Contents

       Cover

      Praise

       About the Author

       Title Page

      1

      2

      3

      4

      5

      6

      7

      8

      9

      10

      11

      12

      13

      14

       Extract

       Copyright

       1

      IT WAS A rainy Friday morning.

      Carlie Blair, who was running late for her job as secretary to Jacobsville, Texas police chief Cash Grier, only had time for a piece of toast and a sip of coffee before she rushed out the door to persuade her ten-year-old red pickup truck to start. It had gone on grinding seemingly forever before it finally caught up and started.

      Her father, a Methodist minister, was out of town on business for the day. So there was nobody to help her get it running. Luck was with her. It did, at least, start.

      She envied her friend Michelle Godfrey, whose guardian and his sister had given her a Jaguar for Christmas. Michelle was away at college now, and she and Carlie still spoke on the phone, but they no longer shared rides to town and the cost of gas on a daily basis.

      The old clunker ate gas like candy and Carlie’s salary only stretched so far. She wished she had more than a couple pairs of jeans, a few T-shirts, a coat and one good pair of shoes. It must be nice, she thought, not to have to count pennies. But her father was always optimistic about their status. God loved the poor, because they gave away so much, he was fond of saying. He was probably right.

      Right now, though, her rain-wet jeans were uncomfortable, and she’d stepped in a mud puddle with her only pair of good shoes while she was knocking corrosion off the battery terminals with the hammer she kept under the front seat for that purpose. All this in January weather, which was wet and cold and miserable, even in South Texas.

      Consequently, when she parked her car in the small lot next to the chief’s office, she looked like a bedraggled rat. Her dark, short, wavy hair was curling like crazy, as it always did in a rainstorm. Her coat was soaked. Her green eyes, full of silent resignation, didn’t smile as she opened the office door.

      Her worst nightmare was standing just inside.

      Carson.

      He glared at her. He was so much taller than she that she had to look up at him. There was a lot to look at, although she tried not to show her interest.

      He was all muscle, but it wasn’t overly obvious. He had a rodeo rider’s physique, lean and powerful. Like her, he wore jeans, but his were obviously designer ones, like those hand-tooled leather boots on his big feet and the elaborately scrolled leather holster in which he kept his .45 automatic. He was wearing a jacket that partially concealed the gun, but he was intimidating enough without it.

      He was Lakota Sioux. He had jet-black hair that fell to his waist in back, although he wore it in a ponytail usually. He had large black eyes that seemed to see everything with one sweep of his head. He had high cheekbones and a light olive complexion. There were faint scars on the knuckles of his big hands. She noticed because he was holding a file in one of them.

      Her file.

      Well, really, the chief’s file, that had been lying on her desk, waiting to be typed up. It referenced an attack on her father a few weeks earlier that had resulted in Carlie being stabbed. Involuntarily, her hand went to the scar that ran from her shoulder down to the beginning of her small breasts. She flushed when she saw where he was looking.

      “Those are confidential files,” she said shortly.

      He looked around. “There was nobody here to tell me that,” he said, his deep voice clear as a bell in the silent room.

      She flushed at the implied criticism. “Damned truck wouldn’t start and I got soaked trying to start it,” she muttered. She slid her weather-beaten old purse under her desk, ran a hand through her wet hair, took off her ratty coat and hung it up before she sat down at her desk. “Did you need something?” she asked with crushing politeness. She even managed a smile. Sort of.

      “I need to see the chief,” he replied.

      She frowned. “There’s this thing called a door. He’s got one,” she said patiently. “You knock on it, and he comes out.”

      He gave her a look that could have stopped traffic. “There’s somebody in there with him,” he said with equal patience. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

      “I see.” She moved things around on her desk, muttering to herself.

      “Bad sign.”

      She looked up. “Huh?”

      “Talking to yourself.”

      She glared at him. It had been a bad morning altogether and he wasn’t helping. “Don’t listen, if it bothers you.”

      He gave her a long look and laughed hollowly. “Listen, kid, nothing about you bothers me. Or ever will.”

      There were the sounds of chairs scraping wood, as if the men in Cash’s office had stood up and pushed back their seats.