LITMIR.BIZ

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an angel of mercy would sound. “It’s all right.”

      He didn’t like being babied. He jerked his hand away, and then was sorry when she stood up and backed away, looking hunted.

      She couldn’t imagine the memories she’d kindled within him. He was trying to deal with them, and not very successfully. “People say you’re a witch,” he blurted out.

      She didn’t take offence. She only nodded. “I know.”

      He stared at her. There was something really other-worldly about her. She was almost fragile, despite her height; quiet, docile. She seemed so much at peace with herself and the world. The only turmoil was in her big, soft green eyes, which were looking at him with a mix of sympathy and fear.

      “Why are you afraid of me?” he asked suddenly.

      She shifted. “It’s nothing personal.”

      “Why?”

      “You’re very...large,” she faltered. She shivered.

      He cocked his head, frowning.

      She forced a smile. “I have to go,” she said. “I just wanted you to know what I saw, so that you could keep your eyes open and be alert.”

      “We have a fortune invested in surveillance equipment here, mostly because of our prize-winning bulls.”

      She nodded. “It won’t matter. They sent a professional assassin after the sheriff in Texas. He had surveillance equipment, too. Or at least I think he did.”

      He drew in a long breath. He stood up, calmer now. “I know some people in Texas. Where?”

      She shifted uneasily. He towered over her. “South Texas. Somewhere south of San Antonio. I don’t know anything else. Sorry.”

      That should be easy to track down. If there’d been a shooting of a law enforcement official, it would be public and he could search for it online. He wanted to do that, if only to prove her so-called vision false.

      “Thanks anyway. For the warning.” He smiled with pure sarcasm.

      “You don’t believe me. That’s all right. Just...watch where you’re going. Please.” She turned and pulled up her hood.

      He recalled that she’d walked here.

      “Just a sec,” he said. He went to the hall closet, pulled out a shepherd’s coat and threw it on. “I’ll drive you home,” he said, digging in his pocket for his car keys. Then he remembered that he’d put them on the hook beside the back door. With a grimace, he retrieved them.

      “You shouldn’t do that,” she began uneasily.

      “What? Drive you home? It’s almost a blizzard. You can’t even see where you’re going in this!” he said, waving his hand toward the window.

      “Hang your keys there,” she faltered. There was a strange, opaque look to her eyes. “You shouldn’t do that. He’ll find them there and get access to the house.”

      “He, who?” he asked.

      She looked up at him and blinked.

      “Never mind,” he muttered. “Come on.”

      * * *

      THEY WERE GOING into the garage when Darby Hanes pulled up in one of the other ranch pickups. He got out, shaking snow off the shoulders of his wool jacket. He seemed surprised to see Merissa, but he tipped his hat to her and smiled.

      “Hi, Merissa,” he said.

      She smiled back. “Hello, Mr. Hanes.”

      “Been riding fence,” he said, sighing. “I came back to get the chain saw. We’ve got a tree across a fence.” He shook his head. “Bad weather, and more forecast.”

      Merissa was staring at him without speaking. She moved a step closer. “Mr. Hanes, please don’t take this the wrong way...but...” She bit her lip. “You need to take somebody with you when you cut the tree down.”

      He gave her a wide-eyed look. “Excuse me?”

      She shifted, as if she was staggering under a burden. “Please?”

      “Oh, no, not one of those premonitions?” Darby laughed. “No offense, Miss Baker, but you need to get out more!”

      She flushed, embarrassed.

      Tank narrowed his eyes as he studied her drawn features. He turned back to Darby. “Let’s err on the side of caution. Take Tim with you.”

      Darby sighed and shook his head. “Waste of manpower, but if you say so, I’ll do it, boss.”

      “I say so.”

      Darby just nodded. His expression was eloquent. Darby had a degree in physics and was a pragmatist. He didn’t believe in that supernatural stuff. Tank didn’t, either, but Merissa’s worried face haunted him. He just grinned at Darby, who threw up his hands and went to find Tim.

      Tank led the way to his big black ranch double-cabbed pickup truck and helped her up into the passenger seat.

      She looked around with fascination when he climbed in under the wheel, and started the engine.

      “What is it?” he asked.

      “Can it cook and do laundry, too?” she wondered aloud, her eyes on all the displays and controls. “I mean, it looks as if it can do everything else. Even satellite radio...”

      “It’s a big ranch and we spend a lot of time far away from the house. We have GPS, cell phones, you name it. The trucks are loaded with electronics on purpose. Plus big, expensive V-8 engines,” he added with a wicked glance of dark eyes. “If we weren’t green fanatics who generated our own energy, we’d be singled out for our inexcusable use of gasoline.”

      “I drive a V-8, too,” she said with a shy smile. “Of course, mine is twenty years old and it only starts when it wants to. It didn’t today.”

      He shook his head. “Maybe Darby is right. You do spend too much time alone. You should get a job.”

      “I have one,” she said. “I do web design. It means I can work at home.”

      “You won’t meet many people that way.”

      Her expression went stiff. “I can do without most people. And they can certainly do without me. You said it yourself. People think I’m a witch.” She sighed. “Old Mr. Barnes’s milk cow went dry and he blamed me. He said it was because I lived near him. ‘Everybody knows that witches cause those things,’ he said.”

      “Threaten him with a lawsuit. That will shut him up.”

      She blinked and turned her head toward him. “Excuse me?”

      “Hate speech,” he elaborated.

      “Oh. I see.” She sighed. “I’m afraid it would only make things worse. Instead of that witch woman, I’d be that witch woman who sues everybody.”

      He chuckled.

      She drew in a breath and shivered. She could barely see through the blinding snow as he drove. “I’ll bet you have problems in this sort of weather. They say the old trail drivers used to stay with the cattle herds during storms and sing to them, to calm them, so they were less likely to stampede. The ones I read about were summer storms, though, with lightning.”

      He was pleasantly surprised. “Those old trail drivers did baby the cattle. In fact, we have a couple of singing cowboys who do night duty for us with the herds.”

      “Are their names Roy and Gene?”

      That took him a minute. Then he burst out laughing. “No. Tim and Harry, actually.”

      She grinned. Her whole face lit up. She was very pretty, he thought.

      “Good one,” he told her

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