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“Tony the Dancer drove over to your house and fed him on his way here,” he said carelessly. “He’ll look after your cat until you’re able to go home.”
She was too groggy to wonder how Tony had gotten inside her house. The EMTs had locked it. She moved and grimaced. “I didn’t realize that an appendix could kill you.”
“It can if it perforates. Those stomach pains you were having were probably a symptom of chronic appendicitis,” he said.
“I guess so. I never thought it might be dangerous. How long have you been here?”
“Since they took you in to surgery,” he said surprisingly. “Tony and I went out to supper until you were in recovery, then we sat in the waiting room until they put you in a room.”
Her eyelids felt heavy. “It was nice of you to come.”
“We’re each other’s family, remember?” he asked, and he didn’t smile. “I take responsibilities seriously.”
“Thanks,” she said weakly.
“Not necessary. Try to go back to sleep. The more rest you get, the faster you’ll heal.”
She stared at him a little drowsily. “Will you be here, when I wake up?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
She tried to smile, but she wasn’t able to get her lips to move. She fell back into the comfortable softness of sleep.
It hurt to move. She tried to turn over, and it felt as if her stomach was going to come apart. She groaned.
The big man who went around with the ogre came and stood over her. He had large dark eyes, and heavy black eyebrows. His dark, wavy hair was in a ponytail. He had an olive complexion. He was frowning.
“Do you need something for pain?” he asked in a voice like rumbling thunder.
Her eyes managed to focus. He looked foreign. But he had that Georgia drawl. Maybe he was of Italian heritage and raised in the South.
He grinned, showing perfect white teeth. “I’m not Italian. I’m Cherokee.”
She hadn’t realized that she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. The painkilling drugs seemed to be affecting her in odd ways. “You’re Mr. Danzetta,” she said. “I thought you were a hit man.”
He laughed out loud. “I prevent hits,” he replied. “I’m Tony. Nobody calls me Mr. Danzetta.” The frown was back. “It hurts, huh?”
“It does,” she managed weakly.
He touched the call button. A voice came over it. “May I help you?”
“This young lady could use something for pain,” he replied.
“I’ll be right there.”
Minutes later, a nurse came into the room, smiling. “Dr. Coltrain left orders so that you could have something for pain.”
“It feels like my body’s been cut in half,” Sara confessed.
“This will help you feel better,” she said, adding some thing to the drip that was feeding her fluids. “It will be automatic now.”
“Thanks,” Sara said, grimacing. “I sure never thought losing a tiny little thing like an appendix would hurt so much.”
“You were in bad shape when you came in,” she replied. She glanced at Tony the Dancer curiously. “Are you a relative?”
“Who, me? No. I work for Mr. Cameron.”
The nurse was confused. “Is he related to Miss Dobbs?”
Tony hesitated. “Sort of.”
“No, he’s not,” Sara murmured, smiling. “But Mr. Cameron doesn’t have any family left, and neither do I. So we said we’d take care of each other if one of us got sick.”
“The boss said that?” Tony asked, his dark eyebrows arching.
The nurse frowned. “How can you be deaf with ears like that?” she wondered.
Tony glared at her. “I am not deaf.”
“I should think not,” she agreed, paying deliberate attention to his large ears.
“Listen, I may have big ears, but you’ve got a big mouth,” he shot right back.
The pert little brunette gave him a gimlet stare. “The better to bite you with, my dear,” she drawled. “You’ve been warned.”
She wiggled her eyebrows at him before she turned back to Sara. “If you need me, just call. I’m on until midnight.”
“Thanks,” Sara told her.
She winked, gave the bodyguard a glance and waltzed out of the room.
Tony made a rough sound in his throat. “My ears are not big,” he muttered.
Sara wouldn’t have dared disagree.
He glowered. “People are supposed to be nice to you in hospitals.”
“Only when you’re sick,” Sara told him, smiling. “Thanks, Tony,” she said as the pain began to diminish, just a little.
“No problem.”
“Where’s Mr. Cameron?”
“He had a phone call to return,” he said, and looked worried.
“Do you go everywhere with him?”
“Well, not everywhere,” he replied. “He gets antsy if I follow him into the restroom.”
“I never knew anybody who had a bodyguard,” she told him. She moved drowsily. “In fact, I never knew a bodyguard.”
“First time for everything,” he said, and he smiled.
She smiled back. He’d looked frightening the first time she saw him, standing beside Jared’s truck outside the bookstore. But now he was starting to resemble a big teddy bear. She closed her eyes and went to sleep, but not before she heard a soft, deep chuckle. She’d said it aloud.
Jared walked in with a scowl, pausing to stare at Sara, who was fast asleep. “Did they give her something for pain?” he asked Tony.
The big man nodded. He wasn’t smiling now. He looked both intelligent and dangerous. “Is something going on?” Jared looked toward the door, paused to push it shut and put his cell phone away. “Max thinks they may have tracked me here.”
“That isn’t good,” Tony replied.
“We expected it,” Jared reminded him. “We’ll have to be extravigilant is all. I told the foreman to put a man with a rifle at the front gate and keep him there, even if he has to have catered meals.” He cursed under his breath. “I hate hiding out,” he said harshly. “If they’d let me do what I please, we could have handled this on our own, and more efficiently. They’re going to protect me to death!”
“Not here,” Tony said slowly. “You know they’re doing the best they can. Meanwhile, this is the best place to be.”
Jared let out a long breath. “It’s the waiting.”
Tony nodded. He glanced toward the bed. “What about her?” he asked. “She isn’t going to be in the line of fire, is she?”
The other man stuck his hands in his pockets and looked stern. “She hasn’t got anybody else.”
“Yes, but she has no idea what’s going on. She could become a target.”
Jared glared at him. “Then you’ll just have to call in a marker and get some backup, won’t you?”
Tony sighed. “I gave up a hot tub and HD TV to come down here.”
The glare got worse. “Don’t blame me. I was willing to come alone. Your boss decided I needed baby-sitting,” Jared said irritably.
“My boss was right,” Tony replied. He shrugged. “I guess I can live without the hot tub for a few weeks.”
Jared put a hand on his shoulder. “Sure you can. You need to reread Sun Tzu.”
“I can quote it verbatim,” Tony told him. “This isn’t my first job.”
Jared chuckled. “No. Of course it’s not.” He stared back at Sara. “We can’t let them hurt her.”
“We won’t,” Tony replied. “I promise.”
Jared relaxed a little. But just a little.
Sara woke up and it was dark again. She’d slept for a long time. She looked around curiously. She was alone, but there was a cowboy hat occupying the seat beside her bed. It looked familiar.
The door opened, and Harley Fowler walked in, carrying a foam cup of coffee. “You’re awake,” he exclaimed, smiling.
“Hi, Harley,” she replied, returning the smile. “Nice of you to come check up on me.”
“I had tonight free.”
“No date?” she asked with mock surprise as he moved his hat and sat down.
He chuckled. “Not tonight.”
“No exciting missions, either?” she teased, recalling that he’d helped some of the local mercs shut down a drug dealer two years before.
“Interesting that you should mention that,” he replied, his eyes twinkling. “We’ve had word that the drug cartel has reorganized again and been taken over by a new group. We don’t know who they are. But there’s some buzz that we may have trouble here before long.”
“That’s not encouraging,” she said.
“I know.” He sipped coffee. He looked somber. “Two DEA agents bought it on the border this week. Execution-style. Cobb’s fuming. My boss is calling in contacts for a confab.” His boss was Cy Parks, one of the small town’s retired professional soldiers.
Cobb was Alexander Cobb, a senior Houston DEA agent who lived in Jacobsville with his wife and sister.
“Does anybody know who the new people are?”
He shook his head. “We can’t find out anything. We think somebody’s gone undercover in the organization, but we can’t verify it. It’s unsettling to have drug dealers who’ll pop a cap on cops. They killed a reporter, too, and a member of the Border Patrol.”
She whistled softly. “They’re arrogant.”
He nodded. “Dangerous,” he said. “There’s something worse. They’re kidnapping rich Americans for ransom, to increase their cash flow reserves. They got an heiress last week. Her people are scrambling to meet the deadline, without knowing for sure if they’ll return her even so.”
She moved restlessly on the pillow. She was sore, but the pain was better. “Aren’t most kidnap victims killed in the first twenty-four hours?”
“I don’t know, honestly,” he said. “Cash Grier is working with the FBI, trying to get informants who might know something about the heiress.”
“Our police chief?” she asked
He grinned. “Like a lot of our local citizens, he’s not quite what he seems.”
“Oh.”
He stretched. “Mr. Parks had me working on our tractor all day. I’m stiff. I guess I’m getting old.”
She laughed. “No, you aren’t, Harley.”
He leaned forward with the cup in both hands. “I heard you had a close call,” he said.
“I didn’t know I had an appendix until yesterday,” she said wistfully. “They brought me in by ambulance.”
“What about Morris?”
“Mr. Danzetta fed him for me,” she said complacently.
“Cameron’s bodyguard?” He looked strange.
“What is it?” she asked curiously.
“One of our cowboys was driving past your house last night and saw lights on inside. He knew you were here, so he called the sheriff’s department.”
