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

“He does sort of remind me of a hit man,” he replied dryly. “He’s big and slow-looking, though. He can’t be that good a bodyguard.”

Sara had doubts about how slow-moving Tony was. She had the distinct impression that he was quick as lightning and sly like a fox, hiding his light under a barrel. But she didn’t say so.

“Saturday at eleven,” he repeated.

“Yes.” She grinned at him as he waved and went out the door.

Sara pictured the band and Jared Cameron. She wondered if he’d ask her to dance. She wondered if he could dance. It was thrilling to consider.

Harley came for her exactly at eleven. She was wearing a full skirt with a simple white cotton peasant blouse and silver jewelry. She looked like a pixie.

He was in jeans and a clean plaid cotton shirt, Western cut, with polished black boots and a cowboy hat to match.

“You look nice, Sara,” he told her. “Are you feeling okay?”

She nodded. “The stitches catch a little when I walk too fast, but I feel fine.”

“Can you climb up by yourself?” he added when they reached his pickup truck. It had a running board, but it was higher than a car.

“Sure, I can,” she said. She held on to the inside handle over the door facing, put one foot on the running board and pulled herself up and into the passenger seat. It hurt a little, but she didn’t let that show. “Piece of cake,” she told him, smiling while she fastened her seat belt.

He grinned back. “Then we’re off!”

Cy Parks’s ranch was huge, even by Texas standards. The yard was full of tent pavilions complete with oilcloth-covered long tables and benches for people to sit on. The cowboys had barbecued a steer and their wives had prepared huge tubs of baked beans and coleslaw, and there were baking sheets full of homemade rolls and fresh butter. For dessert, there was everything from cakes to pies to soft-serve ice cream. Cy had really pulled out the stops. Across the fences, his Santa Gertrudis cattle grazed peacefully and stared at the crowds of people who’d come to enjoy the food.

All the powerful people in the county had shown up for Parks’s legendary barbecue. Even the children were invited. It resembled, more than anything, a family reunion.

“Is that the Coltrains’ little boy, Joshua?” Sara exclaimed, indicating a blond-headed little boy in jeans and cotton shirt and boots running from another small boy with dark hair and eyes.

“Yes, and that’s J.D. and Fay Langley’s little boy, Jon, chasing him.”

“They’ve grown so fast!” she exclaimed.

“They have,” he added, smiling at their antics. “Children must be a lot of fun. Their parents seem to dote on them.”

“I imagine they do.”

She was staring after the little boys when she spotted a familiar face. Jared Cameron was standing by one of the long tables talking to Cy Parks. With him were Tony the Dancer … and the female attorney, Max, standing with Jared’s arm around her.

Sara felt as if she’d just walked into a nightmare.

At the same time Sara spotted him, Jared glanced her way and saw her with Harley Fowler. His green eyes, even at the distance, were blazing.

She averted her eyes and kept walking with Harley to where Lisa was sitting with Gil on her lap. She didn’t dare look the way she felt. Jared Cameron had every right to hang out with his gorgeous attorney. It shouldn’t have made Sara feel betrayed. But it did. The realization shocked her.

Lisa smiled as they joined her. “Have a seat. I could have left Gil in his playpen, but I don’t really like being away from him, even for a few minutes.”

“I wouldn’t, either,” Sara said. “He’s a little doll.”

Gil smiled at Sara shyly and said, “Pretty.”

Sara and Lisa burst out laughing.

“Horsey, Mama, horsey!” Gil demanded, bouncing.

Lisa put him on one knee and bounced him while he laughed happily. “He’s going to be a ladies’ man when he grows up,” Harley drawled. “He’s starting early!”

Lisa laughed. “You may be right. He likes Sara.”

“Everybody likes Sara,” Harley said smoothly, winking at her.

“Not everybody,” Sara murmured as Jared Cameron walked toward them with Max curled close in his arm. He was smiling at Max, but his green eyes shot daggers at Harley and Sara when he came closer.

“Should you be up so soon after major surgery?” Jared demanded, glaring at Sara.

“Major surgery?” Sara gasped. “I had my appendix out! The incision was barely four inches long!”

Jared’s eyes narrowed. “It ruptured,” he pointed out.

“Why does he get to make comments on your surgery?” Lisa asked innocently.

“Because I took her home with me and Tony and I nursed her back to health,” Jared said curtly. “We have a vested interest in her recovery.”

“Like it put you out! Tony did all the work!” Sara retorted.

Jared held up his hand with all the plastic bandages on it.

“You didn’t try to pick up Morris, did you?” Lisa asked the newcomer.

Jared looked around him, exasperated. “Am I the only person in this town who didn’t know that he bites?”

“Looks like it,” Harley chuckled.

“I hate cats,” Max muttered. “They’re scary, and they have fangs, like snakes.”

Sara wished the other woman had been around when Morris was staying at Jared’s house. She’d have loved watching him stalk the slick lawyer. He loved to attack people who were afraid of cats.

“Hi, Sara,” Tony said, thickening his drawl for the group.

He was wearing his suit and his sunglasses, and he looked really big. “You doing okay?”

Sara had gotten used to him being as articulate as Jared in the privacy of the Cameron ranch. Only now did she realize what a compliment he’d paid her by not putting on what was obviously an act for the masses.

“I’m much better, Tony, thanks,” she replied, and gave him a genuine smile.

Max was looking more uncomfortable by the minute. “We aren’t going to eat outside, are we?” she asked uneasily. “I mean, there are flies!”

“They only land on bad people,” Sara promised.

Seconds later, two huge black flies came to rest on Max’s arm.

She screamed, hitting at them. “Get them off!” she exclaimed.

Tony glanced at Sara and grinned. “Sound familiar?” he teased.

She burst out laughing, remembering her own horror at the yellow hornet that had landed on her shoulder at Jared’s house.

But Max thought Sara was laughing at her and, without a pause, she swung her hand and slapped Sara in the face.

There was a sudden silence around them. Cy Parks, who’d been directing the cowboys cooking the beef, strode up to the small group with blood in his eye.

“Are you all right, Sara?” he asked in a menacing tone.

“I’m … fine,” Sara replied. She had a huge red mark on one cheek.

Cy turned to Max. “I’ve never asked a guest to leave my home until now. I want you off my property.”

Max fumed. “She laughed at me! I was covered up in flies and she thought it was funny!”

“She was laughing because the same thing happened to her at our place with a yellow hornet,” Tony said, and he looked menacing as well. “I reminded her of it.”

Max flushed. “Oh.”

Jared hadn’t said a word until then. But his eyes spoke volumes. “You can apologize to Sara before I take you back to the ranch,” he told Max, and he wasn’t smiling.

Max backed down at once. “I’m very sorry,” she told the younger woman. “I hope I didn’t hurt you,” she added in a condescending tone.

Cash Grier joined the small group. He wasn’t smiling, either. “If you’d like to press charges,” he told Sara while he glared down at Max, “I’ll be delighted to arrest her for you.”