Summer Games (20 page)

“Ah, you’ve discovered that she’s stubborn.”

“Stubborn? Hell, she makes a Missouri mule look wishy-washy. She got on that damned stud and took him over the rest of the jumps as soon as she could stand up. Sooner, if you want the truth. Only after the jumps did she do the sensible thing.”

“And that was . . . ?”

“She fainted,” he said succinctly. “Or maybe she just didn’t want to hear what I thought of her getting back on Dev for a round of jumping before she got her thick skull X-rayed.”

Chandler-Smith cleared his throat, but a snicker still escaped. He rubbed the back of his neck, rotated his head, and rubbed some more. It had been a long night. It would be a longer day. “I wish I’d been there.”

Cord closed his eyes and thought of the endless terrible moments when Raine had been facedown in the dirt and he hadn’t known if she was alive or dead. But he didn’t want to talk to Blue about that. The man was far too shrewd. He would suspect that Cord’s concern was more than professional; it was intensely personal.

He breathed in, trying to control the tension gripping him. The aroma of the hospital clogged his nose, ammonia and desperation in equal parts.

“It’s probably better that you weren’t here,” he said neutrally. “You would have ripped bloody strips off everything in reach. And she would have torn a few off you.”

“Baby Raine?” Chandler-Smith laughed outright even as he curtly waved off his personal assistant, who had stuck his head into the lion’s den to find out why all the lights were still blinking. “She’s a pussycat. Never a hard word for anybody.”

“Tell me that after you get between her and something she wants to do.”

“Not me. I plan to live long enough to collect Social Security.”

Cord smiled. “If you want updates on her condition, have someone contact the motor home. I won’t call you unless things go from sugar to shit.”

“Does the doctor expect that?” Chandler-Smith asked sharply.

“No,” Cord said, but his tone said that he was used to planning for worst-case scenarios. “I’m not taking her back to her motel room. I’m keeping her in the spare room at the command center so that I can check on her every half hour.”

Chandler-Smith’s eyebrows rose. “Hire a nurse.”

“There’s not enough time to vet anyone. Right now, there’s only one person I trust without reservation. Me.”

“What about Kentucky?”

“Ninety-seven percent.”

“You’re a hard son of a bitch.”

“You’re my role model in all ways but one,” Cord retorted.

“Should I ask?”

“I’m getting out.”

Cord didn’t say anything more. He didn’t have to. Both men understood that when a man in their line of work started talking about getting out, it was just a matter of time. Short time, usually.

“You could have had a desk job anytime in the last five years,” Chandler-Smith said.

“All the way out.”

Silently Chandler-Smith looked at his polished shoes. Robert Johnstone was the best agent he had ever worked with. He didn’t want to lose him.

And he liked him far too much to make him stay.

“When?” Chandler-Smith said simply.

“After Barracuda’s funeral.”

“That could be a long time.”

Cord looked at the palm of his hand. The gold coin gleamed back at him. Lady Luck. Lady Death. “I don’t think so. As soon as you’ve seen Raine ride, I’m going under. I won’t come out until he’s dead. If that’s too much heat for you, fire me . . . but don’t change the codes.”

“Done,” Chandler-Smith said simply.

“I can walk,” Raine snapped. When she heard her own tone, she winced. She had the kind of headache that made morphine look attractive. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to take your head off. But you can have mine, if you want. Please.”

“I’ll pass, thanks. I’ve had concussions before.” Cord put her on her feet and shut the car door behind her. “This way.”

When she started walking, he put his arm around her waist, ready to grab her if her knees gave way. He expected her to snap at him for that, too, but she didn’t. She just sighed and held one hand between her face and the sun, shading her eyes.

“Afternoon, Thorne,” Cord said when they reached the motor home. “Anything for me?”

“No, suh. Things have been real quiet.”

“Raine, this is Thorne. Thorne, Miss Chandler-Smith.”

Her headache didn’t keep her from seeing the slight narrowing of Thorne’s eyes, or the instant reassessment of her rumpled, dirty clothes. She smiled wryly, knowing that she looked exactly like what she was—a woman who had gone facedown off a tall horse and then spent several hours in a hospital emergency room being probed, X-rayed, and questioned while Cord watched with pale eyes and a mouth that had forgotten how to smile.

“Call me Raine Smith,” she said. “Everyone else does.”

Thorne nodded. “Miss Smith, I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Raine,” she said, stressing her first name.

Cord hid his smile. Her informality wouldn’t make a dent in Kentucky’s southern sense of propriety. After three years, he still called Cord “Mister.” Cord had given up trying to change it; Kentucky was intelligent, close-mouthed, and deadly with any weapon that came to hand. For those qualities, Cord could live with a few social formalities.

“See if you can find a recliner for Raine,” Cord said. “You two can sit together under the pepper tree.”

“I have to see Dev,” she objected.

“You can see him right here.”

“Who’s going to bring him?”

“I am.”

She started to object, but didn’t. The pepper tree’s lacy shade was calling to her. “If you have trouble with him, come get me.”

Cord turned to Thorne. “While I get Dev, send someone to check Raine out of her motel.”

“What?” she said, turning back to him swiftly, then wincing. Sudden movements did bad things to her headache.

“Yes, suh,” Thorne said, turning toward the motor home.

“I thought you would want your luggage,” Cord said to her. “But if you don’t mind sleeping in one of my T-shirts, that’s fine.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My job.”

She opened her mouth, saw the bleak certainty in Cord’s eyes, remembered their conversation about her father and assassins, and shut up. If necessary, she’d argue with Cord later, after she had checked Dev over. Right now it was enough just to be standing up. A battle was beyond her.

Especially with someone as smart and tough as Cord Elliot.

Feeling headachy and tired, she followed Thorne to the pepper tree, waited while he set up the lounge, and then stretched out in the shade with a sigh of relief. She got slowly to her feet when Cord appeared, a bucket of grooming tools in one hand and Dev’s lead rope in the other. The stallion was edgy, but not hard to handle. His walk was springy, muscular, completely sound.

Ignoring her pounding head, she went over Dev with eyes and hands, paying particular attention to the long tendons in his legs. While she fussed over him, the stallion lipped at her loose hair and nuzzled her neck, made whuffling noises at her cheeks, and sniffed hopefully for carrots in her hip pockets.

“Back off, brat,” she muttered.

Dev returned to lipping her hair.

Cord watched, simultaneously worried about the pallor of Raine’s skin and amused by the big stallion’s efforts to tease his mistress.

Warily, Thorne watched, too. He made certain to stay in the shade of the pepper tree, well away from the big stud.

For the third time, she went over Dev’s legs. If there was any soreness or swelling, she couldn’t find it. Other than dried sweat dulling his normally glossy hide, the stallion looked perfectly normal.

“That should do it,” Cord said, when she straightened slowly. “Go back and lie down on the lounge.”

“Not yet. He needs a good grooming.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

She hesitated, gave in without an argument, and headed for the shade. “If Dev puts up with it, fine. Otherwise I’ll do it myself.”

Talking calmly, caressing the big stud with his voice, Cord selected a currycomb from the bucket of tools and went to work on the dried sweat.

Dev glanced around at the unfamiliar touch, sniffed Cord’s hand and the currycomb, and went back to searching for something edible in the dusty yard. He didn’t find anything. With a massive sigh at life’s injustice, the stallion shifted to a three-legged stance and dozed.

“It’s that damned shaman’s voice,” she said beneath her breath, listening to the mesmerizing music of Cord’s words as he worked over her horse. “It’s even getting to me.”

“Ma’am?” Thorne asked politely.

“Nothing.” She sighed and settled back into the lounge to enjoy the unheard-of pleasure of watching a man groom Dev without the aid of cross ties and hobbles.

The murmur of Cord’s voice mingled with the warm breeze, draining away her tension. A deep weariness stole over her, a reaction to the stunning fall and all the restless nights since she had shut Cord out of her castle and barred the gates.

Without even knowing it, she fell asleep.

“Mr. Elliot,” Thorne said quietly.

Cord put down the currycomb and walked quickly to Raine’s side. As gently as butterfly wings, his fingertips found her pulse. Slow, steady, deep, like her breathing. Skin neither clammy nor dry, cold nor hot. He nodded to Thorne, then returned to grooming Dev. Talking softly, ceaselessly, he worked over the big stallion.

After the first ten minutes, he no longer watched Dev’s ears every second. After twenty minutes, he decided that it was time for the final test. He pulled a hoof pick from his hip pocket and touched the fetlock on Dev’s left front leg. Without really waking up, the stallion shifted his weight and presented the left front hoof to be cleaned.

Thorne slid one hand beneath his jacket and watched the stallion as though he was a rattlesnake coiled to strike.

Cord looked up at the motion and said quietly, “It’s all right.”

Thorne nodded, but he didn’t remove his hand. He watched each hoof in turn get cleaned. When Cord traded the hoof pick for a soft brush, Thorne let out a silent sigh of relief.

Dev stood with his head down, his weight on three legs, his ears utterly relaxed. From time to time he sent his long black tail swishing over his body, flicking away the flies. Sometimes he snorted and rubbed his head against his foreleg or Cord’s chest to get rid of the persistent insects.

Eyes narrow, dark, Thorne watched the stallion. His hand was never far from the gun he wore in a shoulder harness beneath a light cotton jacket.

“Word around the stables is that horse is a killer,” Thorne said after a long time.

“He could be.”

Cord swept a soft cloth down Dev’s hard-muscled haunch. The strokes were strong, rhythmic. The stallion groaned in a contentment that was almost comical.

“You don’t think he’s a killer?” Thorne asked softly.

“Never with Raine. Probably not with me, so long as I’m careful. Given enough time,” he added, smoothing his palm over Dev’s satiny coat, “he would come to trust me completely.”

Stepping back, he admired the result of his work. There wasn’t a trace of dried sweat or dust anywhere on Dev’s powerful body. The stallion’s thick mane and tail shimmered like coarse black silk, emphasizing the blood red of his coat.

When Cord lifted his hand to brush a fly away from his face, the unique, pungent scent of horse lifted off his fingers, bringing back a rush of memories from his childhood. He hadn’t known how much he missed horses. He hadn’t even suspected.

“Damn, but it’s good to work with a horse again,” he said softly, surprised by the intensity of the feeling. “Especially a horse like this one.”

Thorne looked from the huge stallion to Cord. “I’m a city boy, myself. I’ll take your word for it.”

“There’s nothing like it,” Cord murmured, remembering the long rides over rough country, the smell of horses and piтon trees, the feel of the Nevada sun hot on his back and a horse running cleanly between his knees. “Nothing in the world,” he added, discovery and surprise rippling like music in his voice.

Dev snorted and stamped his front foot, dislodging a fly.

Cord looked over at Thorne, then at Raine sleeping in the filtered shade of the pepper tree. “How long?”

Thorne checked his watch. “Almost half an hour.”

Cord went to the chaise and sat on his heels beside it like the range rider he once had been. He checked her pulse and breathing. Still deep, still even. Slowly he stroked her face, waking her as gently as he could.

“Cord?” she murmured.

“Right here.”

Not truly awake, she turned her lips into his hand, kissing him sleepily. His other hand came up in a slow caress, smoothing her hair away from her face. She sighed and gave herself back to sleep, knowing she was safe.

“Raine,” he whispered, his throat aching at the evidence of her trust. “Look at me, honey.”

She stirred again, nuzzling his hand. His breath caught. He wanted to brush his lips over her cheek, to breathe her scent in all the way to his soul.

“Open your eyes,” he said softly.

One of her hands came up in silent protest at being awakened. When she discovered Cord’s fingers touching her cheek, she murmured in pleasure and pressed her hand against his. Cradling his hand between her cheek and her palm, she slid toward sleep once again.

Bending close, he put his cheek alongside hers for a moment and breathed her name too softly for her to hear. Then, reluctantly, he straightened.

“Wake up, Raine,” he said in a low voice. “I have to check your beautiful eyes.” The caressing pressure of his fingers on her cheek increased. “Wake up, honey. Look at me.”

Long, dark brown lashes stirred and slowly lifted. Hazel eyes looked out at him, dazed by sleep. Her pupils were dilated, but they contracted quickly in the light. Quickly and evenly.

Thank God. Cord let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. “Go back to sleep.” His voice was soothing, velvety, urging her back down into the sleep she needed. “Everything is all right. Go to sleep.”

“Cord . . . ?” she whispered.

“Go to sleep, little queen. Your soldier is here.”

Before her breath sighed out, she was asleep.