A lone wolf takes on the threat endangering everything he loves in an unforgettable story in the sensational Long, Tall Texans series

Widowed Texas Ranger and single dad John Ruiz hardened his heart years ago. Day after day, he tracks the roughest criminals in the Lone Star State, leaving little room for love. So when John butts heads with the beautiful nurse who’s helping his young son, he’s floored by how quickly the sparks fly.

Ever since her mother’s and brother’s brutal murders, Sunny Marlowe has devoted her life to helping save others. Adorable Tonio Ruiz is just another youngster she’s trying to help—or so she tells herself. Little does she know he’s John’s son. When her life comes under fire, can one mysterious rancher rescue her?

The prolific author of more than one hundred books, DIANA PALMER got her start as a newspaper reporter. A New York Times bestselling author and voted 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.

Also available from DIANA PALMER

Long, Tall Texans

Fearless

Heartless

Dangerous

Merciless

Courageous

Protector

Invincible

Untamed

Defender

Undaunted

Wyoming Men

Wyoming Tough

Wyoming Fierce

Wyoming Bold

Wyoming Strong

Wyoming Rugged

Wyoming Brave

Wyoming Winter

The Morcai Battalion

The Morcai Battalion

The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit

The Morcai Battalion: Invictus

The Morcai Battalion: The Rescue

The Morcai Battalion: The Pursuit

For a complete list of titles available by Diana Palmer, please visit www.dianapalmer.com.

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Unbridled

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08341-6

UNBRIDLED

© 2018 Diana Palmer

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Margaret and her sister Carol, who take such

wonderful care of my two Amazon parrots.

Thanks for all the wonderful years of friendship.

Love you both.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

About the Publisher

ONE

It was two weeks until Christmas. Suna Wesley, whom her coworkers called Sunny, was standing by herself at the edge of the makeshift dance floor in the boardroom at the San Antonio Hal Marshall Memorial Children’s Hospital, watching as her colleagues in the hospital laughed and performed to the music on the loudspeakers. A disc jockey from a local radio station, related to one of the nurses, had been persuaded to provide commentary. There was plenty of punch and refreshments. Doctors and nurses, orderlies and dieticians, mingled around the buffet table. It was a holiday-themed party, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. One of the favorite staff doctors had taken a job back east, so it was mostly a going-away party.

Christmas decorations were draped around the room, marking the start of the holiday season. Holly and mistletoe and golden bells mingled with red bows. It made the holidays come to life in the red and green decor. But the whole holiday season was sad for Sunny. It brought back haunting memories of the season with her father and mother and little brother. Those days were long gone.

As she watched a nurse flirt with one of the interns, Sunny wished it was over. She’d been persuaded to stay after her shift and join in the fun. But it was the same as always. She was alone, because she was too shy to push herself into one of the many small groups and engage in conversation. She lived alone, stayed alone, was resigned to being alone for the rest of her life.

She pushed back her long, platinum blond hair and wished she were beautiful. Her hair was her one good quality. It was straight and pretty when she left it long, and it fell to her waist in back. She had big brown eyes that reflected her loneliness when she was alone and didn’t have to hide it from others.

It was sad that she had no partner. Her mother and father had loved to dance. Her father had taught her all the exotic Latin dances that at least three couples were mutilating on the dance floor. Her feet itched to try it. But she avoided men. It was useless to become involved with anyone, considering her limitations. No, better to stand all alone with a glass of punch that she hadn’t even touched and feel sorry for herself, decked out in a floral nurse’s tunic and droopy slacks, not a smidgeon of lipstick or powder on her soft features. Her brown eyes were dull with memories that hurt. Holidays were the worst...

“Hey, Ruiz, you going to show us how to do that samba?” somebody called to a tall man in a shepherd’s coat and wide-brimmed creamy felt hat with a feather decoration. It reminded Sunny that even in San Antonio, autumn was cold.

Her eyes went to the newcomer. Her heart skipped a beat just at the sight of him. He was gorgeous! Tall, olive-complexioned, elegant, with powerful long legs and a face that would have graced a magazine cover. He had a very masculine face, with a chiseled, sensuous mouth. Black eyes danced under a rakishly tilted cream-colored Stetson, white teeth flashed at the questioner.

“Hey, do I look like I got time to give you pilgrims dance lessons?” he called back in a deep voice just faintly accented. “I’m a working stiff!”

“Lies!” the physician called back. “Get over here and have some fun. You’re too serious!”

“If I wasn’t serious, you guys would have to pay people to let you operate on them,” he scoffed.

“One dance,” the physician dared. “Come on, you spineless coward!”

“Ah, now, that’s fighting words.” He chuckled, looking around for a victim. His eyes fell on Sunny’s long, beautiful hair and narrowed on her exquisite complexion.

No, she thought. Oh, no, no...!

While she was thinking it, he took her drink, put it on the table, caught her around the waist and riveted her to his tall, powerful body as he drew her onto the dance floor. He was very strong, and he looked taller in the shepherd’s coat he was wearing with jeans and boots. He even smelled nice.

“Hey, rubia,” he teased, using the Spanish word for a blonde female. “You dance with me, okay?”

“I...can’t...” she faltered and blushed.

“Not true. Everybody can dance. Some people just do it with more natural rhythm and grace than others!” He chuckled and pulled her closer as he made quick turns. He was incredible on the dance floor. But she was afraid of the effect he had on her, and it was a very public sort of dance. Everyone was looking at them and smiling, and she was painfully shy.

The contact was electric. She tingled all over from being so close to his long-legged, powerful body, so close and warm against her flowered top and pants, warming her body, making her feel things she’d never felt. She’d never been so close to a man in her adult life, and it shocked her, how much she liked it.

But she knew that she had no hope of sustaining a relationship with a man, and she was too honest to start something she couldn’t finish. The stranger appealed to her in every single way there was. She couldn’t afford to indulge this weakness. She froze, embarrassed at the physical ache that welled up in her so suddenly. She caught her breath, biting her lower lip. “Please,” she faltered, looking up at him with tragic dark brown eyes. “I don’t...dance well...” She tugged against his arms, frightened of sensations she’d never felt in her life as she was held far too close to a man she didn’t even know. She could barely force her eyes up to his handsome face as the contact made her stammer. He was the stuff of dreams, but not for a shy, innocent woman with too many secrets.

Something flashed in his black eyes, but the smile only faded a little. He let her go abruptly. “Forgive me,” he said softly, giving her a mock bow. “Obviously you prefer a paler dance partner, yes?”

He turned and walked off, throwing up a hand at the doctor. “Okay, I danced, now I’m going to work, you slacker!”

There was a gale of laughter, following him out the door.

Sunny went back to her place on the sidelines, embarrassed at being made conspicuous. She was even more embarrassed at the opinion he seemed to have formed, that she didn’t want to dance with him because he was Latino. She could have told him that was a misconception. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life, and when he’d put his arms around her, something inside her woke up and wept at the sense of loss she felt. Because she could never encourage a man, be intimate with a man. Not ever.

She drew in a long breath, ignored the glass of punch that he’d taken away from her and left it sitting on the table. She went toward the elevator, in a fog.

“You aren’t leaving already?” Merrie York exclaimed. “Sunny, the party is just starting!”

They worked together on the pediatric ward, on the night shift. Merrie was a wonderful nurse, patient and kind. She and her brother lived south of San Antonio on a huge ranch. They were absolutely loaded, but Stuart and Merrie both still worked.

“I have to go,” Sunny said, forcing a smile. “You know I’m no party animal, I’ll just put a damper on things.”

“You were dancing with Ruiz,” Merrie said with a wicked grin. “Isn’t he beautiful? You should have cut loose, girl. You can outdance anybody else here.”

“He’s so gorgeous,” she confessed. “It shocked me, a man like that wanting to dance with somebody as plain as me.”

Merrie grinned. “He is handsome, isn’t he? You wouldn’t believe the women who chase him. He just walks right by them. You should have kept dancing, Sunny,” she added.

“I don’t like dancing in front of people,” she faltered.

“I can’t remember the last time I saw Ruiz look twice at a woman, much less ask her to dance,” Merrie began.

“I feel terrible,” Sunny said huskily. “He thought I didn’t want to dance with him, because he was Hispanic. That wasn’t it at all. I didn’t believe someone like him, who could have had any woman in the room, would even want to dance with me. It...shocked me.”

“You undervalue yourself,” Merrie said softly. “You aren’t plain, Sunny. You’re unique, in so many ways.”

She smiled at the compliment. “Thanks.” She hesitated. “Merrie, that man I danced with...who is he?” Sunny asked helplessly, hungry for more information about the man who’d chosen her from a roomful of beautiful nurses to dance with.

“He’s... Oh, darn, I have to go, Motts is waving frantically. I promised him a dance, and he’s being stalked by Sylvia,” she said with mock horror. “She’s so nice. He’s afraid of her, so I’m his security blanket.”

“He’s afraid of her?” she asked, diverted.

“Sylvia wants to get married and have kids, and Motts wants to sample at least one woman of every name in the baby book,” Merrie said with a chuckle. “And no, he hasn’t sampled me. My brother would have him for lunch, and my sister-in-law would help put catsup on him.”

“You and your family,” Sunny laughed. “Your brother is really good-looking,” she added, because she’d seen Stuart York on rare occasions when he came to hospital functions with his wife, Ivy. Merrie and Stuart were rich beyond imagining, owning thousands of acres of ranch land in three states. They ran purebred cattle. Neither of them had to work for a living, but Merrie loved nursing and couldn’t contend with a life of leisure, any more than Stuart could sit at a desk.

Merrie looked very much like her only sibling; she had long, jet-black hair and pale, steely blue eyes. She didn’t really date anyone seriously, although she’d had a crush on a divorced doctor who’d just gone back to his wife. Like Sunny, Merrie didn’t really move with the times. She wasn’t into multiple relationships.

“My sister-in-law would totally agree, that my brother is gorgeous,” came the amused reply.

“Are they ever going to have kids?” Sunny wondered.

“I keep hoping. So far, they’re making the rounds of all the historic places on earth. I think they’re down to the last thousand now.” She grimaced as she glanced toward the refreshment table. “Got to run. Motts is turning purple. Don’t go,” she pleaded. “You stay too much by yourself.”

“I like my own company,” she said gently. “But thanks. See you. I’m off until Monday!”

“Lucky devil. I wish I was. Be careful going home.”

“I always am,” Sunny said, and shivered inwardly. She usually took cabs that she couldn’t afford, even though her apartment was only two blocks away. She was too afraid to walk through neighborhoods with gang activity. But sometimes money was really tight, and she had to make the perilous journey.

She’d lived in the neighborhood since she was thirteen. She’d shared it with her mother and little brother until the tragedy that left her alone. Now she hated the very sight of the gang that had taken over the once peaceful block of apartments, who were called Los Diablos Lobitos—the Little Devil Wolves. They ranged in age from early teens to early twenties and they terrified everyone, but especially Sunny. She had more reason than most to hate and fear them.

The cabdriver let her out at her front door. She paid him and he flashed her a smile as he drove off. She walked inside, unlocked her door and looked around her meager surroundings.

It was a ground-floor, one-bedroom apartment. No frills, no luxuries. There was a small stove that she used for cooking and a fridge that had some age on it but still functioned. Her twin bed had a bedspread that her mother had painstakingly crocheted, and of which Sunny was very fond. It was multicolored, beautiful. It brightened the dull room.

The back window bothered her, because it had a loose screen and she couldn’t lock it. She’d asked the maintenance man to fix it times without number, and he always promised. But somehow, he never seemed to get around to it. So far, nobody had tried to break in. Probably they knew she had nothing worth stealing.

She had a very small television that had been given to her, secondhand, by one of the other nurses. The apartment’s rent covered cable, so she had access to the local news and weather and a few programs that were free. She could never have afforded a package that offered prime movies and things. Not that she missed them. Her shift left her drained and ready for bed. She slept, if fitfully. She did have Wi-Fi, courtesy of the landlord, as well as all utilities. The apartments were occupied mostly by people in the services industry, predominantly medical personnel. Marcus Carrera might have been a mobster at one time, but he was a man with a huge heart. Sunny never failed to send him birthday cards and Christmas cards, always with thanks. He’d done a lot for her in the past. He was married to a very nice Jacobsville woman and they had a little son.

Lying in bed, in her soft white cotton gown, she thought about the gorgeous man who’d tugged her onto the dance floor at work. What had they called him, Ruiz? Was that his first name or last name, she wondered. Surely a man that handsome was married. He looked to be in his early thirties, another reason he was probably spoken for.

She wished she could have explained why she was nervous about dancing with him. She was sorry she’d given him the idea she didn’t like him because his skin was just a little darker than hers. She loved Latin men. Her favorite music was Latin, and she loved the dances her dad had taught her.

But she was shy around men she didn’t know. Sunny had only dated once in high school, and the date had been a disaster. She still shivered with misery, thinking about what had happened. The experience had taught her that it was better to be alone than to try her luck with a man. She knew that she was repulsive to them. Hadn’t her date told her so, graphically? It had been a painful experience. But perhaps it had been a good one. It taught her that she would be alone for the rest of her life, and that she must make the most of it.

She’d done her nurses’ training at the Hal Marshall Memorial Hospital, but when this new adjacent children’s hospital opened, she’d opted to apply there, along with a few nurses she already knew, like Merrie York. It was a wonderful place to work. People were friendly, even the administrator, and the rooms were like children’s rooms at home, stocked with toys and pictures on the wall and things that made the environment less traumatic for them while they recovered from illnesses and surgeries. Sunny loved her job. But she was lonely.

Several of her coworkers kept trying to set her up with men. She didn’t know what she was missing, one laughed, a girl who had two lovers. Sunny needed to get rid of her hang-ups and dive into the dating scene. Wasn’t she unhappy, going without sex?

Sunny had replied that she couldn’t very well miss something she’d never had, which caused the girl to give her a shocked, pitying look and get back to work. It wasn’t something she advertised, but the comment had disturbed her. She went to church, although fitfully. She only had a couple of Sundays off in a month. But she loved her congregation and was welcomed on the days she could participate in the services. Faith had carried her through many storms. She didn’t advertise that, though. It was better to never discuss religion or politics with strangers, her mother had once said. It was the best way in the world to start a fight. Sunny, who’d noticed some very hot arguments in the latest political climate, couldn’t help but agree.

* * *

She had an emergency a few days later. One of the children in her ward, a toddler, Bess, had been showing signs of abdominal distress. The little girl had suddenly started screaming, and Sunny had called for a doctor. The examination disclosed a blockage in the child’s colon, which led to immediate surgery.

It depressed Sunny, who’d become attached to Bess. She had bright yellow curls and big blue eyes, and Sunny spent a little more time with her than with the other children when she was on duty. Bess had only one parent, a mother who was working two jobs to support her four children. The father had just walked away from the big family he’d said he wanted, when he became involved with another woman. So Bess’s poor mother struggled just to feed them.

Bess had been in the hospital for a week already, confined for vague symptoms that didn’t seem to clear up and which had been difficult to diagnose until today. At least, after the surgery, the child would improve and could go home. It was a charity case, one of many the children’s hospital took on without argument. So many people still couldn’t afford even basic medical insurance, despite the government’s attempts to provide it to those most in need.

She worked her shift, making up reports, checking vitals, providing comfort and care to all her little patients. She was looking forward to seeing Bess out of surgery. She frowned as she looked at the clock. Surely the surgery was over by now? It had been several hours. She hadn’t noticed because she’d been so busy.

As she started to go off duty, she saw the surgeon who had performed the operation on Bess. She smiled as she asked him how the child was. The smile faded when she saw his expression. He looked devastated.

He explained, tight-lipped, that the child had gone into cardiac arrest during the surgery, and none of their efforts had been successful in bringing her back. They’d lost her due to an undiagnosed heart condition that nobody had even suspected she had.

He walked away, his expression betraying his sorrow. Surgeons sometimes went off by themselves for hours after they lost a patient, Sunny knew. They took it hard when they couldn’t save one.

Sunny gave her report to the next shift, tidied up her things and left the hospital in a daze. Bess was gone. Sweet little Bess, who’d always been smiling and happy. She fought tears. Nurses were taught not to get too close to their patients. It interfered with duty, one of the senior nurses had told her, because attachment led to grief when a patient was lost. But Sunny had never learned how to separate her heart from her job, and she mourned.

* * *

The apartment was lonely. It was her second Sunday off in two weeks, a lucky break, and she was off the next day as well. Nurses worked long shifts during a very long week before days off, but they were fulfilling ones. Usually. Not today.

She had plenty to do. There was laundry to sort, cabinets to clean out. She could vacuum. She could bake a pie. But none of those mundane tasks helped the hurt.

In the end, she did what she always did when she was depressed and unable to cope with life. She took a cab to the San Fernando Cathedral and went inside to light a candle for her late father, who had been Catholic.

She smiled sadly at the memory. He’d been driving a cattle truck for a rancher down near Jacobsville when a dog had run into the road and he’d swerved to avoid hitting it. The truck had overturned and killed him instantly.

Sunny and her mother, Sandra, and her little brother, Mark, had been devastated. Like now, it was the holiday season, which just amplified the loss as families gathered around Christmas trees to sing carols.

Her father, Ryan Wesley, had been a lifelong Catholic. Her mother had been a staunch Methodist. But the differences in faith hadn’t dulled the feeling her parents had for each other. It was truly a love match. They’d met in grammar school. They’d always known that they’d marry one day and have kids.

Sunny smiled at the memory. Her mother had loved to take out the family album and sit around the apartment with Sunny and Mark and tell them the stories that went with the wealth of photographs going back to Sandra’s own childhood, and Ryan’s. They’d been very close after the accident, so it had hurt terribly when Sunny lost her mother and brother in a tragedy that still had the power to bring tears to her eyes six years afterward.

She walked slowly to the front of the church and lit candles for all three of them. She looked up at the pulpit. She’d come with her father to Mass from time to time, just as she attended services with her mother at the local Methodist church. It had been faith that kept her going when she was ready to throw up her hands and just sit and give up. She truly believed that everything had a purpose, even tragedies that seemed without one.

She stood in front of the candles. She’d left her hair loose, since she wasn’t at work. It flowed down her back in a thick, pale curtain around the black dress and coat she was wearing off duty. Most women wore pantsuits when they attended services, but Sunny had stayed with her grandmother after school every day when Ryan and Sandra were working. After Mark came along, he stayed with her as well. Their grandmother had always worn dresses to church and funeral homes, and she instilled that custom in Sunny from childhood.

It had been a blow when the old lady fell suddenly to the floor with a stroke and nothing known to medical science could save her. She’d died in the Hal Marshall Medical Center, in fact, next door to the children’s hospital with the same name where Sunny worked. The woman had been a fixture in San Antonio society, the widow of one of the city’s best loved police officers who’d died on the job. Her funeral had been attended by dozens of people, and the flowers had covered the area around the pulpit. It had made her family proud, to see how much people loved and respected her.

In fact, Sunny’s family had been some of the first settlers in south Texas, immigrating from Georgia in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Wesleys were a founding family.

All those thoughts buzzed in her mind, all those memories tugged at her heart, while she watched the candles burn bright in the darkness of the great cathedral, the oldest in the city. It was founded in 1731 by Canary Islanders, although construction of the great edifice only began in 1749. It had an amazing history.

She heard the heavy front door open, but she didn’t turn. Many people who weren’t even Catholic came to light candles in memory of lost loved ones. It was rare for anyone to be alone for long in the church.

She heard a deep, melodic voice calling to a priest, and deep laughter following as the men conversed. Sunny couldn’t hear what they were talking about. Her mind was drifting into the past, into happier days, happier times, when the holidays had meant shopping for a special Christmas tree and cooking cakes and pies and turkey in the little house outside the city where her family had lived before her father’s death.

She said a silent prayer as she stood at the altar, her brown eyes sad and quiet.

Footsteps sounded just behind her, echoing in the cavernous depths of the church. She knew the sound of footwear. Those were boots. She smiled to herself. A cowboy, probably, stopping to light a candle for someone...

“A strange place to find you, rubia,” came a familiar laughing voice. It was oddly soft, almost affectionate.

She turned and looked up, her breath catching. It was the man in the shepherd’s coat, the gorgeous man who’d taken her onto the dance floor at the Christmas party.

“Oh,” she stammered, flushing. “Hello.”

He studied her for a moment before he replied. “Hello.” He glanced at the candles. “I come here every Christmas season to light them, for my people,” he said quietly. “You, too?”

She turned her attention back to the candles, nodding. “Yes. My mother and father. And my little brother,” she said softly.

He scowled. “All of them?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “My whole family.” She forced a smile. “My father went here all his life. My mother was Methodist. They were both stubborn, so I went to services at both places when I was little. I learned the Mass in Spanish, because that’s how la Santa Misa is said here.”

“My father brought me here when I was a boy, too,” he replied. He didn’t add that he’d once brought his own son, Antonio, who was eleven. But now, the boy didn’t want any part of religion. He wasn’t keen on his father, either. Since the death of Ruiz’s wife, three years ago, the relationship between him and his son was difficult, to say the least.

“It wasn’t because you’re, well, because you’re Latin,” she stammered. “The dance, I mean. I...I...”

He looked down at her with an oddly affectionate expression. “I know. It was because you didn’t think such a gorgeous man would want to dance with somebody like you, is what you told one of the nurses,” he said outrageously.

Her face went scarlet. She turned, her only thought to escape, but he was in front of her, towering over her.

“No, don’t run away,” he said softly. “I’m not embarrassed, so why should you be?”

She looked up, her eyes wide and turbulent.

“And there’s nothing wrong with you,” he added in a deep, tender tone.

She bit her lip. “The room was full of pretty women...”

“They all look alike to me,” he said, suddenly serious. “Young men look at what’s on the outside. I look deeper.”

She could smell the cologne he wore. It was as attractive as he was. She kept her eyes down, nervous and uncertain.

“You work at a children’s hospital,” he said, by way of explanation.

“Yes. The night shift, on the pediatric ward.”

“That’s why I haven’t seen you before,” he mused. “I spend most of my time at the hospital in the emergency room, either there or at the general hospital next door.” His face hardened. “We see a lot of children injured by gangs and parents.”

That brought her eyes up, wide and questioning on his handsome face. “Gangs?” she blurted out.

He pursed his sensual lips and pulled back the shepherd’s coat over his broad chest to reveal a silver star.

“Oh,” she stammered. “You’re a Texas Ranger!”

“For six years,” he said, smiling. “Didn’t you notice the gun, when we danced?” he teased, nodding toward the .45 automatic in a holster on his wide, hand-tooled belt.

“Well, no,” she said. She was lost in his black eyes. They shimmered like onyx in the light of the candles.

“Who are you?” he asked gently.

“I’m Suna,” she said. “Suna Wesley. But I’m called Sunny.”

He smiled slowly. “Sunny. It suits you.”

She laughed self-consciously. “You’re Ruiz,” she said, recalling what one of the physicians had called him.

He nodded. “John Ruiz,” he said.

She studied his face, seeing the lines and hardness of it. It was a face that smiled through adversity. It had character as much as male beauty. “Your job must be hard sometimes.”

“Like yours,” he agreed. “You lost a patient on your ward yesterday.”

She fought tears. She managed to nod.

“I have a cousin who works in the hospital,” he said, not adding that his son spent a lot of afternoons after school in the cafeteria until his cousin-by-marriage got off work and could drive him down to Ruiz’s ranch in Jacobsville. The cousin, Rosa, lived in a boarding house in nearby Comanche Wells. She, like John, commuted to San Antonio to work. “She said that the whole nursing staff was in mourning. It’s sad to lose a child.”

She twisted her purse in her hands. “We’re supposed to stand apart from emotion on the job,” she said.

“Yeah. Me, too. But you get involved, when people are grieving. I’ve got a widow right now who’s hoping for an arrest in her case. Some wild-eyed fool shot her husband outside a convenience store for ten dollars and change. She’s got two little boys.” His face was grim. “I’ll find the man who did it,” he added quietly, his black eyes flashing. “And he’ll go up for a long time.”

“I hope you catch him.”

“Didn’t you hear?” he asked, his mood lightening. “We always get our man.”

She frowned. “I thought that was the Canadian Mounties.”

He shrugged. “We’re all on the same side of the law,” he said, his black eyes twinkling. “So we can borrow catchphrases from them.”

She laughed softly. “I guess so.”

There was a loud buzz. He grimaced and pulled his cell phone out of a leather holder on his belt. He noted the caller and answered it. “Ruiz,” he said, suddenly all business. “Yeah. When? Right now? Give me five minutes.” He paused and laughed. “I’ll make sure I hit all the lights green. No more tickets. Honest. Sure.” He hung up. “A new case. I gotta go. See you, rubia.”

She smiled shyly. Her heart felt lighter than air. “See you.”

He cocked his head. “Go home and find something to watch on TV. There’s a rerun of Scrooged,” he added, referring to a Bill Murray movie that had become something of a cult classic around the holidays.

She laughed. “I think I have it memorized already.”

“Me, too. It’s a great film.”

“Yes, it is.”

He searched her eyes slowly, watching her flush. She acted like a green girl. Why hadn’t he noticed that at the party? She was shy. It made him feel oddly protective. She drew him, when he hadn’t paid attention to women in years, not since he’d lost Maria. He wondered what it was about her that made him feel hungry. She wasn’t beautiful. She was small breasted and tall, almost elegant. But that hair, that gorgeous, beautiful, sexy hair, made her far more attractive than she realized.

“Well, see you,” he said, and forced himself to smile and walk away.

Before she could reply, he was headed out the door onto the street.

* * *

She thought about him when she got home and turned on the television. What a strange coincidence, running into him in a church unexpectedly. Someone had told him what she said about him. She flushed and then laughed, self-consciously. It had been a little embarrassing, but he was so uninhibited. It hadn’t bothered him at all. She ground her teeth at the memory of how he’d taken her shy withdrawal. It was probably just as well that he knew the truth, even if it made her squirm. She’d found him devastating. And she didn’t prefer men with a paler complexion, she mused. He was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Was he married? She wanted to know more about him. But if she started asking questions, it would get back to him, just as her embarrassing disclosure had. Maybe someone who knew him would talk about him and she could eavesdrop. Or maybe, she thought, and her heart raced, she might see him again.

That possibility made her warm all over. He was strong and handsome and he made her feel things she’d never felt.

She hoped that he wasn’t married. But as she thought it, she withdrew mentally from any hope of romance. She couldn’t tell him why she spent her life alone, why she discouraged men from even asking her out.

She couldn’t tell him that she wasn’t what she seemed to be at all. The humiliation would be too much to bear.

No. Better to be alone than to have him back away from her. She could never tell him the truth. It broke her heart to realize that the attraction she felt had no future. She didn’t dare get involved with anyone.

She got ready for bed and thought again of little Bess and the tragedy that had sent her to the cathedral for comfort. Poor Bess. Her poor mother. Tears trailed down her cheeks as she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

TWO

“What have we got?” John asked the San Antonio policeman he knew who’d phoned him for assistance. John was a specialist in gang warfare.

“A mess,” the patrolman sighed as he indicated the body of a boy. “Looks like it might be the beginning of a gang war.”

John went down on one knee beside the body and narrowed his eyes. He noted the tattoos on both arms and the neck of the dead male, who’d been shot neatly through the chest, twice.

“Tats,” he murmured, noting the cobra’s head on both arms and a small one on his neck.

“Yes. And you know who those belong to,” the officer said with a resigned sigh.

“Los Serpientes.” John nodded, his black eyes flashing. “They’re recruiting them younger and younger. This kid looks no older than twelve. Maybe thirteen.” It set him off, because his own son, Tonio, was eleven, not much younger than the victim.

John’s keen eyes noted a small chalk drawing just at the top of the boy’s head, on the pavement. It was a wolf’s head.

“Los Diablos Lobitos,” he murmured. “A warning to the rival gang not to trespass.” He looked up. “Los Lobitos are trying to take over Los Serpientes’ territory.” He knew that Los Lobitos operated in the alternative school where Tonio was a student, near the hospital where his cousin worked.

“They’re getting bolder. Going against Los Serpientes with a vengeance. This is simple retribution, warning Los Serpientes to back off from the territory, I’d bet my badge on it. They’re making an example of this kid to show that they mean business.” He looked at John. “This is not going to end well, if we wind up with a gang war.”

“Tell me about it.” John’s keen eyes were scanning the body for anything out of place, for any clue that might indicate the assailant. “He isn’t wearing a coat. Not even a hoodie.”

“I noticed that.” The officer stood up. “It’s damned cold out here. I’d say he couldn’t afford a coat, but he’s wearing about a thousand dollars’ worth of gold. Maybe a coat wasn’t a priority.”

He was, indeed, wearing his wealth, in the form of rings and a watch and layers of thick gold chains around his neck. The pattern was recognizable, and they were eighteen-karat gold. Some were twenty-four karat. Very expensive. John didn’t mention that to the officer. He wasn’t comfortable telling anyone how he could recognize high-ticket items. He kept his private life quiet.

“Los Diablos Lobitos,” John muttered. “Little wolf devils. They are, too. This is just their latest victim. Your department nabbed one of them last month for the rape and murder of an eighty-year-old woman.” His face mirrored his distaste. “An initiation. The would-be gang member responsible will do time. A lot of time.”

“He sure will. He took the woman out of her own home and transported her to a deserted parking lot. That’s kidnapping. Federal charges. And they tried him as an adult, because of the nature of the crime.”

“I have to confess that I was glad the feds took over the case. I understand that Senior FBI Agent Jon Blackhawk taught the crime unit guys some brand-new words when he saw the victim.”

“His mother is elderly,” John replied. “The crime would have outraged him on that basis alone.”

“The crime unit should have already been here,” the officer remarked, looking around. He looked down at the body again. “I hate having to leave DBs out here like this,” he added. “It seems vaguely indecent.”

“But if we cover them up before the crime unit does its job, we contaminate the crime scene. And then some brilliant defense attorney puts us through a sausage grinder on the stand and saves his poor, sad client from the criminal justice system.”

The officer made a sound deep in his throat. “If you ask me, it’s the honest citizens who need saving from the poor, oppressed criminals.”

“Shhh,” John said with twinkling eyes. “The thought police will come and arrest you for hate speech.”

That brought a smile from the younger man. “I hate political correctness.”

“I do, as well, but we can’t turn back time. We have to live in the society that’s being warped around us.” He shook his head. “I asked my son how he liked studying about the second world war in his history section. His teacher’s course of study was so broad that he couldn’t name me a single individual European general who commanded an army.”

“Santayana said that those who don’t study history and learn the lessons it teaches will be condemned to repeat it,” the officer said quietly, loosely quoting a philosopher from the past.

“And those of us who only serve will suffer right along with the people who make the big decisions,” John chuckled. “But by then, we may be hit by a giant asteroid or a comet or an EMP, or a coronal mass ejection...”

“Stop!” the officer groaned. “I get enough anxiety just watching the national news.”

“I stopped years ago,” John confessed. “I get so much stress on the job that I couldn’t handle any more. It helps to remember that the news is news because what they report is the exception, not the rule. Dog bites man, who cares. But man bites dog, then you have a story.”

“I see what you mean.”

“And there they are,” John remarked, standing to watch a white van pull up in the parking lot beside them.

A tall brunette with short hair and blue eyes gave them a wry look. “And here we are again, Ruiz,” Alice Mayfield Jones Fowler teased. “We were just together last week on another homicide. We really have to stop meeting like this. My husband thinks I have a secret yen for you.”

“You tell gang members to stop killing other gang members in my jurisdiction, and I’ll be happy to wave you goodbye,” John chuckled.

“That’s never going to happen.” She slipped on latex gloves and put booties over her shoes. She went to kneel by the victim.

“How long dead?” John asked.

She was examining his eyelids, neck and jaw, as she listened. “Rigor’s just now setting in. I can’t give you an exact time, you know that. But rigor usually presents two to six hours after death, first in the areas I’m checking.” She looked up at them with pursed lips. “As many autopsies as you Texas Rangers have attended, Ruiz, I expect you already knew that.”

John gave her a Latin shrug and a smile.

“An approximate time of death will help us retrace his steps,” the officer interjected.

“Double tap,” she noted after inspecting the wounds, both of which had penetrated the boy’s heart. “Execution?” she asked, looking up at the men.

“That would be my call,” John replied. “He made someone very angry, apparently. Note the tats as well.”

“Los Serpientes,” she muttered, grimacing. “And unless my eyes are going, that little wolf’s head in chalk means that the little devil wolves are responsible for the DB. If there’s a hell on earth, that gang of teenage imbeciles created it.”

“They’re trying to take over some gang territory that’s owned by Los Serpientes,” John noted. “And I’ll tell you frankly that Los Serpientes is a better class of gang. They operate mostly in Houston. They don’t require initiates to shoot people and they actually do some good in low-rent areas where crime is rampant. They never hurt children or old people. And they go after people who do.”

“A gang is a gang, Ruiz,” she said heavily. “Why do we still have gangs in the twenty-first century?”

“I was going to ask you that,” he chuckled. “I don’t know. I guess we’ve got Mom and Dad both working to keep the bills paid, or just Mom or Dad trying to support several children. The kids get left in daycare or on their own too much. Gangs offer lonely kids a family and emotional support and affection... Things they sometimes lack at home. It gets them a lot of traffic.”

“If I ever have kids, they’ll never have time to join a gang,” she murmured as she worked bagging the victim’s hands. “We have a ranch. It’s small by Texas standards, but it’s a ranch. We never run out of work. Of course, it’s not as big as Cy Parks’s spread, or yours.”

“You and Harley have a nice ranch,” John said, and smiled. “I buy stock from your husband’s boss. Cy Parks has some of the finest young Santa Gertrudis bulls in Texas.”

“I keep forgetting that your ranch is outside Jacobsville.” She made a face. “Not that we’ll ever be any threat to you. My gosh, your place is almost as big as Jason Pendleton’s ranch!”

“Ah, but he built his from the ground up. Mine is an old Spanish land grant,” he replied, making light of it. “I inherited it from my grandfather. All I had to do was let his people do their jobs. I’m still doing that, while I work at my own.”

“Cattle baron,” she teased.

He chuckled. “Hardly that. A cattle ranch is a money pit.”

“Tell me about it.” She stood up. “After the floods this year brought on by that stupid hurricane, half the ranchers in south Texas had to buy hay to feed their herds.”

“Most of them. But I’m totally organic, like Parks and J.D. Langley and Jason Pendleton. We never use pesticides or packaged fertilizer, and that helped us recuperate faster than ranchers who do,” John replied.

“Not you, too,” she groaned. “Honestly, even my own husband is starting to go the organic route. I can’t even use spray on my roses to keep bugs from eating them!”

“Research prey species that feed on your bugs,” he said with a grin.

She shook her head. “I guess I’ll have to.” She sighed. “The worst of the hurricane was the displaced people, though,” she added softly. “It broke my heart, to see so many homeless.”

“Mine, as well,” he agreed. “We’ve got several families in Jacobsville, living with relatives. It’s so small that we can hardly house our own population,” he chuckled. “But we managed to secure housing for an elderly couple from Houston.”

“Cy Parks had an empty cabin on his place. He’s letting a big family from the coast live in it, and they’re working for him.” She laughed. “He says they’re not sure they want to go home. There are six kids, and they all love working on the ranch around the animals.”

“I hate cities,” John said. “Well, I like San Antonio,” he amended. “But, then, I don’t live here. I live in Jacobs County.”

“How’s your boy?” she asked.

His face hardened. “Not so good. He hates going to school up here.”

“Why doesn’t he go to school in Jacobsville?” she asked.

“We had a few problems there,” he said, and turned his attention back to the body. He didn’t add that he had to pay a fee for Tonio to go to school near the hospital where his cousin worked. It was a special school, San Felipe Academy, one for boys who were disciplinary problems.

Sadly, Tonio had discovered Los Diablos Lobitos in San Antonio just a few weeks after the change of schools and joined them before John found him. That had been a year ago, after John brought a woman home for dinner. It was the first time he’d even dated since the death of his wife. It was a colleague from work, not a romantic interest, just a woman he liked who was very attractive. But Tonio had hated her on sight. He’d gone crazy. He’d run away from home the very next day, while he was in the canteen at the children’s hospital in San Antonio, where he waited every afternoon for John’s cousin to get off work to take him home. Unknown to John, Tonio had met some member of the gang around town, who befriended him when he ran away. He ended up staying with the boy, who lived with his prostitute sister. The boy was in the gang and he’d introduced him to Rado, who led the wolves. Rado had welcomed Tonio like a long-lost relative.

John had tracked him down through the same boy who was Tonio’s friend at San Felipe. Tonio had said that the boy knew the leader of the gang, though, not that he was a member of it. It had been hard work getting Tonio to go home with him. He’d had to promise that he wouldn’t bring any more women home. John was willing to go that far, to ensure his son’s safety. He felt guilty enough already, because his job ate up every waking minute of his time. There was little left for his only child.

* * *

But it had been before that when the trouble had started. Tonio had already gotten himself expelled from Jacobsville Middle School by punching a teacher. Since it was the only middle school in the small county, and the principal had recommended expulsion at the hearing shortly thereafter, John had no choice but to enroll him in San Antonio. And because of Tonio’s issues, it needed to be an alternative school. It had the other advantage that if there were problems, either John or his cousin Rosa was nearby during the day.

The principal at San Felipe also kept an eye on Tonio, as did the school police officer, who was a former colleague of John’s. Sadly, neither of them knew about David Lopez’s Los Diablos Lobitos connection, or his sister’s. David was the only real friend Tonio had besides Jake. But Tonio rarely saw Jake these days. San Felipe was a religious school, but it offered an excellent academic program as well as a soaring soccer program with a winning team. Tonio loved soccer. But he refused to play, because his father had suggested it. Anything John mentioned to his rebellious son was instantly shot down.

So far, there had been no real issues at San Felipe, except Tonio’s bad attitude and lack of respect for authority figures. Not that he learned that at home. He had discipline as well as love, but he was completely out of hand. Apparently having his father even attempt to date a woman was enough to turn him wild.

It was so worrying that John had him in the care of a psychologist. But half the time Tonio would sit in the man’s office and refuse to speak for an hour. It was rough.

“I said, are you coming to the autopsy?” Alice asked.

“What? Sorry,” he apologized. “My mind drifted off to Tahiti for a brief vacation.” He smiled. “Sure. When?”

“I’ll have them call your office.”

“I hate autopsies,” he said, staring down at the boy. “Especially on children.”

“No more than we do, at the crime unit,” Alice agreed. “I wish kids would stop killing kids.”

“I wish parents were less distracted by work and the world, and had time to be with their kids more.” John sighed.

“I take mine camping and fishing and to church every Sunday,” the police officer said with a smile. “So far, we’re doing okay.”

John nodded. “That’s how it’s done. I used to take my boy fishing, but he lost his taste for it when his mother died.”

“That’s sad.”

“She was a good woman,” John replied. “We started dating in high school.” He sighed. “Well, I’ll get back to work. Let me know, about the autopsy.”

“Sure thing,” Alice said, as she motioned to a colleague to help her put the corpse into a body bag and get it into the van for transport to the crime lab.

* * *

John was depressed for the rest of the day. There would almost certainly be a reprisal from Los Serpientes for the slaying of their young gang member. It would be expected. Kids killing kids. Anyone would be depressed.

It was after dark when he drove down to Jacobsville. The demands of his job kept him away from the ranch a good deal of the time. He had days off, which he tried to spend with Tonio. But his son refused any offers of shared pastimes, staying shut up in his room playing video games. The only good thing about the games were their value in discipline. When Tonio stepped badly out of line, he lost his gaming privileges for a week. He also lost the privilege to visit Jake, his only local friend in Comanche Wells—because Jake had every video game known to man. Not that Tonio saw much of Jake anymore.

John walked in the door, savoring the smell of chicken à l’orange and roasted potatoes. His housekeeper, Adele, was married to his foreman, and she was a mistress of gourmet cooking.

“My favorite,” he exclaimed, grinning as he hung up his shepherd’s coat and hat and walked into the dining room.

“I didn’t know!” Adele said with mock surprise.

“Where’s Tonio?”

She made a face and indicated the hallway that led back to the bedrooms, one of which was Tonio’s. The house was huge. It had four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen, indoor swimming pool, recreation room and even a set of rooms that were designated for servants in the early days of the twentieth century. San Benito Ranch was over three hundred years old. The present structure had been largely remodeled in the 1990s, while John’s grandfather was still alive. The old gentleman had raised him after the death of his parents in Argentina, where the family raised thoroughbred racehorses. John had lived there until his tenth birthday. After the tragedy, his grandfather assumed responsibility for him and had him brought to America.

Very few people knew about the great wealth that the Ruiz family had in Argentina, about the yacht that sailed the Atlantic or the incredible herds of cattle that dotted pastures and were overseen by gauchos in the pampas on the sprawling family ranch. A cousin was responsible for the day-to-day operation of it, but it belonged by right of inheritance to John. He and the cousin were best friends, and John had given him a large share in the property—more wealth than the older man would have imagined only years before. It was to the cousin’s credit that he wasn’t greedy. He loved his cousin John and the feeling was mutual.

Tonio wasn’t privy to that information, about the wealth of the Ruiz family. John had decided just after his birth to keep his family background secret. He didn’t want his son to grow up with a distorted sense of values, least of all in a small community where most people with his Hispanic background had far less. John wanted him to grow up valuing all people, having less respect for things than for other human beings.

So far, it had worked well. Tonio, while rebellious, had friends who were mostly below the national average in financial wealth. That was when he was in school in Jacobsville, the county seat of Jacobs County. As Tonio’s behavioral problems in school had accelerated, his list of friends dwindled to just Jake. It disturbed John to see the ongoing deterioration of his son’s attitude. He knew that his job was part of the problem; it required him to be away from home often in the course of his duties. But he loved the work he did. He felt that it contributed to the protection of the community he loved. The life of a rich ranchero had never appealed to him. He left the yacht and the aristocracy to his cousin, who loved it. John devoted his time to being a Texas Ranger.

He tapped on Tonio’s door and opened it. The boy was sitting in front of a wide-screen TV with a gaming controller in his hands. There was a battle going on, in his favorite game, Destiny 2.

“Supper,” John said curtly.

“Aw, Dad, I’m in the middle of a—”

“Damn, Tony, watch what the hell you’re doing! You let that bast—”

“Hey!” John said shortly.

There was a sharp pause. Tonio looked at his parent with flushed cheeks. There was a small voice coming from the television. “Hey, Tony, I think I better go now. See you!”

There was a click. Tonio grimaced and turned off the game.

“Who the hell was that other boy?” John demanded, black eyes flashing.

Tonio swallowed. He could cross tongues with the meanest of other students, even teachers, but he quailed in the sight of his father’s muffled fury. “Uh, that was, that was David,” he began.

“Who’s David?” came the softer, more dangerous question.

Tonio got up. “You said supper?” he asked, trying to soothe his father.

It didn’t work. “I said, who’s David.”

Tonio grimaced. “Okay. He’s a guy from school. We play online together. He’s in my clan.”

“Your what?”

“We have clans in Destiny,” Tonio explained. “It’s like guilds in other games. Groups of us play together.”

“You still haven’t answered the question.”

“He’s in eighth grade,” he said finally. That was two grades above Tonio. “He plays Destiny with me, and we talk back and forth.”

John’s eyes narrowed. “I cuss. You don’t,” he said. “And I don’t want you around kids who do.”

Tonio laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“I’m in an alternative school, Dad,” the boy said. “Not exactly church, is it?”

“You’re in alternative school because you attacked a teacher at Jacobsville Middle School,” came the sharp reply. “And you’re lucky Sheriff Hayes Carson didn’t arrest you. The teacher saved your neck, even though you were expelled.”

“He pushed me,” Tonio said, repeating what he’d told his father before, but he kept his head down when he said it.

“We’ve been through this before,” John said quietly. “He was trying to get you away from the other boy, who was hitting you. You thought the teacher was attacking you, so you punched him in the stomach. That’s assault,” he added curtly.

“Then why didn’t they arrest Teddy? He was hitting me!”

“Doesn’t work the same way between students as between students and teachers,” he replied. “The world is changing. You have to change with it.”

Tonio bit his lower lip. “I don’t like the new school.”

“So? You didn’t like the old one, either.”

“Jake goes to school in Jacobsville,” he said. “I only have David in San Antonio.”

David. The boy who cursed like a sailor. For not the first time, John worried that he’d made a mistake taking his son to San Antonio for his education. But he hadn’t had a great deal of choice.

“That fancy chicken again.” Tonio sighed, making a face as he and his father sat down at the table.

“It’s elegant chicken,” Adele chided, “and you like it.”

He made the face at her, too, but he smiled. He loved Adele. “I’ll eat it. Go ahead. Use me for a guinea pig for all your recipes.”

“I will.” She dropped a kiss on his head and finished serving the meal. She pulled off her apron. “Leave the dishes, I’ll be back when I feed my brood!”

John chuckled. “Thanks, Adele.”

“No problem.”

* * *

“I miss Mama,” Tonio said suddenly.

“Yeah. Me, too,” John replied tersely.

Tonio’s cell phone rang. They could both hear it coming from his room.

“Leave it,” John said. “No electronic devices at the table.” That had been the psychologist’s advice. It did seem to be working, a bit. At least the two talked, although not much.

“How was school?” John asked.

Tonio grimaced as he picked at his food. “Older kids just love to torment us.”

“That’s life. Get used to it. There’s a pecking order everywhere you go. I have a lieutenant who tells me what to do, he has a captain who tells him what to do. That’s life,” he repeated.

“David’s sister went to the school and raised...she raised the devil,” Tonio said, “when an older kid picked on him.”

“I don’t interfere unless I have to,” he was reminded. “Listen, son, you won’t learn to stand on your own two feet if I fight all your battles for you.”

“Sure.” His dad never fought any. The first time he’d even been to Tonio’s school in Jacobsville was after the fight. Other kids had both parents, and they took an interest in what their children were doing. Tonio’s parent was rarely even home. His job took up almost all his time. Tonio got what little was left. At least at the supper table they could exchange one or two sentences. Not that it would last long. He sighed. Any minute now...

Sure enough, the pager on John’s belt buzzed. He pulled it out and looked at it. He didn’t even glance at his son as he went to retrieve his cell phone from the pocket of his shepherd’s coat. He punched in a number.

“Ruiz,” he said.

“It’s Alice. Autopsy’s in an hour. You coming?”

“I’ll be right there.”

He hung up and swung on his coat. “I have to go back to the city. I’ll be late. Finish your supper, do your homework and get to bed early. Adele will make sure you do.”

“Okay.”

John swung on his coat, grabbed his keys from the holder beside the front door and went out to climb into the black SUV he drove to work.

Tonio sat at the table all alone, thinking about how miserable his life had become. His father hardly noticed him, except when he was acting out. He had only one friend in the world, and now Jake was involved in soccer at his school in Jacobsville, as well as being an active member of the school’s agriculture club, and he hardly ever had time for Tonio after school or on weekends.

That left David. His father didn’t know who David really was. He didn’t realize that Tonio’s new friend was actually the same boy who’d helped him run away from home last year. David was a member of Los Diablos Lobitos. He and his brother, Harry, had lived with their grown sister, Tina, who was a call girl. The older brother had been killed three years earlier. There were rumors that Rado Sanchez had done it.

Tonio was afraid of Rado. But Tina always looked so nice, and she smelled sweet. She’d been kind to Tonio the two days he’d lived with them. She’d teased him and picked at him and ruffled his hair. He liked her a lot. He knew what she did for a living. David said she hated it, but Rado made her. He said Rado was always around. Tina got along with him. Probably because she did what he told her to. She loved her little brother. David never talked about the brother who’d died. Not ever.

Tonio’s father almost never talked to him. He hardly ever touched him. He was never here. Tonio was growing up all alone. He had no brothers or sisters and he didn’t want a substitute mother. That was the problem. Ever since he’d objected so violently to his father’s woman friend, there had been a wall between them.

John said that life went on, that you lost people but you couldn’t climb into the grave with them. John had loved little Maria, his wife. But it had never been the sort of passionate love they showed in movies. It had been more a relationship between good friends.

Tonio had loved his mother, so much. She’d been his anchor. She was always making things for him, hugging him, telling him how much she loved him, making him feel part of her life. She’d worked in the emergency room of one of the other hospitals in San Antonio, not the one where Rosa was a clerk. Maria had once told Tonio that she felt she did a worthwhile job, a noble thing, helping to save lives. It made her feel good inside. His cousin Rosa, his mother’s first cousin, worked at the Hal Marshall Memorial Children’s Hospital as a clerk. He liked Rosa, but she was in her late twenties, unmarried, and she didn’t know a lot about kids. She worked in the office, not as a nurse. She’d been a policewoman before she changed jobs. She liked Tonio. But it wasn’t the same as when his mother had been alive. Rosa was tough. Well, people in law enforcement usually were. His dad was a prime example.

He poked at the potato dish that went with the chicken, but he barely tasted it. There was a cake on the table, in a plastic carrier. He never touched sweets. His father liked them occasionally, but neither of them cared much for dessert. Just as well. This cake was one Adele had baked for the family of a person who’d just died. She was always doing things for other people. Like Tonio’s mother had.

He got up from the table and went into the living room. There was a painting of his mother on the wall, one his father had commissioned when Tonio was just a year old. His mother had been lovely. She had long, thick black hair and a sweet, pretty face with big black eyes and thick eyelashes and a light olive complexion. Her hands, in the painting, were as they’d been in life, long-fingered and elegant, with pink nails. She was smiling, the way she always smiled in life. In her lap was a small boy with touseled brown hair and big brown eyes, looking toward the artist. The subjects were so realistic that they could have walked out of the painting.

It had cost a lot of money. His father never spoke of finances, but there were checks now and then from Argentina. There were letters from someone who lived there. And once, Tonio had seen a website that his father visited in Argentina, which showed a ranch with thoroughbred horses, many at stud or for sale.

Tonio had asked why his father was looking at a ranch that specialized in racehorses. John had just shrugged and said he chanced upon it during a search and was curious about the name of the horse ranch, because it was Ruiz, like his own name. Not that he was interested in buying any fancy horses, he’d added. The quarter horses they had on the ranch were quite good enough for him.

The answer had satisfied Tonio, who never could keep his mind on anything for very long. That psychologist he went to see said he had attention deficit disorder. Tonio had drifted off into daydreams while the man droned on, explaining the problem to him. He imagined that his father had also drifted off, listening to the long-winded explanation, because they’d never discussed it again. Tonio wondered if his father had been affronted because the problem might be inherited from him. His dad was touchy about such things.

His dad’s profession had caused him some issues in Jacobsville. The older kids had made fun of Tonio because his dad was a Texas Ranger. A few sharp words from one of the teachers had stopped some of it, but teachers couldn’t be everywhere. The student he’d gotten in the fight with had said that all cops were crooked and since Tonio’s dad was a Latino, he was probably even more crooked than the rest. Tonio’s blood had boiled. He wasn’t ashamed of his blood, and he didn’t like hate speech, so he’d plowed into the other student.

He’d tried to explain the insult to his father, but there had been a phone call, another crime scene that his dad had to go to. It seemed that any time he tried to tell his father anything important, to talk to him, that cell phone was always in the way. He couldn’t even have one uninterrupted meal with his only remaining parent.

Adele came back. He said the food was good, when she groaned at the lack of empty plates, but his dad had to leave and he’d eaten too much at lunch. He went back into his room and picked up the game controller. As an afterthought, he called David back on Skype.

“Hey, man, watch your language when you hear my dad come in, okay?” Tonio asked. “He’s a Texas Ranger.”

“Yeah. I know,” came the sarcastic reply. “You poor kid. But, okay, I’ll watch my mouth when the heat’s around. Now, where were we?”

THREE

David liked Tonio. But there were other, older members of Los Diablos Lobitos who didn’t. One of them was Rado Sanchez. Nobody knew what the nickname meant or where it came from, but he was cold, dangerous, and he’d taken over leadership of the gang several years ago when its former leader went to prison for murder. Rado was the sort who wouldn’t balk at murder. He sent initiates out to do some pretty bad things. One of them had just been sent to jail for the rape and murder of an old lady. That had shocked and frightened Tonio. He wasn’t in the gang and he wasn’t trying to be in it anymore. But that didn’t stop Rado from trying to pressure him into joining it.

Rado was tall and thin, with a face like a rat and a smoking cigarette in his hand constantly. He stopped Tonio just off the grounds of the children’s hospital where his cousin worked, late one afternoon.

“You coming into the gang or what?” Rado asked.

“Not yet,” Tonio said, trying to look cool as he hid his secret dislike for the older boy.

“Why not? You scared of your daddy?” Rado drawled sarcastically.

Tonio straightened. “No.”

“Sure you are. That’s why you won’t join. You’re scared of the heat.”

“I can do what I want,” he began.

“Oh, right,” he said, making a choked sort of laugh as he exchanged amused glances with his three companions, all of whom looked as ratty as he did. “That’s why you’re up here in an alternative school.”

“I punched a teacher,” Tonio said, trying to make himself look good.

“I put a teacher in the hospital,” the older boy countered. “Beat him almost to death. He was one of my dealers and he got cold feet.” His face tautened. “That’s what we do to people who cross us. If he’d tried to report us, or if he talked about me, to anybody, he’d be dead.”

Tonio fought down the fear. “I gotta go,” he said.

They moved around him, encircling him. “Oh, yeah? And what if we don’t want you to go, Tony boy?” Rado drawled. “What if we got a little job we want you to do for us?”

Tonio felt real fear, but he tried not to show it. “I don’t have time.”

“Lots of kids in that hospital. Scared kids. Sick kids. We got drugs you can give them.”

One of the boys went backward, tugged by the back of his jacket. A woman with long, blond hair in a long black coat moved right into the circle with her cell phone out. “Yes, is this 911?” she asked and glared right at Rado. “I want to report—”

“Let’s go!”

Rado and his friends scattered. Rado looked back, furious. “I’ll get you! I missed once. I won’t miss again!”

Before she could speak, he and his gang ran into the parking lot and disappeared past the surrounding buildings.

The blonde put the phone, which she hadn’t even activated, back into her pocket. She kept her hands in her pockets, so that the boy wouldn’t notice that they were shaking. It took nerve to stand up to Rado, and she had more reason than most to fear him. But seeing the boy being tormented brought back memories of bullying that she’d had to survive when she was in school. She hated bullies.

Tonio was barely able to get his breath. His heart was hammering in his chest. He looked up into the soft, brown eyes of the woman who’d saved him. She looked like an angel to him when she smiled.

“You okay?” she asked softly. She took her hand out of her pocket long enough to push back a lock of thick, black hair that had fallen into Tonio’s eyes. Her touch was as gentle as her manner.

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Thanks,” he whispered, grimacing.

“Those boys are big trouble,” she said, glaring after them. “We get victims of Los Diablos Lobitos in the hospital from time to time. Yesterday we got one of Los Serpientes. They’re pretty sure that Lobitos killed him.” She cocked her head. “You know about the little devil wolves? They like to recruit boys for their gang, because juvies don’t go to prison for things that would put them away for years.”

“I know about them,” he said in a quiet tone. “Los Diablos Lobitos keeps after me. I don’t want to join them.”

“That Rado is bad news,” she continued. “He’s killed men. The police here keep trying to put him away, but he’s as slippery as a fresh-caught fish.”

He managed a smile. “How do you know about Rado?”

“I live in the Alamo Trace apartments, there,” she said, indicating an older building in the distance. “Rado’s been around here for many years.” She didn’t add that she knew him very well because of what he’d done to her family. They were old enemies. She’d have given anything to see him go up for murder, but he couldn’t be caught.

“You work around here?” he asked.

She smiled. “I work there.” She indicated the children’s hospital.

“You do?” he asked. “I don’t recognize you.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

He laughed. “I stay here in the cafeteria after school. My cousin works here, too. She gives me a ride home.”

“Well! Small world,” she teased.

“Do you work in the office?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m a nurse.”

So had his mother been. He loved nurses. “You like nursing?”

“More than anything.” She pulled her coat closer. “If you’re going my way, you can walk with me and protect me from evil gang members,” she teased.

He chuckled. “That was sort of the other way around.”

“I was bluffing. The phone wasn’t even turned on. I should take up poker,” she said, frowning, as they walked together toward the main entrance. “Apparently, I bluff pretty good.”

He laughed out loud. “Yes, you do.”

“Want to have a snack with me?” she asked. “I’m not on duty for another thirty minutes. I don’t usually come in this early, but I set my clock wrong.” She sighed. “I’m a born klutz. I unplugged it to clean, and then when I finally plugged it back in, I forgot to reset it.”

He grinned. His dad was the same way. “I’d love to have a snack. I have money left over from lunch,” he added quickly, to make sure she knew he wasn’t going to mooch off her. He knew that nursing didn’t create millionaires. Most nurses weren’t in it for the money, anyway.

She grinned back. “Okay.”

* * *

She went with him to the canteen on the first floor, the one used by visitors. There were always members of the staff around, and security, so it was safe for a young boy to sit there while his cousin finished her shift.

“I’m Tonio,” he said, not volunteering his last name. He didn’t advertise his dad’s profession. He knew that his dad was around emergency rooms a lot. She might recognize the name, and he didn’t want her to. Not yet.

She smiled. “I’m Sunny. What would you like?”

He pulled out a dollar bill. “I always have money for the machines,” he explained. “I eat at school, but mostly it’s healthy stuff. I like junk food.”

She laughed. “Me, too,” she confessed.

She got a cup of black coffee for herself and a sweet roll, something to keep her blood sugar up. She was forever running on the job. She only slowed down when she went off shift.

Tonio got a pack of potato chips and a cup of hot chocolate.

“I like the hot chocolate, too,” she remarked. “I don’t usually like it out of machines, but this one seems to be a fairly decent crafter of hot beverages.”

He grinned. She smiled and the sun came out.

“Do you go to school around here?”

“Yeah. At San Felipe,” he added and then watched for her reaction.

“Is it a middle school or a high school?” she asked. She made a face as she sipped hot chocolate. “Sorry, I don’t know much about education these days. I’m not married.”

“Wow, really? I’m not married, either!”

She gave him a wide-eyed look and then burst into laughter.

He laughed, too. He hadn’t laughed so much in a long time.

“This is a really nice place,” he commented.

“It is. I’ve worked here ever since it opened. I’d just graduated from nursing school.”

“What did you mean, about somebody in Serpientes being killed?” he asked.

She frowned. “I shouldn’t talk about things like that to someone your age,” she said gently.

He was going to tell her that he knew all about murder, because his dad was in law enforcement. But he didn’t want her to know. He didn’t want to tell her about his dad. He wasn’t even sure why.

“Okay,” he said. “If you want to stunt my educational growth. But I’m eleven, going on twelve. And I do watch the local news on TV,” he added.

She wrinkled her nose. “I guess you’re old enough. He was found shot to death on the street, with a wolf’s head drawn in chalk near the body.”

“Los Diablos Lobitos want their territory, so they killed a Serpiente as a warning, I guess, to try and scare them off.” He fished in the package for the last of the potato chips. “I don’t want to be in a gang,” he added heavily. “Lobitos make you kill somebody in order to join. I did a dumb thing once. I ran away from home and I got to know this boy who belongs to the gang. I said I’d like to be part of it, but I was real upset and I didn’t know what I was doing. Except that they told Rado, and now he’s on my case.” He grimaced. “He makes these threats. Like today.” He lifted angry brown eyes to hers. “He said that he wanted somebody to take drugs into the hospital. Into a children’s hospital! He’s crazy!”

She searched the boy’s eyes. “You have a heart. You don’t seem at all like the sort of person who’d deal drugs to little children.” She smiled.

His heart jumped. He felt the praise go right to his own heart. She made him feel...different. Good and useful. She made him feel as his mother had, when she was alive.

“I never would,” he replied. “That Rado, though, he would,” he added with a heavy sigh.

She glanced at her watch with the second hand and sighed. “Time to go to work.”

“Is it hard, working here?” he asked. “I mean, my cousin works in one of the offices. But you have to be with the kids when they...well...”

Her face was sad. “Yes. We lost a child a few days ago. I cried and cried. We’re not supposed to get involved with patients, but she was so sweet...” She swallowed, hard, and fought tears.

He never touched people. Not even his dad. But he reached out a hand and grasped hers in it, tight. “My mother always said that God picked all sorts of people for the bouquets He made, little ones and big ones alike. She said...” he tried to remember “...that we have to accept that the days of our lives are numbered, and that we have to make the best of every single one we have.”

“Your mother must be a very special person,” she said, returning the pressure of his hand for a second before she released it to pick up her coat and purse.

“She was,” Tonio said with a sad smile. “She was a nurse, too, but she didn’t work here.”

She hesitated, seeing the sorrow in his big, brown eyes. “I’m so sorry,” Sunny replied. “I know what it is, to lose a mother.” Her brown eyes were sadder than his. “I lost my whole family.”

He grimaced. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Life compensates us, my mother used to say. She was a good person, too.” She glanced at her watch. “I’d better get moving before my new supervisor hangs me out the window from a sheet. Nice to have met you, Tonio. Maybe I’ll see you again.”

“Same here. And I hope I see you again.”

She grinned. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

He watched her go and felt as if the sun had just gone down. He’d never met anybody like her. How odd, to have a stranger come into your life and feel like part of your family.

He wondered which one of the wolves had killed the Serpiente. He wouldn’t have put it past Rado. He was grateful to Sunny for protecting him, but troubled that Rado had sworn revenge. He hoped his new friend wasn’t going to get hurt because of him. But, then, Rado often threatened people. It had been nice, having somebody stand up for him. She could see that he had Hispanic blood, too, and that hadn’t stopped her from defending him. He liked that. She wasn’t beautiful, but he thought she was pretty, with her long blond hair and big brown eyes and sweet smile. He really hoped that he’d see her again.

He sat back and sipped his hot chocolate, forcing Rado and the gang to the back of his mind.

* * *

The autopsy was routine, and John had grown used to them, after a fashion. But he never quite got used to seeing the damage one human being could do to another. This young boy, nude on the table, with cobra head tattoos all over him, had a mother and father somewhere. How would he feel, if that was his Tonio on that table? It made it far more personal than he liked to admit.

The attending coroner was speaking into a microphone, detailing the damage and extracting material that might help point to the perpetrator. John was pretty sure that it was one of the wolves, but he had to have evidence to find out which one had killed the boy.

Besides John, there was a representative from the San Antonio Police Department’s violent crime unit, a detective named Bronson. He was about John’s age and had apparently seen his own share of autopsies. He didn’t seem to be overly emotional, like the brand-new detective who’d shown up at the autopsy and had to absent himself to throw up.

John looked over the body at the detective with that thought in his head and a faintly quizzical look in his black eyes.

The detective glowered at him. “I don’t throw up at autopsies.”

John smothered a laugh, turning it into a cough.

The coroner glanced up, rolled his eyes and went back to the body.

“Cavitation,” he murmured, sighing. “Catastrophic damage to the heart.” He looked up, angry. “Just a kid, and they killed him over drug territory. This is unspeakably sick.”

“Tell me about it,” John said quietly. “He wasn’t even into his teens, by the look of him.”

“Your boy’s about this age, isn’t he, Ruiz?” the coroner asked gently.

John grimaced. “Tonio’s eleven,” he agreed. He scowled. “These autopsies get harder when you’ve got a kid the same age as the victim.”

“That’s why we do what we do,” the detective interjected. “To keep more kids from dying like this.”

John smiled at him. “Good point.”

Just as he spoke, the coroner extracted a bullet. “Exhibit number one,” he said proudly as he dropped it into a dish.

“Hopefully, it has something to connect it to the killer,” John agreed, studying it. “Not too much damage, that will help. Looks like a .22 slug.”

“Damned Saturday Night Specials,” the detective muttered. “More dangerous than a higher caliber gun, because the bullets fragment and cause more damage.”

“Exactly,” John agreed.

“Well, if the bullet kills you, the caliber isn’t all that relevant, now, is it?” the coroner asked them.

They conceded the point.

* * *

John was home late. He searched in the fridge for sandwich meat and got mustard and bread down from the cabinet.

Tonio poked his head out the door of his room. “You home for good?”

“Well, for the night, I hope,” John said. “You hungry?”

Tonio grinned. “Always. What you got?”

“Bologna and mustard.”

“Okay.”

They sat down at the table to eat.

Tonio was still happy about his new friend, although it was a secret he didn’t want to share with his father.

He noticed the hard lines in his dad’s face. Harder than usual. “Something bothering you?” he asked. It was unusual, because he didn’t notice his father much these days.

John nodded. “I had to attend an autopsy. A gang shooting victim. The kid wasn’t even into his teens.”

Tonio pretended ignorance. “A gang victim?”

John nodded, not paying much attention to Tonio’s expression. It was a shame.

“Los Lobitos?” Tonio probed.

“No,” John replied after a bite of sandwich and a sip of black coffee. “One of Los Serpientes.”

“Los Lobitos kill him, you think?” Tonio asked.

He looked up, black eyes narrowed. “You aren’t hanging around with that gang?” he asked suspiciously.

He gave his parent his best surprised expression. “Not me!” He wasn’t about to let on that he already knew about the shooting, from his new friend. “Isn’t Los Serpientes a Houston gang?” he asked. “They were on the news...” He trailed off, letting his dad think that was how he knew about the serpents.

It seemed to work. His father’s face relaxed. “They used to be a Houston gang. Now they’re in a lot of places. They’ve been in San Antonio for several years, that I know of. It seems that the serpents are encroaching more heavily on the wolves’ lucrative drug territory, so they’re setting an example,” came the sad reply. John shook his head. “God, I’m tired of dead kids!”

Tonio was certain that Rado knew about the shooting. He wondered what David knew about it. Or if he knew anything.

“You stay out of gangs,” John said shortly. “I’m not going to any more autopsies on boys. You hear me?”

Tonio forced a smile. “I don’t do gangs. Really, Dad,” he added, because they both remembered that he’d been willing to join a gang when he ran away from home.

John searched the eyes that were so much like his own. He smiled gently. “Okay.”

“You’re gonna get whoever killed him, right?”

John chuckled. “I always get my man. Or boy. Or woman.” He shrugged. “Whatever.” He finished the sandwich. “How’s school?” he asked.

“You know, it’s not so bad,” Tonio said surprisingly. “They have a really good soccer program. I thought... I might go out for it?”

John was hesitant. Tonio had been militant about joining before. It was an olive branch. “Tell you what. You bring your grades up and keep out of trouble until spring, and I’ll make sure you’re properly outfitted. How about that?”

Tonio’s heart lifted. “Deal!”

John smiled. He sipped his coffee. “This is sort of nice,” he said after a minute. “We don’t talk enough.”

“Well, that’s because—”

Before he could get the whole sentence out, the alert went off. John grimaced as he pulled out his cell phone. “Ruiz. Yeah? Oh, hell! Not another one?! Yeah, I’ll be right there. Twenty minutes.” He hung up.

“I gotta go.” He got up from the table and went to swing his coat off the rack and top his head with the cream-colored John B. Stetson hat he favored. “Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

“Okay. You said ‘not another one,’” Tonio ventured. “Another gang shooting?”

John nodded curtly. “You keep away from any boys with ties to Los Lobitos, you hear me? I’m not burying you!”

“I meant it. I don’t do gangs,” Tonio promised. “They know who got shot?”

“Not yet. We still haven’t even identified the other victim, the Serpiente who was killed. Now this! Keep the doors locked.”

“I will,” Tonio said.

And with a wave, his father was off to the wars again. Tonio sat back in his chair. It was a shame. Just when they started to talk, to really talk, the job came barreling in to put another wall between them.

But now, Tonio had a new friend. That nurse, at the hospital. She was sweet and kind and she listened. He hoped he’d see her again. She made life seem hopeful.

* * *

Sunny had barely slept. She’d had nightmares the night before, probably a result of the conflict with Rado and the gang near the hospital. She’d relived her own tragedy, the one that Rado was part of. It had been a sad and terrifying dream. She woke sweating, crying. Not the best start to the day. Or what was left of it. She worked nights, so she slept late usually. Not today, though.

She made herself a sandwich and some black coffee and finished it before she dressed in her comfortable scrubs, picked up her purse and walked to work, a half hour early, again. She was going to work a double shift tonight, too, because she was covering for a woman with a sick baby. She didn’t mind. It was just that she’d be asleep on her feet by the time she got off the next morning. At least she wouldn’t have to get a cab home after work.

She always took a cab home when it was dark, despite the proximity of her apartment to her job. She had a real fear of being assaulted by one of Rado’s goons. But in the daytime, there were a lot of people on the streets. She felt fairly safe.

She walked in the front door and there was her new young friend, sitting in the canteen with his eyes on the door.

He spotted Sunny and his whole face lit up. She smiled, too. There was the oddest bond between them. He was young enough to be the son she’d always wanted and never had. Perhaps she reminded him of his mother, who had been a nurse, too. Whatever the reason, he made her feel happier than she’d felt in a long time.

She walked into the canteen. “Got time for a snack?” she asked him.

He laughed. “Always.” He studied her, frowning. “You don’t look so good.”

“Bad night.” She laughed. “Bad day,” she corrected. “I have nightmares, sometimes,” she confessed. “How’s the hot chocolate?”

“Great. I think they cleaned the machine,” he teased.

She got her own, and an energy bar, and sat down to eat it. “How was school?” she asked.

“Great! I may get to go out for soccer in the spring!”

“You like soccer?” she asked. “It’s my favorite sport! What’s your team?”

“Madrid Real,” he said at once.

She grinned. “Mine’s Mexico. The World Cup comes up next year. I can hardly wait! We’re going all the way this time, idiot referees notwithstanding. Last World Cup, we got penalties we never should have had, because one of the referees made bad calls.”

“I saw that,” Tonio confessed. He cocked his head. “You don’t root for the American team?”

“Well, it’s like this,” she said. “My great-great grandmother was one of Pancho Villa’s band during the Mexican War, back in the early part of the twentieth century.”

“Really?!”

She laughed. “I know, I don’t look it, do I?”

He shook his head. “No. You don’t.”

“Well, there are lots of blonde women in northern Spain. That’s where my ancestor came from. She married an American and they lived in Mexico. She was a character. She flew planes, drove race cars, they even said she was a spy for a while.”

“Gosh.” He was impressed. “Our people came from Spain originally, too,” he confessed. “But our family came to America from Argentina.”

She caught her breath. “Argentina,” she said with a sigh. “I’ve read about it for years. The gauchos. The pampas. The dances!”

“Dances?”

“The tango. It was almost invented in Argentina,” she said. “It’s the most beautiful dance I’ve ever seen.”

Tonio almost blurted out that his dad was a past master of that dance, and many others. But he didn’t want to talk about his dad. Very often, when people knew his father was in law enforcement, they started backing away. He didn’t want to lose Sunny when he’d only just found her.

“When I grow up, I’ll learn it, just so I can dance with you,” Tonio teased.

“Gee, by the time you’re grown, I’ll be walking with a cane,” she teased back.

“Will not!”

“I’m twenty-three,” she pointed out. “Old, compared to you.”

“I think senior citizens are very cool,” he replied with twinkling eyes. “So I’ll keep your cane polished and repaired. How’s that?”

She smiled from ear to ear.

“There was another gang shooting last night,” he said after a minute.

“Another one?!” She didn’t stop to question how he knew. She looked at him worriedly. “You don’t have gang members where you go to school, do you?” she asked. She was concerned, and it showed.

Tonio felt warm inside, seeing that. “No, of course not,” he said at once, lying because she seemed really worried about him. “Just regular kids, like me.”

She let out a breath. “Thank goodness!” She finished her coffee. Her eyes were sad. “That Rado,” she said with quiet venom, “should be locked up and the key thrown away. He’s gotten away with more murders than he’s even been charged with.”

His heart jumped. “He has?”

She looked down at her coffee cup. “It was his gang that killed my mother and my little brother,” she said, and then regretted saying it out loud. She grimaced. “You don’t tell anybody that, okay?” she added worriedly. “I shouldn’t have said it.”

“I never tell anything I know,” he replied. “They killed your family?” he added, shock in his voice.

She nodded. “They were after the former tenant, who’d sold them out. They didn’t know he’d moved.” She swallowed down the memory. It was horrific. “That didn’t bring my family back, of course. He and the boy who did the shooting were arrested. The boy did time. Rado had a convenient alibi. They couldn’t break it.”

Now he understood that sadness in her, that showed even when she smiled. He could only imagine how it would feel, if his own family had been shot to death in front of his eyes.

“Do you have anybody else?” he asked.

She managed a smile. “I had an elderly aunt, but she died two years ago. I’ve got nobody, now.”

“Yes, you do,” he said, and he smiled at her. “You’ve got me. I’ll be your family.”

Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over. She grabbed a napkin and dashed them away, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “If I offended you...”

“No! I’m not offended.” She swallowed, hard. “It was the nicest thing anybody’s said to me, in a very long time.”

He sighed, and smiled, relieved.

She stuffed the napkin into her pocket. “I’ve got to go or I’ll be late for my shift.” She paused as she started to leave. “Do you have family?”

“It’s just me and my dad,” he said reluctantly.

“At least you have somebody,” she pointed out. She hesitated. “But you’ve got me, too. If I’m your family, you’re my family, too. Right?”

He cocked his head. He grinned from ear to ear. “Right!”

She laughed. “Okay. See you.”

“See you.”

* * *

One of the nurses on duty had seen the story about the gang shooting on the news, but it was only a flesh wound. Police had been at the hospital to take the boy into custody, but his companions rushed him out the door before the police could get near him. The name he’d given was an alias. They noticed tattoos on him. Wolves’s heads. Retaliation, probably, for the dead Serpiente gang member. The nurse said they were still hunting for the victim.

Sunny worried about Tonio. He was just the right age for Rado to want to recruit him. She didn’t know what she could do to protect him, but she’d do anything she could. She was already fond of him.

* * *

Two days later when she came on shift early, Tonio was in the canteen again, waiting for her. One of the nurses noticed this and teased Sunny about her young gentleman friend, only to be informed that he was her family. The nurse knew her background and understood. She just smiled.

After her shift, Sunny was thinking about Tonio as she went down the hall. She was almost due for her days off, so she wouldn’t see him again right away. She was almost to the elevator when she noticed a San Antonio police detective who came onto the ward and paused at the desk. She knew that he was probably asking about yet another shooting victim who’d been brought in the night before.

Sunny knew he was going to want to talk to her, because she’d been the nurse on duty when he was placed on the ward following emergency surgery. She’d pulled another double shift, tonight, this time because two nurses were down sick and they were shorthanded. The gang shooting victim on her ward was only ten, a painful reminder that gangs didn’t care about the age of anybody they targeted.

Odd child, to be so young and sound so mature when he talked in his sleep. He had tattoos. Wolf tattoos. It didn’t bode well that this was the third gang shooting in recent days. And it was the second shooting of a member of Los Diablos Lobitos.

The detective spoke to the nurse in charge of the shift, who indicated Sunny and motioned to her. She went to the desk, her coat over her arm, her purse strap over her shoulder.

The man was tall and blond and drop-dead gorgeous. He’d have turned heads anywhere. There were all sorts of rumors about him. The most persistent one was that he’d been with a group of mercenaries in Africa some years ago. That was before he joined the San Antonio Police Department and worked his way up through the ranks to Captain, the position he held now.

Sunny knew him, because he’d been a lieutenant when her family was killed and he’d worked the case. Cal Hollister was a good man, with a kind heart. If Sunny had liked fair men, he’d have been at the top of her Christmas list. But she had a gnawing yen for an olive-skinned man with black dancing eyes.

“Hi, Captain Hollister,” she greeted him, smiling.

“Hi, Sunny. How’ve you been?” he asked gently.

“Life is hard, then you die?” she teased.

He grinned. “So it is. Can I buy you a cup of coffee in the canteen so you can stay awake while we talk?” he asked. It was morning. She’d been up all night and she was tired. He knew it without being told.

“Sure you can,” she said, stifling a yawn.

* * *

He led her into the canteen and purchased two cups of black coffee from the machine. He placed one in front of Sunny as he dropped his tall frame into the chair. There were only a couple of people in the canteen so far, an elderly couple she recognized from the cancer ward; they had a grandchild there, in serious condition.

She forced her attention back to Hollister. “Are things so bad that the brass has to work cases now?” she teased.

He laughed shortly. “I ducked out of a meeting and said I’d promised to help Lt. Marquez interview a witness. I hate administration. I miss working cases.”

“You were good at it,” she said, smiling. “How can I help?” she asked.

“It will be hearsay, and not worth beans,” he began. “But I wondered if your young patient said anything after he went on the ward?”

She hesitated. This was a slippery slope. Anything a patient told her wasn’t supposed to be shared with anyone without permission from the administrator. It was to protect the hospital from lawsuits, that modern pastime that so many people seemed to love.

He chuckled. He produced a signed paper and handed it over. “I always go through channels when I have to. Recognize that signature?”

She did. She’d seen it on memos often enough. It was the hospital administrator’s.

“Okay, then,” she said, relaxing. “He hasn’t said much. He hasn’t had visitors, either. But he did say something, last night,” she confessed. “Although, it was an odd sort of comment, and I’m not sure he was completely out from under the anesthesia at the time. You know that it can make you goofy for a few days after surgery?”

“I know it all too well,” he said somberly. “I’m carrying about three ounces of lead in my carcass that they could never remove.” His face hardened, as if he was remembering how he collected that lead.

She cocked her head.

“Give it up,” he said with faint amusement. “I don’t talk about my past, ever. Well, maybe to a local priest, but he’s an old friend.”

She pursed her lips. She knew a priest downtown who was a former merc. He did a lot of outreach work. “I wonder if we could possibly be thinking of the same priest?”

He glowered at her.

She held up both hands in mock surrender. “Okay, I’m done. Honest.”

He shook his head with a heavy sigh. “Some people!” he scoffed.

She grinned at him. He’d been so kind when she was living through her own tragedy.

“Okay. What did he say?”

She sipped black coffee. It was at least strong enough to keep her awake, if badly brewed. She made a face.

“Listen, if you’d ever had coffee made over a campfire with the grounds still in it,” he began.

She sighed. “Good point. At least it’s not that bad.” She lifted her eyes to his pale ones. “He said that he loved wolves, and that his boss was getting ready to poison a few snakes.”

Hollister whistled softly. “Oh, boy.”

“Like I said, it could have been the aftereffects of the anesthesia.”

“Or it could be code for what’s really happening.” His eyes narrowed. “You know what’s going on. Your hospital got the last two victims...the dead kid who was in Los Serpientes, and the wounded Lobitos member who skipped out before police could question him.”

She nodded. She was thinking of Tonio and the treatment he’d had at the hands of Rado and his friends. She worried for him.

“There’s a gang war starting,” Cal told her. “I don’t want a gang war in San Antonio. I still remember the last one and it makes me sick at my stomach.”

“I remember it, too.” It was the one that had resulted in her family’s death.

“I’m going to set up a task force,” he said. “We have a Texas Ranger here with a good knowledge of gangs and gang activities. I’m going to ask him to join.”

“Does he know about this latest shooting?”

He smiled secretively and glanced past her. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

She half turned in her chair, and there was John Ruiz, staring at the two of them with narrow black eyes. And he wasn’t smiling.

FOUR

“We were just talking about you,” Hollister chuckled.

“Was it something printable?” John asked as he joined them at the table.

“Mostly.” He held up a cup. “Want coffee?”

“I have too much respect for the beverage to ever drink it out of that counterfeit machine,” John said haughtily.

“It makes very nice hot chocolate,” Sunny said in its defense.

“It also steals dollar bills,” John muttered. “Someone should give it an attitude adjustment.”

“You wouldn’t ever have gone down to Palo Verde with a baseball bat?” Hollister asked hesitantly, and with a grin.

John chuckled in spite of himself as he pulled up a chair and straddled it. “No, but I understand the officer who did is still paying off the damage on a monthly basis. The circuit judge put the fear of God into him.”

“What am I missing?” Sunny asked, her eyes glancing off John’s. A faint blush colored her high cheekbones and he seemed to relax, all of a sudden.

She didn’t realize that he’d seen her with Hollister and that he was suddenly jealous. The other man drew women like flowers drew bees. Her flush delighted him, because it was proof that she was more attracted to him than the good-looking blond man sitting with her. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind since he’d seen her in the cathedral. Crazy, to feel possessive about a woman he hardly knew!

“There was a soft drink machine in the police department in Palo Verde,” John told her, bringing his attention back to the incident Hollister had alluded to. “It ate dollar bills and refused to give either change or soft drinks. One of the officers accidentally hit it with a baseball bat several times and it had to be replaced. So the story goes.”

She burst out laughing. “How in the world can you accidentally hit a soft drink machine with a baseball bat several times?!”

“Funny, the judge asked the same question,” John replied, his black eyes twinkling.

“And what was the officer’s excuse?” she asked.

“Muscle spasms,” he said with a grin.

She chuckled. John loved the way she laughed. It made her look very pretty, with her face animated and those dark eyes bright with humor.

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