The Wedding Assignment

by Cathryn Clare

  He turned immediately toward the patio when he emerged from the cellar, astonished at the way one brief conversation with Rae-Anne could leave him feeling that he’d hit more emotional highs and lows than he’d experienced in the past year. She came up the steps after him and was starting to head into the house when Renee, the housekeeper, called Rae-Anne’s name and held out a parcel she was carrying.

  “There you are,” she said. “This just came by express mail. It’s from Rodney’s aunt, addressed to both of you.”

  Rae-Anne took the package, which was marked Perishable Goods, and started across the patio with it.

  “She usually use typed labels for her mail like that?” Wiley asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never gotten any mail from her before.”

  Wiley wasn’t sure what it was about the package that put him on his guard. He skirted around the patio toward the cooler, but even while he was dumping the ice into it and getting into a conversation with one of the other workmen about barbecue, part of his attention was focused on RaeAnne and Rodney and the parcel.

  Fortunately, Wiley had a standard lecture that he gave people when they asked him about barbecue, and it was easy enough to launch into it now. “There’s some folks say that anything you cook on a grill constitutes barbecue, but to an aficionado…”

  He could hear Rodney’s words under his own. “Might as well open it,” Rodney was saying. “She sent me a whole case of hot chili pickle once, right out of the blue. If it’s food, we’ll dish it up right here and now.”

  It wasn’t food.

  At first Wiley couldn’t tell what it was. But his uneasiness had prompted him to cut off his barbecue sermon and move closer to the grill as Rodney tore off the tape that held the box closed. It was the label that seemed funny, he thought. Aside from the anonymous typewriting, the word Perishable was guaranteed to make someone open the box quickly.

  “What the hell—”

  Rodney’s last word turned to a startled yell, and suddenly he was flinging himself backward, shouting something panicky and unintelligible.

  Wiley was already on the move. Rae-Anne was his first thought. He reached her in two long strides, relieved to see that she was already getting out of the way on her own. With his body between the woman he loved and the threat he still couldn’t see, Wiley felt free to act.

  And then he saw the snake.

  It must have filled the whole shoe box, judging by its uncoiled length. It was sliding toward Rodney, half-lost in the melee of running feet, pausing when it came to an open space.

  And it was rattling.

  “Wiley—”

  He heard Rae-Anne’s voice behind him, but put it forcibly out of his mind. Damn it, he wanted to say, don’t let on that you know me. It’s too dangerous. The irony of worrying about that while heading toward an angry rattlesnake didn’t strike him until afterward.

  At the moment, he needed all the concentration he could muster to locate a weapon. Time seemed to slow down while he was doing it, and the dry, quick rattling got louder and louder as the frightened voices on the patio receded and Wiley’s focus narrowed to the space between him and the snake.

  This was the way any fight felt, he recalled—first everything got very slow and very clear, and then, suddenly, you were in the middle of things and there was no time to think at all. He looked to his right and saw only flowerpots and stone benches. To his left there was the white blur of RaeAnne’s dress—damn it, he wished she was farther away— and the fallen plates and paper cups of several of Rodney’s guests.

  And there was the barbecue. He spun around quickly, grasping the long-handled tongs and the lifter.

  The tongs were broad enough to pin the snake down for the couple of seconds he needed. And the lifter, though far from ideal, was lethal enough when Wiley put all his strength behind it, lashing into the rattler the way an autumn hurricane lashed into the Texas coast.

  And then it was over, and Wiley was left with his chest heaving as though he’d just run all the way from San Antonio.

  “It’s okay, folks,” he said. “It’s dead.”

  “Are you—all right?”

  Rae-Anne was the only one who spoke, and he could tell from the trembling in her voice that she’d remembered only just in time that she wasn’t supposed to know him from Adam. He gave her a weak nod and tore his eyes away from hers before the frightened concern in them could tip him into doing something that would give the whole show away.

  It had been a hell of an evening so far, he thought.

  He’d had to fight his long-buried memories first. And then the damn rattlesnake. And now the longing to move close to Rae-Anne and pull her into his arms to comfort her in the way Rodney Dietrich was so conspicuously not doing.

  At the moment, it was hard to say which of the three struggles had taken more out of him. As far as Wiley was concerned, things could calm down anytime, and he wouldn’t complain about it.

  He was disappointed almost immediately.

  Chapter 9

  “You have to have some idea who sent it, Rodney.”’ RaeAnne paced from the fireplace at the end of the long, low living room. “One of us could have been killed, for heaven’s sake! And you’re treating it like it was a prank.”

  “Because I’m sure that’s all it was.” Rodney was sitting on the sofa, as imperturbable—or as glazed—as he’d been for the past half hour. “No one dies from rattlesnake bites in this day and age, Rae-Anne. Even if we had been bitten, which was unlikely. Rattlers are more interested in being by themselves than they are in sticking around and biting people, and—”

  She’d heard all this once before. She’d been angrily insisting that Rodney be more open with her about his business, about his first wife, about everything, and he’d just gotten more and more genial, as though she was being temperamental and he’d decided to wait until she calmed down.

  His geniality was aided by the hefty snifter of brandy he’d drunk, on top of the beers he’d had at the barbecue. Rae-Anne had known him to drink a lot when she’d first met him, but he’d cut back on alcohol since then.

  Until now. Was this Rodney’s way of coping with whatever stresses he was refusing—blankly and utterly—to share with her? She shook her head at him, frustrated and fearful, yet certain there was something he could tell her and she just needed to keep asking until he finally opened up.

  “Why not call the police, if you think it’s just a prank?” she asked. “Surely—”

  She was interrupted by a quiet knock on the living room door. Rodney got up to answer it, commenting over his shoulder as he went, “You’re making too big a deal out of this, Rae-Anne. The snake’s dead, thanks to that workman of Abel’s. The whole thing is over.”

  Rae-Anne closed her eyes. She couldn’t get rid of the mental picture of Wiley’s big form hurtling toward that snake, one strong arm raised, his expression fierce and focused. If he hadn’t been so quickShe shook her head, willing the thought away. But it wouldn’t go. In the confused few seconds between Rodney’s startled yell and the realization that the snake was dead, she’d been caught between two impulses so strong she’d felt nearly pulled in two.

  I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to Wiley Cotter. That had been her first thought when she’d seen him heading her way, planting himself between her and the danger. She’d loved him once and mourned him as dead. She wasn’t sure her heart could stand to go through that kind of anguish again.

  And the other thought was just as potent, just as heartbreaking. Danger attracts him like a magnet. That was so clear in the way he’d thrown himself toward the threat that had arrived out of the blue. Wiley had always been recklessly confident and absolutely headstrong.

  Sooner or later, he would throw himself into a situation he couldn’t walk away from. And Rae-Anne didn’t want to be there to watch.

  That was why she was working so hard to keep things together with Rodney. Rodney, no matter what mistakes he might have made in the past, seem
ed to be trying to put his life together.

  And Rodney’s life included her child—their child. Frowning, she tried to forget about Wiley. What she needed to know—had to know—was what was really going on in Rodney’s life.

  What seemed to be going on right now was a visitor from the hotel. “I told him it was too late for business calls,” Renee was saying outside the living room door. “He said he’d wait in his car and just take a minute of your time. It’s that same man who came a couple of weeks ago, I think.”

  The phrase made Rae-Anne stop her restless pacing. Rodney had disappeared into the foyer, and she couldn’t help following him, drawn by the fear that this might be some follow-up to the terrifying package that had arrived earlier.

  She could hear voices from outside, but by the time she reached the front steps, the visitor was climbing into his car and Rodney had crossed the driveway toward his truck.

  It was hard to make her eyes work in the darkness after being in the lit house, but there was something about the curly-haired driver of the car that struck Rae-Anne as familiar. It wasn’t either of the two men who’d threatened her at the hotel, but she could swear it was someone she’d seen recently in connection with this case.

  She didn’t get a chance to figure it out. The curly-haired man had started the station wagon and was heading down the drive before she could get a better look. And Rodney, when her gaze found him, was at the open door of his truck.

  The big blue pickup was parked with the other ranch vehicles in the lot next to the house. Rae-Anne could see her fiancé moving quickly, doing something in the front seat and then turning toward the house.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded, crossing the gravel distance between them quickly. “Who was that guy?”

  “There’s been a theft at one of the hotels, and the manager wanted to let me know about it.” Something had changed Rodney’s mood, she realized. He took hold of her shoulders, turning her toward the house. “I’ve got to go out for a while. We’ll talk when I get back.”

  “Why wouldn’t they just call you on the phone, if there’d been a theft? And why call you at all? Can’t the manager—”

  “Rae-Anne, listen to me.” She didn’t like the way he was cutting her off. It was almost as though she wasn’t there. “It’s a delicate matter, and they want me to handle it personally. Which I’ll do, as quickly as I can.” He was frowning at her as he climbed into the truck cab.” “You go in and get some rest, all right? You look tired to death.”

  It wasn’t the happiest choice of phrase, Rae-Anne thought as Rodney’s truck took off into the darkness, its headlights cutting a long beam into the open black space around the ranch. “Damn,” she said, as she put her hands on her hips and watched the red and white lights of the disappearing truck.

  The second truck engine starting up startled her. She’d assumed she was alone and that all the other vehicles in the little parking lot were empty. The quiet roar of one of them coming to life made her jump and put one hand on her suddenly pounding heart.

  And then she recognized Wiley.

  He was at the steering wheel of a battered black pickup, his face lit starkly in the light of the dashboard as he turned the truck’s lights on. He must have seen her arguing with Rodney, she thought. But he didn’t look her way, just slammed the truck into gear and started to ease it out of the lot.

  Rae-Anne didn’t stop to think. Too much was still going on that she didn’t understand, and she’d be damned if she was going to let everybody ride off into the night and leave her mystified. Cursing the way her flat-soled leather sandals slipped in the gravel, she flung herself toward Wiley’s truck and managed to grab hold of the tailgate as he paused to shift from reverse into first gear.

  Getting her foot onto the bumper wasn’t easy, but she did it. She swung one leg over the tailgate just as the truck started to move forward, and caught a glimpse of Wiley’s startled face in the mirror as she half walked, half fell across the empty pickup bed.

  Her outstretched hands broke the impact of her collision with the back of the cab. She scrambled to get a grip on the rain channel along the edge of the cab’s roof, and was glad she was holding on to it when Wiley braked suddenly and rolled down the driver’s-side window.

  “Are you out of your mind?” She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him sound so furious. “Get out of the truck, RaeAnne.”

  She shook her head. “If you’re following Rodney, I’m going with you,” she said. “I’m tired of being left behind.”

  He gave a frustrated snarl and launched himself out of the cab. Rae-Anne moved to the other side of the truck bed, out of his reach.

  “I’m serious, Rae-Anne.” His cowboy boots crunched on the gravel as he came around to meet her.

  “So am I. And if we stand here arguing about it much longer, you’re going to lose track of Rodney.”

  She nodded toward the farm road beyond the ranch. Rodney’s truck had already disappeared over the first rise. In a moment even the dim glow of its taillights would be gone.

  Wiley conjured up a few curses that Rae-Anne couldn’t recall ever hearing before, even in the roughest cowboy joints she’d worked in. But in spite of his anger, he seemed to see her point. Unless he wanted to take hold of her physically and haul her out of the truck, he was stuck with her.

  And he’d never been a man to waste time once his mind was made up. “All right,” he growled. “Get in the cab, then. I don’t want to have to worry about you rattling around loose back there.”

  She didn’t wait to be asked twice. She slid over the side and hit the ground moving. The truck was in motion again almost before she’d climbed into the passenger seat and gotten the door closed behind her.

  “I thought pregnant women were supposed to get all passive and placid.” Wiley was still grumbling as he jammed the truck into gear. “What’s the matter with you, anyway?”

  What was the matter with her? Why had her heightened heartbeat changed from fearful to excited with no warning at all? Why, all of a sudden, did she feel so exhilarated, so alive?

  It must be because she was on the move, she told herself. She’d found a way to keep from being left behind this time, and it felt good after all the cautious maneuvering of the past day or two. That must be why she was so revitalized, so charged with all this unexpected energy.

  It couldn’t be simply because she was sitting next to Wiley Cotter.

  Could it?

  If it was, it certainly wasn’t because Wiley was going out of his way to make her feel as though he was glad to see her.

  “It isn’t bad enough you have to be right in the middle of whatever’s going on around here,” he was muttering as they reached the end of the long driveway. “Now you’re climbing onto moving vehicles, as well.”

  “Hey, I figured you owed me one, after that trick you pulled with the wedding limousine.” Her sense of elation made her flippant. She couldn’t resist shooting Wiley an unrepentant grin when he turned to look at her before steering onto the farm road.

  His look gave her more of a jolt than she’d expected. His eyes were nearly black with fury, or excitement, or both. He seemed agitated, almost menacing, as electrified as RaeAnne but not nearly as pleased about it.

  “Don’t push your luck, Rae-Anne.” He shifted into fourth gear and urged the truck to go a little faster. “Things are starting to heat up, in case you hadn’t figured that out for yourself.”

  The warning reminded her of how serious this excursion could turn out to be. Her light-headed mood started to ebb, although she still felt charged and stimulated by Wiley’s presence and by the speed of their headlong progress into the night.

  “Of course I figured it out, or I wouldn’t have bothered hitching a ride on your truck,” she told him. “Or is this your truck?” The question had only just occurred to her.

  “It’s Sam’s.” He didn’t elaborate.

  “And why are you following Rodney?” Another thought followed on the heels of t
he first one. “How did you get into this truck so conveniently? I didn’t see you there until you started the engine.”

  “I’ve been—monitoring the place.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “Whatever I could find. When I found Rodney coming out to pick up a briefcase from that guy—”

  “I didn’t see any briefcase.”

  “They didn’t exactly waste a whole lot of time over it. I didn’t hear what they said, but I did get a nice clear shot of the handoff.”

  He put a hand briefly on the long lens of the camera that lay on the seat between them, and Rae-Anne realized that in spite of her attempts to break through Rodney’s facade, Wiley had been far more prepared than she was to take advantage of any lapse in the pretense her fiance’ had built up.

  And it seemed more and more likely that it was a pretense. Rodney’s sudden change of mood, his almost absurd refusal to take the snake in the box as a serious threat, the vaguely familiar outline of the visitor in the car—they all added up to more than Rodney had admitted to her.

  But until she had some hard evidence to replace her vague suspicions, she didn’t want to admit any of this to Wiley.

  “It still isn’t proof,” she muttered, as he raised his hand to the steering wheel again.

  She wasn’t prepared for the sudden way Wiley cranked the wheel around. She realized that up ahead, Rodney had turned onto a side road without her noticing it. Wiley looked grim, as if he was trying to marshal all his concentration and finding it very difficult to do.

  “Proof,” he said tautly, “is the name of the game here. You might want to do up your seat belt, honey. Your boyfriend seems to be taking the scenic route to wherever he’s going.” Neither of them spoke again until they’d bounced their way along several miles of open countryside. Wiley hadn’t rolled his window up, and the breeze was cooling after the unseasonable heat of the past few days. He noticed Rae-Anne wrapping her arms around herself and thought about smoothing her bare arms with his palms, bringing the warmth into that porcelain skin of hers.