Lone Star Winter

by Diana Palmer

  Lisa almost winced at the certainty in his tone. He was young, probably not much older than she was, and she couldn’t help thinking that a little knowledge could be a dangerous thing.

  “Thanks for patching me up,” he told her with a grin. “I found the leak. Now all I have to do is put all the parts back on the truck without having any left over.”

  She laughed as she put away the bandages. “I’d have bagsful left over,” she mused. “I can cook and work horses and cattle, but I don’t know a thing about engines.”

  “My dad’s a mechanic,” he told her. “He has his own garage. I grew up learning how to fix things. It comes in handy on a ranch this size, even though we have a full-time mechanic on the payroll.” He shook his head. “It must cost a fortune to run a place like this. I guess Mr. Parks inherited his.”

  She went back to her potatoes, her head down as she asked, “You don’t think he might have worked for it?”

  “Not many professions that pay the kind of money he has, from what I’ve heard,” he said. “Besides, he’s not exactly a risk-taker. He doesn’t do much of the heavy work around here and he really favors that left arm from time to time. I guess it still hurts him sometimes.”

  “I guess.” She didn’t add that he might change his mind about Cy if he ever saw him dressed in black and carrying an automatic weapon.

  “Thanks for the first aid,” he told her as he retrieved another soft drink from the refrigerator and closed it. “Better get back to work.”

  He went out and the door locked behind him. Lisa forced herself not to think about that hungry kiss she and Cy shared in the living room or if Cy was going to draw back into his shell again. He was a complex and attractive man, but she seemed to be off-limits. Pity. They had so much in common….

  Chapter Seven

  It was late afternoon when Lisa heard a truck pull up out by the barn. She was sure it was Cy. Without thinking, she got up from the kitchen table where she’d been rearranging a messy kitchen drawer and went right out the back door.

  It wasn’t Cy. It was three men, all foreign-looking. Harley saw them and came out of the garage, wiping his hands on a red work cloth.

  “Can I help you boys?” he asked with faint menace.

  “We are looking for Mr. Parks,” the flashily dressed one said with an ear-to-ear grin.

  “He’s gone to Kingsville to look at bulls,” Harley said obligingly. “I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  “How convenient,” the man drawled, and pulled an automatic weapon from under his jacket.

  Harley froze in place and his jaw dropped.

  Lisa realized the danger immediately. She closed and locked the back door and ran to Cy’s study, locking her self inside. She grabbed the mic of the shortwave set, already positioned to the Scott ranch, and gave out a Mayday call.

  “Stay in the house,” Eb’s calm but very hushed voice came over the air instantly. “Cy’s on his way.”

  He left before she could ask what he meant. She didn’t know whether to lock herself in and wait, or go to a window and try to see what had happened to poor Harley. She felt guilty that she hadn’t been able to do anything for him, but she was one person against three men, one of whom was dangerously armed.

  In the end, she grabbed the loaded pistol Cy had told her he kept in his center desk drawer and went cautiously down the hall. She peered out the curtain that covered the upper, glassed portion of the kitchen door. Harley was in the grip of a man at least his physical equal, a pistol at his throat. One of the other men was looming with that automatic weapon and she just glimpsed the third wandering into the garage, out of sight.

  She ground her teeth together and held the huge .45 automatic pistol tighter, wondering what she should do. She’d never fired a pistol in her life, but if she had to use it, she thought she could. Shivering with nerves, her heart pounding, her mouth dry, she heard the sound of a truck approaching very fast. Cy’s big red Expedition roared up in the yard. He was out of it seconds after the engine died.

  But it wasn’t the Cy she was used to seeing. He walked slowly toward the two visitors in plain sight, his tall figure bent slightly forward, and he was cradling his burned left arm in his right hand.

  “You are Cy Parks,” the man with the automatic weapon called in a cold tone.

  “Yes,” Cy replied quietly. He glanced at Harley, who was red-faced and nervous, held securely in the grip of the second man.

  “We want the woman,” the flashily dressed visitor continued. “You will bring her out to us. Now.”

  “She’s a widow. She’s pregnant,” Cy began.

  “This is nothing to us,” the man replied. “We were told to bring the woman back. It will cost us our lives not to comply with the instructions we were given.”

  Cy sighed audibly. “I’ll go get her,” he said with resignation.

  “Mr. Parks!” Harley burst out, horrified. “Man, you can’t…you can’t let them have Mrs. Monroe!”

  “They’ll shoot us if we don’t, son,” Cy told the other man in a subdued tone that matched his bent stance. As he spoke, he let go of his burned arm and let it dangle at his side. The right hand moved, just a fraction, but his limping posture had the full attention of the armed men. They didn’t notice the movement under his long sleeve. “You might let poor old Harley go,” he added. “He just works for me.”

  “Let a trained mercenary loose on the three of us?” The man laughed. “We heard him talking to the woman in the kitchen about his exploits in Africa.”

  Which meant, Cy deduced, that they had the house bugged. He’d have to do something about that, and quickly. He glanced at Harley and prayed that the younger man wouldn’t panic and do something stupid.

  “It was a lie. Honest!” Harley swallowed hard. “I’m not a merk. I’m just a simple, working cowboy…!”

  “Why, of course he is. And do I look like any sort of threat to armed men?” Cy asked softly. “I mean, look at me. I’m just a poor cripple.”

  Harley grimaced. It hurt him to see poor old Mr. Parks grovel like that. If only he could get that pistol away from his throat. He might be able to do something to save Mrs. Monroe and his boss! His fears were still present but subsiding a little as he realized the danger his boss and Lisa were in. He had to conquer the fear. He knew what to do. Even if he’d had little training, he remembered the moves. And he’d been an army ranger when he was in the service, only a short time before he came to work for Cy Parks. He wasn’t a coward. He could do what he needed to do, to protect Cy and Lisa. He could do it. His head lifted and new purpose narrowed his eyes as he watched the armed men.

  The man with the automatic weapon shrugged. “I see that you are injured. But this man told the woman that he had commando training and would not hesitate to use it,” he told Cy. “Am I to believe now that he is harm less?”

  “No,” Cy drawled. “It’s more than enough if you believe I am,” he said enigmatically and glanced at Harley. “You just stay put, Harley,” he added in a tone that made Harley frown. “I’ll just go get Mrs. Monroe…” His head turned abruptly to the left of the gunman and he pointed. “Good God, look at that!”

  The man with the automatic weapon reacted predictably and was diverted for a few precious seconds. It was enough. Cy’s hand moved so fast that his knife was in the man’s shoulder before he could turn his head back, causing him to drop the automatic weapon as he groaned in shock and pain. Even as that knife hit the tar get, Cy whirled and sent a second knife slicing through the air. It hit the man holding the pistol at Harley’s neck, pinning his forearm, pistol, sleeve and all, to the wood of the barn wall behind him. The man cried out and Harley ducked and got out of the way immediately.

  Green eyes blazing, Cy rushed forward, aimed an ex plosive high kick at the first man’s stomach, bringing him down instantly. He fell, trying to extricate the knife from his shoulder at the same time, with little success.

  “There’s…another man…in there!” Harley cal
led urgently through his shock.

  “There was.” A deep chuckle accompanied the words. Eb Scott came out of the barn with a miserable-looking man in denims held at gunpoint. “He made a fatal error. Never turn your back to a dark corner. Nice timing, Cy.”

  Cy didn’t answer. He jerked up the automatic weapon and spared a glance for the groaning man on the ground and the other one, pinned to the wall of the barn.

  “I didn’t want to do it like this,” Cy said calmly, walking to the man his second knife had pinned to the barn wall. “But if you’re going to set a trap, it’s best done on your home ground and in your own time. Oh, shut up for God’s sake,” he growled at his victim as he jerked the knife out and wiped it on the man’s shirt-sleeve. “You’re barely nicked! When you get a Bowie knife sticking out of your arm, you can complain.”

  Harley was still staring at his boss with wide eyes. He hadn’t said a single word. He felt his head to make sure it was where he’d left it.

  “You all right, Harley?” Cy asked curtly.

  “Shh…sure,” he stammered.

  “I’ll just check on Lisa.” Cy strode off toward the house.

  Harley stared after his boss as if he’d never seen him before. “Did you see that?” Harley asked Eb Scott. “Did you see it? He had the second knife in the air even be fore the first one hit its target!”

  “You said he was no threat!” the assailant with the formerly pinned forearm growled at the man in the suit. Both were holding their wounds.

  “I thought he was crippled!” the flashily dressed man growled. The knife was still in his shoulder, and he didn’t dare pull it out for fear it might hemorrhage at withdrawal.

  “So did I,” Harley murmured, but only Eb heard him.

  “Cy’s not quite what he seems,” was all Eb had to say about it.

  On the porch, Lisa had watched with surprise and disbelief as Cy easily took care of the two armed men, while Harley stood shell-shocked nearby. If she’d ever worried about him, her mind rested easier after she saw the ease with which he subdued the armed assailants. She watched him with covetous, protective eyes, al most limp with relief. She’d been so worried that he might die right in front of her eyes. She opened the door as Cy mounted the steps and rushed out to throw her self against his chest, oblivious to his shocked delight. She was still holding the gun in one hand.

  He took it from her, keeping the other arm around her, and put the safety back on. “Were you going to come out shooting and rescue me?” he asked with a grin.

  “If I got the chance, I was,” she said huskily, clinging harder. “I certainly wasn’t going to cower in the house and let them kill you.”

  His eyes were warm with affection as he lifted his dark head to search her flushed face. “Nice to know I can count on backup when I need it,” he told her, tracing a soft pattern down her flushed cheek.

  She smiled at him and only looked away when she heard sirens and saw two sheriff’s cars pull up in the driveway with their lights flashing. “Speaking of backup,” she gestured. “Did you plan this?”

  He shrugged. “Eb planned it and convinced me to go along,” he said quietly. “All those surveillance gadgets paid for themselves this afternoon. Eb was already in the barn when I left here. He waited to act after the guns were drawn because he didn’t want to get Harley killed.” He shook his head as he saw Harley standing morose and miserable against the barn with his arms folded while the deputies handcuffed the three men. Barely two minutes later, an ambulance joined the patrol cars. “What I didn’t know was that Lopez had the house bugged,” he added curtly. “When we get these guys in custody, I’m going to sweep the house and get rid of them.”

  “They can hear what we do in the house?” she asked worriedly.

  He glanced down at her and knew she meant what they were doing in the living room before he left. He smiled slowly. “Not all of it,” he murmured wickedly. “Probably they only had listening devices in the kitchen, since we spend so much time in there.”

  “Oh.” She sighed with relief.

  “I’d better go and have a word with the deputies,” Cy told her. “You okay?”

  She grinned. “Never better. Are you?”

  “Can’t hurt a weed,” he replied, winked and walked back down the steps.

  Eb and Cy explained what had happened to the deputies. Cy agreed to swear out a warrant so that the three men could be held. He was furious that Lopez had dared to send men onto his own place after Lisa. He wasn’t ever going to get the chance to do that again. He swore it.

  As the two wounded prisoners were being loaded up in the ambulance and the other one confined in the patrol car for the trip to jail, Cy joined Harley at the barn door.

  “I’m all hot air,” Harley said with cold self-contempt. He couldn’t meet the older man’s eyes. “All that damned bragging about what I could do, and how I could take care of everybody. And look at me! I was taken by surprise and overpowered by a man half my size. I’m a fraud, Mr. Parks. You ought to fire me on the spot.”

  Cy only smiled. Harley was showing the first signs of wisdom. And even if he’d been overpowered, he’d conquered whatever fears he had. Cy knew that the younger man’s pride was in shreds at being surprised and captured. He’d been in similar situations himself. No need to rub it in, just because he’d overreacted at Harley holding Lisa’s hand.

  “If I fire you, who’s going to gather Lisa’s eggs every morning?” Cy asked.

  Harley couldn’t believe he’d actually heard that droll question. He forced his shamed eyes up, and found his boss’s eyes twinkling.

  “You don’t want to fire me?” he asked.

  “Not today,” Cy replied. “Get back in there and finish getting that cattle truck fixed. We’ll need it tomorrow to haul calves.”

  “It’s finished,” Harley said with a faint smile. “I was just putting it back together when those guys drove up and caught me off guard.”

  Harley still felt a little disoriented. Mr. Parks, on the other hand, didn’t have a hair out of place and seemed supremely calm. Despite the cool weather, Harley felt perspiration on his forehead. He wiped his sweaty brow on his arm and let out a heavy breath. He even managed a grin. “I guess you learned how to throw a knife when you were in the military. You, uh, were in the military?”

  “Somewhat.”

  “Well, it was amazing, what you did with those knives,” Harley continued. “That’s some aim you’ve got, Mr. Parks.”

  “I get in a little practice now and then.”

  Harley moved away from the barn. “You sure had those guys foxed about how helpless you were,” he said, chuckling. “They bought every word.”

  “To their cost,” Cy said easily, without breaking stride. “You never underestimate an adversary, if you want to live.”

  “You’ve, uh, been in a few fights then?”

  Cy’s green eyes were enigmatic as he glanced back at the younger man. “Stop fishing, Harley. Get that truck running.”

  He turned again and started toward the house. Harley watched him go with raging curiosity. On an impulse he didn’t even understand, Harley picked up the pistol his captor had dropped where it lay forgotten in the straw. He tossed it toward Cy Parks’s back.

  As if he sensed danger, Cy whirled immediately and caught the weapon in midair. He had it cocked and leveled at Harley’s nose in the space between one heart beat and the next. Harley stopped breathing as he looked down the barrel for seconds that seemed like hours.

  Cy cursed harshly and lowered the gun. “If you ever do that again, so help me, I’ll shoot you in the foot, Harley!” he growled, furious. He snapped on the safety and walked toward the sheriff’s deputies to leave the weapon with them.

  Harley let out the breath he’d been holding. He’d served two years in the army himself, in the rangers. He didn’t know a single man who could have done what Cy Parks just had. That was a sort of training that men only got in some elite fighting force, and it wasn’t regular mil
itary. He forced himself to walk back to the garage without casting another glance at his enigmatic boss. He felt as if his legs had turned to rubber.

  Lisa was uneasy all night. She kept hearing noises. She dreamed that Cy was in front of the man with the machine gun, but that he hadn’t managed to throw those knives in time. She woke up crying, in a cold sweat.

  The door opened, the light came on and Cy stood over her, dressed in pajama bottoms with his broad, hairy, scarred bare chest. His dark hair was tousled, his eyes narrow with concern.

  “You screamed,” he said.

  She sat up in her sweatpants and pullover white cotton T-shirt and hugged her knees. She couldn’t quite see him because her glasses were in the drawer of the bed side table. She could imagine how she looked with her eyes red and wet with tears and her long hair tangled all around her.

  “Sorry if I woke you,” she said miserably. “It’s been a rough day.”

  “For me, too,” he replied. “I’m sorry you ever got mixed up in this business.”

  “So am I, but there’s not much we can do about that now.” She pushed back her long, sweaty hair. “Now Lopez seems to be after you, too.”

  “No. He’s after you. This was a test run, to see if he could get to you on my ranch.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “You think he’ll try again.”

  “They say Lopez will follow a man to hell to get even with him,” he said quietly. “I believe it.”

  “What am I going to do? I can’t keep on staying here…”

  “Why not?”

  “Well…”

  He came around the side of the bed. “Move over,” he said, sitting down beside her on the bedspread. “Now listen. I’ve got a big house and plenty of room. As long as you’re here, right here, I can protect you, and I will. You’ve got a baby coming and you need someone. There’s no reason you can’t stay.”

  She looked worried. She picked at the cover. “Cy, people are already talking about us…”

  “They’ll stop when we get married.”