by Diana Palmer
Winnie had to fight a smile. Keely was such a gentle person, but she was really angry. “I’ll help you thump him,” she promised. “But he didn’t know, Keely. And you don’t know how he reacted when he found out, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“When he saw you in the emergency room, he came out raving that he’d been conned by Misty’s father’s detective. He left and the next thing we knew, Hayes Carson was here, telling us he’d just had to bail Boone out of jail in San Antonio.”
“What?” Keely exclaimed.
“He beat up the detective who faked that photograph.” Winnie chuckled. “He was arrested and Hayes had to bail him out and bring him home.”
“Will they prosecute him?” Keely asked, her anger forgotten in concern for Boone’s future. “He isn’t going to have to go to jail, is he?” she asked fearfully.
“Not likely. The detective, Misty and her father all ran for the border, and nobody’s around to press charges,” Winnie said smugly. “It so happens that they’re involved with the Fuentes’s outfit, can you believe it? Boone was only seeing Misty to feed Hayes Carson information on her contacts. He was furious at Hayes for making him do it.” She grinned. “I told you he wouldn’t forgive her that easily after what she did to him.”
“Boone got arrested.” Keely said it, disbelievingly. “He never puts a foot wrong.”
“He did this time. But there were extenuating circumstances. He was rather tipsy at the time.”
“He was drinking?”
“From what we hear,” Winnie agreed. She laughed. “My spotless big brother, drunk and beating up detectives.” She shook her head. “What is the world coming to?” She grinned at Keely. “Apparently he thinks a little more of you than he let on, I’d say.”
Keely was afraid to hope for much, especially after Boone had seen her wrecked shoulder. But his actions indicated more feeling for Keely than he’d expressed verbally. There was hope, she thought. He had scars, too. Perhaps he’d had worse experiences than she had, with people of the opposite sex who didn’t understand or care about his scars.
* * *
BY THE TIME Boone came back to the hospital, Winnie and Clark had gone home for supper and to get a room ready for Keely when she was discharged. Coltrain had said she’d be ready to go the next day if she continued improving.
Keely didn’t want to go home with them if Boone only offered out of guilt. But she didn’t want to go to her home, either, with Ella’s death so fresh on her mind. Nobody had told her where Ella died, but Keely suspected that it was at the house.
She had an unexpected visitor while she was worrying her choices to death in her mind. Ella’s best friend, Carly, came in, dressed in black, red-eyed from crying.
“Did they tell you?” she asked gently, because she didn’t want to upset Keely.
“Yes,” Keely said huskily. “We were doing so well together...” Her voice broke.
Carly bent over the bed, and hugged her gently. “I’ve been out of town. There was a missed call on my cell phone, but when I tried to call Ella back, there was no answer. I got worried when I couldn’t get you, either, so I cut my trip short and came home.” She grimaced. “What a homecoming! Ella dead, and you in the hospital in serious condition. Are you going to be all right?”
“Yes,” Keely said. “But I understand that the snake died.”
It took a minute for Carly to get the dry humor. She smiled. “Poor snake.”
“I expect his relatives are all sad.” She dabbed at her eyes with the sheet. “I haven’t had time to make any arrangements about the funeral.”
“Do you want me to do that?” Carly asked solemnly. “Ella gave me a copy of her will and instructions for her funeral two years ago. I never really thought they’d be needed, but I humored her.”
“Could you call Lunsford’s and make the arrangements?” Keely asked gently. “She has a burial policy with them, which should cover everything. She paid it off a few years ago.”
“I’ll be glad to do that,” Carly replied. Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. “She was the only friend I had—the only real one.”
Keely reached out her good hand and squeezed Carly’s. “You were her only real friend,” she replied. “I’m glad she had you.”
Carly cried even harder. “I wish I could take back every mean thing I ever said to you, Keely,” she sobbed. “I didn’t really mean any of it. In the old days, I took care of you a lot when Ella couldn’t. I lost sight of that. But I’ll do anything to make it up to you now, if I can.”
“Look after Mama’s funeral arrangements,” Keely said, “and we’ll call it even.”
Carly dried her eyes. “When do you want to have it?” she asked worriedly. “You don’t look up to a funeral.”
She wasn’t. She hesitated. Boone came in the door, gave Carly a cold appraisal and moved to Keely’s bed.
“I’ve arranged for some additional manpower at the ranch,” he said without preamble. “What do you want to do about your mother?”
“Carly’s going to take care of that,” Keely said. “She knows where everything is, and she has copies of
Mama’s will and last wishes.”
Boone glanced at the older woman. “If there are any outstanding accounts, I’ll take care of them,” he said.
Carly nodded. Her eyes were as red as Keely’s. “Thanks.” She hesitated. “You know,” she said, staring meaningfully at Boone, “it might not be a bad idea to have her cremated, and the ashes buried in the family plot.”
Boone knew then that Carly had seen Ella and wanted to spare Keely the trauma of it. His eyes narrowed. “I think that’s a good idea. Keely?”
Keely wasn’t sure. She hesitated.
“A Viking funeral,” Boone said quietly. “Appropriate for a brave woman.”
Keely burst out crying again. “Yes,” she agreed, choking. “She was brave. Okay. That’s okay.”
Boone leaned over and gathered her as close as he could, kissing the tears away. “It passes,” he said softly. “Everything passes. You’ll be able to remember her with happiness one day.”
“Yes, you will,” Carly seconded. She went on the other side of the bed, and bent and kissed Keely’s disheveled hair. “I’ll go and get things started. The hospital and the funeral home may need your approval before they can proceed. I’ll have them call you here.”
“Do that,” Boone said quietly. “But I don’t think there will be a problem. You stuck by Ella when nobody else would go near her.”
Carly took that for a compliment and smiled. “Thanks.”
“If you can find that snake,” Keely told Boone, trying to lighten the somber mood, “we can arrange the same sort of funeral for him. Of course, if he didn’t die from biting me, we’ll have to kill him first.”
Boone managed a chuckle. “I’m glad to see that you’re better.”
She smiled weakly, grimacing as she moved her arm.
“Coltrain says she can go home tomorrow, so we’ll have her with us,” Boone told Carly. He pulled out his wallet, got out a business card and handed it to her. “If you need help with the arrangements, let me know.”
“Okay. If we cremate her, we can schedule a memorial service when this is all over,” Carly told him. She glanced at Keely worriedly. “You’re not going to be able to manage a funeral in the condition you’re in right now.”
“I have to agree,” Keely said. She caught her breath. “Oh, my gosh! My job! I didn’t even call Dr. Rydel! He’s going to fire me!”
“I phoned him,” Boone said at once. “He’s got a temp filling in for you. He and the staff send their best wishes. They sent you a big fruit basket. It just came, so the nurses gave it to me, but I took it out to the car. I’m taking it home. You can have it tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” she told him. “I was afraid of losing my job. I was too sick to call and tell them what was going on.”
“Oh, everybody in Comanche Wells and Jacobsville knows everything
that’s going on already,” Carly said. She glanced amusedly at Boone. “And I mean everything.”
Boone’s eyes actually twinkled, but Keely didn’t see it.
Carly said her goodbyes and left Boone alone with Keely. He stuck his hands in his slacks’ pockets and stood over her, his eyes soft and quiet.
“You look a little better,” he commented.
“I wish I felt it. I’m still sick to my stomach and my arm throbs,” she said huskily. She looked up at him. “I hate snakes.”
“They don’t like people sitting on them,” he pointed out.
“I didn’t. He was just all of a sudden there. I didn’t even look at him sideways. He just rattled his head off and struck at me.”
“Nervous.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Rattlesnakes are nervous. They rattle to try to scare people into going away.”
It had never occurred to her that a snake could be nervous. She said so.
He sighed. “Anyway, we got him.”
“You got him? You did?” She was excited.
“The boys found him about twenty feet from where you were sitting when he bit you.”
“What did they do with him?”
He pursed his lips. “Do you like cowboy hats?”
“I guess so. I don’t wear them much, except when I go riding.”
“You’ll wear this one. It’s just your size and it’s got a nice new rattlesnake hatband. Or it will have, when the skin’s tanned out.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did.” He grinned down at her. “We’ll go riding, when you’re better.”
“We will?”
One eye narrowed. “You go riding with Clark and Winnie all the time. You can go riding with me now,” he said with faint belligerence.
“Okay,” she said, fascinated. It almost sounded as if he were jealous of them. That was ridiculous, of course.
“I had a television put in your room. You can watch movies on pay-per-view. We’ve got satellite, too, so you can watch programs from all over the world.” His eyes twinkled. “Then, there’s the national news, with the presidential race on every channel, every hour, every day.”
She sighed. “I haven’t watched the national news for weeks. I can’t stand the monotony. The only news they report is on the presidential election and every detail of the private lives of celebrities.”
“The Spanish channel has the real news,” he pointed out. “If you want to know what’s going on in the world, that’s where to find out.”
She smiled. “I can’t speak Spanish.”
“I’ll teach you,” he said quietly, and his eyes were insinuating that he had in mind teaching her other things, as well.
She flushed a little. Her life had been a closed, painful book, her future a dream that she never thought would be realized. Now, here was this dishy man with whom she’d been in love for years, looking at her with acquisitive eyes and smiling at her. It felt as if her heart might burst from joy.
He smiled. “Mrs. Johnston has an assistant cook, Melinda. She’s from Guatemala. She’s teaching us Mayan. You can learn, too.”
“Mayan?” She caught her breath. “Their culture had astronomy and the concept of zero and raised beds for planting and irrigation while Europeans were knocking each other over the head with rocks.”
“I know.” He chuckled. “You spend your time off at the library reading books about them. Or so I hear from the head librarian.”
She flushed. It flattered her that he’d learned things about her. “I’d love to go and see some of the Mayan ruins,” she said. “I’d love to go to Peru and see the Inca ruins, too.”
“So would I,” he told her. “Maybe we can both go, one day.”
For her, that was a pipe dream. She’d never save enough to pay for a plane ticket even to south Texas for a vacation. Her smile was wistful.
He saw that. “What else do you like?”
She smiled. “Ancient history.”
“The Caesars, the philosophers, the politicians...?”
“Don’t mention politicians!”
“What sort of history?” He chuckled. “And which historians do you read?”
“Tacitus. Thucydides. Strabo. Arrian. Plutarch. Those ones.”
“Deep authors for a young mind,” he commented.
“You listen here, I may be young, but I have an old mind,” she told him. “I was pretty much on my own when my father took me out to west Texas to live in an animal park, and I was really on my own when I came back here, because Mama was drunk so much.” Mama. The thought sobered her, made her aware of her recent tragedy. “I can’t believe my own father would kill her,” she said. “He was a little out of the bounds of law sometimes, but he never hurt anybody.”
“He sold drugs,” Boone reminded her. “That does hurt people.”
“Yes, but you know what I mean,” she replied. “He isn’t a killer.”
“Baby, all people are killers, given the right incentive,” he said. “Anybody can kill.”
She sighed. “I suppose so,” she said sadly.
He bent and kissed her, gently, on her mouth. “I’m going to get a cup of decent coffee. What can I bring you?”
“A nice juicy steak with hash browns?” she asked hopefully.
“No chance I could get that past the nurses’ station, unless they were all wearing nose plugs. Try again,” he invited.
“I guess I’ll wait for supper here,” she said with resignation.
“When you’re well again, I’ll fly you up to Fort Worth and take you to this little steak place I know,” he said.
Her heart jumped up into her throat. “You mean it?”
He drew in a long breath. “I had to date Misty to feed information to Hayes, and I gave him hell twice a day about it. I was over her years ago. But I had to put on an act, to keep her from getting suspicious.” His eyes darkened. “Hayes has a lot to answer for. She’s vindictive. She set you up, and I was too angry to think straight when I saw those photographs.”
Keely recalled that Misty had promised to get even with her. She’d done a good job of it. “She’ll get her just deserts one day,” Keely replied.
“We all do,” he said philosophically. He glanced at his watch. “I have to make a few phone calls and get something to eat, then I’ll be back.”
Her eyes lit up. “Okay.”
He smiled slowly. Disheveled, her hair uncombed, her face devoid of any makeup, she was beautiful to him. So easily, she could have been dead. He’d never have been able to live with that, knowing he caused her death.
He bent and kissed her again with breathless tenderness. “I’ll be back soon,” he whispered.
She smiled. “Okay. I’ll wait.”
He chuckled as he walked out.
Ten minutes later the phone rang. She answered it, thinking it must be Carly or Winnie or Clark.
“Keely, is that you?”
It was her father’s voice.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“YOU KILLED MY mother!” Keely choked, overwhelmed with rage at just the sound of his voice. “How could you!”
“It wasn’t me. I swear it wasn’t!” he replied, and he sounded frightened. “Keely, I’ve never killed a person in my life. You have to believe me.”
“You threatened her for money—”
“I had to! Listen, if I don’t pay them, they’ll...well, they’d already threatened to kill your mother, now they say they’ll get you, too,” he said nervously. “It’s the Fuentes gang! I got mixed up with them because of Jock,” he said bitterly. “He’s been working for Fuentes for years. He even went to prison for him, just after you came to live with me. He said they paid better than any of the other distributors, and that he’d get me in because he had a cousin in the organization. But there was trouble right upfront because Jock double-crossed one of the bosses and pocketed some drug money. Then he hid out and left me holding the bag. They’re after me, now.” There was a sigh. “
Your mother was right about Jock. She said he’d destroy me if I stuck with him, and he has. He keeps calling me, making threats toward you if you don’t come up with enough money to help him to get out of town before the drug lords kill him. I don’t know what to do!”
She had to clamp down hard on her feelings. He was rationalizing his behavior, but she remembered that he’d stood by while the mountain lion dragged her away to what would have been her death.
“You go to Sheriff Carson,” she told him. “Tell him what you’ve told me, and help him find Jock. That’s what you have to do.”
“Hell, Carson will lock me up and throw away the key!” he muttered. “I gave his brother the coke that killed him. No, I’m not going to the law.”
“What else can you do?” she asked.
“Get enough money to pay Jock, so he’ll get off my back. The Fuentes organization want Jock. They want to kill him, but they don’t know where he is. They thought Ella did and they...” He was going to say they tortured her, but he couldn’t make himself say that to his daughter, whom he’d failed in so many ways already. “Well, they killed her. Now, the only hope I have is to raise enough money to help Jock get out of the country before they catch up with him. He swore if I didn’t, he’d tell them I was the one who double-crossed them. He’d give them back what he took and blame it on me!”
“If you give him money,” she said in a weary tone, “he’ll only want more.”
“There’s a chance he won’t. He just wants to get out of the country before they do to him what they did to those drug agents they killed. He won’t say so, but I think he’s afraid of Fuentes’s new partner. The partner is called Machado and he hates Jock. He’ll kill him before Fuentes does if he gets the chance, and Jock knows it.”
“Let him,” Keely said coldly.
“Jock was the only friend I had, Keely,” he said heavily. “He stood by me when everybody else jumped ship.”
Just as Carly had stood by Ella. But that had been because Carly genuinely loved Keely’s mother. Jock had stood by Brent Welsh because he knew Ella had money, Keely thought, and he could use Brent to get some of it. But she didn’t say that. He wouldn’t have listened anyway.