Читать книгу Cowboy Pi - Jean Barrett - Страница 11

Purgatory, Texas

Joe Walker was dying.

Roark had been warned the old man wouldn’t make it, but he hadn’t believed it. The rancher was a local legend, so tough and cantankerous that, in spite of his advanced age, it seemed he would go on forever. Now, standing over the hospital bed, Roark couldn’t deny the reality. Joe was dying.

As little as three, maybe four, years ago, he would have survived the broken hip he’d suffered. There would not have been any tubes connected to him supplying him with oxygen and liquid nourishment. No complications resulting from his accident. But not now. Now he was simply too old to withstand the pneumonia raging through his system.

When had that strong body become frail? Roark wondered, gazing with compassion at the shrunken figure on the bed, its face as seamed and desiccated as a Texas landscape.

The elderly rancher’s eyes were closed. Roark thought he was sleeping. But Joe must have been awake, and sensed his presence. The withered lids lifted, revealing a gaze that was steady and lucid.

“Took your time getting here,” he croaked. “And I got precious little of that to waste.” The effort caused him to wheeze painfully.

“I shouldn’t be here at all. Look, why don’t I come back when you’re feeling better?”

Joe Walker wasn’t a man of humor, never had been. But Roark’s suggestion must have amused him. He recovered enough wind to cackle softly. “There is no better, cowboy. This is as good as it gets. Sit,” he commanded.

No, Roark thought, time was something Joe didn’t have, and the rancher knew that better than his doctor. Roark drew up a chair beside the elevated bed and folded his rangy length in it.

There was one thing that was still vital about the dour old man: a pair of pewter-gray eyes that regarded Roark shrewdly. “That spread of yours over on the other side of the McKenzie place,” he rasped. “Not worth a cowpat. Not enough range for your beeves.”

Roark’s own small ranch suited him just fine, but he offered no objection. He simply waited, well aware that Joe’s opinion of his operation wasn’t why he had summoned him to his bedside.

“But you’re sticking to it, and you know your stuff,” Joe said. “Not bad for a weekend cowboy. Hear you also know what you’re doing with that PI agency of yours down in San Antonio. That combination makes you the man I need.”

The rancher paused, his inflamed lungs struggling for the oxygen that would permit him to continue.

“My lawyer explain the setup to you?” he whispered.

“Yes.” Roark had had his share of strange cases, but nothing as eccentric as this one. He probably wouldn’t have considered the proposal at all if he hadn’t grown up on John Wayne movies, and the chance to actually experience… Well, the offer was damn tempting.

“Then you know what I want. I won’t send her up there without protection. Made that a requirement in the will.”

The “her” was his granddaughter, Roark thought. Samantha Howard. He had never met the woman, but he was angry with her. Why wasn’t she here at Joe’s bedside?

The old man, still wheezing through the pain that must be stabbing his lungs with every breath, understood Roark’s tight-jawed, unspoken judgment. “No use for each other, Samantha and me,” he said. “Never had.” He paused, plucking at the sheet tucked around him. “But she’s the only family I got. And I don’t aim for the Walking W to leave the family, not if it can be helped. Want her to inherit everything. But if she stands any chance at all of running the ranch, she’s got to toughen up. Way I see it, and I thought about this carefully, I got no choice but to send her on this trek. It’s the best way to harden her.”

He stopped to regain enough strength to go on. There was a long silence interrupted by his fitful breathing. “Every man has his secrets,” he muttered.

Was he wandering? Roark wondered. Had that sharp old brain been dulled by illness and fatigue?

“Figure,” Joe said, “there’s maybe someone out there with a secret I don’t like. Maybe up to mischief. Maybe not. Even so, there’s always risks on a haul of this kind. Enough, cowboy, that you got to watch my granddaughter’s back while she’s earning her spurs.”

Understanding him now, Roark leaned earnestly toward the bed. “Joe, she doesn’t need a bodyguard. She’s not in danger. The fall you took from your horse was an accident. The sheriff’s investigation—”

“Didn’t mean squat!”

The old man’s sudden, obstinate anger resulted in a hacking cough that alarmed Roark. He started to get to his feet to call a nurse, but Joe clutched at him, pulling him back.

“Stay,” he gasped, managing to quiet himself after a moment.

“You sure?”

“Not sure of anything,” he said between shallow breaths, “except this damn ache in my chest that never goes away. But before I stop fighting it, you got to tell me you’ll look out for her. Could be there’s nothing to worry about. Probably isn’t, but I won’t send her to Colorado without easing my mind on the subject. Promise me, cowboy….”

WHAT THE HELL had just happened? Roark asked himself as he came away from the hospital ten minutes later. But he knew exactly what had happened. He had gone and pledged his services to Joe Walker. Or, more precisely, to Joe’s granddaughter. He just didn’t know why he had been fool enough to guarantee his protection of the woman.

But that wasn’t true either, Roark thought as he paused in the parking lot, hand resting on the door of his pickup truck. Though he hated to admit it, he realized all too clearly why he had accepted the assignment. It was simple. He had been unable to refuse the urgent appeal of a dying man.

He would do it, Roark told himself as he climbed behind the wheel of the truck, but he didn’t like it. He’d decided by now that this condition Joe had insisted his granddaughter fulfill in order to inherit his estate was extreme, if not downright bizarre. That was one thing. And for another, he was dealing with an issue of his own. A personal conflict that had been tearing him up inside for weeks now. How was he supposed to come to grips with that while playing bodyguard in the wilderness for a woman he already resented?

No, he thought, speeding away from the hospital, he wasn’t looking forward to Samantha Howard.