Cowboy Protector

by Patricia Rosemoor

  Then what?

  Exactly the question he hoped Skelly could answer when he showed up at his cousin’s house in time for lunch. Roz had taken the kids out for the day, so the town house was abnormally quiet. Oddly, Neil missed the thunder of little feet and the shrill of tiny voices.

  Even more odd, he was starting to wonder when he would have kids of his own.

  “So, you’re still fighting it?” Skelly asked as he plopped bread for sandwiches on a couple of plates.

  He didn’t have to elaborate. Neil knew Skelly meant their grandmother’s legacy.

  He knew his cousin meant Annabeth.

  “She’s not right for me.”

  “You don’t sound convinced,” Skelly said. He dug in the refrigerator and came out with a packet of roast beef and some cheese. “Are you sure that you don’t mean that Miss Annabeth isn’t the woman you imagined you would love?”

  Love.

  Did he?

  Is that what gave him this sick feeling in the pit of his stomach every time he imagined Nickels after Annabeth?

  Leaning his elbows on the breakfast bar where Skelly began building them sandwiches, Neil finally said, “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Maybe you thought you would get some nice quiet woman, one who holds the same opinions you do?”

  “Well…”

  Skelly laughed. And kept laughing long enough to aggravate Neil.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny.”

  “Do you think there’s a man alive who doesn’t have some image of the perfect woman, the one who will fit neatly into his world?” Skelly asked. He went back into the fridge and retrieved a ripe beefsteak tomato. “Love isn’t neat, cuz, but it sure is interesting. It sure as hell makes it worthwhile to get up in the morning. You’ll always be looking around the corner, wondering what’s next.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  To which Skelly responded with more laughter. But then he sobered and asked, “Do you regret knowing Miss Annabeth?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Does she make your blood sizzle?”

  Neil coughed. “Uh, I—”

  “Enough said.” Skelly cut the tomato and added thick slices to their sandwiches. “How about…can you imagine living your life without her?”

  “It’s the living with her that worries me.”

  Skelly plopped a towering sandwich in front of him. “You’re a McKenna, all right.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That someone has to slap you up the side of your head to get it on straight, to make you realize what’s important in life and what’s not. So consider yourself slapped. Open yourself up to the possibilities, cuz. Trust dear loving Moira. She hasn’t been wrong yet.”

  Trust dear loving Moira…

  Trust the woman who had passed on to him her gift and her sense of justice, and most of all, her insight. His grandmother seemed to know better than he whom he needed.

  Now if only he could trust that part of the legacy to not let him down.

  ALL DAY, Annabeth kept touching her pocket to make sure the cell phone was still there. Its bulk comforted her. Help was only two push buttons away.

  But while she kept up her guard as she worked, she saw no sign of Nickels. Not in the barns and not on the grounds.

  And, thankfully, not in the arena.

  She was especially vigilant when the calf roping started, but if he was around, Nickels never showed his face. Paranoid, determined to see past any disguise, she stared hard at every unfamiliar cowboy.

  Neil’s time was good enough to bring him in second again, this time behind Bill Hamilton. Grant and Hamilton and Neil held the top three cumulative scores with only four-tenths of a second separating third from first place.

  Later, after she and Jake had moved the calves back into the barn, Annabeth got that feeling again, the one she’d had the night before. Locking the pen, she slipped her hand into her pocket and curled her fingers around the comfort of the cell phone.

  Then, whipping around, she came face-to-face with Salvador Lujan, who stood just inside the barn doors. As usual, the alderman was scowling at her.

  “I suppose I have you to thank.”

  Blood pulsed through her throat as she lightly asked, “For what?”

  “For setting the authorities on me about the rodeo bank robbery.”

  Which meant Detective Wexler had been true to his word when he’d promised to question the alderman, Annabeth realized. “If you have nothing to be guilty over, then you have nothing to fear, right?”

  She answered the question without lying but also without admitting that she’d urged the detective to investigate him.

  “I’ve done nothing wrong!” Lujan said in an explosion of spittle that made one of the calves so nervous it complained loudly and squeezed through its mates to the back of the pen. “Supposedly I was fighting with one of the thieves—a man who is now dead—and Wexler wanted to know why I hadn’t reported encountering him myself.”

  Annabeth fought the fear that threatened to choke her, surreptitiously slipped the cell phone from her pocket and held her ground.

  “Why didn’t you report the incident?” she asked.

  “Because it isn’t true! I never set eyes on the bastard. And now I’m a suspect in his death.”

  Lujan presented the perfect picture of moral outrage. Could he be telling the truth? Or at least his version of the truth? Annabeth shifted uncomfortably.

  “So you didn’t have an argument with anyone yesterday?” she asked.

  “I had a heated discussion, all right,” he admitted, “but the man was a constituent who recognized me and was giving me a hard time about the trash not being picked up in the ward on schedule!”

  “Not Estaban Vega?”

  “He told me his name is Hector Sanchez.” Lujan stepped closer. “But interesting that you know the thief’s name.”

  Annabeth had a death grip on the phone but wondered if she’d even have a chance to use it if necessary. “Detective Wexler told me the thief’s name just as he did you.”

  Advancing on her, Lujan shook his head. “When I’m through with you, you’ll be sorry you ever crossed me!”

  Annabeth’s pulse jumped and she blindly felt for the number one on the phone. But before she could hit the yes button, Neil suddenly appeared on the scene.

  “Is there a problem here?” he asked, stepping up to her side.

  His wolf eyes flashed in the low light of the barn as he challenged the alderman. And Annabeth’s heart thudded harder.

  Lujan sized Neil up as though he might take the man on. But in the end, he merely said, “I was just leaving,” and then scowled mightily as he passed her.

  “What was going on here?”

  “Apparently Detective Wexler had that chat with Lujan, who correctly assumed I was responsible for Wexler’s questioning him.” Annabeth disarmed the phone and slipped it back into her pocket. “He denied the encounter ever happened, though. He admitted to having a heated discussion, as he called it, but with a man who was an unhappy constituent.”

  “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

  Annabeth shrugged. “He was angry but he would be anyway if he were lying. Maybe he didn’t realize it was Vega and made up the name to cover. Or maybe Lloyd was mistaken. The computer image is a good tool, but it’s not the same as a photograph. And how close was Lloyd to them, anyway?”

  “Don’t know. It’ll be interesting to get Wexler’s take on the situation, though.” Neil stared off into the distance as if following Lujan’s movements. He asked, “Are you done for the night?”

  “Almost. Maybe another fifteen minutes.”

  “You finish up here, then, and I’ll wait in the truck. I already pulled in closer, in the vendor area. Meet me there as soon as you’re done.”

  “Fine.”

  Annabeth didn’t bother arguing. As conflicted as she was about their confusing relationships, she felt safest
in Neil’s company.

  That said a lot about her trust in him.

  Too bad she had to analyze everything to death.

  Too bad she couldn’t just go with the flow, let things happen as they would.

  Too bad she was in love with a man who wouldn’t even be in her life a week from now.

  Love.

  That had to be it. No other explanation for that crazy roller coaster of feelings that kept assaulting her.

  Yes…no…

  Hot…cold…

  Heaven…hell…

  Was that how love was supposed to be?

  Why had no one ever told her?

  DUSK SETTLED OVER the festival grounds as Neil arrived back at the vendor parking area. At first he thought he was mistaken about where exactly he’d parked the car. Then he realized it was gone.

  Towed?

  “Damn!”

  Some ever-vigilant cop must have noticed he didn’t have the official vendor card in his front window. Great. He already had two parking tickets to pay—he’d found the second one that Annabeth had stuffed in the glove compartment. Now this.

  Jamming his Stetson down on his head, Neil stormed back toward the barn area to find Annabeth and tell her the good news, when he saw her approaching him. His announcement didn’t seem to come as much of a surprise, though.

  “You’ll probably have to make a bunch of calls to find out where your truck was towed,” she said with a sigh. “It’ll be easier to do that at my place. Then we can rescue it in the morning.”

  “We have to get to your place first.”

  She was already moving off. “Ever hear of public transportation?”

  “What about a taxi?”

  “When we can get a train that stops a block from home?”

  Neil resigned himself.

  Annabeth claimed the ten-minute walk to a Loop elevated station would do him good, simmer him down. And who was he to argue?

  Festival-goers were leaving the grounds in droves. Surrounded, Neil felt a sense of growing unease. He glanced around but saw nothing—no one—to give him pause. He just wasn’t used to such crowds and would be glad when they were out of this mess.

  They passed the underground parking entrances and crossed Michigan Avenue, but the human herd surrounding them didn’t seem to lessen.

  “Not too many people brought cars,” Annabeth said. “I have a feeling this is going to take us longer than I expected.”

  “It’s not too late to change your mind about that taxi,” Neil said hopefully.

  But Annabeth kept going.

  They arrived at the elevated structure in a horde of people anxious to get home. Luckily, most already had round-trip fare cards or passes, so the wait at the fare-card machine wasn’t too long. Neil put in enough money for one and handed the card to Annabeth. But when he deposited change for his own fare, the machine kept returning his money.

  “Must be out of cards,” the guy in back of him muttered in disgust. “Damn! Now we gotta wait in line all over again!”

  Planning to tell Annabeth what had happened, Neil turned only to realize that she had disappeared.

  SHOVED TO the turnstile by the crowd, Annabeth decided to go through and wait for Neil on the other side. Overhead, a train left the station.

  Clack-clack…clack-clack…clack-clack…

  When she turned back, Neil wasn’t at the fare-card machine where she’d left him. And he wasn’t in line at any of the turnstiles, either.

  “Looking for someone?”

  Her blood froze. She’d recognize that voice in her sleep.

  Ba-bump…ba-bump…ba-bump…

  Heart thundering as fast as the train overhead, she slowly turned to face a pair of cold gray eyes set in a familiar narrow, scarred face.

  Nickels!

  Frantic, Annabeth turned toward the exit, but Nickels clamped a hand around her upper arm.

  “We’re going for a little ride.”

  “I’m not going anywhere—”

  “And if you scream and alert anyone,” he growled, now close to her ear, “I’ll have to kill someone else.”

  The station was loaded with women and children.

  The woman will be the first to die…

  Knowing he would do it—that he would kill an innocent to prove a point—Annabeth caved and let Nickels drag her toward the stairs to the train.

  “Annabeth!”

  Halfway up, she glanced over her shoulder to see Neil coming through a turnstile. Just as he caught sight of them and started pushing through the crowd, Nickels jerked her forward so that she tripped and went down on a step.

  “No, you don’t,” he muttered, hauling her upward.

  Annabeth got to her feet somehow and raced up the stairs. The platform was already jammed with people waiting for the next train.

  And Annabeth was thinking fast.

  Even as Nickels jostled her through the crowd and headed down the platform, she slipped her free hand in her pocket and turned on the cell phone and lightly touched the pad to find the right buttons.

  One.

  Yes.

  Seconds later, she swore she heard a faint voice coming from her pocket and surreptitiously slipped the unit free.

  “Where are you taking me, Nickels?” she yelled over the crowd noise, praying that Wexler, indeed, had answered and that he could hear.

  “You’re going on a ride straight to heaven.”

  “You’re going to kill me like you did Vega?”

  “Vega is dead?” Nickels seemed thrown by that.

  And Annabeth took advantage of his hesitation. “On the Brown Line?” she went on. “Couldn’t you pick a better place than the new Jackson station?”

  Suddenly suspicious, Nickels jerked her around. “What the hell are you doing?” His gaze traveled down the length of her free arm to her hand. “Give me that!”

  They wrestled for a moment, but in the end, Nickels wrenched the cell phone from her and threw it over the platform. A spark shot up when it hit the live rail, and then the unit, no doubt dead now, Annabeth thought with regret, bounced off to the side.

  The struggle had taken only a moment, but it was long enough for Neil to close the distance between them. Nickels set off, dragging her up another set of stairs to a bridge that connected the two sides of the station.

  Annabeth did the only thing she could think of to slow him down. Three-quarters of the way up, she dropped to the stairs and sat.

  Even as Nickels said, “You asked for this,” Neil was running up the stairs after them, then leaping over her to get to Nickels.

  Both men flew onto the bridge, Nickels backward. Neil went after him.

  “Neil, be careful!” she cried as she shot to her feet.

  The two were trading blows. She winced when Neil took a hard one to the chin. But he returned as good as he got.

  Below, obviously noticing what was going on, people were pointing and shouting.

  Ding-ding…ding-ding…ding-ding…

  The clang of the bell below was meant to alert passengers to the arrival of another train.

  Annabeth saw it rounding the turn as a direct hit knocked Nickels backward, against the bridge railing. Nickels went low and his shoulder caught Neil in the gut. Neil went down hard, seemingly too out of breath to rise.

  “Neil!” she cried, her heart lurching when a click shifted her gaze to the evil-looking knife that Nickels brandished.

  The eerie scenario cast in green light was unreal: Nickels over Neil…knife raising for a strike.

  All the fury simmering in her over too many losses came to the fore. She wouldn’t lose someone else she loved, Annabeth vowed as she charged Nickels for all she was worth. He sensed her approach too late and turned awkwardly as she came at him, hands out, striking him in the chest with all her considerable strength.

  Flailing for balance, Nickels dropped the knife, and from the deck, Neil kicked out and caught him in the back of the knees. Nickels’s legs buckled and he fell forward and di
d a lumbering nosedive straight over the side.

  People screamed.

  Gasping, Annabeth looked down as the thief and would-be murderer’s arm hit the third rail, which sparked and gave Nickels an extra jolt as the momentum of his body flipped him over, facedown, still on the tracks.

  Neil made it to his feet and pulled her into his arms, but a horrified Annabeth couldn’t pull her gaze free as the train, horn honking, came straight for Nickels.

  With an ear-piercing shriek and a shower of sparks, the train slowed and stopped mere inches from the unconscious man.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sirens screamed below from the street as a dozen uniformed policemen broke through the crowd. Neil could barely hear their shouts.

  “Get back!”

  “Emergency!”

  “Move! Move!”

  Before his amazed eyes, the crowd was shoved back from the platform’s edge and one cop jumped down to the tracks to check on Nickels, who lay unmoving.

  Annabeth clung to him as if she could no longer stand on her own two legs. She turned her face from the scene and pressed her forehead into the crook of his neck. He felt her trembling against him.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered into her hair. “You’re alive. I’m alive—”

  “But Nickels isn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

  Below, the paramedics had already arrived. They rolled Nickels over onto a stretcher between tracks and checked his vitals. Neil figured no more than five minutes had passed, so the man had a chance to be revived even if he was technically dead. The electric shock could have done that to him, he knew, by disturbing the rhythm of his heart.

  Uniformed men passed equipment down and the paramedics worked over the inert man.

  To Neil’s continued amazement, the world around them had stopped for a slice of time. Trains were held up from both directions, passengers held back, while a medic hooked a thief and potential killer to lifesaving equipment.

  And closer at hand, a uniformed officer was taking the stairs two at a time.