Chapter 1 #3
Precious, and he’s old.”
She blinked. “Precious?”
“My pet,” he explained. “So if you’re planning to kill me, you’ll have to agree to take care of Precious as long as he lives.”
She made a face. “I don’t have a lifestyle that allows pets,” she replied.
“You’ll have to make an exception. Now, what are you doing in my pasture?”
“Stealing a bull,” she said.
He stared at her. “Which one?”
She was looking at several while she spoke. “That one,” she said, indicating a nearby bull calf.
She gasped, because when she turned her head to look, John had her gun in his hand, and he was towering over her. From his
vantage point, she was rather short.
She glared up at him from glittering green eyes. “That wasn’t fair,” she muttered.
He shrugged. “So sue me, if you can manage that from jail.” He had his cell phone out.
“Who are you calling?” she asked quickly.
“The sheriff,” he began.
“Please!” she said. “I’m just hungry! I only wanted a steak!”
He hesitated. “You pulled a gun on me,” he pointed out.
“You started it,” she said defiantly.
He had to admit that she was telling the truth.
“I’m just hungry,” she repeated, and looked near tears.
“You don’t eat possible prize-winning bulls,” he pointed out, although he’d noted that the bull she’d indicated actually was the prize bull of the lot. He scowled. “How did you know he had the best conformation?”
“My dad’s a rancher,” she said. “Up in Wyoming.”
“What are you doing in Texas?”
“Trying to get a steak,” she muttered.
He didn’t quite believe her, but he wasn’t willing to turn her loose. And it did seem a little premature to have her locked
up.
He stuck her gun in the belt behind his .45. “Okay, let’s go,” he said, taking her arm.
“Go where?” she asked, stopping. “I’m not going to jail!” she added and looked primed for a fight.
He drew in a breath. “I’m taking you home. Mercedes can cook you a steak. It won’t be as fresh as one out of the pasture,
but it won’t be one of my prize bulls, either.”
“Home?” Her mind was whirling. This was a complication she hadn’t counted on. He didn’t know it, but she had confederates
waiting to hear from her. She didn’t dare try to contact them. She’d have to hope they thought she was slowly picking out
the pasture with the most isolated, purebred bulls. But she’d heard John coming and wanting a steak was the only quick explanation
she could manage for being in his pasture with his prize bull calves. Raines, the idiot, had dropped her off here with no
way back to her motel in Percell, with orders to check out this particular lot of bulls and find out when they would go up
for auction. It was for the boss, he’d added, but then, Raines had a shifty look, even for the minion of a drug lord.
“Home,” he said, and tugged her to the pickup truck.
He slid Precious over to his side of the truck. Unfortunately, Precious smelled a new scent, a strongly sweet one, and started
rattling.
“That’s a snake!” Josie Blake burst out and stifled a scream.
“It’s just Precious,” he said, almost snarling as he put her in the truck and closed the door behind her.
“It’s a snake,” he said in a mocking high tone as he opened his own door and got in. He looked at her, cowering against the
door. “He’s got no fangs,” he said. “And you’re a new scent that upsets him. He’s old and blind. I just saved him from a ring
of unsympathetic cowboys.” He cranked the truck. “It’s okay, Precious,” he said softly, and breathed out close to the pillowcase.
“It’s just a vagrant we’re feeding,” he added.
“Vagrant,” she huffed. But she put on her seat belt. “So a lot of people are trying to off your . . . pet?”
“Apparently,” he said as he pulled out into the road.
She was studying him. Handsome. Big. Capable and not afraid of anything. Even rattlesnakes. She was dealing with something
far more dangerous, but she couldn’t tell him that. She didn’t dare do anything to complicate the situation she was already
in. Her companions wouldn’t understand, and they weren’t forgiving. Nor could she admit what she was really doing. A slipup
at this point would cost her her life. Not a good idea.
“I’m not a vagrant,” she added, however, insulted by his estimation of her situation.
“You look like one.” He was glancing pointedly at her ragged jeans.
Her jeans had the knees torn out—that was the fashion. “I paid a lot for these jeans,” she huffed. She caught herself. “On
the sale rack, I mean.”
“When I was a kid, the kids who wore torn jeans to school were all poor.” He glanced at her, and he wasn’t smiling. “It’s
almost an insult to poor people to sell jeans that mock them.”
She caught her breath. “That wasn’t the idea at all,” she said defensively. Honestly, she’d never considered that aspect.
“Looks like it to me,” he said. “Dad dressed us out of mid-range stores, always. He could have afforded couture, but he said we had to live in the real world so we might as well grow up in it. No special presents, no special clothes. We were raised like other people’s kids.
” He smiled. “We grew to like it. Because we really fit in with other ranchers’ kids.
If Dad and Mom had gone the other route, the only place we’d have fit in was in cities.
And who the hell would trade this—” he swept an arm toward the horizon, empty of everything except grass and cattle and outbuildings and the approaching ranch house, a towering beautiful old Victorian house “—for a city anywhere on earth?”
She felt his pride in the statement. She looked around, smiling inwardly. This was her kind of place. But she had a part to
play, and she’d better play it.
“I’m aiming higher,” she said pertly. “A penthouse in Manhattan.”
“You’d be disappointed,” he said. “The view is mostly blocked by other penthouses. Not to mention pigeons.”
She made a face. She’d had her issues with pigeons.
“And wealth isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, either,” he added as he pulled up in front of the house. “There are too many
things that money can’t buy. Come on.”
He grabbed the sack that contained Precious, gently, and then went around to open the passenger door. But Josie had already
opened it and jumped down onto the ground. He motioned her toward the steps.
Heather Everett was waiting for him on the porch.
She was just as lovely as she’d been in her early twenties, when she’d been a famous recording artist. She was just as famous now, if behind the scenes.
She wrote Grammy-winning songs, the most recent two of which had been recorded by the rock group Desperado, from up in Wyoming.
Both had won Grammys. Worse, Josie knew her; she’d seen her at the last Grammy awards night.
Josie was friends with the lead singer of the Desperado rock group.
She had to hope that Heather wouldn’t recognize her.
“No,” she told John, blocking the front door and glaring at the sack.
“The boys have been working all morning, making a nice, big cage for him.”
“No,” she repeated, although her pale blue eyes slid to Josie and back to John with a hidden question.
“He can’t get out,” he pointed out. “He’s old and blind, too. He’ll stay put. I promise.”
“Didn’t you promise that with your last long, scaly pet, who wound up in the washing machine and almost gave our housekeeper
at the time a heart attack?”
“That was different,” John said. “He was a young snake and curious. Poor Precious can’t see. He’d starve to death if he wasn’t
fed. He’s undernourished right now because he can’t hunt game anymore. He doesn’t have any fangs,” he added hopefully.
Heather was weakening. John was the last child who was still at home. She was feeling empty-nest syndrome, with both Tanner
and Odalie living elsewhere.
“It’s an escape-proof cage,” John promised. He straightened. “If he ever gets out, I’ll go live with Tanner and Stasia until
everything calms down.”
“You aren’t helping your case,” Heather repeated.
“I’ll promise anything you like,” he told her.
She drew in a breath. “I’ll think about it. He’d better not get loose!”
He grinned. “He won’t.”
She looked at the pillowcase and shuddered. “Isn’t that one of my new bamboo pillowcases?” she added.
“It will wash. He’s a very clean animal.”
Heather rolled her eyes. They landed on the slight, red-headed, green-eyed woman beside John. “Who’s this?” she asked.
Josie started to answer but John beat her to it.
“Josie Blake,” he said. “She was trying to cut up one of my purebred steers for a steak. She says she’s starving.”
Josie felt embarrassed. “I was just hungry . . .” she began, eyes downcast as she tried to think of something to say that
wouldn’t evoke such kind sympathy from those pale blue eyes.
“Then we’ll feed you,” Heather said gently. “Come on in. I’ll get Mercedes to cook you a nice steak. John, take that . . .
thing . . . to your room. Right now!”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said and grinned at her. “Thanks, Mom.”
“God knows what your father will say,” she mumbled. “He’ll probably hear it rattle in the night and get up and shoot it.”
“No. He knows about Precious.”
She sighed. “Then I expect people in other countries know about Precious by now,” she said under her breath. “Mercedes,” she
called as she led Josie into the dining room. “We have a guest!”
Josie ate her steak with pure delight. It was as good as one of her dad’s, and he had prime steaks on his ranch.
But having that sweet woman Heather look at her with sad eyes didn’t make Josie feel much better. She was putting on a false
front. It didn’t usually bother her. But in the course of her job, she mostly came across rough men, not kind women who would
take in a vagrant and feed her. Guilt was eating her alive. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t have afforded the best steak a restaurant
had to offer. But she was playing a part. Not playing it all the time could cost her her life.
She finished the delicious steak along with the perfect mashed potatoes and green beans and the apple pie dessert.
“I’m so full,” she said, smiling at Heather. “Thank you. I was really starving or I’d never had bothered his prize bulls.”
“Bull calves,” Heather corrected. “And John was raised to help people.”
“John?” She tried to sound nonchalant, but the man was very attractive to her.
“Yes. John Everett. He’s our youngest son. The eldest, like our only daughter, is married and away from home. Although Tanner
and his wife live nearby and visit often. She’s pregnant right now, though, and having some minor issues, so she’s not very
mobile. So we mostly go to see them.”
“Three children?”
She nodded, smiling. “I wanted more, but three sounded like a good number to both of us.”
“I like children,” Josie said involuntarily. “I used to work with underprivileged Hispanic kids . . .” She stopped abruptly.
She was giving away too much.
“Then you’re bilingual.” Heather nodded.
Josie looked up. The woman was quick. She made lightning assumptions and she was correct. Josie smiled. “Yes. You’re quick,”
she added.
Heather just nodded. “You pick it up when you have children who don’t like to tell you what they’ve been up to.”
Josie laughed. She looked like a different person when she did that. Heather found her very interesting. She wondered if John
did . . .