Free Wyoming Bold (Mills & Boon M&B) by Diana Palmer Page B

His electrician hadn’t come? So who was the nice man who’d fixed the wiring?

CHAPTER FIVE
    M ERISSA   MET T ANK   at the front door. He got out of the ranch truck with another man, a tall, blond man with one eye and an eye patch. “But he already fixed the wiring,” she began.
    Tank put his finger to his lips. He looked at the other man and nodded. The man with one eye grinned at Merissa and went past her into the house.
    “Don’t say a word,” Tank told her. “But come with us and show Rourke what the man worked on.”
    She went pale. “It was the man who’s after you, wasn’t it? I knew there was something wrong about him. And I didn’t even realize...!”
    She was heartsick.
    He drew her into his arms and hugged her close. “It’s all right,” he said softly. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll make everything right. Come on, honey.”
    He held her hand and led her back into the house. Clara was standing in the hall with Rourke already.
    Merissa led the men through the house, pointing out everywhere her visitor had been. It took a long time. Rourke used some odd instrument to pinpoint every small, unnoticeable change. He removed several components, even one from Merissa’s own computer tower, a flash drive she hadn’t even noticed, hidden in the back of the computer, in a place she never used.
    Finally Rourke loaded all the bugs into a small bag and carried them out to the bed of the pickup truck.
    He came back inside grinning. “He was efficient,” he mused. “But the work was just a little sloppy. I suppose he thought your man might show up sooner than he expected,” he told Tank.
    “A good thing he didn’t,” Tank replied. “There might have been trouble.”
    “Just what I was thinking,” Rourke added. He smiled at Merissa. “Everything is fine,” he told her when he saw her expression. “Most people wouldn’t have suspected him of foul play. He seems to be quite good at disguise.”
    “He was polite and he had nice manners,” Merissa said heavily, sitting down at her desk. “I didn’t even realize...”
    “Hold it,” Rourke said. He had an instrument in his hand and it was flashing. He motioned Merissa out of her chair. He got down on one knee, looked under the desk and extricated a small device.
    “Hi, pal,” Rourke said into it. “Sorry about the earache, mate.” And he smashed the device with his shoe. He chuckled. “Missed that one. He’ll have a hell of an earache, I hope.”
    Merissa ground her teeth together. She wasn’t used to espionage of any kind, and it disturbed her. The man had rung alarm bells in her head, but she hadn’t felt that intuitive something that told her the whole situation was wrong. That was unusual. But, then, her gift was sporadic, which was why it was so difficult for scientists to accept the validity of such unusual abilities.
    “I should have seen it, though,” she pointed out.
    “You’re not infallible,” Tank said fondly, and with a smile. “I don’t mind. It makes you more like the rest of us. We make mistakes, too.”
    “Seen what?” Rourke asked, frowning.
    Tank hesitated. “She sees things. She knows things before they happen,” he said reluctantly.
    “Ah, yes.” Rourke wasn’t weirded out. He just smiled. “I have this old chap who works for me, on my place in South Africa. He has a gift like that. I learned long ago to listen when he made warnings.”
    Merissa was fascinated. “You don’t think I curdle milk, then?”
    He burst out laughing. “Not at all. I’m rather used to psychic phenomena. Africa is a place of the supernatural, you know. We’re surrounded by it. Many of the native people still cling to old beliefs and ancient ways. They’re wiser than we are. We think we own the world. They know we don’t, that there are forces far more powerful than our modern devices.”
    She was fascinated. “I’ve always loved reading about Africa. There are webcams all over that you can plug into and watch wildlife