LITMIR.BIZ

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tongue in cheek.

      She flushed. “Kell…!” she muttered at her brother.

      He held up both hands and laughed. “I didn’t tell him what you said. Honest.”

      “He didn’t,” Cy agreed. “Actually Bentley makes a lot of calls at my place during calving season. He’s our vet. Good man.”

      “Yes, he is,” Cappie said. “He brought me home after a drunk ran into my car.”

      Cy’s expression darkened. “I heard about that. Tough break.”

      “Well, the man’s insurance company is going to fix our car,” Cappie added with a laugh. “It seems they were worried that we might sue.”

      “We would have,” Kell said, and he wasn’t smiling. “You could have been killed.”

      “I just got bruised a little,” she said, smiling. “Nice of you to worry, though.”

      Kell grinned. “It’s a hobby of mine.”

      “You need to get out more,” Cy told the man in the bed. “I know you’ve got pain issues, but staying cooped up in here is just going to make things worse. Believe me, I know.”

      Kell’s eyes darkened. “I guess you’re right. But I do have something to do. I’m working on a novel. One about Africa.”

      Cy Parks’s face grew hard. “That place has made its mark on several of us,” he said enigmatically.

      “It’s still making marks on other men,” Kell said.

      “The Latin American drug cartels are moving in there as well,” Cy replied. “Hell of a thing, as if Africa didn’t have enough internal problems as it is.”

      “As long as power-hungry tyrants can amass fortunes by oppressing other men, it won’t lower the casualty rates for any combatants working there,” Kell muttered.

      “Combatants?” Cappie asked curiously.

      “Two groups of people are fighting for supremacy,” Kell told her.

      “One good, one evil,” she guessed.

      “No. As far as African internal politics go, both sides have positive arguments. The outsiders are the ones causing the big problems. Their type of diplomacy is most often practiced with rapid-firing automatic weapons and various incendiary devices.”

      “And IEDs,” Cy added.

      Cappie blinked. “Excuse me?”

      “Improvised explosive devices,” Kell translated.

      “Were you in the military, too, Mr. Parks?” Cappie asked.

      Cy hesitated. “Sort of. Look at the time,” he remarked, glancing at his watch. “Lisa wants me to go with her to pick out a new playpen for our youngest son,” he added with a grin. “Our toddler more or less trashed the first one.”

      “Strong kid,” Kell noted.

      “Yes. Bullheaded, too.”

      “I wonder where he gets that from,” Kell wondered aloud, with twinkling eyes.

      “I am not bullheaded,” Cy said complacently. “I simply have a resistance to stupid ideas.”

      “Same difference.”

      Cy made a face. “I’ll come back and check on you later in the week. If you need anything…”

      Kell smiled. “Thanks, Cy.”

      “I’d have come with Eb and Micah when they dropped by,” Cy added, “but we were out of town with the kids. It’s good to see you again.”

      “Same here,” Kell said. “I owe you.”

      “For what?” Cy shrugged. “Friends help friends.”

      “They do.”

      Cappie stared at her brother with a blank expression. A whole conversation seemed to be going on under her nose that she didn’t comprehend.

      “I’ll see you,” Cy said. “Nice to have met you, Miss Drake,” he added, smiling.

      “You, too,” she replied.

      Cy left without a backward glance.

      After he drove away, Cappie was still staring at her brother. “You didn’t say you had friends here. Why haven’t I seen them?”

      “They came while you were at work,” he said. “Several times.”

      “Oh.”

      He averted his eyes. “I met them when I was in the service,” he said. “They’re fine men. A little unorthodox, but good people.”

      “Oh!” She relaxed. “Mr. Parks has an injury.”

      “Yes. He was badly burned trying to save his wife and child from a fire. He was the only one who got out. It turned him mean. But now he’s remarried and has two sons, and he seems to have put the past behind him.”

      “Poor guy.” She grimaced. “No wonder he was mean. Who were the other men he mentioned?”

      “Other friends. Eb Scott and Micah Steele. Micah’s a doctor in Jacobsville. Eb Scott has a sort of training center for paramilitary units.”

      She blinked. “You do seem to attract the oddest friends.”

      “Men with guns.” He nodded. He grinned.

      She laughed. “Okay. I’m stonewalled. What do you want for supper?”

      “Nothing heavy,” he said. “I had a big lunch.”

      “You did?” She didn’t recall leaving anything out for him except sandwiches in a Baggie.

      “Cy brought a whole menu full of stuff from the local Chinese restaurant,” he said. “The remains are in the fridge. I wouldn’t mind having some of them for supper.”

      “Chinese food? Real Chinese food, from a real restaurant, that I don’t have to cook?” She felt her forehead. “Maybe I’m delusional.”

      He chuckled. “It does sound like that, doesn’t it? Go dig in. Bring me some of the pork and noodles, if you will. There’s sticky rice and mangoes for dessert, too.”

      “I have died and am now in heaven,” she said in a haunted tone.

      “Me, too. Get cracking. I’m on the fourth chapter of this book already!”

      “You are?” She laughed. He looked so much more cheerful. More than he’d been in weeks. “Okay, then.”

      He pulled the laptop back into place.

      “Do I get to read it?”

      He nodded. “When it’s done.”

      “That’s a deal.” She went into the kitchen and got out the boxes of Chinese food. It was all she could do to keep back the tears. Cy Parks was a nice man. A very nice man. Except for their splurged hamburgers and milkshakes, for which she still owed Dr. Rydel she reminded herself, there hadn’t been any convenience food for a long time. This was a feast. She put some of it in the freezer for hard times and heated up the rest. Her day was already getting better.

      It got even better than that. A tall man with sandy hair and blue eyes came driving up in Cappie’s own car two days later. The big SUV was following close behind. Cappie gaped at the sight. Her old car had been refurbished, its dents beaten out and the whole thing repainted and repaired. There were even seat covers and floor mats. She stared at it helplessly surprised.

      Cy Parks got out of the SUV and followed the sandy-haired man up onto the porch. “I hope you like blue,” he told Cappie. “There was a paint sale.”

      She could barely manage words. “Mr. Parks, I don’t even

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