Chapter 5
Gerard made a pass through the small farmhouse, checking door and window locks, making notes where some of the latches on the windows were loose and needed to be tightened the next day.
When he’d brought his backpack inside, he’d tucked his handgun inside. He took it out, checked that the magazine was fully loaded, the safety was on and laid it on the table beside the sofa.
As he stretched out on the sofa, his feet hung off the end.
Not that he minded. It beat sleeping on the ground in a desert where you ate, drank and breathed sand in everything you did.
So, what if the AC wasn’t working in the living room?
If he laid still enough, he could feel the cool air wafting through the open door of Bernie’s bedroom.
His groin tightened at the thought of her lying on her bed, those long, bare legs moving between the sheets. In that moment, he could imagine what they’d feel like wrapped around his waist.
Immediately, his groin tightened, and his cock swelled. He swallowed hard to keep from groaning aloud.
Bernie was unlike any woman he’d ever met. She was certainly taller than most and not as classically beautiful as some, but she had a confidence and inner glow that shone through when she smiled.
And she’d done something no other woman he’d met had been able to do.
She’d made him want a different life than he’d mapped out for himself.
He’d researched what made a person abusive. So often, if a child was raised by an abusive parent, he became an abusive adult.
Watching his mother tremble, the fear in her eyes, the acceptance that she could do nothing to stop the beatings, had marked Gerard for life.
He never wanted to see a woman cower in fear because of him.
As angry as he’d been at his father, he could see how a man could lose control.
He’d never forgive himself if he lost control and hit a woman.
So, he’d never let himself get too deeply into a relationship. After a date or two, he’d walked away.
Except now. Assigned to protect Bernie, he couldn’t walk away. Even if he could...he didn’t want to.
The woman intrigued him. She made him want to spend more time with her. If it meant back-breaking work picking watermelons, he would do it.
Sitting beside her on the sofa, he’d fought the overwhelming urge to take her into his arms and kiss her.
To hold her close and feel the warmth of her skin against his.
As he lay on the same cushions where she’d been, he fantasized about stripping her naked and making love to her there in the living room.
His cock hardened, and his pulse raced.
Bernie was so close physically, just a few short steps away, but still so far out of his reach that he might as well cool it.
She wasn’t the kind of female a man had a one-night-stand with. She was an until-death-do-us-part woman whom a man committed to.
Gerard wasn’t the man for her. He might as well get the thought out of his head now. He was there to protect her. Nothing more.
He closed his eyes and willed sleep to come. It didn’t. Several times over the next hour, he lit the dial on his watch. Time crawled. Would this night ever end?
A low woof sounded from the porch outside the front window.
Gerard sat up straight.
A bark, louder this time, was followed by what could only be described as a honking sound.
Gerard lunged to his feet, pulled on his boots and grabbed his gun.
He was heading for the door when footsteps sounded behind him.
A glance over his shoulder brought him up short.
Bernie rushed from her room, wearing shorts, dingo boots and a T-shirt, her nipples tight little points against the soft fabric. She carried a shotgun. “You heard that, right?”
He nodded. “You should stay inside. I can check it out.”
“Like hell. Those are my animals. I won’t let some bastard kill another one of them on my watch.” She caught up with him as he reached the door.
Gerard’s hand closed over the doorknob before Bernie could grab it. “At least let me go outside first,” he insisted.
She hesitated in the soft light glowing from a nightlight near the front entrance. Her brow furrowed, but she gave him a curt nod. “Wait.”
Gerard’s hand froze on the knob.
Bernie reached around him, her breasts brushing against his arm, and lifted a flashlight from a mounted bracket beside the door. She handed it to him. “Take this.”
He held the light in one hand and his pistol in the other.
Bernie grabbed a headlamp from a hook beside the wall bracket and slipped it over her head.
Gerard would rather have had night vision goggles, but a flashlight was better than nothing if he couldn’t make out shapes in the starlight.
Gerard had his own handgun, but Hank Patterson had equipped each team member with a pair of night vision goggles, an armor-plated vest and a radio headset, all of which were in the boarding house, except the handgun he carried with him everywhere.
Without turning on the porch light, he slipped through the front door, down the steps and out into the yard.
The barking and honking had moved farther away from the house and seemed to be coming from the field past the barn.
Bernie ran down the steps. “That’s Gandolf and Howey. Sounds like there’s trouble in the watermelon patch.”
Before he could stop her, she ran past him and around the side of the house.
He gave chase, quickly catching up and passing her, heading for the noise.
Once out in the open field, starlight gave them just enough light to make out a blur of white motion.
“There,” Bernie pointed. “That’s Gandolf. Howey will be close.”
They picked their way through the vines until they reached the goose and hound dog.
Gandolf flapped his wings, honking loudly.
Grunting snorts filled the air.
Bernie swore. “What the hell?” She switched on her light and shined it around the watermelon patch.
Every one of the pigs that had been in the temporary corral was scattered across the section of the watermelon patch they’d already picked.
“They’re heading for the unpicked melons,” Bernie said. “We have to stop them before they get there.”
“How?”
“I need you to head them off before they get there,” Bernie said. “I’m going back to the barn for a bucket of grain.”
Gerard didn’t like the idea of Bernie going back alone, but the pigs had almost made it to the unpicked part of the patch.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him as she spun and ran toward the barn.
Careful not to trip over vines and melons, Gerard worked his way over to the pigs and positioned himself between them and the melons that were ready to be picked the next day.
Unsure of how he was supposed to keep a dozen pigs from marching right past him, he raised his arms and waved like Bernie had earlier with Penelope. “Go on,” he said. “Back to your pen.”
The pigs fell back a few steps, swung wide and made another attempt to enter the land of juicy melons.
“No way,” Gerard said and hurried to head them off.
With every attempt, they moved a little closer.
Gerard flapped his arms and yelled at them, but they weren’t scared or impressed.
He couldn’t let them get to the melons, but short of shooting them, there wasn’t enough of him to keep all of them from getting where they wanted to go.
Not to mention, some of them were twice his weight and could easily trample him to death.
He tried not to dwell on that thought.
Just when he thought the pigs would win the race, he heard the sound of grain being shaken in a tin pail.
“Here, pig,” Bernie called out. She shook the pail as she neared the pigpen. “Here, pig.”
The pigs that had been intent on reaching the ripe watermelons looked toward the sound of the grain in the bucket and Bernie’s voice calling out to them.
She shook the bucket again. “Here, pig.”
A large sow, Gerard guessed was Penelope, turned and trotted toward Bernie.
The others, curious, hurried to catch up, eager to get the grain Bernie offered.
Instead of herding them back into the makeshift pen of corral panels, Bernie opened the gate to their regular pen and dumped most of the grain from the bucket into a feed trough.
Gerard followed behind the herd, shining his flashlight into the shadows, searching for any strays that might not have been tempted by the grain.
When he reached the pen, his boots sank into the mud. While the majority of the field had dried during the day, the ground by the pen was still wet from the rain the night before. Bernie stood near the gate, a frown denting her brow. “I’m missing one.”
Gerard attempted to turn, but the suction of the mud kept him in place.
“Oh, there he is,” Bernie said. “Better move. He’s coming in fast.”
Gerard tried to pull his booted foot out of the mud, only succeeding in bringing up his foot. The boot remained.
Balancing on one leg, he was trying to fit his foot back in the sunken boot when Bernie cried out. “Look out!”
Unable to move out of the way, Gerard could only swing his body halfway around in time to see a giant hog barreling toward him.
At the last second, the hog darted to the right, but his big body bumped Gerard, sending him flying backward.
He landed on his ass in the smelly quagmire, holding the handgun and flashlight above the mud.
Once the hog was inside the pen, Bernie swung the gate shut, secured it and moved toward Gerard. “Are you all right?”
He held up his hand. “Don’t come closer. This stuff is like quicksand. Once you’re in it, the suction won’t let go.”
Too late. Bernie had already placed one of her feet in the muck. When she tried to pull it out, her foot came out of the boot.
Gerard rocked to his feet and reached out to steady Bernie. He wasn’t quite close enough to catch her as she teetered on one leg.
She swayed, seemed to get her balance and then fell to her hands and knees. “Blast it.”
Giving up on his boots, Gerard tucked his handgun in one of his pockets and the flashlight in the other.
With his hands free, he tramped through the muck barefooted and helped Bernie to an upright position.