A Wolf In The Desert. Bj James

Simon ignored them, speaking into the outburst so softly there could be no mistaking his meaning. “How you control your cohorts is your problem. How I deal with my men is mine.”

      As the pedantic voice turned shrill in babbled promises and denials, Simon’s smile grew colder. “Good,” he said at last. “I’m glad we understand each other.

      “By the way, Casper, there’s one more thing.” Simon listened to a ragged breath caught and held, and knew he’d truly won. “As a show of my good faith, I won’t ask how you came into possession of this information.”

      The receiver clattered into its cradle. “Have a good evening, Casper,” he muttered. With the first real smile of the day beginning in his eyes, in blatant disregard for the microphone tucked beneath the rim of the immaculate trash can, he added, “If you can.”

      Wearied by the tensions of the day, Simon leaned back in his chair, allowing himself only a moment to rest. There was more to be done, much more. Not one precious moment would be squandered savoring his victory. The crucial point was time. Time he’d won for his renegade.

      Time for Matthew Sky.

      One

      Beauty sighed. Beauty died.

      In the first shade of nightfall, as darkness crept over a bloodred sky, her thundering heart stopped. Death came so swiftly Patience O’Hara had no time to think, none to comprehend. In one perfect moment they were barreling westward, racing at breakneck speed into the ebbing light of a fiery sunset. Patience sang. Beauty hummed, leaving a trail of boiling dust in her wake. Then nothing.

      Zero. Zilch. Nada.

      No power, no lights, no music.

      Nothing.

      On an obscure track in the middle of nowhere and no sign of life for miles, all three hundred, thirty horses under Beauty’s pretty aristocratic nose dwindled to a puddle of nothing. The whole herd of them, gone, in a heartbeat, without a second peep or whinny.

      “Beauty! No!” Patience cut short her gusty off-key rendition of “Ghost Riders In The Sky” one note past failure of all systems. “You can’t do this to me. Not now. Not here.”

      As she pleaded her lost cause, ingrained instincts overrode the inertia of surprise. In a conditioned response she mustered the last of Beauty’s dying momentum to wrest the Corvette’s cumbersome, unresponsive weight to what passed for the shoulder of what could only laughably be called a road.

      Bumping to a halt, her hands resting loosely on the steering wheel, she sat nonplussed, dazed, feeling the void, the nothingness closing in. As one would feel at the loss of a friend.

      The silly car, an impractical gift for her journey through the west from her ever-impractical family, had become her companion and confidant, assuming a personality in the long, solitary hours they shared on the road. She’d come to know and anticipate the growing list of idiosyncrasies of this sleek work of art in fiberglass. Even to regard them fondly as she would the endearing and often annoying quirks of her eccentric family. Of whom there were seven. Family, that is. Mother, Mavis; father, Keegan; brothers, Devlin, Kieran and Tynan; sister, Valentina; and lastly, Patience. Prudent Patience. Practical Patience. Boring Patience.

      Seven O’Haras true to the breed, with thoroughly O’Hara quirks far too changeable and numerous to calculate. But Beauty’s idiosyncrasies? A different matter.

      Patience had chronicled them, investigated them herself, and had them investigated in each new place, after each new occurrence. There was never anything. Neither she, nor any service center, or shade tree mechanic, no matter how competent, discovered a problem. After weeks of ignoring dozens of smug male smirks insinuating the peculiar and transient difficulties were in her imagination not the splendid Vette, after fending off a dozen and one too many passes, she stopped looking for trouble and coped.

      Beauty had a problem; several problems, actually. Or maybe, as Mavis who was Irish to the core might say, she was inhabited by a leprechaun bent on a bit of mischief.

      Whatever the cause, all the little transient problems had finally ceased being vague and transient, coalescing into catastrophe. And in that single soft sigh Patience heard the portent that this time the trouble wouldn’t be going away.

      “Why now?” She glared at an ever-darkening sky. “Why here?” Turning a bleak gaze at the desert she gripped the steering wheel tighter, muttering, “And where the hell are we?”

      She couldn’t remember a sign giving either name or road number telling where she’d been or where she was going. She couldn’t remember the last sign of life. She was alone in the middle of nowhere and not even a cow for company.

      “So, Beauty, you got me into this, what do I do?” An unfair accusation Patience admitted, for it was she who had left their charted route on a whim. She who, in typical family fashion, had tired of the expected and opted for this little adventurous ramble.

      “My mother’s youngest daughter.” Continuing her muttered harangue of all things O’Hara, she rummaged through the console for The Handy Dandy Tool Kit, Tools For All Occasions. A parting gift from brother Devlin.

      “There you are.” Pulling the fine leather case from its spot of repose, she prepared to see what she could do about getting herself out of what she’d gotten herself into. If her gut feeling was right, attacking Beauty’s problem with The Handy Dandy Tools would be as effective as attacking a rhinoceros with a hairpin.

      Climbing out of the Vette one slender, denim-clad leg at a time, she stood barefoot, feeling the rising heat of the ground and the descending chill of the night. In another hour she would be shivering. In less than that the last of the light would vanish from the sky. Since she didn’t relish holding a flashlight between her teeth while she delved beneath Beauty’s hood in the dark, she snatched her boots from the car, stamped her feet into them with the mastery of a seasoned cowhand and addressed the task she’d set herself.

      Twenty minutes later, with a swipe of her forearm over her sweaty brow, she backed away, defeated. Whatever ailed Beauty remained a mystery, no more evident in extremity than before. This strange malady was far beyond the small knowledge imparted to Patience by brother Devlin whose life and love focused on family, especially his baby sister, fast cars, fast planes, fast motorcycles, and fast women. But not especially in that order.

      After putting the tools away and closing the hood with a sense of regret, Patience leaned against a fender, absently scrubbing her hands on the thighs of her jeans as she considered her options. She could walk out, but which way should she go? How far back was the last settlement? How far ahead was the next? One mile? Two? Fifty? A hundred? The road was so poorly distinguishable from the desert itself, could she be sure she wouldn’t wander away from it?

      Patience stared out at miles of nothing. The desert seemed static at a glance, a rendering in stone, the keeper of ancient secrets. But she knew there were creatures there, nocturnal creatures she couldn’t see. Since she didn’t know where she was, she wasn’t sure what creatures. Birds, mice, a sure bet. Javelinas, perhaps.

      Snakes.

      Suppressing the shiver rippling through her, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts, her fingers clutching at the shirt pulled taut over her ribs. Snakes. She hated them. Animals were her business, she’d studied them, learned how to care for them and treat them. Her purpose for coming west, beyond distancing herself from her beloved madcap family, was to find that perfect place to establish her fledgling veterinary practice. But snakes!

      Unconsciously she shook her head. She’d never managed to conquer an almost paralytic fear of them. Her unreasonable response made no sense, but it served her well for once, tipping the scales to a more prudent decision. Snakes or no snakes, only a tenderfoot would venture into unfamiliar territory at night.

      Patience hadn’t been a tenderfoot since she was seven and her first horse refused a fence, sending her flying braids over bootheels. She remembered the spill and how frightened she’d