Lone Star Winter: The Winter Soldier. Diana Palmer

ranch house. The steps were flimsy and one of the boards was rotten. The house needed painting. The screens on the windows were torn, and the one on the screen door was half torn away. In the corral, he could hear a horse whinny. He hoped her fences were in better shape than the house.

      He helped her down out of the truck and set her gently on her feet. She was rail-thin.

      “Are you eating properly?” he asked abruptly as he studied her in the faint light from the porch, scowling.

      “I said you could be the baby’s godfather, not mine,” she pointed out with an impish smile. “Thank you very much for the ride. Now go home, Mr. Parks.”

      “Don’t I get to see this famous puppy?”

      She grimaced as she walked gingerly up the steps, past the rotten one, and put her key in the lock. “He stays on the screen porch out back, and even with papers down, I expect he’s made a frightful mess… That’s odd,” she said when the door swung open without the key being turned in the lock. “I’m sure I locked this door before I… Where are you going?”

      “Stay right there,” he said shortly. He opened the truck, took out the .45 automatic he always carried and cocked it on his way back onto the porch.

      Her face went pale. Reading about commandos was very different from the real thing when she saw the cold metal of the pistol in his hands and realized that he was probably quite proficient in its use. The thought chilled her. Like the sight of the gun.

      He put her gently to one side. “I’m not going to shoot anybody unless I get shot at,” he said reassuringly. “Stay there.”

      He left her on the porch and went carefully, quietly, through the house with the pistol raised at his ear, one finger on the trigger and his other hand, in spite of its injury, supporting the butt efficiently. He swept the house, room by room, closet by closet, until he got to the bedroom and heard a sound inside. It was only a sound, a faint whisper. There was a hint of light coming from under the door, which was just slightly ajar.

      He kicked the door open, the pistol leveled the second he had a clear view of the bed.

      The man’s face was a study in shock when he saw the expression on Cy Parks’s dark face and the glitter in his eyes. Bill Mason, Luke Craig’s erstwhile cowboy-on-loan, was lying on the bed in his shorts with a beer bottle in one hand. When Cy burst in the door, he sat up starkly, his bloodshot eyes blinking as he swayed. He was just drunk enough not to realize how much trouble he was in.

      “You’re not Mrs. Monroe,” he drawled loudly.

      “And you’re not Mr. Monroe. If you want to see daylight again, get the hell out of that bed and put your clothes on!”

      “Okay. I mean yes, sir, Mr. Parks!”

      The man tripped and fell, the beer bottle shattering on the floor as he sprawled nearby. “I broked it,” he moaned as he dragged himself up holding on to the bed post, “and it was my…my last one!”

      “God help us! Hurry up!”

      “Okay. Just let me find…my pants…” He hiccuped, tripped again and fell, moaning. “They must be here somewhere!”

      Muttering darkly, Cy uncocked the pistol, put the safety on, and stuck it into the belt at his back. He went to find Lisa, who was standing impatiently on the porch.

      “I saved you a shock,” he told her.

      “How big a shock?”

      “The great unwashed would-be lover who was waiting for you, in your bed,” he said, trying not to grin. It wasn’t really funny.

      “Oh, for heaven’s sake, not again,” she groaned.

      “Again?”

      She was made very uncomfortable by the look on his face. “Don’t even think it!” she threatened angrily. “I’m not that desperate for a man, thank you very much. He gets drunk one night a week and sleeps it off in Walt’s bed,” she muttered, oblivious to both her phrasing and his surprised look. “I lock him in, so he can’t cause me any trouble, and I let him out the next morning. He’s got a drinking problem, but he won’t get help.”

      “Does Luke Craig know that?”

      “If he did, he’d fire him, and the poor man has no place to go,” she began.

      “He’ll have a place to go tomorrow,” he promised her with barely contained fury. “Why didn’t you say some thing?”

      “I didn’t know you,” she pointed out. “And Luke meant it as a kind gesture.”

      “Luke would eat him with barbecue sauce if he knew what he was doing over here!”

      There was a muffled thud and then the tipsy man weaved toward the front door. “So sorry, Mrs. Monroe,” Mason drawled, sweeping off his hat and almost going down with it as he bowed. “Very sorry. I’ll be off, now.” He hesitated at the top step with one foot in the air. “Where’s my horse?” he asked blankly. “I left him out here somewhere.”

      “I’ll send him to you. Go back to Craig’s ranch.”

      “It’s two miles!” the cowboy wailed. “I’ll never make it!”

      “Yes, you will. Get in the truck. And if you throw up in it, I’ll shoot you!” Cy promised.

      The cowboy didn’t even question the threat. He tried to salute and almost fell down again. “Yes, sir, I’ll get…get right in the truck, yes, sir, right now!”

      He weaved to the passenger side, opened the door and pulled himself in, slamming the door behind him.

      “I’d sleep on the sofa,” Cy advised Lisa. “Until you can wash the sheets, at least.”

      “His girlfriend must be nuts. No woman in her right mind would sleep with him,” she murmured darkly.

      “I can see why. I’ll send a man over to the bunkhouse. And he won’t get drunk and wait for you in bed,” he added.

      She chuckled. “That would be appreciated.” She hesitated. “Thanks for the ride home, Mr. Parks.”

      He hesitated, his narrow green eyes appraising her. She’d taken her husband’s death pretty hard, and she had dark circles under those eyes. He hated leaving her alone. He had protective feelings for her that really disturbed him.

      “I’ll want to meet that pup when I come back again.”

      She managed a smile. “Okay.”

      “Go in and lock the door,” he instructed.

      She clutched her heating pad and her purse to her chest and glared at him, but he stared her down. Oh, well, she thought as she went inside, some men just didn’t know the meaning of diplomacy. She’d have to make allowances for that little character flaw.

      He waited until she got inside and locked the door before he climbed into his truck. He wondered why she’d said Walt’s bed and not their bed. The question diverted him as he drove the intoxicated but quiet cow boy over to Luke Craig’s house and showed him to Luke. The blond rancher cursed roundly, having closed the door so that his new wife, Belinda, wouldn’t over hear.

      “I’m very drunk,” the cowboy said with a lopsided grin, swaying on the porch.

      “He was stripped to his shorts, waiting for Lisa in her bed,” Cy said, and he didn’t grin. “I don’t want this man sent over there again.”

      “He won’t be. Good God, he’s hidden it well, hasn’t he?”

      “I’m very drunk,” the cowboy repeated, and the grin widened.

      “Shut up,” Cy told him. He turned back to Luke. “I’m sending one of my own men over to sleep in the bunkhouse. Can you handle him?”

      “I’m veerrryy drunk,” the cowboy