Cowboy Pi. Jean Barrett
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cell phone pressed to her ear, hesitated before answering. What could she report to her anxious officer manager about the high-rise condo she had just finished showing? What could she say to Gail that wouldn’t sound too dismal?
“They said they would think about it.”
What the elderly couple had actually told her was that they wanted to shop around a bit more before deciding, which meant they weren’t interested. Samantha didn’t blame them. The price on the condo was too high, and it was in need of updating.
“Well, that’s encouraging,” Gail said brightly. “Isn’t that encouraging?”
“I’m hopeful,” Samantha lied, wondering how in a span of less than twenty-four hours everything that had been so promising could end up being so bleak.
Yet it had, starting with yesterday afternoon when her buyer for the mansion in the King William District had backed out of the sale. Something about a deal going sour on him and his software company being in trouble. Okay, so she had lost that one, but she still had the hot property on the River Walk. Only, she didn’t. The owner had called this morning to tell her he was listing with her chief rival, the Van Nugent Agency.
She hated this! All right, so she hadn’t gone into the business to become rich. She’d opened her agency primarily for the joy of putting people into their dream houses. But she had expected to make a living out of it and to provide decent incomes for her employees. Like Gail, a widow in her fifties supporting an ailing mother. And the young woman who worked for her part-time and needed her salary to pay for the college degree she was earning. And her other agent, a handicapped father raising two kids. The job market wasn’t good for any of them. They were depending on Samantha. As was the bank, who expected regular payments on that business loan she had secured from them last month.
Bad, but she wasn’t sunk yet. Another potential buyer for the mansion had surfaced this morning, which was why she was calling her office manager at the agency.
“Where are you?” Gail asked.
“In my car and ready to head over to King William. I’m just checking in to make sure this guy hasn’t canceled the appointment. Please tell me he hasn’t canceled.” The way things were going, it wouldn’t have surprised her.
“He hasn’t canceled.”
“Then there still is a real estate fairy. Tell me the name again. Is it Mulroony or Mulroney? I don’t want to risk any errors on this.”
“Mulroney.”
“Anything else you can tell me about him that would help?”
“Just what you already know, that his wife will be accompanying him and they prefer to meet you at the property. Like I said earlier, I didn’t meet him. He made the appointment by phone after seeing our ad.”
Samantha didn’t like going blind into a showing, but it couldn’t be helped. “Keep your fingers crossed.”
“If it helps, I’ll cross my toes as well.”
Samantha rang off and eased out into the flow of traffic, passing the Tower of the Americas in Hemisfair Plaza as she headed away from the downtown area. The soaring structure, along with the more famous Alamo, was the pride of San Antonio.
Samantha seldom failed to take pleasure in her city. Only, not today. Today her attention was focused on saving her agency.
There is a solution, you know. It’s right there in front of you, waiting to solve all your problems. All you have to do is—
No! Tempting though that inheritance from her grandfather was, really tempting now, she was going to make it on her own. She wasn’t going to play Joe Walker’s game. If she could nail this sale, the commission would be enough to keep her going until—what? Something else came along? Yes, why not.
There was something else holding her back from calling the lawyer and telling him she had changed her mind. Something that, in spite of her best efforts, had been stealing into her consciousness since yesterday morning on the River Walk. The memory of a tall, black-haired figure who, according to her grandfather’s instructions, must accompany her on the cattle drive. Roark Hawke, with fire in his cobalt-blue eyes and a bold mouth that didn’t bear thinking about.
So don’t think about him, because you need to concentrate on making the best impression possible on the Mulroneys. These people could be your salvation.
Leaving the main stream of traffic, she turned into the King William District, a twenty-five-block area of fabulous Victorian mansions built by prominent German merchants over a century ago. The house listed by her agency, the last one on a dead-end street, was a brick Queen Anne sheltered by live oaks.
There was no car waiting out front when Samantha arrived. But then she was a few minutes early for the appointment. Sliding out of her car, she went and stood by the iron gate that led to the front door. There was no one else around, the street quiet except for the thunder overhead of a jet from one of the nearby air force bases.
The house was unoccupied, its owner moved away. A vacant property never made the most desirable showing. However, it would seem less empty if she opened up the place and waited inside to welcome them. Removing the keys from her purse, she followed the brick walk to the deep porch and unlocked the front door, leaving it ajar by way of invitation to the Mulroneys.
The interior she entered was spacious and handsome, many of the period furnishings still in place. All the same, it had a hollow, somewhat gloomy aspect and, with the air-conditioning turned off, it felt stuffy. She could do something about that.
Quitting the wide entrance hall, she crossed the shadowy double parlor into a tall bay that overlooked the side of the property. The bay, too, was dim because of the lowered blinds at its windows. Leaning over the window seat, she raised the blinds to permit cheerful sunlight to stream into the room, released the catches on the sashes and lifted the windows. Better, much better. Fresh air drifted through the openings.
Wrought-iron grilles had been fitted over the long windows on the outside of the bay. Samantha was admiring their delicate tracery when the deep silence behind her was ruptured by a sudden, ominous buzzing. Something electrical? A problem? That was what occurred to her, until she turned around to investigate.
She saw it at once. How could she not see it when it was coiled there on the floor less than three feet away? Threatened by her intrusion, it must have slithered out from its hiding place behind the folds of the velvet portieres that framed the bay.
A diamondback rattler! A very large and very deadly diamondback!
Samantha was instantly seized by the same heart-stopping terror she had experienced as a child whenever she’d encountered snakes at the Walking W. A paralyzing terror that had earned her her grandfather’s contempt. But snakes were expected on a ranch, not here in the city. Along with that shock was the mystery of how it could have gotten inside a closed house.
All this raced through her mind, together with the realization that she was in a serious position. Cornered, in fact, because the grilles over the windows behind her prevented any escape that way. And if she attempted to edge around the thing, or even tried to climb up on the window seat…uh-uh, no way. Any action at all, even the slightest movement, and it would strike.
Sick though she was with a cold fear, Samantha obeyed the lesson of her childhood and managed to remain perfectly still. Her only option, it seemed. And all the while the diamondback measured her, its thick, ugly head weaving slowly back and forth, its upraised rattles vibrating a steady warning.
Damn, how long was she supposed to stand here like this? She should be doing something. What?
Before she could decide, she heard the sound of the front door she’d left ajar opening and closing, followed by the tread of feet on the floor of the hall. The Mulroneys.
A risk, but she had to caution them. “Careful!” she called out. “There’s a snake loose in here! A poisonous one!”
Well,