Diana Palmer - Untameable - Merciless

She opened her eyes and blurted out the dream, laughing.

“Something you ate, maybe?” the steward asked with twinkling eyes.

“Must have been something awful,” she agreed, sitting up straight. “An elephant of all things, and carrying a Sharps buffalo rifle, .50 caliber.” She shook her head. “I guess it was that first-person account of a fight Quanah Parker was in that I’ve been reading.”

“The one they call the fight of Adobe Walls, where Comanches led by Quanah Parker, outnumbered them something like five-to-one, got into it with a handful of buffalo hunters armed with those rifles and they fought him off?”

She grinned. “The very one. Quanah Parker was quite a guy.”

The steward nodded. “His mother was white, a captive who was married to the chief of that particular Comanche tribe,” he added. “The whites traded for her and took her, forcibly, back home. She tried over and over to escape and go back, but she couldn’t. She just died.”

She shook her head. “She loved her Comanche husband. And he never remarried. People are always trying to make other people do what they want,” she said with a quiet smile. “Nothing ever changes much.”

“Never does. We’re about to land,” the steward said. “Your son went to sleep when he came back in here,” he added, nodding toward Markie, covered up in blankets and sound asleep.

“We’ve had a fraught couple of days,” she said without elaborating. “I don’t think he’s slept much, and I certainly haven’t.”

“The ranch is a nice place for sleeping,” the steward told her. “It’s out in the country. No city noises, no traffic sounds. Just cattle bellowing occasionally and dogs barking.”

“They have dogs?” Markie asked suddenly, sitting up to throw off the blankets.

“Oh, yes,” the steward told him with a smile. “They raise champion German shepherds.”

“Oh, dear,” Joceline said. The animals had a bad reputation for being aggressive.

The steward laughed. “I can almost tell what you’re thinking, but these babies wouldn’t hurt a fly—not unless someone in the family was attacked. You’ll see what I mean when we get there.”

“I wish we could have a dog,” Markie said with a pointed look at his mother.

“Just as soon as we buy that mansion in France, I’ll buy you one,” she told him with a straight face.

“We’re gonna live in France?” the child exclaimed. “When?”

Joceline sighed and explained the concept of sarcasm to him.

A big Lincoln SUV met them at the small airstrip on the ranch. It was driven by a grizzled old cowboy with bright blue eyes and a big grin under his reddish-gold and gray whiskers.

“Miss Perry? I’m Sloane Callum. I’m sort of the chauffeur and odd job man around here. Mr. Blackhawk sent me to fetch you and the boy.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, shaking hands and smiling.

“So you’re that secretary we hear so much about!” he exclaimed as he loaded her small suitcase and Markie’s duffel bag into the vehicle.

She didn’t correct him. In his day, administrative assistants were referred to as secretaries. She smiled. “I hope what you heard wasn’t too bad.”

He made a face. “I hate making coffee, too,” he told her as he watched her strap Markie in the backseat. “Damned shame, that, sticking kids as far away from their parents as possible even in a vehicle.”

She stared at him with surprise.

He shrugged. “I had a little boy down in Mexico, many years ago,” he said quietly. “He always rode up in the front of the truck with me, so I could ruffle his hair and point out things to him without getting a crick in my neck.”

“That was before air bags,” she reminded him gently. “It’s too dangerous to let a child sit up front now.”

“If you want my opinion, and not many people do—” he grinned “—I think the government pushes its way into our lives way too much. You can’t legislate morality or safety, but they’re sure trying to. We actually have cowboys around here who wear helmets to ride a damned horse!”

She muffled a giggle. He had a way of expressing things that was more amusing than disturbing. He grimaced. “Don’t mind me. I’m a throwback to prehistoric times. I don’t fit in anywhere.” He opened the door for her. “See? Neanderthal manners, I still open doors for ladies.”

She smiled at him. “I like it. You remind me of Jack Palance in that movie he won an Oscar for. I thought it was delightful, the way he protected that young woman.”

His eyebrows arched and he grinned more widely.

She buckled her seat belt while he went around and got in under the steering wheel. He looked at a note pasted to the visor and glared at it, but he buckled his own seat belt. He noticed Joceline’s puzzled stare and turned the visor so that she could read the note.

It read, “Put on the damned seat belt and shut up about government regulations on private industry.”

She burst out laughing. “Do I want to know who wrote that?”

“Your boss,” he said, and not surprisingly, as he started the SUV and drove off. “We had a big row about it when I first came to work here. I lost.”

“Most people do when they get in arguments with him.”

He drew in a long breath. “I’m sorry about your trouble,” he told her, with a glance in the rearview mirror at Markie, who was glued to the window, looking at cattle and open country in the distance. “Sick so-and-so who’d target a child.”

“Yes,” she said heavily. “It’s been something of a shock that we’ve become involved in this. Not that I’m not worried about the boss. He got shot, after all.”

“If he’d been here, never would have happened,” the cowboy said shortly. “I track him when he’s on the ranch. He don’t know it, but he’s never alone. I know how federal agents get threatened. Nobody’s taking out the boss on my watch.”

“That makes me feel better,” she said. She smiled. “I’ll bet you hunt.”

“Sure do. Animals, too,” he added enigmatically.

She caught her breath as the hacienda-style ranch house came into view. It was enormous, most assuredly a mansion with no excuses or apologies. There were electronic gates made of black wrought iron and everything else was thick, sand-colored adobe. It was mid-November, so nothing was blooming, but Joceline saw dozens of trees lining the long driveway and dotted around the Spanish patio with its big fountain. There was a stone floor on the patio and when she looked up, she was surprised to see a man with a high-powered rifle on the balcony upstairs.

“Sharpshooter,” the cowboy told her. “We have three who work shifts. Used to be just one, randomly up there, but since the boss got shot, we’re more cautious.”

“Not a bad idea,” she agreed.

“You’ll be safe here, Ms. Perry,” he told her gently. “Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all,” he added, jerking his eyes toward the oblivious child in the backseat. “You’ll both be safe.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

He parked at the door, where the semicircular driveway flanked another large, working fountain. He got out and came around to help Joceline and Markie out of the SUV.

“Look at the fountain!” Markie exclaimed, running to perch himself on the stone bench. “And it’s got fish! Goldfish!”

“Chinese goldfish,” the cowboy told him with a smile. “There’s a big Japanese koi pond out back with enormous fish of all sorts of colors. There’s even a yellow one with blue eyes.”

“Can I see?” Markie exclaimed.

“Not right now,” Joceline said firmly. “First we go see the boss and get settled in our room,” she added.

“Come along, young feller,” the old cowboy told him with a grin as he picked up the luggage and carried it through the open wrought-iron gate.