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She closed her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping well. She kept seeing Jon’s pale face and bloodstained lips the night they’d taken him to the hospital. He could have died without ever knowing …
She bit down hard on that thought. He could never know. She’d made a hard decision and now she had to live with it. She closed her eyes and was suddenly asleep before she knew it.
“MA’AM?”
She heard the voice through a fog. She’d been riding an elephant and carrying a buffalo rifle, dressed in buckskins and a floppy hat yelling “Lay on, McDuff!” to someone in the distance.
She opened her eyes and blurted out the dream, laughing.
“Something you ate, maybe?” the steward asked with twinkling eyes.
“Must have been something awful,” she agreed, sitting up straight. “An elephant of all things, and carrying a Sharps buffalo rifle, .50 caliber.” She shook her head. “I guess it was that first-person account of a fight Quanah Parker was in that I’ve been reading.”
“The one they call the fight of Adobe Walls, where Comanches led by Quanah Parker, outnumbered them something like five-to-one, got into it with a handful of buffalo hunters armed with those rifles and they fought him off?”
She grinned. “The very one. Quanah Parker was quite a guy.”
The steward nodded. “His mother was white, a captive who was married to the chief of that particular Comanche tribe,” he added. “The whites traded for her and took her, forcibly, back home. She tried over and over to escape and go back, but she couldn’t. She just died.”
She shook her head. “She loved her Comanche husband. And he never remarried. People are always trying to make other people do what they want,” she said with a quiet smile. “Nothing ever changes much.”
“Never does. We’re about to land,” the steward said. “Your son went to sleep when he came back in here,” he added, nodding toward Markie, covered up in blankets and sound asleep.
“We’ve had a fraught couple of days,” she said without elaborating. “I don’t think he’s slept much, and I certainly haven’t.”
“The ranch is a nice place for sleeping,” the steward told her. “It’s out in the country. No city noises, no traffic sounds. Just cattle bellowing occasionally and dogs barking.”
“They have dogs?” Markie asked suddenly, sitting up to throw off the blankets.
“Oh, yes,” the steward told him with a smile. “They raise champion German shepherds.”
“Oh, dear,” Joceline said. The animals had a bad reputation for being aggressive.
The steward laughed. “I can almost tell what you’re thinking, but these babies wouldn’t hurt a fly—not unless someone in the family was attacked. You’ll see what I mean when we get there.”
“I wish we could have a dog,” Markie said with a pointed look at his mother.
“Just as soon as we buy that mansion in France, I’ll buy you one,” she told him with a straight face.
“We’re gonna live in France?” the child exclaimed. “When?”
Joceline sighed and explained the concept of sarcasm to him.
A big Lincoln SUV met them at the small airstrip on the ranch. It was driven by a grizzled old cowboy with bright blue eyes and a big grin under his reddish-gold and gray whiskers.
“Miss Perry? I’m Sloane Callum. I’m sort of the chauffeur and odd job man around here. Mr. Blackhawk sent me to fetch you and the boy.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, shaking hands and smiling.
“So you’re that secretary we hear so much about!” he exclaimed as he loaded her small suitcase and Markie’s duffel bag into the vehicle.
She didn’t correct him. In his day, administrative assistants were referred to as secretaries. She smiled. “I hope what you heard wasn’t too bad.”
He made a face. “I hate making coffee, too,” he told her as he watched her strap Markie in the backseat. “Damned shame, that, sticking kids as far away from their parents as possible even in a vehicle.”
She stared at him with surprise.
He shrugged. “I had a little boy down in Mexico, many years ago,” he said quietly. “He always rode up in the front of the truck with me, so I could ruffle his hair and point out things to him without getting a crick in my neck.”
“That was before air bags,” she reminded him gently. “It’s too dangerous to let a child sit up front now.”
“If you want my opinion, and not many people do—” he grinned “—I think the government pushes its way into our lives way too much. You can’t legislate morality or safety, but they’re sure trying to. We actually have cowboys around here who wear helmets to ride a damned horse!”
She muffled a giggle. He had a way of expressing things that was more amusing than disturbing. He grimaced. “Don’t mind me. I’m a throwback to prehistoric times. I don’t fit in anywhere.” He opened the door for her. “See? Neanderthal manners, I still open doors for ladies.”
She smiled at him. “I like it. You remind me of Jack Palance in that movie he won an Oscar for. I thought it was delightful, the way he protected that young woman.”
His eyebrows arched and he grinned more widely.
She buckled her seat belt while he went around and got in under the steering wheel. He looked at a note pasted to the visor and glared at it, but he buckled his own seat belt. He noticed Joceline’s puzzled stare and turned the visor so that she could read the note.
It read, “Put on the damned seat belt and shut up about government regulations on private industry.”
She burst out laughing. “Do I want to know who wrote that?”
“Your boss,” he said, and not surprisingly, as he started the SUV and drove off. “We had a big row about it when I first came to work here. I lost.”
“Most people do when they get in arguments with him.”
He drew in a long breath. “I’m sorry about your trouble,” he told her, with a glance in the rearview mirror at Markie, who was glued to the window, looking at cattle and open country in the distance. “Sick so-and-so who’d target a child.”
“Yes,” she said heavily. “It’s been something of a shock that we’ve become involved in this. Not that I’m not worried about the boss. He got shot, after all.”
“If he’d been here, never would have happened,” the cowboy said shortly. “I track him when he’s on the ranch. He don’t know it, but he’s never alone. I know how federal agents get threatened. Nobody’s taking out the boss on my watch.”
“That makes me feel better,” she said. She smiled. “I’ll bet you hunt.”
“Sure do. Animals, too,” he added enigmatically.
She caught her breath as the hacienda-style ranch house came into view. It was enormous, most assuredly a mansion with no excuses or apologies. There were electronic gates made of black wrought iron and everything else was thick, sand-colored adobe. It was mid-November, so nothing was blooming, but Joceline saw dozens of trees lining the long driveway and dotted around the Spanish patio with its big fountain. There was a stone floor on the patio and when she looked up, she was surprised to see a man with a high-powered rifle on the balcony upstairs.
“Sharpshooter,” the cowboy told her. “We have three who work shifts. Used to be just one, randomly up there, but since the boss got shot, we’re more cautious.”
“Not a bad idea,” she agreed.
“You’ll be safe here, Ms. Perry,” he told her gently. “Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all,” he added, jerking his eyes toward the oblivious child in the backseat. “You’ll both be safe.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
He parked at the door, where the semicircular driveway flanked another large, working fountain. He got out and came around to help Joceline and Markie out of the SUV.
“Look at the fountain!” Markie exclaimed, running to perch himself on the stone bench. “And it’s got fish! Goldfish!”
“Chinese goldfish,” the cowboy told him with a smile. “There’s a big Japanese koi pond out back with enormous fish of all sorts of colors. There’s even a yellow one with blue eyes.”
“Can I see?” Markie exclaimed.
“Not right now,” Joceline said firmly. “First we go see the boss and get settled in our room,” she added.
“Come along, young feller,” the old cowboy told him with a grin as he picked up the luggage and carried it through the open wrought-iron gate.
“It’s so pretty!” Markie enthused. “Look at all the trees! We don’t got even one tree at our apartment!”
“Don’t have,” Joceline corrected automatically.
“There’s a doggie!” he exclaimed, and started running toward an enormous, black-faced German shepherd dog.
“Markie, no!” Joceline almost screamed. “Don’t …!”
“Dieter, freund!” the cowboy called in fluent German. “Ja, Ja, freund. Das ist ein braver hund!”
Joceline spared him a shocked glance before she rushed to Markie’s side.
But the dog wasn’t hostile. On the contrary, he went right up to Markie with a slow, loping gait, and sat down just in front of him, leaning forward so that the child could pet him.
“He loves kids,” the cowboy told her. “Dieter is an old man, like me,” he added on a chuckle. “He came over from Germany. Notice his hocks. They almost touch the ground. American-bred German shepherds’ hind legs are joined higher up.”
She did notice. The dog’s build kept him very close to the ground. He was beautiful, with a thick shiny black coat and pale brown markings. He seemed very happy to sit and let Markie hug and pet him.
“You speak German to him,” Joceline said, curious.
“Yes. All our dogs are trained to respond to it.” He didn’t add that there was a secret attack command in German known only to the handler and a few of the most trusted cowboys. The code was never to be used unless in the gravest of emergencies. Activated, the dogs were quite capable of attacking and bringing down a human intruder. Considering Jon’s line of work, not to mention his brother’s, they couldn’t take chances. At least once, a would-be killer had tried to force his way in. He’d been taken off to jail, with a stop by the local hospital to stitch his wounds.
“What if an intruder also spoke German?” she wondered.
“They’d ignore him. They respond to our voices.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe he’s that tolerant.”
He smiled. “Considering their size and strength, it would be insane not to have them gentle around family and friends.”
“I totally agree.”
“Come on inside.”
He led them through the house. Markie protested until the dog, Dieter, was allowed to come inside, as well. He walked right beside Markie, as if an attachment had already been formed there.
“My goodness,” Joceline exclaimed, noticing the dog’s actions.
“He likes you,” the old cowboy told Markie with a grin.
“I like him, too. He’s cool!” Markie said excitedly, petting the dog’s head.
The inside of the house was open and dotted with comfortable chairs and plants and paintings. The color scheme was mostly shades of tan and brown, with some green and even a little gold in the upholstery and curtains. There was a huge stone fireplace, in which a fire was already roaring. It was cold.
“They got a fireplace!” Markie exclaimed. “Can I go sit by it?”
“Not without me,” Joceline said firmly. “Come on, sport, let’s get our bags unpacked before we worry people to death trying to explore, okay?”
Markie sighed. “Okay.”
The old cowboy’s blue eyes twinkled. He led them into a room the size of Joceline’s whole apartment.
“This is the main guest suite,” he told her. “There’s a smaller room through the bathroom, if you want the boy to have his own, but there are two king-size beds in here.”
Joceline was still gaping. “My whole apartment would fit in here,” she murmured.
He laughed out loud. “So would my cabin,” he told her. “But I like cozy places. You might say I’ve grown accustomed to them over the years,” he added enigmatically.
She smiled as he put the bags down. “Thanks for bringing us here.”
“Oh, I enjoyed it.” He looked at Markie wistfully. “Nice to have a kid around the place again.”
She frowned. “Again?”
“Kilraven’s little girl spent some time here.” His face went hard. “There’s gossip that one of the shooters weaseled out of being charged with her death—the one that shot the boss and threatened you. He won’t get in here, and he won’t get away if I find out the rumor is true. I know people all over who could put a stick in his spokes. She was a precious little child—” He broke off and turned away. Just for a few seconds, the expression in his eyes had been frightening.
“The boss’s room is two doors down, that way,” he added when he was in the hall, pointing in the direction. “He’s expecting you.” He smiled. “Nice to have you here, ma’am. And you, young feller,” he added to Markie. “Later, when you’re settled in, I’ll show you the horses if your mom don’t mind.”
“I don’t,” she assured him.
He gave her a quizzical glance. “You might, later. Don’t worry about offending me, you won’t,” he added with a gentle smile. “You don’t know me.”
He tipped his hat and walked off, his spurs jingling as he went out the door. Dieter got up and followed him.
“Dieter,” Markie called.
“Let him go,” Joceline said. “He may be a working dog,” she added.
“Oh. Okay then.” He looked up at her. “We going to see Mr. Blackhawk now?”
“Yes.”
She led the way down the hall and paused at the door. It was standing open.
“Joceline?”
That was Jon’s deep voice. Odd, the way the word rippled along her nerves, bringing the oddest sweet sensations. She smiled self-consciously. “Yes, it’s me.”
