Cowboy PI (3 page)

“You’re probably right,” Roark said casually, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “More than likely, the whole thing was just the paranoia of an old man. On the other hand…”

She set the clipboard on the table and faced him squarely again. “What? You’re determined to say it, so go ahead.”

“Maybe that old man was smarter than we gave him credit for when he bought my services. A thing like a cattle drive in wild country…well, it’s got to have certain risks to it, doesn’t it? Accidents can happen, maybe even fatal ones.”

“Not to me, because I’ll be right here, safe in San Antonio. And I don’t appreciate your suggesting I might be in any danger just so you can—”

“Collect a fee? I don’t operate that way, Ms. Howard.” His eyes narrowed in a flash of cold anger, and then just as swiftly they softened. “But all else aside, it’s too bad you and I won’t be on that drive together.”

There it was again, she noticed. Something smoldering on his strong face and in the brazen gaze that made her breath quicken. To avoid it, she lowered her own eyes again. But just slightly this time, to prevent him from thinking she was in any way intimidated by him. Only, this was worse. She found her eyes fastened on his deeply tanned throat where his Adam’s apple bobbed slowly as he swallowed. The action was like a pulse, both mesmerizing and arousing.

She made an effort to steady her breathing, to respond carelessly. “Is it?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, his voice slow and disturbingly husky, almost seductive. “I think it would have been some experience all right. All those long nights under the stars. People share things in situations like that. Things that can get downright interesting.”

Intimate
things. That’s what he was saying. This had gone far enough. “Sounds like fun,” she said with a lightness she was far from feeling. “It’s a shame I’ll have to miss it.”

He was silent for a few seconds, taking her measure again. This time she managed to hold his gaze. “Then your decision is definite?”

“Very,”
she said with emphasis.

“Guess I’m wasting my time here.”

To her relief, he leaned down and collected his Stetson from the chair. When he turned to go, she reminded him quickly, “You’re forgetting your business card.”

“Keep it,” he said, tugging the hat over his dark hair. “You never know.”

Watching his tall form stride away through the dining room, Samantha felt as though she had just escaped from something potentially dangerous to her. Roark Hawke had had that kind of effect on her, and she wasn’t happy about it.

Since the scene below the balcony was much safer than the sight of his departing figure, she turned to it. Looking down through the feathery foliage of an ancient cypress, she watched the tourists strolling along the cobbled, sun-dappled walkways on both sides of the stream. She saw them wander in and out of the souvenir shops, or focus their cameras on flower beds vibrant with color.

Only, it wasn’t a safer scene, because the image of Roark Hawke intruded on it. His lean face with its sensual mouth called up memories of another cowboy. Unwanted memories carrying a pain that was connected with her
grandfather. She hadn’t thought about Hank Barrie in ages, and she didn’t want to think about him now. She had put all that suffering behind her long ago, and she meant to keep it in the past.

No, she wasn’t going there. And she was going to forget all about Roark Hawke and how he had made her pulse accelerate. But when Samantha turned resolutely away from the railing, her eye fell on the business card he’d left on the table.

You never know.

But she did know. She had absolutely no intention of ever calling the number on that card.

W
HAT THE HELL
had he been thinking? Roark asked himself as he moved swiftly along the River Walk, needing to vent his anger with some form of action, even if it was no more than stretching his legs among the tourists.

Racing down here from Purgatory like that! Storming into the restaurant and cornering Samantha Howard in order to—what?

Throw her over his shoulder and haul her shapely little backside all the way to Colorado and that cattle drive?

Okay, so he’d been tempted to do just that and instead had tried to convince her to change her mind. Which was bad enough. Why hadn’t he anticipated that maybe Joe Walker’s granddaughter wouldn’t want his protection? And why hadn’t he just dropped the whole thing when the lawyer had informed him of her refusal?

Because she was right. She didn’t need his services. Samantha was in no more danger from some unknown enemy than Joe had been. Who would want to harm her, particularly when she intended to surrender all claim to her grandfather’s estate?

Roark didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. Not why he had so explosively charged into the restaurant or, even worse than that, why he had actually come on to the woman.

Well, yeah, he guessed he did know the answer to the last question. She’d been dynamite waiting for a match in that sexy little power suit. The abbreviated skirt had afforded him a clear view of long legs in heels and a tantalizing glimpse of silken thighs.

There were also the attractions of a luscious mouth, a pair of beguiling brown eyes, and a mass of gleaming chestnut hair—not to mention the sparks they’d rubbed off each other throughout their whole brief encounter, all of which would have meant trouble for him on a cattle drive.

Passing under one of the bridges, Roark unconsciously slowed his steps. He paid no attention to the street player strumming his guitar for the benefit of the tourists. He was far too occupied with the heat that gripped him over the image of Samantha Howard’s lush body.

Damn, what was he doing? She had turned him down. He was off the hook. He should be congratulating himself that she was no longer his problem, that he could concentrate now on his own troubling issue.

Right. Let it go.

Determined to do exactly that, Roark swung around and headed toward the city garage where he had parked his truck.

Except he couldn’t let it go. There was still his promise to a dying old man who had trusted him. It nagged at him all the way back to his pickup.

Chapter Two

“Tell me they absolutely loved it,” Gail pleaded. “Tell me they’ve already made an offer on it.”

Samantha, 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 ap
pointment. 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.