Her Cowboy Protector (10 page)

"Why don't you take all that out to the truck?" She gestured to the two bags of romance and science fiction books she'd grabbed at the used book store down the sidewalk. "I'll pick up the pies and pay the tab and meet you out at the truck."

"You sure?'

She laughed. "They're just pies, Niall. I won't throw out my back."

"All right."

She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers. He pulled out his wallet and dropped a couple of twenties in her hand. "Woman, you're getting too expensive for this broke old cowboy."

Cruz snorted with amusement. "Well you wanted to marry me. Now you have to pay."

He fought the urge to bend down and capture those smiling lips for a quick kiss. There were a handful of patrons in the café and their stares hadn't gone unnoticed. He didn't want to be fodder for the town rumor mill any more than necessary. One peck on the lips would turn into a ten minute make-out session with questionable public fondling by the time it made the rounds. "I'll see you outside."

He shoved his Stetson onto the crown of his head and gathered up the plastic bags of books. By the time he reached the door, Cruz was already exchanging cash for the pies and chatting up Maggie. He thought about waiting but Maggie was known to be a bit long-winded. He could have the bags stowed in the back seat and the truck cooled down by the time Cruz was done.

He made his way down the sidewalk, stopping only once to talk to Roberta, the florist, as she watered some of the hanging plants lining her storefront. When he tried the door handle of his truck, it was locked. Frowning, he dug in his pocket for the keys and hit the unlock button on the fob. He'd been sure he'd left his truck unlocked. He never locked the damn thing.

A wave of super-heated air punched him right in the face. Grimacing, he plunked down the bags and hurried to open the driver's side door and plug the key into the ignition. He put the A/C on full blast. Some of the books spilled out onto the floorboard behind his seat. As he piled them back into the bag, Niall heard the oddest sound. At first, he thought it was a strange ticking sound from the air conditioner fan, but when it grew louder, he froze as cold dread gripped him.

That wasn’t a mechanical problem. That was a rattlesnake!

Niall heard the telltale rattling and the slithering hiss of the scaly reptile sliding around under the front passenger seat. He spotted Cruz strolling up to the door. She had both pie boxes balancing on one palm as she reached for the handle.

"
CRUZ! NO
!"

But it was too late. She'd already yanked on the handle. A split-second later, he heard the heart stopping sound of her terrified scream. She disappeared from view as the door slammed closed. His gut lurched and bile threatened to erupt from his throat as he yelled her name and rushed around the back end of the truck. Blinded by fear and panic, he didn't even see her at first. Still screaming, she'd fallen back on the sidewalk and was scrambling backwards toward the lumber yard steps.

People were rushing out of the nearby shops to see what had caused the commotion. There were gasps and shouts to get shovels and guns. He ignored all of them and raced to Cruz's side. He dropped down in front of her, putting his back between her and the snake. His knees bore the brunt of the impact with the sidewalk pavers but he ignored the explosion of pain.

"Cruz? Where did it bite you?" He ran his hands over her bare arms, searching for bite marks, but he found nothing. He was about to rip off her jeans when she grasped his hands and raised her voice loud enough to break through his terror.

"Niall! It didn't get me. It got the pie."

He went still. Incredulous, he asked, "What?"

She pointed over his shoulder. "The pie," she said. "It bit the pie box."

Niall glanced back toward the truck and couldn't believe his eyes. The snake dangled from the mostly closed door, half of it still stuck inside the cab. Sure enough, its wide jaws were clamped around the corner of a pie box.

"I saw it coming at me the second I opened the door, before your warning registered," Cruz explained. "I threw the pie boxes and fell back on my butt. I kicked the door and I think it caught the snake before he could strike again."

"Do you need to go to the emergency room?" His hand moved to her belly. Relief washed over his taut body as the baby gave a powerful kick of protest at all the ruckus. "I take that as a good sign."

"Me, too," Cruz said with a little smile. "Just help me up."

"All right." Niall slowly stood and reached for her hands. He hauled her up off the ground.

"Okay." She winced as she wiggled her behind. "My bottom is definitely going to be sore but I think I'll live."

"Don’t even joke like that," Niall reprimanded softly, his stomach lurching with the very thought of what could have just happened. He brushed his lips over the crown of her head, no longer caring whether the small crowd talked or if he had overstepped a boundary. Cruz leaned into his touch, silently assuring him it was all right.

Niall slowly approached the dying snake. Its rattler shook weakly, the sound slow and interrupted. He almost felt sorry for the poor beast. He tried to wrap his mind around how the snake had gotten into his truck.

"Did she get bit?" Jolene's voice filtered through the murmuring crowd.

Niall turned toward the deputy as she nudged her way through the cramped bodies on the sidewalk. "She's fine, Deputy Grimshaw.

He made sure to use her official title. From now on, their easy friendship no longer existed. Even with the sheriff's new information about the big rig driver spotting possible immigrants near his place, Niall couldn't be sure Jolene hadn't been behind the knife and baby shoes warning. To keep Cruz safe, he had to keep things impersonal with the deputy. "She's a little banged up but she escaped a bite."

"How?" Jolene's stunned question left him uneasy. "That thing is five or six feet long!"

He examined the portion of the dead snake hanging limp from the door. "At least," he agreed. "I can't for the life of me figure out how it got in there."

"Janice had one in her car a couple of days ago," Roberta chimed in from the crowd. She glanced at Jolene. "You were there, weren't you?"

Jolene nodded. "We had Mike from Animal Control come out to catch it and set it loose. He thinks it crawled in overnight through a window she'd left cracked."

"I don't leave my windows cracked, and I'd sure as hell have noticed a rattler slithering around while we were driving into town earlier." Niall shook his head. None of this made sense, but stranger things had happened out here in West Texas. Last summer a bobcat had made the front page of the paper after climbing inside one of those travel trailers parked on a fracking site. The crazy thing had eaten a bag of chips and taken a nap.

"Here you go, sir," the young cashier from the lumber yard handed him a hoe and a five gallon bucket. "For the snake."

"Thanks, kid." Niall nudged the snake's head with the blunt end of the hoe to make sure it wasn't playing possum. Certain it was dead, Niall motioned for Jolene to open the door. The snake flopped out onto the sidewalk. He reached down and pried the snake's jaws from the pie box and lifted the length of the reptile to judge its length. It stretched from his shoulder to his boot. "Good call, Deputy. Damn near six feet."

Her head wagged side to side in disbelief, the gold hoops she wore glinting in the sunlight. She shot a quick look at Cruz who stood talking to Roberta. "She sure is lucky."

"And I'm damn grateful for that." Niall dropped the dead snake into the bucket. He started to toss it into the back of his truck but Jolene stopped him.

"I'll get rid of it. You should get
your wife
home."

She spat the words. His suspicion over the baby shoes increased rapidly. He'd never been good at understanding women. Maybe he'd misjudged Jolene's friendship over the years. He'd known she was interested in him but he'd never given her a reason to think the feeling was mutual.

Jolene grabbed the bucket from his hands and left. He picked up the splattered and ruined pies and carted them over to the trashcan outside the lumber yard. He tossed them inside and pulled the handkerchief from his shirt pocket to wipe away the lime-scented whip cream clinging to his fingers.

When he looked back toward the crowd, he saw Maggie approaching with boxes in her hands. That right there was why he loved this town so much. He'd never encountered that depth of friendship and concern for a fellow citizen anywhere else.

"Here you go, hon." Maggie gave Cruz two new pie boxes. "No reason you can't still have pies for dinner."

"Thank you, Maggie." Cruz hugged the other woman. "That's so kind of you."

"It's my pleasure, sweetheart. Now, you let that sweet man of yours get you home so you can put those feet up and rest. All this excitement isn't good for you!"

"I will." Cruz nodded dutifully.

Niall curved his arm around Cruz's shoulder and gave her a comforting squeeze before leading her away from the dispersing crowd. He made her wait a safe distance from the truck while he gave it a thorough search. When he was sure it was clear, he placed the pies in the back and helped her into the front seat. He even buckled her seatbelt for her, desperate to reassure himself she was safe. To her credit, she humored his over-protectiveness.

As they started the long drive home, Niall reached across the center console and took her hand. His heart skipped a few beats as that terrified scream of hers ricocheted through his mind as if on a loop.
Never again
, he swore.
Never again
.

"Niall?" Cruz tilted her head. "Are you okay?"

"Am I okay?" He glanced from the highway to her. "You're the one who just narrowly escaped a nasty snake bite and you're asking if I'm okay?"

"You seem more upset about it than me."

"Hell yes I'm upset." His knuckles went white as he gripped the steering wheel. "I'm supposed to protect you and I just let a rattler snap at your face."

"This wasn't your fault, Niall. How in the world could you have prevented that? You heard what Jolene said about the rattler in that other lady's car." She shrugged. "Seems like one of those bizarre annoyances of living in the country."

"I guess."

"What is it?" Cruz sounded perturbed. "What are you thinking, Niall? That someone put a snake in the truck while we were shopping?"

Niall avoided her intense gaze. The truck had been at the far end of the street. The view from the lumber yard's front windows was obscured by those green barrels holding various garden and yard implements. There were a lot of overgrown bushes in front and that tree he'd parked under threw off a lot of shade.

"Oh my God! You are thinking that! How? Wouldn't someone have noticed?"

"Not necessarily," Niall reluctantly replied. "A quick lie would have covered it. They could have said that you or I asked them to put a package in the front seat. That's assuming someone saw this person. You remember what Maggie said. Downtown has been deserted this summer."

"But why?" She chewed her thumb, the gesture he'd come to recognize as her nervous tic. "I mean, El Alacrán doesn't use poisonous snakes to kill his victims. He shoots them or slices them up or strangles them." She stiffened. "Unless someone else is after me now. Maybe he farmed this job out to one of his trainees or something. Wait. Do assassins have apprentices?"

"I don't know," Niall admitted. "It's possible."

"Or maybe it was the same person who was at the house last night! Maybe it wasn't just a prowler or an illegal alien looking for water!"

Now she was getting hysterical. Niall had to do something to keep her from hyperventilating. "I doubt it, Cruz. I'm sure Jolene was right. It's probably just one of those flukes. Maybe the snake came in through the air conditioning system."

"Maybe," she murmured but he could tell she wasn't buying it. "I don't think I want to go into town anymore."

"You have a doctor's appointment in two weeks. You can't skip that because of a little snake."

"Little snake? That thing was nearly as big as you!" She huffed and flopped back against the seat. "And why I am the one that's all freaked out now and you're being so calm? Two minutes ago, you were the one losing your mind and I was the one being reasonable."

"Hormones?" He couldn't pass up the chance to tease.

Cruz smacked his arm. "Hormones? I'll show you hormones!"

"Ow!" Niall laughed as he rubbed the throbbing spot on his upper arm. "Boy, you pack a punch."

"Blame it on, Carlos."

"Truce?" Niall held up a pinky finger, reenacting a similar scene from a few nights earlier.

"Truce." She wrapped her finger around his and gave it a shake. "Now step on it and get me home. That adrenaline rush back there lowered my blood sugar and I'm starving for some of that pie in the back seat!"

Niall chuckled and did as commanded. "Yes, ma'am."

7
Chapter Seven

Hours later, Cruz stared at the contents of the refrigerator and tried to find something to satisfy her craving. Her belly growled but nothing looked good, not even the leftover slabs of pie. She wanted bell peppers so badly. Not the green kind. No, she wanted red and yellow and orange ones. Sweet and crunchy and so very delicious.

Unfortunately the only fresh veggies in the crisper drawer were some carrots and celery. Neither looked appealing. She really wanted those bell peppers. She closed the refrigerator door and tried the pantry. Crackers, chips, peanuts but nothing that came even close to the vegetables she craved so intensely.

Back out in the kitchen, she sighed and leaned back against the counter. She had a good view of the front yard. Her gaze settled on the beat up old Chevy Joe, the ranch hand, had left there an hour earlier. He and Niall had gone out to do deal with some kind of cow emergency in one of the far pastures. They'd doubled up in Niall's truck.

Cruz settled on an apple and a glass of peach-flavored tea before returning to the office. She'd been poring over the data in the file since returning home from their trip to town. Niall had urged her to rest but spending the afternoon on the couch was the last thing she needed. Every time she closed her eyes, Cruz saw that awful snake. No, staying busy was exactly what she needed.