“Snowpaw?” Paul asked.
“Willis’s wolf.” He smiled sadly. “The first time he saw Meredith, he went straight to her and put his head in her lap, let her pet him.” He shook his head. “No other woman on the place could ever get near him.”
“That would explain the wolf drawing in her sketch pad that she brought home,” Sari mentioned. “The wolf only had three legs.”
Ren nodded as he helped himself to eggs and bacon. “Bear trap. We don’t use them, but we have a neighbor who does. After Willis went to have a ‘talk’ with him, he stopped using bear traps.” He smiled. “Willis has a temper almost as bad as J. C. Calhoun does.”
“Pretty name. The wolf’s, I mean,” Sari added.
“He’s named for a fictional wolf in the online computer game ‘World of Warcraft,’” Ren told her. “Willis plays. There’s a quest where you have to avenge an orc whose family was killed by ogres. When you complete it, the orc’s wolf, Snowpaw, goes home with you to live. It’s a sad sort of quest.”
“Do you play?” Paul asked.
Ren shook his head. “Don’t have time for gaming, or much else. I’m too busy running the ranch.”
“I had six calls waiting for me on my iPhone when we got home last night,” Paul said, smiling. “All from my colleagues. Even the Special Agent in Charge messaged me. Great group of guys.”
Sari agreed. “Family is big with them.”
“They’ve all got kids. Even the SAC.” Paul chuckled. He glanced at Sari lovingly. “We’re going to try having kids when things settle down around here. Right now, we’re focusing on our careers. Sari’s an amazing prosecutor.”
Ren looked around at the lavish furnishings. He shook his head. “All this, and you both work?”
“You’re not starving yourself, I hear,” Paul noted, having checked the rancher out much previously. “You work. And at harder stuff than either of us do.”
“When I started building up the ranch,” he said. “work became everything to me. I only slowed down when I got engaged, about six months ago.” His face hardened. “I thought she was crazy about me. Turns out she was only crazy about my money. When I found out, she went on social media to get even.” He smiled sadly. “I took Meredith to a party with me, the night you came to get her,” he told Paul, and his eyes were dark with regret. “She took my ex-fiancée down in a heartbeat, and never used a single cussword. In fact, she sent her running.” His jaw tautened as he recalled what came after. “I was gun-shy,” he confessed. “Convinced myself that Meredith was like Angie, because I thought she was one of Randall’s women, too.” He shook his head. “Biggest mistake of my life.”
“We all make mistakes,” Paul said, recalling his own rough road to the altar. He looked at Sari with soft, loving eyes. “Sometimes we get lucky, and we have time enough to correct them.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for,” Ren said. “Second chances.”
“She’s going to be...” Sari stopped, because her phone was ringing. She answered it. “Hello?”
Her eyes brightened. “Thanks, Mikey. Thanks! Yes, I’ll tell Paul.” She hung up. “Merrie’s still doing okay. And they caught him!”
“They caught who?” Paul asked.
“The guy driving the truck!”
“Where have they got him?” Paul asked. “I want a word with him.”
“I want several,” Ren seconded, and his expression was ice-cold.
Sari grimaced. “Houston PD got him,” she said. “Early this morning. One of Mikey’s contacts phoned him. Apparently the would-be hit man felt confident enough to go home. He—” she indicated Paul “—had a BOLO out for him. Houston PD drove right up to his front door and arrested him.”
“Great.” Paul sighed. “Now we can all argue jurisdiction until one of his buddies comes and bails him out.”
“What if he called the killer in Wyoming and told him, before he was arrested?” Sari asked. “What then?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“WE’VE GOT THE best security in Texas on the job,” Paul reminded Sari. “Plus we have the Avengers.”
Ren laughed softly.
“Well, that’s what we call them,” Paul said sheepishly. “You know, Barton and Rogers. In the comic books and the movies, Barton was Hawkeye and Rogers was Captain America.”
“They’re good,” Ren had to agree. “Who is this guy Eb Scott, who loaned them to you? Meredith mentioned him to me.”