiled, a little uneasily. “Jake flew me to Galveston for seafood. Anything wrong?”
“Nothing at all,” he replied. He smiled as his dog came galloping up on the porch with him. “My buddy and I were just taking a last turn around the place to make sure everything was the way it should be.”
She felt oddly safe at the way he said that. “Thanks,” she told him.
He shrugged. “I take my responsibilities seriously. I’m just grateful to have a job. So is my furry friend, here. I’ve put him to work helping us herd cattle.”
She laughed. “Well!”
“He’s a natural,” he said. “Well, good night, Miss Michaels,” he said, and tipped his hat courteously. “We’re going to turn in.”
“Good night,” she called after them.
He threw up a hand. Sagebrush wagged his tail.
* * *
SHE’D NO SOONER gotten inside the house than her cell phone rang. It took her a minute to wrestle it out of her big purse.
“Hello?” she said as she fumbled it to her ear.
“So you’re finally home.”
She frowned. “Who is this?”
“It’s Cort.” There was a pause, during which her heart skipped a beat. “I just wanted to make sure you got back okay. The weather’s taken a turn for the worse. Flying can be dangerous when it’s blowing snow.”
She flushed because she hadn’t even noticed the snow. “Oh.” She hesitated. “I hadn’t really noticed the snow.”
There was another pause. “Haven’t you?” he asked, and his voice was curt the point of rudeness.
“Honestly, first Mr. Fender and now you...!”
“Mr. Fender?”
She grimaced. “He was on the porch when we drove up. He said he and his dog were just checking to make sure everything was okay.”
Mr. Fender took a step up in his estimation. “It’s late.”
“Well, yes. We sat on a bench outside the restaurant and watched the waves for a while. Galveston is really beautiful.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed. “I like to go deep sea fishing when I’m down there.”
She’d always thought that was a sport for rich men, but apparently even cowboys could afford it. She sat down in her armchair. “Did you catch anything you could eat?”
He chuckled. “I caught a record-breaking swordfish and threw it back in.”
“You didn’t have it mounted?”
“I don’t need trophies to prove I’m a man,” he said simply. “But there are plenty who do.”
She smiled. “My dad used to hunt before he left us. He never had deer heads mounted, either.”
“Do you remember him?”
She drew in a breath. “I was only nine years old when he went away. I remember the uniform more than I remember his face. I doubt I’d recognize him if I met him on the street. Not that I want to,” she added harshly. “Cousin Rogan said he was in Billings and he wanted me to talk to him. I refused.”
“You don’t forgive.”
“Not something as harsh as what he did, leaving me at my mother’s mercy,” she said shortly.
“
I have a hard time letting go of things, too,” he replied.
“When people hurt you, it’s human nature to resent them.”
“It is. What did you eat in Galveston?”
She laughed. “Oysters. I love them, fried.”
“Me, too. I’d rather have them raw, though, with just a little Tabasco sauce.”
“I expect we’ll both die of mercury poisoning if we keep it up.”
He burst out laughing. “Maybe so, but what a way to go!”
She grinned. “It really is.”
“I’ll let you go. I just wanted to know if you got home safely,” he said in a soft, husky tone.
“I got home just fine.” She paused. “Thanks. For checking.”
He chuckled. “No problem. Bart was worried. See you around, cowgirl.”
He hung up and she felt her heart sink to her feet. Bart was worried. What an idiot she was, to think Cort cared one way or another. She got up from the chair, turned out the lights and went to bed.
* * *
CORT CURSED HIMSELF roundly for that lie. Bart was already asleep. Cort had paced the floor, but his cousin had assured him that Mina was in safe hands. McGuire would take good care of her, he affirmed.
But Cort had worried anyway. He knew about airplanes. He’d been flying around in private ones for years, and he knew what could go wrong at the drop of a hat. He’d been in planes that came near to crashing. He couldn’t shake off the concern, although why he’d feel it for a woman he didn’t care about was disturbing. They had nothing in common except anguish from the past. She was a small-town cowgirl who didn’t know anything about the world he lived in. She’d never fit in his circles.
So why did he care?
He wished he knew. He turned out his bedside lamp and went to bed. But he didn’t sleep.
In the distance were big guns firing. Closer, there was the sharp ping of bullets hitting nearby. His friend called a greeting to him just as another bullet sang and the man’s head exploded in a spray of blood. Cort closed his eyes and shuddered. He wondered if he would ever be free of the war he fought in, so long ago.
* * *
MINA WAS PLANTING FLOWERS. She was also working on the next book, in her head. It was how she furthered plots, by doing mundane tasks that didn’t require much brainwork while her mind grappled with complicated scenarios. Some fit, some didn’t. By the time she started writing at the computer, it would all resolve into a comfortable scene.
She was still astonished at how quickly her novel, SPECTRE, was rising on the bestseller lists. Her agent had called the day before to tell her with unbridled excitement that SPECTRE was climbing the New York Times hardcover bestseller list and had already landed in the top ten on the Publishers Weekly list—one much harder to hit. It was a contemporary romance, but with so much drama that even men read it. The plot followed a group of commandos who were trying to liberate the wife of a well-known billionaire from a minor bunch of terrorists looking for a quick way to finance their objectives.
Few people who saw Mina in her garden would ever connect the shy Wyoming cowgirl with the sweeping, violent and passionate drama of her novel. Not that she used her own name. She wrote under the pseudonym Willow Shane, and only a handful of people knew.
Bart was one. Mrs. Simpson was another. There were people in Catelow who had known Mina all her life who had no idea what she really did for a living. She liked it that way. If fame came—and it seemed likely that it would, now—she didn’t want her precious privacy invaded. The pen name, hopefully, would assure that.
She thought about Bart’s cousin and laughed inwardly as she considered how he was going to feel when he found out what she did for a living. Eventually, she was sure, Bart would tell him. Right now, Bart was enjoying himself as he kept the secret. And so was Mina. That arrogant cowboy could use a little shock in his life, she thought, considering how disparaging he’d been about her knitting and her romance novels.
Well, technically they were romance novels. But they were filled with action and suspense, and SPECTRE had been marketed as a suspense novel, not a category one. It had made Mina so proud when she knew that. It still gave her a massive thrill to go to signings at bookstores and see her novels on the shelves. It never got old.
She finished planting the flower seeds and moved to another manicured plot to start planting herbs.
She loved to cook. She loved to have fresh herbs in what she cooked. So it was much better to grow her own than to buy them at the store and have no idea how fresh they actually were.
“Ma’am, I can do that for you, if you’d like,” Fender said from behind her.
She half turned, her blue-jeaned knees in the grass that surrounded the fresh dirt. She laughed. “Thanks, but I love planting things.”
“You aren’t even wearing gloves,” he chided.
“Oh, I like feeling the earth between my fingers,” she said with a warm smile. “It gives me a sort of connection to the things I plant. I like to think it makes them grow better,” she added on a laugh.
“Okay. I just came to ask you about those cattle you’re planning to sell at the production sale,” he replied. “Do we need to launder them and pretty them up for it?”
She burst out laughing, visions of calves dressed in frilly skirts filling her head. “Well, we could launder them, I guess,” she said when she stopped laughing. “But no frilly dresses or short pants. Okay?”
He chuckled. “Okay.”
“It’s just as well that we’re doing it soon,” she added. “I’m going to be tied up in New York for a few days next month.”
“New York?” he added.
She nodded. “Yes. I have a business meeting there. Mr. McGuire is going to fly me up in his plane.”
“Not my business, but is it something about the ranch?” he asked. “I mean, you aren’t going to sell it or anything...?”
She smiled. “Of course not! It’s my legacy. No, it’s other business altogether. You won’t lose your job anytime soon. I promise.”
He let out a breath. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Meanwhile, how about getting the part-timers on mucking out the stable? I know, they’d rather be shot. But somebody has to do it, and I don’t have time.”
“Not a problem, ma’am,” he said, and tipped his hat. “I’ll do it right now.”
“Thanks,” she said. She frowned. “Where’s your fuzzy shadow?” she asked.
“Sagebrush is helping move one lot of steers into new pasture. He’s handy as a cattle dog.” He shook his head. “He loves to herd me, but I never realized how good he’d be with animals until I watched him work. Maybe he’s part sheepdog,” he chuckled.
“More like part border collie,” she teased.
“Could be. I’ll get back to work.”
She just nodded and went back to her chore.
CHAPTER NINE
CORT HAD BEEN mooning around the ranch for days. Bart couldn’t figure out what was the matter with him. He wasn’t eating the way he had when he first arrived, and he was restless. He went out with Ida a time or two, but he wasn’t gone long even then.
“Is there something wrong?” Bart asked finally, and his concern showed.
Cort took a deep breath. “Your best friend is what’s wrong.”
Bart’s eyebrows arched. “Did you two have a fight or something?”
Cort shook his head. “Nothing like that. She bothers me, that’s all.”
“Bothers you how?”
“She was riding a fence line all alone. She doesn’t carry a gun and some animals could be on her so quickly that she wouldn’t have time to pull out a cell phone to call for help.”
Bart hid a smile. “Her ranch hands watch out for her.”
“Not always,” came the curt reply. “We had a wolf attack a calf, and then a cow giving birth, remember?”
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br /> “The wolf was shot, remember?” Bart replied. “I had to report that to the appropriate state agency, by the way, and they came out and took genetic samples from the carcass. Gray wolves are off the endangered list, but the state still wants to maintain a standard of breeding pairs.”
“Any idea who shot that wolf?” Cort asked.
Bart shook his head. “I asked all my hands. Nobody, not even the part-timers, knew anything about it. I had Mina ask her cowboys. Same answer.”
“Curious.”
“Very.”
“Just as well the wolf’s gone, though. They can be dangerous,” Cort said.
Bart just smiled. “People can, too. I like wolves. I’ve never had even one livestock attack until this calf was brought down. Wolves mostly prey on deer and elk and antelope. If we ever got an aggressive wolf, I’d call in the state wildlife people to have them trap it. I’d hate to kill something so majestic, even though I love my cattle.”
“We don’t have gray wolves on my ranch,” Cort said. He grimaced. “But I’ve heard that the ones you get in Wyoming can weigh over 150 pounds, and that they can sprint up to thirty-five miles an hour. A lone woman couldn’t outrun one, even on horseback.” Cort grimaced. “Where there’s one wolf, there are usually others. They run in packs, don’t they?”
“Mostly, yes. The authorities still warn people to stay away from them in state parks, even where they’re protected,” Bart agreed. “A wild animal is called that because it’s wild. Any of them will turn on a human for the right reason, and they’re not predictable.”
Cort leaned back in his chair. “Mina doesn’t even carry a gun with her, I noticed.”
“She doesn’t like guns,” Bart volunteered.
“Odd attitude, for a rancher.”
“She was more or less forced into ranching because she had to have a place to live and she didn’t want to give up her legacy. That’s not what she plans to do with her life.”