Читать книгу Night Hawk - Lindsay McKenna - Страница 13

CHAPTER SIX

TALON HOLT SAT with Gil in his office at the main ranch house. Both were grim. Talon said, “Look, we know that Chuck Harper is being watched by the FBI and ATF for drug running. So far, no one has caught him at it.” Pushing his fingers through his dark hair, he added, “Deputy Sheriff Cade Garner is someone I trust, Gil. You haven’t been here long enough to know that, but if he suggests that someone escort Kai over to the Ace Trucking machine shop, we need to do it.”

“You won’t get any argument out of me,” Gil said, feeling relief start to trickle through him. He would talk to Garner soon. Until then, Gil had made a decision that someone would always be with Kai over at Harper’s machine shop. He had her back. “It’s going to be a balancing act. Needs at the ranch versus needs of machinery being available so we can use it. Right now, I need a horse trailer. And we don’t have one that’s safe enough to use.” He saw his boss sit back in his chair, nodding. “You need to tell me what repair should be first.”

“On another issue, we need to buy a horse for Kai,” Talon said. “Slade McPherson, Griff’s twin brother, owns an endurance-racing horse ranch on the other side of Jackson Hole. Cass has allotted us fifteen hundred dollars for the animal. Can you take Kai over after setting an appointment up with Slade? Let her see what’s available and then you need to get him to agree to our money limit.”

Gil had never met Slade McPherson, but he knew his twin, Griff, who he respected and admired. The man had an MBA, along with horse sense and hard work combined. He was bringing the Bar H back to life. “I’ll see what I can do.” He knew the worth of the horses he had bred and trained.

“Then,” Talon said, talking more to himself as he looked up at the copper ceiling that had been imprinted with hundred-year-old patterns from the past, “get Kai to look over all the equipment. Have her make up a complete repair list. Tell her the double-wide horse trailer has to supersede the tractor for now. If push comes to shove, we can always ask Slade to deliver the horse here and he will. But we need that trailer as bad as we need the tractor.”

“And who do you want to go with her to Ace Trucking?” Gil wanted it to be him. He saw his boss’s expression pinch.

“Whoever is available at the time. Hell, it will be Cass, you or me. Any way you cut it, she’s got a black ops guy at her side. I don’t think Harper will try anything.”

“You want us to pack a weapon?”

Talon nodded. “We all have a license to carry a concealed weapon. I don’t trust Harper. At all. But I sure as hell like the prices he’s giving Kai. If we don’t use his services, that means we’re wasting a day driving to and from, plus, if Kai can’t finish everything off at another machine shop in Idaho Falls, we have to pay for her food and hotel bill. And we’re paying one-third more in costs. It mounts up in a hurry.”

Gil understood Talon’s position. He knew from his own father always battling the accounting ledger that keeping a ranch in the black was the toughest thing to do in the world. And right now, the Triple H was in the red. Cass had a good, solid plan for the ranch, but it was slow going. Rome wasn’t built in a day, he reminded himself. So Talon was going to be damned conservative, and Gil didn’t blame his boss for wanting to use a nearby facility and save money while he was at it. He just didn’t want to put Kai at risk. But neither did Talon. Gil could see he was morally wrestling with the situation. In one way he knew he was putting Kai in a potentially dangerous situation. On the other hand, all three of them were well-trained operators and would be packing a weapon in case shit happened.

“Do you think Harper would try anything while she was in his facility?” Gil wondered.

“No, I don’t. And that’s the only reason I’m willing to even consider this idea. Harper is known to be very low-key. He doesn’t want trouble. There’s been enough of it of late and Cade thinks that he knows the FBI is following him. He employs only Latino workers. Cade thinks most of them are illegals. But the other agencies that usually swoop down and find them are pulling back. The FBI is trying to insert someone into the trucking company, but they know Harper is watching closely.”

“Sounds like a standoff of sort,” Gil agreed.

“If you can ask Kai to focus on that horse trailer and tell her why, I’d appreciate it.”

Gil rose. “I will.”

* * *

THE LATE-MORNING sun felt good coming into the back of the green barn where Kai was working. She was dusty from taking a broom and putting a bandanna around the lower half her face to start sweeping off the thick dust on every piece of machinery. There were clouds of dust hanging in the air, sparkling as it hit the shafts of sunlight piercing through the barn.

She lifted her head and saw Gil coming up the gravel slope. For a moment her heart pounded. The fear of having to confront him and then fight back her desire for him always left her exhausted afterward. His face was set and shadowed, the sun at his back. He was so damned good-looking to her. He always had been.

Going to meet him at the front of the barn where there was less dust in the air, she pulled the handkerchief off her face, broom in one hand. Kai longed for some kind of truce between them. But how could there be? Gil had not told her why he’d left her. Not said one peep. He had apologized, she reminded herself, when they’d had it out in the barn the day after her hiring. And he’d looked so damned sad, as if he were going to cry or something, but he always tried to hide it from her. She’d been brimming over with anger, and having gotten it off her chest now Kai wanted a truce, maybe.

“How’s it going?” Gil asked as he drew up to her, keeping a good six feet between them.

Wrinkling her nose, Kai said, “I couldn’t stand how dirty everything was.” She internally tensed, unsure why Gil was here. There was no reason that she could think of. And she didn’t want another argument with him. Searching his blue eyes, she saw worry in them, not anger or defensiveness.

“If we had more hands, I could get someone in here to do it for you. Like it should be.”

Her stomach began to unknot. For the first time, this was the Gil Hanford she knew from her past. He’d put his hands on his hips, shifting his weight to one leg more than the other. His face was relaxed looking, too. Some more of her sagged in quiet relief. “It’s okay. I’m good at cleaning up situations.” She managed a sliver of a smile.

“You are very good at everything you do.”

Praise riffled across her. She almost asked Gil if he’d gotten a decent night’s sleep, remembering the tense discussion at the dinner table last night. “Thanks, it’s nice to hear it.”

“Talon’s happy with you, and that’s all that counts.”

Gil wasn’t happy she was here, but she bit back the words. To say that would be to stir the tension that flowed between them. “What do you need?”

“Talon wants to get you a horse. Slade McPherson has some for sale on the other side of town at his ranch. I was wondering if you were at a place where you could stop for a couple of hours?”

A horse! Her heart sang. Kai felt giddy. “Sure. That would be a lot of fun to go look at horses.” She saw a slight curve of one corner of Gil’s mouth, his blue eyes lighter. Was he happy? It felt like it. Far better than being at odds with him.

“Let me go get cleaned up? I look like a dust bunny.”

Gil gave her a slow inspection from head to toe. “Yeah, a little. Go ahead. I’ll meet you out front in the company truck in twenty minutes?.”

Heat soared through Kai and she felt her breasts tighten beneath his heated gaze. That look wasn’t impersonal. Her mouth went dry. God, was it possible he wanted her? Man to woman? The realization was like a bolt striking her and Kai inwardly floundered. Her heart was doing a happy dance. Her memory sourly reminded her of the hurt he’d caused her. “Sure,” she murmured, setting the broom inside the barn. “Twenty minutes.”

* * *

KAI WAS UNEASY riding with Gil so close to her in the cab of the truck. They had a good twenty miles together. She sat with her hands in her lap, tense. Gil seemed relaxed in comparison. The scenery was rich and green, the valley blooming to life after eight months of hard, cold winter. She enjoyed the patchwork quilt of small farms on the left. To her right rose a rocky hill and cliff.

“Does Slade have quarter horses?” she wondered, wanting to break the silence.

“No. He’s got endurance horses. Talon was telling me Slade has a sunbonnet paint mustang stallion called Thor. His stud has won every endurance event in North America. Jordana McPherson rode Thor to victory two years ago. Slade got gored in the thigh by one of his ornery bulls and couldn’t ride him in the event, so she did and won.”