Desert Heat (28 page)

“So how do you like the Hill Country?” he asked, while Annie went to get the lemonade.

“It’s beautiful. It’s a whole lot hotter than Boston, but there’s something kind of magical about it.”

“Last week it was even warmer, and a lot more humid. This week’s been pretty nice so far.”

She started to say something equally inane when the front door opened and Dallas and Charlie walked in. She didn’t miss the faint stiffening in Dallas’s shoulders the instant he spotted Mal Sullivan.

“Hello, Charlie…Dallas. Heard you two were back. Thought I’d drop by, see how things were going. Figured maybe we might set a date for the closing on that land.”

“Figured to see you sooner or later,” Charlie said.

“You been up there lately?” Dallas asked. Patience knew he was thinking of the tire marks he had seen and wondering if Sullivan had been digging around on the land.

Sully cast an uneasy glance in his direction. Then he smiled. “My foreman, Pete Russell. He was up there last week. I didn’t figure Charlie would mind. I’m thinking of running some cows on that section. Thought I’d have Pete take a look at the water situation.”

“No problem,” Charlie said, tossing Dallas a look that warned him to tread lightly.

“Cows, huh? Looked to me like someone was doing some digging up there. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Sully continued to smile. “Like I said, Pete was prowling around. Probably his doing.”

Dallas said nothing more. Annie arrived carrying a tray that held glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. While she poured the refreshment, Sullivan and Charlie began discussing a date for the closing on the land.

Twenty minutes later, Sullivan returned his empty glass to Annie, made polite farewells, and left the house.

As soon as he was gone, Dallas turned to Charlie. “I wish you’d hold off on that sale.”

“I promised I’d sell the man the land and I keep my word.”

“I know, but—”

“Sully’s wanted that property for years. Now he’s gonna have it and that’s the end of it.” Charlie stomped off, and Dallas sighed into the silence his uncle left behind. Catching the weary set of his shoulders, Patience walked over and slipped an arm around his waist.

“The afternoon’s still early. You promised we could go riding again.”

He drew her around in front of him, gave her a soft, lingering kiss. “You’re right. We haven’t got much time left. We had better make the most of it.”

The words made her chest ache. Patience mustered a smile she hoped didn’t look forlorn and let him guide her out of the house.

It was late when Dallas’s cell phone rang, the sound shrill where it sat in the upstairs bedroom on top of the walnut bureau against the wall. In the process of undressing for bed, he walked over and picked it up, praying it hadn’t awakened Charlie.

“I hope you weren’t asleep.” His father’s voice reached him from the other end of the line. Unlike Dallas, whose job got him up early, Avery Kingman was a night owl, often staying up past midnight.

“I was still awake. You got news?”

“Maybe. I spoke to a friend of Julia Sullivan’s, a woman named Peppy James, she’s married to that golfer—you know—Mickey James? Peppy came in to have her eyes done—long overdue, if you ask me, but then, that’s her business. At any rate, I happened to mention Malcolm Sullivan and Peppy gave me an earful. She says Sullivan’s gotten into some major financial difficulties. The stock market, I guess, among other things. Peppy says he’s threatening to go back to court to get his wife’s alimony payments reduced. He cut his kids’ allowance in half and they’re having a fit about it.”

Sullivan in trouble? He never would have guessed. “If he’s having money problems, how’s he coming up with the money to buy Charlie’s land?”

“I have no idea. I just figured this was something you might want to know.”

“Yeah, no kidding. I really appreciate the information. Thanks, Dad.”

There was a pause on the end of the phone. “Rachael and I…we thought maybe you might get a chance to drop by for a visit before you leave Texas.”

For a minute, Dallas thought he hadn’t heard his father correctly. For years, the two of them had made it a point to stay away from each other. Then Rachael had asked him to come to his father’s birthday party. That hadn’t gone particularly well, but maybe it was a start.

“Yeah, maybe I can. I’ll give you a call once things settle down.”

“Great. I’ll tell Rachael. I know she’ll be pleased.” But something in his father’s voice said he was the one pleased by the news.

They ended the conversation and Dallas couldn’t decide which was more surprising—that his father had asked to see him or that Malcolm Sullivan was in financial straits. He fixed his mind on the latter and two questions popped into his head.

How was Sullivan financing the purchase of the Circle C property?

And what was he planning to do with that land?

Breakfast was over, the morning chores completed when Dallas and Patience headed for the barn. The sky overhead was a bright shade of blue but clouds loomed on the horizon, hinting they might be in for a storm.

One of the hands had already saddled their horses. Swinging up on the pretty little sorrel mare, Gigi, she had been riding since she came to the ranch, Patience trotted along next to Dallas, posting against the cantle while he merely lounged in the saddle. The ranch house disappeared in the distance and rolling green hills stretched out in front of them. Deep green grasses feathered along the edge of the trail, and a little stream tracked through the foliage beside them.

“Let’s go this way this time,” Dallas said, reining off the path, leading her down a trail she hadn’t ridden before. For a mile or so, they wound their way through the trees, then the terrain began to change. Layers of rock pushed up from the earth and the trees became sparse, dwindling until there were only a few in sight. The country was open here, the hills often jagged, with sharp ridges and sheer rock walls.

Dallas had wanted to revisit the southwest section his uncle was set on selling and so here they were. Earlier, he had relayed to Patience the conversation he’d had last night with his father and that Sullivan appeared to be having money problems. Dallas was concerned that Sullivan might be trying to take advantage of Charlie in some way and Patience wondered if he might not be right.

Dallas drew up his horse and Patience pulled the mare to a halt. “What is it?”

“Take a look up ahead. The ground’s been disturbed here, too. Someone’s been digging.” He swung down from his horse, turned and lifted Patience down from her saddle. As he lowered her to the ground, her hands rested on his shoulders and for an instant their gaze met and held. Desire flared in his eyes but there was something more, something deep and turbulent. Then he turned away.

“This is the most remote section of the property,” he said. “But there’s a road coming in off the highway if you know where the turn is.”

They walked over to the base of a stratified layer of rock. In several places, the soil looked powdery, not solid, as if it had been dug up and the hole filled back in. It hadn’t rained lately. Once it did, the hole would be hidden and the ground would look the way it had before.

“Ever since my father called, I’ve been thinking about why Mal might want this land so badly. He needs money, right?”

“Apparently so.”

“Last night, after I hung up the phone, I went downstairs and got on the Internet. I did a little research on the oil industry.”

“Oil? You think Sullivan’s after oil?”

He shoved up the brim of his hat with the tip of his finger. “Years ago, he used to be in the business, a corporate exec with one of the big Houston oil companies. I’d forgotten all about it until last night. He quit when his old man died and he inherited his father’s money. That was nearly twenty years ago. Sully bought the ranch, built the house, and he and his family moved in.”

“Well, there is certainly plenty of oil in Texas.”

“There are lots of big fields, all right, but none in the Hill Country. Mostly the terrain isn’t right. From what I’ve been reading, oil comes from animal and plant life that died in ancient seas, then decayed into sedentary layers.”

“That’s right. Over millions of years, heat and pressure turned the organic matter into oil and natural gas.”

“Right, and sometimes the layers shifted and the oil got trapped into pools.”

“And you’re thinking maybe Sullivan believes there’s a pool of oil somewhere in this area.”

“Maybe. Last night, I stumbled across a Web site that listed all of the Texas oil production by counties. Generally, the Hill Country made a very poor showing, but a little gas was pumped last year in Uvalde County, and eighty-five thousand barrels of crude were pumped in Medina. Even Bandera produced a few thousand barrels.”

“So it isn’t impossible.”

“That was the other interesting thing I found. On a site called drilling.com, I ran across an article about a company named Marshland Oil. They’re planning to drill four new nine-thousand-foot wells in Bandera County.”

Patience looked up at the striations on the steeply inclined hill. “Those are definitely sedentary layers and the earth has heaved them up on an angle. I remember reading somewhere that one of the ways they find oil is to explode dynamite underground to set up seismographic waves.”

“So I read. Apparently, the waves outline areas that might contain pools of oil.”

“And the ground in several places in this section has been dug up and then refilled.” She frowned. “But wouldn’t the explosions have been heard?”

Dallas shook his head. “I don’t think so. This part of the ranch is pretty remote.”

“Maybe that’s why Sullivan has been wanting this property all along. He thinks he might find oil.” Patience glanced over at the rough wall of rock. “Sullivan’s in financial trouble. Maybe someone’s putting up the money against a percentage of the profits from the wells he plans to dig.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Dallas said. “What do you say we pay a little visit to good ole Sully?”

Patience nodded. “Good idea.”

Dallas thought about returning to the ranch, dropping Patience off, then driving over to the Broken Arrow. But she would probably pitch a fit if he didn’t take her along and he didn’t want Charlie to know he was going. Besides, they were more than halfway there already. If he took the shortcut down through Sully’s north pasture, it wasn’t that long a ride.

And he was damned anxious to hear what Sullivan had to say.

Twenty minutes later, they rode up in front of the sprawling main house, a single-story structure built of wood and stone with two big rock chimneys poking through the heavy shake roof, one at each end of the house. The place sat on a gentle slope, and stone steps led from the circular driveway up to wide, carved double doors.

Since the Double Arrow was actually a working ranch, a hitching rail near the barns allowed them to tie up their horses. Walking next to Patience, Dallas climbed the flagstone steps, heading for the impressive front doors.

A firm knock, and a few minutes later, the portal swung open. “Hi, Rosa. Is Sully around?” The short, dark-skinned Hispanic woman who stood in the doorway was the live-in housekeeper who worked for Mal.

“
Si, Señor
Kingman. I will tell him you are here.”

“Thanks.”

Rosa disappeared into the depths of the house, then returned and invited them in. The stone floor in the entry gleamed with polish. So did the wide oak planks running down the hall. Rosa ushered them past the formal living room with its comfortable beige sofas and polished walnut tables, into a wood-paneled den where a deep leather couch nestled in front of a big stone hearth.

Mal’s heavy oak desk sat in the corner in front of oak bookshelves lined with leather-bound volumes.

“Dallas! Come on in. What a nice surprise.” Dressed in khaki slacks and a white polo shirt, he walked over and extended a hand, which Dallas shook. “It’s good to see you two again.”

“Your home is lovely,” Patience said.

“Thank you. Would you care for something to drink? A soda or a beer? Something stronger, perhaps?”

“Actually, this isn’t a social call, Mal. We just came from that southwest section of property you’re planning to buy. Kind of got my curiosity working. I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind answering a couple of questions about what’s going on up there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was wondering if you might have been doing a little prospecting up there. Black gold, though, not the twenty-four-carat kind. I thought maybe you were using some explosives, doing some seismology work? If you were, you were trespassing.”

Mal wandered over to his desk. A fancy silver pen and pencil set rested on a dark green felt blotter in front of a black leather chair. Mal straightened a sheet of paper lying on the blotter, setting it on top of the neat pile on the corner of his desk.

He turned back to Dallas and Patience, gave them an indulgent smile. “All right. The truth is, I’ve always thought there might be oil in that section. After Charlie agreed to sell, I got eager. Knowing he was a man of his word, I hired a seismology company to do a little preliminary work. I didn’t figure Charlie would mind. Are you telling me he does?”

He couldn’t say that. Charlie wouldn’t give a damn what Sully did. Once he had promised to sell, he would consider that the property belonged to Mal.

“The question is, are you sure you did this
after
Charlie agreed to sell? You weren’t over there
before
you made your deal?”

Sullivan’s features subtly shifted. His friendly smile slid away and a guarded expression appeared. “Of, course, I’m sure. I’ve offered to buy that land maybe half a dozen times over the years. Charlie always said no. Why would I bother to spend money on land I never really figured to own?”

“You wouldn’t,” Dallas agreed, the notion in the back of his head growing stronger by the minute. “Not unless you knew that sooner or later Charlie would be
forced
to sell.”

Sullivan straightened. “How could I possibly know that?”

Next to him, Patience’s eyes swung to his as she realized where the conversation was headed. He had only just realized it himself, though he should have guessed the instant he suspected that Sully was after the oil. But he had known Mal Sullivan since he was a boy and he had always liked him, considered him a good, decent man.

“You couldn’t have known,” Dallas said. “Not unless you were the one responsible for the
accidents
Charlie’s been having.”

Sullivan’s mouth went thin. “What are you talking about? That’s insane.”

“Is it? Those accidents have forced my uncle to close down his rodeo company, which cost him thousands of dollars in revenue. They managed to get him involved in a very expensive lawsuit. Then there was the wrecked trailer that killed his horses, the terrible fire in the horse barns, the attempts on Patience’s life—oh, and of course there was the cattle rustling, which cost him money, worry, and time.”

“You’re talking crazy. My cattle were stolen, too.”

“Damn straight. A stroke of brilliance, that. All in all, Charlie’s troubles drove him out of business and nearly broke him. He was in the process of putting a second mortgage on the ranch when you came along—just in the nick of time—with an offer to buy up his land.”

“That is ridiculous. I refuse to stand here and let you continue to make these wild accusations. All I did was take advantage of Charlie’s unfortunate circumstances. I thought buying that land would be doing both of us a favor.”

The edge of Dallas’s mouth barely curved. “Well, Sullivan, maybe you were doing him a favor and maybe you weren’t.” He flicked a glance at Patience, who looked a little pale, and wished he had left her at the ranch. At the time he hadn’t realized the danger she had been facing might live just a few miles away.

“In the last couple of days I did a little checking,” Dallas said. “You need money, Sully, and you need it bad. The stock market’s down. You’ve got ex-wife troubles and a couple of spoiled kids you’re supporting. Desperate men take desperate measures. That’s the reason you trespassed on Circle C land and it’s the reason you hired someone to cause Charlie all that trouble. And once he knows the truth, he isn’t gonna sell you that land.”

“What!”

“You heard me. You can forget it, Sullivan. You should have been straight with Charlie from the start. You should have told him the truth, made some kind of business arrangement, but you were too greedy. Now all you’re gonna get is nothing at all.” Dallas reached for Patience, slid an arm protectively around her waist. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”

They started walking away when he heard a noise behind them from a door leading in from the hall.

“You aren’t going anywhere, Dallas. You, either, lady.”

Dallas knew that voice. He was only mildly surprised when he turned to see Bradford Sullivan step into the study, lean and blond, with a
GQ
haircut and expensive alligator shoes.

“Dallas, he’s got a gun,” Patience said, which actually did surprise him, though it probably shouldn’t have, and suddenly all of the pieces fell together. As each one clicked into place, a chill slipped down his spine.

“So it was you, not your father.”

Brad flicked the older Sullivan a disdainful glance. “He wouldn’t have the nerve.”

“But he knew what you were doing,” Patience said.

“Suspected, maybe. I told him Charlie was having financial trouble. I said there was a good chance he was going to need money. Dad didn’t know about Hatch. He didn’t want to know. All he wanted was to get his hands on that land.”

Patience shifted a little closer to Dallas’s side and he cursed himself for bringing her along, for inadvertently putting her in danger.

“Hatch,” she said, her eyes fixed on Brad. “That’s the man you hired to set the fire? The man who tried to kill me?”

Sully looked stricken, his face gone deathly pale. “My, God, Brad—what have you done?”

“I did what I had to.”

“I thought…I worried you might have had something to do with stealing those cows. I figured you needed the money. I heard about that awful fire. Surely you aren’t responsible for that?”

“I told you—I did what I had to. Now, you just keep your mouth shut and let me take it from here.”

The floor creaked. Dallas turned as another man stepped into the study and quietly closed the door.

“That’s good advice, Sullivan,” the man said to Mal. “I’d advise you to take it.” Square face, solid jaw, features harsh and intense. Dallas knew in an instant it was the man in the composite sketch Patience had drawn.

“You’re him,” she said. “You’re the man who tried to kill me.”

He smiled but there was ice in his eyes. He reached over and took the heavy automatic from Brad Sullivan’s hand, but his hard gaze remained on Patience. “You were the fly in the ointment. After you went to the cops, I figured I might as well let you go, but it never set well with me. I don’t like leaving loose ends. Now we can remedy that.”

The knot in Dallas’s stomach twisted even tighter. “Don’t be a fool, Hatch. You can’t just kill us. Charlie knows we were on our way over here. If we don’t come back, he’ll come looking for us.” That was a lie, but the men didn’t know it.

“Maybe you were on your way,” Brad said. “Unfortunately, you never got here. Cattle rustlers in these parts, you know. They’ve always been a dangerous bunch.”

Patience stiffened. She looked more mad than frightened. “You think you’ve got this all figured out, don’t you? Well, you’re not as smart as you think you are. Dallas phoned the sheriff before we left the ranch. He’s on his way here right now.”

Sully just stood there, looking dazed and disbelieving. Brad’s features tightened. He tossed a questioning look at Hatch, who gave Patience a wolfish smile.

“I like your style, lady. Too bad we won’t have time to get to know each other a little better.” The smile slid away. “She’s bluffing,” he said to Brad. “Let’s get this over with.”

Brad just nodded. “We’ll take them up to the southwest section, use the truck we used before. The tire marks will match the ones from the cattle rustling. It’ll look like they stumbled onto thieves and wound up getting killed.”

Dallas’s hand balled into a fist. He had never liked Brad Sullivan. Still, he never would have suspected Mal’s son was capable of murder. Brad left to get the truck, then Hatch motioned for them to leave a few minutes later and they all filed out, the gunman behind Dallas, the pistol pressing into his ribs.

As they walked down the hall, adrenaline poured through him, his senses on alert for the chance to make his move. Rosa was in the back room, but shouting for her to call the police would likely end up getting all of them killed. Better to wait, bide his time, look for an opening.

He was bigger than Brad and in way better condition, but Hatch was lean and solidly built and about his same height. Brad wouldn’t be a problem but Hatch was the man with the gun.

Dallas felt the barrel nudge his ribs as the gunman urged him and Patience out the front door. He took a quick look around, but the ranch hands were all off working or somewhere in the barn out in back. The truck, a big enclosed flatbed with a ramp at the back for loading cattle, sat idling in front of the house.

“Keep your mouth shut or I’ll shoot the girl right here,” Hatch warned.

Dallas clenched his jaw.
Easy,
he told himself.
Take your time and look for the opening.

As they climbed up into the cab, he bent his head and whispered to Patience, “Keep your eyes open and be ready.”

He caught the spark that flashed in her eyes and saw her jaw firm with purpose. “I’ll be ready.”

“Get in the truck and shut the hell up!” Hatch jammed the gun hard into his ribs, then climbed up beside him, cramming them all together on the front seat, then slamming the door. Brad drove the vehicle away from the house, off down a narrow, little-used dirt road leading up to the portion of the Broken Arrow that bordered the southwest section of the Circle C.

As they drove along the rutted lane, Dallas thought of Patience and how much he loved her. He vowed that no matter what it took, he was going to get her out of there alive.

Patience sat tensely on the seat of the noisy diesel truck, Brad Sullivan’s arm brushing against her each time he shifted gears.

On the opposite side, Dallas’s heavily muscled shoulder nudged her slimmer one and she could feel the coiled tension vibrating through his body. Perhaps that was the reason she wasn’t more frightened. Sullivan and his hired gun meant to kill them. She and Dallas were both determined that wasn’t going to happen.

She ran over some of their options as the truck bounced along. If they made any kind of move inside the cab, Hatch would pull the trigger before Dallas could disarm him. Better to wait, look for the best possible moment.

Patience glanced out the window of the truck. The Double Arrow Ranch was more open than the Circle C, with fewer trees and more rolling hills. But it wasn’t nearly as arid or as stratified as the southwest section where Sullivan believed he’d find oil.

Perhaps it was there, she thought, but drilling any sort of well was risky and only a handful of wildcatters succeeded. Then again, maybe Brad Sullivan wanted more than money. Maybe he wanted to prove himself, gain independence from a father who had controlled his life far too long.

Whatever his reason, even murder didn’t seem to be out of the question.

The truck pulled to a stop in the area where she and Dallas had first found the filled-in holes where the dynamite had been set off. Patience’s pulse kicked up, every one of her senses screaming with tension. The clock was running. They had to act soon.

One glance at Dallas and she knew he was thinking the same thing. He reached for her hand as he helped her down from the truck and gave it a purposeful squeeze.

Hatch waved the gun in their direction. “You two start walking. Head over toward that ridge.”

Dallas didn’t move. “I think maybe we ought to talk this over, see if we can’t reach some kind of compromise. Where money’s involved, that’s always the smart thing to do.”