All I ever wanted was a baby, but not like this

A baby. Oh God. But just like all the others, I’ll probably lose her. Him? I simply can’t let myself start thinking about this baby as real.

Writing in this journal isn’t helping–I’ve got to talk to somebody. I’ll die if I don’t. Now. Today.

Robbie’s outside the door. I can’t lay this burden on her on her wedding day.

Markie! She’s been in this predicament herself, albeit as a teenager. Maybe she can help me sort this out.

A baby. Luke Driscoll’s baby.

Dear Reader,

Frankie is the eldest of the McBride sisters, but she’s the last to find true love…and to have the baby she’s always dreamed of. In Book Two, Lone Star Rising, Frankie separated from her cheating husband, and her affluent, carefully controlled life in Austin was shattered. But I think any woman as spunky as Frankie deserves a second chance, don’t you? And if anyone can make Frankie believe in love again, it’s Texas Ranger Luke Driscoll.

When Frankie and Luke go on their first date, she buys the pie. I’ve already had reader requests for Parson’s famous recipes from The Hungry Aggie. People tend to forget I make this stuff up! If you’d like the recipe for Texas Cream Pie, please check out my Web site at www.darlenegraham.com.

Thank you, dear readers, for all your encouragement as I wrote this trilogy. I had a blast!

My best to you,

Darlene Graham

P.S. I love to hear from my readers! Drop me a line at P.O. Box 72024, Norman, OK 73070 or visit my Web site and send an e-mail.

Lone Star Diary
Darlene Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Reviewers say it’s Darlene Graham’s suspense that “grabs hold of her readers’ attention and never lets go.” But Darlene insists her writing is all about the love. “I’m not satisfied with my story until I’ve shed a few happy tears.” When she’s not sobbing into a tissue, the former nurse and mother of three grown children teaches writing classes at the local university and conducts workshops throughout the U.S. If she makes you cry, she’d love to know. Contact her at www.darlenegraham.com.

I have been blessed with a large and wonderful

extended family. This book is dedicated to all

those precious relatives, especially the ones

in Texas. I never take any of you for granted.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

LUKE DRISCOLL fought down a clutch of nausea as his boots thudded along the dusty moonlit path. Even with the desert’s cooling night breezes, the landscape around him reeked like an outhouse.

Little wonder. The place was a virtual garbage dump. His flashlight illuminated an arid terrain littered with bottles, cans, trash bags, soiled disposable diapers, sanitary napkins, discarded clothes, ripped backpacks, even used toilet paper and human feces.

But it was the sight of a syringe with an exposed needle near his boot that disgusted Luke the most. The Coyotes and drug runners shot their veins full of stimulants, staying high to endure the torturous journeys. Their human cargo got no such chemical help.

Out of the moonlit shadows a figure wearing a U.S. Border Patrol uniform emerged and flicked a flashlight up into Luke’s face as he strode toward him.

Luke squinted at the glare as he fished his badge out of the hip pocket of his jeans and flipped open the cover. “Luke Driscoll.”

The light flashed off the badge, then the guard aimed the cone at the ground. “Nobody said anything about you being a Texas Ranger.”

“More like former.” There was no former, truth be told. In Luke’s mind, once a Ranger, always one. But these days Luke kept his badge in his pocket instead of pinned to his shirt for all the world to see. He no longer covered the span of a couple of Texas-sized counties the way most Rangers did. These days he worked indoors with the hard-bitten crew of the Unsolved Crimes Investigation Team out of Austin, where, he imagined, it had been quietly arranged for the powers-that-be to keep an eye on him. Long-Arm Luke had become Loose Cannon Luke after his wife and daughter were killed.

“Chuck Medina.” The border guard extended his hand and the two men shook. “I’m in charge of this case, at least for now.” The youngish agent, who looked part Hispanic, studied Luke’s face in the off-glow of his flashlight. “Driscoll? Where have I heard that name before?”

“Beats me.” Luke kept his expression impassive and his tone a careful neutral. He had long cultivated the habit of sidestepping his history. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“No problem. But I’m confused. What does the OAG want with this?”

“Nothing.” And Luke was glad of it. He preferred to work alone. While the Office of the Attorney General would tackle most anything—murder, money-laundering, child porn—they would never step on local law enforcement’s toes. And Luke had a feeling some pretty big toes were going to get stepped on in this deal. He had already delved into one murder that appeared to be part of some linked criminal transactions. “This one’s my personal deal.”

“Personal?” Medina studied him so closely that Luke decided he’d better throw the kid off the scent.

“I’m sort of like a cold-case investigator.” He made his involvement sound detached, remote. “We think this murder is related to some old trouble up north.” He started walking toward the crime scene tape stretched between two mesquite bushes.

The guard kept pace with him. “Whereabouts up north?”

“The Hill Country.” Luke had already made two trips down the winding back country roads to Five Points, Texas, a town that was beginning to devil his mind for a lot of reasons.

“How’d you get wind of this?” the guard asked as Luke raised the stretchy yellow tape to duck under.

“A couple of brothers came to me.” Luke had been surprised but gratified when the Morales boys had talked to him.

He supposed the fallout from his history wasn’t all bad. “The young woman you guys found out here in this dung heap—” he straightened and surveyed the area “—was their sister.”

Medina shook his head. “Oh man.”

Far back in the mesquite bushes, they came to a shallow depression, freshly dug in the hard-packed desert. “The guy buried her?”

“Yeah. In a shallow grave. Very shallow. Almost like he didn’t care if she got found. I guess even if she was, he knew he’d never get caught. The Coyotes aren’t scared of us.”

Luke’s own words, recently spoken to a most feminine woman with a somewhat unfeminine name—Frankie—echoed in his mind now.

These are very dangerous men, ma’am, he had warned the hauntingly beautiful brunette.

He shook off the distraction—the weird sense of enchantment—that overcame him every time his thoughts strayed to this Frankie woman. Right now he didn’t have time to dwell on unbidden feelings.

He panned his flashlight over the area, which was unnaturally clean, stripped of all debris. “I see you boys got everything.”

“Every last little bobby pin. A freaking waste of time.”

“Ah, now,” Luke drawled, “I’ve never found catching a killer a waste of time.”

Medina grunted. Luke figured he knew what the guy was thinking: if these illegal aliens wanted to break the law and trust their lives to Coyote-types, they got what they paid for. After an uncomfortable silence, in which the two men adjusted to the likelihood that they stood on different sides of the issue, Luke said, “Tell me about the victim.”

The guard shrugged. “One more pretty Mexican girl on the run.”

Maria’s brothers had told him, tearfully, that their sister was pretty. And the Texas State Police officers Luke had talked to before he came out here had confirmed that, indeed, the victim had a pretty face—what was left of it. Sixty-five stab wounds. Coyotes—rightly named—were no better than mad dogs, vicious animals that devoured the innocent.

When the local sheriff had shown up at a humanitarian compound called the Light at Five Points looking for Maria’s brothers, Luke was already there talking to Justin Kilgore, the man who ran the relief organization and—this interested Luke more than it should have—Frankie McBride’s brother-in-law. Kilgore said the Morales boys—the same Morales boys, it turned out, who had originally come to Luke with a bizarre story about some Mayan carvings—had disappeared.

The brothers would never come out of hiding, Kilgore told the cops, even to claim their sister’s body. Luke knew that was right. And he suspected whoever had killed the sister did it for exactly that reason—to draw the brothers out.

Luke had convinced the Moraleses to tell him about Maria, about their home town in Jalisco, about their family history, but he couldn’t convince them to come down here to the border, though they had begged him to. Luke was the only Anglo they trusted, they said. Luke intended to keep that trust.

The crime scene tape, looking defeated as it sagged in the sand, was about all that was left to indicate a murder had occurred here yesterday. Maria’s body, after a routine autopsy, would be sent back to Mexico, back to her aging, widowed mother. The men who killed her were long gone too, possibly to Mexico as well.

Maria Morales’s murder would lie unsolved, lost in a morass of paperwork and legalities. Of no more consequence than the litter on this desert. Something ugly, something to wash your hands of. Waste. But for reasons all his own, Luke wouldn’t rest until he’d hunted down the dog who killed this girl. Nor would he rest until he had an answer to the ultimate question in this whole deal. Why?

“The girl we took in for questioning described the killer. Turns out he’s a known Coyote in his early twenties.” The guard dug something out of his flak jacket. “We mooched this picture off the Houston police. The guy operates over that way as well.”

They were standing just inside the border, on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande River, south-southwest of San Antonio, far, far away from the Houston side of Texas.

“Busy hombre,” Luke muttered.

“Yeah.” The Federal handed Luke a grainy black-and-white photo that had obviously been downloaded off the Internet. “According to our sources, the guy has relatives on both sides of the state, and in Arizona, and as far south as Chiapas. He could be anywhere between here and Central America.”

Luke lifted his flashlight and examined the picture. A young Hispanic man with a buzz haircut and a smudge of mustache shadowing his upper lip looked out with a cold, reptilian gaze that would halt the blood of an ordinary person.

Luke studied the heavy-set face as dispassionately as a geologist studying a rock. It was a skill—the reading of faces. This particular one would have set Luke’s instincts to strumming even if the guy hadn’t been an alleged murderer, even if Luke hadn’t seen this face before—in person.

Izek Texcoyo. Known in the border underworld as Tex. The cynical mouth that refused to smile, the dark scar that rose from the corner of that unsmiling mouth clear to one eye, as familiar to Luke as his own trim goatee and crow’s feet.

The young man was surprisingly handsome despite his disfigurement. “Can I get a copy of this?”

“Keep that. Here’s another.” He dug around in the jacket. “You know, it’s a damn shame. The more the illegals come, the more the Coyotes prey on them.” The guard explained what Luke already knew. “Sometimes it’s like we’re spittin’ on a fire. They’re like roaches, you know? Scuttling across in the night. But we have to try, right?”

“You in your way, me in mine,” Luke said. He had heard another agent compare crossers to ants. If you smashed one, twenty more took his place. He gave the skinny guard a pitiless glance, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to judge him too harshly. So young. Seemed like they all were. Luke himself was only forty-three and yet he always felt like an old geezer in the subterranean world of the border.

Whether it was the crossers or the patrol or the Coyotes, the people down here seemed like scared children caught up in a dangerous game. This one was no exception, no older than your average college student, doing the best that he could. Patrolling miles and miles of impossibly vast terrain, vainly rounding up illegals that flooded across in numbers that staggered the imagination.

Medina finally produced a paper and handed it over.

Carrying around obscene photos in his flak vest.

It was a body. A female form, half-dressed in a ripped T-shirt. “Did she have any personal effects on her besides the T-shirt?” Luke asked as he looked at it.

The border guard gave him an annoyed squint. “You’re kiddin’, right?”

The Coyote who killed her had, of course, robbed her blind as well.

“The brothers believe she was wearing a vest with Huichol beadwork. It had great…sentimental value. She was also supposedly carrying an object in her backpack. Did anybody find said backpack, or perhaps a chunk of carved stone in the vicinity?”

Luke suspected there was more to this chunk of rock and this vest than sentimental value. The Morales brothers were withholding something here, but they would eventually come straight with him or find themselves hugging jail bars.

“No backpack,” the kid said. “No carving. But I know exactly the kind of thing you’re talking about. Occasionally we’ll hear tell of crossers smuggling over artifacts. Mayan stuff, mostly. My guess is they sell them in El Norte for a fortune. And a beaded vest?” The guard eyed Luke sarcastically. “These crossers wear rags. And knock-offs of Nikes when they can get ’em.”

Indeed. No one in their right mind would wear precious ceremonial garb for this journey. Crossers snaked along in unbroken lines over dusty, well-beaten paths like this one, hacking through the underbrush, scooting on their backsides down canyon floors, crawling along muddy arroyo bottoms.

Luke pushed his Stetson back on his head and rubbed his forehead, thinking for the millionth time that there had to be a humane solution for these people. Did Maria’s brothers blame themselves for not going back to Mexico to get the vest themselves instead of having their sister wear it on her person? But it was Luke’s understanding that no man was supposed to touch the feminine half of the pattern. He wondered if evil would befall the Coyote who’d stolen it, part of him longing to believe these ancient superstitions were true.

“Maybe her friend knows something about the backpack, but my guess is it’s long gone, down the trail with that Coyote.”

“Her friend?”

“The girl traveling with her. Scared to death. She burrowed down in the sand behind the bushes while they killed this one.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“She’s back in Del Rio, in jail.”

Luke sighed. Ever since he’d gotten involved with these people, it seemed like he was forever springing somebody out of jail. Out at the Light at Five Points he and Justin Kilgore had shared the frustrating similarities in their work. Financial problems. Medical problems. Problems with the law. And lately, even political problems.

“Thanks a lot, Dad,” Justin had muttered as he told Luke about the trouble his father had stirred up. “Dad” to Justin Kilgore was none other than Congressman Kurt Kilgore. For the life of him, Luke couldn’t figure out why the congressman was so dead set against his son’s humanitarian work.

“What’s her name?” Luke dug in his jeans for his little notebook.

“Yolonda Reyes. I can have one of our guys go fetch her.” The guard reached for his shoulder radio and spoke into it.

And then what? Luke thought. Luke wasn’t about to send the child back to jail or to Mexico into the hands of the border judiciales.

An engine whined and the single headlight of a quad runner appeared out of nowhere, hurtling down the path in a cloud of dust, another young agent jostling high up on the narrow seat. The kid gave a two-fingered salute as he flew past. Medina saluted back as he hopped out of the way. Luke stepped back too, twisting his ankle as the heel of his cowboy boot rolled off a soggy diaper.

“Sorry,” Medina hollered as the roar of the quad faded into the darkness. “Joe flies around like a maniac.”

Luke knocked the dust off his sleeves as he regained his footing.

“You been at this awhile?” The guard gave Luke a wary once-over and Luke imagined the kid was noting the threads of gray in his hair and goatee, a certain cynicism around his eyes. But Luke’s weathered looks weren’t the result of age or even too many dangerous scrapes and long hours as a Ranger. If he had a hard-bitten look, it came from brooding too long. From seeing his dead child’s face in all its sweetest, most innocent poses every time he closed his eyes. He was acutely aware that this festering anger wasn’t healthy. He just didn’t know how stop it.

“Long enough.” Four years studying law enforcement, four years as a DPS trooper. A dozen or so as an active Ranger. Too much of it undercover in Mexico. Somewhere in all of that, he and Liana had managed to forge eight years of bliss before those little creeps had killed Liana and Bethany. It struck him that he hadn’t dreamed a good, clear dream about his wife and daughter for a while now. “Let’s get back to Maria’s case,” he said. “The family would like to have her stuff.”

The guard flipped up a palm like a traffic cop. “Since you’ve been at this so long, you ought to know everything from the crime scene is in police custody and staying there. And you know not to get your hopes up about ever getting it back…or catching this creep for that matter.”

“Haven’t let a creep go yet,” Luke stated flatly. Because he hadn’t. Medina still hadn’t figured out who he was. “In the meantime, I’m just trying to help this family obtain what’s rightfully theirs. They don’t even speak English.”

“Nobody does, man.” The agent said it with that sarcastic edge in his voice that was beginning to annoy Luke.

“They need an advocate,” he said calmly. “Right now, that would be me.” He dug a business card from the hip pocket of his Levi’s.

Medina took it and flipped the beam of his flashlight on it, thumbing the embossed seal of the Lone Star State. “Nice. I’m fresh out. Budget cuts.” Again, the guy’s voice was sarcastic.

Luke didn’t respond as Medina stuffed the card away in his flak vest. His silence seemed only to encourage the kid. “What, exactly, do these brothers expect? Last year over a million and a half of these types crawled up into the States.” Apparently Chuck Medina was determined to vent his spleen. “It’s like an invasion, man. This so-called border is a freaking sieve. The narco-militarist types, drug runners, Coyotes run the show down here. And they’re using assault rifles to do it. It’s a war zone.” He fanned an arm over the abandoned desert as they started making their way back to the main path. “Fear keeps the locals locked away, peering out of their houses over the barrels of their shotguns. And that’s just so they can keep the crossers out of their own front yards. They’ve given up on the outlying ranch lands. The few times a rancher had the guts to detain illegals for trespassing, the press crucified him as a racist vigilante. Some have even been sued. See all this crap?” The guard kicked at the trash, raising a plume of moonlit dust.

“It’s like this on practically the whole four-thousand-mile border. In the meantime, we’re caught in the middle. The Coyotes are making a killing off these poor people and nobody’s doing a thing about it. The illegals don’t trust anybody but the Coyotes until it’s too late. Until something like this—” He jerked his head back toward the crime scene. “Even if somebody had called 911, how could we get close enough to protect that young woman when the Coyotes let loose with a spray of bullets at the slightest sound and her rock-chucking compadres are ready to ambush us from behind every mesquite bush? And now we’ve got to worry about terrorists.” He finally stopped long enough to draw a frustrated breath.

Hoping Medina had talked himself out, Luke said, “It’s hard to sort out the good from the bad. I’ve gotten the same treatment.” So had Justin Kilgore. Crossers came in all shapes and sizes, all ages, all nationalities. But they all had one thing in common. Fear. Fear of getting caught. Fear of going to jail. Fear of authority. Fear of the gringo. Luke had worked hard to break through that fear and be one Texas Ranger they trusted. “You can’t blame them for being mistrustful, even when people are trying to help them.”

“I’ll tell you what’s sad,” the young border guard said, calmer now. “It’s the way these people accept their fate. Like they have no hope of anything ever getting better.”

“That’s the problem. They do have hope.” Luke sighed. “Otherwise they wouldn’t even attempt these crossings.”

The quad runner roared back up the rutted path, this time with a tiny young woman hanging on for dear life on the back. The driver got off and helped her dismount. She was so thin it hurt to look at her. Great, Luke thought, now he had a skinny teenager to deal with. “Her name’s Yolonda?” he clarified.

“Yeah. That little chica’s lucky she’s alive.” The guard spat in the dust, then hurried to follow Luke. “You know what she said? She said at least this time the Morales family would have a body.”

Luke stopped, turned, frowned. “This time?”

The guard hitched at his belt, suddenly self-important with information the Ranger didn’t have.

“The Morales’ father disappeared years ago.”

“Their father?” Luke processed this.

“He sent their mother the sign, but they never heard from him again.”

“The sign?” Luke squinted at Medina.

“The Lone Star. They’ll send it on a postcard or a trinket or something back home to Mexico. It shows that they’ve made it as far as a place called Five Points. I do not know why these people bother with such secrecy.” Medina shook his head. “Everybody knows Five Points is a key stopping place for crossers. Five highways going in every direction. Just a hop-skip to I-10.”

“I see,” Luke said. Five Points. He could practically see a puzzle piece locking in place. The Morales boys had failed to inform him of this little detail. Suddenly he knew exactly what he was going to do with this Yolonda girl: offer her asylum if she would tell him everything she knew. He could take her out to the Light at Five Points.

Luke thought of the people there and others he’d met when he’d gone to check out another murder in that small town, and like a rubber band, his mind snapped back to the woman named Frankie.

She’d given her full name, Frankie McBride Hostler, although the last name hadn’t rolled out as evenly as the first two, as if she’d choked on it. He had checked her left hand then, its slender fingers entwined with the other hand around the grip of a heavy revolver. A diamond the size of Dallas had winked at him in the blazing Southwest sun.

He’d never met a woman that way, while she held a gun on him in a firm firing stance. When she shot the head off the copperhead snake coiled less than a yard from his boot, he had decided this particular woman was something else.

Too bad this Frankie McBride…Hostler was married.

Five Points. He was headed back there for sure. Back to the home place of Frankie McBride.

CHAPTER TWO

My birthday. And I cannot believe I am actually writing these words in this journal: I am divorcing Kyle. I signed the papers yesterday. The weird thing is, ever since I made my decision, I’ve felt this enormous sense of…peace. Well, relief at least. And the strangest…euphoria from facing the truth.

My sister Robbie was right about one thing. Writing it down in this journal has clarified the hell out of things. I guess keeping a journal runs in our blood. Great-grandmother McBride started that tradition back in the territory days. I’ve been scribbling the most atrocious stuff in here, mostly about how I’d like to murder Kyle, but I couldn’t believe how seeing what Kyle had done written in black and white helped me face up to what I had to do.

I caught a glimpse of Robbie’s journal once. A cheap thing from Wal-Mart with a picture of a puppy dog on the front. That’s the main difference between me and my younger sister. She takes life as it comes and I manage it to death.

But I doubt I’ll change my ways. I’m turning forty today, and being fastidious and organized is in my blood, too. Like Mother.

I am terrified that I’ll end up like her someday. I seem to be well on my way. Fussing over another woman’s children, starting up another woman’s business, living in another woman’s house, a nineteenth-century rattletrap that would be condemned if not for the improvements Zack Trueblood has made to it.

Soon Robbie and Zack will be getting married and they’ll move the children out to the farm. The Tellchick-Trueblood Farm, Zack renamed it.

Then what? Will I become a boring little drudge? Fussing with the displays in the shop, lunching with lady friends, buying extravagant gifts for my niece and nephews? Will I fall into a sad little rut, a childless divorcée piecing together a half-life around her extended family, but in reality, so alone.

But even with all my fears, I can’t shake this feeling that I’m alive again for the first time in years. As if I’m breaking free. As if I could conquer the world.

And speaking of the world, time to get out in it. The sun’s up, and I want to get down to the store early. We’re putting up wallpaper today. Robbie’s coming in right after she drops the boys at school.

FRANKIE MCBRIDE inhaled a bracing dose of icy January air as her numb fingers worked the key in the lock of her sister’s craft shop. It was cold enough in the Hill Country to freeze a Yankee’s behind this morning, but Frankie felt full of unaccountable excitement and purpose. The littlest things seemed to make her happy lately. Her baby niece. This store. Fresh coffee in the morning. It all seemed so vital, so far removed from the sterile life she’d left behind.

She glanced up and down Main Street. Except for a half dozen antique stores, a handful of upscale art galleries and a general spiffing up for the ever-increasing tourist trade, the main street of Five Points, Texas, had not changed since Frankie’s high school days.

The store sat nestled where the narrow brick avenue made a gentle S half-way through town, visible to tourists who left the beaten path where five highways converged. Frankie’s dad and Zack Trueblood had done an excellent job of making the shop stand out, with its turned posts and gingerbread trim, painted in authentic Victorian shades of pumpkin, teal and cream. Robbie had insisted that the front door be painted true Texas red, and had carried the signature color over in a stenciled Lone Star design high on the front window and again on the doors of the antique display cabinets.

Frankie loved this place. She took a second to delight in the familiar—the lavender curves of the Texas Hill Country touched by a golden sunrise, the aroma of Parson’s pancakes wafting from the Hungry Aggie, where a cluster of pickups gathered like cattle at a trough, the whine of the school bus engine, the firefighters raising the single door on the old limestone firehouse that sat in the other curve of the S.

She jiggled the key as she wondered if Zack was on duty today. Ah. Here he was now, headed for the tiny bakery where the fluorescent lights were glaring and the pastries were hot.

Zack waved. He was a handsome man, virile and fit. And genuinely kind. Her sister Robbie was so lucky.

Which reminded Frankie that she was…not so lucky.

Right on the heels of that deflating thought came guilt. How could she envy her sisters for the love they’d found? Her problems were nothing compared to theirs. Robbie’s husband had been killed in a tragic barn fire only a year earlier. Markie had endured the pain of giving a child up for adoption when she was a mere teenager. She admired the way her sisters had triumphed, had found happiness despite their setbacks.

Still, Frankie couldn’t help but think that at least Robbie had her children, whereas Frankie had lost all her babies, one after another. Four wrenching miscarriages. She studied Zack’s back and decided it was easier to think about the contrast between solid, generous-hearted firefighter and her own tightly wound, bone-selfish husband. Immediately on the heels of that thought came the memory of meeting that other man, the Texas Ranger, the one with the broad shoulders and piercing eyes. This memory had been deviling her, off and on, for weeks. Her attraction to the man had been immediate, electric, and, to Frankie, thoroughly shocking.

At first she’d thought it was some kind of rebound thing, being drawn to an attractive man out of sheer loneliness. But her preoccupation with him persisted, and she began to wonder if there had been something special about him after all. Mercifully, the memory faded over the weeks, as if the whole meeting had been some kind of fantasy, and ultimately she was back to her sad reality—divorcing herself from an unfaithful husband.

Tears stung her eyes, as they did every time she thought about Kyle’s betrayal, but Frankie was quickly learning to shake off self-pity. Work, she had decided, was the answer to her woes. Her sister needed her help, and even with a substantial settlement in the offing, Frankie knew she couldn’t live on Kyle’s money forever. Getting this store up and running was going to solve both of their problems.

The lock finally clicked open and she bent to pick up the plastic storage tub she’d carried from the trunk of her Mercedes.

“The Rising Star is looking real good,” a chiming female voice called out. It was Ardella Brown, the proprietor of the flower shop down the walk. “Getting things all organized over there, are you, Frankie?” Ardella nodded at the plastic bin.

Frankie smiled. “Trying to.”

“Good girl!” Ardella’s smile was as bright as the eastern sun that glinted off her spectacles. Ever since Ardella and Frankie’s mother had been young women, they had passed each other bits of juicy gossip as if trading sticks of gum. Ardella made no secret of her feelings about the McBride sisters. She liked Robbie, didn’t like Markie, and was carefully respectful, even a tad admiring, of Frankie.

But Frankie didn’t know how to take Ardella’s new attitude about Robbie’s shop. Marynell had reported back every sniping thing Ardella had said about the beginnings of their enterprise. But recent events made Frankie wonder if Ardella had actually said those things or if Marynell had conveniently inserted words into someone else’s mouth. It was going to be hard to trust their mother ever again.

One thing was sure, her sister Robbie had been much warmer toward Ardella since Ardella had been alert enough to report smoke on the night of the shop’s fire, saving baby Danielle’s life.

“Have a good day!” Frankie shot Ardella a smile, scooted inside, plunked the bin down with a thud and hurried back out. She was reaching into the trunk to pull out the short stepladder they’d borrowed from Zack when she had a sensation of being watched. She straightened and noted two paunchy old guys in overalls looking her way. “Morning!” she called.

Living in Five Points was going to take some getting used to. In a big city like Austin, even a woman of her social standing could be anonymous. But here, everybody and everything got noticed.

She wrestled the ladder inside, turned the deadbolt, fastened the chain. Bright morning sun backlit the frosted oval glass that had graced the entrance since territorial days. Thank God the front half of the store, with its antique charm, hadn’t been damaged by the fire. On a sideboard where Robbie had set up a charming coffee service, she started a carafe of her favorite blend. Frankie had convinced Robbie that elegant touches like candy dishes and demitasse-sized cups of flavored coffee would encourage shoppers to linger.

With the coffee dripping, she hurried to the storeroom. She was pulling out rolls of wallpaper when a loud rapping on the front glass made her jump.

She frowned. Had Robbie misplaced her keys to the store yet again? Living with Robbie was starting to tax her patience.

“Coming!” she snapped, trying not to be annoyed at the scattered ways of her sister.

The flotsam and jetsam of moving lay everywhere, as it did at Robbie’s house. Frankie determined anew to help her sister get more organized. Starting with her keys, she thought as the rapping ricocheted through the store again.

She came up short when she saw, framed in the oval frosted window, the silhouette of a tall man in a cowboy hat. Her stomach plunged when she recognized Luke Driscoll’s profile. Memories rushed back. His handsome face, piercing eyes, laconic manner, broad-shouldered physique. She even remembered the sound of his voice—low, gravelly, emotionless.

“Mrs. Hostler?” that very voice now caused a flutter at her core.

She opened the door a crack, kept the chain lock on.

He actually touched the brim of his Stetson. “It’s me, Mrs. Hostler. Luke Driscoll.”

She hated the very sound of Kyle’s last name now, but that was not the Ranger’s problem.

“Mr. Driscoll. Of course I remember you.” She undid the chain and opened the door wider. You didn’t forget a man you’d shot at with a revolver, though she had certainly never expected to see, much less speak to, this one again.

“Just Luke. Remember?”

“Yes. I do…remember. What…what are you doing here?” Despite the cold air, she could actually feel her cheeks heating up.

“I saw you unloading the car while I was in there getting her something to eat,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the Aggie.

Her? Only then did Frankie notice a painfully thin girl with dark Hispanic looks, cowering behind Driscoll’s big shoulder. The teenager was wearing filthy sneakers, threadbare jeans, a baggy denim jacket and a thin shawl clutched tightly about her head. Probably an illegal. There were plenty of them around here.

But before Frankie addressed the girl, she had to ask, “You…you were watching me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said unapologetically. “Um…” He looked around. “Can we get in off the street? Yolonda’s a little skittish.”

The young girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen, did indeed look frightened. She mumbled something in Spanish while her wide black eyes pleaded with Frankie in a way that needed no interpretation.

“Of course.” Frankie stepped back to allow them in. Driscoll’s boots clumped loudly on the hardwood floor. “This your sister’s shop?” he asked as he steered the girl inside.

“Yes,” Frankie said as she closed the door. Although she had developed proprietary feelings about the place lately. “I work here.”

“Oh?” He gave her a curious frown. “I thought you said you were just visiting. Remember? A while back? When we met out at your parents’ farm?”

How could she forget? Frankie felt her color rising higher. She’d pointed a gun at a Texas Ranger, shot a snake, then gotten all flustered and teary. She did recall saying something about going back to Austin. But now she had no intention of reconciling with her husband. She sighed. One day she said one thing, the next she did another.

Why she cared what this man thought of her was a mystery. Maybe it was the way he was looking at her—as if he cared. Or maybe it was because he came across so…pulled together. From the top of his tan Stetson to the muscular, relaxed way he moved, the man exuded an air of strength and competence.

“I…uh…” she stammered, realizing he was still waiting for her answer. “I never went back to, uh, to Austin. I stayed on to help my sister.” Not strictly true. She’d stayed to sort out her messy life.

“As you can see—” she swept around in front of his imposing frame, leading the way through the piles of clutter on the floor “—we’re still getting organized. We had a rather unfortunate fire. We’ve fixed the damage, but…” She looked back and he was regarding her patiently. “We can sit down back here in the storage room.”

“I know about the fire,” Driscoll’s voice came calmly from behind her. “I interviewed the arsonist.”

Frankie spun around, surprised. “Really?”

“Old guy named Mestor. Interrogated him at the jail.”

The day they’d met, Frankie thought this Texas Ranger had told her he was looking for some Mexican Coyotes. Was this related? “Why ever did you question him?”

“I’m working on a string of events. But that’s not why I came over here this morning.” He pushed his Stetson back on his head. “I need to take Yolonda here out to the Light at Five Points.”

“My sister and brother-in-law’s place. You need directions?”

“No, ma’am. Already talked to Justin Kilgore.”

Goodness. This man seemed to know everybody. “So, is Yolonda an…an illegal alien then?” Frankie tried not to cast any wary glances at the child and prayed the girl didn’t speak English.

“Yes, ma’am. Crossed two nights ago. Not under the most ideal circumstances.”

“Are circumstances down there ever ideal?” Frankie frowned, but again, not at the girl. In Frankie’s world, undocumented aliens were never acknowledged as such, even if they were cleaning your house or doing your yardwork. She hoped this Ranger wasn’t going to ask her to take charge of the girl.

“Her case is even worse than most,” Driscoll went on dryly. “And now she needs protection.” A glance from the Ranger caused the girl to adopt that big-eyed, fear-filled look again.

Quietly he said, “¿Estás bien?”

It was then that Frankie noticed that the jean jacket the girl was wearing was way too large for her, a man’s size in fact, and that Driscoll was wearing only a Western-cut denim shirt. Running around in January weather in his shirtsleeves? Likely because he’d given his jacket to a freezing child.

The child gave him a quick nod, but Frankie didn’t think this girl looked okay at all. “Mr. Driscoll—Luke—I can’t…I’d like to help, but…”

“Yolonda’s not the reason I’m here. I hate to interrupt your work, but I didn’t have a number where I could reach you. It’s a pure stroke of luck that I saw you. I need a favor.”

“Of course.” Frankie reasoned she should cooperate with the law, but she suspected it would be closer to the truth to admit that doing a favor for this handsome man would be no hardship.

“Would you care for some coffee?” she said. The aroma filling the cozy store was suddenly working on her.

“No, ma’am. Thanks anyhow,” Driscoll drawled.

But when he said something to Yolonda in Spanish, the girl mumbled back, nodding. “She’ll have some, if it’s no trouble. Black.”

Frankie smiled and went to the sideboard. She poured two foam cups of coffee, handed one to Yolonda, quickly added cream to her own.

She led the girl to an old wrought-iron park bench—one of Robbie’s finds—while Driscoll took a nearby lawn chair that Zack had left behind.

Frankie sipped the coffee, then said, “What can I do for you?”

Again, the corners of Driscoll’s mouth turned down in that grudging way. It wasn’t an unpleasant expression. It was actually kind of sexy. Frankie almost rolled her eyes at her own errant thoughts. Behave, she told herself, the man is probably married. And so, incidentally, was she. Though not for much longer.

“You need help with the girl?” Frankie adopted a kindly mien, as if she were some social worker handling a case. She also surreptitiously checked out the third finger on Luke Driscoll’s left hand. A gold band.

When she looked up, their eyes met and the collision sent another tremor to her core. Luke held her gaze only a millisecond before he spoke in a flat monotone. “No, Mrs. Hostler. I was wondering—”

“Call me Frankie.” Please. Anything but the name of that little prick I married.

“Okay. Frankie. I wondered if you could show me the way back to those caves we saw the day we met. On your parents’ land?”

“We were actually on my sister’s land that day. The farms are adjoining. Well, it’s not my sister’s land anymore, or at least it isn’t hers until she gets married again. It belongs to a man named Zack Trueblood now. The man she’s going to marry this spring. She’s a widow, you know.”

“I know.” Luke’s tone was long-suffering. “I met Trueblood, and your sister.” Then he frowned. “So, would you prefer that I contact Trueblood about the caves?”

“No,” Frankie said a little too quickly. “I’d be happy to take you out there myself. I’m sure Zack wouldn’t mind.” She already knew she wouldn’t mind spending time with this man. “When do you want to go?”

“Now, if possible. We could drop Yolonda on the way.”

“We can call Justin and my sister once we’re on the road.” Frankie jumped up, ditched the coffee, and marched into the main store, feeling Luke Driscoll and his charge close behind. Why was she doing this?

When Luke came up alongside her and she smelled his aftershave, she knew why. “I hope her cell phone works. It’s so remote out there. The Kilgore spread doesn’t even have electricity in places, you know. Over eighty thousand acres. Parts of it only accessible on horseback.”

One of Luke Driscoll’s dark eyebrows had arched up when Frankie mentioned the size of the ranch, but he had said nothing, which had the effect of making Frankie all the more nervous. Why was she babbling? Why was she running to fetch her purse, gathering up her coat? Why? Because she was ripe for adventure, for any distraction? Especially a good-looking one in boots and a Stetson? What about the wallpapering?

Oh, to hell with it, Frankie thought as she snatched her purse and leather jacket off the coat tree and jammed her arms into the sleeves. She’d figure all of that out and call Robbie on the way, as well.

Outside on the sidewalk, Ardella was dragging some large pots out for display. She smiled and gave the trio a little nod, and Frankie thought, She’ll report to mother that she saw me leaving the shop with a poorly dressed Mexican girl and a tall man in a cowboy hat.

But again, Frankie didn’t care. When had she stopped vying for the whole world’s approval? The sun hit her eyes and she rummaged in her purse for sunglasses.

A bright, beckoning January day waited out there in the remote, mystical Texas Hill Country. And Frankie McBride—strike the Hostler part, strike it for good—was going to go out into those hills with this compelling man. For once in her anal-retentive, play-it-safe, carefully measured, hideously sterile life, she was going to take her chances and just go with her gut.

Or…would that be her heart?

YOLONDA REYES pleaded with her wide obsidian eyes and whined something in Spanish. Something about not going to La Luz, the name the illegals used for the Light at Five Points.

But Luke Driscoll’s response, also in Spanish, sounded firm. Frankie caught the last words: y no más problemas—and no more trouble.

“Yolonda here,” Luke explained to Frankie, “tried twice to escape back to Mexico. Because I didn’t let her, she’s plenty upset. But this girl is the lone witness I have.”

“A witness? To what?”

“Murder.”

Frankie gasped, but Luke cut off her next question. “She doesn’t need to relive it now, even in English.”

The girl sat hunched in the small back seat of Driscoll’s crew cab on the long drive from town to the Kilgore ranch, her face growing as sullen as a storm cloud.

“Why do you need to see those caves?” Frankie broke the tense silence.

He answered her question with a question. “What do you know about Congressman Kurt Kilgore?”

That name surprised Frankie. “Nothing except for what I read in the paper, what I see on the news. Why?”

“He’s your youngest sister’s father-in-law now, correct?”

“Yes, but Markie and Justin don’t have much of anything to do with him. Justin and his father are…estranged. They had a run-in. He didn’t even come to their wedding.”

“Yeah. They recently got married, too—when was it now?”

“Last fall, right before my niece was born. Zack deliv—”

“Yes. How is Mrs. Tellchick doing these days?”

Frankie wanted to say that he had a habit of interrupting, but she thought better of it. She didn’t know him well enough to point out his shortcomings yet. Yet? Was she planning to get to know this man better?

She moved a little closer to the passenger door of his pickup to mull that one over. His…aura felt overwhelming in the confined space of the cab. An XM country station played softly on a high-quality sound system. The lyrics made her nervous. “Islands in the Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. No one in between, the duet sang. Islands in the stream.

The immaculate interior, glowing with hot-red dash lights, smelled like leather and aftershave, rich and masculine. The scent seemed to permeate everything. The cologne was one she was sure she had sniffed in some high-end department store. One that Kyle would never wear.

“I started to say that Zack delivered Robbie’s baby.” She strove to resume the conversation as the singers wailed, Sail away with me, and she felt something shifting, some emotion taking wing inside her.

“He and Robbie knew each other in high school. Actually, Markie and Justin knew each other before, too.” She was jabbering again. “High school sweethearts. Well, Markie was in high school. Justin was already in college.”

“What about you and your husband? You guys go way back, too?”

Frankie felt her color flare up again. She was going to blush herself to death around this man. “No. We…actually, I’d rather not talk about him. I’m in the process of getting a divorce.”

His eyebrow slashed up again. Frankie wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. This man might take a little getting used to. Why was she thinking about things like knowing him better and getting used to him? But as they hurtled down the highway, she had to admit that she was already thinking about where this would lead, this hopping in a pickup and taking off into the Hill Country. She studied his profile, his expression inscrutable behind the shades. He was handsome as hell.

It would be several more miles over a winding highway before they would reach the McBride farm where Frankie had grown up. That farm and the Tellchick-Trueblood farm sat tucked into a bend of the Blue River, surrounded by Kilgore land. As they approached the turnoff, Frankie worried about explaining herself if one of her parents passed on the road. Unlikely, since P.J. seldom left the farm, and Marynell never acknowledged people on the highway.

“Just plain un-Texan,” P.J. had once kidded his wife about her standoffish behavior.

“Un-Texan?” Marynell had snapped. “That’s all you think about, isn’t it, P. J. McBride? Fitting in? As if giving a two-fingered salute to some good old boy means you really belong?”

Frankie remembered how unwarranted it was, like all of Marynell’s attacks. Her father simply loved his neighbors, loved Texas. His friendliness wasn’t some sycophantic effort to fit in.

“This it?” Luke’s deep voice interrupted Frankie’s sad memory.

They had come to the turnoff, where a cluster of live oaks with gray-green limbs dipped low to the ground. The foliage remained attached in winter, waiting for spring when new leaves would push off the faded ones. Maybe, Frankie thought, she was like those trees, stuck with the old. Dormant until something new pushed it aside. She looked at Luke Driscoll as he slowed the truck and the sun reflected off his shades. “Yes. Turn here.”

He steered the pickup off the highway onto a gravel ranch road.

For three miles, a straight and dusty path led past first Frankie’s parents’ white-frame two-story, with its gray-metal windmill and neat outbuildings, then past her sister Robbie’s squat old farmhouse, in much better condition these days thanks to Zack Trueblood, until at last they were arrowing across Kilgore land.

The truck strained into a gentle climb as the rock-strewn landscape grew higher, drier. This hilly land was fit for little but ranching. Its winter coat ran from tan to faded gray-green broken only by dark lines of trees along the creeks and down in the riverbed.

Finally the Kilgore ranch house appeared in the distance, a limestone-pillared three-story that stood out like a timeless fortress. Smoke curled from tall chimneys at either end of a steep-pitched red tile roof. A small collection of low stone buildings huddled behind.

Justin had converted his family’s historic ranch house into communal living quarters and offices for the Light at Five Points. Frankie was astonished at the changes in the place.

The undocumented aliens that took shelter there had restored most of the stonework, cleared a tremendous amount of cedar and erected sturdy modern fencing in place of the crumbling split rail. Her sister Markie had started teaching English classes right after Christmas. The place already felt settled, productive, and Frankie was impressed.

Yolonda, however, was not. She folded her skinny arms across her chest and glared at the back of Luke’s head.

Luke ignored her, braked the truck and said, “Vamos.”

They got out and the smell of cedar smoke hanging in the cold air made Frankie nostalgic. Nothing was quite as magical as a clear Hill Country morning out on a ranch.

Markie stepped out onto the porch, looking stylish at eight in the morning as only Markie could, wearing tall boots, snug jeans, a black turtleneck and a red boiled-wool vest. The sisters shared a similar brunette prettiness, but Markie wore her shiny dark hair in a more casual style than Frankie’s classic pageboy.

Frankie could see that marriage agreed with her little sister. Her alabaster complexion was glowing and her smile was huge. A young Hispanic woman—very pregnant, Frankie noted with a familiar pang of envy—accompanied her.

They mounted the steps, where the sisters exchanged a quick hug and Frankie did the introductions.

“What brings you here, Mr. Driscoll?” Markie eyed Luke. She sneaked Frankie a sly little glance that said, Wow.

Luke was impressive, Frankie thought. And married.

She felt her cheeks heating again and wished Markie would mind her own beeswax. But that was not the McBride sisters’ way.

“I’ve come back to continue my investigation.” Driscoll cleared his throat and looked at Yolonda, who was starting to fidget nervously. “And I wonder if you’ve heard anything from Juan and Julio Morales.”

The pregnant girl gasped and covered her lips with shaky fingers.

“No. Nothing. But we’d sure like to. Julio is the father of Aurelia’s baby.” Markie then spoke in Spanish to the pregnant girl, who tried to spirit the new girl off into the house like a hen taking a chick under wing.

But Yolonda balked. She carefully removed the denim jacket, with its warm sheepskin lining, and gave it up to its owner. “Gracias,” she said with sad eyes.

“No hay de qué,” Luke said quietly.

“She’s going to be a handful,” Luke explained when the girls were gone. “Doesn’t want to be here. But I need her kept safe.”

Markie smiled. “We’re used to handling scared teenagers. There’s always a lot of mistrust at first. Aurelia will help her adjust.”

“She’s more scared than most. She witnessed the thing with the Morales’ sister.”

Markie’s bright smile vanished. “We heard about that. You think that’s related to your investigation then?”

“Absolutely.”

Frankie felt a mild irritation that her sister knew more than she did, and that Driscoll seemed more forthcoming with Markie.

Markie shook her head. “Danny’s murder. Whatever my father-in-law is covering up. The Morales brothers. Now this trouble on the border. What a mess.”

“Yes, ma’am. A mess that needs addressing.” Then to Frankie’s surprise, the laconic Driscoll launched into a kind of speech.

“This sort of thing is bad for relations. I’ve been deep into Mexico, even on down into Central America, and it’s my opinion that we’d better learn to get along with these people. We could easily take U.S. prosperity all the way into Honduras. And if we don’t let them work for us and improve themselves, everything will end up being made in China.”

“You sound like my husband.” Markie’s smile returned, broader and brighter. “Justin said he liked you. Y’all want to come inside? Aurelia just made fresh coffee.”

Frankie was tempted to sit by the big window in the cool stone kitchen and sip Markie’s rich ranch house coffee while the sun rose higher over the hills.

But once again, Driscoll proved focused. He turned to Frankie. “We’d better get going.”

“To the caves?” Nosy Markie.

“Yes.” Frankie wished she hadn’t told Markie that part. She turned to go, hoping to avoid this topic. She knew her youngest sister had suspicions about that area ever since Congressman Kilgore had pulled a gun on her son inside one of the caverns. Old man Kilgore had claimed he mistook the boy for a trespasser, and the local law bought it, but Frankie sensed there was something bad, something unfinished, about the whole affair.

Markie grabbed Frankie’s arm. “What do you all expect to find in the caves?”

“Won’t know until we look.” Driscoll took command of Frankie’s arm and touched the brim of his Stetson, steering her out and dismissing Markie.

When the truck lurched to a halt under the rusting wrought-iron Kilgore ranch gates, Luke said, “Which way?”

Frankie looked up and down the narrow gravel road. “You want the scenic route?”

Driscoll inclined his head, and even with the brim of the Stetson and the reflective sunglasses shielding his eyes, Frankie could tell he was favoring her with a patient look. “I prefer the fast route,” he drawled.

“Left,” she said with a teensy nudge of disappointment. After years with a dour husband, Frankie was in no mood for a guy with no sense of humor. Luke Driscoll might be handsome as hell, but Frankie had a feeling he wasn’t exactly going to be bunches of fun.

CHAPTER THREE

AS LUKE DRISCOLL’S PICKUP bounced past her sister’s unoccupied farmhouse, up a winding gravel trail to the top of a hill, Frankie took the measure of the man driving. He had a sturdy build. Meaty forearms, a broad back. He sat squarely in the seat on muscular shanks, with his long legs canted wide.

She couldn’t help making an unkind comparison to her slight-bodied husband. Kyle was forever slumped—in the seat of his Mercedes, in front of his computer, on the soft leather sectional that dominated their den.

Mentally waving away thoughts of the pusillanimous Kyle, she wondered how old Luke Driscoll was. Forty? Forty-five? Again, her eyes were drawn to the gold band that appeared to have hugged that finger for many a year. Stop salivating over him, Ms. Separated-and-Rejected-Middle-Aged-Wife. This man, this very sexy man sitting next to you is obviously married. Why did she have to keep reminding herself?

She turned her face to the window, determined to think about something else. But it was no good. The man was an absolute eye magnet. She gave him another covert look. Immediately he said, “What?”

“Nothing,” she lied.

More details of his person registered. Tan complexion. Hawkish nose. Square jaw. Threads of gray in the thick dark hair at his temples.

He had a smattering of gray, also, in the trim goatee that accented his face. It seemed incongruous, a Ranger with a goatee…and the rest growing out in a five o’clock shadow. She supposed traveling from the border all night explained his unshaven face. He didn’t seem the least bit tired, though. On the contrary. He seemed alert, intent on his purpose.

“You drove all night?”

He scrubbed a hand down his face as if she’d reminded him how fatigued he was. “The illegals walk it all the time. At least we had Old Bossie, here.”

His pickup was not old. Texans loved to give their trucks pet names, even if said truck had a leather interior and XM stereo.

“Why this urgency to see the caves?”

He frowned at her. “I’m under a little time pressure. Remember how I said Yolonda was a witness to a murder and a rape?”

“A rape?” Frankie’s eyes widened.

The look he gave her was sympathetic. “She hid in the mesquite bushes while some very dangerous men raped and killed her friend Maria Morales.”

Frankie covered her mouth. “That poor child.” Then she dropped her hand. “Morales? Like the brothers who were seen out by my brother-in-law’s barn?” Frankie’s voice grew bright with realization. “The ones who ran away and hid—”

“—after the fire that killed your brother-in-law. That is why this has become part of my investigation.”

Robbie had said this Luke Driscoll was very thorough, very sharp, when she’d contacted him for help in uncovering the truth about Danny’s murder. Frankie checked him out again.

And again without looking at her, he said, “What?”

“Do you always snap at people when you imagine they’re looking at you?”

“Did I imagine it?” He gave her a sidelong glance.

No, he hadn’t. He had some kind of radar. Frankie felt herself blushing again so she steered back to the subject at hand. “So this girl, who was…raped,” she could hardly utter the word, “by this guy—”

“Guys.”

“Oh, dear,” Frankie whispered. “More than one?”

“Yes. But that’s not the point. It was meant to look like the motive was sexual assault, but I don’t think that’s the way of it.”

“Lord. Why would someone rape an innocent girl to cover up something else? I mean, how could anything be worse?”

“That’s what her brothers are supposed to think. The real reason that the Coyotes killed the girl was to draw her brothers out of hiding.”

“Coyotes?”

“Border runners. Smugglers. They take the money of poor, desperate people in exchange for passage into the States. Besides smuggling human beings, they’re often involved in other criminal activity.”

“Oh,” Frankie said. She’d heard of such things, but they never touched a doctor’s wife in her secure world.

“I’d like to see what’s in these caves before these Coyotes beat me to it. If they haven’t already. Maria Morales was wearing a vest that had a special pattern woven into it. The men who killed her kept that vest. I’m thinking it’s a map of sorts.”

“You mean to the caves?”

He shrugged. “I expect the Morales boys could tell us. Yolonda claims it was an ancient Mayan pattern.”

“What kind of pattern?”

“Something worth killing for. Do we turn off here?” Driscoll was slowing the truck.

“Yes. Then, you remember, we’ll have to proceed on foot.”

“I don’t remember much besides getting shot at,” Driscoll said as he strong-armed the truck down the rutted drive of the Tellchick farm.

Frankie’s cheeks flushed again as she recalled the day they’d first met. Then she smiled slyly, thinking how her aim had been dang good. “I suppose I could have let the snake get you.”

The whine of the truck engine continued for some seconds before he deadpanned, “But then…what would you be staring at now?” He kept his gaze trained out the windshield.

“Aren’t you the humble one,” Frankie scoffed, though her cheeks were so hot now she thought she might have to roll down the window. A grin formed above the goatee. Maybe this Luke guy wasn’t so grim after all.

“Park up there,” Frankie pointed to an ancient limestone structure squatting among cedars and low live oaks.

“Built by the original Kilgore settlers,” Frankie explained as the pickup came to a stop next to the abandoned one-room dwelling. “Way back in the nineteenth century.”

“I love old places like this.” Driscoll jerked on the parking brake.

He got out and marched around the perimeter of the building. Not sure what else to do, Frankie followed.

“Looks like someone’s been here more recently than the nineteenth century.” He pointed to the charred remains of a fire ring.

“My sister had some workers staying out here for a while,” Frankie explained as they walked toward the ashes.

“Mexicans?”

“Yes. Guys from the Light at Five Points, actually.”

Luke sauntered to the edge of the rise and Frankie followed. “The caves are under those mounds.” She pointed.

Below them a shadowed valley spread between banks of hills. The only road into the area stuck out like a winding gray ribbon. In the distance their goal—mounds of yellowish native limestone—shone like a bald pate in the gray-green landscape.

“How far is that from up here?” He nodded at the mounds.

“Half a mile by the road, but it’s been closed off with barbed wire and a padlocked ranch gate.”

“Trueblood’s doing?”

“No. Kilgore’s.”

“Ah. The congressman again.” Luke frowned. “I thought Trueblood owned this farm now.”

“He cut some kind of deal with Kilgore and agreed to steer clear of the caves. But we can circle around and come up along the river.” She pointed at the channel of the Blue River below. “When we were kids, my sisters and I came up that way a couple of times, exploring. There’s a shaft that drops pretty much straight down. We were forbidden to go there, but we did. Robbie didn’t allow her kids out this way, either. But she believes Danny had discovered another entrance the night he came upon the Mexicans.”

“Did he tell her where it was?”

“No. He never got the chance.”

They stared out at the valley for a moment, silenced by the memory of the fire and the way Danny Tellchick had died.

“You said the caves had some connection to my brother-in-law’s death.” Frankie’s voice became sorrowful as she surveyed the countryside that spread below the little hill. “I guess you were right.”

“Coyotes hired old man Mestor to set both fires. But knowing who wanted Danny Tellchick dead doesn’t tell us why they wanted him dead. It’s my job to find out why. Something worth killing for has got to be a pretty big why.”

“Unfortunately, Danny never told my sister what he saw.”

“My guess is he told somebody. And got killed for his trouble.”

Frankie cocked her head at him. “This is trespassing, you know. On the land of one of the meanest men in Texas.”

“Seems minor compared to murder.” Luke’s gaze was level.

“We should start by looking at that main shaft. We can make it on foot if we go down that slope.” Frankie pointed. “But it’s pretty steep.”

His gaze slid to her feet. “Can you make it in those things?”

Frankie looked down at the suede ballet flats she’d worn to work that morning. Their little accent bows looked ridiculous out here in this rocky countryside. Too late, she realized she should have gone by the house for her boots. “I’ll be okay.”

But still he went ahead of her, blazing the way. And still he looked back, braced his feet as if to catch her should she fall, and when she almost did, slipping on some mud, he grasped her hand and anchored his other hand firmly at her waist.

“Easy,” he said, as if she were a skittish horse.

“I’m fine,” she said. But she let him take her hand. She entertained no prideful notions that she didn’t need his help. The soles of her shoes were dance-floor slick and found little purchase on the rocky hillside. His grip felt warm and firm. Natural. Confident. And something else that Frankie couldn’t put a word on.

When they came to a sandstone wash that snaked down toward the river, he planted a palm on her back as he guided her across teetering slabs of rock.

His touch was as gentle and solicitous as his earlier one had been, but now something more seemed to radiate through his warm palm, something decidedly possessive, even sexual. She couldn’t remember Kyle’s hands ever having this effect on her.

A sudden thought spoiled her mood. Today was her birthday. Here she was, turning forty, and the simple touch of a man was giving her ideas that threw her into a little tizzy. Pathetic.

“Here. Let me help you down,” he said as he stepped onto a flat rock at the river’s edge. When he turned to offer his hand up, he must have seen the foolish, pesky tears that had welled up in her eyes, because his expression became concerned.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as she stepped down level with him.

“Nothing.” Frankie shook her head and turned her face away. “It’s silly.” But she was forced to swipe at a tear.

“Are you frightened or something? We can go back. Tell me.”

“No. I’m fine. I just…I remembered something.”

He removed his reflective sunglasses, and in his dark eyes his concern was plain to see. His were gorgeous eyes. A smooth whiskey-brown. Very compassionate. Though right now he was also looking at her with a certain wariness. Little wonder. She was acting positively unstable. “Are you still thinking about your brother-in-law?”

“I should be.” Frankie sniffed, which only caused the tears to run. “But no. That’s not it.”

He looked around at the river foliage, up at the sky. “Look, Mrs. Hostler—”

“Frankie.”

“Right. Frankie.” He paused. “Just tell me what is wrong.”

Frankie decided he definitely wasn’t the most patient man. “If you must know,” she sniffed defensively, “I was thinking about the fact that today is my birthday.”

His head jutted forward and those heavenly brown eyes bugged a bit, as if he was staring at a crazy woman. “Happy birthday?”

“There’s nothing happy about it, if you must know. I’m turning forty and my life is falling apart.” She swiped at another runaway tear. “Oh, for crying out loud. This is ridiculous.”

He pushed the Stetson up on his head and scratched at his hair before resettling the hat. Before he spoke again he looked around at the rocks and trees as if they held a way out. Then the expression in those brown eyes turned tender. “You wanna just tell me exactly what made you start crying?”

Boy, she so did not want to tell him any such thing. How would that sound? The way you touched me just now reminded me of how deprived and lonely I’ve been. For a long time. Lovely. And he a married man. The thought of that ring on his finger dried up her tears, but quick.

“It’s nothing,” she lied, dismissing the most cataclysmic event that had ever happened in her life, the signing of her divorce papers on her fortieth birthday. “I’m having some marital difficulties, that’s all…and…and this particular spot on the river reminds me of my estranged husband.” An even bigger lie. She and Kyle had never even been out here. He despised the farm.

“Estranged?”

“We’re getting divorced,” Frankie admitted quietly. “I signed the p—” Frankie bit her lip, on the verge of blubbering again. When she regained her composure, she went on. “The papers. I signed them. Yesterday.”

“I see.” He paused, did that thing where he canted his hat back and mussed his hair again. “Well. I’ve never been divorced myself.” He paused again. “But I hear it’s tough.”

Frankie nodded tightly, couldn’t bring herself to speak. And she couldn’t look at him, either.

“So.” He sounded uncomfortable now. “You okay to go on, then?”

Frankie nodded again. “This way.”

Determined to keep her cool, she watched her own footing from then on. Following along the riverbank would not be as much of a physical challenge as climbing down the hill, and she preferred Luke Driscoll at her back, where he couldn’t read the emotions on her face.

But when she came up over the rise above the riverbank her face got plenty emotional. She whirled on Luke, flapping her hands in warning before she hit the ground.

As she crouched down in the brush he crept up behind her, peering over her shoulder. “Whoa now,” he growled. “Here’s a bit of luck.”

In the distance where the formations gave way to the sinkhole that led into the underground caverns, three large SUVs sat parked in a triangle. Half a dozen swarthy young men, wearing leather jackets over athletic warm-ups, stood talking inside the triangle. Talking rather heatedly. As they gestured, Frankie caught glints of sun reflecting off gold chains at their necks and diamonds in their earlobes.

“Luck?” Frankie said. “Those guys look…bad.”

“Izek Texcoyo is bad all right. These are not your run-of-the-mill trespassers.” Luke whispered this near her ear as he dug something out of his pocket. He didn’t seem all that shook up.

“Who?”

“That one.” He aimed two fingers at a heavyset guy. “I’ve, uh, seen his picture. A border guard gave it to me.”

“Is he connected to—” Frankie’s throat closed on the word “—with—the murder?” She felt compelled to whisper, too, although the Coyotes were too far away to hear.

“He is if Yolonda will talk. The others are Coyotes, too,” he added.

“How do you know?” Frankie whispered.

“The clothes, haircuts, the vehicles. Expensive. Brand-new. Coyotes’ll buy cars like that,” he nodded his head toward the Hummer, the Expedition, “or flat out steal them and then discard them like toys.”

“My God.” Frankie’s voice was hushed as she moved closer to his shoulder. “They make that much money?”

“A killing, you might say.” His voice had a bitter edge.

She turned her head to check his profile. The little she could see of his eyes behind his sunglasses looked grim as he looked down, working at something in his hand.

To her astonishment, he had withdrawn a device that looked like a Palm Pilot, only this had an antenna. He aimed it at the men.

She looked over his shoulder at the screen as he swiveled slightly to get the vehicles and dark figures in line with a distinctive rock formation. “Nice toy,” she said right by his ear. “A BlackBerry?”

“Treo. Does more.” Now he was touching the screen with a tiny wand. “Okay. Sent. Let’s go.” He hooked a hand around her arm and tugged her backward with him. But immediately his grip tightened on her arm as he stared in the direction of the men. He raised a hand to hush her.

The men were shouting now, in Spanish—Greek to Frankie. The fat one had turned around, waving an automatic weapon.

“By God, Yolonda better connect the dots to that one,” Luke vowed as he quickly snapped some more pictures. The shouting below grew more heated. “Let’s go.” He pocketed the Treo.

“Don’t you want to wait and see what they’re going to do?”

“No.” He tugged on her wrist.

But as they crawled away, echoing off the rock formations came the unmistakable popping sound of gunshots.

Luke threw Frankie to the ground and covered her with his body.

Terrified, Frankie smashed her cheek against the gritty earth. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Luke raising his head. “What happened?” She found her voice reduced to a squeak.

“Man down,” he informed her in a low growl.

More shouting caused Luke’s head to slam down beside Frankie’s. His hat was knocked askew and his eyes looked wild behind his sunglasses. “Musta spotted my hat.” His breathing was ragged next to her ear. Beyond the rise the shouting in Spanish grew closer.

Frankie’s breath caught in her chest. She could barely get her words out. “Are th-they coming?”

The shouting intensified on the other side of the ridge, unmistakably closer. Luke jerked Frankie to her feet and pulled her along, hurtling down the bank to the river.

They splashed across at a narrow place and scrambled on hands and knees back up a sandstone wash with Luke hauling her along like a rag doll.

“Head for the truck.” He pushed her into the cover of trees as gunfire rang out behind them. Frankie was astonished but relieved to see him pull a gun from the back of his belt and return fire.

She needed no encouragement to keep ahead of him as they ran headlong through the woods, climbing, climbing back to the top of the small rise where they’d parked Luke’s pickup. Luke shoved her fanny up over the rocks, whirling around to return fire three times.

Frankie’s lungs were burning by the time they got to the top and her little beaded flats were in shreds. When the truck came into view they ran headlong, as the sharp rocks cut into Frankie’s unprotected feet. As she stumbled sideways, Luke jerked her up by the arm, then scooped her into his arms and ran the rest of the way carrying her.

Frankie clawed at the door handle of the truck, and when she got it open, Luke threw her onto the seat, scrambling in behind her. He moved so fast it seemed he had crawled over her, fired up the engine, slammed it into Reverse, rammed it back into Drive, and barreled away in one unbroken motion.

Three men charged into the clearing and Frankie threw herself back down on the seat when she saw the fat one raising the automatic weapon to his shoulder.

The rain of bullets spat against the chassis, sounding like the hail that had once damaged Frankie’s Mercedes when she’d been trapped in a sudden storm in the Austin traffic.

“Ah, dammit!” Luke cursed as they roared down the rutted road at breakneck speed. “There goes my paint job.”

Once they’d rounded the curve at the bottom and flown past Robbie’s old house, Frankie raised her head and peeked over the edge of the rear window. Above the cloud of dust raised by the pickup, she could see the Coyotes up on the hill, shrinking to the size of ants as they crabbed back up. “They’re leaving,” she said.

“No. They’re going for their vehicles to make chase.” Luke sounded calm as he pressed on at full throttle.

“Those guys…” Frankie was struggling for breath, “shot somebody back there. Why on earth didn’t you arrest them?”

“Let’s see.” Luke’s neck craned as he looked before executing a squealing turn onto the highway. “Five of them, not counting the one down, o’ course. One of me. Think a Texas Ranger’s badge means anything to those hombres?” His grimace said he found her more than a little naive. “Gotta know when to fold ’em…” His pause said he regretted informing her of this next, “…or end up being the ones down.”

Once they were speeding down the highway, from the seemingly endless cache of his jacket he produced a cell phone. He punched a button and started barking facts to the sheriff’s dispatcher. After an amazingly detailed description of the Coyotes and their vehicles, he broke off to ask Frankie where the ranch road intersected the highway, then told the dispatcher where the sheriff would be most likely to catch up with the Coyotes. When he was done, he handed the phone to Frankie. “Call your parents.”

“Are my parents in danger? Their place is over a mile away.”

“I don’t think it’s your parents’ property that interests these guys. As long as they stay inside, they should be safe. Call them.”

WHEN THEY GOT BACK to town, Luke drove Frankie back to Robbie’s house so she could change into dry clothes.

He, too, was soaked from crossing the river. The dampened leather of his boots squeaked as he walked her to the door. He checked his impulse to stare at her curves as she bent to work the old-fashioned key in the lock, but the fact that she was finely made registered anyway. “You sure you’re okay?” he said to compensate for ogling her.

“Yes. I think so. A little shook up.” Her nervous chattering on the way to town made him think it was more than a little.

“I’ve never been shot at before.” The lock gave and the door swung open on its creaky hinges. “Would you like to wait inside?”

Robbie Tellchick’s living room looked as if a bomb had gone off in it. Toys and books and discarded children’s clothes were everywhere. A pile of half-folded laundry obscured the sagging couch. Frankie grabbed up an armful of bibs and onesies and blankies to clear a space so Luke could sit.

“That’s okay.” He stopped her with a gentle hand, glad to have any excuse to touch her again. “I’ll stand.” He made a futile gesture at his soaked jeans.

“Of course.” She tucked a strand of bedraggled hair behind one ear. “I’ll only be a sec.” She dashed up the stairs.

ON THE SHORT DRIVE over to Main Street they fell quiet. The shot of adrenaline that had gotten them through the worst had dissipated, and now they both were processing their narrow escape…and each other.

He reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’ll be okay,” he said softly as he studied her face. “I’ll get ’em.”

Frankie broke her worried silence. “Will I need to go in and talk to the sheriff?”

“He’ll want to interview you. But I’ll be right by your side.”

Before she went inside the store, Frankie turned to him with a sudden thought. “You’re not going back out there?”

His eyes narrowed, as if he were concealing his intentions. “Not right away. Local law enforcement will be all over the place, looking for evidence. I’d appreciate it if you kept this incident to yourself for now. Are you okay with that?”

“Yes, but shouldn’t we tell Zack?” Her future brother-in-law was not the kind to let strangers tromp all over his land without calling them down.

“That’s who I intend to see first. You said he’s on duty?”

“Yes. I saw him in his uniform this morning.”

“Frankie…listen. This is not the right time, but I was thinking…” Luke lingered with a hand jammed in his pocket, and for the life of her, Frankie could have sworn this tough Texas Ranger had grown suddenly shy. “I was thinking of what you said, about your birthday…”

“My birthday?”

“Yeah. I was thinking… Do you like the food at that little restaurant across the street?”

Frankie turned her head. “The Aggie? The Hungry Aggie?” Having lived in Five Points all her life, Frankie had a certain native affinity for the storefront diner. But its garish fifties-era red-and-green decor, its ancient ceiling fans coated with dust, and its scarred-up high-backed booths might not hold the same charm for everyone.

But Luke was studying the place with genuine interest. “Yeah. They serve dinner?”

“Absolutely.” It was hard to resist Virgil Parson’s cooking, even if you’d grown up eating it all your life. Now that Five Points drew in folks from along the Hill Country travel corridor, Virgil and his chuck wagon menu had become a tourist attraction. People drove from as far away as Austin to enjoy Parson’s most famous dish, the Darlin’, followed by a slice of his mouthwatering Texas cream pie. “Friday is Darlin’ night.”

“Darlin’ night?”

“Don’t let the name fool you. It takes courage to face down a Darlin’.”

She caught a twinkle in his eye. “Well, I’ve always got my gun.”

She kept her expression serious. “If you chicken out, there’s always the fried catfish.”

Luke looked up and down the curving Main Street. “I believe I am starting to like this place. So, you want to grab a bite to eat with me?”

The image of the wedding ring flashed into her mind, though she couldn’t see it with his hand jammed into the pocket of his Levi’s.

“I’m getting a room in town,” he explained when she didn’t respond. “I hate eating alone. Besides,” he continued offhandedly, “You said it was your birthday…” He paused. “And I believe you said it was not exactly a happy one. I’d love to be the one to cheer you up.”

“Mr. Driscoll—”

“Luke. It’s the least I can do after getting you shot at.”

“Luke, I…you’re married, right?”

His expression remained calm, except for a tiny frown line between his brows. He shook his head slowly, once. “I am not.”

“Oh.” This caught her off guard, as she had been assuming all along, much to her disappointment, she now realized, that he was. “But…you’re wearing a…isn’t that a wedding band?” She gave a nod toward the source of her confusion, still tucked in his pocket.

He slid his hand out and glanced at the ring as if he had forgotten it was there. His expression grew sad. “I’ve kept it on ever since my wife died. For reasons of my own.”

“Oh. You’re a widower?”

“Yes. And you said you’re in the process of getting a divorce. So. Free agents, both of us. Will you have dinner with me?”

Frankie didn’t really need to mull it over. For the past few weeks she had been eating spaghetti and tuna casserole and bologna sandwiches surrounded by Robbie’s rowdy boys. “On one condition.”

He raised that eyebrow again.

“You let me buy the pie.”

He smiled. For the first time since she’d met him, Luke Driscoll gave her a full-fledged smile. And Frankie found she liked that smile. A lot. “Around seven?”

“Six. Parson gets cranky if people keep him open too late. And we’ll want to get there before—”

“The pies are all picked over?” Ah-ha. Perhaps a hint of humor, after all. She was gratified when Luke Driscoll flashed her a smile one more time.

CHAPTER FOUR

Well, so much for shriveling up and becoming a boring old drudge. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I’m suddenly too busy hiding the witness to a murder. Witnessing a shooting. Getting shot at! And as if all of that wasn’t crazy enough, I’ve accepted a dinner date with one very handsome man.

He’s the reason for all of this…for want of a better word…excitement. Luke Driscoll.

We’re meeting at six at the Hungry Aggie. I’m waiting at the store. I couldn’t see the point of having him drive over to Robbie’s house. I thought about going back there to change clothes, but wouldn’t that make it seem like a real date? Like I was trying too hard? Like I was really attracted to him?

Okay. I am really attracted to him. But this set-up is all wrong. I’ll feel better about the whole deal if I tell myself I haven’t actually accepted a date when I’m not even divorced yet.

Life is so weird.

Robbie has just left for the evening. We did get one wall papered despite all the upheaval, but I’m exhausted. I couldn’t wait to get Sissy and the baby packed off so I could jot down some of my thoughts in peace. This business out at the caves is scary. Luke told me not to discuss it, so I didn’t, but it was one long afternoon.

Now I’m perched up on this stool by the credenza, looking out at Main Street through the storefront window, counting down the minutes until six o’clock and wondering if I’ve lost my mind.

SHE SAW HIM striding up the sidewalk toward the restaurant at six sharp. He chopped a hand up in a wave when he saw her stepping out of the shop.

He stood outside the door of the restaurant while a pickup rattled past on the brick pavers. Frankie fiddled with the balky old door of the Rising Star and finally got it locked.

She smiled nervously at him as she crossed the street, pulling her leather jacket snug over her breasts. His gaze was so steady that she wasn’t sure if it was the January wind giving her the chills or those eyes.

At an altitude of twenty-five hundred feet, Five Points was cool at night, even in summer. But this evening was especially dark and wintry, with the stars emerging big and bright. The warm, mouthwatering scent of Parson’s grill drifted out into the cold air and the golden glow of the interior lights highlighted the profiles of diners and beckoned more in.

Luke held the door for her. Several heads turned the second she stepped inside. Frankie hadn’t counted on this, how it would feel, being seen when she was with a man not her husband. She had forgotten how thoroughly parochial Five Points could be. None of the regulars at the bar smiled at her—or Luke—as his tall frame ambled past their backs on the stools. They stared, first sidelong at the couple, then shiftily at one another, then back down at their platters of chicken-fried steak.

“Friendly town,” Frankie mouthed at Luke as she unwound the silk and mohair scarf from her neck and slid her arms out of the sable-brown leather jacket that was not typical attire in the Hungry Aggie. Her little sister even wore overalls to work sometimes, for heaven’s sake.

Luke winked, grinning at her as they settled into the booth.

She was suddenly glad she hadn’t been overly fashion-conscious when she’d changed out of her wet clothes earlier. She had been in a rush to get back downstairs so she’d grabbed loafers, a pair of stretch corduroys and a V-neck argyle sweater. Thank goodness it was a conservative outfit that said, This isn’t a date. And it certainly isn’t, she reminded herself. It’s more like an act of pity…on his part.

But what shone in Luke’s eyes now was not pity.

She avoided his gaze by smiling up at Nattie Rose Neuberger, who skated by with a tray of blue-plate specials and big eyes at Luke.

The waitress, a buddy of Robbie’s and notoriously nosy, was back in a flash. She had big, bottle-blond hair and party-bright makeup. Nattie Rose had been dark-haired in high school. Frankie wondered if a woman who was really a brunette under all that bleach still got to have more fun.

She censored herself for such catty thoughts. Was that another warning sign of bitterness? According to rumor, Nattie Rose had two beautiful daughters and a husband who was loyal as an old hound dog. Frankie had neither. Her sister Robbie liked Nattie Rose, and had found the woman a faithful ally during her recent trials. Frankie planned a big tip as penance for her petty thoughts.

“Well, hi, Frankie,” Nattie Rose chirped. “How’s things going over at the new store? I haven’t seen Robbie in a while.”

“Things are coming along really well, thanks.”

“You all have about got everything all cleaned up from the fire, then?” Nattie Rose snapped open menus and placed them in their hands. “That Robbie doesn’t let anything get her down, does she?” The waitress filled Frankie’s water glass from a sweating metal pitcher. “Did Robbie and Zack set the wedding date yet?”

“No, but it’ll be very quiet, as soon as the bluebonnets bloom.”

“Oh, I can understand that. There’s been enough gossip about those two already. Just family then?”

“I’m not sure how Robbie is going to do it. Uh…let’s see.” Frankie pretended to read the menu, not sure if her sister was going to invite Nattie Rose or not.

“The Darlin’s dee-licious tonight, o’ course.” Nattie Rose turned a hundred-watt smile on Luke as she poured water in his glass. “How do I know you, mister?”

“This is Luke Driscoll. Luke, this is Nattie Rose Neuberger. A friend of my sister’s.” Frankie offered belated intros, but was not going to play Nattie Rose’s game. If you engaged her, she’d take any scrap of information and weave a whole tapestry out of it.

“Nattie Rose Kline, actually. Frankie hasn’t seen much of me since I got married. You the Texas Ranger?” Nattie Rose’s mascara-caked eyes studied him avidly.

Luke’s eyes crinkled with a hidden smile when he caught Frankie rolling hers. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Heard about the shoot-out over there at Zack’s place.”

Frankie couldn’t imagine why they even bothered to print their pitiful little newspaper in Five Points. Here was Nattie Rose Live, ready to report. “Nattie Rose, could we have a couple of Oceans while we make up our minds?”

“Oceans?” Luke’s eyebrows raised in question.

Frankie grinned. “Iced teas big enough to drown your troubles.”

Luke shrugged. “When in Rome.” After Nattie Rose shot off he said, “She seems pleasant enough.”

“The town tattletale.”

Luke studied the waitress’s back at the tea station. “That might come in handy actually.”

Frankie thought it interesting, and admirable, the way he stayed focused on his job above all else.

“Just don’t channel anything to her that you don’t want the entire Hill Country to know.” Frankie kept her voice low.

His glance ticked sideways. “Incoming.”

Nattie Rose swooped back to the booth with two monster glasses of iced tea with lemon slices already squeezed in.

“Thank you, honey,” Frankie said, her inflection intentionally west-Texan. “I’d like the fried catfish. And this brave gentleman wants to try the Darlin’.” She handed over the menus.

But Nattie Rose didn’t take them just yet. She crossed her arms under her broad bosom and said, “This town has gone straight to hell, you know?” She shook her head sadly. “First it’s a couple of arsons and now it’s shoot-’em ups out in the hills. Is there any rhyme or reason to this crime wave?”

Luke’s eyes got that squint again. Frankie was getting used to it. Starting to like it, in fact.

“Can’t say, ma’am.”

Frankie liked the way he could speak the truth yet reveal absolutely nothing.

“But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To figure out why those Mexicans wanted Danny Tellchick dead. I hear you work over in Austin, specializing in nasty crimes.” Nattie Rose’s curious gaze traveled over to Frankie. “Or are you in town for other reasons?”

“Right now he’s here to eat.” Frankie shot her a bright smile that said, Off with you now, sweetie.

Nattie Rose reverted to being the congenial waitress. “You’re gonna want some of Parson’s Texas cream pie for later.”

“When in Rome.” Luke really did have a very charming smile.

“I’ll save you a big old slice.” Finally, Nattie Rose snatched up the menus and left.

Frankie wasted no time in starting her questions. “Did the sheriff apprehend those men?”

“Three of them. They’re down the street in the jail.”

“But the fat one?”

“No. Texcoyo’s on the loose.”

She released a disappointed breath.

Luke reached across the table and, very naturally, covered her hand with his big warm one.

Frankie automatically curled her fingers through his. She needed the contact. For all kinds of reasons.

“You can bet the farm on this.” He squeezed her fingers. “I will get that one.”

She nodded and leaned forward. Next question. “Any idea who it was they shot out there?”

“No. And the body’s gone.”

Frankie released his hand. “Gone?”

“The Coyotes probably moved it when they went to their vehicles.”

“Well for heaven’s sake, did the sheriff’s deputies look in the caves?” Frankie could not believe she’d gotten herself mixed up in such a mess. And she couldn’t believe that she wouldn’t back out now for the world. Because of him, she was sure. The man was just too fascinating.

He removed his Stetson and tossed it on the seat beside him, as if settling in for a long talk. He swept his dark, salt-and-pepper-tinged hair back. His forehead was high, a receding hairline, which did absolutely nothing to detract from his attractiveness.

“They found plenty of blood on the rocks,” he explained, “but no trail leading into the caves. I suppose it’s plausible that the guys who got away could have loaded him into one of the vehicles. The deputies took lights and looked in as far as they could. But it will take experienced spelunkers to get down that shaft. Caves are tricky. You could hit a streamway—a hole with another vertical shaft that drops to underground water—and fall hundreds of feet before you finally hit water and drown.”

Frankie nodded. These were the same dire warnings her parents had always given about the caves.

“But my guess is it’s going to take some doing to get this local sheriff off the dime and authorize hiring cavers.”

“Why, for heaven’s sake? A crime has been committed!”

Luke calmed her with a raised palm. “He’s going to act like it’s useless to pursue the activities of Coyotes,” he said quietly.

“Is this what you meant by local law enforcement dropping the ball? What is this thing you do in Austin, this special unit?”

“It’s called the Unsolved Crimes Investigation Team.”

“Unsolved crimes?”

“Murders, mostly.”

“Like the girl on the border?”

“The list seems to be growing around here.”

The image of the man being shot flashed into Frankie’s mind and she closed her eyes to shut out the horror. “I have witnessed a murder.” Her voice was barely a whisper. She gulped her tea.

“Listen, Frankie.” He leaned across the table, his hand almost touching hers again. “I’m placing you and your family under my protection. I don’t know what the connection is yet, but too many leads come back to the McBrides, or to that land out there, for me to ignore it.”

“Surely you don’t think my family is mixed up in any of this?”

“No. I’ve checked you out. Your father’s side has been farming in this area since the pioneer days. Your mother was a Hess, German immigrant stock.” He continued a litany of facts.

“You and your two sisters were raised like boys on that farm out there, singing in the church choir and babysitting for the neighbors. You, the oldest sister, married a doctor right out of nursing school.”

Frankie rolled her eyes at that one. Would that she hadn’t.

“Your middle sister, Robbie, who was widowed when her husband died in a barn fire last spring, has three boys and a new baby. Your youngest sister, Markie, gave a child up for adoption when she was seventeen, and went on to become a wildcat political consultant. Now the story gets interesting. She recently married congressman Kurt Kilgore’s son Justin, right after the two of them were reunited with their full-grown son. They’ve set up house, running that place out there.” He jerked his head in the general direction of the Light at Five Points. “And ever since they’ve had a little bad blood with Congressman Kilgore.”

“He doesn’t approve of Justin’s work,” Frankie confirmed. “He didn’t even come to their wedding.”

“Funny how the congressman keeps cropping up in this deal.”

“He’s not one to be messed with.” Frankie’s voice grew quiet.

“Neither am I.” Luke’s was quieter.

Frankie’s eyes widened. Was this guy really willing to go after Kurt Kilgore? The congressman had a reputation. A mean one.

“I like to get to the bottom of things.” Luke was still looking at her levelly. “There’s a little more about you.”

“Me?” Frankie quailed at the idea that this investigator had looked into her background. Although there was nothing to hide, unless you counted Kyle’s indiscretions, damn him.

Kyle was no longer her problem, she reminded herself. And because he’d broken their covenant, she felt free to be with the man sitting before her. A Texas Ranger. One who’d checked her out. She should have known.

Somehow she’d imagined they’d get acquainted in the normal way. That is, a little at a time, with each of them conveniently hiding the parts of their lives that were less than flattering.

“I assume you and the successful surgeon are splitting up on account of he’s a sneaky creep who’s been boinking his little nurse.”

“Oh. That.”

“Yes. And a few other useless details. You happen to be a nurse, too, but you haven’t practiced in a clinical setting in years now. You buy a new Mercedes every three years. You spend more money on your poodle than most people do on their kids.”

Frankie’s cheeks, inexplicably, burned. Maybe it was the way he’d just thrown out Kyle’s affair so casually. Or maybe it was the implication that she lived the life of a spoiled rich woman. What business was it of his how much money she spent on her pet? But she supposed it would sound really lame to explain that little Charm had health issues, that the steroids to treat the poodle’s grass allergy alone cost a fortune. What was she supposed to do? Let the poor little thing scratch her hide off? “Do go on,” Frankie allowed herself a haughty tone. Or was it defensive?

“You hire an illegal alien as a housekeeper, another to cook, another as a gardener. And you always pay them in cash.”

Now Frankie’s cheeks really burned. “How did you find out such a thing?” She hoped her tone still sounded haughty. Surely he couldn’t have delved into her medical records, the miscarriages, the counseling.

“I can find out where you go to church, the name of your country club, where—and when—you drop your dry cleaning, how many long-distance calls you make, and how you spend your nights. But relax. You are boring, lady. Nothing in your background is germane to this case.”

“Well, that’s a disappointment.” Now Frankie’s tone was sarcastic.

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