A Lone Star Christmas (Texas Justice Book 3) Read online

  Shane looked at their sister. “Any idea what he might have been after in California?”

  “Better climate?” she suggested, shaking her head to indicate she had no real idea.

  “Joey might know something.” Slater pulled out his phone and hit a speed dial. It was a moment before he said, “Sounds like you’re having fun.” Sean saw his brother smile, and felt a little tug at the happiness in it. Felt an echo of the heat that had blasted through him when Elena had so unexpectedly kissed him. “I need to know if you remember Kane ever mentioning anything about or in northern California.”

  Joey and Kane were the same age, and had been lab partners in chemistry class in high school. That had been how she’d come up with the memory that had taken them to the Grand Canyon and the most recent lead they’d had until now.

  Sean saw Slater’s expression change, then he said. “Thank you. And I’ll thank you in person later.” Then a wide smile as he said, “I love you, too.”

  Then he put down the phone and looked around the table. “Yosemite,” he said. “She said he talked about Yosemite, that it seemed impossible so much beauty could be in one place.”

  Sean already had his phone open to his map program. “Less than a hundred miles from Yosemite.”

  “We should go,” Sage said instantly. “Somebody, anyway.”

  “Agreed. Joey and I never would have found out what we did if we hadn’t gone and talked to people in person,” Slater said.

  “Exactly,” Sage said. “Maybe he got a job there, too, like at the Grand Canyon. Somebody might remember him.”

  “I’ll go,” Sean said. “I could—”

  He stopped when Shane held up a hand. And just now it didn’t matter if it was the Last Stand police chief or his big brother reining them in, he ruled at this table.

  “I get it, all of you,” he said quietly. “And I’m with you. But while this is new and fresh to us, it’s still four years old. And it’s nearly Christmas. It’ll keep another couple of weeks.”

  Sean saw Slater looking at Shane, wondered if the old brotherly antagonism between the two oldest Highwaters was going to break out anew. It had been virtually nonexistent since Lily and Joey had become part of his brothers’ lives, but it could still be there, under the surface. Then, after a moment, Slater nodded. And said quietly, “Two weeks is only a hundredth of the time that’s passed since they found the truck. It will keep.”

  Leave it to Slater to put it in a way no one could deny. Sage looked about to protest, but then her expression smoothed out and she nodded. “You’re right. I don’t want you to be, but you are.”

  Sean let out a sigh. “Half the park is probably closed for winter anyway. So anyone who might know something might not be there.”

  Shane nodded. The sudden burst of urgency receded.

  “There’s one more thing,” Sean said. “We haven’t all been together, so I haven’t told you yet.”

  “Is this about her highness, Elena de la Cova?” Sage asked rather edgily.

  “Sage,” Shane said, his voice sharp. “We owe Mrs. de la Cova a great deal for what she did and tried to do for our father.”

  Sage’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God. I’d forgotten. It was her. The one who tried to save him.”

  “Yes,” Sean said flatly. “If you’d seen her after, blood-soaked and crying because she couldn’t save him, you would never have forgotten.”

  Sage looked appalled. “I am so sorry. That was the stupidest thing I could have said. I won’t even try to justify it.”

  “And that, little sister, pretty much justifies your existence,” Slater said with a smile.

  Sean silently agreed, although he wasn’t quite ready to forgive her so quickly. But when Sage made a mistake she admitted it, and made sure it never happened again. She was like Shane’s Lily in that, and Shane had more than once said it was one of the traits that had made him fall in love with her.

  “Please, Sean, tell us,” Sage said contritely.

  He sucked in a breath, and let it out. “It’s something she told me. About…that day.” They all looked at him silently. “She told me Dad’s exact words were ‘Not his fault…find him…my kids…tell them.’”

  Shane’s brow furrowed. “Pretty much what the report said. He’d never blame George for an accident.”

  “That’s just it. Elena said she assumed then, like we all did, that what he’d meant was that it wasn’t George Goetz’s fault, and to find us and tell us that. But she and I had been talking about Kane, and she said it suddenly hit her that maybe we were wrong.”

  Slater and Shane had both gone rigidly still. Sage was staring now. He sucked in another deep breath, then plunged ahead.

  “She wondered if maybe what he’d really meant was… ‘It wasn’t Kane’s fault. Tell my kids to find him.’” Simultaneously Shane’s jaw tightened, Slater swore under his breath, and Sage’s eyes widened. Sean made himself finish. “She said that fit much better with what she knew of him.”

  They sat there in stunned silence for a long moment. Sean could almost feel his siblings thinking, processing. And then they were nodding as they reached the same conclusion he had; Elena was right, this fit much, much better with who their father had been.

  Finally Sage, looking directly at him, said with obviously heartfelt sincerity, “All I’ve got to say is I’m really glad you guys are adding some very special and smart women to the family.”

  All of Sean’s irritation drained away. Sage might get a little snarly with people, but it was almost always in defense of those she loved. And when she accepted, she accepted completely, as she had with both Lily and Joey.

  “A little premature there, Sis,” he said. He felt a bit at sea, with no idea if he and Elena could really be headed toward the kind of bliss his brothers had found.

  “Don’t try and sell that to me,” Slater, who rarely drawled, drawled. “I saw that kiss she planted on you before she left.” He ignored Sean’s flush and added, “Believe me, you could do a lot worse.”

  “Personally,” Shane said quietly, but in that way that hushed them all, “I think no man could do better than Elena.” His mouth quirked. “Equal, perhaps, but not better.”

  And as he sat there at the family table, Sean realized he’d just been gifted with an acceptance he’d never even had to ask for.

  Only problem was, now it was up to him to make sure it was necessary.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Elena made note of how willingly Marcos went to bed, and how quickly he went to sleep. Obviously a day spent outside, doing physical things, was the key. He’d begun to protest less once he’d started his lessons with Sean, but this was a new level.

  Sean.

  She quashed the memory of what she had done, how she had so blatantly—and passionately—kissed him, heedless of who else was present, including her son. She refused to regret it, not when she’d felt him respond in the same way. And after all, he had kissed her in front of half the town.

  What was more difficult to deal with was the frustration of feeling in limbo, as if they were suspended somehow, waiting for…something.

  She paced her bedroom, wondering how he was, wondering what else they might have learned about the missing Highwater brother. Tried to imagine what it would be like, but the only comparison she could relate to was if Enrique had been missing in action instead of killed and recovered. If she didn’t know if he was dead or alive, had no idea where he was, how much worse would it have been? True, if she hadn’t known there would always be that slim chance he was alive, but the not knowing would have been horrible. Utterly horrible.

  She spun on her heel and started pacing back the other way.

  Not his fault…find him…my kids…tell them…

  As if she were reliving it, the scene flowed through her mind with the force of the Pedernales at flood. The sensation of trying to staunch blood that would not stop flowing, and of looking into a pair of Highwater blue eyes and seeing the knowledge there, the
awareness that he was dying. The words, pushed out against the pain, in desperate need to get them said.

  Steven Highwater had entrusted her with those words, and she had relayed them carefully. But she had also assumed, as they all had, that she’d known what he’d meant.

  She could remember the hard, unforgiving feel of the curb beneath her as she sat there, her feet in a gutter running water tinged pink with blood, after the fire department had washed away the traces of what had happened. She knew she herself was stained with that same blood—her hands, her blouse, her slacks where she had knelt beside the man she so respected, tears flowing from her eyes. She did not care, and was in no hurry to wash away the last trace of him.

  And then she had looked up to see a young man, standing in almost the exact spot, staring down at the wet asphalt as if there were something there that could make it all a lie. It took her a moment to place the third Highwater son, Sean. And in that moment he lifted his head to look at her. She had never forgotten what she’d seen in his face.

  Six years later, she had looked in a mirror and seen that same devastation in her own eyes. Devastation, as she realized her life as she’d known it was over, and that it would never, ever be the same.

  She fairly leapt for her phone when it chimed a text.

  Hope this doesn’t wake you. On hold until after Xmas. Then one of us will go.

  She started to text back that she was still awake, then stopped. Stared at the unemotional words. Gave a sigh of disgust and tapped the phone icon beside his name.

  “Elena? You didn’t have to—”

  “I can’t tell if you are all right if I cannot hear your voice.”

  There was a moment of silence before he said, very quietly, “I’m fine. Better than fine, actually.” She let out a breath of relief. But before she could speak he said, “And all the Highwaters thank you.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Thank me? For what?”

  “For what you did that day. And for what you realized about Dad’s last words.”

  “Oh. You told them?”

  “They agree.” There was nearly an audible smile in his voice when he added, “I think we’re all a little boggled we didn’t think of this.”

  “I think you were perhaps all too close to it.”

  “Probably. But they thank you anyway.” A fractional pause and then, “And so do I. For much more than…this.” His voice had taken on that rough undertone that was like a soft brush over her skin.

  “No thanks necessary.”

  Silence spun out for a moment, and when he spoke again it was more briskly. And she wondered if, for him, it was a chance missed…or evaded.

  “I know you have your family gathering tomorrow, for the feast day, so I won’t expect Marcos. But Friday?”

  “He will be there. He is already upset at missing tomorrow.” She hesitated, then said it. “You would be welcomed, tomorrow, but as Marcos said, it is a crowd.”

  “I…thank you. But no.” He hesitated, and she hated the way he sounded when he added, “I know, weird.”

  “You are many things, including that wise and generous, and brilliant and kind and clever, and a long list of things. A list that might include, down toward the bottom, different. But never, ever weird.”

  “I…thank you.”

  They were the same words, even with the same pause, but they sounded completely different. Pleased. Maybe even more than pleased. And suddenly she was hungry for time alone with him, time to privately explore what was coming to life between them. She simply did not know how to manage it. Her life was so full of family, with Marcos, and living in her mother’s house, and then her huge, crazy extended family. Could Sean deal? Marcos could, but as he’d said, it was because he already knew them all. Even she would be a little nervous, if it were reversed.

  “But you will come Saturday? To the house?”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “It will make my birthday the kind of special it has not been in a long time.”

  When the call was over she stood looking at the phone in her hand for a long time. She couldn’t quite believe how forward she had become with this man. Quite unlike her strict upbringing, and unlike she’d been even with her husband. She might have declared her independence rather fervently and rather young, but she still carried some aspects of her mother’s views on such things. And it had, in the end, brought her Enrique, who as a practiced flirt at first took her as a challenge when she brushed him off, but fell in love with her in the process of trying to storm her walls, as he had put it.

  But Sean needed this, she sensed. He would never assume; he had not spent his life collecting adoring females, the opposite in fact. And now that he had grown into the kind of man those females would indeed adore, he still remembered when they would have nothing to do with him. He had changed, had gone from the awkward, geeky kid to the fit, strong, handsome man he was now, but he’d never forgotten.

  She doubted anyone ever forgot those kind of scars.

  *

  Whoever believed Friday the 13th was unlucky hadn’t had his day.

  Sean was humming along, already with a successful conviction of a serial burglar from Fredericksburg who’d tried to expand his target area to Last Stand, thanks to evidence he’d come up with when he’d figured out where the guy was fencing the jewelry he stole. He’d even gotten through this morning’s testimony well. The all-business, impersonal atmosphere of a courtroom was something he could handle, even if it was crowded. And maybe he could even get through this damn seminar thing. It was, after all, just a bunch of cops. He was used to that. And then there was the possibility of another step in the search for Kane hovering. That was huge.

  And above it all was the memory of that kiss. A memory that hadn’t dulled at all in the two days since.

  There was something about the fact that she had done it, and in front of both Marcos and Slater, that seemed incredibly significant. Significant enough that last night he had almost wished he’d said he’d come to the family gathering when she’d said he’d be welcome. But he’d driven by Valencia’s last night, and the feast day celebration had been in full swing, with the restaurant as full as it was on a busy night…just with her family. And that, despite his best efforts, was still daunting to him.

  But he would see her tomorrow. In a much smaller setting. Of course it would be with her mother and Marcos present, but he would take what he could get. In fact, the thought had come to him that that might be a good thing, because—

  “Sean! How are you?”

  He blinked, snapped out of his vaguely forming plan for Elena’s birthday and back to the present.

  “Lark,” he registered. “Hi.”

  Lark Leclair was a familiar face. Not only had she been in his class at school, and a friend, he’d later encountered her now and then when his job had involved at-risk juveniles. Back then she’d been with Children’s Services, dealing with kids who had to be pulled out of dangerous family situations. But she had left the job a couple of years ago, and he surely understood why. Now she worked for a private adoption agency, and seemed much happier.

  “Sorry,” the petite blonde said with a wide smile, “did I derail you solving the case of the century?”

  He didn’t take offense at her teasing—it was too obviously good-natured. “No. No, it was…personal.”

  Instantly her expression changed. “Anything I can do? Can I help?”

  Unlike some, he knew Lark meant it. He had once helped find a little girl she’d been trying to save from an abusive mother. The mother had finally snapped. She’d beaten the child and dumped what she thought was the body where it might never have been found, but Sean had pored over everything they had and everything Lark could tell him about the case, and come up with three possibilities of where the mother might rid herself of what she thought of as her burden. The second one had not only been right, but they’d found the child still alive. After that, Lark had thanked him so effusively it had almost been embarras
sing, and she’d vowed that if he ever, ever needed anything, she was there for him.

  Anything I can do?

  It hit him then that quite possibly there was. “I…maybe.”

  She smiled, and it lit her light green eyes. “Anything. You know that.”

  He nodded slowly, then said, “I need to get a birthday present for somebody, and I really don’t know what.”

  She smiled at that. “I’d love to help. Can you take a coffee break and we’ll talk?”

  “I…sure.”

  They were only two doors away from Char-Pie, so they went in there. Charlie was in the back; they could hear her humming. Her sister, Audrey, was working out front, and the slim redhead greeted them both as she poured the requested coffee.

  “She sounds happy,” Lark said, nodding toward the back.

  Audrey rolled her eyes, but it was with a loving smile. “She’s always that way now.”

  “That happy have a name?” Lark asked. “McBride, for instance?”

  Something clicked in his mind and Sean remembered Joey saying something about Charlie and Turner McBride finally getting it together. He found himself watching Lark, admiring her easy way with people, remembering how she had been able to coax even the most terrified child into her arms. She understood people, understood what they were afraid of. Even him.

  Give people a chance, Sean. Just one at a time, if necessary.

  She’d said that to him the night after they’d given him an award for saving that kid’s life. He’d brushed it off saying it was only his job, ready to run the moment it was over, but she’d urged him to stay, introduced him to people one at a time, and he’d gotten through it. So in a way she’d already thanked him, in a very helpful way. But then, that’s who Lark was. Ever willing to help.

  “So,” she said, “who?”

  He’d been only vaguely aware of taking a seat at table she’d selected, in a private corner, but her words brought him back abruptly. Should he tell her who? But then would he have to explain why? Did she even know Elena? Should he—