She opened the door.
He glared at her jeans and denim jacket and boots, her long red-gold hair in a ponytail held together with a blue cloth scrunchie. She’d left her handgun in its cross-draw holster on her hip. “You going like that?” he exclaimed.
She glared back. “I didn’t pack an evening gown,” she said sarcastically.
He sighed. “All right, all right. I meant, you taking a pistol to the meeting?”
“The gun and I are a team. We both go, or we stay here,” she replied.
“I guess maybe he won’t mind,” he muttered as they went out.
He drove them to a seedy bar on the other side of town. He led the way inside, where a couple of men were playing pool. There was only one other occupant, very elegant, very Spanish and very wary.
“This is the girl,” Raines introduced her.
He raised a bored eyebrow over black eyes. “Not much to look at, is she?” he asked in faintly accented Spanish.
Her second language was Spanish, and she was literate in it. But she only smiled and pretended not to understand.
“I said, you are not much to look at, young lady,” he said lazily, with a sarcastic smile.
“I don’t need to be pretty to do a job, do I?” she replied curtly.
He chuckled. “A firecracker, huh?” he said. “Okay. I get the idea. You work, you don’t primp. Sit down. What will you drink?”
“Ginger ale,” she said, perching on a stool.
“And what in it?”
She shook her head. “I can’t drink. Bad stomach. Too many highballs as a teenager,” she lied. “I ruined my insides.”
“Ah. Well.”
She sipped her drink. He nursed his—she glanced at his glass—scotch on the rocks, or she missed her guess.
“Has Raines told you what I need from you?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, and out of the corner of her eye she watched Raines relax. “You want schedules of deliveries and information on buildings and trucks and cattle locations. I know some, but they get pallets of salt and medical supplies at odd times. I think those are kept in the barn near the ranch house, but I couldn’t find out those very easily without raising suspicion.” She frowned. “What does that have to do with rustling those young purebred bulls Raines told me about?” she added. “They guard them all the time...”
“It isn’t bulls we’re interested in,” he said, with a vicious glare at Raines.
“It wasn’t me,” Raines said, both hands up, palms out. He was pale. “The big boss wants them! You can call him!”
“All right, all right, don’t have a heart attack over it,” the swarthy man said in a heavily accented voice. “What we’re most interested in is open-culled cows at the next big ranch auction, in the spring,” he said.
She blinked. “Cows?”
She shifted on the stool and her jacket fell open, putting her pistol on display. “You’re armed?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said at once. “I’ve had more than one attempt on my life after my last job, up in Kansas,” she added. “I always go armed.”
He smiled. “I hope you will accept my protection while you are in my company?” he added, as he took the pistol out of its holder. He handed it to one of the pool players, obviously his man. “I will, of course, return it after we speak.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling. He wasn’t likely to shoot her. Not until he no longer needed her. “No problem.”
“Now. To business. I hope you have no qualms about drugs in the place of cattle?” he added.
“None at all,” she said. “As long as there’s a profit to be had.”
