Texas Lightning. Gerry Bartlett

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      “I didn’t ask you to, it’s on speaker.” He held out the phone.

      Anna watched him closely, waiting for him to make a move. If he did, she’d have to shoot him. She swallowed, focusing on keeping the gun steady. Who had he called? That policeman at the capitol who might have been fake? Oh, she didn’t know what to believe. He just watched her and aimed the phone in her direction.

      “Anna Delaney?” The deep voice sounded vaguely familiar.

      “Who is this?”

      “Ron Zenonsky. King says you’ve been robbed. Are you all right?” He sounded concerned.

      “Mr. Zenonsky, is it really you?” Anna glanced at King. He wasn’t smiling but she could see he wanted to. Had he actually called the owner of her company? “Prove it to me. How many plants are in your office? What color is your iPad?”

      “Are you kidding? No plants. I kill them. My secretary, Mona, finally forbade me to bring in any sacrifices, as she calls them. I have a pink iPad because my daughter Lea gave it to me for Father’s Day last year. My dog’s name is Zero and I drive a Tesla but keep forgetting to charge it so I usually arrive at the office by Uber. Does that convince you I’m the real deal? I know King. He and I go way back. You can trust him.”

      “Yes, sir.” Anna finally let the gun drop and grabbed the phone. She held it tight because her hand was shaking. “I’m sorry about the robbery. But I’ve got everything backed up on my laptop, which I’ve kept with me at all times. And the program is on a thumb drive in my pocket. The other computer is heavily encrypted and password protected. Whoever came in here didn’t get anything worth stealing.”

      “Good girl. Now put King back on for me. I’d rather you didn’t shoot him. He’s a friend, and happens to be one of our investors, Anna. You’re lucky you ran into him when you did.”

      Anna walked over and set her gun on the kitchen counter. What were the odds? “That’s a coincidence.”

      “King has fingers in lots of pies. You’d be hard put to find a successful business in town he doesn’t own a piece of. The guy has a nose for a good investment, and Zenon is about to hit it big with your program. I’ve told you that before.”

      “Yes, sir.” Anna studied the man lounging in the ruins of her apartment. She’d known the minute she’d been able to focus that King Sanders was not an ordinary man in a cowboy hat. Now it seemed like he was a high roller in the business world. Mr. Z had been pressuring her to finish her program fast because he knew it would make Zenon a fortune.

      “But it was wise of you to be leery. Obviously we’re dealing with corporate espionage here. Don’t call the police. I’ll cover your losses personally. I don’t want news of this theft to get out. We have other investors. This kind of threat to our security could cause some concerns we don’t need.”

      “Yes, sir. Here’s King.” Anna handed him his phone then ran to her bathroom. She barely made it before she threw up that delicious lunch. God. What had she fallen into here? Ron Zenonsky was a billionaire, so King Sanders must be one too if they were buddies.

      When King’s hand landed on her back, she wanted to scream. She did not want or need company right now. But all he did was hand her a wet washcloth, then step out and close the door. Okay, so maybe he understood. Good thing one of them did. When she finally emerged from the bathroom, King was roaming her apartment, his gun stuck in his belt.

      “You need to pack.” King issued it like an order.

      “Excuse me?” Anna wasn’t in the mood to take orders. She’d brushed her teeth after running scalding water over the toothbrush she’d found on the floor. Savages! What the hell had they thought they’d find in her bathroom drawers? But they’d dumped them anyway.

      “I’m taking you out of here. You don’t want to wait to see if they come back, do you?”

      “No, of course not.” Anna wasn’t sure she ever wanted to come back to this impersonal and now defiled apartment. But where would she go?

      “I’m taking you home with me. I have excellent security. Ron and I talked about it. He’s going to have a new computer delivered there.” King had the nerve to dump the contents of her laundry basket onto the bed. He carried the empty basket into the kitchen and opened cabinets until he found dog food, then began clearing the shelves.

      “Hold it.” Anna had lived with managing males all her life and had decided during the move to Texas that she’d never endure another one. “Your house? In what universe is that a good idea?”

      “There’s no way anyone should connect you and me. Until today we’d never crossed paths. It’s the perfect solution.” King had cleared out the dog food cabinet, found YoYo’s leash, and clipped it to his collar. It hadn’t been difficult—the dog was following the man like he was covered in beef gravy.

      “Would you put down that basket for a minute?” Anna stomped over to King, kicking a throw pillow out of her way. “Drop me off at a hotel. I can call Mr. Zenonsky and have the new computer delivered there. I have no intention of bunking at your place, King.”

      “I can see you’re getting worked up about this. But listen, my house has space for you to work and is on Lake Travis with limited access. I can’t imagine you want to use public Wi-Fi like you’d find in a big hotel for the kind of sensitive information you deal with.”

      “What do you know about the information I’m dealing with?” Anna tried to wrap her head around this. Yes, she’d need to retrieve pieces of her work from where they were stored in the cloud, so Wi-Fi was essential. But King shouldn’t know that. What she did for Zenon was so secret only her boss and very few other trusted high-level people had any idea what she was working on. Friend of Mr. Z or not, King was making this move too fast.

      “Relax. Ron trusts me. He knows I’m not interested in his tech breakthrough but I do have the right to know, since I invested heavily in his company. I’m doing this for you. Look around. You really think I could leave you like this? And it’ll count as a favor to him. A personal favor. Z and I go way back. We keep score. He’ll owe me. I’ll have fun collecting on this.”

      Anna bit her lip. When he put it like that… She knew men well after growing up with four older brothers. Payback was a big part of their games with their buddies. She almost believed him until King smiled and looked her over with the kind of slow assessment that made her tighten up in all the wrong places.

      “Of course, maybe the whole idea of being alone with me in my house makes you uncomfortable, Anna. You afraid the big bad cowboy will try to jump your bones?”

      “Afraid?” She got in his smirking, way-too-handsome face. As if she was so hard up she’d turn a terrifying situation into an opportunity to get laid. Oooh, but she wanted to slap him, stomp his boots, kick his shins, do something violent. She took a breath, and damn if he didn’t watch the rise and fall of that too-snug T-shirt while she inhaled something spicy, male, and way too interesting. That did it!

      She crossed her arms over her chest and counted to five. Didn’t help. She went on to ten. Finally she saw the humor in his taunt and backed up. If he was trying to get her mind off the disaster that was her apartment, it had worked. He was either damned clever or an irredeemable horndog.

      “I know I’m irresistible, cowboy, but you’ll just have to СКАЧАТЬ