Date with a Cowboy. Diana Palmer

tugged a tissue from the box on the bedside table and dabbed it against Sara’s wet eyes.

      “Now you stop that,” he said, smiling gently. “The boss has a nasty temper and he doesn’t always choose his words before he opens his mouth. But he never would have asked you to come here if he hadn’t wanted to.”

      She looked up at him from swollen red eyes. “He was awful to Harley.”

      Tony grimaced. “There’s stuff going on that you don’t know about,” he said after a minute. “I can’t tell you what it is. But it doesn’t help his temper.”

      She blew her nose. “I’m sorry.”

      “What for? Everybody cries,” he replied. “I bawled like a kid when my sister died.”

      Her green eyes met his black ones. “Was it very long ago?”

      “Ten years,” he said. “Our mother was still alive then. We lost our dad when we were just little kids.”

      “I lost my grandad a little while ago,” she replied. “I still miss him. He taught history at our local college.”

      “I like history,” he said. He would have liked to tell her that he’d minored in it during his college years, but it wasn’t the time for heart-to-heart talks. The boss was already gunning for him because he’d opened the door and let Harley inside.

      “How long have you worked for Jared?” she asked.

      “Seems like forever, sometimes,” he chuckled. “On and off, for about six years, I suppose,” he said.

      “You know, he really doesn’t look like the sort of man who’d need a bodyguard,” she ventured.

      “He doesn’t, does he?” he agreed. “You feel better now?”

      She smiled at him with her eyes still red and swollen. “I’m better. Thanks, Tony.”

      He stood up, and he was smiling now, too. “You’re a lot like her. My sister, I mean. She had a big heart. She loved people. She was always giving.” His dark eyes grew haunted, especially when he looked at Sara. “Don’t you let him push you into anything,” he said out of the blue.

      She was shocked, and showed it. “What do you mean?”

      His black eyes narrowed. “You know what I mean. He’s been around the world. You’re just a sprout.”

      “Yes, but I can take care of myself,” she assured him. “Nobody will make me do something I don’t want to do.”

      “That’s just what my sister said,” he told her, and he looked down at his apron. “I’d better get back in there and rescue my sauce. You need anything?”

      She shook her head. “But, thanks.”

      He grinned. “Goes with the job.”

      If she could have walked, she’d have gone home. She was hurt by Jared’s sarcasm and she felt unwelcome. It was going to be an ordeal to get through the next couple of days. She wished she’d never become friendly with him. One thing was for sure. If she ever got sick or hurt again, she wouldn’t turn to him for help.

      He walked in a short time later with a plate of spaghetti and homemade garlic bread. He pulled a rolling table to the bed and put the meal, plus a tall glass of milk, on it.

      She was rigid with wounded pride. “Thank you,” she said stiffly, and in a subdued tone that betrayed, even more than her posture, how hurt she was.

      He stood still, his hands in his pockets, and stared at her. “He’s a good cook,” he said, just to break the silence.

      She put the napkin on her lap and sat sideways on the bed so that she could eat comfortably. It put him at an angle so that she didn’t have to look right at him.

      “All right, I was out of line,” he muttered. “But it’s courteous to ask me before you invite people here to see you.”

      “I didn’t invite Harley to come,” she said, eating spaghetti in tiny little bites.

      He frowned. “You didn’t?”

      She ate another bite of Tony’s delicious concoction, and never tasted a thing.

      “People who live in small towns think of everyone as family. It would never occur to Harley that he wasn’t welcome to visit a sick friend, no matter who she was staying with.”

      His eyes kindled. “It’s still good manners to ask first.”

      “Yes,” she had to agree. “It is. I’m sure he wishes he had. I know I do.”

      That was right on target. He felt smaller than ever. She could have died. He’d agreed to take her home and nurse her, and now he was laying down rules and regulations as fast as he could. He didn’t like Harley Fowler in his home, in Sara’s temporary bedroom. It made him angry. He couldn’t tell her that, of course.

      He noticed suddenly that she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn to the hospital before her surgery.

      “Don’t you have a gown, or pajamas?” he asked abruptly.

      “There really wasn’t time to pack a bag when the ambulance got to my house,” she reminded him.

      “Point taken.”

      “If Tony could go by my house and get me some night things,” she began.

      “No.” It came out belligerently. He shouldn’t have said that. But he didn’t like the idea of Tony, who already treated her like family, poking through her underthings.

      “I’ll go,” he said. “Where’s your house key?”

      “It’s in the zippered compartment in my purse.” She indicated it, hanging over the closet doorknob. “Can you make sure Morris has enough water while you’re there?” she added, hating even to have to ask. “Tony fed him already, he said, but Morris drinks a lot of water.”

      He retrieved the key. “I’ll take care of him.”

      “Thanks,” she said without meeting his eyes.

      He gave her one last look and left her. He’d made a stupid mistake. He hoped he’d have time to make it up to her.

      Tony was just clearing away supper when Jared stopped in the kitchen doorway. “I’m going over to Sara’s house to get her a few things to wear.”

      Tony’s eyebrows arched. “You know where she lives?”

      He cursed mentally. Of course he didn’t know where she lived; he’d never been to her house.

      “And you can’t go alone,” the big man added solemnly. “They’d love to catch you out alone at night. They have all the equipment we’ve got, and more.” He took off the apron and tossed it aside. “I’m going with you.”

      “That will leave Sara here alone,” Jared argued.

      Tony pointed a device down the hall and locks slid into place audibly. “She wouldn’t be any safer in Fort Knox with the alarm systems activated,” Tony told his boss. “Besides, I’ve got Clayton out there with night vision and a Glock.”

      He relaxed a little. “Okay. Let’s go.”

      Tony paused by the closet on the way out and retrieved his .45 in its shoulder holster. He took just seconds to get it in place before he opened the front door and shepherded his boss out to the truck parked in the circular driveway.

      Before they got into it, Tony waved his hand and a tall, shadowy figure approached the car, going over it with electronic devices.

      “All clear,” the newcomer said.

      “Nobody gets in or out while we’re gone,” Tony told him.

      “Yes, sir.”

      Tony