Larger Than Life Read online

  His second boot joined the first on the floor. She went to pull off his socks, was stopped by the sheathed knife and the empty holster strapped above his ankles. "About as much as you are. Mate."

  "Hey, I'm only here for the mule deer." A lame effort at allaying her suspicions, one he followed up with a breath so deep it reminded him of the condition of his ribs.

  "Right." She removed both items, tucked them into his boots, and set the lot on the side counter that ran the length of the room. "Mule deer. Afghani rebels. Jackrabbits. Palestinian guerillas."

  He sobered slightly and remained unmoving while she rid him of his socks before she moved to his head. Once there, she raised him up enough to slide off the cords of his hat and sunglasses, letting him fall back rather too roughly. And he only winced once and hissed twice when she jarred his shoulder too hard.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

  "You sure?" She was standing above him now, her face close but not closed. In fact, what he saw was a sort of terror that gave him pause. "Felt like that was the closest you could get to knocking the crap out of me for carrying that gun."

  She added the sunglasses and hat to the boots on the counter, came back with a pair of scissors sporting nine-inch blades. "I know that gun. Or at least ones like it. That's not a gun anyone has reason to carry. Unless they're involved in preventing or committing crimes."

  She had a history with the sort of weapon he carried, one he wasn't sure he wanted to take the time to pry free. Not when he would be gone from here tomorrow, if not later today. "Then let's say I'm just passing through and leave it at that."

  "Fine."

  She said it much less gently than she slipped one blade of the scissors into the sleeve covering his bad arm and snipped her way to the neck. She repeated the process on the other side, then moved to his waist and sliced upward from the hem to what remained of the band of fabric at the base of his throat. That done, she peeled his shirt away. . . and blew out a very loud and long breath.

  He didn't need a mirror to see what he looked like. Her expression was mirror enough. "You think that's some-thing, wait till you see the rest."

  "Oh, my god, Mick." She brought a hand to her throat. "Has Ed seen this?"

  He shook his head. "Not yet, but he'll be back. And I'll live. I'm just bruised and battered and banged to the back of beyond."

  Her gaze roamed the canvas of his torso, and he would've liked to think she was admiring the view when he knew if she was admiring anything, it was the palette of colors. Purple and red that would soon enough turn green and blue, and eventually morph into healing yellows and oranges for a complete wreck of a rainbow.

  She touched him lightly then, unexpectedly, her fingertips grazing the skin of his abdomen, the one place with very little surface damage. It was an exploratory touch, the contact minimal, nonsexual, lacking in any sort of heat. But there was warmth. Kindness and concern. Caring. The look in her eyes unnerved him. Mick Savin. Unfazed by a monster pair of scissors. Unnerved by a woman's unshed tears.

  Focus, Savin, focus. Get up, get moving, get gone.

  His mantra, of course, would've worked better if he'd remembered to add the last part. The "get over it" part. But Neva had shaken off her glazed look, abandoned her study of his personal Picasso, and had moved her hands to the fasteners of his pants.

  "Uh, Neva?" he began, really wishing she was close enough and he was well enough for him to play with the waves in her hair. He wanted to know what it felt like, what it smelled like. It reminded him of Indian silk. "Why don't we let the doc take it from here?"

  "You know my name," she said, her voice soft though she frowned as her fingers paused.

  He nodded, the metal surface beneath him growing suddenly cold. "Neva Case. You told me when you saved me from death by overgrown weeds. Besides, I paid attention when you were talking to the doc."

  "I wasn't sure you heard everything." She tucked both hands into her jeans pockets. "You were pretty out of it."

  He nodded again, overcome with all he needed to say. He tried to blame his reaction on the pain, his exhaustion, near dehydration. He was hard-core, trained for scenarios he'd never even faced. He shouldn't be maudlin or sappy and soft. But in the end he knew it went a lot deeper than any of that. That he'd reached the point where he was beginning to remember the value of being alive.

  "Thank you." He cleared his throat. "You saved my life."

  She tried to blow it off with a breezy, "All in a day's work."

  An explanation which he didn't even dig into his pockets to buy. "You're in the business of saving lives, then?"

  "I used to be a defense attorney." She hesitated, seeming to gather her bearings before going forward to say, "It's certainly not comparable to what the doc here does."

  She said it so offhandedly that he didn't believe it. The nonchalance was one thing, but then there was the way she crossed her arms more defensively than before, holding in things she didn't want to say, things she didn't want him to know. Things he would have easily found out had his mind been anywhere near clear.

  It wasn't, and so he had to let it go. Let her go. He turned to the side, raised up onto his good elbow, holding back the groan rolling out of his throat. "Listen. Whether it's your business or not, I owe you more than I can afford to repay. Can I at least buy you a beer when they spring me?"

  She shook her head. "I don't drink." Then she shrugged. "Unless it's coffee. I've never been known to say no to that. Or to chocolate."

  "Okay, then." It hurt to smile, but he did. "I'll come bearing chocolate."

  "On one condition."

  "Which is?"

  "You leave with your gun in your hand." She took a quick step in reverse. "And you don't come back."

  He'd have no need to, of course. But her insistence ran a lot of flags up a lot of poles. "Am I putting that much of a crimp in your lifestyle?"

  "No. And I'd really like to keep it that way."

  Having made the ten-mile drive from Ed's clinic to her own place in record time, Neva took the delivery detour that bypassed her house-cum-office, the acreage between here and there, and circled the property to the rear of the Barn. She parked, turned off the truck, and opened the door.

  Candy, of course, had been pacing outside instead of working inside while she waited. The denim of her short pleated skirt bared a whole lot of naked mahogany brown leg. It also slapped against her bottom as she spun on the heels of the worn cowboy boots she wore that matched an ivory lace tank that fairly glowed against her dark skin.

  "Damn you, Neva. A quick overnight trip, my ass." Five years younger than Neva's twenty-nine, Candy scolded like an urban mother of twelve. Her dark brown eyes narrowed as she shook a finger. "You were supposed to be back here by nine-thirty."

  "What time is it?" Neva asked, though she knew perfectly well. She just didn't want to share all the details of the delay.

  "It's noon! Noon! Argh!" Candy gestured wildly with both hands. "You had better swear to me here and now that you will never again turn off your radio when you know I am waiting for you."

  Neva climbed from the cab and slammed the door before Candy climbed in and slammed her around. "I had an emergency."

  "All the more reason not to be out of touch." The other woman's boots crunched on the gravel drive as she flounced, and then she lost her pique as curiosity set in. "What sort of emergency?"

  "A dog on the road." Not a lie, not a whole truth. But since she had the dog with her . . . She walked to the back of the truck where FM lumbered to his feet and stuck his big head over the side of the bed. "He's a little loopy from having his jaw deadened and sewn back together."

  She still could not believe she'd agreed to keep the dog. Especially when that guaranteed she'd be seeing Mick Savin again. Yes, there was the issue of his gun, but that she could've had delivered somehow or left somewhere for him to pick up. Not so the mutt.

  Ed had stitched the gash that had split FM's jaw, given Neva antibiotics and instruc
tions for his care—including keeping his wound dry when she bathed him. How nice of him to leave that task to her.

  Candy followed and looked over with an imperious lift of brow. "You brought home a dog?"

  Neva nodded, scraping back windblown strands of hair. "Doc Hill stitched him up but is short staffed this week with Lindsey vacationing with her parents. I told him we'd see the pooch got his meds and the care he needs until his owner shows up."

  Leaning forward, Candy inspected FM's tags, sneezing when he nuzzled up to her cheek. "His tags are from an El Paso pound."

  "I know," Neva said.

  Candy turned and shoved both hands to her hips. "You rescue an abandoned dog on the side of the road, and you expect anyone to come looking for him, much less claim him?"

  Neva wasn't quite ready to share the details of their new aquisition's ownership. Not when she knew so little about Mick Savin and his gun. The two women were partners and friends—a situation that made the decision to remain mum, to keep this secret that might affect them both, one not entirely guilt-free.

  So all she said was, "We'll see."

  Sighing, Candy pressed her nose to the dog's, sneezed again, and ruffled the fur of his ruff. "You know, a pet would be a great way to teach little Miss Mitchell what's up."

  What was up was that Neva had made a huge mistake giving the girl a job when she'd shown up disheveled one morning and asked. "He's only a temporary pet, Candy."

  "Trust me. She's only a temporary hire." Candy held up one finger. "But we don't have to share either fact with the little bitch. Er, brat."

  Neva moved to the back of the truck and lowered the tailgate, hopped up next to the dog, and shoved forward the boxes of supplies to unload. "She's not working out so well, huh?"

  "Unfortunately, no." Candy examined the labels, sorted the boxes accordingly. "Which brings me back to asking you again why you hired her. It's not like we really need the help."

  "No, but she obviously did." As Candy left to get the hand truck from the Barn's porch, Neva jumped down, coaxed FM to do the same, and smiled as she thought back to Mick's explanation for the dog's name. Then she sobered. What was a man like Mick Savin doing with a dog?

  "You can't take in everyone that needs help," the other woman called, walking back up, her skirt swinging as she pushed the dolly. Once she reached Neva's side, Candy stopped, and together they began stacking the boxes. "What you do is too important. I know that better than anyone."

  Neva nodded, started to speak, to tell her friend everything, then found that she couldn't. Candy didn't know that Neva feared she'd taken in too many girls already, that she'd overlooked details, that she'd hit snags that someone outside of the network had pulled, unraveling the five years of work she and Candy had done here.

  Three of the missing girls Neva had harbored, whom she'd then sent on their way to safety, to a real life, a normal life, had vanished like so much blue smoke. And she had no idea what had happened. None of her queries had met with success. None of her contacts had panned out.

  Once the girls moved into the deeper web of the network, her responsibility for them ended. That didn't mean her conscience ceased to work. Or that she felt nothing for their situation. How could she have failed so miserably, so completely, thinking she was a messiah, that she'd been called . . .

  Candy interrupted Neva's musings to go on. "Besides, you can't mislead news crews indefinitely. One of these days, you're going to be found out. We're going to be found out. Rumors don't stay rumors when they're really the truth. If Liberty Mitchell discovers that truth, I don't see her keeping her big yap shut."

  Knowing she couldn't argue with any of what Candy said, Neva grabbed the last box, balanced it on top of the chest-high stack, and slammed the tailgate shut, dusting off her hands on her thighs. "She doesn't know anything yet, and I don't expect her to be here long. Something's going on with her, but I haven't figured out what."

  "She came here because of the rumors, Neva. She thought she'd be getting some kind of free ride to another life."

  "Well, as long as that sort of stupid rumor keeps circulating," Neva said, laughing lightly as she crouched face-tolace with FM, "we should be safe. A free ride is the last th ing any of the girls truly escaping Earnestine are looking for. They're so grateful to get out of there that they're willing to pay with their lives."

  "And they can thank you and the South Texas College of Law that they don't have to."

  Candy was right. Neva knew it. But she was still bothered beyond belief at having lost touch with any of the girls after they left her care. And speaking of care .. . "You really think we can trust Liberty with the dog?"

  "I'm telling you. Turning the dog over to her is perfect."

  "Where is she now?"

  Candy nodded toward the front of the Barn and the showroom. "Supposedly Windexing the display cases."

  Neva got back to her feet. "Pooch here has a schedule for his medicine, and his stitches can't get wet. Ed included a bottle of shampoo that I'm sure is going to cost me a small fortune."

  "He's sending you the bill?"

  "Are you kidding? Anything to remind me that I insisted we work better as friends."

  Candy snorted. "With friends like that. .. sticking you with a bill instead of writing it off as charity."

  "Hey, you know what they say about a man scorned."

  "Yeah. That he'll never believe his dick was too small."

  Sputtering, Neva headed for the cab and the bag of supplies she'd left there. "Sad, isn't it. They really don't get that size does matter."

  "Something Ed, being a vet and all, should understand," Candy teased.

  "Here." Neva shoved the bag of dog supplies at Candy, trying not to picture Mick Savin or wonder about his anatomy claims. "Make sure our Miss Liberty follows the instructions."

  "Yes, boss," Candy said with a wink, cocking back the dolly stacked with the boxes and whistling for the dog. "One doggie bath coming up."

  Neva watched Candy go, pushing the hand truck of supplies toward the Barn. Beside her, walking slowly, FM worked to shake off the effects of the sedative. Smiling to herself, Neva climbed back into the cab, turned the key, put the truck in gear, and headed for the house.

  Candy always put the truth of the matter into perspective. Size did matter. Whether the size of a man's genitalia or the size of the rumors circulating about what went on at the Big Brown Barn. Thankfully, Liberty had shown up begging for a job when there were no other girls in residence. Not that there ever were many.

  In fact, Neva often thought the fewer the better. Fewer girls meant less chance for exposure, less chance for the scuttlebutt about the Barn to grow an investigatory head of truth. But fewer girls could also mean contacting her was becoming more difficult. Or that the underground network keeping the word out was falling apart. Those were her biggest fears because they meant that somewhere she'd failed.

  She was done with failure, whether court-documented or self-perceived. The girls in Earnestine Township who wanted to escape from a medieval mindset of arranged marriages foisted on them at a very young age for the gain of their parents, or because of warped practices made acceptable by the cloak of religion . . . those girls deserved that chance.

  No female of any age should be forced into a man's bed no matter the circumstances. Neva had seen it happen too often. And she'd be damned if she was going to sit back and watch it happen to anyone else. Not when the opportunity to prevent it had dropped like a gift into her lap the day six years ago when she'd been assigned Candy Roman as a client by the court.

  A client who'd been incarcerated for the duration of her murder trial with a sixteen-year-old girl who'd killed her husband and then run from Earnestine.

  At the end of the trial, once it had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Candy's wounds were defensive, and that her soon-to-be stepfather, recently deceased at her hand, was indeed her rapist, they'd made their way west together.

  No matter her charge to provide a
competent defense, Neva had had her fill of defending those who knew just enough of the law to get around it. If that made her a bad attorney, it was offset by the good she now did.

  The good that she wasn't so sure she was going to be able to continue doing much longer. At least not with a clear conscience until she discovered the break in her network. 1 )iscovered, too, the whereabouts of the last three girls who'd laken seriously her claims of sending them away from Earnestine to a better life.

  And, she mused rather harshly as her truck hit a rut in the road she needed to have graded and filled, not when Mick Savin scared her, and she wasn't even sure why. Part of it was obviously the gun he carried. But the gun had been in her truck while she'd talked to him in the clinic. Meaning her trepidation had nothing to do with his weapons. It was all about a knife-wielding, gun-toting, dog-owning, tattooed mercenary type showing up out of nowhere and making her think about sex.

  Four

  "Are you serious?" Standing outside the showroom door, Liberty looked down at the scruffy tan and gray dog sitting almost on top of Candy's boots and stinking up the place really good. "You want me to give him a bath?"

  Candy nodded, squatting down in front of him to nuzzle his face, her skirt flapping behind her and dragging the ground, the scooped neck of her top gaping to show off a lace bra that was the kind Liberty wished she made enough money to buy.

  But this stupid job wasn't going to pay her enough to buy anything. Especially the education she would need to get a better one. Why had she ever thought running away with Jase made any sense?

  "What's his name?" she asked as Candy sneezed and got back to her feet, handing over his leash.

  "We don't know. Neva found him on the highway. The vet stitched him up, and now he's yours to take care of until someone shows up to get him."

  "Oh, like that will happen in a million years."

  "Maybe not, but knowing Doc Hill, he's sending the info to animal clinics in neighboring towns. And he's contacting the pound in El Paso. Now"—she shoved a sack into Liberty's hands—"his shampoo and his medicine are in here. There's a hose and spigot around the back of the Barn. Just make sure you don't get his stitches wet."