Lone Star Diary

“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.