Cowboy at Midnight by Ann Major

Author:Ann Major
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2005-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

Eight

Steve felt as nervous as a teenager on his first date as he drove toward Austin. It was six-thirty. He’d be late to meet Amy, judging from the looks of the thickening traffic on I-35 on the north side of San Marcos.

Tonight he had to go slow with Amy. She was fragile. Despite the hot sex, he didn’t really know her. Just thinking about her made him so anxious to see her, he wanted to stomp on the accelerator.

To distract himself, he inserted a tape about Greek mythology. The narrator had barely begun to describe Achilles sulking in his tent when Steve yanked the tape out and flung it onto the passenger’s seat.

The Greeks were too deep for him tonight. He picked up his cell phone and punched in Ryan’s number, intending to apologize for not calling sooner.

“Have you read the paper?” Ryan demanded without preliminaries.

“No. Why?”

“Thunderhawk’s accusing me of murder! And he’s leaked it to the media! Every paper in central Texas is running front-page stories about it. It’s all over the Internet, too.”

“Murder?”

“Three little bullet holes in the skull need to be accounted for.”

“Hell.”

“The medical examiner says the deceased is in his early thirties. The poor bastard washed up with a lot of his face eaten away by aquatic creatures. He had no identification—other than the blasted Fortune crown birthmark. There it was—like an ugly brand right above his bloated, decomposing right buttock!”

“I should’ve gone with you.”

“When I said I’d never seen him before in my life, Thunderhawk demanded that I account for every hour of my time this past week! And when I couldn’t—”

Steve’s temple was throbbing painfully. “Hold on.”

A thousand red brake lights were flashing ahead of him. He hit his own brakes hard.

Ryan continued. “The arrogant bastard said he’d get the truth out of me one way or the other. I think he tipped off the papers in order to put additional pressure on me.”

Steve remembered the stark pain in Amy’s eyes yesterday. He’d wanted to be in an upbeat, positive mood for her, but now this. Selfishly he almost wished he hadn’t called Ryan. How could he give her the attention she needed when he was worried sick about his mentor and relative?

“Just a second!” Steve felt his mouth crimp in a taut line even before the brake lights of the eighteen-wheeler directly in front of his truck flared red. Steve slammed on his own brakes so fast, he hurtled forward, causing his seat belt to lock.

“Surely Thunderhawk is just fishing,” Steve muttered as he squinted at his rearview mirror to make sure the eighteen-wheeler behind him didn’t ram him. Not that he could do anything to prevent a wreck. He was a sitting duck. Rush hour traffic had him boxed in on all sides. He was in a hurry, and he wasn’t going anywhere fast. How long would Amy wait on him at his bar? He needed to call Jeff and tell him to stall her. No way could he get off the phone until Ryan was done venting.

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