Chapter 6

6

Tony was quiet all the way back to Jersey and then to the limo at the airport and on to the contact’s motel room. He couldn’t forget the look on Odalie’s face as he’d turned to leave. He’d pulled out all the stops, thrown his longtime mistress at her, insinuated that she wasn’t his type, done everything he could think of to discourage her.

But that one long look had hit him right in the heart. She was attracted to him. With her impeccable background, it should have been some handsome young man with a bright future and wealth like hers behind him. It shouldn’t be a hoodlum feeling his years, putting her in constant danger from the enemies he had, past and present. He was dying for her, and he didn’t dare touch her. It wouldn’t take much to start that brush fire. Only a tiny spark. He had to be ever so vigilant.

“We’re here, boss,” Ben interrupted his thoughts.

“So we are.”

There was a light in the second-story motel room where they’d been asked to meet a contact.

“Lucky for us that this guy knew the right bar to hit to find a contact,” Tony chuckled. “And that Rudy was having a whiskey sour when he started asking questions. I swear to God, some people have the craziest damned ideas about how we work things,” he added, shaking his head.

Ben checked his .45 and holstered it, then spoke to two contacts who’d arrived much earlier and had the room staked out.

“We ready?” Tony asked, checking his own weapon before he stuck it back in the pancake holster behind his back.

“Ready.”

“I wonder if there’s something about government offices that drains brain cells,” he muttered as Ben came around the car to open his door, looking around constantly.

Unknown to the target inside, he had his own men down here, concealed and ready for any surprises. There was even one on the stairs, who nodded, then jerked his head toward a nearby door. The signal meant everything was okay, no danger from any quarter. Of course there was always danger. Tony didn’t even trust his own men. Except for Ben, who’d proved many times that he was in Tony’s corner no matter what.

But that only meant that he was safe until one of the other really big bosses decided he’d done something unforgivable and called a vote on whether or not Tony would be hit. In which case Ben would be sent to off him. It was the way things were done, as he’d told Odalie. Only somebody close could get close enough for a hit. Hate it though Ben might, it would be his life or his and Tony’s lives, and the hit would still get made. Better not to think too much about that, he decided. It was the here and now he had to deal with, not the future. Besides that, Teddy liked him. Teddy was about as high up as it got.

He knocked on the door, the knock Rudy had shared with the contact when he’d shared the location for the meet. The door opened. The man inside, young, nervous, wearing a suit off the rack, quickly slid his pistol back into its holster, fumbling a little. “Sorry,” he told Tony as he invited him in with Big Ben. “I’m twitchy.”

“We’re all twitchy. What do you know,” Tony asked, “about a sting in my territory?”

“Don’t know exactly where the aggravation began,” he told Tony. “Except that it’s coming from New York. Sal the Penny got hit in his own living room in front of his family. That’s not how we do things. This new generation came up on video games. They like gore.”

“I remember Sal. He was one of Dad’s pals.”

“Yeah. Well, the cops are on it. No matter who you are, murder is murder. If they catch him, he’ll be a guest of Uncle Sam until his hair turns silver.”

“Maybe not that long,” Tony said deliberately. “Sal had friends.”

“He had a lot. Plus the trouble is coming from a punk kid.”

“What?”

The contact laughed, a little too loudly. “No joke, a kid barely twenty years old. His dad was a made man. He learned it from the floor up and he likes it. He’s not greedy—he just wants what he thinks should be his,” he added.

“He won’t like what he gets,” Tony said simply. “The big guys like our friend in upstate New York don’t like noise. It draws attention from the feds.” He leaned forward, his dark eyes steady and piercing. “Anybody who puts a hit in my territory is asking for trouble.”

The younger man swallowed and averted his eyes. “Sure, sure, and that’s why I asked to meet you, to tell you about this. The kid needs to be taken out before he brings down the heat on all of us.”

Tony was still staring at him. “Where do we find this kid? And what sort of backup are we talking about?”

The younger man brightened. “I’ve got the data, I mean, the lowdown, right...right here.” He fumbled an envelope out of his pocket and laughed as it tangled. “Uh, you did a job with the feds not so long ago, didn’t you, and they saved your bacon? I heard about it.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, his voice going soft, “they did. I owe them for that. But I told them up front, I don’t sell out my people, even if I die for it.”

“That’s how we all feel. Nobody wants a rat for a pal.”

Tony looked through some typed sheets that contained two grainy photographs, three names—one in boldface—and an address in Newark. “Your guys got somebody on this?”

“Oh, yeah. We...we got a guy out of Quebec.”

Tony’s eyebrows went up.

“He’s a veteran of many hits,” he told Tony. “And he hasn’t got one blemish on his record. Not one. That tell you how good he is?”

“It tells me a lot.”

“He’s got no family, no close friends. He works for the money.”

“That’s not enough. Not for that job.”

“He likes it,” the other guy said quietly and with distaste.

Tony drew in a long breath. “Well, I guess nobody likes a fresh kid threatening to bring down the cops, either, do they?” He leaned back in his chair. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked suddenly.

“I told you. We’ve got it all managed, no real outside talent, just the guy from Quebec. And no rats.”

“Didn’t they say the Titanic was unsinkable?” Tony asked.

There was a nervous laugh.

“So you’ve got a target, you’ve got talent—what am I here for, exactly?” Tony asked.

The young man brightened. “Intel,” he said. He flushed a little. “I mean, the facts, the setup, how we take the guy out.”

Tony raised a black eyebrow. “The cleaner does that.”

He hesitated. “No, I mean, he’ll come when he’s asked, but we need advice from a pro,” he emphasized with a pearly smile, “about the best way to put the hit on this upstart! If you could just tell us, me, how you usually go about these things...?”

Tony leaned back in his chair, just staring at the man.

“You’re not getting cold feet, are you?” the younger man asked.

Tony didn’t blink. “Cold as the grave, in fact.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” the man asked, looking very twitchy at the moment.

“I owe a guy a favor,” Tony said. “Sorry. Nothing personal. Just business.”

Before he could say another word, the door opened and two older guys in suits walked in. The guy at the table tried to pull his gun, but the older men were quicker.

Tony got up and looked down at the man with utter contempt. “Sal the Penny is in Minnesota visiting his grandson,” he said. “The closest you’ve ever been to us was when you showed up uninvited to a birthday party at a local restaurant and tried to fit in.” He smiled coldly at the man’s surprise. Rudy had been thorough. “You’ve never even fired that piece you carry on your hip. Plus,” he added, the smile fading, “you’re wearing a wire, you son of a bitch.”

The man colored. He struggled in Ben’s grasp and stammered, trying to think up a way to save himself.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll handle the wire when we get him out of here,” one of the guys told him with a cold smile.

“Hey, listen here. This is my bust!” the young man argued. “I called you and told you where to come. You’re on my side!”

“How’s that?” one of the older suited men asked.

“You’re on my side!” The younger man was almost hysterical now.

One of the newcomers glanced at Tony. “We’ll take care of this package for you, Tony, no worries.”

“Make sure there’s not a trail leading back here,” Tony said quietly.

The man was breathing like a steam engine, his eyes going from Tony to the guys in suits. “But...but...these are feds, and you’re talking right in front of them!”

Tony cocked his head. “They tell you they were feds?” he asked. He turned to the men. “You know what to do. And you know who’s behind this. Make sure he knows what he’s sticking his nose into.”

“We’ll get the message to him.” The taller man in the suit clapped handcuffs on the squirrelly man squirming for release.

“But you’re supposed to be feds!” he exclaimed. “I’m wearing a wire for you, to catch him in the act of ordering a hit!” He was almost screaming, nodding frantically toward Tony.

“The feds aren’t the only guys who hang around bars looking for customers who want to off relatives,” Tony told him. “You just learned a lesson. Too bad you won’t get to apply it.”

He nodded at the men in suits.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to go!” the man sobbed.

Tony glared at him. “You really think you can get at us that easily?” he asked, and the softness of his voice chilled. “We’re more powerful than you know, in darker places than you’ll ever look. Even underground, we can reciprocate harm. You aligned yourself with a man who’s already digging himself a grave. He has more blood on his hands than you even know. He’ll pay for it. After you do.”

“I don’t know anybody, I don’t know anybody. I was just told to set you up and get you out of the way!”

“With a couple of feds in a location out in the sticks, toting a gun that’s never been fired, an operative in a cheap brand-new suit and shoes?” Tony scoffed. “I made you the minute I walked in the door.” He cocked his head. “And the underboss who set up this meeting for you works for me,” he added softly, “not your vindictive pal in DC!”

“Please, I just did what I was told to do!” the man whimpered.

“That was the Gestapo’s excuse. Did it work for them?”

“Please!”

He was still wailing until they put him out. He was trussed up nicely, bagged and tossed into the back of a sedan. Ready for delivery.

“Now that we’ve taken care of business, let’s get back to the airport and head down to Jacobsville, Texas,” Tony said as he got in the car. “My other adopted daughter is visiting her sister, with the new little girl. I can’t wait to see them!”

“What about that package we left back there?”

Tony chuckled. “They’ll deliver it to the right office in DC. That will be an interesting story to tell one day,” he said simply, and he leaned back in his seat with his eyes closed. “Some guys watch way too many old movies and television shows.”

“You got that right,” Ben agreed.

Odalie was delighted with her own brand-new goddaughter at the Big Spur near Branntville, Texas. The child was a delight to hold. She fell in love with her at first sight.

“You’ll spoil her rotten,” Maddie Brannt accused with glee as she watched Penelope gurgle up at her godmother.

“She’s just adorable,” Odalie said. “I can’t decide which one of you she favors yet.”

“She’ll look like her daddy,” Maddie said, still madly in love with Cort, her husband.

“I think her eyes will be more like yours,” Odalie replied, “except the shape is what I’m talking about, not the color.” She looked up. “When you’re up to it, Tony wants you to take a picture out of one of the art books I gave you and make him a fairy of it. We all agreed that he’s never going to put the one of him in any gallery,” she added with a grin.

Maddie laughed. “Actually, I figured that out for myself. I picked one of the fantasy paintings and made a little redheaded fairy with big blue eyes. She doesn’t look like anyone we know, so she’ll be easy to let go of. I’m just thrilled that Tony’s willing to exhibit my babies in his gallery. The cattle business is having some issues lately.”

“Tell me about it,” Odalie agreed. “Dad’s having problems, too. If the government would just get its fingers out of the cattle business...”

“...and doctors’ offices and everything else that it regulates, and oversees, and taxes to death, people might find a way to pay their bills!”

“Two kindred spirits,” Odalie laughed.

“Rural people don’t think like city people,” Maddie said simply. “I actually heard one woman in an interview say that we didn’t need ranchers to provide meat or farmers to provide vegetables because we had, and I quote her, supermarkets!”

“Don’t they know that food is only in supermarkets because of farmers and ranchers?”

“I think they’d decided that we shouldn’t have either, that we should all eat bugs and be happy.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty tired of having billionaires make rules and laws and designate even the food we eat. We don’t even have a voice anymore.”

“Time to get out and vote,” Maddie said. “It’s the only thing that might save us now.”

“God is the only thing that can save us,” Odalie replied with a smile. “But so many people don’t believe these days. It makes me sad.”

“That’s their problem,” Maddie replied on a sigh. “But eternity is forever. It’s something to consider. If they’re sure there’s nothing after death, they’d better be right.”

“Amen.”

“Now, down to business. Let me put our Penny down for her nap and I’ll show you my newest fairy!”

Odalie laughed. “I can’t wait!”

But when they got into the studio that Cord Brannt had built for her inside the Skylance ranch, there were two fairies. One was redheaded and blue-eyed. The other was a dead ringer for Odalie.

“But you already did one of me,” Odalie protested.

“This one’s for the gallery,” Maddie said, and smiled, not giving away the fact that it had been commissioned by Stasia. It had a purpose that Odalie wasn’t supposed to know about.

“Oh. Well, okay,” Odalie said reluctantly. She smiled. “She looks just like me, except that I don’t often wear lacy white gowns to bed, and I almost never wear my hair down.” She thought of Tony’s eyes on her the day she was in the gown with her hair loose, and her heart ran wild. She bit down hard on the memory. “This one’s lovely,” she added softly.

“I’m glad you like it. Is Tony coming down anytime soon? I want to show both of them to him.”

Her heart jumped. “Yes, the end of next week,” she replied.

“Great! I can give them to him then.”

“Sounds good,” Odalie said, and missed the mischievous look on her friend’s face.

She spent the time before Tony’s visit practicing her scales in the soundproof room her mother used for a studio, with the door closed. Heather accompanied her on piano when Odalie practiced the arias that she would choose from to try out for the Metropolitan Opera with.

It hadn’t escaped anyone’s notice that she kept putting off the audition. When queried, she had all sorts of excuses. She couldn’t tell them why she was so reluctant to do it. It was what she’d trained for her whole life. It was almost in her grasp. But she hesitated. The threat of nightly performances in front of hundreds of people terrified her. She had honestly tried to work around it. She just wasn’t sure enough that she wanted to live with that fear for the rest of her life.

The end of the second week came, bringing with it good weather and the last day of the most grueling thing ranchers had to do, next to roundup in the spring and fall—moving bulls to summer pasture and getting culls ready to ship.

Tempers were short. Cowboys got into fights. Others threatened to quit. And on and on.

Cole came into the dining room covered in dust and sporting a furious scowl.

“Who quit?” Heather asked, and then she noticed his knuckles. “And did he quit before or after you hit him?” she asked belligerently.

Before he could come up with a good answer, a truck pulled up outside. Voices came from the porch, and then Tony and Ben came in the door, Ben carrying two travel bags and a big suitcase.

“Hello!” Heather greeted them with a big smile. “You’re early.”

Tony raised his brows, trying not to look at Odalie, who was dressed in jeans and a revealing T-shirt with her hair in a ponytail. “Who got slugged?” he asked, having noted Cole’s fists at once.

“Larry,” Cole said, giving the name the sound of a snake hissing.

Heather rolled her eyes. “What did he say this time?”

“That I should have been a dictator, because I could give Mussolini pointers,” he replied curtly.

Tony hid a smile. So did Heather.

Cole threw up his hands. “Well, somebody had to take charge. It’s my ranch, you know. I own it,” he raged. “Two of the cowboys, including Larry, were so drunk they could hardly stand up, and Dan threatened to let Larry use a branding iron on one of my cattle dogs because it was barking too much!!”

“Now, honey,” Heather began, “I’m sure he wasn’t thinking...”

Tony’s face had gone from amused to icy. “I’d have slugged him, too,” he muttered.

Cole pointed to Tony.

Heather just let out a long sigh.

“If he didn’t quit, you should fire him,” Odalie said darkly.

Cole pointed to her, too.

Heather sat down.

“And Dan, too,” Odalie added.

“I did,” Cole replied. He glared at Heather. “At least my baby backs up her dad.”

Odalie laughed. “Don’t. She already thinks it’s us against John and Tanner.”

“Yes, I do, because it always is,” Heather shot back. “You two...!”

“We have company,” Cole said with affectionate amusement. “Be nice.”

“Tony’s not company—he’s family,” Heather replied.

Tony’s face had the oddest expression. He averted his eyes. Odalie had heard a lot about Tony from Stasia, who said that Tony’s homelife had been pure hell. It obviously touched him that Heather considered him part of her family.

“Suits me,” Cole said. “He can come help with the bull roundup.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Odalie began.

“And you, too,” he added.

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Dad!”

“Anybody who’s here during work hours is free labor,” Cole said with a grin. “Look it up. It’s in the bylaws of the cattlemen’s association, somewhere.” He clapped his hands. “So get changed,” he told Tony and Ben. “You’ll do,” he told Odalie. “Outside in ten minutes.” He avoided Heather’s poisonous gaze and barreled out the door.

“He’s joking, right?” Ben asked, wide-eyed.

“He’s not,” Odalie said apologetically. She clapped him on one broad shoulder. “It’s okay—he’ll put you to watching for the cattle trucks or counting heads or something.” She added under her breath, “I hope.”

Tony just laughed.

He had jeans and boots and a straw hat on, with a blue checked shirt that was all too revealing of the muscles in his chest and the thick mat of hair over his breastbone. Odalie deliberately didn’t look at him except for a quick glance as they rode out to the pasture where the culls were being readied for shipping and a selection of new calves Cole had bought at auction the day before were being processed.

“There’s flies,” Ben muttered, swatting at them as he rode not on a horse, like Tony and Odalie, but in the bed of a pickup truck.

“Oh, those aren’t flies. Those—” she indicated a black mass of flying insects as they arrived at the portable processing fences and tilt trays “—are flies!”

“If they spook you, just shoot them,” Tony advised easily as he swung out of the saddle.

Odalie jumped down with ease and they both went to help at the tilt trays where the new calves were being processed.

It was dirty, sweaty work, but not nearly as bad as roundup, Heather had told Tony. Then, there were swarms of volunteers. In cattle country, neighbors turned out to help with what was a big-time enterprise on a ranch the size of Cole’s. Of course, he and his own men were ready and willing to help the neighbors when they were doing their own roundups.

“Isn’t it awful?” Odalie asked Tony with a grin. She wiped away sweat from her forehead and loosened hair from her ponytail. “I love it!”

He laughed at the picture she made. Lovely in couture clothes, incredible in evening wear, she was just as pretty in stained jeans and shirts and with no makeup on. No wonder Connie had been so impressed with her, he thought, and with a sense of pride. Odd, feeling proud of a woman he could never have. He didn’t think about that too long. It led to a place he wasn’t going. Ever.

They finished just as night was falling. Everybody ran for the showers and thank goodness it was a many-bedroom house, each bedroom with its own bath. Then a late supper, and off to bed. Nobody wanted to sit on the porch and talk. Not after that exertion!

The next day, there was going to be a barbeque for the treaty sale Cole had scheduled for some of his young bulls and a few heifers ready to be bred. He did private sales for these rather than use the auction house, which he did use for his yearling calf crops.

Odalie, in a summery yellow-print cotton dress with puffy sleeves and a demure neckline, went up the hill to see about a kitten one of the hands had found. Tony went with her. They hadn’t said much to each other, but there was a companionable silence between them. No arguing. For the moment.

They looked around in the sparse trees beside the path that the riders used when they rode out to tend cattle, but there was no kitten in sight.

“It’s probably looking for a cool space,” Tony suggested.

She avoided looking at him. He was still wearing jeans, but with an emerald green designer pullover shirt today, and he looked good enough to eat.

“There are no cool spaces,” she groaned, wiping a hand over her forehead.

“There might be one or two up in Iceland,” he sighed.

She glanced at him and laughed. “Poor Ben! He really hates flies, doesn’t he?” she asked with twinkling blue eyes.

She was a picture. He hated her for the beauty that was making him miserable, for that exquisite body that haunted his dreams. “He’s a city boy,” he said.

“But he likes Mercedes,” she laughed. “And she’s not a city girl.”

He turned and glared at her, out of sorts because he was more attracted to her than ever and he was fighting it tooth and nail. “Maybe so, but he’s not the sort of man to settle for life in the sticks any more than I am.”

“I was just making a comment...”

His black eyes narrowed. “And if you think wearing pretty clothes and flirting will get you anywhere with me, think again.”

Her temper flared. “Oh, how will I go on?” she said with mock sorrow. “As if what I wear has anything to do with you!”

He smiled coldly. “Don’t you think it shows, Texas cowgirl?” he asked in a slow, sensuous tone, his eyes eating her from head to foot, so that she was almost shaking with hunger. “You’d die to have me.”

“I wish I had a rope!” she said, infuriated. “I’d tie you to a tree and let the coyotes eat you, you, you, you hoodlum!” She threw the words back at him with smarting pride. She hadn’t even deliberately tried to entice him!

She turned and stomped off the trail toward the ranch house.

“Stop!” he said tersely.

She did, because he’d never spoken to her in that tone of voice before, and she knew it had nothing to do with their argument.

“Stand still. Close your eyes.” He was giving orders very quietly. “Don’t jump when you hear the shot. Do you understand? Nod, don’t speak.”

She swallowed, hard, and nodded, even as she heard the telltale sound of frying bacon near her feet. She knew what would happen next if he missed. Cowboys died from rattlesnake bites, even in modern times. And even if she lived, it would mean the hospital and days of agony, perhaps loss of muscle tissue or even a limb. The venom was potent.

She waited for the shot. When it came, she only flinched a little. Two shots, one after another, quick and loud, so close together that they merged.

“He’s dead,” he said.

She opened her eyes. Shaking, she turned and ran into Tony’s arms, pressing hard against him, shaking all over. She couldn’t stop. All her life she’d been terrified of rattlesnakes. One had lived with them in Texas, because they were part of the landscape. That didn’t make it easy.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as he held her close, so close, as if he could only breathe through her.

His face was buried in the hair at her throat. She felt it there, felt his lips against her.

“God, that was close!” he groaned.

“I’m...so...scared of them,” she whispered, even her voice shaking. “Thank you. Thank you...!” She held him even closer.

He didn’t protest, and he should have. The floral scent of her worked its way into his nostrils while he fought the most intense desire he’d ever felt for a woman.

“It didn’t strike you?” he asked urgently.

“It didn’t have time.” She was still shaking. She couldn’t stop. But she felt Tony’s quick heartbeat under her ear, smelled the clean scent of him, overlain with spicy cologne. She felt his body hard and powerful against her own and felt safe, as she’d never felt safe before. She wanted to stay there forever. She wanted him to bend and take her mouth under his, to feel those chiseled lips pushing hers apart, devouring and insistent against her own. It was ridiculous. He didn’t want her. He’d said so, often. But hope died hard. Very hard.

He felt himself weakening. He’d been terrified that he wouldn’t shoot in time, that the snake would strike before he could pull the trigger. She might have been dead, mutilated, horribly mangled. He was so relieved that he’d forgotten all the reasons why he should never touch her. In fact, he wanted to touch her. Now, more than ever. His hands moved on her back, slowly pulling her even closer.

But before he could follow up on that involuntary movement, Cole and Ben were headed toward them. Cole, on horseback, reached them first as Ben ran up the hill more slowly.

“What happened?” Cole asked after he’d flown off the horse.

Tony nodded toward the snake, a long way from where they were standing.

Cole frowned. “Hell of a shot, Tony,” he noted as he kissed his daughter’s hair. “Sweetheart, you okay?”

She pulled back reluctantly and hugged her dad. “I’m okay. I hate rattlesnakes.”

“We all hate them,” Cole said. “You didn’t see it?”

She shook her head. “They blend. If it hadn’t been for Tony...”

Tony was reloading his .38. He made a face. “Sorry. I should have told you that I always carry. Old habit.”

Cole swept back his overshirt, displaying a .45 Ruger Vaquero double action pistol in a tooled leather holster. “We all carry around here. Never know if there will be a snake or a rabid animal that has to be put down, or even one of our animals that’s injured too badly to save.” He cocked his head as Tony finished reloading and put the two wasted shells in his pocket and the pistol in the pancake holster behind his back. “You don’t carry an automatic?” he added.

Tony shook his head. “I had an auto fail on me at the worst possible time,” he replied. “If it hadn’t been for Ben—” he indicated the bodyguard who was just joining them “—we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Well, I’m not giving up my Glock,” Ben announced.

“I don’t remember asking you to,” Tony chuckled.

“What happened?” Ben asked, wincing when he saw the tears on Odalie’s face.

“Snake,” Tony replied. “No big deal. And nobody’s blaming you, capisce?”

Which led to a spate of Italian that neither Cole nor Odalie could understand and that sounded like a family scene from a Due South episode.

Cole started laughing.

“What?” Tony asked, diverted.

“You two. You sound like a scene I remember from a show called Due South . There was this Italian family...”

Tony started laughing. So did Ben.

“Oh, God, that show,” Tony chuckled. “It’s just like that,” he told them. “Just like that, when we all get together. Connie, Odalie met her at my house on Long Island, and the others, the cousins, we get together on the holidays and it’s one argument after another.” He shook his head. “I guess it’s just how Italian families are.”

“We should take him to see Great-Aunt Ophelia at Christmas,” Cole told Odalie.

She laughed with him. “It’s a riot. She and her sister, Gracie, had four children between them, and the kids had kids. So now that makes sixteen grandchildren, about thirty great-grandchildren, five great-great-grandchildren...”

“Six,” Cole interrupted. “You forgot Margie’s new baby.”

“Sorry, six great-great-grandchildren. So Ophelia and Gracie are rich beyond the dreams of avarice and they’re very old and all the kids and other descendants think they should get part of the estate. Then Gracie and Ophelia get into it and talk about changing their wills.” She shook her head. “Pure theater.”

“Almost makes me wish I’d been a foundling,” Cole sighed.

“Liar.” Odalie smiled at him.

He just shrugged.

Ben was standing over the snake. “You shoot him from there?” he asked Tony.

Tony nodded.

“Not bad,” Ben mused.

“Not bad at all,” Cole agreed. “You shoot straight.”

Tony just nodded again. It meant his life if he didn’t, and it had, a time or two.

“They stop doing this eventually?” Ben asked, with a mock shiver.

“What?” Cole asked.

“Wriggling like that?”

“Just until the sun goes down,” Cole assured him. “It’s natural.”

“Oh, like with a guy when you—”

“Is anybody else hungry?” Tony asked, deliberately interrupting his unthinking bodyguard. “I’m starved.”

“So are the rest of us,” Cole agreed with a chuckle. “Bull roundup is hard work, not to mention branding and vetting for that new lot of calves I bought at auction. And thanks for the help. Even though it did involve some arm-twisting.”

“Not much, and I enjoyed it,” Tony said easily. He glanced at Cole. “Don’t you do ear tag now, instead of branding?”

“Ear tags fall off. They can even be pulled off when a cow gets her head tangled in a tree limb or something. We mostly use them for ID. But heated brands last. We still have rustlers, you know. Except now they do it in sixteen-wheelers instead of box canyons,” he chuckled.

“Which is why freeze brands don’t work, either,” Odalie chuckled. “They shed along with the animal’s coat.”

Tony was watching her involuntarily. He’d been frightened for her when the snake had started rattling. Not that he was ever going to admit it.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked Odalie, his eyes betraying only a hint of the turmoil inside him. She was beautiful.

“I’m fine. Thanks.” She smiled wanly.

“Di niente,” he said.

“Cos’ è?” she replied without thinking.

Tony stared at her without speaking. She blushed. “Capisce?” he asked.

“Capisco un po’,” she replied. “And that’s about all I know,” she confessed, “although when I studied in Italy, I picked up a few words. Very few. When I sing operas in Italian, I just memorize the sounds.”

Tony just smiled at her.

Later, Cort Brannt brought over two little fairy statues that his wife had done for Tony’s gallery.

“She’ll overnight them to the gallery when you get back to New York,” Cort said, placing them from a layered box onto the cleared dining room table. “But she wanted you to see them.”

Tony was amazed. He picked up the redheaded one and smiled. “This one is really pretty,” he said. “Almost ethereal. Your wife is talented.”

“Very,” Cort said with a sigh. “I’m proud of her.”

Obviously. But Odalie didn’t say it. She was just as proud of Maddie.

Then Tony noticed the other statue. He put down the redhead and picked up the delicate little blonde in her white gown with her long pale blond hair trailing behind her as she held a butterfly on the tip of one finger. She was smiling.

“How does she do this?” Tony asked, shocked. “I can hardly see the faces here, but she’s got every detail perfect.”

“It’s a mystery to me as well,” Cort replied. “She’s amazing.”

Tony was still staring at the little statue. It was Odalie. He knew it. He wasn’t about to acknowledge it. But he was also certain that this statue would never be placed in the position of available art in his lifetime. It would be kept at his apartment, or his house, under lock and key. It was the most beautiful little creature he’d ever seen, except for its real-life counterpart talking to Cort while Tony admired his new possession.

“What’s this about a snake?” Cort was asking.

“A rattlesnake,” Odalie said. “We were looking for a stray kitten. We never found it, but I found the snake. Tony killed it. He shot it. Two shots, at distance, dead center in its head.”

He turned. They were all smiling at him.

He just stood there, trying to think of something to say.

Heather, divining the scene, walked in and hugged Cort, breaking the spell.