Wyoming Bold

She caught his hand. “Thank you. For everything.”

He bent impulsively and kissed her forehead. “You’re easy to take care of,” he said softly.

“You came to see me. What about?” she wondered.

“You knew I was coming.”

“Yes. I felt it.”

He drew in a breath. “I talked to the sheriff in Texas. We both remember a man who seemed to have more than one face...”

She sat straight up in bed. “That’s it! That’s it!”

He thought she was having a reaction to the medicine. “Are you all right?” he asked worriedly, coaxing her to lie back down.

“I kept seeing a man sitting at a dressing table, trying on wigs,” she blurted out in a rush. “I didn’t know what it meant. Now I do. The man who’s after you, that’s him!”

He felt cold chills down his backbone. “Your mother said you think he’s coming here.”

“Yes. Soon.” She held his hand. “You must be very, very careful,” she said, her face drawn. “Promise me.”

Her concern made him feel warm inside, as if he were sitting in front of a cozy fire with a cup of hot chocolate. “I promise.”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “I’m very sleepy.”

“Rest is the best thing for you. I’ll come back another time.”

She smiled. “That would be...very nice.”

He got up. She was already asleep.

A man sitting at a dressing table, trying on wigs. At least now, thanks to her, he had some idea of what might be coming his way. He would have to take precautions, and soon. He looked down at the sleeping woman with odd, possessive feelings. He wasn’t psychic, but he knew that she was going to play an important part in his life.

CHAPTER THREE

TANK PAUSED TO talk to Clara and the doctor when he left Merissa’s room.

“She’s asleep,” he told them.

Clara smiled. “I’m so glad. Those headaches are terrible. You think there may be something bad causing them,” she said to the doctor, who looked surprised at her intuition. Clara stared at him with wide, soft eyes that seemed almost transparent. “It’s not a tumor,” she said in a soft monotone. “There’s nothing...”

The doctor laughed. “It amazes me, that you can see that.”

Clara looked self-conscious. “It comes and goes. I never know when something will pop into my mind. Merissa has a true gift. She can, well, look at something and see what’s going to happen. I can’t.”

“It’s a very rare ability,” the doctor told her.

“It makes us outcasts,” Clara replied. “We rarely leave the house. People stare and whisper. I hate going to the grocery store. One woman even asked me if I kept a familiar.”

“Good Lord,” Tank muttered.

“We’re pretty much used to it by now.” Clara laughed. “And we do get a lot of people who ask us to read for them. That’s usually hit-and-miss and I tell them that, but they come anyway. Sometimes we’re able to see something that saves lives, or even marriages. It’s a good feeling. It almost makes up for the notoriety.”

“You handle it well,” Tank said.

“Thanks.”

“She said her neurologist did tests and gave me his number,” he told Clara. “I’ll confer with him. But you’re right. She showed no signs of having any impairment beyond the migraine. You call me if she doesn’t get better,” Dr. Harrison told Clara firmly. “I don’t care if it’s two in the morning.”

“I owe you a great debt just for what you’ve already done,” Clara said. She pulled out her purse. He protested but she handed him a large bill anyway.

“Gas money,” she told him. “Don’t argue.”

He just shook his head. “I’m on retirement, you know,” he said.

“Doesn’t matter. You came here as if we were family, and retirement isn’t usually enough to buy food and medicine at once.”

He smiled. “All right then. Thank you,” he said formally.

She smiled back.

* * *

TANK WANTED TO STAY. He hated leaving that sweet blonde woman in the bedroom. He’d felt possessive while he was looking after her. It was a new, and strange, feeling. He’d had brief romances over the years, but he’d never found a woman he could think of in terms of a future together. Now, all at once, his mind was being changed.

It disturbed him, thinking about the chameleon federal agent who had led him into the ambush on the border. He’d dismissed Merissa’s vision at the beginning, but after speaking to Sheriff Hayes Carson in Texas, now he was sure she was right.

* * *

A FEW DAYS later, the storm was still annoying everyone, but there were some changes going on at the ranch. All the men had started carrying weapons, even when they weren’t riding fence. And whenever Tank went outside, at least two men were nearby, watching—something that Mallory had ordered.

New surveillance equipment was installed by a local company. It seemed to disconcert the man who set up the cameras that so many armed men were walking around near Tank.

“Something going on that you’re worried about, mate?” the technician asked Tank. “I mean, men with guns everywhere. You’re never alone for a second, are you?”

Tank shrugged. “My brothers are overprotective. Probably nothing, but there may be a threat of some sort.”

“And you know this from what, an informer?” the man probed.

Tank pursed his lips. “A psychic.”

“Fair dinkum?” the man drawled in a thick Australian accent. He shook his head. “Don’t put no faith in them things, mate, they’re all bogus. Nobody can see the future.”

Tank didn’t argue. “Maybe you’re right. But we like to err on the side of caution.”

“It’s your money,” the man said, and went back to work.

He was through quickly. “This’ll set you right, mate,” the installer told Tank with a smile. “This is state-of-the-art stuff. Nobody will be sneaking up on you now. No worries.”