The Gentrys: Cinco

Cinco grabbed his own mug and filled it with the steaming coffee. “What’s the problem between you two?”

“No problem.” Kyle took a slug from the mug so he wouldn’t spill it, swallowing the hot liquid with an audible gulp. “Frosty’s got it in her head that she can simply go on with her life like nothing’s happened while a crazed murderer skulks around the country gunning for her. That’s all.”

Meredith wasn’t about to sit through this argument again. She jumped out of her chair and faced the two men.

“I am not planning on going ahead with life like nothing’s happened. My whole life was about to change anyway,” she muttered through gritted teeth.

She and Kyle had been over this so many times during the past couple of days that Meredith was exhausted from talking about it. She decided to try convincing the cowboy. He looked like a fairly intelligent man. Maybe he could make Kyle see reality.

“Look…Cinco. It’s like this,” she began. “When that insane jerk shot the general right in front of me on the steps of the Capitol, it also happened to be my very last day in the Air Force. I’d already resigned my commission and had accepted a position as a pilot with a commercial airline.

“Transcon Air has been kind enough to hold the pilot’s position open for me. Meanwhile, the feds bungled their arrest and lost the guy. And now the airline says they’ll keep the job free for only a little longer.”

She spread her hands wide, trying to appeal to Cinco’s best judgment, but immediately felt way too open and vulnerable and crossed her arms over her chest instead. “So tell me, how would crazy man Richard Rourke know where to find me if I went ahead with my plans and began the airline’s flight school?”

“Rourke may be crazy, but he’s not stupid,” Kyle said, as he stepped to Cinco’s side, facing her. “You know the FBI believes Rourke has contacts in several militia groups, and the militias have access to all kinds of supposedly confidential information. You’re not nearly devious enough to elude the militias if they want to locate you. Why, you’d probably use your own social security number for payroll purposes, wouldn’t you?”

She opened her mouth to protest, but first Kyle turned to plead his case with Cinco, the same way she’d tried to do.

“You know as much about security as I do, Gentry,” he declared. “Do you honestly think a woman who looks like this one could hide out in plain sight without being spotted?”

Cinco turned his narrowed gaze on her but kept silent.

Meredith felt a chill under his perusal and rubbed her arms in response. “Wait just a minute.” She spun on Kyle. “Who do you think you are to—”

She felt a strong hand on her shoulder, silencing her more efficiently than any words.

“You’re the witness that can identify Richard Rourke as the murderer of General VanDerring?” Cinco asked, while he gently turned her to face him. “The whole damn country’s looking for Rourke. You’re the only thing standing between him and freedom. No one else can place him at the scene.”

Cinco softened his gaze and pinned her with a piercing but concerned look. “He isn’t someone to fool around with. You must know that.”

“Fool around?” She tried to keep her voice low but heard the words cracking with her anger.

Kyle slid an arm over her shoulder and squeezed. “Easy, Frosty. This is a senseless argument anyway.” He dragged her to his side, taking her by surprise and silencing her once again as he explained to Cinco. “The U.S. Marshal’s Office wanted to place Frosty in protective custody while they search for Rourke. After she called me for help, I convinced them that I had a place and a man capable of providing the same security they could…but with fewer restrictions.”

Cinco nodded, as he apparently agreed that his ranch was as secure as anything the U.S. Marshals might come up with.

Meredith sighed, knowing her case was lost. She only had two choices—federal prison or ranch life with her friend’s partner. She realized she had to give up the fight, but she didn’t have to like it.

Cinco smiled at her for the first time, but the dimple creasing his left cheek didn’t do much to soften his eyes. “This here’s a real homey place, sugar,” he drawled. “You’ll be a lot happier and safer here.”

She straightened her shoulders and stood tall. “I’m sure.” But in her heart she knew the truth of her situation.

She probably would’ve been much better off locked up in some federal jail instead of being confined way out here with the original Lone Ranger as her guardian.

Two

“You could’ve at least warned me Frosty was a woman,” Cinco muttered. He and Kyle had walked out to retrieve Meredith’s bags from the sporty sedan while she made use of the facilities.

Kyle ducked his head and pulled the keys from his pocket. “Hmm. It’s just that I forget sometimes. I don’t usually think of her as a woman.”

Cinco stopped in his tracks and planted his hands on his hips with a frown.

“Well, I don’t,” Kyle insisted. “She’s the best pilot the Air Force ever lost. She’s tough and intelligent and can take care of herself in a barroom brawl better than any guy I’ve ever known.”

“The facts are…she is a woman,” Cinco declared, and was immediately chagrined that he’d stated the obvious quite so forcefully. “It’ll be really awkward for me to give her the protection and comfort she needs out here.”

Cinco shook his head in disgust and turned toward the car’s trunk. “Why couldn’t you have brought me an honest-to-God barroom brawler? Some guy I could knock a little sense into and kick around when the waiting gets on our nerves.”

“Give Frosty a chance, Gentry. She’s a no-maintenance female and could probably kick you farther than the last fence post on Gentry Ranch.” Kyle grinned and opened the trunk.

“And that’s another thing. What the hell kind of name is Frosty, anyway?” Cinco didn’t feel the least bit better about his unintended guest.

“Most pilots in the armed services have nicknames.” Kyle shrugged. “Earned in training usually.”

“What’d she do to earn that one?”

“Nothing.” Kyle pulled a duffel and a briefcase from the car and slammed the trunk lid.

At Cinco’s exasperated expression, he continued. “She never flinched, never looked scared, never raised a sweat during all of training. It was like she had ice water in her veins. And only once did anyone see some jackass come on to her. She frosted him but good. No one ever dared it again.”

“Ah. I get it. Ice water…Frosty.” Cinco grabbed his friend’s shoulder, preventing him from moving across the yard and into the warmth of the house. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d been convinced yet.

“What’s the matter with you, Gentry?” Kyle squirmed under Cinco’s hand. “It’s not like you to simply ignore a person in distress. And it’s really out of character for you to shirk your responsibilities to anyone who might need your shelter.” Kyle jerked his shoulder free and shifted his grip on the bags.

Ah, hell. Kyle knew him too damn well. His friend had just played his best card. The moment Cinco had learned she was the witness from the TV news accounts of the shooting of General VanDerring, he knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—turn her away. But that didn’t mean he had to like being manipulated this way.

The real problem suddenly became clear as glass. What on earth was he supposed to do with this Amazon woman? Why he’d even be willing to bet she’d be better on a computer than he was, although that’d be stretching it some.

He scrubbed a hand across his face. This had just turned into the worst twenty-four hours he’d spent since that endless day twelve years ago when all he could do was hang on and pray it was all a dream. Starting last night, when his brother, Cal, called to say he’d gotten some racing groupie pregnant and was going to marry her. Then continuing with Abby calling to say she’d decided not to stay in school for her master’s because she wanted to come home and take over the ranch foreman’s job.

Now this.

“Geez, Kyle. What the devil am I supposed to do with a female while I’m giving her safe harbor?”

Kyle threw him a wry grin. “How the hell should I know? I said I don’t think of her as female, I think of her as a pilot…and I haven’t the foggiest idea what there is to do out here in cowboy land.”

When Cinco grimaced and cursed under his breath, Kyle quickly tried to smooth it over. “Look, Gentry. Just give her a break will you? She’s been through a lot in the past few months. First, her father suddenly dies of a heart attack. Then, just as she’s about to fly her boss home from his last Pentagon meeting before she retires from the Air Force for good…she watches him die in a hail of bullets that could very easily have taken her down, too.”

Kyle turned, continuing as he headed toward the Gentry family’s homestead and the warmth of the kitchen, “But whatever you do decide to do, keep her off the Internet and out of a plane. Either one of those two things could bring an abrupt ending to the feds’ star witness against Richard Rourke. And we certainly can’t afford to lose a client…or turn this into some kind of media circus.”

No, Cinco thought, he’d been there and done that. One media circus per lifetime was about all he could stand, thank you.

Kyle stood at the door with his hands full of Frosty’s baggage, waiting for Cinco to swing it open for him. “And it wouldn’t do Cyber-Investigations’ reputation as security specialists any good to lose such a major client, now would it?”

“You know Kyle well?” Meredith asked as she placed her used coffee mug in the sink.

She and her host had just come inside the house after watching Kyle’s Jaguar pull out of the yard and head toward civilization. And freedom.