Mallory smiled. “Happens to all of us. And then you get a baby and you go all crazy and buy closets full of baby clothes and furniture and big plastic toys...!”

“Oh, stop it, I’m not even married yet.” Tank chuckled.

“She thinks you’re hot,” Cane remarked as he entered the room. “Mavie says Merissa looks at you like she could eat you with a spoon.”

Tank actually flushed. “She did? She does?”

They laughed.

“It’s nice to see you with somebody we approve of,” Mallory commented.

“People call her a witch,” Tank reminded him.

“She’s uniquely talented,” he replied. “There are some unusual people in the world. We got lucky and found one in our neighbor. Well, two of them, Merissa and her mother,” Mallory added. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “we might have lost Darby if Merissa hadn’t had that premonition.”

Tank nodded. “That was pretty shocking. Until then, I never really believed in any of that psychic stuff.”

“Neither did I, honestly,” Mallory said. “But she knew about your attacker, too. You might be dead as well if she hadn’t interfered.” He shook his head. “She’s quite a woman.”

“Not bad-looking, either,” Cane added, laughing. He held up both hands when Tank glared at him. “Hey, I’m happily married and about to become a father.”

Tank laughed. “Sorry.”

There had been a bit of a rivalry between Cane and Tank over Bolinda, Cane’s wife, before they were married. It had been a rocky relationship, and at one time Tank had even flirted with her. But once he knew how Cane felt, he backed off.

“I like her,” Cane added, smiling gently.

“When you get back, Morie wants to have her over for dinner one night, after Christmas,” Mallory said. “It would be nice for the wives to meet her.”

“I agree,” Tank said. He sighed. “Well, I’d better get packed. I hate leaving. And Merissa was nervous about my flying. I usually enjoy it, but now it makes me concerned.”

“Driving takes longer,” Cane pointed out.

“So it does.”

“He just doesn’t like being out of control,” Cane told Mallory. “He’d fly the plane if they’d let him.”

“I can drive a tank,” Tank protested. “If I can do that, I’d be able to pilot a plane. I’d just need a few lessons.” He grinned.

They shook their heads and walked off.

* * *

HE WONDERED WHO Rourke had watching him at the airport. He waited on the concourse gate to board. The man would probably be on the plane with him. But most of the passengers seemed to be families. There were a couple of businessmen in fancy suits. One of them was carrying a laptop in a case.

He drew Tank’s eyes. That man was tall, streamlined but muscular. He walked with a peculiar gait. Funny, to notice the way a man moved, but Tank had worked with a special forces group in Iraq that was assigned to a mission near his unit’s command post. He’d seen that walk before. It was common among men who hunted men. It was hard to put into words, but he recognized it when he saw it.

The man carried himself perfectly erect, no slumping there. He had jet-black hair that he wore in a ponytail down his back. It was as black as a raven’s wing. He wasn’t bad-looking. Women seemed to find him interesting. He smiled at one, a sophisticated woman by the look of her, and she seemed absolutely mesmerized by him.

He noticed Tank’s covert scrutiny and glanced at him from black eyes under heavy dark eyebrows. He had a lean face, deep-set eyes and a chiseled mouth. He looked dangerous. Odd, for a businessman.

Tank lifted his eyebrows, refusing to be intimidated. The man pursed his lips and actually grinned before he turned his attention back to the woman who was approaching him with a big smile.

Even in his best bachelor days, Tank had never been able to attract women like that. Well, some men just had the gift.

He thought about Merissa and smiled to himself. He wasn’t going to be interested in attracting women again, he decided. He had his own. His own. That made him feel warm inside, safe, protected. It had happened so suddenly that he hadn’t had time to think about the impact it was going to make on his life.

Merissa was innocent, a person of faith with high ideals. She wasn’t a woman for casual relationships. But he liked that. He wasn’t a rounder. He was feeling his age, although he was only thirty-two. He was growing used to the idea of having Merissa around. Maybe a child. A little boy who’d look like him, or a little girl who’d look like her. He recalled the very hot and heavy intimacy they’d shared on her bed, and how he’d almost died from the agony of having to walk away from her. Yes, they were going to be explosive together in bed. And he liked her. That was an important part of marriage.

Marriage! There. He’d actually said the word in his mind, the word he’d avoided for years. But it didn’t seem to hold the quiet terror it once had. Settling down seemed as natural as kissing Merissa’s soft mouth. He actually looked forward to it.

He wished he could have taken her to Texas with him. But she had her work, and she’d told him she was behind. There would be plenty of time for trips later on.

They were boarding business class now. He went onto the gangway, smiling at the flight attendant who was waiting down the ramp at the door of the plane. She checked his ticket and indicated his seat assignment.

He hadn’t planned to go business class, but his brothers had insisted. He didn’t fly anywhere enough to make it exorbitant this once. In the spring he’d be on planes a lot, going to seminars, visiting other ranches, visiting congressmen to lobby for better laws for the cattle industry. He’d be working on brochures for their own spring sales and planning the big twice-a-year cattle sale on the ranch. He was going to be busy. So this trip would be something like a working vacation for him. He’d talk to the sheriff, but he also had plans to visit a ranch in Jacobsville to check out some Santa Gertrudis cattle to add to the brothers’ breeding stock. They had a very small seed herd of the native Texas strain. He wanted to pursue it. A good bull wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. New blood every two years kept their breeding herds viable.

As he took his seat, he noted that the ponytailed businessman took a seat across from him. The flight attendant made a beeline for him and offered him anything he wanted. She was also grinning from ear to ear, like the woman who’d flirted with him in the airport.

Tank just shook his head. The man had a real gift.

* * *

IT WASN’T A long flight. At least, it didn’t seem long to Dalton. He read a couple of magazine articles, dozed for an hour or so and listened to the flight attendant telling the businessman across from Dalton about her whole life. He smiled to himself. The guy really had something. The flight attendant was very pretty.

When they landed, Dalton hefted his carry-on from the overhead compartment and got in line to baby-step out the door. No matter how organized the crew was, it was still a free-for-all trying to get off a plane.

As he approached the exit, he noted the flight attendant slipping a piece of paper to the businessman. He chuckled to himself.

* * *

A DRIVER WAS waiting for him at the entrance to the concourse, holding up a sign with “Dalton Kirk” on it.

He raised an eyebrow. His brothers, no doubt. He wondered why they thought he needed a limo to get to his hotel. San Antonio wasn’t that large a city, but apparently it was large enough to house a limousine service or two.

But as he started toward the man holding up the sign, the businessman suddenly bumped against him.

“Sorry,” he said loudly. But under his breath, he said, “Don’t go near the guy with the sign, it’s a trap.”

“My fault,” Tank replied.

He kept walking, not even looking toward the man with the sign. Once they were outside the airport, the businessman drew him to one side.

“Rourke sent me,” he told Tank. His face was very somber. “He didn’t say anything about a driver waiting for you here.”

“I thought my brothers did it for a surprise,” Tank replied, looking around.

“If they’d done that, I’d know about it,” the other man replied. “I left my car in overnight parking. I’ll drive you down to Jacobsville. Boss is expecting you. You’re going to stay with him.”

“Boss?”

“Cy Parks,” the man replied. “He owns one of the biggest...”

“...Santa Gertrudis cattle ranches in south Texas,” Tank finished for him. “In fact, he was on my list of people to see. I want to talk to him about a new bull.” He hesitated. “But I promised to check in with the local FBI office...”

“Later,” the man replied, looking around them with narrowed eyes. “If they sent someone to the plane, they’ll be watching. Let’s go.”

For the first time, Tank noticed a bulge under the man’s jacket.

“You packing?” he asked as they moved quickly toward the parking lots.

“Yes.” He didn’t say anything else.

* * *

JACOBSVILLE WAS JUST a few minutes drive down the road, through some beautiful country. “It must be really pretty here in the spring,” Tank remarked as he looked across the flat horizon with small groves of trees and the “grasshoppers,” or oil pumpers, dotting the landscape.

“One landscape’s pretty much like another,” his companion replied. He glanced at Tank. “You should have questioned who I was, you know,” he said. “If that rogue agent is on the job, he’ll know Rourke is working for you and that he said he’d have somebody at the airport.”

Tank was very still. His eyes narrowed as he looked hard at the man driving the car.