Lone Star Rancher. Laurie Paige
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and share an idyllic life. The weekend they were to marry, he’d arrived at their meeting place in Dallas and waited…and waited…and waited.
As the hours passed, he’d been in agony, worrying that she’d been in an accident or something. Yeah, right. She’d taken his money and run out on him for parts unknown. He’d also found out there had never been a child, according to her friend at the restaurant where she’d worked. The older woman had looked at him with pity.
Man, he must have had “sucker” written in big, bold letters on his forehead. Since then he’d kept his distance from women.
Ignoring the urge to dash to the rescue, he tried once more to dissuade his sibling. “Look, little sis, Jessica would be bored out of her mind staying out here.”
“She wouldn’t. She was born in Red Rock. She grew up there and she loves the area.”
Clyde glanced heavenward. His sister was nothing if not determined once she’d set her mind on a course. “Why doesn’t she stay with her family? Doesn’t she have relatives somewhere around here?”
“She doesn’t want to put them in danger in case the stalker follows her and gets violent. Just last month one weirdo here in New York stabbed the actress he was obsessed with. Didn’t you see it in the paper?”
“I might have read something about it,” he conceded. “Don’t you think it’s a tad strange that she won’t put her family in danger but she thinks it’s okay to stay with near-strangers and put their lives at risk?”
There was a tense silence on the line. “Hello?” he finally said to remind his sibling he was still there.
She cleared her throat. “I haven’t exactly convinced her to head for your place. She’s as stubborn as you are.”
He had to laugh. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” he murmured.
Violet waited a second, then continued, “She doesn’t want to bother anyone. She thinks it’s her problem, and she has to solve it. But I’m getting worried. The guy—his name is Roy Balter—is calling more and more often. Jessica has already changed her phone number, but he got the new one.”
“Info is a snap to get nowadays,” Clyde said. “I’ve heard of this Balter guy. He was one of the talking heads on a television news program the other day. He’s on the city council and is heading up a commission on terrorism. He looked okay to me.”
“That’s the problem. Everyone thinks he’s perfectly sane, while they think Jessica is off her rocker. I was at her place last night and listened to his messages, the breathing, then this sinister little laugh. It gave me chills. Jessica is keeping the tapes from the answering machine. She says maybe the police will believe her when they find her dead body and a box of recordings from the creep.”
“Damn,” Clyde muttered. He closed his eyes and rubbed his neck, then gave up. “Okay, tell her she’s welcome to come here next month if she wants to. I’ll arrange transportation from the airport in San Antonio.”
“Oh, Clyde, thank you. I don’t care what other people say. I think you’re absolutely wonderful.” She laughed at this oft-repeated joke between them, then sobering, she said, “Would you mind picking her up? I’ll feel so much better knowing she’s with you. Miles is wonderful, too, of course, but he doesn’t take things as seriously as you do. This may be a matter of life and death. Really.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll pick her up. Let me know the flight, date and time, okay?”
“Yes. I’ll call as soon as I talk her into going. I’m sure she will. She’s tired and discouraged and frustrated trying to deal with this and her work and all.”
“Make sure she understands that we’ll be doing the roundup while she’s here. No one will have time to babysit or entertain her. You understand?”
“Perfectly. She just needs a break and some peace and quiet. You will keep an eye on her, won’t you? I mean, in case the stalker shows up?”
He exhaled heavily. “Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
With that, she said her farewells and hung up. He realized he’d forgotten to congratulate her on the article in the medical journal, which their mom had sent a couple of months ago. Not that there wouldn’t be other chances in the near future. If he knew his little sis, she would hound her friend into coming out, then she would hound him about looking after the visitor.
He grabbed a beer from the fridge, which held very little else, and went out on the patio to enjoy the twilight and the cool evening air. The cattle in the two thousand acres of pasture that comprised the ranch were grazing peacefully or bedded down while they chewed their cuds.
The quiet appealed to him. No cars were on the paved county road. The interstate highway, I-35, that ran up the middle of the state through San Antonio, Austin and points north was too far away to be heard.
He liked the distance to the horizon, as if one could ride into the sunset forever. He appreciated the vastness of these wide open spaces that were so different from New York where he’d grown up.
Years ago, his mother had declared the triplets to be cowboys at heart. She said she’d known it from the moment they’d been born. Instead of crying, they’d come into the world yelling, “Whoopie-ti-yi-yo.”
Or so she’d said many times with an almost perfectly straight face.
He smiled, then took a long draught of cold beer. Sometimes he missed his mom, he admitted. When she came to the ranch, she fretted about the house and its lack of a feminine touch and worried about the boys’ love lives as well as their eating habits. She was into tofu and soybeans and healthy stuff. Married men, she pointed out, lived longer, healthier lives than bachelors.
She especially worried about him. When he’d returned from Dallas, alone and still single, he’d told his family his fiancée had died in a car accident and had never mentioned it again. His mother probably thought his heart was still broken.
Little did she know, as the saying went. He’d locked that unreliable organ away for good. The Flying Aces was the love of his life. It was enough.
Clyde smiled again, then frowned as he remembered his promise to his sister. Steven wouldn’t care a whit if Jessica visited. Miles would flirt like mad with her when he was at the house, but most of the time he would be out on the back forty of the ranch, handling that part of the roundup.
That would leave him to watch after their guest.
He said a very bad word and was glad his mother wasn’t there to hear it. He would have to guard his tongue if and when the visitor arrived, too.
Taking a long, long drink of the crisp, cold microbrew, he realized something else and nearly choked.
“Damn,” he muttered, then gave a snort of laughter. “It figures,” he said to Smoky, a dog that had drifted by last year and decided to stay, and now, attracted by the laughter, ambled over for a pat on the head.
He wondered if his sister had noted the day of the month when she’d called. That would be so like her.
It was Friday the thirteenth.
Two
The wings of the airplane dipped first one way, then the other, as the flight approached San Antonio. Jessica closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping the soda and pretzels down. She wasn’t sure whether it was better to have a full stomach or an empty one when flying in bad weather.
Lightning crackled, and several people gasped. A little girl screamed. So did her mother.
St. Elmo’s fire danced along the front edge of the wing. Jessica thought the fuel tanks were located in the wings. Could they catch on fire?
Summoning up her courage, she reflected on the idea of leaving New York