Long, Tall Texans: Rey ; Long, Tall Texans: Curtis ; A Man of Means ; Garden Cop

by Diana Palmer

  Curt listened, cursing now the sound of another heavy truck passing within earshot, because it masked closer sounds.

  Hunt was still alive. The hit man might have regained any evidence that Hunt could have used to convict the mob boss, but Hunt himself was the nail in the man’s coffin. The hit man would go to any lengths to silence that voice, and Curt knew it.

  He had to protect Hunt, no matter what the cost.

  He waited in the semidarkness, his body tensed for action, his ears peeled, his every reflex honed to its finest edge.

  But when the attack came, it was from a totally unexpected source. Only a faint creak heralded it.

  It was enough. Curt rolled onto his back and fired over his head, at the hayloft where nothing was visible.

  “You idiot, what are you shooting… Look out!” Hunt yelled, and rolled quickly out of the way.

  As he spoke, a dark form came hurtling down with the sound of automatic weapon fire bursting on the silence only for precious seconds.

  Curt felt a stab in his arm as he fired again and again. There was a loud grunt and then the dark form crumpled. The weapon fire ceased.

  Almost simultaneously, sirens burst on the silence.

  “You okay?” Curt asked Hunt, who was dragging himself to his feet with his hands at his throat.

  “Yeah,” the man managed to say. “You?”

  Curt wasn’t sure about that. He didn’t take time to check. He moved to the downed man, pushed him over quickly with the pistol leveled at his chest. An automatic weapon was held in a still hand. There was a dark stain on the man’s suit front. He wasn’t moving.

  Curt bent, amazed at how painful the movement was, and dragged the automatic weapon from the man’s clenched fingers, before he tossed it out of reach, just in case.

  “Thanks, man, you saved my skin!” Hunt exclaimed. “Hey, you’re bleeding…!”

  Curt fell to his knees. It should be hurting, he thought dimly. His arm felt heavy. It felt wet, too. He had another pain, lower down, in his side.

  “Russell! Russell, you in there?” came a familiar loud voice.

  “Jack,” he whispered. He couldn’t talk louder. Funny.

  “He’s hurt! Come on in!” Hunt yelled, bending over Curt to keep him from toppling headfirst.

  There were running footsteps, the sound of bolts being thrown on weapons, the clank of equipment.

  “Curt!” Mary Ryan exclaimed.

  “Miss Ryan, you shouldn’t…!” the police chief protested.

  It did no good. She was right beside Curt, checking him with trembling hands, touching him.

  “He’s been shot. Twice I think,” she said quickly. “Where are the paramedics?”

  “Right behind us,” one of the SWAT team members volunteered. “Hurry it up, guys!” he called to two men with a stretcher.

  “That’s Erskine Daniels,” Hunt was telling the policemen, pointing to the downed man, who was in bad shape, but still alive. “I’m a federal witness, Abe Hunt. I know plenty about the trial that’s going on in Atlanta. I saw the head boss pop another potential witness and dump him in the Chattahoochee. You get me to a safe place, and I’ll sing like a bird! But fix that guy first, will you?” he added, nodding toward Curt. “He saved my life!”

  “We’ll fix him,” one of the paramedics promised, working in the spreading light held by a police officer. “He’s been hit twice, once in the shoulder and once in the side, but I think he’s going to be fine.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Mary Ryan moaned.

  There was a howl and another howl, and Matilda Russell walked into the barn.

  The police chief threw up his hands. “This is my crime scene!” he yelled.

  Matilda just smiled at him and walked right to her son, kneeling. “My poor boy,” she said, touching his cold face. “You’ll be fine, son. Just fine! Can we get you anything?” she added, ignoring the paramedics and the cursing police chief.

  But Curt was drifting away into merciful unconsciousness in a wave of nausea.

  Beside him, the big red dog was licking his face.

  “Redbone, you big dope,” Abe Hunt exclaimed on a chuckle. “I send you out with a message that might save me, and what do you do? You move in with strangers and forget me!”

  “Is he yours?” Matilda Russell asked quickly.

  Hunt nodded. “He was,” he added ruefully. “I guess I can’t take him with me where I’ll be going. Right, guys?” he asked a newcomer to the scene, Hardy Vicks from the FBI.

  “That’s right,” the older man agreed. “Damn, that’s Russell!” he exclaimed when he saw Curt on the floor. “Is he dead?” he asked quickly.

  “Of course he’s not dead!” his mother huffed. “He’s my son. He’s a Russell. You’d have to put a stake through his heart first. These are just itty-bitty flesh wounds.”

  “You’d know, I guess,” Vicks muttered sarcastically.

  “I was a reporter. I was actually shot covering a riot in Atlanta,” Mrs. Russell told him haughtily. “Took two bullets, right through the upper leg. Missed the bone by half a centimeter.”

  He was impressed. He moved closer. “You his mother, you said?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  He studied her closely. “He’s not bad,” he murmured, sparing Curt a glance as Mary Ryan walked beside the stretcher the paramedics were rolling him out on. “I have to admit I’m impressed. He took down a hit man and saved a government witness all by himself, from what the policemen told me.”

  “He did,” Matilda agreed. She studied the taller man. He was about her age. Bald, but that wasn’t a bad thing. She found bald men rather sexy. She smiled. “I don’t suppose you’d give an old lady a ride to the hospital? Mary will go with him in the ambulance. There won’t be room.”

  “It would be my pleasure!” he replied. “But I don’t see any old ladies,” he added gallantly. “I’m divorced. You got a husband somewhere?”

  She shook her head. “I was widowed years ago.”

  He smiled. “I was shot once, too.”

  She smiled, glancing worriedly at her son as they moved him. “I need to get to the hospital. But I have to do something about the dog,” she murmured vaguely, glancing at Abe Hunt.

  “You can keep him,” Abe Hunt said with a grin. “I’d like knowing he had a good home.”

  “Thank you, Mr….?”

  “Hunt,” he volunteered. “Abe Hunt. And if you ever need anything, anything at all, you just let that guy know,” he indicated Special Agent in Charge Vicks. “He can get word to me. I know people all over.”

  Matilda had visions of a strange man appearing at her door with a baseball bat offering to break legs of potential abusers. She cleared her throat. “Thanks, Mr. Hunt. I’ll take good care of your dog.”

  “He’s sorta stupid, but he’s got a good heart.” He bent to pet the dog before he was led away by two men who had accompanied the SAC.

  “Come on, Big Red,” Matilda told the big dog, tugging at his lead.

  “Here, let me do that. He’s a handful for a dainty little woman like you,” Vicks offered, taking the leash. “I hear you have a billiard table!”

  * * *

  Curt woke up hours later in pain. He opened his eyes. His mother and Mary Ryan were sitting beside the bed talking animatedly.

  “He has cousins in Cordele,” Matilda remarked, “where my uncle lives. Imagine that! And he loves billiards. I invited him over for supper Friday night. Curt will be out of the hospital by then. You can come, too, dear, and I’ll make some more rolls.”

  “I’d enjoy that,” Mary replied.

  “Who has…cousins in Cordele?” Curt managed in a hoarse whisper.

  “Why, your boss, dear, Special Agent in Charge Hardy Vicks. I was very impressed with him,” she added. “He said you did a great job.”

  “He has an ulterior motive. He likes billiards,” Curt murmured with all the humor he could muster, then he groaned. “Hurts.”

  “That thing injects
painkillers automatically,” his mother said, indicating the IV that was pumping fluids into him through complicated electronic machinery. “It should start working pretty soon.”

  He sighed heavily. His arm felt strange. His belly hurt.

  “Don’t pull at that IV,” Mary said, laying a gentle hand on his arm. “Just be still and ride it out. You’ll be home before you know it.”

  He opened his eyes and looked up at her with a faint smile. “I got shot.”

  She shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect. You saved Mr. Hunt. The hit man was wanted for at least two murders.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “He would have killed you and Mr. Hunt if you hadn’t had good hearing. He was waiting in the loft. Just waiting. He knew Hunt would be back. The only loved ones Hunt has in the world are his cousin and that big red dog. Hunt told us he couldn’t leave them. Turns out Hunt was hiding out in the barn not only trying to protect himself from the hit man but trying to protect his cousin as well. And that’s what Daniels was betting on.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “He would have killed you,” she repeated.

  Curt caught her soft hand in his and held it tight.

  “It wasn’t my time,” he said huskily.

  “I’m glad,” she replied, her heart in her eyes.

  “Mary’s coming to supper Friday,” Matilda remarked, delighted at their apparent closeness. “So is Agent Vicks,” she reminded them.

  “We can play billiards,” Mary offered.

  He glared up at her. “You can play billiards while I watch,” he corrected. “I’ll give you some pointers. I want you to beat the pants off Vicks. He thinks I’m an idiot.”

  “He does not,” Matilda said smugly. “In fact, he’s given you a glowing report and recommended you for promotion.”

  Mary looked worried. “Yes, he said something about them giving you a much better position in a big city.”

  He was barely lucid, but he heard the disappointment in her tone. “Honey, there are plenty of jobs for assistant prosecutors in cities all over the country,” he said comfortingly.

  “Yes, but I work in Lanier County,” she moaned.

  He linked his fingers with hers and closed his eyes. “We’ll talk about it when I get out of here. I’m so sleepy…”

  He drifted off again, still holding Mary’s hand tight.

  Matilda gave her a curious, but approving, glance. “I think he’s making plans.”

  Mary smiled slowly. “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “He’s a good son. He’ll make a wonderful husband.”

  “He might not have that in mind,” Mary reminded her.

  Matilda only smiled.

  * * *

  Several days later, Curt was bandaged and stitched and lounging around his mother’s living room with the big dog at his feet.

  “Imagine sending evidence through a dog,” he remarked to the people sharing the room with him.

  “It was a good idea,” Vicks said lazily, drinking coffee on the sofa after a big meal. “But nobody would expect a dog to be carrying secrets. It’s like those message tubes they tied to homing pigeons during World War I.”

  “They actually awarded a medal to a pigeon in France,” Matilda volunteered. “He carried a message that kept American troops from firing on a position until the French could pull back their men.”

  “She’s full of little facts like that,” Curt teased her.

  “You should write a book,” Agent Vicks told her. “All that trivia and no place for it in nonfiction articles.”

  “A book,” she mused.

  “Sure!” Vicks put down his coffee cup. “I know this guy who used to work for Interpol,” he added. “He told me about a slave racket on the coast of West Africa where a blonde white woman would sell for half a million dollars back in the twenties.”

  “Oh, that would sell fiction,” Curt said sarcastically.

  “Remember The Sheik back in the twenties, and Rudolph Valentino?” his mother replied.

  “Before my time,” he drawled.

  “Before mine, too, thank you very much, but it made exciting reading,” Matilda mused. “I’d like to hear some more about that.”

  “I’m at your service. Uh, about that billiard table,” he added, rising.

  Matilda chuckled. “Come along. I wield a mean cue stick, though,” she warned.

  “Oh, I like a woman who can use a stick,” Vicks replied with a chuckle.

  They excused themselves and went down to the basement.

  * * *

  Curt was watching Mary quietly, and without smiling. She sat stiffly in a big armchair, trying not to look as uncomfortable as she felt.

  “Well, it’s all over now except the trial,” she said. “I guess I won’t have a part in that, because it will be a federal case. But I’d really like to be in the audience…”

  “Mary,” he said softly.

  She stopped in midspate and lifted both eyebrows.

  “Come here.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mary just sat and stared at him. She was a modern woman. She didn’t answer to commands. She didn’t do what she was told.

  He smiled slowly, his dark eyes twinkling. “Come on.”

  She got up without understanding why, and went to him.

  He drew her down gently against him, wincing as he moved to position her cheek against the shoulder that didn’t have a bullet wound.

  “It will take a little work,” he murmured as he bent, “but we’ll get the hang of it…”

  His mouth covered hers. She touched his cheek while he kissed her. She smiled under the warm, hard crush of his lips. It was like coming home. She’d been worried about him during his hospital stay, although she’d tried not to let it show. Now that she knew he would recover, the relief made her reckless.

  He eased her down on the sofa, overcome by her response and his hunger. It had been a long, long time since he’d wanted a woman so much.

  But the pain of the wounds was inhibiting. He groaned and his mouth found its way to her soft breast through the fabric covering them. He rested there with a husky laugh.

  “I can’t,” he whispered. “I want to, you don’t know how much! But it hurts too much.”

  She sighed and stretched and relaxed under the warm, hard press of his body. “I’m not in a hurry. Are you?” she teased.

  He looked down at her with real emotion. He touched her soft mouth and studied her intently. “I don’t do affairs. My mother raised me very strictly.”

  “My father raised me very strictly, too,” she replied with a smile. “I guess that means we can’t have sex on your mother’s sofa.”

  He nodded.

  “I have a sofa.”

  He grinned. “As you said, we’re not in a hurry.” He bent again and kissed her gently. “And I’m now officially on sick leave.”

  “Are you saying something?”

  “Yes. We can get to know each other.”

  “That might be fun.”

  “Indeed it might.” He bent again. He kissed her hungrily, only barely noticing the pressure against his side until it got wet.

  “Am I bleeding?” he murmured against her mouth.

  He lifted up and she looked over. There he sat. The dog. Drooling on Curt’s hip.

  “We have got to do something about that dog,” Curt muttered as the dog grinned at him.

  “I have an idea,” Mary replied, but she wouldn’t say what it was. Not then, at least.

  * * *

  Three months later, during a hiatus from Curt’s new duties working out of the Atlanta FBI office at the Richard Russell Federal Building, he and Mary Ryan were married at a small but simple ceremony in Lulaville. The police and the SWAT team turned out, along with the Lanier County courthouse staff and the local FBI office. In fact, Hardy Vicks sat with the family, very close to Matilda Russell, who looked younger and happier than her son had seen her in years.

  The dog, decked out in flowers, sat in front of the church with one of the ushers and was hustled into Ag
ent Vicks’s sports utility vehicle, along with Matilda Russell, after the service.

  “They wanted us to go to a reception,” Curt told Mary with a husky chuckle. “But I told them we had to rush to catch a plane.”

  “Do we?” she asked, close beside him in the front seat of his dark sedan.

  “In a manner of speaking,” he replied, driving faster.

  * * *

  Barely forty-five minutes later, Curt checked them into one of the fanciest hotels in the northeastern metro of Atlanta. Uniformed porters met them at the door to take their luggage while a valet parked the car.

  “We have reservations,” he told the clerk with a sly grin at Mary, who gave him a wide-eyed stare. “Mr. and Mrs. Curtis Russell,” he added.

  “Yes, sir,” the clerk replied with a pleasant smile and a meaningful glance. “Uh, congratulations, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” Curt replied, glancing at his beaming bride.

  Once they were registered, the bellhop followed right along with their luggage on a tall cart. As they went down the hall to the bank of elevators, the sound of loud singing came from the balcony above.

  “The marines landed last night,” the bellhop told them. “They, uh, like to sing the song. Anybody who gets in the elevator with them gets to sing it, too.”

  Mary burst out laughing. “You’re kidding!”

  The elevator door opened and two marines, one male and one female, both sergeants, turned to look over the new arrivals.

  Curt held Mary’s hand reassuringly as the doors closed.

  “We like to sing,” the male marine said.

  “Very much,” the female sergeant agreed, moving closer. She was easily six feet tall.

  “Now, isn’t that a coincidence?” Mary asked, nodding. “I like to sing, too!” And she immediately launched into “‘Over hill, over dale, over trusty mountain trail…!’”

  “No,” the male marine said at once, shaking his head. “No, no, no, that’s the army song. You have to sing our song.”

  She stared up at him. “I just got married. Can we sing the ‘Wedding March’ instead?”

  Before the words were out, the elevator paused on the next floor, the door opened, and four more marines crowded onto it, making barely enough space to breathe for all the occupants and the luggage carrier and the bellboy.