A Texas Christmas: True Blue / A Lawman's Christmas: A McKettricks of Texas Novel. Diana Palmer

a police officer in a traffic stop. The officer lived, but he’d be in rehab for months. They had intel that the shooter was hiding out in a low class apartment building downtown with some help from an associate. But they couldn’t find him there. So Rick decided to stake out the place and try to catch him. The fact that it was a Friday night meant that the younger, single detectives were trying to find ways not to get involved. Even the night detectives had excuses, pending cases that they simply couldn’t spare time away from. So Rick ended up with Gwen and one young and eager patrol officer, Ted Sims, from the Patrol South Division who’d volunteered, hoping to find favor with Rick and maybe get a chance at climbing the ladder, and working as a detective one day.

      They were set up in a ratty apartment downtown, observing a suspect across the alley in another run-down apartment building. They had all the lights off, a telescope, a video camera, listening devices, warrants to allow the listening devices, and as much black coffee as three detectives could drink in an evening. Which was quite a lot.

      “I wish we had a pizza.” Officer Sims sighed.

      Rick sighed, too. “So do I, but the smell would carry and the perp would know we were watching him.”

      “Maybe we could put the pizza outside his door and he’d go nuts smelling it and rush out to grab it and we could grab him,” Sims mused.

      “What do you have in that bottle besides water?” Gwen asked, with twinkling green eyes.

      Sims made a face. “Just water, sadly. I could really use a cold beer.”

      “Shut up,” Marquez groaned. “I’m dying for one.”

      “We could ask Detective Cassaway to investigate the beer rack at the local convenience store and confiscate a six-pack for the crime scene investigation unit,” Sims joked. “Nobody would have to know. We could threaten the owner with health violations or something.”

      Gwen gave him a cold look. “We don’t steal.”

      Marquez gave him an even more vicious look. “Ever.”

      He flushed. “Hey,” he said, holding up both hands, “I was just kidding!”

      “I’m not laughing,” she returned, unblinking.

      “Neither am I,” Marquez seconded. His face was hard with suppressed anger. “I don’t want to hear talk like that from a sworn police officer.”

      “Sorry,” he said, swallowing hard. “Really. Bad joke. I didn’t mean I’d actually do it.”

      Gwen shrugged. Sims was very young. “I’m missing that new science fiction show I got hooked on,” she groaned. “It’s making me twitchy.”

      “I watch that one, too,” Rick replied. “It’s not bad.”

      “You could record it,” Sims suggested. “Don’t you have a DVR?”

      She shook her head. “I’m poor. I can’t afford one.”

      Rick glared at her. “We work for one of the best-paying departments in the southwest,” he rattled off. “We have a benefits package, expense accounts, access to excellent vehicles …”

      “I have a monthly rent bill, a monthly insurance bill, a car payment, utilities payments and I have to buy bullets for my gun,” she muttered. “Who can afford luxuries?” She glared at him. “I haven’t had a new suit in six months. This one looks like moths have nested in it already.”

      Rick’s eyebrows arched up. “Surely, you’ve got more than one suit, Cassaway.”

      “Two suits, twelve blouses, six pair of shoes and assorted … other things,” she said. “Mix and match and I’m sick of all of it. I want haute couture!”

      “Good luck with that,” Rick remarked.

      “Luck won’t do it.”

      “Hey, is this the guy we’re looking for?” Sims asked suddenly, looking through the telescope.

      Chapter Three

      Rick and Gwen joined him at the window. Rick snapped a photo of the man across the street, using the telephoto feature, plugged it into his small computer and, using a new face recognition software component, compared it to the man he’d photographed.

      “Positive ID. That’s him,” Rick said. “Let’s go get him.”

      They ran down the steps, deploying quickly to the designations planned earlier by Rick.

      The man, yawning and oblivious, stepped out onto the sidewalk next to a bus stop sign.

      “Now,” Rick yelled.

      Three people came running toward the stunned man, who started to run, but it was far too late. Rick tackled him and took him down. He cuffed his hands behind his back and chuckled as the man started cursing.

      “I ain’t done nothin’!” he wailed.

      “Then you don’t have a thing to worry about.”

      The man only groaned.

      “That was a nice takedown,” Gwen said as they cleared their equipment out of the rented apartment, after the man had been taken away by the patrol officer.

      “Thanks. I try to keep in shape.”

      She didn’t dare look at him. She was having a hard enough time not noticing how very attractive he was.

      “You know,” he mused, “that was some fine shooting down at HQ.”

      She beamed. “Thanks.” She glanced up. “At least I do have one saving grace.”

      “Probably more than one, Cassaway.”

      She shouldered her purse. “Are we done for the night?”

      “Yes. I’ll input the report and you can sign it tomorrow. I snapped at my mother. I have to go home and try to make it up to her.”

      “She’s very nice.”

      He turned, frowning. “How do you know?”

      “I came through Jacobsville when I had to interview a witness in that last murder trial,” she reminded him. “I had lunch at the café. It’s the only one in town, except for the Chinese restaurant, and I like her apple pie.” She added that last bit to make sure he knew she wasn’t frequenting his mother’s café just because she was his mother.

      “Oh.”

      “Has she owned the restaurant a long time?”

      He nodded. “She opened it a couple of years before I was orphaned. My mother worked for her as a cook just briefly.”

      Gwen nodded, trying to be low-key. “Is your mother still alive? Your biological mother?” she asked while looking through her purse for her car keys.

      “She and my stepfather died in a wreck when I was almost in my teens. Barbara had just lost her husband and had a miscarriage the month before it happened. She was grieving and so was I. Since I had no other family, and she knew me, she adopted me.”

      She flushed. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I was just curious.”

      He shrugged. “Most everybody knows,” he said easily. “I was born in Mexico, in Sonora, but my mother and stepfather came to this country when I was a toddler and lived in Jacobsville. My stepfather worked at one of the local ranches.”

      “What did he do?”

      “Broke horses.” The way he said it was cold and short, as if he didn’t like being reminded of the man.

      “I had an uncle who worked ranches in Wyoming,” she confided. “He’s dead now.”

      He studied her through narrowed eyes. “Wyoming. But you’re from Atlanta?”

      “Not originally.”