Love Under Two Wildcatters (15 page)

They laughed so hard Susan had a bit of a rough ride. Finally, Colt eased himself off and out of her. She heard him head into the bathroom. Ryder lifted her and slid out from underneath her and also headed for the bathroom. Yawning, Susan snagged a pillow, got under the blankets, and rolled over onto her back.

A couple of minutes later, the men crawled into bed beside her.

“I want to head back over to the hospital later,” Colt said.

“Nancy is flying in, her plane lands about eight,” Ryder said. “She thought if she could be here for Mike, we’d be freed up to do whatever we have to do at the site.”

“Yeah, that’s good,” Colt said.

“We can order in something to eat,” Susan suggested. “That would give us time to rest, and then to get in touch with Matthew.”

“Your brother booked in here, too?” Colt’s question came around a yawn, which in turn made her and Ryder both yawn.

“Likely, since Kelsey made our reservation, she probably got a room for Matt, too. Why?”

“Just thought a face-to-face talk about what they’ve found so far would be a good idea.”

“So would asking for a wake-up call,” Ryder said. He turned onto his side and propped his head up on his left hand. The right one he splayed on Susan, his fingers spread wide as they rested on her belly.

“You want to start trying to figure out who has it in for us,” Ryder said. “I’ve been thinking, and I keep drawing a blank.”

“Me, too. Just means we aren’t asking ourselves the right questions.”

“Maybe you two weren’t the target,” Susan said. Maybe she was being a bit naïve, but she really didn’t want to believe that someone meant to hurt or kill either of her men.

“I can’t see that anyone would want to hurt Murph,” Colt said. “He’s the best man I know, period.”

“I agree completely,” Ryder said. “Not that Colt and I have made a habit of pissing people off. But we’re in business, and sometimes, egos intrude.”

Susan shivered, a natural response to the specter of danger that had just gotten into bed with them.

Colt mistook her reaction. “You don’t have to worry, sweetheart. We won’t let anyone touch you.”

“Don’t you worry about me, wildcatter. Just don’t let anyone touch the two of you.”

“Trust us. We’re not about to let anything happen to us, either. Not now.” Ryder’s words didn’t immediately make sense.

“Not when we’ve finally found you,” Colt explained.

Her men might think they knew what was what, and while she trusted them completely, she figured it couldn’t hurt to ask Matthew what he thought about the explosion and the threat to Colt and Ryder.

Of course, they, in turn, seemed hell-bent to make sure that she was kept safe, no matter what. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate that, because she did. In her book, real men took care of their women. She’d grown up with that concept of relationships and responsibility, and she embraced it fully.

But now that she was in love, Susan had discovered another aspect of the male-female dynamic. She was just as determined to do the same for them.

Chapter 12

Morton Barnes sat on the edge of his chair with a glass of Jack in his hand, absorbing every word of the televised early-evening newscast. The on-air report, live on location from San Angelo to this Houston station, even featured a picture of the man injured in the drilling site explosion.

Until that instant, until disappointment flooded him, Morton hadn’t realized that what he really wanted to do was kill either Evans or Magee, or maybe even both of them.

He remembered Michael Murphy, of course. He’d been a what? Retired cop or something. No, Morton mentally amended, actually, Murphy had been an ineffectual tagalong, who, for some reason, those two no-accounts had liked. He’d never paid much attention to the man, possibly because Murphy had made no bones about not liking him. Well, the feeling had been entirely mutual.

Morton wondered if Murphy had been injured badly enough to die, and if he did die, would that hurt his former partners? That would be something, wouldn’t it? One strike, one measure of payback. The beginning of the end. The notion pleased him. Yep, maybe if old Murphy gave up the ghost, Evans and Magee would suffer.

Don’t see why they would. The man’s just an employee, not anyone important. Not family. So much for your grand plan, Morton. Can’t even plant a charge properly anymore, can you?

“It’s not my fault. That stupid secretary said Evans and Magee were scheduled to be at the San Angelo site.” Morton shook his head. He wished his father would stop talking to him. It was hard enough to focus on the task at hand without the old man chiming in with his negativity and snide comments every damn minute. He blinked because the newscast had ended, and he realized he might have missed something important. There might be more on the eleven o’clock report. He’d have to be sure to watch it, just in case.

“Hurt their damn bank accounts, no doubt. Debris all over the damn place, that’s going to cost some to clean up.” No matter what his father said, that was something, a first strike.

In the meantime, he had to think about his next step. Those two bastards hadn’t been in San Angelo this morning, but they sure as hell were there now, he’d bet money on it. They’d likely have to hang around for the next couple of days. The authorities would want to question them. Morton rubbed his hands together. He’d done a good job planting those explosives. Maybe
Dos Hombres
would be fined for safety violations. Who’s to say that damn place didn’t go up because of carelessness on their part? What he’d seen on TV, his bomb had made such a mess, they’d never be able to figure out what happened.

A new thought occurred to Morton, and he stopped and pondered.
Did
he want to kill those bastards right away, or did he want to inflict as much damage as possible, first?

You need to stop waffling about. You need a plan. How many times have I told you? A smart man not only has a goal, but a step-by-step
plan
to make that goal reality. That’s the problem with you, Morton. You couldn’t plan your way out of a wet paper bag. Never could, never will.

“Shut up! I’m not a kid anymore. I’ve run two successful companies, and all without your fucking help. And what did you ever do, anyway? You inherited all your money, same as me. So you just leave me be, do you hear me, Daddy? You just fucking leave me be!”

Morton blinked. He expected his father to yell right back at him, maybe cuff him a good one because he’d been disrespectful, but for once, the old bastard stayed silent. Morton reached up and rubbed his right temple. His head hurt. He needed some aspirin.

Morton got to his feet, walked to the downstairs bathroom. He reached for the bottle then saw another one, this one a prescription the doctor had given him a few months back when he’d sprained his ankle. Bypassing the aspirin, he took two of the stronger painkillers instead.

He closed the door to the medicine cabinet and caught sight of his reflection. He looked old, old and haggard. He looked…holy hell, he looked like his father. How did that happen? When did that happen?

Morton turned away from the mirror. He’d been going to do something. What was it? Ah, yes, now he remembered. He was going to sit down and detail a plan—a payback plan aimed at the men who’d ruined his life. He was finally going to teach Colt Evans and Ryder Magee a lesson that had been a long time coming, a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget.

He still had some explosives left over from when his construction company folded. He was supposed to have seen them all disposed of at the time but, with one thing and another, hadn’t gotten around to it. Maybe he’d known he’d have another use for them. Maybe it was fate that he’d held on to them.

He liked the way explosives made his point for him. His thoughts wandered back to the newscast. Yes, he’d have to watch it again at eleven. He’d liked seeing the chaos he had created. He liked knowing his enemies would be running around, trying to figure out what was happening, trying to figure out who was gunning for them.

All those explosives and all the years he’d spent studying construction and how to build things up were going to pay off now, as he tore everything
Dos Hombres
stood for, down.

All he had to do was decide on the best place to strike next.

* * * *

Colt headed down the hall to the ICU. Mike could only have two visitors at a time while he was in the unit. Given the choice of having the nurse send Nancy out of his room or just one of them popping in, Colt and Ryder decided they’d take turns.

Last night, when they’d peeked in at him, the man had looked like death warmed-over. Seeing him like that had scared them both. The news that Murph had regained consciousness, even if he was still in the ICU, had bolstered them both.

Colt nodded to the charge nurse and then walked to room four. Bracing himself for what he might see, he stepped through the door.

Mike was lying, leg up in a sling, his head turned away from the door as he listened to something Nancy Miller was saying. Something about the way the woman looked at Murph shocked Colt. It would seem the lady had a soft spot for the old man.

“Well, I expected to see a man who’s seriously injured. You wallowing in that bed, there, Mr. Murphy?”

“If I was gonna wallow, I’d pick a damn sight more comfortable bed, you can be sure of that, boy.”

Colt grinned, for the words were an echo of the past, of the years after two fourteen-year-old street kids had been moved into Murphy’s two bedroom house on the edge of El Paso. For the first time in many long years, he and Ryder had a roof over their heads, clean beds to sleep in, and regular meals to fill their bellies.

In return, Murphy had demanded that they toe the line, making them do things like keeping their room tidy, even going to school, for pity’s sake. In a heartbeat of time, a dozen pictures of Murphy over the years flashed through Colt’s mind. He had said more than once that meeting up with Ryder when they’d been eleven had saved his life. Meeting up with Murphy when they’d been fourteen had
changed
his life. And maybe he’d even saved it, too, because he and Ry had started running down the wrong path when they’d run into Murphy.

He focused back on the man in the bed, looking better this morning than yesterday, but still seeming impossibly old.

“I hear they’re going to spring you from ICU later today,” Colt forced a cheerful tone, “give you your own private room with a view. We’ll see what we can do about making that bed more comfy for you then.”

“Don’t need no coddling. Just need to go home. Like my own bed just fine.” Mike’s expression looked as belligerent as he knew his had looked in the past.
What a strange feeling, that after all these years we might be reversing roles.

“You listen up, Michael Murphy. You’ll be staying in this hospital for however long the doctors say, and that’s that.” Nancy Miller even wagged her finger as she said that.

Colt raised both eyebrows at Nancy’s stringent tone. Murph’s face split into a grin. Then he turned to look at Colt.

“She’s a feisty little thing, isn’t she? Do you know she wouldn’t let those investigators in to talk with me earlier? She told them they could damn well wait until I’d been moved out of ICU, and those were her exact words. Should have seen the look on their faces, Colt. Reminded me of when my Momma would put her foot down, right on top of my Dad’s.”

“Ooh, I am not your mother, Michael Murphy, neither am I about to sit around here being talked about as if I was a piece of furniture! I’m going to get some fresh air. There is way too much testosterone in this room for me right now!”

Of course, as far as Colt was concerned, Nancy then ruined a perfectly good exit line by taking a moment to brush an unruly lock of hair off Murph’s face.

Murphy stared at the door where she had exited for a long moment. “Hell of a woman. Never realized—” Murph stopped talking as an expression of embarrassment came over him.

“Sometimes, you just need the right moment to find what’s right there in front of you.” The idea that there might be a romance brewing between the almost sixty-year-old Murphy and their executive assistant, a forty-year-old widow, thoroughly tickled Colt.

Just thinking of what he and Ryder had found with Susan, he really hoped things went that way for Murph and Nancy. They each deserved to be happy in life.

To save Murph’s growing blush, Colt decided to change the subject and tackle what had been on his mind since the day before when he’d first heard about the explosion.