Date with a Cowboy: Iron Cowboy / In the Arms of the Rancher / At the Texan's Pleasure

Harley didn’t look much better than Sara did. His lips were compressed and he was carrying his wide-brimmed Western straw hat.

“How’re you doing?” he asked.

She sighed. “I’m feeling much better,” she said.

“You don’t look it. Why don’t I phone Lisa and see if you can stay with her and Cy until you’re back on your feet?” he suggested.

“I really don’t need looking after,” she replied. She felt uneasy. “Harley, do you think you could drive me to my house?” she added in a low voice.

He scowled. “You’re not well enough to look after yourself, Sara. You won’t even be able to lift a gallon of milk until that incision heals.”

“I don’t drink milk and I want to go home.” She pulled herself off the bed, grimacing because it hurt. Jared had her pain capsules, but she’d be damned if she was going to ask him for them. It was clear that he didn’t want her here.

She moved to the foot of the bed. She’d forgotten that Jared had carried her down the hall. Walking it was going to be an ordeal, and she didn’t dare ask Harley to carry her, although she knew he would if she asked.

Harley’s arm shot out and caught her as she began to weave. “Here, you’re not able to do this, Sara,” he said firmly.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Jared walked right around Harley, picked Sara up and put her back in the bed. “Stay there,” he said shortly.

She flushed again. “I will not! I just asked Harley to drive me home.”

Jared felt his height decrease. “You’re not able to stay by yourself yet.”

“I am so,” she retorted.

Jared glared at Harley as if the whole thing was his fault.

“You’ll take her out of this house over my dead body,” Jared told the younger man. He said it very softly, but it was a threat. Harley had seen eyes like that over the barrel of a gun. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

“I’m in the way here,” Sara interrupted, sitting up. She winced and held her incision with her fingertips. “I’ve got frozen TV dinners and I need to get back and take care of Morris, anyway!”

“I fed the cat today,” Tony the Dancer said from the doorway. He was wearing a huge white apron and holding a slotted spoon. He frowned. “Something wrong here?” he queried when he tallied up the taut faces.

“She’s trying to escape,” Jared muttered.

“Hey, don’t you listen to him,” Tony said firmly, pointing the spoon at Jared. “It was only the one time I dropped baking soda in the sauce by accident. This sauce is perfect. You don’t need to run away on account of my cooking.”

“You cook?” Harley exclaimed, looking at the tall, muscular man with the olive complexion and wavy black hair in a ponytail. He looked as dangerous as Jared Cameron. And Harley had reason to know what dangerous men looked like.

Tony glared at him. “Yeah. I cook. What’s it to you?”

Harley actually moved back a step. “Nothing at all!”

“Lots of men cook,” Tony said belligerently. He glanced back at Sara and frowned. She was near tears and she wouldn’t look at Jared. Tony’s threatening expression melted into concern. He moved to the side of the bed. “I made you a nice apple strudel for dessert,” he coaxed, “with freshly whipped cream.”

She bit her lower lip. “You’re so nice, Tony,” she said, trying to sound normal even as her lower lip quivered.

“Here, hold this.” Tony put the spoon in Jared’s hand and sat down beside Sara, tugging her gently against him so that he wouldn’t hurt her. A hand the size of a ham rested against her back, covering almost half of it comfortingly as he drew her head to his broad shoulder. “Now, now, it’s all right,” he said softly.

She bawled. Jared and Harley glared daggers at the big man, but neither of them said a word.

Harley shifted on his feet. “Sara, I’ve got to get back home. You call me if you need anything, okay?” he added with a speaking glance at Jared.

“I will,” Sara said in a thin, sad voice. “Thanks.”

“No problem. See you.”

He hated leaving her, but the whole situation was getting out of hand. That big fellow who cooked wasn’t going to let Jared Cameron hurt Sara in any way. Harley knew she’d be safe, or he wouldn’t have budged.

Jared walked out of the room behind him, totally disgusted, still carrying the spoon.

Six

Tony tugged a tissue from the box on the bedside table and dabbed it against Sara’s wet eyes.

“Now you stop that,” he said, smiling gently. “The boss has a nasty temper and he doesn’t always choose his words before he opens his mouth. But he never would have asked you to come here if he hadn’t wanted to.”

She looked up at him from swollen red eyes. “He was awful to Harley.”

Tony grimaced. “There’s stuff going on that you don’t know about,” he said after a minute. “I can’t tell you what it is. But it doesn’t help his temper.”

She blew her nose. “I’m sorry.”

“What for? Everybody cries,” he replied. “I bawled like a kid when my sister died.”

Her green eyes met his black ones. “Was it very long ago?”

“Ten years,” he said. “Our mother was still alive then. We lost our dad when we were just little kids.”

“I lost my grandad a little while ago,” she replied. “I still miss him. He taught history at our local college.”

“I like history,” he said. He would have liked to tell her that he’d minored in it during his college years, but it wasn’t the time for heart-to-heart talks. The boss was already gunning for him because he’d opened the door and let Harley inside.

“How long have you worked for Jared?” she asked.

“Seems like forever, sometimes,” he chuckled. “On and off, for about six years, I suppose,” he said.

“You know, he really doesn’t look like the sort of man who’d need a bodyguard,” she ventured.

“He doesn’t, does he?” he agreed. “You feel better now?”

She smiled at him with her eyes still red and swollen. “I’m better. Thanks, Tony.”

He stood up, and he was smiling now, too. “You’re a lot like her. My sister, I mean. She had a big heart. She loved people. She was always giving.” His dark eyes grew haunted, especially when he looked at Sara. “Don’t you let him push you into anything,” he said out of the blue.

She was shocked, and showed it. “What do you mean?”

His black eyes narrowed. “You know what I mean. He’s been around the world. You’re just a sprout.”

“Yes, but I can take care of myself,” she assured him. “Nobody will make me do something I don’t want to do.”

“That’s just what my sister said,” he told her, and he looked down at his apron. “I’d better get back in there and rescue my sauce. You need anything?”

She shook her head. “But, thanks.”

He grinned. “Goes with the job.”

If she could have walked, she’d have gone home. She was hurt by Jared’s sarcasm and she felt unwelcome. It was going to be an ordeal to get through the next couple of days. She wished she’d never become friendly with him. One thing was for sure. If she ever got sick or hurt again, she wouldn’t turn to him for help.

He walked in a short time later with a plate of spaghetti and homemade garlic bread. He pulled a rolling table to the bed and put the meal, plus a tall glass of milk, on it.

She was rigid with wounded pride. “Thank you,” she said stiffly, and in a subdued tone that betrayed, even more than her posture, how hurt she was.

He stood still, his hands in his pockets, and stared at her. “He’s a good cook,” he said, just to break the silence.

She put the napkin on her lap and sat sideways on the bed so that she could eat comfortably. It put him at an angle so that she didn’t have to look right at him.

“All right, I was out of line,” he muttered. “But it’s courteous to ask me before you invite people here to see you.”

“I didn’t invite Harley to come,” she said, eating spaghetti in tiny little bites.

He frowned. “You didn’t?”

She ate another bite of Tony’s delicious concoction, and never tasted a thing.

“People who live in small towns think of everyone as family. It would never occur to Harley that he wasn’t welcome to visit a sick friend, no matter who she was staying with.”

His eyes kindled. “It’s still good manners to ask first.”

“Yes,” she had to agree. “It is. I’m sure he wishes he had. I know I do.”

That was right on target. He felt smaller than ever. She could have died. He’d agreed to take her home and nurse her, and now he was laying down rules and regulations as fast as he could. He didn’t like Harley Fowler in his home, in Sara’s temporary bedroom. It made him angry. He couldn’t tell her that, of course.

He noticed suddenly that she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn to the hospital before her surgery.

“Don’t you have a gown, or pajamas?” he asked abruptly.

“There really wasn’t time to pack a bag when the ambulance got to my house,” she reminded him.

“Point taken.”

“If Tony could go by my house and get me some night things,” she began.

“No.” It came out belligerently. He shouldn’t have said that. But he didn’t like the idea of Tony, who already treated her like family, poking through her underthings.

“I’ll go,” he said. “Where’s your house key?”

“It’s in the zippered compartment in my purse.” She indicated it, hanging over the closet doorknob. “Can you make sure Morris has enough water while you’re there?” she added, hating even to have to ask. “Tony fed him already, he said, but Morris drinks a lot of water.”

He retrieved the key. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Thanks,” she said without meeting his eyes.

He gave her one last look and left her. He’d made a stupid mistake. He hoped he’d have time to make it up to her.

Tony was just clearing away supper when Jared stopped in the kitchen doorway. “I’m going over to Sara’s house to get her a few things to wear.”

Tony’s eyebrows arched. “You know where she lives?”

He cursed mentally. Of course he didn’t know where she lived; he’d never been to her house.

“And you can’t go alone,” the big man added solemnly. “They’d love to catch you out alone at night. They have all the equipment we’ve got, and more.” He took off the apron and tossed it aside. “I’m going with you.”

“That will leave Sara here alone,” Jared argued.

Tony pointed a device down the hall and locks slid into place audibly. “She wouldn’t be any safer in Fort Knox with the alarm systems activated,” Tony told his boss. “Besides, I’ve got Clayton out there with night vision and a Glock.”

He relaxed a little. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Tony paused by the closet on the way out and retrieved his .45 in its shoulder holster. He took just seconds to get it in place before he opened the front door and shepherded his boss out to the truck parked in the circular driveway.

Before they got into it, Tony waved his hand and a tall, shadowy figure approached the car, going over it with electronic devices.

“All clear,” the newcomer said.

“Nobody gets in or out while we’re gone,” Tony told him.

“Yes, sir.”

Tony climbed in behind the wheel, letting Jared ride shotgun. The shadowy figure moved back into the darkness beside the house and settled in.

While Jared was gone, the phone started ringing off the hook. Sara waited for Tony to answer it, but he didn’t. There didn’t seem to be an answering machine, either. She didn’t know what to do. The stupid instrument wouldn’t stop. Finally, in desperation, she picked up the receiver by her bed.

“Cameron residence,” she said, trying to sound like a secretary.

“Where’s Jared?” came a biting reply.

Sara didn’t have to ask who it was. That strident tone was unforgettable. “I don’t know,” she said. “Sorry,” she added quickly.

There was a pause. “It’s the little house guest, isn’t it?” the horrible woman purred. “Well, don’t get too comfortable. Jared wouldn’t give you the time of day if you hadn’t appealed to his senses, but it won’t last. He has women like some men have cars, and he doesn’t want anything permanent. He’ll dump you the first time you sleep with him.”

“I do not sleep with men!” Sara retorted harshly.

“You don’t?” She laughed. “That’s what his last lover said, too. She gave in just like all the rest. And he dumped her just as fast.”

“What do you want?” Sara asked, trying to be polite when she felt like screaming at the woman.

“What we all want, dear,” the other woman laughed. “To have Jared for keeps. But that won’t happen. If he wasn’t so financially secure, he might be less attractive,” she added.

“I know very little about Mr. Cameron,” Sara said stiffly. “And I don’t think you should talk about him that way. You’re supposed to be his lawyer.”

“His lawyer, his lover, it’s all the same,” came the bored reply. “Tell him I called.”

She hung up.

Sara felt sick at her stomach. Surely the horrible woman wasn’t right? Jared didn’t seem like a heartless seducer. But what did she really know about him? Next to nothing. Could he be a ladykiller? Sara felt insecure. She was still very young. She hadn’t dated very much and she’d never had to extricate herself from a dangerously intimate situation. She knew instinctively that Jared was experienced. She’d given in to his hard kisses at once. What if he really put on the pressure? Could she save herself in time?

The thought worried her.

She was still gnawing on it when Jared opened the door and came into her bedroom with a large laundry hamper.

Her eyebrows arched. “You brought my dirty clothes back with you?” she exclaimed, aghast.

He glowered at her. “Tony’s got your clothes. I brought your cat.”

Her heart skipped. He had to be kidding! She sat up on the side of the bed and looked down into the basket. There was old Morris, curled up asleep and purring for all he was worth, on one of her old hand-crocheted afghans.

She looked up at Jared curiously.

“He didn’t touch his supper last night. He wouldn’t eat today, either. Tony thinks he’s worried about you. So we brought him home with us.” Gently he lifted the battle-scarred old marmalade tomcat out of the basket and placed him on the bed with Sara.

Morris opened one green eye, butted his head against Sara affectionately, and went right back to sleep.

“Tony’s bringing the litter box. We can put it in your bathroom,” Jared said disgustedly.

She cuddled Morris while he was in the mood. “He didn’t try to bite you …? Oh!”

He displayed a hand liberally covered with colorful plastic bandages.

“I’m really sorry,” she began.

“I had an old hunting dog I was fond of,” he said gruffly. “He died last month at the age of fourteen years.” He shrugged. “They’re like family.”

She managed a tiny smile. “Yes.”

He heard Tony coming down the hall. “I hope we got the right things.”

Tony came in grinning and put down a suitcase on the chest at the foot of Sara’s bed. “Here’s your stuff. I’ll bring the litter box when I come back. He’s nice, your cat.”

“Well, of course you’d think he was nice,” Jared muttered. “He didn’t sink his fangs into you!”

“He’s got good taste,” Tony defended himself.

“Good taste the devil, he knows that you’ve eaten cats!” Jared shot back. “He was probably afraid you’d serve him up for lunch if he bit you!”

Tony, noting Sara’s expression, scowled. “It was only one cat,” he pointed out. “And we were all starving. It was a very old and very tough cat. Nobody liked it,” he added, trying to hit the right note.

Sara was all eyes. “Where were you?” she asked, aghast.

“Somewhere in Malaysia,” Tony said easily. “Mostly we ate snakes, but sometimes you got no choice, especially when the snakes can outrun you.” He noted Sara’s expression and stopped while he was ahead. “I’ll just go get that litter box.”

“You’d never be able to eat a snake he cooked,” Jared muttered when Tony was in the hall. “He can’t make anything if it doesn’t go well with tomato sauce.”

“I heard that!” Tony called back. “And snakes go great with tomato sauce!”

Sara smiled despite the rough time Jared had given her. He and Tony were a great act together. But she sensed undercurrents. And she thought both men were wearing masks, figuratively speaking. She wondered what they hid.

She finished her dinner and Jared still hadn’t said another word.

“This was very nice,” she said when she finished her last sip of milk and was pushing the rolling cart away from the bed. “Thanks.” She eased back onto the bed, grimacing as the stitches pulled, and drew old Morris close to her. “He doesn’t move much these days,” she said as she stroked the purring old tomcat. “I’ve never been sure how old he is. I don’t think I want to know.” She looked up at Jared. “I would have told you that he doesn’t like being picked up, if I’d known you planned to bring him over here.”

“Well, the minute Tony picked him up he started purring.”

She hid a smile. “I’ll bet animals follow Tony around.”

He thought of a few women he and Tony had come across in their travels. “It isn’t just animals,” he said thoughtfully.

She stroked Morris again. “Your lawyer called.”

He hesitated. “Max?”

She nodded.

“What did she want?”

She was weighing honesty against peace on earth. Peace on earth won. “She just wanted to tell you something. She said she’d call back.”

He frowned. “Was that all she said?” he asked with visible suspicion. “No comments about your presence here?”

The blush gave her away.

“I thought so,” he said. “She’s good at what she does, but she bores easily and she likes new experiences. She can’t resist setting her cap at every presentable male client who comes along. She’s already gone through three husbands and several lovers.”

Including you? she wondered, but she didn’t dare say it out loud.

He watched her stroking the cat and it reminded him, for some reason, of his grandmother. “My father’s mother loved cats,” he recalled. “She had six at one time. Then they began to get old and pass on. The last one she had was a yellow tabby, sort of like Morris. When she died, he stopped eating. We tried everything. Nothing worked. He settled down in the sun without moving and died three days later.”

“And they say animals don’t feel emotion,” she murmured absently.

“Everything feels. Even plants.”

She looked up, grinning. “Did you see that show where they put plants in little greenhouses …”

“… They yelled and praised one group, ignored another group and played classical and rock music to two other groups,” he continued, his green eyes twinkling.

“And the plants that grew biggest were the ones bombarded with hard rock.”

He chuckled. “If I thought that would work on hay, I’d have loudspeakers set up in the fields.” He shook his head. ‘First we had drought for a year in Oklahoma, now we’re having floods. The weather is no friend to the rancher this year, either.”

“Our dry fields could sure use some of your floods,” she agreed.

The conversation ended. He was tired and half out of humor. She was getting over surgery.

“You need your rest,” he said.

“Thanks,” she called after him. “For bringing Morris.”

“What’s a little blood between friends?” he mused, holding up his scratched hand. “Sleep well.”

“You, too.”

But she didn’t sleep well. She had violent dreams, just as she had as a child. There was something about this house, this atmosphere, that reminded her of all she’d lost. Guns shooting. Men yelling. Fires burning. The plane almost crashing. And then her mother’s fury at Grandad, her accusations, her sudden bizarre behavior. The anger and rage in her mother never abated. Sara was left with nobody except Grandad to look after her. Her mother had destroyed herself, in the end. It had started out as a grand adventure with a noble purpose. It ended in bloodshed and death.

Sara pulled Morris closer to her in the big bed, wiping angrily at the tears. She hated going to sleep. She wondered if there would ever be a night when she’d sleep until morning and there would be no more bad dreams.

She touched her head where the faint indentation marked the most tragic part of her young life. It was under her thick blond hair, and it didn’t show. But Sara felt it there. It was a constant reminder of how brief life was, and how dangerous. She thought about it when she looked at Tony Danzetta, but she couldn’t understand why.

Finally, just before dawn she drifted off again. When she woke, late in the morning, it was to the realization that she was still wearing her jeans and the blouse. She’d been too preoccupied even to change into a nightgown.

She stayed with Jared for two more days. He seemed to be avoiding her. He didn’t have breakfast, lunch or dinner at the table. He was always in his study or out with the cowboys on the ranch. Tony assured her that it was his normal routine, but something in the way Tony said it made her uneasy.

The fourth day after her surgery, she packed up Morris and her suitcase and asked Jared to let Tony take her home. She wasn’t completely over the surgery, but she was getting around very well. There was some residual soreness, but she was already feeling better.

Jared didn’t hesitate when she asked to go. It wounded her that he could let her walk away without a qualm. But, then, he was a financially secure man, from all appearances, and she was a poor woman. They’d agreed only to be each other’s support in times of need, not to make the care permanent.

Sara and Morris settled back into their routine, and she went back to work.

“At least you look a little better,” Dee commented, noting the dark circles under Sara’s eyes. “I’ll bet you didn’t sleep a lot at Mr. Cameron’s place.”

“It was sort of awkward,” she admitted. “But I saw a lot more of Tony than I did of Mr. Cameron,” she added.

“Tony?”

“The big guy.”

“Oh,” Dee recalled. “The hit man.”

Sara chuckled. “He improves on closer acquaintance,” she told her boss. “And Morris let Tony pick him up. He bit Mr. Cameron. Several times.” It felt good, remembering that.

“I suppose Morris is a pretty good judge of character, then,” Dee said with a grin.

“Now, now,” Sara chided. “Mr. Cameron took good care of me while I was getting back on my feet.”

Dee grimaced. “I could have taken you home with me,” she began guiltily.

“Dee, you have four kids and your mother lives with you and your husband,” Sara replied gently. “You couldn’t possibly take care of one more person. But thank you for offering. I’m just grateful that I still have a job.”

“As if I’d fire you for being sick,” the older woman scoffed. “Now don’t you do any heavy lifting. I’ll do that. You just sit there at the counter and ring up purchases.”

“I can do that, at least,” Sara replied cheerfully.

It was just before closing time when Harley Fowler turned up. Dee had gone to the bank with the day’s receipts while Sara waited for her to come back and lock up.

“Hi, Harley,” Sara greeted.

He smiled. “You look lots better,” he said. He grimaced. “I know I got you in trouble with Cameron by just walking in to see you. I’m really sorry.”

She was stunned. “How did you find out about that?”

“Mrs. Lewis is kin to one of our cowboys. She heard Tony talking about it. I never thought Mr. Cameron would mind. I guess I should have asked first.”

“He’s an outsider, Harley,” she said gently. “He doesn’t know how people behave in small towns. Nobody else would have had a problem.”

“I sort of wondered …” he began, and then stopped.

“Wondered?” she prompted.

“If Mr. Cameron might be jealous,” he said.

She laughed. “Oh, that would be the day,” she chuckled. “A big time rancher jealous of a piddly little clerk in a bookstore. He’s got this gorgeous attorney, named Max,” she added, trying to sound lighthearted. “She’s educated and beautiful and crazy about him.”