“I was in...” She hesitated because she couldn’t say Washington, DC. “I was in an eastern state, and there was a guy mowing the lawn. I noticed a black-and-white snake right in the path of the lawn mower and I ran like crazy and picked it up in the nick of time to save it from being sliced and diced. And I’m terrified of snakes,” she added. “But it didn’t seem to mind being picked up suddenly and it didn’t even try to bite me. I put it out nextto the building where it would be safe. King snakes are very beneficial, and they eat poisonous snakes,” she murmured. “The more I thought about it, I decided that I was crazy.”
John actually smiled. “We never kill king snakes. They pay for their keep.”
“Indeed, they do,” she said, and she smiled back. For a space of seconds neither one of them looked away. The look grew intense, invasive, interested, almost fascinated. One of the cowboys broke the spell, running in the back door.
“John!” he said quickly, as he burst into the living room. “One of the bulls is in the road! He’s gonna get hit!”
John ran for the door with Josie right behind, cautioning Heather to keep JJ inside. It was a quarter of a mile to the highway, but they ran the length of the paved driveway in record time. The bull, one of Cole’s prize bulls, was just wandering around in the right lane of the long, two-lane highway with traffic oncoming. John went to the bull while Josie went and immediately started stopping traffic. They worked together as if they’d done it all their lives. The cowboy watched from the verge, fascinated at the two enemies becoming a team.
John spoke softly to the bull who turned his head and looked at him. John started walking away and the bull followed like a pup. John noticed a board had been placed over the grate that usually kept the cattle in. Part of it had caved in the day before when one of the cattle trucks ran over a weak spot.That would have to be replaced quickly, John thought, and made a mental note of it as he led the bull over the board and shooed it into the pasture, closing the gate behind it.
Meanwhile, Josie was just starting to come back from the highway when a vehicle veered, and she jumped into the ditch headfirst to avoid being knocked down. The car blew its horn and took off down the highway at an incredible rate of speed.
John was cussing as he ran back toward her. He jumped intothe ditch and picked her up bodily. She looked dazed and she was shaking from the close call. John was furious with no way to hide it.
“I’ll find that guy if it takes the rest of my life,” he said hotly, and added a few choice words. “Are you all right?” he asked in a tone he’d never used to her.
She looked up into silvery blue concerned eyes and tried to get her mind to work, but it wouldn’t. Her whole body was hot, trembly. She told herself it was from the near miss, but it was more likely John’s proximity. His arms tightened and he held her close against his broad chest. He smelled of freshly laundered shirt and some spicy soap and cologne and leather; familiar smells.
After a minute she found her voice. “I’m okay,” she said. “Just a little shaken.”
“I’d love to know why the hell he made a dead set at you,” he growled. “He almost ran off the road trying to get you.”
She wondered if one of the drug lord’s minions had sent someone to warn her in a non-verbal way to keep her mouth shut around the ranch. It had been a fairly close call, but any potential assassin wouldn’t have swerved. It rattled her. She still wasn’t sure which of the drug lords Raines was really working for; in fact, that she herself was working for. It was like inching around in the dark.
She caught her breath and answered John. “I told you,” she said, still shaking. “I have enemies.”
“Yes,” he replied. “I noticed the gun.”
One of his arms at her back was just above the pancake concealed-carry holster she was wearing under her shirt. “Do you always carry that thing?” he asked.
“I have to,” she said in a trembly voice. “I have enemies who would kill me.”
For the first time John felt something building in the pit ofhis stomach, something he couldn’t put a name to. She was so self-sufficient, so capable; but like this she was soft and warm, and, though he hated the word, cuddly. He reminded himself that it would be like cuddling a rattlesnake and probably cuddling Precious would be safer. But she had grit.
“You can put me down now,” she said unsteadily and avoided his eyes.
Instead, he drew her closer for just a minute, and his deep voice was at her ear as he whispered, “Are you sure you want me to?” he asked softly.
Her reaction fascinated him. She blushed and averted her eyes and looked vaguely terrified. He was storing up all these little facts for later, although he didn’t know what he was going to do with them. But he put her down very slowly, very carefully, back on her booted feet.
He pulled out his cell phone and started giving orders right and left. One was a description of the car that had almost hit Josie. He wanted his foreman to ask the cowboys if anybody had seen it around the neighborhood before. When he hung up, he turned to the cowboy who’d come with them and told him to get somebody to fix that grate today. The cowboy nodded and rushed back up the driveway. John and Josie started walking back across the grate, letting the bull tromp on top of the board so that it didn’t fall through. But he closed the gate behind him. He phoned his foreman again to emphasize that the grate had to be fixed today, no matter what it cost, and told him that the gate would have to be watched until it was done. The foreman assured him that he’d be sure the gate was answered promptly if somebody needed to get in who wasn’t on the ranch payroll; the gate was automatic if you know to work the mechanism. For outsiders, there was a button that allowed the visitor to speak to whoever was in charge of it that day.
Before they got to the house, still walking, John’s last call wasto Sheriff Marlowe. He told him about the speeding car that had almost hit Josie and gave a description. Marlowe replied that he’d have his deputies keep a lookout for it just in case it was somebody looking for retribution. Privately, Marlowe wondered if it was something to do with Velasquez and if the drug lord had somehow found out more about Josie than he should. It was a worrying thought. She was a brave young woman, but Velasquez had been in the business for many years, and he wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who got in his way.
John led the bull back to the barn and its adjoining paddock and coaxed him inside. He closed the gate back with an audible sigh.
“He’s more like a puppy dog than a huge bull,” Josie laughed.
John glanced at her with twinkling eyes. “We train them to do that,” he confided. “An animal that size, with a horn and a bad attitude, could cause a lot of trouble.”
“I know,” she replied. She had one foot on the bottom rung of the wooden fence and stared through the rungs at the big bull, who was grazing on one of the big round bales of hay as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “My grandad ran a cow-calf operation,” she recalled softly. “But he loved his bulls. They were like yours. Not expensive, I mean, but gentle. Granddad was a big guy, but he said size wasn’t anything if you had a mad, mean bull headed right for you.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed, propping a big, booted foot on the lower rung of the fence. “That’s two generations on one ranch.” He glanced at her. “And your father’s going to sell it?” he asked.
She sighed. “Dad doesn’t have sentimental feelings for anything. Or anyone, really,” she said matter-of-factly. “I think he loved my mother when they married, but they were too different. He was more into material things. She was idealistic to a fault.”
He studied her red-gold hair in its neat ponytail. “Which of your parents had red hair?” he wondered.
