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      To all women everywhere: these books are for you.

      And to Janet Capps, whose ideas for Texas-sounding

       names were superior. Thanks to her, we found Larado Hinojosa and the interesting character behind the name. Thanks Janet!

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Epilogue

      Chapter 1

      Nothing seemed off, yet everything felt wrong.

      There were no eerie noises. No flashes of color. No lightning bolts to give her a clue. Still, Clare Chandler’s instincts told her this funky Houston bus station was about to be the end of their road.

      But she refused to give up. Frustration warred with determination as she clutched her sleeping son in her arms and slinked backward into the shadows. So, they would miss this bus. There would be another in a couple of hours.

      The danger she’d felt had been coming from those two men there by the bus benches, the ones in the suits and ties. They looked legit, but slightly out of place. Had they come for her and Jimmy?

      She’d been so careful. Hadn’t used a credit card or a phone. Hadn’t slipped up and called Jimmy by that hard-to-spell name his father had given him.

      Clare and her son had only just arrived in this country on the private plane her old boss had helped to charter. There could not have been time for anyone to locate them.

      Clare was sure she hadn’t made any mistakes.

      Nevertheless, her gut was telling her the worst had happened. She’d known her ex-husband, Ramzi, would come after them. After Jimmy. But she had hoped to reach the safety of her old college roommate’s Missouri home first.

      Trying to stand perfectly still so they wouldn’t be spotted, Clare almost missed her two-year-old’s muffled cry. She settled him higher against her shoulder. In her head she began clicking off the possibilities for his distress, wanting to be the best mother ever.

      “Are you wet, Jimmy?” she asked and checked his diaper.

      Her baby squirmed in her arms, wide-awake now. “No!” He didn’t have many words in his vocabulary yet, but he knew what changing his diaper meant. She had very nearly managed to potty train Jimmy before it had been time to take her son and sneak away from the country of Abu Fujarah.

      Ramzi had once said he thought she made a good mother, though that hadn’t seemed good enough to make him want to let her raise her own son. Clare let out a beleaguered breath, then stiffened her spine, determined to do everything right.

      Jimmy crammed his fist into his mouth and whined. Ah, he was hungry again. And he was tired. If she didn’t do something about the hunger soon, he would start making a fuss. The last thing she needed was for Jimmy to throw a terrible-twos tantrum and draw the attention of everyone in the bus station.

      Clare would never give up her son. Never. So she couldn’t simply walk into the busy restaurant in the station and let those goons take him away. There had to be someplace else nearby where they could eat.

      Murmuring to soothe Jimmy, she inched along the wall in an attempt to stay away from the harsh fluorescent lights of the station’s main waiting room. She slipped out the side door into the starlight-spangled night.

      Taking a breath of good ol’ Texas air—the pungent, hit-you-in-the-face-with-gas-wells-and-feed-lots kind of air—Clare thought of her home. Maybe she should try calling her father in West Texas for help. She’d already rejected that plan once, knowing it would be the first place Ramzi would look for Jimmy. But right now, being home sounded so safe.

      No, she didn’t dare show up on her father’s doorstep. Sticking with