It was crazy.

Wonderful, but definitely crazy, Lisa thought. She did not even like the man, for God’s sake. Quinn was arrogant, cocky and bullheaded. He obviously cared only about getting what he wanted when it came to his job, and it was clear from the grin that he was used to getting what he wanted from women, as well. He was precisely the sort of man she disliked.

So how could one kiss from Quinn Sutton have affected her like that?

How could he have made her feel as if she were about to fall into an old-fashioned swoon?

Smooth-Talking Texan
Candace Camp

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CANDACE CAMP,

a USA TODAY bestselling author and former attorney, is married to a Texan, and they have a daughter who has been bitten by the acting bug. Her family and her writing keep Candace busy, but when she does have free time, she loves to read. In addition to her contemporary romances, she has written a number of historicals, which are currently being published by MIRA Books.

For Pete,

My smooth-talking Texan

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 1

Lisa Mendoza drove to the county courthouse in Angel Eye, ready to do battle. This was the sort of case that she had gone to law school for, a clear miscarriage of justice, an example of prejudice and abuse of power. She felt none of the ambivalence that she often did in the criminal cases she had been assigned so far, where her client was usually clearly guilty and her only hope was of plea-bargaining down to a lesser sentence. Nor was it the small consumer grievance or landlord/tenant dispute that had come to her at the legal aid office since she had moved to the small town of Hammond, Texas. This was an Hispanic teenaged boy held without due cause in a small-town county jail.

She narrowed her eyes and her foot pressed down a little harder on the accelerator as she thought about it. Less than an hour ago Benny Hernandez’s cousin had sat in her office in Hammond and described to her how his seventeen-year-old relative had been stopped the day before by the sheriff and hauled off to jail even though he had committed nothing more serious than a traffic violation. The sheriff had not released him, not even charged him with any crime. There had been no arraignment, no hearing, and his large and loving family was understandably worried, though most of them were too in awe of the Law—with a capital L—to do anything about it. Therefore, Enrique Garza, the man in her office, had decided to take it upon himself to hire an attorney for the boy.

“Sometimes Benny can be a little wild,” he had admitted with a deprecating smile, “but he’s not a bad kid. I don’t want to see him get hurt.”

Lisa could imagine the sheriff she was driving to see: a middle-aged, potbellied Anglo “good ol’ boy,” no doubt, who had judged Benny Hernandez guilty of some crime simply because his skin was too dark. Wasn’t Bertram County, of which the little town of Angel Eye was the county seat, one of those south Texas counties famous for their politically powerful and corrupt sheriffs? The kind of county where the sheriff ruled with an iron fist and took bribes and routinely brought in the graveyard vote for the right politicians? She was almost sure she remembered reading an article in a Texas magazine a few years ago about these sheriffs that had ruled as they pleased earlier in this century. Bertram County had been one of the counties examined. That sheriff had died in some sort of scandal some years back, if she remembered correctly, but it would not be unusual for the political machine to continue with another man of the same ilk at the head of it.

The sheriff would be contemptuous of her, she was sure. He would probably take one look at her and write her off as negligible: young, a woman and Hispanic, as well. It would not be the first time someone had done so. But Lisa had learned that being underestimated often worked to her advantage, and she had made certain that a number of men who had done so had soon regretted it. Her lips curved up in a smile as she thought of the coming confrontation. She intended to make sure that Sheriff Sutton would rue the day that he had tangled with her.

Quinn Sutton leaned back in his chair, legs crossed negligently at the ankles and feet propped up on his desk, and sighed. He was bored, and he was frustrated, and for one of the few times since he had moved back to Angel Eye, he wondered if doing so had been the right thing.

One simple investigation…and it had been dragging on for two months now. The guys he had worked with in San Antonio would probably bust a gut laughing if they knew how he was floundering around on this country case.

He had thought he’d caught a break with Benny Hernandez. The kid knew something, he was sure of that, but so far, he had been determinedly silent, and there was only so long he could hold him here, given the flimsy charge he had run him in on.

The sound of voices raised in an outer room stirred him from his reverie. He paused, listening to the heated rise and fall of women’s voices, but he could not make out the words. One of the voices was Betty Murdock, his secretary, but he did not recognize the other one. He frowned and started to rise from his seat.

At that moment, Deputy Hargrove stuck his head in the door, his face alight with interest and amusement. “Hey, Sheriff, come out here. You gotta see this. It’s that new attorney I told you about.”

“Who? What attorney?” Quinn rose to his feet and started toward the door. “Oh, you mean the woman?”

Hargrove nodded. “Yeah. The looker. Remember, I told you about seeing her over at the district courthouse in Hammond last month?”

“Yeah, I remember.” The truth was, the memory was faint. Hargrove was usually raving about some girl or the other.

“Well, she’s out there giving Betty hell about seeing you.”

“Maybe I ought to oblige her then,” Quinn said lazily and slid past the deputy into the outer office.

His eyes went across the office to his secretary’s desk, where Betty now stood, her face flushed and hands on her hips combatively, facing another woman. He looked past the ample form of his secretary to the other woman, and everything in him went still. Later, he could only describe the feeling, a trifle embarrassedly, as something akin to being hit by a stun gun.

She was not the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was not as polished and sleek as Jennifer had been, nor did she possess the icy blond society-princess beauty of his future sister-in-law, Antonia, or the stunning Hollywood good looks of that actress that Jackson had brought to the Fourth of July picnic. But there was something about her that hit him like a fist in the stomach.

She was dressed in a lawyerlike tailored suit, brown with a cream-colored blouse beneath the buttoned jacket, and low-heeled brown pumps. Her makeup and shoulder-length bobbed hair were equally low-key. But the plainness of her clothes could not disguise the fact that her figure was enticingly curved, and the expanse of leg that showed beneath her knee-length skirt was shapely. Her hair, smoothly curved under, was thick, black and lustrous, and her light olive skin and huge brown eyes, ringed by thick black lashes, had little need of makeup. She was vivid, warm, passionate…and in an utter fury about something.

“I insist on seeing Sheriff Sutton!” she snapped, leaning forward pugnaciously toward his secretary. “Whatever wonderfully important thing he’s doing, I suggest you go in there and tell him—”

“Why don’t you just tell me yourself?” Quinn suggested lightly.

Both women, startled, swiveled to face him.

Lisa was, for the moment, bereft of speech. Sheriff Sutton was, indeed, a prototypical sheriff, but not the middle-aged redneck image she had envisioned. He was, rather, what the State Association of Sheriffs might use as a poster boy. In his early thirties, he was tall, even without the added inches of the cowboy boots on his feet, and his long, lean body and wide shoulders filled out the tan shirt and slacks of the sheriff’s uniform to perfection. Lisa was aware, with some surprise—and chagrin—of a deep, primitive thrill of response that snaked down through her abdomen at the sight of him. Nor was it just the muscular set of his body encased in the Western and decidedly masculine uniform that could make a woman’s heart beat a little faster. His face was something that drew one’s eye.

He was not exactly handsome, though he had even features and a well-cut mouth that stirred another primeval response in Lisa. A scar beside that mouth and the determined set of his jaw gave his face a certain toughness in repose. And when he smiled, as he did now, his mahogany-brown eyes twinkled with an impishness, his mouth quirking in a way that was far too boyish to be termed handsome. What he was, Lisa thought, as he walked toward her now, eyes alight and focused solely on her, was a charmer. She had met other men like him—not many, admittedly, but a few—and though they might not be the best-looking man around or the smartest or the wealthiest, they were invariably devastating to the female sex.

“Sheriff Quinn Sutton,” he said now, extending his hand and smiling into her eyes in a way that said they were the only two people in the room. “Pleased to meet you.”

Lisa squared her shoulders. Sheriff Sutton was going to find out that this was one woman who was immune to his charm. “Lisa Mendoza,” she replied in a clipped, cool voice and gave his hand a brief shake. “I am Benny Hernandez’s attorney.”

“Are you now?” Sutton’s eyebrows rose in lazy surprise. “Well, that’s interesting. I didn’t realize he had one.”

“Obviously, or I assume you would have chosen someone else to ride roughshod over.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I think you know what I’m talking about,” Lisa replied calmly, not fooled by his air of bemusement. “You arrested and are holding my client without any basis. I presume that in the general way you are intelligent enough to find someone without an attorney to protect their rights when you are in the mood for harassing minorities.”

The smile left his eyes, and his brows snapped together. “Now just a minute, Ms. Mendoza…”

“I would like to see my client now,” Lisa went on, plowing right through his attempt to explain himself.

Anger flashed in his red-brown eyes, and Lisa thought he was about to fire back a response, but he only set his jaw and replied, tight-lipped, “Come with me.”

He swung around, strode out of the office and down the hall without looking back to see if she was following him. Lisa hurried out the door after him, determined not to fall behind his long-legged stride. He led her to the end of the hall and turned down another corridor, leading her down a set of stairs and through another institutionally beige hallway or two before coming to a set of locked metal double doors, flanked by a window covered with a metal grille. The uniformed man behind the window looked out at them.

“Hey, Sheriff,” he said in a Texas twang and reached over to push a button.

There was a loud metallic noise as the doors unlocked, and Sheriff Sutton pushed one of them open and walked through, holding it open for Lisa.

“Bring Benny down to visitation,” he told the deputy in the small room behind the window, now looking out at them through a matching window on this side of the doors.

“Sure thing, Sheriff,” the man replied, his eyes going curiously over to Lisa. Lisa felt sure he was wondering who she was, but there had been a note in the sheriff’s voice that did not invite questions.

He walked her down a short hallway past closed doors and ushered her into a small room. There was little in the room except a cheap metal table in the center, bolted to the floor, and a chair on either side of it, also bolted securely to the floor. Lisa set her briefcase down on the table and turned to face the door. She wanted to get a good look at her client when he walked in, alert for any sign of scrapes, cuts or bruises.

Somewhat to her surprise, when the door opened, escorted in by the deputy, the slight teenaged boy dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit was not even wearing manacles. A quick but intent inspection revealed no mark on his pleasant face. His eyes widened a little when he saw her, and he blurted out, “Who are you?”

“I am your attorney, Benny,” Lisa told him with a smile, reaching out to shake his hand. “My name is Lisa Mendoza. I’m here to help you.”

He looked a little disconcerted but shook her hand tentatively, glancing from her to the sheriff as if for explanation. Sheriff Sutton merely shrugged.

Benny launched into rapid-fire Spanish, and Lisa held up her hands in a stopping gesture.

“Wait. I’m sorry. I—I’m afraid I don’t speak Spanish,” she told him, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment.

The boy stared at her in some astonishment, and behind her she heard the sheriff let out a guffaw of laughter, quickly stifled. She turned toward him, sending him a furious glance. “I will need a translator, Sheriff.”

His eyes danced merrily, and Lisa could feel her blush deepening. Her lack of knowledge of her ancestors’ language was embarrassing enough at any time, but it was far worse in front of this man, who she was sure was delighting in her discomfiture.

“Okay,” he replied, struggling to keep his lips straight. “I can help you out.”

“You?” Her brows soared in surprise. “You speak Spanish?”

“Well, yeah,” he admitted, the grin twitching back onto his lips. “I was a cop in San Antonio for eight years. It’s kind of unavoidable. ’Course, if you’d rather have a native speaker, I can send down Deputy Padilla.”

“A law enforcement official would hardly provide the confidentiality that—” Lisa shot back hotly.

“No, hey, that’s okay,” Benny interrupted pacifically. “I can speak English instead. It’s cool.”

“Are you sure?” Lisa asked, turning back to look at him. “Because I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding or difficulty in communicating with me.”

Benny looked faintly affronted. “Sure, I’m sure. I grew up here.”

“Of course.” Lisa smiled at him apologetically. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I didn’t have time to fully acquaint myself with your history. When your cousin explained your problem to me, I thought it was best to come right over.”

“My cousin?” Benny’s expression changed to amazement.

“Yes. He hired me on your behalf.”

“Julio?” Benny’s voice rang with astonishment. “Julio hired you?”

“No. It was Enrique Garza who hired me.”

“Oh.” Something flickered in Benny’s eyes, and the surprise left his features. “I see.” He looked toward the table. “Well, let’s sit down.”

Lisa followed him to the table and sat down across from him, scooting forward to accommodate the immovable chair. She opened her briefcase and took out a yellow legal pad and pen, laying them on the table. “Now, Mr. Hernandez…”

A faint smile touched the young man’s face. “Benny. Everybody calls me Benny.”

“All right. Benny. Mr. Garza told me something of your circumstances, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

“Hear what?”

“All about what happened when Sheriff Sutton stopped you the other night.” She paused and turned her gaze significantly on Sutton, who was still standing a few feet away from them, watching them with narrowed eyes, his arms crossed over his chest. “Sheriff Sutton, it’s hardly a confidential talk with my client with you looming over us like that.”

He smiled, that same flashing smile of startling charm that he had used earlier in his office, and gave her a slight bow of his head. “Of course, ma’am.” She felt sure that if he’d been wearing his sheriff’s Stetson, he would have tipped it with old-fashioned courtesy. “The deputy will be right outside the door if you have any trouble.” His gaze slid over to Benny, one eyebrow lifting.

“No trouble, Sheriff,” Benny said, lifting his hands in an innocent manner.

Sutton nodded and left the room. He paused outside the closed door for a moment, frowning in thought.

“Everything all right, Sheriff?” Jerry asked finally.

Quinn looked at the man and smiled faintly. “I don’t know, Jerry.” The truth was something felt distinctly wrong, both with the case and with his own internal equilibrium. The arrival of Lisa Mendoza seemed to have thrown them both off.

“You ever hear of a fella named Enrique Garza?” he asked the deputy.

The deputy frowned. “Garza? No, not offhand. There are plenty of Garzas, but I don’t recollect an Enrique. Now, there’s a guy that works in Meltzer’s body shop on First Street who’s named Enrique, but I’m pretty sure his last name is Ochoa.”

Quinn nodded. “Well, take Benny back to his cell when he’s through talking to the lady. I imagine we’ll have to release him after that, but I’ll give Ms. Mendoza a chance to tell me off first. She looks like she’s bustin’ to do that. I’ll be in my office.”

“Sure thing, Sheriff.”

Quinn strode back through the maze of hallways and stairs to his office. Most of his staff, he found, were sitting waiting for him in the outer office, faces turned expectantly toward the door. He walked in and raised his eyebrows exaggeratedly.

“What’s this? All the crime in this county’s been settled? You folks need something more to do?”

With a martyred sigh, his secretary turned back to her desk and the others scattered.

“Say, Ruben…” Quinn stopped him as he walked back toward his desk. “Come into my office.”

Ruben followed him and closed the door behind him. “Hargrove’s right, for once,” he said with a grin, turning to face Quinn. “She is a looker.”

“Yeah, she’s a looker,” Quinn admitted, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “Don’t think she’s too happy with me at the moment, though.”

Ruben grinned with a noticeable lack of sympathy.

“Do you know if Benny has any cousins named Enrique Garza?” he asked the deputy, who had lived all his life in the small town of Angel Eye.

“Garza?” Deputy Padilla looked doubtful. “I don’t think Benny’s related to any Garzas. ’Course, I don’t know that much about his real dad’s family. Why?”

“Because that attorney told him that his cousin had hired her, and he looked like he about swallowed his tongue, and he said, ‘Julio?”

“Julio?” Ruben repeated and began to laugh. “Julio Fuentes? My three-year-old’s about as likely to find an attorney and hire her as Julio Fuentes.”

“That was the impression I got from Benny’s expression. But then Ms. Mendoza told him that his cousin Enrique Garza had hired her. Benny recognized the name; I could see that. But he got this funny look on his face…You know anybody at all named that? Related to Benny or not?”

“Off the top of my head, no. But there are lots of Garzas. Could be from Hammond or someplace else, too.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m going to call Señora Fuentes and see if she knows who he is and what relation he is to her grandson.”

“You think Señora Fuentes knows about that attorney?”

“My guess would be no.” Quinn smiled ruefully. “I expect she’s going to give me holy hell about letting Benny go, too.”

“Better you than me,” Ruben replied, grinning. “I used to get enough of that for cutting across her lawn when I was a kid.”

“Listen, check around. See if you can find anything out about this guy Garza.”

“Sure. You think it’s somebody involved in what’s going on at old man Rodriguez’s place?”

“That’d be my guess.”

“You think Ms. Mendoza’s connected with them?”

“I don’t know.” Quinn frowned. “They hired her, if I’m right, but that ‘cousin’ stuff—I’m guessing she doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.”

Quinn didn’t want to admit, even to himself, how intensely he hoped that was true.

“He arrested you because you had a broken taillight?” Lisa asked, amazement sending her voice soaring upward.

“Well, no, not exactly. I mean, that’s why he stopped me. Then he looked at my license and walked around the car and all. Asked me questions.”

“Questions? About what?”

Benny shrugged, not looking at her. “Oh, you know. Where I been and who I was hanging out with.” He raised his eyes to meet hers. “Just general kind of sh—stuff, you know, like cops do. And he said a car like mine had been seen, you know…”

“Seen? What do you mean? Seen where?”

Benny frowned. “I’m not sure. He didn’t say exactly. I—he was kinda holding out on me, you know, like, waiting for me to say something I shouldn’t.”

“Okay. What do you think he was wanting you to say?”

Benny shrugged elaborately. “I don’t know.”

Lisa had the feeling that her client, if not precisely lying to her, was at least possessed of more knowledge than he was letting on to her. It didn’t surprise her. One canon of criminal law that she had had drummed into her in law school was this: Your client always lies. She had experienced it herself with her clients, and not only in the criminal cases she had had. All clients wanted to present their best case to their attorney, even if it meant hiding a few things that would later sabotage their case. She wasn’t sure how much of it was sheer denial, the hope that if they hid the negative things from their attorney, they wouldn’t really exist, and how much of it was the simple human desire to look good in the eyes of their new ally. Whatever it was, it all too often backfired. But no matter how many times she warned them, it was rare that some little lie didn’t surface at some point during a case to muddy it up.

She started to press Benny about it but decided to let it slide. Whatever Benny was concealing, it wasn’t really the point. What mattered was that Sheriff Sutton had hauled Benny off to jail.

“So—when you didn’t say whatever he was hoping you would say, what happened?”

“Finally he told me he was gonna have to take me down to his office.”

“Did he say why?”

Benny shrugged again. “I don’t know. ’Cause I wasn’t telling him anything.”

“Is that what he said? Specifically?”

Benny frowned, concentrating. “I don’t remember exactly what he said. I think he said he wanted to ask me some questions, and, oh, yeah, he made me get out of the car, and there was this beer can on the floor, and he picked it up and asked me if I’d been drinking. And I said, no, ’cause I hadn’t.”

“Did he give you a test? Breathalyzer, walking straight, anything?”

“Nah. He knew I wasn’t drunk. Only there was some beer still in the can, see, and so he was saying I was a minor in possession, like that.” Benny shrugged. “It wasn’t even my beer can. Julio left it in my car the day before, but…”

“So he took you to jail on an MIP—a minor in possession?”

“I guess. I mean, we both knew he was just jacking me.” Benny seemed unmoved by the thought—accepting, Lisa assumed, that getting hassled by the law was simply a fact of life.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Benny repeated what seemed to be his favorite phrase, even when offering up what he obviously did know in the next sentence. “’Cause I didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. He wanted to grill me.”

“And did he?”

“He took me into his office and asked me a bunch of questions and then he had Padilla lock me up.” He grimaced. “Probably hoping I’d tell that cabron something just because he’s Chicano.” He followed this statement with a Spanish word that Lisa did not recognize but the derogatory intent of which was clear.

“And when did this happen?”

“Day before yesterday.”

“So you’ve been here ever since? Were you arraigned? Taken into court for a hearing?”

He shook his head. “I ain’t been nowhere but my cell.”

“What did he tell you he was charging you with?”

“I don’t know. MIP, I guess. He said he was going to let me think about it and then we’d talk some more.” His lip curled expressively. “Trying to scare me.”

“Did he hit you?” Lisa asked. “Hurt you in any way? Threaten you with bodily harm?”

The teenager looked at her in faint surprise. “Nah. He’s not like that. He’s okay, most of the time.” He paused, then added, “He’s just…you know, playing his game. And I’m playing mine.”

Lisa sighed. This was not the first time she had encountered this attitude of being locked with the police in some sort of elaborate game, the rules and movements of which were known to her clients and the cops. Benny had his game face on, the blank mask that withheld emotions, giving nothing away. She had seen it on a hundred faces of young men, black, white, and Latino, when she had worked at the Dallas Public Defenders office the last summer of law school.

“You know, Benny, this is a game where he holds most of the cards,” she pointed out. “The best thing for you to do is not play. Just clam up and call for your attorney next time. Will you do that? Will you call me?”

He nodded. “You gonna get me out of here?”

“Yes. When we get through here, I’ll have a talk with the sheriff. He knows he doesn’t have enough to hold you here. And if he refuses to release you, then I’ll get a writ and go to court.”

Lisa stood up, picking up the pad on which she had taken a few notes and sticking it back into her briefcase. She shook Benny’s hand and went to the door. The deputy opened it and escorted her through the set of locked doors back into the courthouse.

She walked purposefully up the stairs and though the halls, getting lost once, but finding her way back to the wide central hall of the main part of the courthouse. She wondered if the sheriff had led her the most confusing way on purpose.

Her heels clacked briskly on the old granite floors as she headed toward the sheriff’s office. She was sure that everyone along the corridor would know that she was coming. She turned into the large outer office, where the secretary and two deputies were at their desks, seemingly busy about tasks, but she could feel their sideways glances as she marched through and into the inner office of the sheriff, not pausing or even glancing at his secretary for permission.

Mindful of the listening ears outside, she closed the door behind her. She didn’t want the sheriff’s employees to hear what she had to say to him—not out of any concern about embarrassing the sheriff, but because she was well aware that the knowledge that his people were listening would make it harder for the sheriff to back down and might result in his refusing to release Benny simply because of the loss of face.

Quinn Sutton rose from his seat behind the desk. Lisa was reminded all over again of how tall and overwhelmingly masculine the sheriff was. She quelled the involuntary response of her own body to that masculinity.

“Ms. Mendoza.” Sutton smiled in that cocky way that she found both profoundly irritating and annoyingly charming. “Have a seat.” He gestured toward the chair in front of his desk.

“This won’t take long.” Lisa was not about to let her guard down around this man, even to the extent of relaxing enough to sit. “I just came here to tell you that I want my client released immediately. You know, and I know, that you arrested him on the flimsiest of pretexts and brought him down here, where you have been holding him without arraignment for two days now.”

“Well, yesterday was Sunday,” he pointed out, and amusement lit his mahogany-brown eyes.

Lisa’s hand clenched tighter around the handle of her briefcase. “Yes, and today was Monday, and you still didn’t arraign him. You may find it amusing to hold a young man without reason for the weekend in the county jail, but I can assure you that I do not. First you stop him, no doubt doing a little racial profiling…then—”

Quinn grimaced. “Oh, come on, don’t go throwing around your big-city buzzwords in here. There was no racial profiling going on.”

“Then,” Lisa plowed ahead, ignoring his words, “you harass him, even though he had done nothing except have a broken taillight, making him get out of the car. You find an empty beer can in his car, which you had no right to search—”

“I didn’t search,” Quinn responded tightly. “It was in plain view on the floor. And it wasn’t empty.”

“Oh, right,” Lisa replied sarcastically. “It had, what, maybe a teaspoon of liquid in it? On the basis of that, you hauled him down to the jail. When was the last time you took a kid to jail for an MIP instead of just writing him a citation?”

“Last weekend,” he responded, crossing his arms across his chest. “This isn’t the big city, Miss Mendoza, and I take underage drinking seriously. My deputies and I don’t write a drunken teenager a citation and turn him loose on the road. I find it’s pretty effective with an MIP or DUI to have them come down to the jail and spend a while waiting for their parents to pick them up.”

Lisa hesitated, momentarily nonplussed by his response, then picked up on his last statement. “Benny Hernandez has been here quite a bit longer than a ‘while.’ Why weren’t his parents called to come pick him up?”

“Because his father skipped out before Benny was born, his mother’s in San Antonio living with her new boyfriend and his stepfather’s in prison in Huntsville.”

“Oh, I see. That makes Benny automatically a criminal, right? He’s got a crummy homelife, so the place for him is jail? His family is bad, so he is, too?” Lisa’s eyes snapped, and her body was stiff with anger.

Quinn Sutton’s eyes lit with an answering anger. He was also aware that the emotion in Lisa Mendoza’s face had stirred a primitive desire in him that was as strong as his anger. That fact irritated him even more.

“No, Ms. Mendoza,” he said, his voice clipped and precise. “As a matter of fact, most of the people in Benny’s family aren’t bad at all. His mother just has the world’s worst choice in men. One of her brothers, his uncle Pablo, has been in and out of jail most of his life, but the other two uncles are as honest and hardworking as anybody in Angel Eye. His grandmother raised Benny most of his life, on and off, and they don’t come any better than Lydia Fuentes. She’s the one who wanted me to haul him in!”

Lisa looked at him with great scorn. “So you’re saying that you arrested Benny and stuck him in jail for two days as a favor to his grandmother?”

“Well…sort of.”

Lisa simply gazed at him, eyebrows raised in disbelief. Quinn could feel a flush rising in his cheeks. He went on hastily. “This is a small town, Ms. Mendoza. We do things differently here.”

“I should say so if you arrest people and stick them in jail because their grandmother’s mad at them!”

“That’s not the way—”

“Look! I don’t care what way you do things here! And don’t try to con me with some lame story about his grandmother wanting you to arrest him. The fact is that you arrested Benny Hernandez without just cause, and you’ve been holding him without due process. If you persist in detaining him, I will obtain a writ of habeas corpus tomorrow to get him out, and then you and this county are going to be slapped with a big lawsuit for false imprisonment!”

Lisa stabbed the air with her forefinger as she talked, the force of her fury carrying her closer and closer to the sheriff until she was almost touching him with her punctuating finger. Quinn thought about wrapping his hand around her far smaller one and jerking her up against him, then silencing that berating voice with his own mouth.

That would be, he reminded himself, a good way to get his face slapped. Of course, it might be worth it….

They stared into each other’s face for a moment, poised on the edge. Lisa could see the red light burning in Quinn’s brown eyes, feel the heat of his body only inches away from her, and something in her wanted to lean forward that last little bit, to precipitate some final explosion between them.

His jaw tightened, and he stepped carefully around her, going to the door and opening. “Padilla!” he barked. “Go down and release Hernandez. His attorney is taking him home.”

Chapter 2

It was Deputy Padilla this time who escorted Lisa back to the locked double doors leading into the county jail. He spoke with the deputy inside, and a few minutes later, Jerry brought Benny Hernandez through the double doors, dressed this time in the usual jeans and T-shirt of a teenaged boy.

“Hey, you did it.” He smiled, looking a little surprised.

“Can I give you a ride home?” Lisa didn’t know whether the sheriff had literally meant that she would take him home. But in any case, she was a little curious to meet the young man’s grandmother—could the sheriff had been serious when he said the woman had asked him to lock up her grandson?—and she couldn’t imagine any place in this little town that would take her too far out of her way.

She drove through Angel Eye, following Benny’s direction. The courthouse sat in the courthouse square typical of little Texas towns. A few stores lined the other sides of the street around it. It was not thriving, but neither did it look as abandoned as some little towns she had driven through. Past the stores, the streets were lined with trees, obviously planted and nurtured by the people who had lived there in the past, for outside of town, the landscape boasted little more than bushes of varying heights, yucca, and prickly pear cactus.

It was actually a rather pleasant-looking little town, Lisa thought, though she could not imagine what it must be like to grow up here. She had noticed when she drove into town that the population was just over sixteen hundred people, a mind-boggling concept to someone who had grown up in Dallas. The number of students attending her high school had been more than lived in this entire town. She had thought Hammond was small, but Angel Eye made it seem a positive metropolis.

She had never dreamed that she would wind up here. A scholarship she had applied for and received in law school had stipulated that she must spend the first year after she graduated doing legal aid work at one of the Hispanic organization’s legal aid clinics. She had agreed readily to the terms, for she had already intended to use her law degree to help needy Hispanics. However, she had simply assumed that the work would be done in some large city, such as Houston or Dallas or San Antonio. It had never occurred to her that the position she would fill would be in Hammond, Texas, a town of little more than ten thousand people about an hour’s drive from San Antonio. She had been certain she had landed in an alien place when she drove down main street and saw that the only two national fast-food chains in town were lodged in the same building, sharing a kitchen and eating space.

The first month she had lived in Hammond, she had found herself making the six-hour drive back to her parents’ home in Dallas every weekend. Finally that had grown too tiring, and now, after two months, she was more or less resigned to remaining the rest of her year there.

“What do people do around here?” she blurted out, then realized a little guiltily that her words were rather tactless.

Benny glanced at her, then chuckled. “Talk about everybody else, mostly. Turn right at the next street.”

He straightened a little, and Lisa could see him tense as they drove down the street. He pointed to a small blue frame house, and Lisa pulled up to the curb in front of it. The front door opened, and a short Hispanic woman bustled out of the front door. Lisa had been picturing Benny’s grandmother as a traditional-looking abuelita, with graying hair in a bun and wearing a cotton housedress, so she was a little surprised to see that while his grandmother’s thick black hair was streaked with gray, it was cropped short, and her rather squat body was encased in blue pants and a flowered top.

Benny groaned and cast a glance at Lisa. “You’ll have to meet her. I’m sorry.”

“I would like to meet your grandmother,” Lisa assured him and stepped out of the car.

Señora Fuentes was crying and talking at great length in Spanish, and she did not pause in either activity when she threw her arms around her grandson and squeezed him to her. Finally she released him and stepped back, looking up at him.

“What are you doing home so quick?” she asked, planting her hands on her hips and gazing at him sternly. Lisa, listening, had the feeling that maybe Sheriff Sutton had been telling the truth, after all. Benny’s grandmother, after her initial greeting, did not seem to be too pleased at having him home.

Benny, who had been grinning and looking faintly embarrassed a moment earlier, adopted his former blank expression. He shrugged. “He didn’t have anything on me. He was messing with me.”

“Messing with you?” the old woman repeated, contempt tinging her voice. “I think it’s the other way, you messin’ with the law.” She launched forth into another spate of Spanish, this one by the look and sound of it, a stern lecture on Benny’s troublesome ways.

Benny crossed his arms and gazed down at the ground as the old woman went on and on, and with every sentence, Lisa could see his jaw tighten. Finally, flinging his arms up, he shot back a short sentence in the same language and turned away, striding off down the sidewalk away from the house.

His grandmother looked after him for a moment, then swung around to face Lisa. She started to speak in Spanish again, and Lisa held up her hands to stop the rapid flow of words.

“Señora, no, please, no comprendo. Yo no hablo español.”

Señora Fuentes stopped, a puzzled frown settling on her face. “Oh. I’m sorry. I thought—you are not Latina?”

“Yes, I am,” Lisa protested quickly, feeling the familiar embarrassment and faint sense of being different. “At least on my father’s side. It’s just—I’m afraid I don’t speak Spanish.” The old woman continued to look at her, as though trying to understand how this could be. Lisa hurried on, “My name is Lisa Mendoza, Señora Fuentes. I am your grandson Benny’s attorney. I got him released from jail.”

“You did?” Señora Fuentes looked her up and down. “But you are a girl.”

Lisa struggled to suppress her irritation, reminding herself that this woman was old and unused to seeing women, especially Hispanic women, in positions of strength. Patiently, she said, “Yes, I am a woman. I am also an attorney.”

Señora shook her head, disappointment stamping her face. “I never thought the sheriff would give in to a bit of a girl.”

Lisa straightened, her eyes flashing. “Señora Fuentes, I am not ‘a bit of a girl.’ I am a grown woman and a lawyer, and Sheriff Sutton did not ‘give in’ to me. He had no reason to hold your grandson. He knew he could not continue to keep him in jail once an attorney was representing him. I would think you would be glad to know that Benny’s cousin went to the trouble and expense of getting him an attorney instead of letting him rot in jail!”

“Cousin?” Señora Fuentes’s brows drew together darkly. “He doesn’t have any cousins old enough to—you don’t mean Julio!”

“No. His name was Enrique Garza.”

“I don’t know this man,” Señora Fuentes said pugnaciously. “Who is this Garza? There is no cousin named Garza.”

“I beg your pardon?” Lisa looked at her blankly.

“Benny has no cousin named Enrique Garza.” Señora Fuentes looked at her suspiciously.

Lisa simply gazed back at her, nonplussed. “But I—he came into my office and said he was Benny’s cousin. He explained Benny’s situation to me and said he wanted to help him.”

“He is one of them,” Benny’s grandmother said flatly, her lips drawing into a thin line.

“Who?”

“The bad men. The ones he goes to see. Cholos. Vatos.” Her lips twisted bitterly, and tears sprang into her black eyes. “I will lose him. Like I lost Pablo.”

“Señora Fuentes…” Lisa reached out to touch the woman’s arm, sympathy springing up in her at the woman’s evident sorrow. “Can I help you?”

But the other woman twisted away. “No.” She cast Lisa a dark glance. “Go away from here. You have done enough.”

She turned and walked back into the house. Lisa watched her go, feeling vaguely guilty. Finally, with a sigh, she turned and went back to her car. She got in and turned the car around, driving back the way she had come. There was no reason for her to feel guilty, she told herself. She had gotten her client out of jail; she had protected his rights. The sheriff had had no business taking him in in the first place.

But logic had a hard time standing up against the look of suffering in the old woman’s eyes. Lisa kept thinking about it, wishing that she could have made Benny’s grandmother understand that she had helped Benny.

A few blocks down the street, she saw Benny walking along, hands jammed in his pockets, head down. She pulled her car to a stop beside him and pushed the button to roll down the window. “Benny? Do you need a ride?”

He looked over at her and started to shake his head, but in the next instant, he stopped, then said, “Hey, yeah.” He walked over to the car and leaned down, looking into the window. “You could drop me off at the café, if you don’t mind.”

“No, it’s okay. Where is it?”

It didn’t take long to reach the café. It was on the same main street of Angel Eye that they had driven along when they’d left the courthouse, but farther out, almost on the edge of town. It was a small, plain building set back from the road, with a modest sign at the front of the parking lot proclaiming it to be Moonstone Café.

“Moonstone Café? That’s an odd name.” Lisa said as she turned into the parking lot. She had thought that an eating place in this little town would be named something like Earl’s Diner or Martha’s.

“Yeah. Lady owns it is from Dallas,” Benny said, as if that fact would explain all peculiarity. “It’s good. You should try it.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Well…thanks.” Benny got out of the car and gave her an awkward wave, then walked into the restaurant.

Lisa watched him go. It occurred to her that she was hungry. And it was the end of the day; everyone would have left the office by the time she got there. Perhaps she should give this oddly named restaurant a try. The mere fact that its owner was from Dallas gave it some appeal to her.

She parked her car and followed her client through the front door of the restaurant. A slim woman with thick curling dark hair turned from the cash register and smiled at her.

“One for dinner?” she asked. Lisa nodded, and the woman led her toward a booth in front of one of the windows.

Lisa glanced around the restaurant as she followed the woman. It was a neat, clean place, nothing fancy, just wooden tables and comfortable chairs and booths, but it was obviously popular. Even as early as it was, several of the tables were occupied. There was a smell of fresh-baked bread in the air, mingling enticingly with garlic and spices.

She noticed that her client was standing near the kitchen door, talking with a pretty, slender Hispanic girl. Benny’s face was more animated than it had been the entire time she had been around him, and the way he stood before the girl, bending down toward her in a tender, even protective way, spoke volumes about what he felt for her. And, given the glow on the young girl’s face as she looked back at him, it appeared that she returned the feeling.

The woman who had seated her followed her gaze, and she smiled. “Ah, young love.” She handed a menu to Lisa. “Don’t worry. Teresa will be over here in a minute. She’s a good waitress. You new around here?”

“I live in Hammond,” Lisa replied. “But I’m new there. I’m from Dallas.”

“Yeah?” The other woman smiled. “Me, too. I’m Elizabeth Morgan. I own the Moonstone.”

“Lisa Mendoza. Nice to meet you. So you moved here from Dallas?”

Elizabeth Morgan laughed at the tone of amazement that crept into Lisa’s voice as she asked the question. “I wanted to get far away from Dallas.”

“Well, you certainly achieved that.”

“Yeah. It’s pretty different. But I like a little town. It’s…cozy, I guess. I was starting over, and it wasn’t as expensive to start a restaurant in a small town.”

“Don’t you miss Dallas?”

“Sometimes.” Elizabeth shrugged. “I mean, it’s nice to have a big choice of movies to go see, malls to go shopping at, other restaurants to eat in. But you know, frankly, when you run a restaurant, you’re tied to it. Twenty-four seven. You don’t get out that much to do any of those things, and if I want to, well, San Antonio’s not that far away. The rest of the time, there’s the fact that it takes me five minutes to get to work; there’s very little turnover in employees; and I know most of my customers by name. I like that.”

They were interrupted at that point by the arrival of the young girl who had been talking to Benny earlier. “I’m sorry,” she said a little breathlessly. “Sorry, Ms. Morgan.”

Elizabeth smiled and nodded to Lisa. “I’ll get back to my job and let you order now. It was nice chatting with you.”

She moved away, and the girl went into her spiel. “My name is Teresa, and I’ll be waiting on you this evening. Could I get you a drink while you look over the menu?”

Lisa ordered and settled back into the booth to relax. Benny, she noticed, had disappeared. She found her thoughts turning to Sheriff Sutton. The man was damnably attractive. She remembered that moment in his office when they had been only inches apart, white-hot anger coursing through her, and mingled with it, feeding off it, had been a pulsing, primitive desire. She had felt it coming off him, too, humming and magnetic.

It was absurd, of course, Lisa reminded herself. They were, literally, on opposites sides. And she felt certain that they had nothing in common, no real attraction except for that strange, momentary response. A chemical reaction, that’s all. Some animal impulse, spurred by a signal too primal for her to even notice—a scent or a visual stimulus—the line of his leg against his uniform, perhaps, or his long, mobile fingers, thumb hooked into the belt of his uniform, or the well-cut lips…

Lisa realized with a start that she was sitting staring at the table dreamily, a faint smile curving her mouth. She had started out analyzing her bizarre response to the man, and she had wound up daydreaming about him like a teenager in class!

She was glad when Teresa brought her salad, giving her something to concentrate on besides the sheriff. The meal, she discovered to her delight, was delicious—the salad crisp and dark green, the barest of balsamic vinaigrette on it, just as she liked it, and the pasta dish light and subtly seasoned.

“How was your dinner?” Elizabeth Morgan stopped by her table on the way back from seating some more customers.

“Wonderful,” Lisa replied truthfully. “As good as in Dallas.”

Elizabeth smiled at the phrasing of her praise. “I take it that you miss Dallas?”

“Yeah.” Lisa let out a regretful sigh. “Although, I have to admit, not as much after a dinner like this one.”

Elizabeth lingered by her table for a few minutes, chatting with her about Dallas, and Teresa came to clear the dishes from her table and bring her bill. She had just paid her bill when the door of the café opened and Sheriff Sutton strode in.

He glanced around, then walked purposefully toward Lisa’s table. What was it, Lisa wondered, that was so utterly sexy about the way a man walked in cowboy boots?

Beside her, echoing her thoughts, Elizabeth Morgan let out an exaggerated sigh and said, “Sheriffs have got it all over cops, don’t they? There’s just something about boots and a cowboy hat.” She smiled at Sutton as he drew near. “Good evening, Sheriff. You want to see a menu?”

“No, thanks, Elizabeth. I’m not staying. I just wanted to talk to Ms. Mendoza.”

“Sure. You want something to drink? Coffee? Iced tea?”

“Coffee would be great, thanks.”

Elizabeth moved away as he slid into the booth across from Lisa.

“Have a seat,” Lisa commented dryly.

He grinned. “Thanks.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I saw your car outside. Thought I’d drop by and talk to you a little bit.”

“How do you know my car?” She asked, exasperated.

“Saw you get into it a while ago.” Again the bone-melting smile flashed as he admitted, “I was watching out my window when you left.”

“Sheriff…I don’t know what you want, but—”

“You know, I just got my butt chewed out for about ten minutes by Benny’s grandmother for letting you get Benny away from me. You owe me a few minutes of your time.”

Lisa could not help but smile at the image of that short old woman raking Quinn Sutton over the coals. “Sorry. I’ve met the wrath of Señora Fuentes myself.”

“Look, Ms. Mendoza…” Quinn leaned across the table, looking into Lisa’s eyes. Lisa found it difficult to look away. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. I was thinking that maybe we could start all over again. If you knew me better, you might find out that I’m not such an ogre.”

“I am sure you are not,” Lisa agreed easily. “However, I see little use in getting to know you, as you say. We are on opposite sides, and—”

“We’re not so far apart as you think,” he put in quickly. “I realize that you don’t think so, but I have Benny Hernandez’s best interests at heart.”

Lisa leaned back against the padded seat of the booth, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows expressively. “You do?”

“Yes, I do. I don’t know what you’re used to. Obviously you come from the city somewhere. San Antonio? Houston?”

“Dallas.”

He nodded. “Well, things are different here. I don’t look on the sheriff’s job as getting criminals so much as protecting the people of the town. People like Señora Fuentes, for instance. And her grandson, little as you would like to believe it. I am trying to help Benny.”

“I see. So you are sort of the Great White Father of Angel Eye, is that it? Protecting all the poor and ignorant Mexicans, even if it means incarcerating them illegally.”

Sutton’s jaw tightened. “You know, you’ve got a hell of a chip on your shoulder—especially considering the fact that I can speak Spanish better than you can.”

Fury spurted up in Lisa at his words. She grabbed her purse and scooted out of the booth, sending a flashing angry glance at him before striding quickly out of the restaurant.

As she strode across the parking lot, she heard his bootsteps on the pavement behind her, but she ignored him, marching straight to her car. He caught up with her before she reached it, grasping her arm and pulling her to a halt.

Lisa spun around, jerking her arm from his grasp. Her skin seemed to burn where he had touched it, and her anger was fueled by the fact that his nearness, his touch, made her feel weak in the knees. “Let go of me! What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m sorry. Don’t go storming off. I’m trying to explain things to you. I’m trying to make amends.”

“You’re doing a really lousy job of it.”

“I know,” he agreed ruefully. “I seem to have a knack for offending you. Please, ignore what I said. You’re off base in saying that I’m acting out of prejudice, but I understand why you’d feel that way. This isn’t about singling Benny Hernandez out because he’s a Latino. Maybe I’m too paternal in the way I feel about this town, but it isn’t only regarding the Mexican-American community. I have a duty to help the people of this town, to protect them. That’s what I was elected to do. That’s why I haul the kids I catch drinking and driving down to the jail, not because I enjoy hassling drunk teenagers or causing their parents grief, but because I want them to think before they do it next time. I don’t want to have to scrape them up off the road.”

“No doubt that’s admirable. But we are not talking about a drunken teenager here. We’re talking about a trumped-up charge, and I don’t care if Benny’s grandmother wanted you to teach him a lesson or whatever, you violated that young man’s rights.”

“It isn’t always that black and white,” he responded tightly. Quinn truthfully had come to apologize and make things right with Lisa. He had been thinking about her ever since she’d left the courthouse this afternoon, and when he had spotted her car in the parking lot of the Moonstone, it had seemed a heaven-sent opportunity to make a fresh start with her. But somehow, as before, he had wound up right back in an argument with her. And, as before, his loins tightened involuntarily at the sight of her, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with fury, her curvaceous body thrumming with tension.

What was it about this woman that made him respond at the basest level? She filled him with the hot lust to subdue her, to kiss her until she melted beneath him, her fury transforming into passion beneath his touch. He balled his hands into fists and tried to shove down the distinctly erotic images that were flooding his mind.

“Will you let me explain to you?” he asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

“Please do.” Lisa crossed her arms over her chest and waited, her gaze challenging.

“Look. I’m going to be straight with you. Benny’s grandmother came to me because she was worried about him. He’s gotten into a few scrapes with the law over the years, but he’s not a bad kid. But because of his father and stepfather and her own son Pablo, she’s worried about him. She called me and told me that he’s hanging out with a bad bunch of guys. He used to work over here at the Moonstone, busing tables, but then he quit and now he doesn’t have any job. But he never asks her for money, not for clothes or gas or burgers or anything. Where is he getting his money? And he’s gone a lot. She tells me that she thinks his friends are a bad influence, especially this kid named Paco.

“Now, it so happens that this Paco is frequently seen at a house in town where suspicious things are going on. When she told me Benny was hanging with Paco it worried me, too. I’ve been keeping a close eye on this house and you know what? Now I’ve seen Benny over there, too.”

“That’s it?” Lisa asked. “You’ve seen him at some other house? Where suspicious things are going on? What suspicious things? And he has a friend that his grandmother doesn’t like?”

“I can’t tell you what’s going on at this house. I’m not even sure yet myself. But I can pretty much guarantee you that it isn’t legal. There are a lot of kids coming and going at this house, and only some of them are from Angel Eye. That outside element adds something serious to it.”

“This sounds extremely vague. You have no evidence of a crime.”

“Not yet. But I will have. And I would hate for Benny to have been sucked into it. In this part of the country, especially with those outside people involved, the odds are it’s large-scale auto theft, drugs or smuggling illegal aliens. Those aren’t minor offenses. I’d like to get Benny out of if before it’s too late.”

“Oh, I see. So you hauled him down to jail and questioned him for hours without an attorney present just because you were concerned about him. It didn’t have anything to do with trying to get information out of him about this house and these activities that you know so little about?”

“Why are you so all-fired determined to dislike me?” he shot back. “I’m telling you things I wouldn’t normally reveal to a suspect’s attorney. To anyone, in fact. I’m giving you information about an ongoing investigation, because I want to help Benny, not put him in prison. I am trying to make you understand why it’s so important.”

“Why?” Lisa asked bluntly.

“What? What do you mean?”

“Why are you telling me this? Are you hoping that I will encourage my client to tell you what you want to know? Is that it?”

Quinn clenched his teeth together, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “You are the most exasperating, pigheaded woman I ever had the misfortune to meet.” It did not help his irritation any that he knew he was laying out his reasons for her partly because he hated for her to continue thinking of him as a bumbling redneck going around trampling on the rights of others.

“Why, thank you,” Lisa told him sweetly. “You have certainly succeeded in winning me over now.”

She turned on her heel and started toward her car again.

“Wait!” He hurried after her and stepped in front of her, facing her, forcing her to stop. “Think about this—who is Enrique Garza? He’s no cousin to Benny Hernandez.”

“So? He’s a friend, I suppose.”

“Deputy Padilla says he’s not from Angel Eye. I don’t think he’s any friend to Benny. Why don’t you ask yourself why he is so eager to help some kid who’s been picked up on petty charges? What’s in it for him? I’m sure he didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart.”

“Who he is does not change my job. I am Benny Hernandez’s attorney, and my duty is to protect his rights.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to do that when he’s hauled in on auto theft or marijuana-smuggling. You know, you might think about helping your client, not just representing him in court.”

He whirled and took a few steps away from her, then stopped, muttering a curse beneath his breath. He turned and covered the distance between them in two quick strides. Grabbing Lisa by the arms, he pulled her up against him and buried his lips in hers.

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