Iron Cowboy

by Diana Palmer

  “It’s only going to be for a couple of days,” Cash said, “but we need somebody to stay with Sara. I thought maybe Harley Fowler…”

  Tony’s dark eyes twinkled. “Did you? I was thinking that Jared might be willing to sacrifice himself.”

  “Let him stay with Sara?”

  Tony nodded. “It might be just the thing to get them both to sort out their priorities. And you could have extra patrols on the house, too. Just in case.”

  Cash grinned. “I like the way you think.”

  Tony just chuckled.

  If making the decision was easy, telling it to Sara wasn’t.

  She looked utterly tragic. “But you can’t put Tony in jail!” she cried. “I thought you were my friend!”

  Cash grimaced. Tony was standing beside him in handcuffs.

  “It isn’t what you think, Sara,” Tony agreed.

  “Jared Cameron put you up to it, didn’t he?” she demanded, and Tony grimaced, too.

  She was almost in tears when the front door opened and Jared walked in carrying a suitcase. Sara spotted him, picked up a vase on the bedside table, drew back and flung it at him past the two stunned men. It shattered near Jared’s shoulder.

  “You get out of my house!” she yelled.

  Cash looked at Tony. “Are you sure asking him to stay with her is a good idea?” he asked.

  Eleven

  Jared managed to look disgusted. “Is that any way to treat the father of your child?” he demanded.

  “I’m not having a child!” she yelled, red-faced.

  “How do you know?” he retorted. “It’s too early for a pregnancy test.”

  “He’s got you there,” Cash interjected.

  “You shouldn’t be getting so upset, Sara, it’s not good for you,” Tony said worriedly.

  “He’s absolutely right,” Jared said, putting down the suitcase. “I’m going to take care of you while Tony’s away.”

  “You make it sound like he’s going on vacation,” Sara muttered. “He’s going to jail!”

  “Yes, I know.”

  She frowned. “You know?” She looked from him, to Tony, to Cash Grier. She wasn’t stupid. “Oh.”

  “It’s the only way,” Tony told her. “Otherwise, you’ll never be out of danger.”

  “You’re sure you aren’t going to keep him?” she asked Cash.

  Cash smiled. “I’m sure. We’d better get going.”

  “I’ll be back before you know it,” Tony told Sara. He paused beside Jared. “You be careful, too. There may only be three of them, or there may not.”

  “I know that, too,” Jared replied. He smiled wryly. “Don’t forget who taught you surveillance techniques.”

  Tony chuckled. “I wouldn’t dare. See you, Sara.”

  “See you, Tony.”

  Cash nodded and walked him out the door.

  Jared watched them leave, his hands deep in his pockets.

  “What did you mean about surveillance techniques?” she asked.

  He turned. His green eyes were mischievous. “The first business I ever owned provided private security. Tony and I worked together until we could train assistants.”

  She studied him quietly. “And what did you do before that?” she asked.

  “I was a cop in San Antonio.”

  Her lips fell open. “For heaven’s sake! And you own an oil corporation now?”

  “I’ve had a lot of help along the way. Most of it from Tony,” he told her, stepping gingerly around shattered pottery. “We were always best friends until you came along.”

  “Well, you know why that happened,” she muttered.

  “Yes, I do. No need to remind me.” He accidentally stood on a piece of ceramic that broke again. “Where’s a broom?”

  “In the closet in the kitchen,” she began, but he was gone before she could ask anything else.

  He came back with a broom and a dustpan and cleaned the floor as naturally as if he’d done it all his life.

  “Were you in the military, before you were a policeman?” she asked, curious about him.

  “Army,” he said. “I was in special forces. So was Tony.” He poured the broken pieces of what had been a vase into a nearby trash can and propped the broom and dustpan beside it. “He was best man at my wedding.”

  He’d never talked to her like this before. It was fascinating. “Did you love your wife?”

  “Yes, when I married her,” he said. “We both came from ranch families. My father got kicked in the head by a bull and died soon afterward. My mother grieved herself to death. Marian’s parents died in a tornado outbreak. We’d known each other most of our lives. We were friends. I suppose we thought friendship was enough. It wasn’t.”

  “Why did she leave you?”

  “She found someone she loved,” he said simply. “She took our daughter, Ellen, with her. She was a wonderful mother. Ellen was happy with her. I wasn’t home much, but when I was, Ellen was always welcome to come and stay with me. My permanent home is in Oklahoma,” he added, “where my corporation headquarters is.”

  “But you bought a ranch here,” she said, mystified.

  “I told you at the cemetery that I needed a change,” he said. “I meant it. I was grieving for Ellen and upset over Marian’s suicide just afterward. I thought new surroundings would help me get past the depression.”

  “The surroundings don’t matter much,” Sara said gently. “Pain and grief are portable. They go with you.”

  He glanced down at her and smiled warmly. “There’s that odd insight again. You really are old for your age.”

  “And getting older by the day,” she replied.

  He moved to the bed and sat down beside her. He was wearing jeans and a chambray shirt, open at the neck. He looked very sensual with his hair faintly ruffled and his nice tan.

  Without warning, his big, lean hand pressed gently on her flat stomach. “I made a hell of a fuss about it. But maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing, if you’re pregnant. I’ll be a better father this time around.”

  “You can come and visit anytime you like,” she told him.

  He frowned. “My child isn’t being born out of wedlock.”

  “Well, he won’t have much choice, because I am not marrying you,” she said firmly.

  “Why not?” he asked, and seemed really intent on her reason.

  She colored and averted her eyes. “Because I don’t ever want to have to do that again.”

  He lost color. He knew his heart had stopped. “Sara, it was your first time and I was in too much of a hurry,” he said softly. “I hurt you because I rushed it.”

  Her face was red by now. She couldn’t possibly look at him. She clasped her hands together and picked at her thumb-nail nervously.

  He tilted her embarrassed face up to his. “I won’t ever hurt you again,” he promised. “It gets better. Honest.”

  She grimaced.

  She was so young, he thought sadly. Probably he should never have touched her. But she made him feel young and vital and full of fire. She brought feelings of nurturing and possession to him. He’d never wanted a woman for keeps. Even his wife had been a footnote in his life. But this woman was magic. Sheer magic.

  He thought back to their first meeting, and inspiration struck. “You could have your own bookstore,” he said.

  Her eyes widened. “My own…?”

  “We could even build a child activity center into it. The baby could play while you worked. And if customers with children came in, they could play there while their parents browsed. There could be a snack shop with fancy coffee.”

  She was melting. Just the thought of her own place was tantalizing. “Really?”

  He smiled at her enthusiasm. She couldn’t even hide it. “I could delegate more, and travel less. We could have more than one child.”

  She looked into his eyes with all her longings showing there. Children. A home. A business. Max. She scowled and glared at him.

  “What?”

>   “Are you sure you fired Max?” she wondered aloud. “Tony says you’re always firing her, but she always comes back.”

  “This time it’s permanent,” he assured her. He drew in a long breath. “I’m through with the playboy life as well. I thought a few encounters would be a cure for loneliness. It wasn’t. It only made me feel cheap.”

  That was a powerful admission, she thought. And he did seem sincere.

  His big hand pressed gently against her stomach. He looked at it, his eyes quiet and full of wonder. “You know your body better than I do. What’s your gut feeling?”

  “I…I don’t know,” she faltered. “Really. It’s too soon.”

  He smiled. “Well, either way, we’ll cope. If you aren’t pregnant, we’ll spend some time getting to know each other before we start a family. We’ll have plenty of time.” He pursed his lips. “And Tony will have to find himself a new source of entertainment, besides looking after you and cooking,” he said, and felt guilty and elated all at once. If she really was pregnant, Tony was right out of the running as a potential husband.

  She frowned. “Tony will be all right, won’t he? There are three of those men. They’re all big and muscular, and they can’t watch them all the time while they’re in custody at the county detention center.” Which was where they would be taken, because the city didn’t maintain a jail.

  He chuckled. “I’ve seen Tony take on six guys and walk away grinning,” he told her. “It’s the best idea we could come up with,” he added, tugging the sheet up over her belly tenderly. “We can’t risk having them make bail and come after you again.”

  She grimaced. “Life used to be so uncomplicated until you came along,” she sighed wistfully.

  “You’re too young to appreciate monotony,” he returned. He bent and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Try to get some sleep. I have a few phone calls to make, then we’ll talk some more about the future.”

  She could have argued that there might not be one, but it was sweet to pretend. She smiled at him and agreed.

  Tony was muttering, furious, as he was put into the general quarters in detention, wearing an orange jumpsuit and flip-flops. He glowered at everybody around him.

  “I didn’t even take anything!” he yelled at the guard who’d delivered him. “I was just feeding the cat.”

  “Tell it to a judge,” the deputy replied wearily.

  “You bet I will!” he raged. “He just wants me out of the way, so he can walk off with my girl. You tell Jared Cameron that when I get out of here, I’m going to drive a truck over him!”

  “Terroristic threats and acts carry a felony charge,” the amused deputy called over his shoulder.

  Tony gave him a four-fingered salute.

  One of the men in the dormitory was giving him odd looks. Tony stared at him belligerently. “You got a problem?” he demanded.

  The man was about his own age, tall and muscular, with a mustache and tattoos over both arms. “Sounds like you got one,” he said with a hint of a foreign accent. “Somebody locked you up for nothing, huh?”

  Tony moved to a chair and sat down. “Something like that.”

  The man took a chair beside him. “Jared Cameron? I think I heard of him.”

  “Most people have,” Tony muttered. “God, I wish I had a smoke!”

  “Can’t have cigarettes in here, my friend,” the other man chuckled. “But I could get you some weed, if you got anything to trade.”

  “Do I look like I got anything to trade?” Tony demanded. “What are you in here for?”

  “Weapons charge,” the man said easily. “But me and my boys, we’ll be out as soon as we have our bail hearing.”

  “Lucky you,” Tony told him. “I’m in for breaking and entering. It’s a felony.”

  “Not a big one,” his companion said.

  Tony stared at him. “It is if you’re out on probation,” he said.

  The man grimaced. “Ah. I see. Too bad.”

  “Yeah. Too bad.” His eyes narrowed angrily. “Jared Cameron better hope I get the death penalty for it, because the day I get out of here, he’s a dead man. I know his routine, the layout of his house, everything!”

  “How is that?”

  “I was working as his bodyguard,” Tony scoffed, “until he took a fancy to my girl and stole her from me. Now he wants me out of the way.”

  The man looked down at the floor. The room smelled of foul odors. Tony wondered if any of these people had ever been introduced to soap. One was obviously coming down from a drug-induced high, shaking and threatening people. Another was staggering drunk. Nobody looked as if he was a stranger to the criminal justice system.

  “You know,” the other man began casually, “you could make a lot of money and get even with Cameron at the same time if you wanted to.”

  Tony was all ears. “I could? How?”

  “I know some people who would pay a lot of money for him.”

  “He’s no pushover,” Tony warned.

  “Yes, but he is now lacking his bodyguard,” the man persisted. “Before he can hire another one, it would be a good time to apprehend him.”

  Tony stared at the man. “Yeah. It would, wouldn’t it?”

  The man got up. “I got to talk to my friends about it. But I think I could get you in on it, if you’re interested.”

  “I got no money for a lawyer and Cameron didn’t even offer to help me,” Tony muttered. “In fact, I think it was him who told the police I broke into the girl’s house. Some boss!”

  The other man was grinning now. “You want to get even, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “We will talk more later.”

  Tony shrugged. “Well, I’m not going anywhere. Not right away, at least.”

  That night, the jailer came and took Tony out, mumbling something about an attorney wanting to talk to him about his arrest.

  Cash Grier was waiting in the interrogation room. He turned as Tony was escorted inside and the door closed, with the guard standing on the other side of it.

  “Any luck?” Cash asked him.

  Tony grinned. “Their ringleader wants me to help them put the snatch on Jared. He’s been talking his two companions into it. One of them thinks I’m a plant. The other has, basically, the IQ of a plant.”

  Cash chuckled. “So you’re in?”

  “Seems so. I expect them to double-cross me the instant they see Jared in their sights, of course.”

  Cash thought for a minute. “We’ll have Sara call a bail bondsman for you. We’ll pay him without letting anyone else know. When you and the three outlaws get out, we’ll have you wired and a homing device placed in their van. As soon as they grab Jared, we’ll have them for attempted kidnapping and give them to the feds.”

  “Not a bad plan.”

  “You really think so? Thanks,” Cash said with enthusiasm. “I don’t actually know any feds, you understand, but I can look them up in the phone book.”

  Tony was laughing. “And they give you real bullets, do they?”

  “I haven’t shot anybody in a year, at least,” Cash said with mock dismay.

  “Just don’t shoot me, when you show up to get those other guys. I weigh five pounds more than I should because of bullets they can’t take out.”

  “I have a couple of my own that never left,” Cash replied. “Okay. I’ll go. I’ll talk to Jared and have a couple of my officers standing by. Don’t do anything until they actually have Jared in their van,” he added cautiously. “We have to have charges that will stick.”

  “You keep an eye on Sara as well,” Tony told him. “These guys don’t act like they’re hitting on all six cylinders. There’s no telling what they may try next.”

  “I noticed. You know,” he added seriously, “you look pretty good in orange.”

  Tony’s eyes narrowed. “No fair picking on innocent victims of crime.”

  “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you,” Cash chuckled. “I’m leaving.”

  “Tel
l Sara not to worry about me.”

  “I can tell her, but it won’t do any good. She likes you.”

  He shrugged. “I like her, too.”

  “We’ll find a way to separate you from the kidnappers at the bail hearing so we can get you wired. I’ve already done their van.”

  “They may look for a homing device,” Tony pointed out.

  “They can look all they like,” he replied. “They’ll never find this one. See you.”

  “Yeah. You, too.”

  It was a very good plan. Tony was wired just before he left with the three men, now dressed again in their civilian clothing as Tony was. They seemed to trust him.

  But once they were in the van, the driver spoke in an Arab dialect on his cell phone, blissfully unaware that Tony spoke that particular dialect.

  The leader of the kidnappers told his contact that they were on their way to get the woman Jared loved. Somehow they’d found out that Jared was staying with Sara. They were going to hold her long enough to make him give himself up to them, then they were going to kill her. They would kill Tony, too, because he could become a liability once the girl was dead. They would kill Jared eventually, the minute they had the ransom in their hands. They already had airplane tickets. It would be a matter of hours. The contact could meet them at the airport in Belize where they usually hooked up.

  Tony cursed the change of plans. He couldn’t warn anybody. If he repeated what the kidnapper had said, they’d know he spoke Arabic and he’d be dead. If he didn’t, Sara would be in terrible danger. Jared was with her. It would be an easy matter to take both of them.

  He had to pretend that he hadn’t understood a word and act nonchalant. “Don’t you guys kill Cameron,” he cautioned belligerently. “He’s all mine!”

  “Be assured, we have no plans to kill him. We only wish for the ransom he will bring.” He told the driver to slow down as they approached Sara’s house.

  “Hey,” Tony murmured, looking out the windshield. “That ain’t Cameron’s house!”

  “He isn’t in his house,” the leader of the three men replied. “Cameron is with your girlfriend.”

  “Don’t you hurt her,” Tony warned.