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

Sara just shook her head. Dee didn’t understand the situation. If Sara had to be around that particular customer very often, she’d probably end up doing time for assault and battery.

She went home to her small house. Morris met her at the door. He was an old, battle-scarred yellow tabby cat. Part of his tail was missing, and he had slits in his ears from fights. He’d been a stray who came crying to Sara’s back door in a thunderstorm. She’d let him in. That had been eight years ago. Her grandfather had commented that he looked like trouble. Sara defended him.

She never agreed with her grandfather, even after she had to replace a chair and a throw rug that Morris had ripped to shreds. She bought the old cat a scratching post and herself a water pistol. Morris hated water. When he did something he wasn’t supposed to, she let him have it. Over the years, he’d calmed down and stopped clawing furniture. Now, he just ate and sprawled in the sun. Occasionally he sat in Sara’s lap while she watched her small color television. But he wasn’t a cuddling cat, and you couldn’t pick him up. He bit.

She stroked him while they watched the latest episode of her favorite forensic show. “I guess it’s just as well that we’re not overrun with visitors, Morris,” she mused softly. “You’re definitely an antisocial personality.” She pursed her lips as she looked down at him. “I know a guy you’d like,” she added on a chuckle. “I must attract animals and people with bad attitudes.”

The end of the next week came all too soon. Dee had placed Jared Cameron’s order on Monday. Sara was hoping the ogre’s order wouldn’t come in, allowing her a reprieve to work on her social skills. But all the books in the order arrived like clockwork on Friday.

She phoned the number Jared Cameron had given her.

“Cameron ranch,” came a gruff reply.

“Mr. Cameron?” she asked hesitantly, because this didn’t sound like the man who’d come into the store earlier.

“He’s not here,” a gravelly deep voice replied.

She pictured the face that would have gone with that voice, and figured it must be the hit man. “Mr…. Danzetta?”

There was a shocked pause. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“I read minds,” she lied.

“No kidding?” He sounded as if he actually believed her.

“Mr. Cameron ordered a lot of books …”

“Yeah, he said they were due today. He said for you to bring them out tomorrow about ten. He’ll be here.”

Tomorrow was Saturday, and she didn’t work Saturdays. “Couldn’t I leave them with you, and he can send us the check?”

“Tomorrow at ten, he said. He’ll be here.”

There was no arguing with stone walls. She sighed. “Okay. I’ll see him tomorrow.”

“Good.”

The line went dead. The voice had a decidedly Southern accent. Not a Texas accent. A Georgia one, if she were guessing. She had an ear for accents. Her grandfather had taught students from all over the country and around the world at the Jacobsville Community College, and he often brought them home. Sara had learned a lot about other places.

She put the phone down belatedly. If the bodyguard was part of the mob, it must be the Southern branch. She chuckled. But now she didn’t know what to do. Should she call him tomorrow before she started out, to let him know how much he owed? Surely his bookkeeper didn’t work weekends.

“You look unsettled,” Dee remarked as she started for the front door. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to take the ogre’s order out to him tomorrow morning.”

“On your day off.” Dee smiled. “You can have a half day next Wednesday to make up for it. I’ll come in at noon and work until closing time.”

“You will?” Sara asked, beaming.

“I know how you look forward to your drawing time,” Dee replied. “I just know you’re going to sell that children’s book you’re working on. Call Lisa Parks and tell her you’ll come next Wednesday to draw her new puppies instead of tomorrow. They’ll make a gorgeous page in your story,” she added.

Sara grinned. “They’re the cutest puppies I’ve ever seen. Their father was one of the puppies Tom Walker’s dog Moose fathered, and their mother is Cy Parks’s collie, Bob.”

“Bob is a girl dog?” Dee exclaimed.

“Yes. The puppies look like both their parents. Tom asked for one of them. He lost Moose just last month,” she added sadly. “They have another dog a little younger than Moose, but Tom loved that old dog. He had him cremated and put in an urn. He’s still grieving, though. Lisa e-mailed a picture of the puppies to Tom and said he could have one. He and his oldest daughter went over to pick it out. They’ll be ready to go to new homes in a week or so. They’re just precious at this age. I’m going to draw them in a big Easter basket.”

“You could sell drawings,” Dee said.

“I guess so. But I’d never make a living at it,” she replied, smiling. “I want to sell books.”

“I think you’re going to be selling your own books pretty soon,” Dee told her. “You have a wonderful talent.”

Sara beamed. “Thanks. It’s the only thing I inherited from my father. He loved the work he did, but he could draw beautiful portraits.” She grimaced. “It was hard, losing him like that.”

“Wars are terrible,” Dee agreed. “But at least you had your grandfather. He was your biggest fan. He was always bragging about you, to anybody who’d listen.”

“I still get letters from Grandad’s former students,” Sara said. “He taught military history. I guess he had every book ever written on World War II. Especially the campaign in North Africa.” She frowned. “Funny, that’s what the ogre likes to read about.”

“Maybe the ogre is like that lion who got a thorn in his paw, and when the mouse pulled it out, they were friends for life.”

Sara glowered at her boss. “No mouse in his right mind would go near that man,” she said.

“Except you,” came the amused reply.

“Well, I don’t have a choice. What do we do about the check?” she asked Dee. “Do I call him before I go over there, or …”

Dee picked up the slip of paper with his phone number on it. “I’ll call him in the morning. You can put the books in a bag and take them home with you tonight. That way you won’t have to come in to town.”

“You’re sweet, Dee.”

The older woman smiled. “So are you.” She checked her watch. “I’ve got to pick Mama up at the beauty parlor and take her home, then I’m going to do paperwork. You know my cell phone number. Call me if you need me.”

“I won’t, but thanks all the same.”

Dee looked uneasy. “You need to have a cell phone, Sara. You can get a prepaid one for next to nothing. I don’t like you having to drive home after dark on that dirt road.”

“Most of the drug traffickers are in prison now,” she reminded her boss.

“That isn’t what Cash Grier says,” Dee replied. “They locked up the Dominguez woman, and her successor, but there’s a man in charge now, and he killed two Mexican policemen at a border crossing, as well as a Border Patrol agent and even a reporter. They say he killed a whole family over near Nuevo Laredo for ratting on him.”

“Surely he wouldn’t come here,” Sara began.

“Drug dealers like it here,” Dee returned. “We don’t have federal agents—well, except for the DEA agent, Cobb, who works out of Houston and has a ranch here. Our police and sheriff’s departments are underfunded and understaffed. That’s why that man Lopez tried to set up a distribution network here. They say this new drug lord has property around town that he bought with holding companies, so nobody would know who really owned the land. A farm or ranch way out in the country would be a perfect place to transport drugs to.”

“Like they tried once, behind Cy Parks’s place and at the old Johnson place.”

Dee sighed. “It makes me uneasy, that’s all.”