Page 73 of Wyoming Heart

“Still taking that quinine?” he asked with obvious concern.

She nodded. “I wouldn’t dare miss a dose. One of our guys came down with malaria just as we got off the plane in Miami. I called Ry to check on him. He’s doing okay, just trying to get through the worst of it.”

“Malaria is no fun,” he said. “I had a bout of it many years ago when I had to close a deal in Guatemala.”

“I’ve never had it,” she said. “And I’m crossing my fingers that I never will!”

The steward brought coffee and a platter of bagels on a silver tray, with a dish of cream cheese and a knife.

Jake poured coffee into china cups and handed her one.

“Thanks,” she said. “This is really kind of you.”

He chuckled. “No problem at all. I told you, I have business in Manhattan, too.”

“I dread the media tour,” she confessed. “At least it’s not like being in front of an audience. There’s just me and the sound guy and the cameraman and the producer in the booth.” She laughed. “It’s so odd, not to be able to see the people who are interviewing me, except on camera.”

“I can imagine. What was it like, in Nicaragua?” he asked.

“Hot,” she returned, “especially in camo gear with a sidearm. But the guys have trained me very well. I’m not nearly the klutz I was in the first days they took me on missions.”

He shook his head. “I still can’t get over the danger you put yourself in. They take it for granted, but you’ve already been shot once.”

“Just a flesh wound,” she reminded him, and laughed. “I hardly felt it.”

“You and your insistence on realism,” he sighed.

“Next month I’m going out with a SWAT team in Dallas,” she told him. “One of Ry’s guys knows a guy who’s going to let me do a ride-along.”

“You’re pushing your luck.”

“It will be worth it,” she said, grinning at him. “That realism is why I’m selling so many books.”

“I suppose so. But it’s still dangerous.”

“Life is dangerous,” she replied. “You can get killed in all sorts of ways here in the States without putting yourself in danger.”

“True enough,” he agreed. “More coffee?”

THEMEDIATOURturned out to be a lot of fun. They filmed it at the studios of one of the major television networks. The staff had coffee and an assortment of breads waiting for her. They discussed her latest foray into mercenary work, although she never called any of her group by name, for their own protection.

She was still worried that Cort might see her on one of the broadcasts, but it was unlikely. He was in West Texas, and the only Texas interview she was doing was in Dallas. It lessened the discomfort. She wanted to tell him herself, and she’d have to do it pretty soon. If he was really planning a future with her, and Bart thought he was, she had to level with him about her true profession. She hoped he’d understand, and not object to her crawling through jungles with her research associates.

On the other hand, if she turned up pregnant, that was going to complicate things. It would mean an end to the missions, at least for a while. She smiled to herself as she wondered if there was already a tiny life growing inside her. It was much too soon to tell.

JAKETOOKHERto the Four Seasons for dinner late that afternoon, when she’d finished the media tour and made time to speak with her agent and her editor. The book sales were climbing, and her agent hammered out the details of the new contract with her. It looked good. There was going to be a considerable advance, which she’d already been told, and royalties would be sweet. She was sitting on top of the world, she told Jake, without mentioning Cort, or the possibility that she might be going to Texas with him in the near future, if she did turn out to be pregnant.

She wondered where they’d live. There was usually a bunkhouse for single cowboys, but there might be a small house they could rent from his boss. It was too early to concern herself with that, really. She still had the worry about what to do about her own ranch if she left Catelow.

She could put in a manager, perhaps Fender, her new full-time man. He seemed to be honest and trustworthy, and he was proving to be a competent worker. She allowed herself to dream of a future with Cort, of a baby in her arms and a happy marriage. Surely he wouldn’t mind her profession. After all, the only things she needed were a laptop and an internet connection to pursue her craft. She could tell him about the writing without dropping the truth of her research into his lap until he got used to the idea of her profession. Surely he wouldn’t mind.

“You’re very quiet,” Jake remarked as they finished dessert.

She laughed. “I’m working.” She flushed. “Sorry, I tend to work out details in my mind before I ever put them down in a word processing program. It saves rewrites.”

He chuckled. “Ah, the life of a writer,” he teased. “You do love it, don’t you?”

“It’s been my whole life, for a long time now.”

---