Iron Cowboy

by Diana Palmer

  Jared relaxed a little. But just a little.

  Sara woke up and it was dark again. She’d slept for a long time. She looked around curiously. She was alone, but there was a cowboy hat occupying the seat beside her bed. It looked familiar.

  The door opened, and Harley Fowler walked in, carrying a foam cup of coffee. “You’re awake,” he exclaimed, smiling.

  “Hi, Harley,” she replied, returning the smile. “Nice of you to come check up on me.”

  “I had tonight free.”

  “No date?” she asked with mock surprise as he moved his hat and sat down.

  He chuckled. “Not tonight.”

  “No exciting missions, either?” she teased, recalling that he’d helped some of the local mercs shut down a drug dealer two years before.

  “Interesting that you should mention that,” he replied, his eyes twinkling. “We’ve had word that the drug cartel has reorganized again and been taken over by a new group. We don’t know who they are. But there’s some buzz that we may have trouble here before long.”

  “That’s not encouraging,” she said.

  “I know.” He sipped coffee. He looked somber. “Two DEA agents bought it on the border this week. Execution-style. Cobb’s fuming. My boss is calling in contacts for a confab.” His boss was Cy Parks, one of the small town’s retired professional soldiers.

  Cobb was Alexander Cobb, a senior Houston DEA agent who lived in Jacobsville with his wife and sister.

  “Does anybody know who the new people are?”

  He shook his head. “We can’t find out anything. We think somebody’s gone undercover in the organization, but we can’t verify it. It’s unsettling to have drug dealers who’ll pop a cap on cops. They killed a reporter, too, and a member of the Border Patrol.”

  She whistled softly. “They’re arrogant.”

  He nodded. “Dangerous,” he said. “There’s something worse. They’re kidnapping rich Americans for ransom, to increase their cash flow reserves. They got an heiress last week. Her people are scrambling to meet the deadline, without knowing for sure if they’ll return her even so.”

  She moved restlessly on the pillow. She was sore, but the pain was better. “Aren’t most kidnap victims killed in the first twenty-four hours?”

  “I don’t know, honestly,” he said. “Cash Grier is working with the FBI, trying to get informants who might know something about the heiress.”

  “Our police chief?” she asked

  He grinned. “Like a lot of our local citizens, he’s not quite what he seems.”

  “Oh.”

  He stretched. “Mr. Parks had me working on our tractor all day. I’m stiff. I guess I’m getting old.”

  She laughed. “No, you aren’t, Harley.”

  He leaned forward with the cup in both hands. “I heard you had a close call,” he said.

  “I didn’t know I had an appendix until yesterday,” she said wistfully. “They brought me in by ambulance.”

  “What about Morris?”

  “Mr. Danzetta fed him for me,” she said complacently.

  “Cameron’s bodyguard?” He looked strange.

  “What is it?” she asked curiously.

  “One of our cowboys was driving past your house last night and saw lights on inside. He knew you were here, so he called the sheriff’s department.”

  “And?”

  “When they got there, the lights were off, the doors were all locked and there was nobody around.”

  She pursed her lips, wondering.

  “Did you give the bodyguard a key?” he persisted.

  She hesitated. “Well…”

  Before she could speak, the door opened and Jared walked in. He stopped when he saw Harley and his eyes began to glitter.

  Harley had great reflexes. He exercised them by getting out of the chair, wishing Sara well, promising to check on her later. He walked out with a nod to Cameron. He passed by Tony, who didn’t say a word.

  “You had company,” Jared said quietly.

  She wondered what he was thinking. His face gave little away. “Harley came to tell me about my house.”

  He frowned. “What about your house?”

  “He said one of the Parks cowboys saw lights on inside and knew I wasn’t there, so he called the sheriff,” she began. “But when the deputy got there, all the lights were out and nobody was anywhere around.”

  He managed to look innocent. “How odd.”

  He looked too innocent. She frowned. “I didn’t give Mr. Danzetta a key to my house, so how did he get in to feed Morris?”

  He sat down in the chair beside the bed, looking thoughtful for a minute. “Tony has some, shall we say, unexpected skills.”

  “Like breaking and entering?” she probed with a grin.

  “This is a conversation we shouldn’t have right now,” he replied with a quiet smile.

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Is he wanted by the law?” she asked, keeping her voice low so that Tony wouldn’t overhear her.

  “Only in two countries,” he said absently. “Or was it three?”

  She looked shocked.

  He scowled at her. “I’m kidding!”

  She relaxed. “Okay,” she said. “That’s a relief.”

  Outside the door, a tall, dark-eyed man was chuckling silently.

  “I talked to Dr. Coltrain,” Jared said. “He told me if you’re still improving like this, you can be released Monday.”

  She grimaced. “I’ll miss work.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, gosh. Dee! I didn’t even phone her…!”

  “I did,” Jared said lazily. “She’s coming to see you tonight.”

  “Thanks,” she told him.

  “She already knew, of course,” he added ruefully. “It’s amazing how gossip gets around here.”

  “We’re a very small town,” she reminded him.

  “You’re a very large family,” he contradicted. “I’ve never lived in a place where people knew so much about each other.”

  She smiled. “I know. I love it here. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

  “Well, you’ll be living with me for a few days,” he replied, crossing his long legs. “My attorney’s coming down Monday, so we’ll be chaperoned. Less gossip.”

  “Does your attorney come to stay?”

  “Only when I have legal matters to discuss,” he said easily. “I’ve had the same attorney for two years.”

  She was picturing a tall lawyer like Blake Kemp. Jared must be very well-to-do if he could get a live-in attorney, she was thinking.

  “Don’t mention anything about Tony feeding your cat, okay?” he asked abruptly. “I don’t want the police asking any embarrassing questions. I need Tony.”

  “Of course I won’t,” she agreed, but she couldn’t help wondering what all the secrecy was about.

  “I can’t stay long tonight,” he said apologetically. “I’m trying to do business by phone, fax and modem, and it’s damned hard.”

  Her eyes were curious. “Where do you live when you’re not here?”

  He smiled. “That’s need-to-know. You don’t.”

  “Well!” she exclaimed. “What a lot of cloak-and-dagger stuff!”

  “You have no idea,” he replied absently.

  The door opened. Tony came in, flipping his phone shut. “Max needs to talk to you again. It’s going to take a while.”

  “We’ll go home.” He got up, pausing to smile down at Sara. “Get better. I’ll be back in the morning.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  He shrugged. “We’re family.”

  He went out with Tony and closed the door behind him.

  Max was not happy to learn that Jared was keeping company with some sick girl in the little hick town.

  “You need your head read,” she muttered on the phone. “You’ve got enough problems without adding a penniless, clinging cowgirl to them.”

  “She’s not a cowgirl,” he replied. “She sells books.”

  “An egghea
d isn’t much better,” she scoffed. “They want you to come back out here and let them give you around-the-clock security.”

  “We’ll never catch the perpetrators if we hide in a fortress,” he said. “And we’ve had this damned argument before!”

  “Somebody’s getting testy,” she purred. “No pillow talk down there, I guess?”

  “What do you want?” he interrupted.

  She hesitated. “I wanted to tell you that they’ve tracked three men as far as San Antonio. We’re not sure if they’re connected to the other, or not, but they’re the right nationality.”

  “What’s their cover?”

  “How should I know?” she muttered.

  “I pay you to know everything,” he countered.

  “Oh, all right, I’ll ask questions. Honestly, Jared, you’re getting to be a grouch. What’s this girl doing to you?”

  “Nothing,” he said tersely. “She’s just a friend.”

  “You’re spending a lot of time at the hospital.”

  “Neither of us has family,” he said absently. “We decided we’d look after each other if we got sick.”

  The pause was heated. “You know I’d take care of you if you got sick! I’d have doctors and nurses all over the place.”

  Of course she would, he thought. She’d hire people to care for him, but she wouldn’t do it herself. Max hated illness.

  “I’m tired and I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “I’m flying down there Monday,” she told him. “I’ll bring some contracts for you to look over. Need anything from the big city?”

  “Nothing at all. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay. Sleep well.”

  “Sure.” He hung up. Max was possessive of him. He hadn’t noticed it before, and he didn’t like it. She was sleek, elegant, aggressive and intelligent. But she did nothing for him physically. He did have occasional liaisons, but never with Max. He hoped she wasn’t going to come down to Texas and upset things. He knew that she wasn’t going to like Sara. Not at all.

  Monday morning, Sara was on the mend. Dee had come twice, on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, bearing baskets of flowers and magazines for Sara to read. She absolutely forbade her to come back to work until the end of the next week. That made Sara feel a little better. She knew Dee was shorthanded when she wasn’t there.

  Jared had been back to visit, staying for a few minutes at a time, with Tony always in the background. She wondered why he needed a full-time bodyguard. He changed the subject every time she asked.

  Dr. Coltrain released her after lunch. She was wheeled out to the hospital entrance, where Jared was waiting in the big black pickup truck. He bent and lifted her like a sack of flour, putting her gently into the passenger seat and belting her in.

  She didn’t expect the sudden rush of breath that escaped her lips when he paused in the act of fastening the seat belt and looked straight into her eyes at point-blank range. She felt the world shift ten degrees. His eyes narrowed and dropped to her blouse.

  It didn’t take an expert to realize that he saw her heartbeat shaking the fabric and knew that she was attracted to him.

  “Well, well,” he murmured in a deep, sultry tone. And he smiled.

  Five

  Jared’s green eyes burned into Sara’s, probing and testing. They dropped to her full mouth and lingered there until she caught her breath audibly. He only chuckled. It had a vaguely predatory sound.

  He went around to his own side of the truck, climbed in, fastened his seat belt and started the engine. He was still smiling when he pulled out of the hospital parking lot.

  Sara had liked the White Horse Ranch from her first close-up look at it, the first time she’d delivered Jared’s books to him. She admired the sprawling white ranch house with its hanging baskets of flowers and the white wooden fences that surrounded a well-manicured pasture. Jared ran purebred Santa Gertrudis cattle here, not horses. Sara enjoyed watching the calves. Pastures were full of them in spring, just in time for the lush new grass to pop up. Or, at least, that would have been the case if the drought hadn’t hit this part of Texas so hard.

  “How do you have green grass in a drought?” she asked suddenly.

  He smiled. “I sank wells and filled up tanks in every pasture,” he replied, using the Texas term for small ponds.

  “Not bad,” she remarked. “Do those windmills pump it?” she added, nodding toward two of them—one near the barn and another far out on the horizon.

  He glanced at her amusedly. “Yes. It may be an old-fashioned idea, but it was good enough for the pioneers who settled this country.”

  “Your grandfather, was he born here?”

  He shook his head. “One of his distant cousins inherited a piece of property and left it to him. He ranched for a while, until his health got bad.” His face seemed to harden. “He took a hard fall from a bucking horse and hit his head on a fence. He was never quite right afterward. He put a manager in charge of the ranch and moved up to Houston with his wife. One summer day, he shot my grandmother with a double-barreled shotgun and then turned it on himself.”

  Her gasp was audible.

  He noted her surprise. “My father brought him down here to be buried, although nobody knew how he died. None of the family ever came back here after that,” he said. “I guess we all have something in the past that haunts us. I shouldn’t have been so blunt about it,” he added, when he realized that she was upset. “I forget that you grew up in a small town, sheltered from violence.”

  Obviously he considered her a lightweight, she mused. But it was too soon for some discussions. “It’s all right.”

  He pulled up in front of the house, cut the engine and went around to pick Sara up in his strong arms and carry her up the three wide steps to the front porch. He grinned at her surprise.

  “Coltrain’s nurse said to keep you off your feet for another day,” he mused, looking down into her wide, soft green eyes.

  “So you’re becoming public transportation?” she teased, and her smile made her whole face radiant.

  It made her look beautiful. He was captivated by the feel of her soft, warm little body in his arms, pressed close to his chest. He loved that smile that reminded him of a warm fire in winter. He liked the surge of excitement that ran through his hard body at the proximity. His eyes narrowed and the smile faded as he held her attention.

  “Listen, don’t you get any odd ideas,” she cautioned with breathless humor. “He didn’t do that buttonhole surgery, he split me open at least six inches and sewed me back up with those stitches that you don’t have to take out later. We wouldn’t want my guts to spill out all over your nice clean floor, now, would we?”

  The comment, so unexpected, caused him to burst out laughing.

  “Good God!” he chuckled. He bent and brushed his hard mouth over her lips in a whisper of sensation that caused her entire body to clench. It was a rush of sensation so overwhelming that she felt her breath catch in her throat.

  His eyebrows arched at her response. He pursed his lips and his green eyes twinkled. “What a reaction,” he murmured deeply. “And I barely touched you.” The twinkle faded. “Suppose we try that again…?”

  She started to give him ten good reasons why he shouldn’t, but it was already too late.

  His hard mouth crushed down onto her soft lips, parting them in a sensuous, insistent way that took her breath away. Her eyes closed helplessly. Her cold hands slid farther around his neck as his arm contracted and flattened her soft breasts against the wall of his chest. The kiss grew demanding.

  “Open your mouth,” he bit off against her bruised lips.

  She tried to answer that audacious command, but it gave him the opening he was looking for, and he took it. His tongue moved deep into her mouth, accompanied by a groan that sounded agonized.

  He felt her shiver in his arms. His mouth roughened for an instant until he realized that she was just out of the hospital, and her side hadn’t healed. He lif
ted his head. His eyes were blazing. His face was set, solemn, his gaze intent on her flushed skin.

  “Wh…why?” she faltered, all eyes.

  An odd expression crept over his face. “When you smile, the emptiness goes away,” he said in a rough whisper.

  She didn’t know how to answer that. But she didn’t have to. The door opened suddenly, revealing a tall, very attractive brunette in a blue business suit with a short skirt that stopped halfway between her knees and her panty line.

  The brunette raised an eyebrow at the sight of Jared with Sara in his arms, and she didn’t smile. “Didn’t you expect me, darling?” she asked Jared in a honey-smooth tone.

  Jared was still collecting his senses. “Max, this is Sara Dobbs. Sara, Max Carlton, my attorney.”

  Sara had never seen an attorney who looked like that. The woman could have posed for a fashion magazine. She was sophisticated, beautiful and world-wise. Sara felt like a small child trying to play with adults.

  “I have to get Sara to bed. Where’s Tony?”

  Max shrugged. “I haven’t seen him. We have several contracts to go over.”

  “We’ll get to them later,” Jared said, with an edge to his tone.

  “Suit yourself, it’s only money. I like the house.”

  The lawyer had yet to say one word to Sara. Jared noticed, and his irritation was obvious.

  “Sara, you said?” Max asked, smiling at the woman in his arms. “Is something wrong with your leg?”

  “She just had an emergency appendectomy and there’s nobody at her house to look after her while she heals,” Jared said shortly, turning toward one of the downstairs guest bedrooms.

  “I see. Well, I’m sure you’ll feel better soon,” she told Sara as Jared carried her down the hall.

  Jared ignored her. He turned into a pretty blue-themed bedroom with its own private bathroom and eased Sara down on the quilted coverlet.

  He leaned over her, his big hands on either side of her head, and looked straight into her eyes. “Max is my lawyer. That’s all she’s ever been.”

  “She likes you,” Sara replied.

  His green eyes narrowed. “She likes my money.”

  “She’s pretty.”