Read the book: «A Texas Christmas: True Blue / A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel»

A Texas Christmas
True Blue

Diana Palmer

A Lawman’s Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel

Linda Lael Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

True Blue

Diana Palmer

About the Author

The prolific author of over one hundred books, DIANA PALMER got her start as a newspaper reporter. One of the top ten romance writers in America, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humour. Diana lives with her family in Cornelia, Georgia.

Chapter One

“We could lose the case,” San Antonio Detective Sergeant Rick Marquez muttered as he glared at one of the newest detectives on his squad.

“I’m really sorry,” Gwendolyn Cassaway said, wincing. “I tripped. It was an accident.”

He stared at her through narrowed dark eyes, his sensual lips compressed. “You tripped because you’re nearsighted and you won’t wear glasses.” Personally, he didn’t think the lack of them did anything for her, if vanity was the issue. She had a pleasant face, and an exquisite complexion, but she was no raving beauty. Her finest feature was her wealth of thick platinum-blond hair that she wore in a high bun on top of her head. She never wore it down.

“Glasses get in my way and I can’t ever get them clean enough,” she muttered. “That coating just causes smears unless you use the proper cleaning materials. And I can’t ever find them,” she said defensively.

He drew in a long, exasperated breath and perched on the edge of the desk in his office. In the posture, his.45 Colt ACP in its distinctive leather holster was displayed next to his badge on his belt. So were his powerful legs, and to their best advantage. He was tall and muscular, without it being obvious. He had a light olive complexion and thick long black hair that he wore in a ponytail. He was very attractive, but he couldn’t ever seem to wind up with a serious girlfriend. Women found him useful as a sympathetic shoulder to cry on over their true loves. One woman refused to date him when she realized that he wore his pistol even off duty. He’d tried to explain that it was a necessary thing, but it hadn’t given him any points with her. He went to the opera, which he loved, all alone. He went everywhere alone. He was almost thirty-one, and lonelier than ever. It made him irritable.

And here was Gwen making it all worse, messing up his crime scene, threatening the delicate chain of evidence that could lead to a conviction in a complex murder.

A college freshman, pretty and blonde, had been brutally assaulted and killed. They had no suspects and trace evidence was very sketchy already. Gwen had almost contaminated the scene by stepping too close to a blood smear.

He was not in a good mood. He was hungry. He was going to be late for lunch, because he had to chew her out. If he didn’t, the lieutenant surely would, and Cal Hollister was even meaner than Marquez.

“You could also lose your job,” Marquez pointed out. “You’re new in the department.”

She grimaced. “I know.” She shrugged. “I guess I could go back to the Atlanta P.D. if I had to,” she said with grim resignation. She looked at him with pale green eyes that were almost translucent. He’d never seen eyes that color.

“You just have to be more careful, Cassaway,” he cautioned.

“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

He tried not to look at the T-shirt she was wearing under a lightweight denim jacket with her jeans. It was unseasonably warm for November but a jacket felt good against the morning chill.

On her T-shirt was a picture of a little green alien, the sort sold in novelty shops, with a legend that read, Have You Seen My Spaceship? He averted his eyes and tried not to grin.

She tugged her jacket closer. “Sorry. But they don’t have any regulations against T-shirts here, do they?”

“If the lieutenant sees that one, you’ll find out,” he said.

She sighed. “I’ll try to conform. It’s just that I come from a very weird family. My mother worked for the FBI. My father was, uh, in the military. My brother is …” She hesitated and swallowed. “My brother was in military intelligence.”

He frowned. “Deceased?”

She nodded. She still couldn’t talk about it. The pain was too fresh.

“Sorry,” he said stiffly.

She shifted. “Larry died very bravely during a covert ops mission in the Middle East. But he was my only sibling. It’s hard to talk about.”

“I can understand that.” He stood up, glancing at the military watch he wore on his left wrist. “Time for lunch.”

“Oh, I have other plans …” she began quickly.

He glared at her. “It was a remark, not an invitation. I don’t date colleagues,” he said very curtly.

She blushed all the way down to her throat. She swallowed and stood taller. “Sorry. I was … I meant … that is …”

He waved the excuses away. “We’ll talk about this some more later. Meanwhile, please do something about your vision. You can’t investigate a crime scene you can’t see!”

She nodded. “Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

He opened the door and let her go out first, noticing absently that her head only came up to his shoulder and that she smelled like spring roses, the pink ones that grew in his mother’s garden down in Jacobsville. It was an elusive, very faint fragrance. He approved. Some women who worked in the office seemed to bathe in perfume and always had headaches and allergies and never seemed to think about the connection. Once, a fellow detective had had an almost-fatal asthma attack after a clerical worker stood near him wearing what smelled like an entire bottle of perfume.

Gwendolyn stopped suddenly and he plowed into her, his hands sweeping out to grasp her shoulders and steady her before she fell from his momentum.

“Oh, sorry!” she exclaimed, and felt a thrill of pleasure at the warm strength of the big hands holding her so gently.

He removed them at once. “What is it?”

She had to force her mind to work. Detective Sergeant Marquez was very sexy and she’d been drawn to him since her first sight of him several weeks before. “I meant to ask if you wanted me to check with Alice Fowler over at the crime lab about the digital camera we found in the murdered woman’s apartment. By now, she might have something on the trace evidence.”

“Good idea. You do that.”

“I’ll swing past there on my way back to the office after lunch,” she promised, and beamed, because it was a big case and he was letting her contribute to solving it. “Thanks.”

He nodded, his mind already on the wonderful beef Stroganoff he was going to order at the nearby café where he usually had lunch. He’d been looking forward to it all week. It was Friday and he could splurge.

Tomorrow was his day off. He was going to spend it helping his mother, Barbara, process and can a bushel of hothouse tomatoes she’d been given by an organic gardener with a greenhouse. She owned Barbara’s Café in Jacobsville, and she liked to use her organic vegetables and herbs in the meals she prepared for her clients. They would add to the store of canned summer tomatoes that she’d already processed earlier in the year.

He owed her a lot. He’d been orphaned in junior high school and Barbara Ferguson, who’d just lost her husband in an accident, and suffered a miscarriage, had taken him in. His mother had once worked for Barbara at the café just briefly. Then his parents—well, his mother and stepfather—had died in a wreck, leaving a single, lonely child all on his own. Rick had been a terrible teen, always in trouble, bad-tempered and moody. He’d been afraid when he lost his mother. He had no other living relatives of whom he was aware, and no place to go. Barbara had stepped in and given him a home. He loved her no less than he’d loved his real mother, and he was quite protective of her. He never spoke of his stepfather. He tried not to remember him at all.

Barbara wanted him to marry and settle down and have a family. She harped on it all the time. She even introduced him to single women. Nothing helped. He seemed to be an eternally on-sale item in the matrimonial market that everybody bypassed for the fancier merchandise. He laughed shortly to himself at the thought.

Gwen watched him leave and wondered why he’d laughed. She was embarrassed that she’d thought he was asking her to lunch. He didn’t seem to have a girlfriend and everybody joked about his nonexistent love life. But he wasn’t attracted to Gwen in that way. It didn’t matter. No man had ever liked her, really. She was everybody’s confidante, the good girl who could give advice about how to please other women with small gifts and entertainments. But she was never asked out for herself.

She knew she wasn’t pretty. She was always passed over for the flashy women, the assertive women, the powerful women. The women who didn’t think sex before marriage was a sin. She’d had a man double over laughing when she’d told him that, after he expected a night in bed in return for a nice meal and the theater. Then he’d become angry, having spent so much money on her with nothing to show for it. The experience had soured her.

“Don Quixote,” she murmured to herself. “I’m Don Quixote.”

“Wrong sex,” Detective Sergeant Gail Rogers said as she paused beside the newcomer. Rogers was the mother of some very wealthy ranchers in Comanche Wells, but she kept her job and her own income. She was an amazing peace officer. Gwen admired her tremendously. “And what’s that all about?” she asked.

Gwen sighed, glancing around to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “I won’t give out on dates,” she whispered. “So men think I’m insane.” She shrugged. “I’m Don Quixote, trying to restore morality and idealism to a decadent world.”

Rogers didn’t laugh. She smiled, very kindly. “He was noble, in his way. An idealist with a dream.”

“He was nutty as a fruitcake.” Gwen sighed.

“Yes, but he made everyone around him feel of worth, like the prostitute whom he idealized as a great lady for whom he quested,” came the surprising reply. “He gave dreams to people who had given them up for harsh reality. He was adored by them.”

Gwen laughed. “Yes, I suppose he wasn’t so bad at that.”

“People should have ideals, even if they get laughed at,” Rogers added. “You stick to your guns. Every society has its outcasts.” She leaned down. “Nobody who conformed to the rigid culture of any society ever made history.”

Gwen brightened. “That’s true.” Then she added, “You’ve lived through a lot. You got shot,” Gwen recalled hearing.

“I did. It was worthwhile, though. We broke a cold case wide-open and caught the murderer.”

“I heard. That was some story.”

Rogers smiled. “Indeed it was. Rick Marquez got blindsided and left for dead by the same scoundrels who shot me. But we both survived.” She frowned. “What’s wrong? Marquez giving you a hard time?”

“It’s my own fault,” Gwen confided. “I can’t wear contacts and I hate glasses. I tripped in a crime scene and came close to contaminating some evidence.” She grimaced. “It’s a murder case, too, that college freshman they found dead in her apartment last night. The defense will have a field day with that when the perp is caught and brought to trial. And it will be my fault. I just got chewed out for it. I should have, too,” she said quickly, because she didn’t want Rogers to think Marquez was being unfair.

Rogers’s dark eyes searched hers. “You like your sergeant, don’t you?”

“I respect him,” Gwen said, and then flushed helplessly.

Rogers studied her warmly. “He’s a nice man,” she said. “He does have a temper and he does take too many chances. But you’ll get used to his moods.”

“I’m working on that.” Gwen chuckled.

“How did you like Atlanta?” Rogers asked conversationally as they headed for the exit.

“Excuse me?” Gwen said absently.

“Atlanta P.D. Where you were working.”

“Oh. Oh!” Gwen had to think quickly. “It was nice. I liked the department. But I wanted a change, and I’ve always wanted to see Texas.”

“I see.”

No, she didn’t, Gwen thought, and thank goodness for that. Gwen was keeping secrets that she didn’t dare divulge. She changed the subject as they walked together to the parking lot to their respective vehicles.

Lunch was a salad with dressing on the side, and half a grilled cheese sandwich. Dessert, and her drink, was a cappuccino. She loved the expensive coffee and could only afford it one day a week, on Fridays. She ate an inexpensive lunch so that she could have her coffee.

She sipped it with her eyes closed, smiling. It had an aroma that evoked Italy, a little sidewalk café in Rome with the ruins visible in the distance …

She opened her eyes at once and looked around, as if someone could see the thoughts in her head. She must be very careful not to mention that memory, or other similar ones, in regular conversation. She was a budding junior detective. She had to remember that. It wouldn’t do to let anything slip at this crucial moment.

That thought led to thoughts of Detective Marquez and what would be a traumatic revelation for him when the time came for disclosure. Meanwhile, her orders were to observe him, keep her head down and try to discover how much he, or his adoptive mother, knew about his true background. She couldn’t say anything. Not yet.

She finished her coffee, paid for her meal and walked out onto the chilly streets. So funny, she thought, the way the weather ran in cycles. It had been unseasonably cold throughout the South during the spring then came summer and blazing, unrelenting heat with drought and wildfires and cattle dying in droves. Now it was November and still unseasonably warm, but some weather experts said snow might come soon.

The weather was nuts. There had been epic drought throughout the whole southern tier of America, from Arizona to Florida, and there had been horrible wildfires in the southwestern states. Triple-digit temperatures had gone all summer in south Texas. There had been horrible flooding on the Mississippi River due to the large snowmelt, from last winter’s unusually deep snows up north.

Now it was November and Gwen was actually sweating long before she reached her car, although it had been chilly this morning. She took off her jacket. At least the car had air-conditioning, and she was turning it on, even if it was technically almost winter. Idly, she wondered how people had lived in this heat before air-conditioning was invented. It couldn’t have been an easy life, especially since most Texans of the early twentieth century had worked on the land. Imagine, having to herd and brand cattle in this sort of heat, much less plow and plant!

Gwen got into her car and drove by the crime lab to see if Alice had found anything on that digital camera. In fact, she had. There were a lot of photos of people who were probably friends—Gwen could use face recognition software to identify them, hopefully—and there was one odd-looking man standing a little distance behind a couple who was smiling into the camera against the background of the apartment complex where the victim had lived. That was interesting and suspicious. She’d have to check that man out. He didn’t look as if he belonged in such a setting. It was a mid-range apartment complex, and the man was dingy and ill kempt and staring a little too intently. She drove back to her precinct.

Her mind was still on Marquez, on what she knew, and he didn’t. She hoped he wasn’t going to have too hard a time with his true history, when the truth came out.

Barbara glared at her son. “Can’t you just peel the tomato, sweetie, without taking out most of it except the core?”

He grimaced. “Sorry,” he said, wielding the paring knife with more care as he went to work on what looked like a bushel of tomatoes, a gift from an organic gardener with a hothouse, that his mother was canning in her kitchen at home. Canning jars simmered in a huge tub of water, getting ready to be filled with fragrant tomato slices and then processed in the big pressure cooker. He glared at it.

“I hate those things,” he muttered. “Even the safest ones are dangerous.”

“Baloney,” she said inelegantly. “Give me those.”

She took the bowl of tomatoes and dunked them into a pot of boiling water. She left them there for a couple of minutes and fished them out in a colander. She put them in the sink in front of Rick. “There. Now they’ll skin. I keep telling you this is a more efficient way than trying to cut the skins off. But you don’t listen, my dear.”

“I like skinning them,” he said with a dark-eyed smile in her direction. “It’s an outlet for my frustrations.”

“Oh?” She didn’t look at him, deliberately. “What sort of frustrations?”

“There’s this new woman at work,” he said grimly.

“Gwen.” She nodded.

He dropped the knife, picked it back up and stared at her.

“You talk about her all the time.”

“I do?” It was news to him. He didn’t realize that.

She nodded as she skinned tomatoes. “She trips over things that she doesn’t see, she messes up crime scenes, she spills coffee, she can’t find her cell phone …” She glanced at him. He was still standing there, with the knife poised over a tomato. “Get busy, there, those tomatoes won’t peel themselves.”

He groaned.

“Just think how nice they’ll taste in one of my beef stew recipes,” she coaxed. “Go on, peel.”

“Why can’t we just get one of those things that sucks the air out of bags and freeze them instead?”

“What if we have a major power outage that lasts for days and days?” she returned.

He thought for a minute. “I’ll go buy twenty bags of ice and several of those foam coolers.”

She laughed. “Yes, but we can’t tell how the power grid is going to cope if we have one of those massive CMEs like the Carrington Event in 1859.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“There was a massive coronal mass ejection in 1859 called the Carrington Event,” she explained. “When it hit earth, all the electrics on the planet went crazy. Telegraph lines burned up and telegraph units caught fire.” She glanced at him. “There wasn’t much electricity back in those days—it was in its infancy. But imagine if such a thing happened today, with our dependence on electricity. Everything is connected to the grid these days, banks, communications corporations, pharmacies, government, military and the list goes on and on. Even our water and power are controlled by computers. Just imagine if we had no way to access our computers.”

He whistled. “I was in the grocery store one day when the computers went offline. They couldn’t process credit cards. Most people had to leave. I had enough cash for bread and milk. Then another time the computers in the pharmacy went down, when you had to have those antibiotics for the sinus infection last winter. I had to come home and get the checkbook and go back. People without credit cards had real problems.”

“See?” She went back to her tomatoes.

“I suppose it would be a pretty bad thing. Is it going to happen, you think?”

“Someday, certainly. The sun has eleven year cycles, you know, with a solar minimum and a solar maximum. The next solar maximum, some scientists say, is in 2012. If we’re going to get hit, that would have my vote for the timeline.”

“Twenty-twelve,” he groaned, rolling his eyes. “We had this guy come in the office and tell us we needed to put out a flyer.”

“What about?”

“The fact that the world is ending in 2012 and we have to have tin-foil hats to protect us from electromagnetic pulses.”

“Ah. EMPs,” she said knowledgeably. “Actually, I think you’d have to be in a modified and greatly enlarged version of a Leiden jar to be fully protected. So would any computer equipment you wanted to save.” She glanced at him. “They’re developing weapons like that, you know,” she added. “All it would take is one nicely placed EMP and our military computers would go down like tenpins.”

He put down the knife. “Where do you learn all this stuff?” he asked, exasperated.

“On the internet.” She pulled an iPod out of her pocket and showed it to him. “I have Wi-Fi in the house, you know. I just connect to all the appropriate websites.” She checked her bookmarks. “I have one for space weather, three radars for terrestrial weather and about ten covert sites that tell you all the stuff the government won’t tell you …”

“My mother, the conspiracy theorist,” he moaned.

“You won’t hear this stuff on the national news,” she said smartly. “The mainstream media is controlled by three major corporations. They decide what you’ll get to hear. And mostly it’s what entertainer got drunk, what television show is getting the ratings and what politician is patting himself on the back or running for reelection. In my day—” she warmed to her theme “—we had real news on television. It was local and we had real reporters out gathering it. Like the Jacobsville paper still does,” she added.

“I know about the Jacobsville paper,” he said with a sigh. “We hear that Cash Grier spends most of his time trying to protect the owner from getting assassinated. She knows all the drug distribution points and the drug lords by name, and she’s printing them.” He shook his head. “She’s going to be another statistic one day. They’ve killed plenty of newspaper publishers and reporters over the border for less. She’s rocking the boat.”

“Somebody needs to rock it,” Barbara muttered as she peeled another tomato skin off and tossed it into a green bag to be used for mulch in her garden. She never wasted any organic refuse. “People are dying so that another generation can become addicted to drugs.”

“I can’t argue that point,” he said. “The problem is that nothing law enforcement is doing is making much of a dent in drug trafficking. If there’s a market, there’s going to be a supply. That’s just the way things are.”

“They say Hayes Carson actually talked to Minette Raynor about it.”

That was real news. Minette owned the Jacobsville Times. She had two stepsiblings, Shane, who was twelve, and Julie, who was six. She’d loved her stepmother very much. Her stepmother and her father had died within weeks of each other, leaving a grieving Minette with two little children to raise, a newspaper to run and a ranch to manage. She had a manager to handle the ranch, and her great-aunt Sarah lived with her and took care of the kids after school so that Minette could keep working. Minette was twenty-five now and unmarried. She and Hayes Carson didn’t get along. Hayes blamed her, God knew why, for his younger brother’s drug-related death, even after Rachel Conley left a confession stating that she’d given Bobby Carson, Hayes’s brother, the drugs that killed him.

Rick chuckled. “If there’s ever a border war, Minette will stand in the street pointing a finger at Hayes so the invaders can get him first.”

“I wonder,” Barbara mused. “Sometimes I think where there’s antagonism, there’s also something deeper. I’ve seen people who hate each other end up married.”

“Cash Grier and his Tippy,” Rick mused.

“Yes, and Stuart York and Ivy Conley.”

“Not to mention half a dozen others. Jacobsville is growing by leaps and bounds.”

“So is Comanche Wells. We’ve got new people there, too.” She was peeling faster. “Did you notice that Grange bought a ranch in Comanche Wells, next to the property that his boss owns?”

Rick pursed his sensual lips. “Which boss?”

She blinked at him. “What do you mean, which boss?”

“He works as ranch manager for Jason Pendleton. But he also works on the side for Eb Scott,” he said. “You didn’t hear this from me, but he was involved in the Pendleton kidnapping,” he added. “He went to get Gracie Pendleton back when she was kidnapped by that exiled South American dictator, Emilio Machado.”

“Machado.”

“Yes.” He peeled the tomato slowly. “He’s a conundrum.”

“What do you mean?”

“He started out, we learned, as a farm laborer down in Mexico, from the time he was about ten years old. He was involved in protests against foreign interests even as a teenager. But he got tired of scratching dirt for a living. He could play the guitar and sing, so he worked bars for a while and then through a contact, he got a job as an entertainer on a cruise ship. That got boring. He signed on with a bunch of mercs and became known internationally as a crusader against oppression. Afterward, he went to South America and hired on with another paramilitary group that was fighting to preserve the way of life of the native people in Barrera, a little nation in the Amazon bordering Peru. He helped the paramilitary unit free a tribe of natives from a foreign corporation that was trying to kill them to get the oil-rich land on which they were living. He developed a taste for defending the underdog, moved up in the ranks of the military until he became a general.” He smiled. “It seems that he was a natural leader, because when the small country’s president died four years ago, Machado was elected by acclamation.” He glanced at her. “Do you realize how rare that is, even for a small nation?”

“If people loved him so much, how is it that he’s in Mexico kidnapping people to get money to retake his country?”

“He wasn’t ousted by the people, but by a vicious and bloodthirsty military subordinate who knew when and how to strike, while Machado was on a trip to a neighboring country to sign a trade agreement and offer an alliance against foreign corporate takeovers.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It’s sort of privileged info, so you can’t share it,” he told her. “Anyway, the subordinate killed Machado’s entire staff, and sent his secret police to shut down newspapers and television and radio stations. Overnight, influential people ended up in prison. Educators, politicians, writers—anyone who might threaten the new regime. There have been hundreds of murders, and now the subordinate, Pedro Mendez by name, is allying himself with drug lords in a neighboring country. It seems that cocaine grows quite nicely in Barrera and poor farmers are being ‘encouraged’ to grow it instead of food crops on their land. Mendez is also nationalizing every single business so that he has absolute control.”

“No wonder the general is trying to retake his country,” she said curtly. “I hope he makes it.”

“So do I,” Rick replied. “But I can’t say that in public,” he added. “He’s wanted in this country for kidnapping. It’s a capital offense. If he’s caught and convicted he could wind up with a death penalty.”

She winced. “I don’t condone how he’s getting the money,” she replied. “But he’s going to use it for a noble reason.”

“Noble.” He chuckled.

“That’s not funny,” she said shortly.

“I’m not laughing at the word. It’s Gwen. She goes around mumbling that she’s Don Quixote.”

She laughed out loud. “What?”

He shook his head. “Rogers told me. It seems that our newest detective won’t give out on dates and she groups herself with Don Quixote, who tried to restore honor and morality to a decadent world.”

“My, my!” She pursed her lips and smiled secretively.

“I don’t want to marry Gwen Cassaway,” he said at once. “I just thought I’d mention that, because I can read minds, and I don’t like what you’re thinking.”

“She’s a nice girl.”

“She’s a woman.”

“She’s a nice girl. She has a very idealistic and romantic attitude for someone who lives in the city. And I ought to know. I have women from cities coming through here all the time, talking about unspeakable things right in public with the whole world listening.” Her lips made a thin line. “Do you know, Grange was having lunch next to a table of them where they were discussing men’s, well, intimate men parts,” she amended, clearing her throat, “and Grange got up from his chair, told them what he thought of them for discussing a bedroom topic in public in front of decent people and he walked out.”

“What did they do?”

“One of them laughed. One of the others cried. Another said he needed to start living in the real world instead of small town ‘stupidville.’” She grinned. “Of course, she said it after he’d already left. While he was talking, they didn’t say a word. But they left soon after. I was glad. I can’t choose my clientele and I’ve only ever ordered one person to leave my restaurant since I’ve owned it,” she added.

She dragged herself back to the present. “But the topic of conversation was getting to me, too. People need to talk about intimate things in private, not in a public place with their voices raised. We don’t all think alike.”

“Only in some ways,” he pointed out, and hugged her impulsively. “You’re a nice mother. I’m so lucky to have you for an adoptive parent.”

She hugged him back. “You’ve enriched my life, my sweet.” She sighed, closing her eyes in his warm embrace. “When I lost Bart, I wanted to die, too. And then your mother and stepfather died, and there you were, as alone as I was. We needed each other.”

“We did.” He moved away and smiled affectionately. “You took on a big burden with me. I was a bad boy.”

She groaned and rolled her eyes. “Were you ever! Always in fights, in school and out. I spent half my life in the principal’s office and once at a school board meeting where they were going to vote to throw you right out of school altogether and put you in alternative school.” Her face hardened. “In their dreams!”

“Yes, you took a lawyer to the meeting and buffaloed them. First time it ever happened, I heard later.”

“I was very mad.”

“I felt really bad about that,” he said. “But I put my nose to the grindstone after, and tried hard to make it up to you.”

“Joined the police force, went to night school and got your associate degree, went to the San Antonio Police Department and worked your way up in the ranks to sergeant,” she agreed, smiling. “Made me so proud!”

He hugged her again. “I owe it all to you.”

“No. You owe it to your hard work. I may have helped, but you pulled yourself up.”

He kissed her forehead. “Thank you. For everything.”

“You’re my son. I love you very much.”

He cleared his throat. Emotions were difficult for him, especially considering his job. “Yeah. Me, too.”

She grinned. The smile faded as she searched his large, dark eyes. “Do you ever wonder about your mother’s past?”

His eyebrows shot up. “What a question!” He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Do you know anything about her friends? About any male friends she had before she married your stepfather?”

He shrugged. “Not really. She didn’t talk about her relationships. Well, I wasn’t old enough for her to confide in me, either, you know. She never was one to talk about intimate things,” he said quietly. “Not even about my real father. She said that he died, but she never talked about him. She was very young when I was born. She did say she’d done things she wanted forgiveness for, and she went to confession a lot.” He studied her closely. “You must have had some reason for asking me that.”

She put her lips tightly together. “Something I overheard. I wasn’t supposed to be listening.”

“Come on, tell me,” he said when she hesitated.

“Cash Grier was having lunch with some fed. They were discussing Machado. The fed mentioned a woman named Dolores Ortíz who had some connection to General Machado when he lived in Mexico.”

Chapter Two

“Dolores Ortíz?” he asked, the paring knife poised in midair. “That was my mother’s maiden name.”

“I know.”

Rick frowned. “You mean my mother might have been romantically involved with Emilio Machado?”

“I got that impression,” Barbara said, nodding. “But I wasn’t close enough to hear the entire conversation. I just got bits and pieces of it.”

He pursed his lips. “Well, my father died around the time I was born, so it’s not impossible that she did meet Machado in Mexico. Although, it’s a big country.”

“You lived in the state of Sonora,” she pointed out. “That’s where Machado had his truck farm, they said.”

He finished skinning the tomato and reached for another one. “Wouldn’t that be a coincidence, if my mother actually knew him?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Well, it was a long time ago,” he said easily. “And she’s dead, and I never knew him. So what good would it do for them to dig up an old romance now?”

“I have no idea. It bothered me, a little. I mean, you’re my son.”

“Yes, I am.” He glanced at her. “I love it when people get all flustered and start babbling when you introduce me. You’re blonde and fair and I’m dark and obviously Hispanic.”

“You’re gorgeous, my baby,” she teased. “I just wish women would stop crying on your shoulder about other men and start trying to marry you.”

He sighed. “Chance would be a fine thing. I carry a gun!” he said with mock horror.

She glowered at him. “All off-duty policemen carry guns.”

“Yes, but I might shoot somebody accidentally, and it would get in the way if I tried to hug somebody.”

“I gather that somebody female mentioned that?”

He sighed and nodded. “A public defender,” he said. “She thought I was cute, but she doesn’t date men who carry. It’s a principle, she said. She hates guns.”

“I hate guns, too, but I keep a shotgun in the closet in case I ever need to defend myself,” Barbara pointed out.

“I’ll defend you.”

“You work in San Antonio,” she said. “If you’re not here, I have to defend myself. By the time Hayes Carson could get to my place, I’d be … well, not in any good condition if somebody tried to harm me.”

That had happened once, Rick recalled with anger. A man he’d arrested, after he’d been released, had gone after Rick’s adoptive mother for revenge. It was just chance that Hayes Carson had stopped by when he was off duty, in his unmarked truck, to ask her about catering an event. The ex-convict had piled out of his car and come right up on the porch with a drawn gun—in violation of parole—and banged on the door demanding that Barbara come outside. Hayes had come outside, disarmed him, cuffed him and taken him right to jail. The man was now serving another term in prison, for assault on a police officer, trespassing, attempted assault, possessing a firearm in violation of parole and resisting arrest. Barbara had testified at his trial. So had Hayes.

Rick shook his head. “I hate having you in danger because of my job.”

“It was only the one time,” she said, comforting him. “It could have been somebody who carried a grudge because their apple pie wasn’t served with ice cream or something.”

He smiled. “Dream on. You even make the ice cream you serve with it. Your pies are out of this world.”

“Don’t you have an in-house seminar coming up at work?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Why don’t you take a couple of pies back with you?”

“That would be nice. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” She pursed her lips. “Does Gwen like apple pie?”

He turned and stared at her. “Gwen is a colleague. I never, never date colleagues.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

He went back to work on the tomatoes. This could turn into a problem. His mother, well-meaning and loving, nevertheless was determined to get him married. That was one area in which he wanted to do his own prospecting. And never in this lifetime did he want to end up with someone like Gwen, who had two left feet and the dress sense of a Neanderthal woman. He laughed at the idea of her in bearskins carrying a spear. But he didn’t share the joke with his mother.

When he went to work the next day, it was qualifying time on the firing range. Rick was a good shot, and he kept excellent care of his service weapon. But the testing was one of the things he really hated about police work.

His lieutenant, Cal Hollister, could outshoot any man in the precinct. He scored a hundred percent regularly. Rick could usually manage in the nineties but never a perfect score. He always seemed to do the qualifying when the lieutenant was doing his, and his ego suffered.

Today, Gwen Cassaway also showed up. Rick tried not to groan out loud. Gwen would drop her pistol, accidentally kill the lieutenant and Rick would be prosecuted for manslaughter …

“Why are you groaning like that?” Hollister asked curtly as he checked the clip for his.45 in preparation for target shooting.

“Just a stray thought, sir, nothing important.” His eyes went involuntarily to Gwen, who was also loading her own pistol.

On the firing range, shooters wore eye protection and ear protection. They customarily loaded only six bullets into the clip of the automatic, and this was done at the time they got into position to fire. The pistol would be held at low or medium ready position, after being carefully drawn from its snapped holster for firing, with the safety on. The pistol, even unloaded, would never be pointed in any direction except that of the target and the trigger finger would never rest on the trigger. When in firing position, the safety would be released, and the shooter would fire at the target using either the Weaver, modified Weaver, or Isosceles shooting stance.

One of the most difficult parts of shooting, and one of the most important to master, was trigger pull. The pressure exerted on the trigger had to be perfect in order to place a shot correctly. There were graphs on the firing range that helped participants check the efficiency of their trigger pull and help to improve it. Rick’s was improving. But his lieutenant consistently showed him up on the gun range, and it made him uncomfortable. He tried not to practice or qualify when the other man was around. Unfortunately, he always seemed to be on the range when Rick was.

Hollister followed Rick’s gaze to Gwen. He knew, as Rick did, that she had some difficulty with coordination. He pursed his lips. His black eyes danced as he glanced covertly at Gwen. “It’s okay, Marquez. We’re insured,” he said under his breath.

Rick cleared his throat and tried not to laugh.

Hollister moved onto the firing line. His thick blond hair gleamed like pale honey in the sunlight. He glanced at Gwen. “Ready, Detective?” he drawled, pulling the heavy ear protectors on over his hair.

Gwen gave him a nice smile. “Ready when you are, sir.”

The Range Master moved into position, indicated that everything was ready and gave the signal to fire.

Hollister, confident and relaxed, chuckled, aimed at the target and proceeded to blow the living hell out of it.

Rick, watching Gwen worriedly, saw something incredible happen next. Gwen snapped into a modified Weaver position, barely even aimed and threw six shots into the center of the target with pinpoint accuracy.

His mouth flew open.

She took the clip out of her automatic, checked the cylinder and waited for the Range Master to check her score.

“Cassaway,” he said eventually, and hesitated. “One hundred percent.”

Rick and the lieutenant stared at each other.

“Lieutenant Hollister,” the officer continued, and was obviously trying not to smile, “ninety-nine percent.”

“What the hell …!” Hollister burst out. “I hit dead center!”

“Missed one, sir, by a hair,” the officer replied with a twinkle in his eyes. “Sorry.”

Hollister let out a furious bad word. Gwen marched right up to him and glared at him from pale green eyes.

“Sir, I find that word offensive and I’d appreciate it if you would refrain from using it in my presence,” she said curtly.

Hollister’s high cheekbones actually flushed. Rick tensed, waiting for the explosion.

But Hollister didn’t erupt. His black eyes smiled down at the rookie detective. “Point taken, Detective,” he said, and his deep voice was even pleasant. “I apologize.”

Gwen swallowed. She was almost shaking. “Thank you, sir.”

She turned and walked off.

“Not bad shooting, by the way,” he commented as he removed the clip from his own pistol.

She grinned. “Thanks.” She glanced at Rick, who was still gaping, and almost made a smart remark. But she thought better of it in time.

Rick let out the breath he’d been holding. “She trips over her own feet,” he remarked. “But that was some damned fine shooting.”

“It was,” the lieutenant agreed. He shook his head. “You can never figure people, can you, Marquez?”

“True, sir. Very true.”

Later that day, Rick noted two dignified men in suits walking past his office. They glanced at him, spoke to one another and hesitated. One gestured down the hall quickly, and they kept walking.

He wondered what in the world was going on.

Rogers came into his office a few minutes later, frowning. “Odd thing.”

“What?” he asked, his eyes on his computer screen where he was running a case through VICAP.

“Did you see those two suits?”

“Yes, they hesitated outside my office. Who are they, feds?”

“Yes. State Department.”

He burst out laughing as he looked at her with large, dancing brown eyes. “They think I’m illegal and they’re here to bust me?”

“Stop that,” she muttered.

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist it.” He turned to her. “We have high level immigration cases all the time where the State Department gets involved.”

“Yes, but mostly we deal with the enforcement branch of the Department of Immigration and Naturalization, with ICE. Or we deal with the DEA in drug cases, I know that. But these guys aren’t from Austin. They’re from D.C.”

“The capitol?”

“That’s right. They’ve been talking to the lieutenant all morning. They’re taking him to lunch, too.”

“What’s going on? Any idea?”

She shook her head. “Only that gossip says they’re on the Machado case.”

“Yes. He’s wanted for kidnapping.” He didn’t add what Barbara had told him, that his own birth mother might have once known Machado in the past.

“He’s not in the country.”

“And how would you know that?” Rick asked her with pursed lips. “Another psychic insight?” he added, because she had a really unusual sixth sense about cases.

“No. I ran into Cash Grier over at the courthouse. He was up here on a case.”

“Our police chief from Jacobsville,” he acknowledged.

“The very same. He mentioned that Jason Pendleton’s foreman is on temporary leave because of Machado.”

“Grange,” Rick recalled, naming the foreman. “He went into Mexico to retrieve Gracie Pendleton when she was kidnapped by Machado’s men for ransom.”

“Yes. It seems the general took a liking to him, had him investigated and offered him a job.”

Rick blinked. “Excuse me?”

“That’s what I said when Grier told me.” She laughed. “The general really does have style. He said somebody had to organize his mercs when he goes in to retake his country. Grange, being a former major in the army, seemed the logical choice.”

“His country is Barrera,” Rick mused. “Nice name, since it sits on the Amazon River bordering Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Barrera is Spanish for barrier.”

“I didn’t know that, only having completed two years of college Spanish,” she replied blithely.

He made a face at her.

“Anyway, it seems Grange likes the idea of being a crusader for democracy and freedom and human rights, so he took the job. He’s in Mexico at the moment helping the general come up with a plan of attack.”

“With Eb Scott offering candidates, I don’t doubt,” Rick added. “He’s got the cream of the crop at his counterterrorism training center in Jacobsville, as far as mercs go.”

“The general is gathering them from everywhere. He has a couple of former SAS from Great Britain, a one-eyed terror from South Africa named Rourke whose nickname is Deadeye …”

“I know him,” Rick said.

“Me, too,” Rogers replied. “He’s a pill, isn’t he? Rumored to be the natural son of K. C. Kantor, who was one of the more successful ex-mercs.”

“Yes, Kantor became a billionaire after he gave up the lifestyle. He has a daughter who married Dr. Micah Steele in Jacobsville, and a godchild who married into the ranching Callister family up in Montana.” His eyes narrowed. “Where is the general getting the money to finance his revolution?”

“Remember that he gave Gracie back without any payment. But then he nabbed Jason Pendleton for ransom, and Gracie paid it with the money from her trust fund?”

“Forgot about that,” Rick said.

“It ran to six figures. So he’s bankrolled. We hear he also charged what’s left of the Fuentes cartel for protection while he was sharing space with them over the border.”

“Charging drug lords rent in their own turf?” Rick asked.

“And getting it. The general has a pretty fearsome reputation,” she added. She laughed. “He’s also a incredibly handsome,” she mused. “I’ve seen a photograph of him. They say he has a charming personality, reveres women and plays the guitar and sings like an angel.”

“A man of many talents.”

“Not the least of which is inspiring troops.” Rogers sighed. “But it has to be unsettling for the State Department, especially since the Mexican government is up in arms about having Machado recruit mercs to invade a sovereign nation in South America while living in their country.”

“Why are they protesting to us? We aren’t helping him,” Rick pointed out.

“He’s on our border.”

“If they want us to do something about Machado, they could do something about the militant drug cartels running over our borders with automatic weapons to protect their drug runners.”

“Chance would be a fine thing.”

“I guess so. None of that explains why the State Department is gumming up our office,” he added. “This is San Antonio. The border is that way.” He pointed out the window. “A long, long drive that way.”

“I know. That’s what puzzled me. So I pumped Grier for information.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He didn’t. Tell me anything,” she added grimly. “So I had my oldest son pump his best friend, Sheriff Hayes Carson, for information.”

“Did you get anything from him?”

She bit her lower lip. “Bits and pieces.” She gave him a worried look. She couldn’t tell him what she found out. She’d been sworn to secrecy. “But nothing really concrete, I’m sorry to say.”

“I suppose they’ll tell us eventually.”

“I suppose so.”

“When is this huge invasion of Barrera going to take place? Any timeline on that?”

“None that presented itself.” She sighed. “But it’s going to be a gala occasion, from what we hear. The State Department would have good reason to be concerned. They can’t back a revolution …”

“One of the letter agencies could help with that, of course, without public acknowledgment.”

Letter agencies referred to government bureaus like the CIA, which Rick assumed would have been in the forefront of any assistance they could legally give to help install a democratic government friendly to the United States in South America.

“Kilraven used to belong to the CIA,” Rick murmured. “Maybe I could ask him if he knows anything.”

“I’d keep my nose out of it for the time being,” Rogers cautioned, foreseeing trouble ahead if Rick tried to interfere at this stage of the game. “We’ll know soon enough.”

“I guess so.” He glanced at her and asked, “Hear about what happened on the firing range this morning?”

Her eyes brightened. “Did I ever! The whole department’s talking about it. Our rookie detective outshot the lieutenant.”

“By a whole point.” Rick grinned. “Imagine that. She falls into potted plants and trips over crime evidence, but she can shoot like an Old West gunslinger.” He shook his head. “I thought I’d pass out when she started firing that automatic. It was beautiful. She never even seemed to aim. Just snapped off the shots and hit in the center every single time.”

“The lieutenant’s a good loser, though,” Rogers commented. “He bought a single pink rose and laid it on her desk after lunch.”

Rick’s eyes narrowed and his expression grew cold. “Did he, now?”

The lieutenant was a widower. Nobody knew how he lost his wife, he never spoke of her. He didn’t even date, as far as anyone knew. And here he was giving flowers to Gwen, who was young and innocent and impressionable …

“I said, do you think that could be construed as sexual harassment?” Rogers repeated.

“He gave her a flower!”

“Well, yes, but he wouldn’t have given a man a flower, would he?”

“I’d have given Kilraven a flower after he nabbed the perp who blindsided me in the alley and left me for dead,” he said, tongue in cheek.

She sighed. She felt in her pocket for the unopened pack of cigarettes she kept there, pulled it out and looked at it with sad eyes. “I miss smoking. The kids made me quit.”

“You’re still carrying around cigarettes?” he exclaimed.

“Well, it’s comforting. Having them in my pocket, I mean. I wouldn’t actually smoke one, of course. Unless we have a nuclear attack, or something. Then it would be okay.”

He burst out laughing. “You’re incorrigible, Rogers.”

“Only on Mondays,” she said after a minute. She glanced at her watch. “I have to get back to work.”

“Let me know if you find out anything else, okay?”

“Of course I will.” She smiled.

She felt a twinge of guilt as she walked out of his office. She wished she could tell him the truth, or at least prepare him for what she knew was coming. He had a surprise in store. Probably not a very nice one.

“But I made corned beef and cabbage,” Barbara groaned when Rick phoned her Friday afternoon to say he wasn’t coming home that night.

“I know, it’s my favorite, and I’m sorry,” he said. “But we’ve got a stakeout. I have to go. It’s my squad.” He sighed. “Gwen’s on it, and she’ll probably knock over a trash can and we’ll get burned.”

“You have to think positively.” She hesitated. “You could bring her home with you tomorrow. The corned beef will still be good and I’ll cook more cabbage.”

“She’s a colleague,” he repeated. “I don’t date colleagues.”

“Does your lieutenant date colleagues?” she asked with glee. “Because I heard he left her a single rose on her desk. What a lovely, romantic man!”

He gnashed his teeth and hoped the sound didn’t carry. He was tired of hearing that story. It had gone the rounds at work all week.

“You could put a rose on her desk …”

“If I did, it would be attached to a pink slip!” he snapped.

She gasped, hesitated and turned off the phone. It was the first time he’d ever snapped at her.

Rick groaned and dialed her number back. It rang and rang. “Come on. Please?” he spoke into the busy signal. “I’m sorry. Come on, let me apologize …”

“Yes?” Barbara answered stiffly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I really didn’t. I’ll come home for lunch tomorrow and eat corned beef and cabbage. I’ll even eat crow. Raw.” There was silence on the end of the line. “I’ll bring a rose?”

She laughed. “Okay, you’re forgiven.”

“I’m really sorry. Things have been hectic at work. But that’s no excuse for being rude to you.”

“No, it’s not. But I’m not mad.”

“You’re a nice mother.”

She laughed. “You’re a nice son. I love you. I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow.”

“Have a good night.”

“You have a careful one,” she said solemnly. “Even rude sons are hard to come by these days,” she added.

“I’ll change my ways. Honest. See you.”

“See you.”

He hung up and sighed heavily. He couldn’t imagine why he’d been so short with his own mother. Perhaps he needed a vacation. He only took time off when he was threatened. He loved his job. Being sergeant of an eight-detective squad in the Homicide Unit, in the Murder/Attempted Murder detail, was heady and satisfying. He assigned lead detectives to cases, reviewed cases to make sure everything necessary was done and kept up with what seemed like tons of paperwork, as well as reporting to the lieutenant on caseloads. But maybe a little time off would improve his temper. He’d talk to the lieutenant about it next week, he resolved. For now, he had work to do.

Gwen had been assigned as lead detective on the college student’s murder case downtown. It was an odd sort of case. The woman had been stabbed by person or persons unknown, in her own apartment, with all the doors locked and the windows shut. There were no signs of a struggle. She was a pretty young woman with no current boyfriend, no apparent enemies, who led a quiet life and didn’t party.

Gwen wanted very much to solve the case. She’d told Rick that Alice Fowler had found prints on a digital camera that featured an out-of-place man in the background. Gwen was checking that out. She was really working hard on the mystery.

But in the meantime, she’d been pressed into service to help Rick with a stakeout of a man wanted for shooting a police officer in a traffic stop. The officer lived, but he’d be in rehab for months. They had intel that the shooter was hiding out in a low class apartment building downtown with some help from an associate. But they couldn’t find him there. So Rick decided to stake out the place and try to catch him. The fact that it was a Friday night meant that the younger, single detectives were trying to find ways not to get involved. Even the night detectives had excuses, pending cases that they simply couldn’t spare time away from. So Rick ended up with Gwen and one young and eager patrol officer, Ted Sims, from the Patrol South Division who’d volunteered, hoping to find favor with Rick and maybe get a chance at climbing the ladder, and working as a detective one day.

They were set up in a ratty apartment downtown, observing a suspect across the alley in another run-down apartment building. They had all the lights off, a telescope, a video camera, listening devices, warrants to allow the listening devices, and as much black coffee as three detectives could drink in an evening. Which was quite a lot.

“I wish we had a pizza.” Officer Sims sighed.

Rick sighed, too. “So do I, but the smell would carry and the perp would know we were watching him.”

“Maybe we could put the pizza outside his door and he’d go nuts smelling it and rush out to grab it and we could grab him,” Sims mused.

“What do you have in that bottle besides water?” Gwen asked, with twinkling green eyes.

Sims made a face. “Just water, sadly. I could really use a cold beer.”

“Shut up,” Marquez groaned. “I’m dying for one.”

“We could ask Detective Cassaway to investigate the beer rack at the local convenience store and confiscate a six-pack for the crime scene investigation unit,” Sims joked. “Nobody would have to know. We could threaten the owner with health violations or something.”

Gwen gave him a cold look. “We don’t steal.”

Marquez gave him an even more vicious look. “Ever.”

He flushed. “Hey,” he said, holding up both hands, “I was just kidding!”

“I’m not laughing,” she returned, unblinking.

“Neither am I,” Marquez seconded. His face was hard with suppressed anger. “I don’t want to hear talk like that from a sworn police officer.”

“Sorry,” he said, swallowing hard. “Really. Bad joke. I didn’t mean I’d actually do it.”

Gwen shrugged. Sims was very young. “I’m missing that new science fiction show I got hooked on,” she groaned. “It’s making me twitchy.”

“I watch that one, too,” Rick replied. “It’s not bad.”

“You could record it,” Sims suggested. “Don’t you have a DVR?”

She shook her head. “I’m poor. I can’t afford one.”

Rick glared at her. “We work for one of the best-paying departments in the southwest,” he rattled off. “We have a benefits package, expense accounts, access to excellent vehicles …”

“I have a monthly rent bill, a monthly insurance bill, a car payment, utilities payments and I have to buy bullets for my gun,” she muttered. “Who can afford luxuries?” She glared at him. “I haven’t had a new suit in six months. This one looks like moths have nested in it already.”

Rick’s eyebrows arched up. “Surely, you’ve got more than one suit, Cassaway.”

“Two suits, twelve blouses, six pair of shoes and assorted … other things,” she said. “Mix and match and I’m sick of all of it. I want haute couture!”

“Good luck with that,” Rick remarked.

“Luck won’t do it.”

“Hey, is this the guy we’re looking for?” Sims asked suddenly, looking through the telescope.