Just A Little Bit Married?

Three. “I’ve been looking.”

“How many have you turned down?”

“None of your goddamn business.”

Silence from the other end, except for the muted sounds of traffic that indicated Tom was in his car.

“Look,” Raz said, rubbing a hand over his face. Several days’ worth of stubble rasped his palm. “I guess you mean well, but I don’t need my big brother to ride in and save me from myself. I can find my own job.” When he had to. When the right job turned up. He still had some money saved up, after all. There was no rush.

Tom snorted. “You really believe I’m thinking of you here? I don’t risk my witnesses for you or anyone else. I need a guard for her. I want you to do it. When you’re not busy feeling sorry for yourself, you’re almost as good as you think you are.”

“Private security companies—”

“They aren’t good enough. Not for this.”

Raz’s eyebrows went up. Could his by-the-book brother actually have allowed himself to get personally involved in a case? Not with the witness, of course. Tom was too honorable to cheat on his wife. Besides, he was head-over-heels in love with her.

“I want you for it,” Tom said flatly. “Jacy got a threatening note from Javiero. yesterday. Apparently he doesn’t like the coverage she’s been giving his story.”

Oh, sweet Jesus. “She’s all right? And the baby?”

“Both of them are fine. She says I’m overreacting. A dozen other journalists, both print and TV, got similar messages yesterday. Even a nutcase like Javiero can’t go around killing them all, not when he’s trying to hide out.”

“It may be more of a power trip than a real threat.”

“Has your brain rotted out completely in the last couple months? I take a death threat from a man who’s killed at least five people pretty seriously.”

Raz bit back his too-ready anger. Tom was entitled to be touchy under the circumstances. “Javiero is scum, but he’s not stupid scum. By now he knows he’s going down. He just wants to make it happen his way. Sending death threats to journalists gets him more press, more attention.”

“If he really believed he was going down he wouldn’t be offing witnesses.”

Raz grimaced. Tom was one hell of a cop. The best. But he didn’t understand Javiero. Raz did. He’d lived with people like that for years. Hell, he’d been someone like that, in one of his alter egos. “One thing you have to understand about Javiero. Death and prison don’t worry him much, but pride, name, reputation—they mean everything. If he makes a big enough splash, takes enough people with him when he goes down, it makes him more real.”

“Maybe,” Tom said. “Maybe that is his motive right now—attention. He probably doesn’t realize Jacy is my wife. She still uses her maiden name professionally. But once he finds out—if he finds out—his attitude is apt to change.”

Raz’s knuckles went white on the receiver. Tom was right. If Javiero found out that one of the reporters he’d threatened was the wife of the cop who was pursuing him, it might make an attack on her irresistible.

With Jacy in danger, Raz had no choice. He had to do whatever he could, even if that meant being responsible for this witness’s life.

Even though the witness was a woman.

He took a deep breath and fought back the panic churning in his stomach. “What do you want me to do?”

“Take care of my witness. Keep her alive until we find Javiero and lock him up. I don’t want that son of a bitch walking when this goes to trial.”

“One witness’s testimony is no guarantee of a conviction.” Eyewitnesses were, in fact, notoriously unreliable.

“We’ve got physical and circumstantial evidence, too, but I need her. Juries don’t always trust a lab tech’s report, and this woman makes a hell of a good witness.”

“Tell me about her.”

“She’s a doctor, a trauma specialist, though she doesn’t look it. I doubt she’s more than an inch over five foot, and—”

Raz interrupted impatiently. “I didn’t ask for a physical description. What is she like?”

“Quiet Intense. Easy to underestimate. She’s got one hell of a memory for faces, fortunately, and when she’s sure of her facts she can’t be budged. She’s sure it was Javiero she saw that night. She recognized him.”

“How did she know him?”

“She volunteers at the free clinic on Burroughs twice a month. It seems he took his sister there a couple times.”

“Sounds like a real saint.”

“Just make sure she doesn’t get changed from a saint into a martyr.”

Raz promised. What else could he do? He knew what Tom was asking, knew why he was asking. Houston had several top-notch security agencies that could offer excellent round-the-clock protection, but professionals, however competent, weren’t enough. Not when Jacy’s life might be in danger.

Tom offered to call Raz’s boss and get the paperwork started that would grant him official permission to work a civilian job while still technically on the force.

“I could just quit,” Raz said.

“Not necessary,” Tom said, as Raz had known he would, adding, “I’ll be there to pick you up in ten minutes.”

“Pretty sure of me, weren’t you?” The hand that held the phone was starting to shake—a fine tremor, nothing obvious.

“Yes,” Tom said quietly. “I’m sure of you.”

More the fool you, Raz thought. He said goodbye and put the phone down. Then he waited for the shakes to pass.

Tom didn’t understand what he was asking, not really. There was a hell of a lot Tom didn’t know. But Raz understood what Tom wanted. He wanted someone who would keep his witness alive, no matter what.

Raz headed for the shower, wondering if Tom realized just how far his little brother would go to protect his family. Could a man as honest as Tom, a cop that straight arrow, imagine what Raz was really like after eight years of undercover work?

God, he hoped not.

The drumming of hot water on his back and head felt good, though it didn’t banish the exhaustion that clung to him like a second skin. He didn’t really notice, though. He’d been tired too long.

When he came out of the shower he flicked the radio on. A disc jockey announced there were only thirteen shopping days left until Christmas.

Raz stopped in his tracks, naked and dripping. Thirteen days? Only thirteen days until Christmas? Disbelieving, he looked out the window of his second-story apartment. A sunny South Texas sky promised another warm day.

He had vaguely noticed holiday decorations going up, but people put those up earlier every year. He hadn’t paid attention to them. He hadn’t wanted to see them at all. But surely they hadn’t been up very long ... had they?

The disk jockey’s patter gave way to Bing Crosby singing about a white Christmas. Raz thought about the snow in his dream, shivered, and shut the radio off.

So Christmas was less than two weeks away. Christmas, the time of hope and miracles...and everything else Raz couldn’t believe in anymore. But he did believe in family. If he had to lie, steal, kill or die to protect his family, that’s what he’d do.

Though it was December, the air was barely cool that morning as a swimmer stroked up and down an outdoor pool in a Houston neighborhood filled with old houses and new money.