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

  “Rabbit hole?”

  Elena’s quiet question snapped him out of his reverie. “Sorry,” he said automatically.

  “You do not need to apologize for that,” she said.

  He shrugged. Damn, he did a lot of that around her. “Most people think I do.”

  “I do not. Your mind is what makes you who you are. And,” she added with a glance at her son, “you have helped me to understand. So I owe that mind a great deal.”

  He really wished she would quit saying stuff like that. He didn’t want her owing him.

  “What was this particular rabbit hole about?”

  “I was just thinking about my dad, after the mother died.”

  “‘The’ mother?”

  He shrugged. “None of us really like claiming her.”

  “Some people do not deserve the honor,” she said with a quiet understanding that made him feel…he wasn’t sure what. “It is as well your heritage is not mine, then, or you would have carried her name.”

  He let out a wry chuckle. “My first thought, when I figured out the naming system.”

  “At least you bothered to figure it out.”

  “Good thing. I need it now.”

  He’d meant he needed it since he encountered it so often at work, of course. Too many didn’t get it, and thought someone was lying about their name simply because the naming custom was different, and what was the last name to those of Mexican heritage didn’t match what they thought should be the last name. But in truth, he’d learned the system not in school but on his own. After the day when the most awful thing in his life happened, and the most wonderful at the same time.

  Then, before she could ask what exactly he’d been thinking, he looked back at Marcos. “Hey, buddy, maybe you can give me a hand.”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “Me? Help you?”

  “Yes,” Sean said with a grin. “I need to figure out what to buy for the toy drive.”

  “You mean that thing the firefighters do, for poor kids?”

  “For kids who aren’t as lucky as you are, yes.” Marcos looked a little startled, as if he’d never thought of himself as lucky before. “Like kids who don’t have any parent or grandparent at all to love them and take care of them.”

  “Or who don’t have a home,” Elena put in, “and maybe don’t even have enough food to eat sometimes.”

  Marcos glanced at his mother, but returned his gaze to Sean, who shrugged. Again. “Anyway, Spencer McBride is my buddy. He’s a paramedic, and he kind of spearheads the thing, so I try to help every year. But all I know about are video games.”

  “But that’s all I know about, too.”

  “Hmm. Good point. So maybe I need to think about a handheld like yours, then. With a couple of different games. Do you think some kid would like that on Christmas morning?” In fact, Spencer had saved that particular appeal for him, without even putting it on the Angel Tree they set up for such requests of Santa.

  “Yeah!” Marcos exclaimed. Then, giving Sean a rather calculating look, he said, “I could help pick them out, maybe.”

  Elena laughed. Sean looked at her. “He’s looking for a good excuse to go to the game store.”

  “Well,” Sean said with a grin again, “this is a pretty good excuse.”

  “Yes, it is,” she agreed.

  “Then I can go?” Marcos asked excitedly.

  “When it is convenient for Sean,” she answered. Then she shifted her gaze to him. “And if that is truly what you intended.”

  “Sure.”

  “I, on the other hand,” she said, “will be shopping for something a bit more little girly. I understand stuffed animals are always in demand.”

  “Boring,” Marcos said. “I’d rather go to the game store.”

  “We could do it at the same time, at that shopping center just outside Whiskey River.” It was out before he thought, and he finished rather lamely, “There’s a game store and a kids’ shop right next to each other.”

  “Wise planning,” she said with a smile.

  “Yeah,” he said, still in disbelief that he’d actually made the suggestion. He had to be losing his mind.

  “I’ve never been to that game store. Is it cool?” Marcos asked.

  Sean looked back at the boy. “They’ve got a cutout of your monster that’s taller than me.”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “Taller than you? Really? We gotta go, then. Right, Mom?”

  “It seems…an efficient idea.”

  Right, Highwater. Efficient. That’s what appeals to her. Doesn’t she manage this place with killer efficiency?

  “When can we go?” Marcos demanded excitedly. He looked at his mother. “Tomorrow after school? You’re off tomorrow.”

  “But Sean is not,” she said.

  “As it happens, I have the afternoon off,” he said. At her look, he shrugged. Again. “To make up for Friday. We’ll all be working overtime, from the parade to the tree lighting.”

  She looked startled. “All?”

  He nodded. “We always do.”

  “But I never see more police than usual.”

  “Plain clothes. Shane wants us there just in case, but not detracting from the mood. So we’re there like any other citizen, just ready to take action if necessary.” He gave her a half-smile. “Thankfully, it rarely is. And we get to enjoy it as everyone else does.”

  “So we can go, then?” Marcos asked, clearly impatient with the discussion.

  “If you think you can remain quiet long enough for us to arrange it,” Elena said, but her look and voice weren’t stern but tolerantly amused. The boy subsided happily, and they worked out that they would go tomorrow afternoon.

  They ended up talking about Whiskey River and how it got the name, then comparing its history to that of Last Stand. And then somehow, he wasn’t sure how, they veered onto the age-old subject of whether Texas should have remained an independent republic.

  “I’m afraid my opinion varies depending on what insanity is going on at the moment,” he admitted, “but there are times when I really wish we had.”

  She laughed. “I think that is true of any Texian at heart.”

  “Like Jose Valencia?” he asked, speaking of her ancestor who had been at the battle that had truly been the birth of Last Stand. “I know some of his history, like that he was originally in the Mexican army under Lieutenant Colonel Ruiz and helped build Fort Tenoxtitlan on the Brazos.”

  She was staring at him rather oddly. “You know this?”

  “Well, yeah. And that eventually he changed sides because he hated Santa Anna and what he was doing, and that he was at the siege of Bexar with Juan Seguín. And he stayed in Last Stand after the fight, and ended up starting Valencia Tile.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “You already know more of my ancestor than many in my own family.”

  “Thank my dad.”

  “I often do.” She gave him a smile that did crazy things to his insides. “And you learned his lessons well,” she said softly.

  They sat talking about various things—she seemed to be able to keep up with the weird turns his brain sometimes took, often requiring only the slightest clue to get there—until, to his shock, Rosalina appeared in the doorway to say they were closing up. A quick glance at his watch told him it was indeed ten p.m. The look of surprise on her face was gratifying somehow, as if she’d lost track of the time passing just as he had.

  She looked across the table to Marcos, who sat with his head down on his arms, crossed atop the table.

  “He checked out on us when we started on history, I think,” Sean said with a crooked grin.

  “He has had a busy day,” she said. Then she looked back at Sean. “And not a moment of it spent before a screen. I thank you for that.”

  “I remember the day I realized I was grateful to my dad for forcing me out to work on the ranch. Otherwise I would have lost myself completely in the online and gaming world.” He gave her a wry smile. “It really ticked me off th
en, but now I thank him every day.”

  For a moment she just looked at him. Then she said softly, “I am certain he would be so very proud of his children.” Sean’s throat tightened impossibly. She thankfully didn’t wait for him to answer but turned back to her son and said, “I hate to wake him so late, but I must get him home and into bed.”

  “I’ll get him,” Sean said, standing up. “Maybe we can get him to your car without him waking up.”

  He leaned over and scooped Marcos up out of the chair. He’d known how light he was from their training sessions, but somehow he seemed even smaller as he lifted him now. The boy murmured something, but didn’t wake. Sean settled him against his chest and then turned around. And froze.

  Elena was crying. Not audibly, but there was no denying the tears streaking down from her eyes. He forgot to breathe, afraid he’d inadvertently done something horribly wrong. But then she merely gestured at him to follow as she walked out of the family dining room and toward the back of the building. The kitchen gleamed in the dim lights that were still on as they passed through. She pulled a set of keys out and he heard the chirp of a car unlocking as they stepped through the back door. She turned and locked the back door of the restaurant.

  Once he had the boy safely ensconced on the back seat, still sound asleep, he pondered for a moment offering to follow her to get him out and into the house at the other end. But without knowing why she was crying he was afraid to say anything. So instead he just edged the car’s door shut as quietly as he could, then risked a glance at her. Her cheeks were still wet, although new tears seemed to have halted.

  She said nothing. Simply looked at him. And then, with a look in those dark, expressive eyes he couldn’t name, she leaned toward him, stretched up a little…and kissed his cheek.

  And then she was gone. He watched the taillights of her car until they vanished. Slowly he reached up and touched his cheek where her lips had been. He had no idea how long he stood there before he finally made himself move. All he was sure of was that it was probably a good thing he had a couple of blocks to walk to get back to the station and his car.

  Because maybe then he could talk himself out of wishing that had been an entirely different kind of kiss.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “This is a good thing, Elena.”

  “What is that, Mother?” she asked, not completely focused on the woman who had stepped into her bedroom just as she was tying a drapey black and white scarf around her neck. She tucked the scarf under the cowl-neck of the sweater that was a black tweed with just enough white to pick up the white in the scarf. It dressed up her black leggings a little bit, but not too much. She’d vowed she would not dwell on what she was going to wear today, not when she was only going shopping for a good cause.

  That it was with Sean Highwater was merely coincidence.

  “That you are seeing that young man.”

  She froze in the act of reaching for the ankle boots that would complete the outfit. Slowly she turned to look at her mother.

  “I am not ‘seeing’ him, in the sense you mean. And I’ll thank you not to start that again, Mother.”

  “Start what?” her mother asked innocently. Too innocently.

  “You know perfectly well what I mean.”

  “What I know perfectly well,” her mother retorted sternly, “is that my beautiful daughter is too young to have given up on life. We all grieve Enrique, Elena. But he would never want you to give up on having love in your life. And I know he told you this.”

  Elena blinked. “You know?”

  “I do. For he told me he had, and suggested I might have to be the one to push you to it.”

  She gaped at her mother. “You never told me this.”

  Suddenly her mother’s entire, stern demeanor changed, and her eyes were twinkling when she said, “Perhaps I saw no hope until now.”

  Elena turned back to the mirror, telling herself she was merely checking her appearance, not avoiding her mother’s bright gaze. But it was hard to ignore when her own pinkened cheeks were so obvious in her reflection.

  “He is too young, Mother.”

  Maria made a dismissive noise. “Don’t be silly. Are you not a modern woman to whom that does not matter? Besides, that boy has had enough pain in his life to mature him well beyond his years.”

  She hadn’t thought about it that way. But even with that set aside, his sputtering reaction when she had referred to an “old lady’s” birthday had been selfishly pleasing to her. And Enrique had been nearly two years younger than she, twenty to her twenty-one and eight months when they’d married. But she’d known, as he had, that it was right. And, to use her mother’s analogy, Enrique also was mature beyond his years after a rough childhood in which it had taken all of his strength of spirit to walk the straight and narrow.

  Sean had that same kind of spirit, she could not deny that. Perhaps that was why he so appealed to her.

  When the knock on the door came her mother hastened ahead of her to open it. Elena groaned inwardly at what her mother might say; once she got an idea in her head it was very hard to deter her. If she was lucky, her mother would only embarrass both of them with some suggestion that she approved. If she was not, her mother would be suggesting wedding dates.

  She laughed at the thought that it was Sean’s spirit that so appealed to her the moment she got a look at him. He was in his usual black, but today, off duty, it was a pair of beautifully snug jeans, and tucked into them a knit, long-sleeved Henley collared shirt that clung to his abs and chest lovingly. Over this he wore a lightweight jacket, although it was a sunny afternoon.

  She saw him nod respectfully to her mother—she liked that about him—and say a quiet good afternoon in a tone that matched. Then Marcos raced noisily into the room, even his grandmother’s presence unable to slow him to a walk.

  “Uh-oh,” Sean said to him with a grin.

  “Uh-oh?” Marcos asked as he skidded to a halt in front of Sean.

  “When we’d get too crazy in the house we always ended up with house chores. You know, dishes, vacuuming, dusting, sweeping the porch.”

  Marcos wrinkled his nose fiercely. “Ew.”

  “Exactly. Even for me, if I have to choose between that and outside chores, I’ll take outside every time.”

  “Like what?” Marcos asked with obvious fascination.

  “Lugging hay bales and feed sacks, shoveling out stalls, cleaning up the horses who managed to find some mud to roll in. Feeding them was the most fun. And checking fence, because that meant you got to ride, at least.”

  Marcos’s eyes had been widening with every word. “I almost forgot. You live on a ranch.”

  “Yep.” Sean looked up then, giving her mother an apologetic glance, as if he were sorry for ignoring her beyond his initial greeting. Elena saw her mother give him a wide smile as she shook her head, indicating she took no offense.

  “I’ve never been on a ranch,” Marcos said, so wistfully it startled her. The boy had never indicated any kind of interest in such things. Was this genuine, or just part of the huge significance that anything Sean had gained in his eyes?

  As if anything Sean isn’t gaining huge significance to you, too?

  She realized Sean was watching her as they got in the car—a small SUV with the Highwater Ranch Lone Star logo on the door—as if waiting for her to say something. Once Marcos was in the back seat and the door closed, he turned to her and said, so quietly her son couldn’t hear, “In line with what I suggested to him before, I didn’t invite him first and ask you later. But he’s welcome to come, if you’d allow it.”

  For some reason the reminder that Marcos was the main reason they had spent so much time together lately, inviting Sean everywhere and to everything, was unsettling.

  She also realized what Sean was doing. “I appreciate you acknowledging my authority, although there’s little doubt who has the greater influence on him right now.”

  “He’ll get over it,” Sean said. �
��I’m just…new.”

  She watched him as, after closing her door securely, he walked around to the driver’s side. Only when he slid into the seat and adjusted his jacket as he did so did she realize why he was wearing it. Because she’d gotten a glimpse of the weapon in a holster clipped to his belt.

  “You’re never really off duty, are you?” she asked quietly.

  He saw where she’d looked, shrugged. “Not really. Does it bother you?”

  It did, but only in the sense that it reminded her of what he risked every day. Just as Enrique had. “That would be hypocritical of me, would it not, to criticize the sheepdog who protects the flock for having teeth?”

  He smiled, and they had a pleasant conversation about many rambling things as he drove the few miles to Whiskey River. He seemed more relaxed than he had been, and she wondered if driving took just enough of his attention to relax that amazing brain of his. As for her son, he chimed in from the back seat often, sometimes with seeming non sequiturs that made no sense to her but that Sean seemed to instantly understand. She listened to them both, and felt an odd sensation welling up inside her, a sensation of her own sort of relaxation, of enjoyment, of…happiness. Rightness. As if right now, in this time and place, she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

  She shook off the odd—and likely dangerous—feeling as they pulled into the parking area that served the small shopping plaza. She had never been here before, so she glanced around. At one side was an ice cream shop, at the other a gas station next to an outdoor outfitters that looked to specialize in fishing gear. In between was the game store, and as Sean had said, next to it a children’s store that apparently ran from clothing to toys. She should have no trouble finding a gift for the toy drive there.

  But she found herself wanting to go with them into the game store, wanting to understand the fascination this world had for them. She supposed that was part of the fascination Sean held for her; if he had truly been like Marcos as a child, so enraptured by this world of pixels and controllers, yet had grown into the man he’d become, then it gave her hope for her son.