Candace Camp - Hard-Headed Texan

His brother Quinn, then his father, had come by to talk about Antonia. All that was missing was a call from Cater or Cory. Or Beth.

That would come, he assured himself—as soon as one of them talked to Quinn. But Daniel knew he didn’t really mind. His family’s concern was warming. Besides, he rather liked everyone knowing he was seeing Antonia Campbell.

He smiled again, taking a swig of beer. Talk about feeling like a teenager again. He realized that he was grinning at the wall like an idiot, but the fact only made him grin harder. He hadn’t felt this good in years. And he intended to make damn sure he continued feeling that way.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

a USA Today bestselling author and former attorney, is married to a Texan, and they have a daughter who has been bitten by the acting bug. Candace’s family and her writing keep her busy, but when she does have free time, she loves to read. In addition to her contemporary romances, she has written a number of historicals, which are currently being published by MIRA Books.

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The phone rang, startling Antonia awake. She sat bolt upright, heart pounding. Beside her the cat stood up, looking at her balefully for disturbing her nap, then stalked off. Antonia blinked, her sleep-fogged mind adjusting to her surroundings. It was the clinic, she told herself. There was an emergency at the clinic. The telephone shrilled again, and she picked up the receiver.

“Dr. Campbell,” she answered, relieved that she had managed to make her voice come out calm and cool. She didn’t want anyone here to know that the least thing could make her panic.

There was no sound on the other end of the line, and she repeated her words, more loudly. Still there was no answer, even though the phone had the sound of a live connection.

“Hello?” she said, fighting down the upsurge of panic-nerves in her chest. “Who is this? Can I help you?”

Still there was no reply, and Antonia slammed down the receiver. Her hands were shaking, and there was a tight, cold knot in the center of her chest.

It wasn’t him, she reminded herself. It was probably just a wrong number or one of those strange connections that went awry—it happened with some regularity when the caller was using a cell phone. The silence on the end of the line did not mean that it was Alan. Alan did not know where she was; there was no reason to think that he did. This was just blind, unreasoning, atavistic fear, and she refused to give in to it.

Antonia took a deep, calming breath and went over all the reasons why she was safe now. Alan was in Virginia, and she was here; he did not know where she lived. It had been years since their divorce. He had not bothered her since she moved to Texas.

Still, she got out of bed and went to the front door, checking to make sure that it was locked and the chain was on. The little red light of the security monitor was blinking, showing that the security system was in effect. She went to the front room window of her small house and lifted the edge of the drapes to peer outside. It was dark outside, though beginning to lighten into a predawn grayness. She could make out the shapes of the trees in the front yard and her SUV parked in the narrow, old-fashioned driveway beside her house.

She would have preferred a house with an attached garage, but the charm of the 1920s-style bungalow had outweighed other considerations, and the passage of years had lessened her bunker mentality. A security system, an old neighborhood imbued with small-town friendliness and nosiness, her own hard-won vigilance—these were enough, she’d decided. She could not let her entire life be ruled by the fear that Alan might find her; if she did, she was letting him control her still.

Antonia walked around the small house, checking each of the windows and the back door to make sure that they were all locked. Reassured, she turned on the coffeemaker, already prepared the night before for ease in getting ready in the morning, and sat down at the kitchen table to wait.

It was pointless trying to go back to bed, she knew. Even though she had calmed down and was reassured that she was safe, it would take her a long time to go back to sleep, and her alarm was set to go off in thirty minutes. A veterinarian in a small ranching community kept early hours, just like the owners of the animals to which she tended. Antonia was usually in the office by seven and often on the road to one ranch or another soon after that.

That morning she arrived even earlier, before the receptionist or either of the technicians. Dr. Carmichael, the other veterinarian, never came in before ten o’clock. It was the reason he had brought in another vet, he had told her—the heavy workload and the early mornings were getting to be too much for him, and at seventy-two years old, he had decided to take life a little easier. Only the night watchman, Miguel, was there. A shy young man who loved to read, he was a perfect person to be on night duty with the animals. He was intelligent; only the fact that he came from a large, poor family had kept him from attending college. He knew as much as most of the techs, and he also had a rapport with the animals that was invaluable. A self-proclaimed insomniac, he had no trouble staying awake all night, and the long hours alone and doing nothing except making hourly rounds did not bore him as they would have most people. He was quite happy to read one of his books.

“Good morning, Dr. Campbell,” he said, coming out of the kennel door when she drove up.

“Hi, Miguel. How’s it going?” Antonia stepped out of her SUV, not bothering to lock it, another habit she had gotten into since moving to Angel Eye three months ago. Because their offices contained drugs, as well as for the safety of the animals, the clinic had a state-of-the-art security system, but there had never been a break-in—or even an attempted one. Everyone who parked in the clinic lot was more interested in finding a shady spot to protect their vehicle from the broiling Texas sun than in locking their doors.

“It’s okay.” Miguel knew that her question was more than rhetorical. “All the animals got through the night, even Dingo.” Dingo was a mixed-breed dog with liver problems, and it had been touch-and-go with him all day yesterday. Owned and much loved by a family with two little girls, Dingo had captured most of the clinic staff’s hearts, as well.

“Good. Well, let me get into my lab coat, and we’ll make the rounds.”