The Last Honorable Man

“Where do you want me to take you?” the ranger asked.

“Just stop the car.”

Elisa pressed her forehead against the cool window. Across the six lanes of cement on the other side of the glass, a pasture dotted by mesquite trees and cows with extraordinarily long horns bordered the parking lot of a modern sports stadium with a gigantic hole in the roof. Rural Texas gave way to urban in a dizzying blur.

A big truck sped past, rocking the vehicle. Elisa rested her palm on her churning stomach and looked away. Everything was so different here than in her country. So big. So fast. In her village, two cars couldn’t have passed on the main road without scraping door handles, and the normal flow of traffic was foot speed.

Except when the soldiers came.

The hand on her stomach fisted. “Please stop the car.”

The ranger’s jaw ticked, but his eyes stayed on the road. The ruddy spots on his cheeks darkened. “I told you, I am not dumping a pregnant woman on the side of the highway in this heat. In any weather, damn it.”

“There is no need to curse.”

“Curse? What…? ‘Damn it’?”

She frowned at him.

“Aw, hell,” he muttered, then shot her a look. “I mean heck. Look, just tell me where you want to go and I’ll drop you off.”

“You don’t understand.” She clutched her pack to her side. It was all she’d brought to America. All she’d had. “I—”

Too late.

Elisa’s eyes went wide as the wave began low in her body and rolled upward. One hand flying to cover her mouth, she fumbled at the window control with the other.

“What the—” The ranger stepped on the brakes and swerved to the shoulder.

Elisa was out before the car came to full stop. At the guardrail, she fell to her knees and lost what little she’d eaten that day. When it was over, she hung across the steel barrier, limp as yesterday’s laundry, clammy and shaking. She dragged in a breath of air, tasted exhaust and nearly choked again. Thankfully, the ranger had left her to her peace. The only thing more humiliating than being sick would have been to have him standing over her, watching.

A moment later she realized she’d offered her thanks too soon. Her stomach turned once more at the sound of his boots crunching across gravel. He stopped beside her and a column of shade fell over her where he blocked the sun. Grudgingly she huddled in the cool swath. She should get up, walk away. But she was so hot… “Leave me alone.” Her voice sounded miserable. Pitiful.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, ma’am.” Refusing to look into the eyes again of the man who had killed Eduardo, she focused on the ground until blunt fingers appeared in front of her face, waving a rumpled napkin sporting a fast-food chain logo.

Loath as she was to accept his help, even in the form of a napkin, her suffering would prove nothing. He was the one who should be shamed by what he had done, not her.

She snatched the thin paper and wiped her face. A plastic bottle of spring water appeared next and she took it, too.

What was the difference? Her pride was already in tatters. Had been since she left her own people to come to America.

The water was warm, but blessedly wet. She swished it around in her mouth and spit over the guardrail.

The ranger cleared his throat. “I guess I should consider myself lucky.”

Without meaning to, she raised her head. He had a way of making her forget her intentions, like her vow not to let him see her pain—or her temper—in the chapel.

“Lucky?” she said.

“You have good reason to hate me.” He raised one solemn eyebrows. “And I am within spitting distance.”

The weakness in her body must have weakened her mind, too, because it took her seconds to put together his meaning. By the time she had, her stomach had rolled from her throat to the floor of her abdomen. “Perhaps you will not feel so lucky when you look more closely at your car.”

“Good thing I paid the extra hundred bucks for Scotchgard, then.”

Thanks to more than eight years of foreign language classes, Elisa’s English was good—better than most native speakers, since she’d learned classroom grammar, not street slang. She prided herself on her extensive vocabulary—but she did not know this thing, Scotchgard. An inborn sense of curiosity almost made her ask, but the question was lost in a gasp. She pressed the heel of her hand against her navel, hoping to stem the rising tide of nausea.

This time, she was almost grateful for the distraction the sickness provided. She knew better than to ask questions of him. He was a Texas Ranger.

“Are you all right?” Squatting beside her, the ranger steadied her with a hand under her elbow.

She nodded toward the ground at his feet. “Do you also pay extra to Scotchgard those?”

He followed her gaze down. “My boots? No.”

Ostrich, she guessed. Expensive. “Then perhaps you should get them out of ‘spitting distance.’”

He quickly shuffled behind her—without letting go of her arm. Within seconds another swell of sickness rolled through her. Her back bowed, crested and then went limp. Her head hung over the gritty metal rail. She tried focusing on the ditch below for stability, but the very earth pitched like the sea. A cry escaped her, and a surge of shame followed as the ranger watched the final purging of her stomach.

A moment later the ground went still again. She opened her eyes as the ranger dug a pack of gum from his shirt pocket, pulled a piece from its paper wrapper, folded the silver foil halfway back and extended it out to her, holding it by the still-wrapped end.

How was he continually able to offer her the one thing she couldn’t refuse at the time? Practically snarling, she snapped the gum from his hand. A moment later, with sugar and spearmint sweetening her tongue, she propped her back against the guardrail and drew her knees to her chest. The roiling cauldron in her stomach settled to a slow simmer, but her strength had yet to reappear.

The ranger watched her, muscled thighs straining the seams of his dress slacks as he squatted. “Have you been sick like this much?”

She tipped her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. “Every day. They call it morning sickness, no? But for me it comes in the afternoon.”

“How far along are you?”

“Over four months. It should have passed by now.” Her voice wobbled. This weakness left her defenseless against the worry she’d been pushing back since she’d learned of her pregnancy. Worry that she didn’t know how to have a baby.

“You’re not showing much for almost five months. But it’s different for everyone,” he told her, his words gentle, reassuring.

“You have children?” she couldn’t resist asking.

“No. But I lived out in the country as a kid. My grandmother was a midwife for half the babies born in Van Zandt county. I grew up listening to her stories.”

Memories of Oleda, the eccentric old midwife from Elisa’s village, flashed through her mind like a favorite movie. She had not asked Oleda about the sickness before leaving San Ynez; she had not been able to risk it.

She would not risk it when she returned, either. She would bear this baby alone, if she lived to bear it at all. Despite his gentle voice, this ranger was responsible for that.

She looked up at him. His wide shoulders bunched and released under his sports jacket. The light scent of soap and sandalwood wafted to her on a puff of a breeze. The corners of his mouth angled up hopefully, as if he wanted to smile at the newfound peace between them. She had never seen his smile, but could imagine it—warm and beguiling, pulling a matching grin from whomever it fell on. His would be the kind of smile women trusted. The kind they depended on. Wanted to wake up next to.

Suddenly he was too close, too male, too alive. All the things Eduardo had been and was no more.

Once again the ranger had made her forget her intentions. Made her forget who she was, and who he was—policía. Untouchable.

Dredging up the energy from deep inside, she rose on rubbery legs. He rose with her, still steadying her. She held the half-full water bottle out to him. He shook his head. “Keep it. You’re probably dehydrated.”