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“No, ma’am. Already talked to Justin Kilgore.”
Goodness. This man seemed to know everybody. “So, is Yolonda an…an illegal alien then?” Frankie tried not to cast any wary glances at the child and prayed the girl didn’t speak English.
“Yes, ma’am. Crossed two nights ago. Not under the most ideal circumstances.”
“Are circumstances down there ever ideal?” Frankie frowned, but again, not at the girl. In Frankie’s world, undocumented aliens were never acknowledged as such, even if they were cleaning your house or doing your yardwork. She hoped this Ranger wasn’t going to ask her to take charge of the girl.
“Her case is even worse than most,” Driscoll went on dryly. “And now she needs protection.” A glance from the Ranger caused the girl to adopt that big-eyed, fear-filled look again.
Quietly he said, “¿Estás bien?”
It was then that Frankie noticed that the jean jacket the girl was wearing was way too large for her, a man’s size in fact, and that Driscoll was wearing only a Western-cut denim shirt. Running around in January weather in his shirtsleeves? Likely because he’d given his jacket to a freezing child.
The child gave him a quick nod, but Frankie didn’t think this girl looked okay at all. “Mr. Driscoll—Luke—I can’t…I’d like to help, but…”
“Yolonda’s not the reason I’m here. I hate to interrupt your work, but I didn’t have a number where I could reach you. It’s a pure stroke of luck that I saw you. I need a favor.”
“Of course.” Frankie reasoned she should cooperate with the law, but she suspected it would be closer to the truth to admit that doing a favor for this handsome man would be no hardship.
“Would you care for some coffee?” she said. The aroma filling the cozy store was suddenly working on her.
“No, ma’am. Thanks anyhow,” Driscoll drawled.
But when he said something to Yolonda in Spanish, the girl mumbled back, nodding. “She’ll have some, if it’s no trouble. Black.”
Frankie smiled and went to the sideboard. She poured two foam cups of coffee, handed one to Yolonda, quickly added cream to her own.
She led the girl to an old wrought-iron park bench—one of Robbie’s finds—while Driscoll took a nearby lawn chair that Zack had left behind.
Frankie sipped the coffee, then said, “What can I do for you?”
Again, the corners of Driscoll’s mouth turned down in that grudging way. It wasn’t an unpleasant expression. It was actually kind of sexy. Frankie almost rolled her eyes at her own errant thoughts. Behave, she told herself, the man is probably married. And so, incidentally, was she. Though not for much longer.
“You need help with the girl?” Frankie adopted a kindly mien, as if she were some social worker handling a case. She also surreptitiously checked out the third finger on Luke Driscoll’s left hand. A gold band.
When she looked up, their eyes met and the collision sent another tremor to her core. Luke held her gaze only a millisecond before he spoke in a flat monotone. “No, Mrs. Hostler. I was wondering—”
“Call me Frankie.” Please. Anything but the name of that little prick I married.
“Okay. Frankie. I wondered if you could show me the way back to those caves we saw the day we met. On your parents’ land?”
“We were actually on my sister’s land that day. The farms are adjoining. Well, it’s not my sister’s land anymore, or at least it isn’t hers until she gets married again. It belongs to a man named Zack Trueblood now. The man she’s going to marry this spring. She’s a widow, you know.”
“I know.” Luke’s tone was long-suffering. “I met Trueblood, and your sister.” Then he frowned. “So, would you prefer that I contact Trueblood about the caves?”
“No,” Frankie said a little too quickly. “I’d be happy to take you out there myself. I’m sure Zack wouldn’t mind.” She already knew she wouldn’t mind spending time with this man. “When do you want to go?”
“Now, if possible. We could drop Yolonda on the way.”
“We can call Justin and my sister once we’re on the road.” Frankie jumped up, ditched the coffee, and marched into the main store, feeling Luke Driscoll and his charge close behind. Why was she doing this?
When Luke came up alongside her and she smelled his aftershave, she knew why. “I hope her cell phone works. It’s so remote out there. The Kilgore spread doesn’t even have electricity in places, you know. Over eighty thousand acres. Parts of it only accessible on horseback.”
One of Luke Driscoll’s dark eyebrows had arched up when Frankie mentioned the size of the ranch, but he had said nothing, which had the effect of making Frankie all the more nervous. Why was she babbling? Why was she running to fetch her purse, gathering up her coat? Why? Because she was ripe for adventure, for any distraction? Especially a good-looking one in boots and a Stetson? What about the wallpapering?
Oh, to hell with it, Frankie thought as she snatched her purse and leather jacket off the coat tree and jammed her arms into the sleeves. She’d figure all of that out and call Robbie on the way, as well.
Outside on the sidewalk, Ardella was dragging some large pots out for display. She smiled and gave the trio a little nod, and Frankie thought, She’ll report to mother that she saw me leaving the shop with a poorly dressed Mexican girl and a tall man in a cowboy hat.
But again, Frankie didn’t care. When had she stopped vying for the whole world’s approval? The sun hit her eyes and she rummaged in her purse for sunglasses.
A bright, beckoning January day waited out there in the remote, mystical Texas Hill Country. And Frankie McBride—strike the Hostler part, strike it for good—was going to go out into those hills with this compelling man. For once in her anal-retentive, play-it-safe, carefully measured, hideously sterile life, she was going to take her chances and just go with her gut.
Or…would that be her heart?
YOLONDA REYES pleaded with her wide obsidian eyes and whined something in Spanish. Something about not going to La Luz, the name the illegals used for the Light at Five Points.
But Luke Driscoll’s response, also in Spanish, sounded firm. Frankie caught the last words: y no más problemas—and no more trouble.
“Yolonda here,” Luke explained to Frankie, “tried twice to escape back to Mexico. Because I didn’t let her, she’s plenty upset. But this girl is the lone witness I have.”
“A witness? To what?”
“Murder.”
Frankie gasped, but Luke cut off her next question. “She doesn’t need to relive it now, even in English.”
The girl sat hunched in the small back seat of Driscoll’s crew cab on the long drive from town to the Kilgore ranch, her face growing as sullen as a storm cloud.
“Why do you need to see those caves?” Frankie broke the tense silence.
He answered her question with a question. “What do you know about Congressman Kurt Kilgore?”
That name surprised Frankie. “Nothing except for what I read in the paper, what I see on the news. Why?”
“He’s your youngest sister’s father-in-law now, correct?”
“Yes, but Markie and Justin don’t have much of anything to do with him. Justin and his father are…estranged. They had a run-in. He didn’t even come to their wedding.”
“Yeah. They recently got married, too—when was it now?”
“Last fall, right before my niece was born. Zack deliv—”
“Yes. How is Mrs. Tellchick doing these days?”
Frankie wanted to say that he had a habit of interrupting, but she thought better of it. She didn’t know him well enough to point out his shortcomings yet. Yet? Was she planning to get to know this man better?
She moved a little closer to the passenger door of his pickup to mull that one over. His…aura felt overwhelming in the confined space of the cab. An XM country station played softly on a high-quality sound system. The lyrics made her nervous. “Islands in the Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. No one in between, the duet sang. Islands in the stream.
The immaculate interior, glowing with hot-red dash lights, smelled like leather and aftershave, rich and masculine. The scent seemed to permeate everything. The cologne was one she was sure she had sniffed in some high-end department store. One that Kyle would never wear.
“I started to say that Zack delivered Robbie’s baby.” She strove to resume the conversation as the singers wailed, Sail away with me, and she felt something shifting, some emotion taking wing inside her.
“He and Robbie knew each other in high school. Actually, Markie and Justin knew each other before, too.” She was jabbering again. “High school sweethearts. Well, Markie was in high school. Justin was already in college.”
“What about you and your husband? You guys go way back, too?”
Frankie felt her color flare up again. She was going to blush herself to death around this man. “No. We…actually, I’d rather not talk about him. I’m in the process of getting a divorce.”
His eyebrow slashed up again. Frankie wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. This man might take a little getting used to. Why was she thinking about things like knowing him better and getting used to him? But as they hurtled down the highway, she had to admit that she was already thinking about where this would lead, this hopping in a pickup and taking off into the Hill Country. She studied his profile, his expression inscrutable behind the shades. He was handsome as hell.
It would be several more miles over a winding highway before they would reach the McBride farm where Frankie had grown up. That farm and the Tellchick-Trueblood farm sat tucked into a bend of the Blue River, surrounded by Kilgore land. As they approached the turnoff, Frankie worried about explaining herself if one of her parents passed on the road. Unlikely, since P.J. seldom left the farm, and Marynell never acknowledged people on the highway.
“Just plain un-Texan,” P.J. had once kidded his wife about her standoffish behavior.
“Un-Texan?” Marynell had snapped. “That’s all you think about, isn’t it, P. J. McBride? Fitting in? As if giving a two-fingered salute to some good old boy means you really belong?”
Frankie remembered how unwarranted it was, like all of Marynell’s attacks. Her father simply loved his neighbors, loved Texas. His friendliness wasn’t some sycophantic effort to fit in.
“This it?” Luke’s deep voice interrupted Frankie’s sad memory.
They had come to the turnoff, where a cluster of live oaks with gray-green limbs dipped low to the ground. The foliage remained attached in winter, waiting for spring when new leaves would push off the faded ones. Maybe, Frankie thought, she was like those trees, stuck with the old. Dormant until something new pushed it aside. She looked at Luke Driscoll as he slowed the truck and the sun reflected off his shades. “Yes. Turn here.”
He steered the pickup off the highway onto a gravel ranch road.
For three miles, a straight and dusty path led past first Frankie’s parents’ white-frame two-story, with its gray-metal windmill and neat outbuildings, then past her sister Robbie’s squat old farmhouse, in much better condition these days thanks to Zack Trueblood, until at last they were arrowing across Kilgore land.
The truck strained into a gentle climb as the rock-strewn landscape grew higher, drier. This hilly land was fit for little but ranching. Its winter coat ran from tan to faded gray-green broken only by dark lines of trees along the creeks and down in the riverbed.
Finally the Kilgore ranch house appeared in the distance, a limestone-pillared three-story that stood out like a timeless fortress. Smoke curled from tall chimneys at either end of a steep-pitched red tile roof. A small collection of low stone buildings huddled behind.
Justin had converted his family’s historic ranch house into communal living quarters and offices for the Light at Five Points. Frankie was astonished at the changes in the place.
The undocumented aliens that took shelter there had restored most of the stonework, cleared a tremendous amount of cedar and erected sturdy modern fencing in place of the crumbling split rail. Her sister Markie had started teaching English classes right after Christmas. The place already felt settled, productive, and Frankie was impressed.
Yolonda, however, was not. She folded her skinny arms across her chest and glared at the back of Luke’s head.
Luke ignored her, braked the truck and said, “Vamos.”
They got out and the smell of cedar smoke hanging in the cold air made Frankie nostalgic. Nothing was quite as magical as a clear Hill Country morning out on a ranch.
Markie stepped out onto the porch, looking stylish at eight in the morning as only Markie could, wearing tall boots, snug jeans, a black turtleneck and a red boiled-wool vest. The sisters shared a similar brunette prettiness, but Markie wore her shiny dark hair in a more casual style than Frankie’s classic pageboy.
Frankie could see that marriage agreed with her little sister. Her alabaster complexion was glowing and her smile was huge. A young Hispanic woman—very pregnant, Frankie noted with a familiar pang of envy—accompanied her.
They mounted the steps, where the sisters exchanged a quick hug and Frankie did the introductions.
“What brings you here, Mr. Driscoll?” Markie eyed Luke. She sneaked Frankie a sly little glance that said, Wow.
Luke was impressive, Frankie thought. And married.
She felt her cheeks heating again and wished Markie would mind her own beeswax. But that was not the McBride sisters’ way.
“I’ve come back to continue my investigation.” Driscoll cleared his throat and looked at Yolonda, who was starting to fidget nervously. “And I wonder if you’ve heard anything from Juan and Julio Morales.”
The pregnant girl gasped and covered her lips with shaky fingers.
“No. Nothing. But we’d sure like to. Julio is the father of Aurelia’s baby.” Markie then spoke in Spanish to the pregnant girl, who tried to spirit the new girl off into the house like a hen taking a chick under wing.
But Yolonda balked. She carefully removed the denim jacket, with its warm sheepskin lining, and gave it up to its owner. “Gracias,” she said with sad eyes.
“No hay de qué,” Luke said quietly.
“She’s going to be a handful,” Luke explained when the girls were gone. “Doesn’t want to be here. But I need her kept safe.”
Markie smiled. “We’re used to handling scared teenagers. There’s always a lot of mistrust at first. Aurelia will help her adjust.”
“She’s more scared than most. She witnessed the thing with the Morales’ sister.”
Markie’s bright smile vanished. “We heard about that. You think that’s related to your investigation then?”
“Absolutely.”
Frankie felt a mild irritation that her sister knew more than she did, and that Driscoll seemed more forthcoming with Markie.
Markie shook her head. “Danny’s murder. Whatever my father-in-law is covering up. The Morales brothers. Now this trouble on the border. What a mess.”
“Yes, ma’am. A mess that needs addressing.” Then to Frankie’s surprise, the laconic Driscoll launched into a kind of speech.
“This sort of thing is bad for relations. I’ve been deep into Mexico, even on down into Central America, and it’s my opinion that we’d better learn to get along with these people. We could easily take U.S. prosperity all the way into Honduras. And if we don’t let them work for us and improve themselves, everything will end up being made in China.”
“You sound like my husband.” Markie’s smile returned, broader and brighter. “Justin said he liked you. Y’all want to come inside? Aurelia just made fresh coffee.”
Frankie was tempted to sit by the big window in the cool stone kitchen and sip Markie’s rich ranch house coffee while the sun rose higher over the hills.
But once again, Driscoll proved focused. He turned to Frankie. “We’d better get going.”
“To the caves?” Nosy Markie.
“Yes.” Frankie wished she hadn’t told Markie that part. She turned to go, hoping to avoid this topic. She knew her youngest sister had suspicions about that area ever since Congressman Kilgore had pulled a gun on her son inside one of the caverns. Old man Kilgore had claimed he mistook the boy for a trespasser, and the local law bought it, but Frankie sensed there was something bad, something unfinished, about the whole affair.
Markie grabbed Frankie’s arm. “What do you all expect to find in the caves?”
“Won’t know until we look.” Driscoll took command of Frankie’s arm and touched the brim of his Stetson, steering her out and dismissing Markie.
When the truck lurched to a halt under the rusting wrought-iron Kilgore ranch gates, Luke said, “Which way?”
Frankie looked up and down the narrow gravel road. “You want the scenic route?”
