Always Time To Die (17 page)

QUINTRELL RANCH
WEDNESDAY MORNING

MELISSA COVERED HER FACE WHILE THE HELICOPTER SETTLED ONTO THE SMALL PAD
and shut down. She didn’t step forward until the rotors stopped turning and the air settled down.

“Governor, what an unexpected pleasure,” Melissa said. Her expression asked what was wrong. She raised her hand, signaling to one of the ranch employees. “Jim just brought the mail in from Taos. He’ll take care of your luggage.”

Josh rubbed his face wearily. He and Anne had spent a long night hashing out the least politically destructive way to handle the Jeanette Dykstra situation. He hadn’t planned to move this quickly after the Senator’s death, but he didn’t have any choice now.

“Thanks, Jim,” Josh said, shaking the man’s hand. “How’s the hunting?”

“Real slow. The drought has cut way back on the predators.”

“Good news. I could use some.”

“Yeah, you look kinda like you been rode hard and put away wet.”

Josh almost laughed. “Good thing you’re a hell of a shot. You’d never make it in politics.”

“That’s the Lord’s truth.” Jim scooped up the single duffel the chopper pilot unloaded. “Traveling light.”

“Yes.”

Josh’s tone didn’t invite conversation, but he knew Jim wouldn’t be insulted. The wolfer’s job kept him away from people most of the time. If Jim didn’t like being solitary, he would have found other work.

Biting her lip, feeling fear clench her stomach, Melissa followed the governor to the main house.

“Is the doctor finished with Sylvia?” Josh asked.

She glanced at her watch and then at the driveway. The doctor’s Mercedes was still parked to the side, dusty from the ride in.

“He’ll be through soon,” she said. “As you requested, I told him to wait for you.”

Josh grunted. As soon as they were inside, he headed for Sylvia’s suite. When he got there, he walked in without knocking.

Winifred glanced up, frowned, and then turned to Sylvia again, rubbing in more smelly goo. Though no one could tell it, Winifred was impatient for everyone to leave. In the mail Jim had brought there was a package from a DNA testing group. She wanted to get the samples mailed as quickly as possible.

And as quietly.

Dr. Sands removed his stethoscope, draped it over his neck, and straightened up from his exam of his patient.

“Well?” Winifred asked the doctor.

“She’s slipping. It’s fairly slow, but it’s sure. Pulse is shallow and rapid, same for breathing, dry skin, barely any flesh.”

“You said that last week.”

“I meant it then. I mean it now. It’s a miracle she’s still alive. I should send that stinking cream you use to a lab for analysis.”

For a moment, Winifred closed her eyes. She knew more than the doctor how close her sister was to death. Only Winifred’s all-day, every-day care kept her alive.
Damn that womanizing son of a bitch to the deepest circle of hell. And damn his son, too.
She opened her eyes and gave Josh a bleak look.

He said, “I think it’s time to admit Sylvia to a care facility.”

Whatever Winifred had been expecting, it wasn’t that. “No!”

“Yes.” Josh’s voice was like he was, calm and immovable, a man used to being heard.

The doctor busied himself putting away the blood pressure cuff and other gear.

“I’ve kept her alive for years,” Winifred said.

“We’re grateful. Unfortunately, you’ve traded your health for hers. Most nights you spend sleeping in a chair next to her. Now, even five feet away from you, I can hear the difficulty you have breathing.” Josh looked at the doctor, who nodded.

“I’ll check Miss Winifred before I leave,” Dr. Sands said.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “My lungs just got cold when I went out for more firewood, that’s all.”

The doctor looked at her and frowned. “If you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll have pneumonia. Sounds like you’re more than halfway there right now.”

“In any case, we can’t have you close to Sylvia when you’re ill,” Josh said. “She’s too fragile. Dr. Sands, I want you to arrange medical transport for Sylvia to Oasis Nursing Home in Santa Fe as soon as possible. Surely within the next few days.”

“I’ll—” began the doctor.

“No, I won’t allow it!” Winifred cut in fiercely. The force of her statement was spoiled when she went into a fit of coughing.

Dr. Sands listened to her and shook his head. “Do you still have the oxygen apparatus the Senator used?”

Josh turned and looked toward the hallway, where Melissa waited in case she was needed.

“Yes,” Melissa said. “I kept it to have on hand in case Sylvia’s breathing deteriorated any more.”

“Bring the equipment, please,” the doctor said. “I’ll set it up in Miss Winifred’s room after I’ve listened to her lungs.” He looked at Winifred. “Come with me to your room, unless you would prefer to be examined right here.”

“I don’t want to be examined at all.”

“Until Dr. Sands declares you to be free of any communicable disease,” Josh said evenly, “I can’t allow you near your sister.”

Winifred went very still. Then she walked slowly to Josh. Though he was tall, she was nearly at eye level with him. She looked at him for a long, tense moment.

“Melissa’s right,” Winifred said in a low voice. “You’re going to clear us out and sell the ranch.”

“I kept the ranch going for the Senator. He’s dead. We can’t afford the losses any longer.”

“You mean you’d rather spend your money in the city. This is
Sylvia’s
ranch.”

“And I’m her guardian. If I feel my mother’s best interests would be served by living in a city with first-class medical care, then I’ll sell the ranch and use the money to ease whatever of her life remains.”

“You say that like you’ve been rehearsing it for the cameras,” Winifred said bitterly.

He didn’t bother to answer.

She looked at his blue eyes, so like the Senator, so determined, so cold. She coughed once and couldn’t stop. And then she knew it was all slipping away, the plans and the hopes, the victory and the just vengeance of Castillo against Quintrell.

The room began to spin slowly, going gray.

“I’ll see you in hell,” she said hoarsely.

Josh didn’t doubt it.

TAOS
WEDNESDAY MORNING

THE HOUSE PHONE RANG
,
WAKING DAN FROM A RESTLESS SLEEP
.
BY THE TIME THE
bored sheriff’s deputy had left with another report to be ignored, it was almost dawn. Even so, Dan hadn’t been able to fall asleep immediately. Knowing that Carly was in the next room made it way too easy for him to think of finding out just how warm she was beneath her clothes, of how she would taste and feel tangled up with him, of heat and pressure and release.

He’d tried to tell himself she’d feel safer with him, but he’d never been very good at lying to himself. She needed safety and sleep, not sex. That was all she’d asked of him. Safety.

Hell.

Then, somewhere in his sleep, he’d begun dreaming of Black Hawks dropping down out of the sky, death blazing from every weapon. He woke up sweating, heard the fading sound of a helicopter flying over Taos Valley, and finally managed to get back to sleep.

The only good news was that the size of his morning woody announced that he was fully healthy again.

The reason for his health gave a muffled shriek when her bare feet hit the icy floor in the main room.

“Watch out for glass,” he yelled. “I might have missed some.”

“I thought that sparkly stuff was ice,” she retorted.

The phone kept ringing. He reached for it and sent a stack of photographs sliding.

“Damnation,” he said roughly, catching the photos and putting the receiver to his ear at the same time.

“Is that any way to greet your brother?” Gus Salvador asked.

“What time is it?”

“The sun’s up.”

“So am I. So what?” He looked at his watch and saw that it was almost eleven. He’d slept more than he thought. “Is everything okay?”

“If by everything you mean my wife, children, and parents, yes.”

“Then why did you wake me up?”

“Thought you’d like to know the latest on the Quintrell family.”

Dan sat up, not noticing the cold air of the room on his skin. “What.” It was a demand, not a question.

“Winifred has walking pneumonia. Sylvia is going to be moved to a facility in Santa Fe. The Quintrell ranch is for sale.”

Dan shook his head like he’d been slapped. “You sure?”

“As sure as I can be without talking to the governor, and I’ll be doing that at two o’clock. He agreed to an interview before he flies back to Santa Fe this afternoon.”

“How’s Winifred doing?”

“All I’ve heard is that she’s on antibiotics, fluids, oxygen, and bed rest, but she still gets up and checks on Sylvia every few hours.”

“When does the ranch go on the block?”

“The governor is having papers prepared in town right now. That’s how I heard.”

“Anything else?”

“I’ll let you know.”

“What about Mom?” Dan said. “Are you going to tell her or wait for the town gossips to spring it on her?”

There was a long pause.

“Gus,” Dan said, sighing. Then, “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks. I don’t want to be on her shit list for mentioning the forbidden name.”

“But you don’t mind being on mine?” Dan retorted.

“What are brothers for? Besides, you know you love the kids and they love you. You won’t stay mad at me long.”

“Blackmail.”

“Yeah, ain’t it grand?” Laughing, Gus disconnected.

Dan replaced the receiver and looked at the doorway. Carly was standing there wearing his favorite old sweatshirt, the faded black one with the sleeves ripped off. If she was wearing anything else, it didn’t show.

“What happened?” Carly asked. “I can’t believe I slept this late.”

You have really amazing legs,
Dan wanted to say.
And toes just made for nibbling. Knees and thighs, too. And…

“Dan?”

He shook himself out of his sexual fantasy. The problem with getting a sex drive back was keeping it under control. Not since his raging-hormone teen years had he been this quick off the mark.

And this hard.

“That was Gus.” Dan pulled a blanket over his lap and hoped it concealed everything it should. “Winifred’s got pneumonia, Sylvia will be transferred to Santa Fe, and the governor is selling the ranch.”

Carly let out air with a whoosh. “When did all this happen?”

“Probably this morning. That’s when I heard a helicopter heading toward the ranch.”

“But…” She spread her hands, feeling sad for no reason except the end of someone else’s family tradition. “The ranch has been in the Castillo-Quintrell families for
centuries
.”

“The governor is a city man. He doesn’t have any emotional connection to the ranch.”

“He was raised there,” she protested.

Dan shook his head. “When he was seven, he was shipped out to the first in a long string of military schools, the kind that never close for holidays. If he spent two weeks total on the ranch from that day to the present, I’d be surprised. It was his older brother, A. J. IV, who was being groomed for the succession. He was the one who spent time with his father and the people of New Mexico.”

“What happened to make Josh the favored son?”

“Vietnam. His older brother died.”

Carly rubbed her chilly arms. “The things Winifred didn’t think worth mentioning about the Quintrell family are boggling.”

“You just said why. Quintrell, not Castillo.”

“Oh, that’s bull. These days they’re pretty much the same family.”

“Not to her. Winifred tells her own story in her own way.”

“Well, I haven’t had much time with her. She might have been planning to tell me more about her sister’s family. Still…” Carly shook her head. “To think of all that struggle, all that wealth, all those lives and deaths, all the history; and it all comes down to a useless piece of protein like A. J. Quintrell V.”

Dan lifted his eyebrow. “I’ve never met him.”

“Be grateful.”

“What do you have against him?”

“He thinks women are one endless roll of toilet paper created solely to wipe his butt.”

“Sounds like his granddaddy.”

“Why is it that the worst breed true and the best die young?”

“You figure that out and you’ll be the next TV guru.”

The wind blew hard, as it had on and off all night. The adobe part of the house didn’t tremble with the weight of the shifting wind, but the broken window let in a lot of cold air. Carly rubbed her arms again.

“Is it okay if I start a fire in the hearth?” she asked.

“The woodpile is outside.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“The temperature dropped again. It’s freezing out there. I’ll get the wood while you put water on to boil for coffee.”

Her eyes gleamed and she sighed. “Coffee. What are you waiting for?”

“You to leave so I can get dressed. Or,” he said, reaching for the blankets covering his lap, “you can stick around and we’ll warm up the old-fashioned way.”

“Bundling?” she asked, all but fanning her eyelashes.

The blankets started rising.

Carly turned her back and ran for the kitchen, grinning every step of the way. It was fun to tease Dan, to watch the grim lines of his face shift into a smile. She didn’t know what he’d done before he came back to Taos, but she knew it hadn’t been easy.

And he was way too comfortable with a gun.

By the time she put together coffee, heated tortillas, and scrambled eggs, the fire was snapping and dancing over chunks of frozen piñon. The heat was on, too, but its surly electric fire didn’t make a dent in the cold, wind-driven air rushing through from the living room. She shivered, handed Dan his coffee and breakfast, and went to stand beside the fire.

“Tell me again why you rented this place,” she muttered.

“The cottonwood tree.” Then, “I thought you loved history.”

“I hate getting up to a cold floor.”

“That’s okay. You made up for whining by cooking breakfast along with the coffee.”

“I didn’t whine.”

“You shrieked.”

She waved her hand. “Different thing entirely.”

“Then you whimpered until your feet went numb.”

“Your point is?”

He smiled at her. “Damned if I know.”

She gave him an eye-roll and smiled into her coffee. Even with icy feet, it was fun to wake up with Dan nearby. The fact that she’d spent a lot of restless time last night wishing
nearby
had been a lot closer was her problem. She’d been sending out I-don’t-think-I’m-ready signals, and he’d respected them. The fact that he didn’t push, shove, crowd, demand, nag, or sulk told her more than a night of wild jungle sex with him could have.

And the thought of that kind of sex with Dan stopped her breath.

“When are you leaving?” he asked.

“Leaving? You want me to go to a motel?”

“No, I want you to go home, where it’s safe.”

“The deputy and I had this conversation last night. That’s when I pointed out his office wasn’t exactly sweating over my safety so why should I?”

Dan looked at her stubborn expression and knew he wasn’t going to have any better luck than the deputy.

“Besides,” Carly added, “when you think about it, it’s been all show and no go.”

“Sound and fury signifying nothing?”

“Exactly. No harm, no foul.” She forced a casual shrug. “Anyway, running was never my best sport.”

“What could I say to make you change your mind?”

She thought about it. “Nothing. But if you want to get away from the fallout zone, I completely understand. I’ll pay for replacing the window and—”

“Are you trying to make me mad?” Dan cut in.

She looked at his face, swallowed too much hot coffee, and winced. “No. I’m trying not to back you in a corner. This is my problem, not yours.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, that’s an adult argument.”

“Were we arguing?”

“Dan, you don’t have to do this. You don’t know me and—”

“You
are
trying to piss me off.” He leaned over, pulled her close, kissed her cross-eyed, and lifted his head. “It won’t work, Carolina May. I know everything I need to about you, except how good we’ll be together in bed. Sooner or later, I’ll know that, too.” He smiled at her, his mother’s smile, the one that could light up winter.

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“Very.”

“Not about the sex. The rest of it.”

“Yes.”

She blew out a long breath. “Okay. But if you get hurt because of me, I’m going to wring your neck.”

“Sounds kinky.”

“You’re such a
guy.
” Carly pushed back from the table and looked away before she grabbed him and did interesting things to his body. “I’m going to work on the stereographs.”

Dan’s expression said he’d rather she worked on him. “I printed out the list of things you wanted from the archives,” he said, pouring himself more coffee.

“Thanks. Leave them by my purse and—”

“No,” he cut in easily, “we’ll do it together, after I call my mother. But I thought we described the stereographs last night, or was I hallucinating from lack of sleep?”

“We did everything but try to date by the type of card itself. Shape, color, that sort of thing. If that agrees with the costume and the guesses someone wrote on the back of the stereographs, then we can be reasonably certain we have the correct date.”

Dan glanced at his watch. His mother should be home now, unless she had extra tutoring. “You want to shower first, second, or conservatively?”

“Conservatively?”

“Together.” His green eyes gleamed at her.

“Doesn’t sound conservative to me.”

“When it comes to saving water, it is.”

“Go take a liberal shower.”

He laughed and walked to the bedroom. She listened to the intimate, intriguing sounds of Dan showering and told herself she was doing the right thing staying dry. She wasn’t sure she believed it, but she was certain that sex with him wouldn’t be casual.

That was what was holding her back.

She didn’t know if she was ready for something that could break her heart.

With a sigh Carly pulled on white cotton gloves and reached for the stack of stereographs on Dan’s bedside table. Although photo albums had been available since the 1880s, apparently no one in the Quintrell family had caught on to the idea until the 1910s. After that there were several albums. Sometime in the 1940s, someone in the family had made one or several attempts to identify the people in the ancestral collection.

At the back of her mind she heard the shower turn off, then the low murmur of Dan’s voice talking to someone.

She dragged her attention back to the stereographs. Nothing had improved. Whoever had been trying to do the family history had relied as much on guesswork as fact, leaving a tangle for Carly to sort out along with the cramped yet flowing handwriting of the mysterious wannabe historian.

“You’re frowning.”

Startled, she looked up. Dan was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, freshly shaved, shirtless, barefoot. The fact that he was decently covered by old jeans didn’t keep her pulse from skipping, then jumping into double time. While she stared, he pulled on a T-shirt that was as faded as the jeans. As the last of the tempting male landscape vanished, she swallowed hard and tried to ignore the humming in her blood, in her body.

“Bad family historians are worse than none,” she said huskily.

He looked at the stack of card photos in her hands. “Our elusive spider woman, she of the shaky script?”

“I can live with the handwriting. It’s the foolish dates that get to me.”

“Go shower,” he said. “It’s nice and warm.”

And she was hot.

Carly set aside the cards and turned a tablet on the small cardboard table so he could see it. “These are rough categories for dating stereographs. Use tissue to hold them while you sort. I won’t be long.”

Dan nodded absently. He was already reading the neat printing on the tablet. Forcing himself to concentrate. Telling himself he couldn’t hear her strip off his sweatshirt. He’d sunk pretty low when he envied a sweatshirt that was old enough to vote.

Blindly he yanked up the covers over the mattress where she’d slept. Then he reached for a nearby box of tissues, pulled out one, and picked up the first card.