Page 68 of The Search

“Or you. You nearly gave me a heart attack when you took off running. I knew I’d never catch you with this bum leg.”

Her eyes widened. “Rudzak? Why?”

“He had to have seen you when you jumped out of the helicopter after Monty.”

“And that’s enough to target me?”

“More than enough. You helped me, and no one believes more in revenge than Rudzak. He’ll regard his defeat as a humiliation, and you both participated in and witnessed that humiliation.”

Her hands clenched into fists. “I thought I was out of it.”

“Will you come back to Phoenix with me?”

“No, I think you’re off base about any threat to me, but if there is, I’ll take care of myself.”

“I thought that would be your response. I told Galen to get some security out here, but it would be much easier if you go back to Phoenix.”

“I want my life back. I don’t want to make it easy for you.”

“Then if you’re going to stay here, let me stay too. I’ll be chief cook and bottle washer. You have your hands full with the wolf and Monty.”

“I told you I don’t want you here.”

“Just imagine me humble and at your beck and call. Doesn’t the picture appeal to you?”

“Like a dream come true. But you’d probably break open the stitches again and I’d be waiting on you too.”

“I trust your stitches.” He grimaced. “They hurt too much not to be tight as a drum.”

“And you’d be more danger to me here than behind those gates in Phoenix. Rudzak would probably crawl up to my cabin and blow it up just to get you.”

“No, my presence will actually make you safer. Rudzak doesn’t want me dead yet. He wants me to suffer first.”

“What the hell did you do to him?”

“I took away fifteen years of his life. I should have killed him, but things didn’t work out.” The words were cold and the tone without feeling. Then he smiled. “But that’s the past. We have to worry about the future. Just let me stay until you get the wolf in shape. Maybe by that time we’ll have located Rudzak. And I have some strings I can pull to get the IRS to persuade the ranchers not to go after the wolf again.”

“I wouldn’t sic the IRS on my worst enemy.”

“Just a mild attack? To save the wolf?”

“Maybe.” She stood up. “I’ve got to check on her.”

“Don’t you think we should give her a name? Something exotic, perhaps. Ivana or Dest—”

“I hate cutesy names.” She headed for the porch door. “Her name is Maggie.”

“Margaret will be flattered . . . I think.”

“It’s not about her. I just like the name.”

“Sarah.”

She glanced over her shoulder.

“I’m making sense,” he said soberly. “I know Santo Camaro seems far away and unreal. But it’s not. Believe me, Sarah.”

He was right. The threat from Rudzak did seem completely unreal to her. “You could be wrong.”