Lone Rider Bodyguard. Harper Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ shoulders to help her up. “And call me Greta, not ma’am, sweetie.”

      Just like that they’d become friends, Susannah thought, entering the miniature courtyard—what Greta called the portale—attached to the house. Wrought-iron gates set into the enclosing adobe walls kept the outside world at bay, the walls themselves pierced here and there with small openings. Inside each opening sat a small flickering candle in a votive holder.

      “If your little guy wakes up we’ll hear him easily enough.” Greta set Daniel’s baby monitor on the glass-topped table, two tiny lines between her brows. “You know I’ve been careful not to buy Danny’s diapers and supplies in Last Chance, Susannah, but when I ran into town yesterday to get turpentine I kept my ears open. No one was talking about a woman and a baby going missing.”

      “Maybe after Tye sent the ambulance to get me he decided to continue on his journey instead of waiting around. Heaven knows he didn’t owe me any more of his time.” Susannah looked toward the house, her glance going to the window of Daniel’s room. “I guess it wouldn’t be the first time the paramedics went out on a call that didn’t pan out, so they wouldn’t have seen any need to raise a hue and cry about it. But that doesn’t change the fact I did him a wrong, Greta.”

      The other woman hesitated. When she spoke again she seemed to be choosing her words with care. “I didn’t hear any gossip about strangers poking around, either,” she said quietly. “Tell me—how sure are you that someone’s after you?”

      “As sure as I am of the fact that Frank Barrett was killed,” Susannah said flatly. “I identified his dead body, Greta. And a few weeks after I had him laid to rest I saw the owner of the diner where I worked killed by a bullet meant for me.”

      Restlessly she stood. Through the iron lace of the gates the moon Greta had promised hung, full and orange, over the desert. “I just don’t know who’s after me or why, which is why every time I’ve gone to the police I sound like a crazy wom—”

      “What is it?” Greta’s glance went to the baby monitor at Susannah’s quickly indrawn breath.

      “Not Danny.” Susannah shook her head. “Someone’s coming. Were you expecting company?”

      Greta was already standing, but as the headlights that had caught Susannah’s attention came closer her posture relaxed. “I know better than ever to expect Del Hawkins. Every so often the man simply shows up, and I’m fool enough to run into his arms when he does,” she said dryly. “That’s partly what was behind our little tiff last week just before he left—although he’s back a day earlier than I thought he’d be.”

      She shrugged. “But I’ve bored you with that story more than once, sweetie. Do you want to meet my tough old mustang or would you feel better if he didn’t know you were here? You can trust him to keep his mouth closed about seeing you,” she added, her eyes still on the approaching truck.

      He was the reason Greta had never married, and why she’d taken up residence in this remote chunk of New Mexico when she’d decided to concentrate on her painting. If only for those reasons it would be interesting to see just what kind of a man he was, Susannah thought. But even if he and Greta had been no more than acquaintances, his arrival still would have been momentous.

      Because if he was the Del Hawkins she’d been looking for, her twenty-five-hundred-mile journey had just come to an end.

      Her palms felt suddenly damp. Surreptitiously she pressed them against her thighs.

      “Granny Lacey used to say two catbirds sound real sweet singing together, but as soon as a third one shows up the harmony’s gone.” Her smile felt wobbly. “I’m near ready for my bed, and I suspect my little mister’s going to have me up again in a few hours anyway.”

      Granny Lacey had also said that not telling the whole truth was as good as a lie, Susannah thought, making her way into the house. That one she didn’t completely hold with.

      “If your great-granny was still alive she’d say I was sliding down that slippery slope real quick, starshine,” she murmured to Daniel as she bent over his cradle. “But your mama had to think of something. You’d think nine whole months would have been time enough to prepare myself, but I guess I wasn’t as ready as I thought. Besides, there’s a chance it might not be him.”

      She lifted her head, her brows drawing together in a frown as she heard the solid-sounding thunks of not one, but both of the truck’s doors being slammed shut. Del had brought a friend. Even if her hasty withdrawal had been for the sole purpose of allowing Greta a few minutes of privacy it would have been all for nothing, anyway.

      “Someone should give that fool male a slap,” she muttered in momentary distraction, stepping to the screened window and looking out at the candle-and-moonlit patio. As she gazed at the man leaning forward to plant a casual kiss on Greta’s slightly parted lips, any last doubts about his identity fled.

      He was the Lieutenant Hawkins she’d grown up hearing so much about from her grandmother—the man her father had served under during a long-ago and terrible war, one of only two men Daniel Bird had sworn he would trust with his life. Del had lost both legs in Vietnam and although Greta had told her he’d been liberated from a wheelchair ten years ago when he’d been fitted with prosthetic limbs, the cane he was holding in his left hand was obviously necessary to his balance.

      “But you’re still a fine-looking man, aren’t you?” she said under her breath, watching as Hawkins lightly touched Greta’s hair before turning to introduce his companion. “And in love with her, if the look on your face is anything to go by. So why don’t you—”

      Susannah froze in shock. Her eyes widened painfully as she stared at the stranger standing with Del Hawkins and Greta.

      Except he wasn’t a stranger, she thought faintly. He was a fallen angel, and even while he reached for Greta’s extended hand his attention was fixed on something on the table.

      Tyler Adams raised his eyes from the baby monitor, his gaze encompassing the courtyard and then going to the house itself. In the light from the candles the sweep of his lashes cut shadows on the hard ridges of his cheekbones.

      And at that instant the night exploded in gunfire.

      “Get down!”

      There was no way he could see her—but incredibly, Tye’s hoarse shout seemed directed at her. Susannah could have sworn his eyes locked desperately on hers before he turned swiftly to his companions.

      Hawkins had already started to act, one muscled forearm shooting forward to knock Greta out of the line of fire coming from the openings in the wall where the votive candles had been moments ago. Even as his arm made contact with the blonde, Susannah saw her slam against him, as if some invisible fist had driven into her chest with enough force to lift her off her feet. Del’s stricken voice rose above the cacophony of gunfire.

      “Greta!”

      As she slumped against his chest he dropped his cane and took her whole weight with him. His knees crashed onto the brick of the patio but, showing no reaction to the pain, he pulled her closer, his arms wrapping around her as if to shield her with his own flesh and bone.

      Of course he hadn’t reacted to the pain. He hadn’t felt any. The last time Del Hawkins’s knees had felt pain had been over thirty years ago in a Mekong Delta swamp, Susannah reminded herself. Even that long-ago agony, terrible as it must have been, couldn’t have contorted СКАЧАТЬ