Lone Star Rancher. Laurie Paige

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СКАЧАТЬ creep keeps calling and breathing into the phone, then he gives this little smirky laugh and hangs up.”

      Clyde muttered a curse. He didn’t like people, whether men or women, who preyed on others.

      “She’d planned on taking September and October off, so I thought it would be good if she got out of town.”

      He could sense what was coming.

      “The ranch would be a perfect place for her to rest and to stay low while this jerk gets over his fixation.”

      “Two months? I don’t—”

      “She would probably only stay a month. You won’t have to do a thing. She can entertain herself. She just needs a quiet place where he can’t contact her.”

      Put that way, it was hard to refuse. “I don’t know,” he hedged. “Let me talk to Steven and Miles first.”

      “Steven doesn’t even live there anymore,” she protested. “He’s all wrapped up in his new ranch and remodeling the house for the love of his life. And Miles won’t care. He loves having a woman around to flirt with and practice his charm on. You know that.”

      “Huh,” he said, trying to think of a good excuse not to have her friend there and knowing it was a losing battle. His protective instincts were already prodding him.

      “The problem is you,” Violet stated.

      “Maybe,” he conceded, wondering if the man was at fault. Maybe the model had led him on.

      Once he’d been twenty-two and a gullible dreamer. He’d gone to Dallas for the annual ranchers’ association meeting and fallen headlong into love with a sweet-talking waitress who’d told him she was nineteen, pregnant and abandoned by both her lover and her family. He’d given her money and set up an account for the unborn child.

      Claudia had used him and his trust in her to bilk him out of a couple of thousand dollars.

      He’d even proposed, thinking to bring her to the ranch and share an idyllic life. The weekend they were to marry, he’d arrived at their meeting place in Dallas and waited…and waited…and waited.

      As the hours passed, he’d been in agony, worrying that she’d been in an accident or something. Yeah, right. She’d taken his money and run out on him for parts unknown. He’d also found out there had never been a child, according to her friend at the restaurant where she’d worked. The older woman had looked at him with pity.

      Man, he must have had “sucker” written in big, bold letters on his forehead. Since then he’d kept his distance from women.

      Ignoring the urge to dash to the rescue, he tried once more to dissuade his sibling. “Look, little sis, Jessica would be bored out of her mind staying out here.”

      “She wouldn’t. She was born in Red Rock. She grew up there and she loves the area.”

      Clyde glanced heavenward. His sister was nothing if not determined once she’d set her mind on a course. “Why doesn’t she stay with her family? Doesn’t she have relatives somewhere around here?”

      “She doesn’t want to put them in danger in case the stalker follows her and gets violent. Just last month one weirdo here in New York stabbed the actress he was obsessed with. Didn’t you see it in the paper?”

      “I might have read something about it,” he conceded. “Don’t you think it’s a tad strange that she won’t put her family in danger but she thinks it’s okay to stay with near-strangers and put their lives at risk?”

      There was a tense silence on the line. “Hello?” he finally said to remind his sibling he was still there.

      She cleared her throat. “I haven’t exactly convinced her to head for your place. She’s as stubborn as you are.”

      He had to laugh. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” he murmured.

      Violet waited a second, then continued, “She doesn’t want to bother anyone. She thinks it’s her problem, and she has to solve it. But I’m getting worried. The guy—his name is Roy Balter—is calling more and more often. Jessica has already changed her phone number, but he got the new one.”

      “Info is a snap to get nowadays,” Clyde said. “I’ve heard of this Balter guy. He was one of the talking heads on a television news program the other day. He’s on the city council and is heading up a commission on terrorism. He looked okay to me.”

      “That’s the problem. Everyone thinks he’s perfectly sane, while they think Jessica is off her rocker. I was at her place last night and listened to his messages, the breathing, then this sinister little laugh. It gave me chills. Jessica is keeping the tapes from the answering machine. She says maybe the police will believe her when they find her dead body and a box of recordings from the creep.”

      “Damn,” Clyde muttered. He closed his eyes and rubbed his neck, then gave up. “Okay, tell her she’s welcome to come here next month if she wants to. I’ll arrange transportation from the airport in San Antonio.”

      “Oh, Clyde, thank you. I don’t care what other people say. I think you’re absolutely wonderful.” She laughed at this oft-repeated joke between them, then sobering, she said, “Would you mind picking her up? I’ll feel so much better knowing she’s with you. Miles is wonderful, too, of course, but he doesn’t take things as seriously as you do. This may be a matter of life and death. Really.”

      “Yeah, yeah, I’ll pick her up. Let me know the flight, date and time, okay?”

      “Yes. I’ll call as soon as I talk her into going. I’m sure she will. She’s tired and discouraged and frustrated trying to deal with this and her work and all.”

      “Make sure she understands that we’ll be doing the roundup while she’s here. No one will have time to babysit or entertain her. You understand?”

      “Perfectly. She just needs a break and some peace and quiet. You will keep an eye on her, won’t you? I mean, in case the stalker shows up?”

      He exhaled heavily. “Yes.”

      “Promise?”

      “Promise.”

      With that, she said her farewells and hung up. He realized he’d forgotten to congratulate her on the article in the medical journal, which their mom had sent a couple of months ago. Not that there wouldn’t be other chances in the near future. If he knew his little sis, she would hound her friend into coming out, then she would hound him about looking after the visitor.

      He grabbed a beer from the fridge, which held very little else, and went out on the patio to enjoy the twilight and the cool evening air. The cattle in the two thousand acres of pasture that comprised the ranch were grazing peacefully or bedded down while they chewed their cuds.

      The quiet appealed to him. No cars were on the paved county road. The interstate highway, I-35, that ran up the middle of the state through San Antonio, Austin and points north was too far away to be heard.

      He liked the distance to the horizon, as if one could ride into the sunset forever. He appreciated the vastness of these wide open spaces that were СКАЧАТЬ