Desert Ice Daddy by Marton, Dana (pocket ebook reader .TXT) 📕

that one. Which was why he hadn’t been able to hold down a job for more than six months ever in his life. He cursed every ranch he ever worked, annoying the rest of the men to death. There was plenty of tension to go around without anyone bitching and moaning from dawn to dusk.

“She ain’t supposed to be here.” Gabe shrugged.

He had a point there. “Go upstairs and look around. See if there are cops with her. Don’t shoot at anyone.” He shoved the man off then looked through the window. Taylor McKade was gone and so was the man who’d been at her side a moment ago.

Damn.

He thought for a moment, then decided this constituted a major development. One the boss wasn’t going to like, but the man would be angrier still if he found out that Jake had kept the news from him. He flipped his cell phone open and dialed.

“The McKade woman is here with her guy.”

Silence stretched on the other end.

“Just the two of them?”

“Yes, sir.” At first, he’d just wanted his cut of the money and everything to go as planned without anyone getting hurt. But little had gone the way they’d planned. Now he just wanted the whole damn thing to be over. He no longer cared who he’d have to hurt to get out of here with the money in his pockets.

“Keep them busy until morning,” the voice said, then all he heard was a dial tone.

Jake closed his phone and pushed it back into his pocket. The boss made little sense. As long as they were here, why not take the money from them? Easy enough to have all three of them disappear in one of the tar pits, disappear forever should said tar pit catch fire by accident.

Odd that the boss hadn’t asked about the money at all.

Jake had thought plenty about it during the past two days. And it ticked him off that the McKade woman and her lackey didn’t seem to have anything with them.

He hadn’t mentioned the phone to the boss. He would have only been yelled at for not shooting it before they’d had a chance to make the call. Or chewed him out for having allowed a shot at Taylor McKade in the first place. She wasn’t to be hurt.

He’d been told that with some emphasis. The guy, though, could die, should die, before he had a chance to interfere. Whatever happened to the kid, happened. Maybe the boss had other plans for the woman. She was pretty enough, although not Jake’s type. He preferred a saucy, easy-to-tumble barmaid any day of the week. Not that he could look that way these days. His new girlfriend was nothing if not territorial, with that gleam of marriage in her eyes. Still, she was a decent woman. He would have enough money soon. Maybe he would give marriage a try.

Who the hell knew what the boss had in mind for Taylor McKade? Who the hell cared?

Either way, mentioning the phone would have brought trouble, and it didn’t much matter anyway. Even if a call had gone off to the cops, the boss had the cops taken care of. Then messing up the exchange at the boulders had been a mistake, the boss had promised, a mistake that wasn’t going to happen again.

He would like to know how these two had gotten the damn phone to work. It was supposed to have been fixed to receive calls but not call out. But they had gotten one call out. If not more. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Keep them busy till morning. He didn’t expect that would be too hard. Those two weren’t going anywhere, not as long as he had the kid. There were three of them inside, armed to the teeth, and the other two coming soon. Taylor McKade and her guy might not have any weapons—they hadn’t used any at the botched handover attempt—but he wouldn’t underestimate them right off the bat.

But they had spent an awful long time trekking through the desert without much to eat and drink, likely without sleep. And he didn’t think they knew the refinery. Most likely they’d followed the tracks of one of the pickups here. He hadn’t expected that. Taylor could not have done that on her own. When he’d made his plans, he hadn’t known that some guy would be coming with her, too. It might take them until morning just to find what they were looking for. Which would be perfect.

By then the boss would arrive and he could deal with them.

All Jake had to do was keep a tight rein on the sorry excuse of a team the boss had assembled. The men were growing restless locked up in here. Pete had gone off to buy some smokes. Jake hoped the guy would be back soon. He hoped Pete heeded his warning and wouldn’t bring any booze back with him. Whiskey was the last thing Gabe and those other idiots needed.

He wished, not for the first time, that he could have pulled off the job on his own, but the boss had insisted on a whole team of hired help.

A bunch of incompetents. He would have to keep on his toes to make sure they didn’t bring him down with them in the end.

Chapter Seven

Akeem shoved Taylor behind him. They needed to get out of the line of fire and to higher ground so that he could keep an eye on the movements of the enemy and figure out the layout of the buildings. There was enough moonlight for decent visibility, except in the deep shadows made by the taller buildings.

The solution presented itself as they rounded a towering storage tank. A rusty metal ladder ran up the side, all the way to the top. He helped her up in front of him, watched the dark stain spread on her shoulder. She’d been shot. Hurt again.

His jaw was clenched