Unbridled
“I know it all too well,” he said somberly. “I’m carrying about three ounces of lead in my carcass that they could never remove.” His face hardened, as if he was remembering how he collected that lead.
She cocked her head.
“Give it up,” he said with faint amusement. “I don’t talk about my past, ever. Well, maybe to a local priest, but he’s an old friend.”
She pursed her lips. She knew a priest downtown who was a former merc. He did a lot of outreach work. “I wonder if we could possibly be thinking of the same priest?”
He glowered at her.
She held up both hands in mock surrender. “Okay, I’m done. Honest.”
He shook his head with a heavy sigh. “Some people!” he scoffed.
She grinned at him. He’d been so kind when she was living through her own tragedy.
“Okay. What did he say?”
She sipped black coffee. It was at least strong enough to keep her awake, if badly brewed. She made a face.
“Listen, if you’d ever had coffee made over a campfire with the grounds still in it,” he began.
She sighed. “Good point. At least it’s not that bad.” She lifted her eyes to his pale ones. “He said that he loved wolves, and that his boss was getting ready to poison a few snakes.”
Hollister whistled softly. “Oh, boy.”
“Like I said, it could have been the aftereffects of the anesthesia.”
“Or it could be code for what’s really happening.” His eyes narrowed. “You know what’s going on. Your hospital got the last two victims...the dead kid who was in Los Serpientes, and the wounded Lobitos member who skipped out before police could question him.”
She nodded. She was thinking of Tonio and the treatment he’d had at the hands of Rado and his friends. She worried for him.
“There’s a gang war starting,” Cal told her. “I don’t want a gang war in San Antonio. I still remember the last one and it makes me sick at my stomach.”
“I remember it, too.” It was the one that had resulted in her family’s death.
“I’m going to set up a task force,” he said. “We have a Texas Ranger here with a good knowledge of gangs and gang activities. I’m going to ask him to join.”
“Does he know about this latest shooting?”
He smiled secretively and glanced past her. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
She half turned in her chair, and there was John Ruiz, staring at the two of them with narrow black eyes. And he wasn’t smiling.
FOUR
“We were just talking about you,” Hollister chuckled.
“Was it something printable?” John asked as he joined them at the table.
“Mostly.” He held up a cup. “Want coffee?”
“I have too much respect for the beverage to ever drink it out of that counterfeit machine,” John said haughtily.
“It makes very nice hot chocolate,” Sunny said in its defense.
“It also steals dollar bills,” John muttered. “Someone should give it an attitude adjustment.”
“You wouldn’t ever have gone down to Palo Verde with a baseball bat?” Hollister asked hesitantly, and with a grin.
John chuckled in spite of himself as he pulled up a chair and straddled it. “No, but I understand the officer who did is still paying off the damage on a monthly basis. The circuit judge put the fear of God into him.”
“What am I missing?” Sunny asked, her eyes glancing off John’s. A faint blush colored her high cheekbones and he seemed to relax, all of a sudden.
She didn’t realize that he’d seen her with Hollister and that he was suddenly jealous. The other man drew women like flowers drew bees. Her flush delighted him, because it was proof that she was more attracted to him than the good-looking blond man sitting with her. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind since he’d seen her in the cathedral. Crazy, to feel possessive about a woman he hardly knew!
“There was a soft drink machine in the police department in Palo Verde,” John told her, bringing his attention back to the incident Hollister had alluded to. “It ate dollar bills and refused to give either change or soft drinks. One of the officers accidentally hit it with a baseball bat several times and it had to be replaced. So the story goes.”
She burst out laughing. “How in the world can you accidentally hit a soft drink machine with a baseball bat several times?!”
“Funny, the judge asked the same question,” John replied, his black eyes twinkling.
“And what was the officer’s excuse?” she asked.
“Muscle spasms,” he said with a grin.
She chuckled. John loved the way she laughed. It made her look very pretty, with her face animated and those dark eyes bright with humor.
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