Wyoming Bold (Mills & Boon M&B) (8 page)

Tank made a face. “I’m getting in over my head,” he said.

Mallory smiled. “Happens to all of us. And then you get a baby and you go all crazy and buy closets full of baby clothes and furniture and big plastic toys...!”

“Oh, stop it, I’m not even married yet.” Tank chuckled.

“She thinks you’re hot,” Cane remarked as he entered the room. “Mavie says Merissa looks at you like she could eat you with a spoon.”

Tank actually flushed. “She did? She does?”

They laughed.

“It’s nice to see you with somebody we approve of,” Mallory commented.

“People call her a witch,” Tank reminded him.

“She’s uniquely talented,” he replied. “There are some unusual people in the world. We got lucky and found one in our neighbor. Well, two of them, Merissa and her mother,” Mallory added. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “we might have lost Darby if Merissa hadn’t had that premonition.”

Tank nodded. “That was pretty shocking. Until then, I never really believed in any of that psychic stuff.”

“Neither did I, honestly,” Mallory said. “But she knew about your attacker, too. You might be dead as well if she hadn’t interfered.” He shook his head. “She’s quite a woman.”

“Not bad-looking, either,” Cane added, laughing. He held up both hands when Tank glared at him. “Hey, I’m happily married and about to become a father.”

Tank laughed. “Sorry.”

There had been a bit of a rivalry between Cane and Tank over Bolinda, Cane’s wife, before they were married. It had been a rocky relationship, and at one time Tank had even flirted with her. But once he knew how Cane felt, he backed off.

“I like her,” Cane added, smiling gently.

“When you get back, Morie wants to have her over for dinner one night, after Christmas,” Mallory said. “It would be nice for the wives to meet her.”

“I agree,” Tank said. He sighed. “Well, I’d better get packed. I hate leaving. And Merissa was nervous about my flying. I usually enjoy it, but now it makes me concerned.”

“Driving takes longer,” Cane pointed out.

“So it does.”

“He just doesn’t like being out of control,” Cane told Mallory. “He’d fly the plane if they’d let him.”

“I can drive a tank,” Tank protested. “If I can do that, I’d be able to pilot a plane. I’d just need a few lessons.” He grinned.

They shook their heads and walked off.

* * *

H
E
 
WONDERED
 
WHO
 
Rourke had watching him at the airport. He waited on the concourse gate to board. The man would probably be on the plane with him. But most of the passengers seemed to be families. There were a couple of businessmen in fancy suits. One of them was carrying a laptop in a case.

He drew Tank’s eyes. That man was tall, streamlined but muscular. He walked with a peculiar gait. Funny, to notice the way a man moved, but Tank had worked with a special forces group in Iraq that was assigned to a mission near his unit’s command post. He’d seen that walk before. It was common among men who hunted men. It was hard to put into words, but he recognized it when he saw it.

The man carried himself perfectly erect, no slumping there. He had jet-black hair that he wore in a ponytail down his back. It was as black as a raven’s wing. He wasn’t bad-looking. Women seemed to find him interesting. He smiled at one, a sophisticated woman by the look of her, and she seemed absolutely mesmerized by him.

He noticed Tank’s covert scrutiny and glanced at him from black eyes under heavy dark eyebrows. He had a lean face, deep-set eyes and a chiseled mouth. He looked dangerous. Odd, for a businessman.

Tank lifted his eyebrows, refusing to be intimidated. The man pursed his lips and actually grinned before he turned his attention back to the woman who was approaching him with a big smile.

Even in his best bachelor days, Tank had never been able to attract women like that. Well, some men just had the gift.

He thought about Merissa and smiled to himself. He wasn’t going to be interested in attracting women again, he decided. He had his own. His own. That made him feel warm inside, safe, protected. It had happened so suddenly that he hadn’t had time to think about the impact it was going to make on his life.

Merissa was innocent, a person of faith with high ideals. She wasn’t a woman for casual relationships. But he liked that. He wasn’t a rounder. He was feeling his age, although he was only thirty-two. He was growing used to the idea of having Merissa around. Maybe a child. A little boy who’d look like him, or a little girl who’d look like her. He recalled the very hot and heavy intimacy they’d shared on her bed, and how he’d almost died from the agony of having to walk away from her. Yes, they were going to be explosive together in bed. And he liked her. That was an important part of marriage.

Marriage! There. He’d actually said the word in his mind, the word he’d avoided for years. But it didn’t seem to hold the quiet terror it once had. Settling down seemed as natural as kissing Merissa’s soft mouth. He actually looked forward to it.

He wished he could have taken her to Texas with him. But she had her work, and she’d told him she was behind. There would be plenty of time for trips later on.

They were boarding business class now. He went onto the gangway, smiling at the flight attendant who was waiting down the ramp at the door of the plane. She checked his ticket and indicated his seat assignment.

He hadn’t planned to go business class, but his brothers had insisted. He didn’t fly anywhere enough to make it exorbitant this once. In the spring he’d be on planes a lot, going to seminars, visiting other ranches, visiting congressmen to lobby for better laws for the cattle industry. He’d be working on brochures for their own spring sales and planning the big twice-a-year cattle sale on the ranch. He was going to be busy. So this trip would be something like a working vacation for him. He’d talk to the sheriff, but he also had plans to visit a ranch in Jacobsville to check out some Santa Gertrudis cattle to add to the brothers’ breeding stock. They had a very small seed herd of the native Texas strain. He wanted to pursue it. A good bull wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. New blood every two years kept their breeding herds viable.

As he took his seat, he noted that the ponytailed businessman took a seat across from him. The flight attendant made a beeline for him and offered him anything he wanted. She was also grinning from ear to ear, like the woman who’d flirted with him in the airport.

Tank just shook his head. The man had a real gift.

* * *

I
T
 
WASN
’
T
 
A
 
long flight. At least, it didn’t seem long to Dalton. He read a couple of magazine articles, dozed for an hour or so and listened to the flight attendant telling the businessman across from Dalton about her whole life. He smiled to himself. The guy really had something. The flight attendant was very pretty.

When they landed, Dalton hefted his carry-on from the overhead compartment and got in line to baby-step out the door. No matter how organized the crew was, it was still a free-for-all trying to get off a plane.

As he approached the exit, he noted the flight attendant slipping a piece of paper to the businessman. He chuckled to himself.

* * *

A
DRIVER
 
WAS
 
waiting for him at the entrance to the concourse, holding up a sign with “Dalton Kirk” on it.

He raised an eyebrow. His brothers, no doubt. He wondered why they thought he needed a limo to get to his hotel. San Antonio wasn’t that large a city, but apparently it was large enough to house a limousine service or two.

But as he started toward the man holding up the sign, the businessman suddenly bumped against him.

“Sorry,” he said loudly. But under his breath, he said, “Don’t go near the guy with the sign, it’s a trap.”

“My fault,” Tank replied.

He kept walking, not even looking toward the man with the sign. Once they were outside the airport, the businessman drew him to one side.

“Rourke sent me,” he told Tank. His face was very somber. “He didn’t say anything about a driver waiting for you here.”

“I thought my brothers did it for a surprise,” Tank replied, looking around.

“If they’d done that, I’d know about it,” the other man replied. “I left my car in overnight parking. I’ll drive you down to Jacobsville. Boss is expecting you. You’re going to stay with him.”

“Boss?”

“Cy Parks,” the man replied. “He owns one of the biggest...”

“...Santa Gertrudis cattle ranches in south Texas,” Tank finished for him. “In fact, he was on my list of people to see. I want to talk to him about a new bull.” He hesitated. “But I promised to check in with the local FBI office...”

“Later,” the man replied, looking around them with narrowed eyes. “If they sent someone to the plane, they’ll be watching. Let’s go.”

For the first time, Tank noticed a bulge under the man’s jacket.

“You packing?” he asked as they moved quickly toward the parking lots.

“Yes.” He didn’t say anything else.

* * *

J
ACOBSVILLE
 
WAS
 
JUST
 
a few minutes drive down the road, through some beautiful country. “It must be really pretty here in the spring,” Tank remarked as he looked across the flat horizon with small groves of trees and the “grasshoppers,” or oil pumpers, dotting the landscape.

“One landscape’s pretty much like another,” his companion replied. He glanced at Tank. “You should have questioned who I was, you know,” he said. “If that rogue agent is on the job, he’ll know Rourke is working for you and that he said he’d have somebody at the airport.”

Tank was very still. His eyes narrowed as he looked hard at the man driving the car.

There was a patient sigh. “I am the real deal,” he replied. “I’m just saying that you shouldn’t have assumed I was.”

Tank chuckled. “Okay. Point taken.”

He turned off the main road down a long ranch road between two white-fenced pastures with two levels of electrified wire in between. There were sleek, red-coated cattle eating at several points where hay had been provided.

“Nice cattle,” Tank remarked.

“Boss only stocks the best” was the reply. “We had to put out surveillance cameras here as well because somebody walked off with one of his prize bulls in the middle of the night.”

“Did they catch the perp?”

The tall man pursed his lips and glanced at Tank. “I caught him.”

“With the bull?”

“Fortunately. Rustling still carries a heavy penalty here in Texas, and we had proof. He’ll be serving time for the indefinite future.”

“You’re a tracker,” Tank murmured with narrowed eyes, and nodded when the other man glanced at him with surprise briefly visible. “I served in Iraq,” he explained. “There was a spec ops team assigned to my unit. Funny, the things you remember in a combat zone, but I remember how one of those guys walked. It’s a gait you don’t see in many people.”

“Cash Grier, the local police chief, has it, as well,” the man agreed.

“Grier.” He frowned. “Wasn’t he a government assassin?”

“Yes, he was,” the man replied. His black eyes were full of secrets as they met Tank’s.

Tank cocked his head. “Am I seeing a similarity about which I shouldn’t speak?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

He pulled up at the steps of the ranch house. It was sprawling and had paved flagstones leading to the front porch. There were mesquite trees around the compound, a huge barn out back, fenced pasture and a garage. There were stables out near the barn.

The tall man got out of the car. Tank followed him to the front porch, where a man with silvering black hair and green eyes was waiting.

“Cy Parks,” he introduced himself, holding out a hand.

“Tank Kirk.” They shook hands.

“Tank?” Parks asked, amused.

Tank shrugged. “I killed one in Iraq. The name stuck.”

“Come on in. Lisa made a cake and coffee. We can talk before the kids get back from a friend’s Christmas party,” he added with muffled laughter. “Once they’re home, it gets harder to have a conversation.”

“I’ve got a new nephew back home.” Tank laughed. “We’re up to the eaves in big plastic baby toys.”

“We’ve moved on to the next level of those,” Parks said, indicating scattered games and spinning toys and little pedal cars. “Good thing it’s a big house.”

“You’re telling me!” Lisa Parks laughed. She came out to greet them. She had green eyes, like her husband, but blond hair and she wore glasses. She was a pretty woman, still slender after two children. “Come in and have coffee and cake.” She glanced at the tall man. “I know. You hate cake, you don’t drink coffee...you’d rather be dragged behind a mule than sit around talking to people all day.”

The man gave her an enigmatic look.

“How about checking out that truck we noticed earlier?” Parks asked the man. “Take one of the boys with you. Just in case.”

The man glowered at him. “I invented stealth.”

“I know that. Humor me.”

The other man sighed. “You’re the boss.”

“Oh, and Grier called,” Parks added darkly. “It seems you’ve upset his secretary. Again.”

“Not my fault,” the man said with the first strong emotion he’d shown since Tank had met him. His eyes flashed. “She starts it and then runs to her boss to tattle when she can’t take the heat.”

“This is not my problem,” Parks replied. “Take it up with Grier.”

“Tell him—” he indicated Tank “—not to be so trusting. He never even asked me for ID.”

“What good would that do?” Parks muttered. “You never carry any. Which reminds me, I also had a call from a sheriff’s deputy who stopped you for speeding yesterday...”

“Tell you about it later,” the tall man said. “I’ll check on the truck.” He held up a hand when Parks started to speak. “I’ll take one of the boys with me,” he said with irritation.