Protector. Diana Palmer

pasture, Hayes noted milling cattle, some of which were black-baldies, a cross between Black Angus and Herefords. Most mixed-breed cattle were popular in beef herds. The Raynor place was a ranch.

      Along with the ranch, when her stepmother and stepfather died just a few months apart, she inherited two siblings, Julie and Shane. They weren’t actually related to her, but they were hers as surely as if they’d been blood siblings. She loved them dearly.

      The children were school-age now. Julie was in kindergarten and Shane was in grammar school. Minette seemed to take that responsibility very seriously. No one ever heard her complain about the kids being a burden. Of course, they also kept her single, Hayes mused. Most men didn’t want a ready-made family to support.

      Minette’s great-aunt, Sarah, a tiny little woman with white hair whom Minette always addressed as “Aunt” instead of “Great-Aunt,” was waiting on the front porch. She rushed down the steps as Hayes climbed laboriously out of the SUV.

      “Here, Hayes, you lean on me,” she said.

      Hayes chuckled. “Sarah, you’re too little to support a man my size. But thanks.”

      Minette smiled and hugged her aunt. “He’s right. He needs a little more help than you can give.” She got under Hayes’s arm and put her arm around his back. Her hand twitched when she felt a cavity under his shirt.

      “It’s another wound,” he said quietly, feeling her consternation. “I’m pockmarked with them. That one was from a shotgun blast a few years back. I didn’t duck fast enough.”

      “You’re a walking advertisement for the perils of law enforcement,” she muttered.

      He was trying not to notice how nice it felt to have her close to him. They’d been adversaries for years. He’d blamed her for Bobby’s death. He still blamed her family for that, but she didn’t know who she really was. She had illusions, and he was hesitant to shatter them. After all, she’d given him a home when nobody else offered.

      “Thanks,” he said stiffly as they went up the steps and into the roomy, high-ceilinged house.

      She paused and looked up at him. She was trying not to let him see the effect his nearness had on her. She’d always adored Hayes Carson, who hated her for reasons that were incomprehensible to her.

      “For what?” she stammered.

      He searched her black eyes far longer than he meant to. He wondered if she ever questioned the color of those eyes. Her mother had had blue eyes. But he wasn’t going to ask.

      “For letting me stay here,” he said.

      “You’re welcome.” She hesitated. “I’m afraid all the bedrooms are upstairs...”

      “I don’t mind.”

      She sighed. “Okay.”

      Sarah came bustling in behind them and closed the front door. “I changed the bed in the guest room and turned on the heat,” she told Carson. “It’s not the warmest room in the house, I’m afraid,” she added apologetically.

      “Not to worry. I like a cool bedroom.”

      “We need to get some fresh clothing for you,” Minette said, appalled by the gunshot wound in the fabric of the shirt he was wearing, and the blood on it.

      “I’ll call Zack and have him bring some over,” he said, naming his chief deputy. “He’s been feeding Andy and Rex for me.”

      “Okay.”

      She helped him into the guest bedroom. It was decorated in shades of blue, brown and beige. The walls were an eggshell-blue, the coverlet was quilted and included browns and blues. The carpet was a soft beige. The curtains matched the coverlet. The windows, two of them, overlooked the pasture where the palomino was grazing.

      “This is very nice,” Hayes remarked.

      “I’m glad you like it,” Minette said gently. “You should call Zack.”

      He nodded. “I’ll do that right now.” He eased onto the coverlet and laid back on the pillow, shivering a little from the exertion and the pain and the weakness that was still making him uncomfortable. “That feels so good.”

      Minette hovered. He was pale and he looked terrible. “Can we get you anything?”

      He looked at her hopefully. “Coffee?”

      She laughed. “They wouldn’t give it to you in the hospital, I gather.”

      “They did give me a little hot brown water this morning. They called it coffee,” he scoffed.

      “I make very good coffee,” she said. “I have a machine that uses pods, and I get the latte pods from Germany. It’s almost sinfully good.”

      He laughed. “Sounds great.”

      “I’ll make you a cup before I leave.” She checked her watch and grimaced. “I need to call and let Bill know I’m going to be later than I expected. It’s okay,” she added when Hayes looked guilty, “he can handle the office. We go to press on Tuesdays, but today is hectic, because the weekend is coming up.”

      “I see.”

      “I won’t be a minute.”

      She went back downstairs, with Sarah trailing her. Hayes dug his cell phone out of his pocket and called Zack.

      “Hey,” he said. “I escaped.”

      Zack chuckled. “Way to go, boss. Are you at home?”

      “I wish. Coltrain won’t let me live by myself. I’m staying with...Minette and her family,” he said, almost choking the words out.

      “Well!”

      Hayes shifted uncomfortably. The stress of riding in the confinement of the seat belt was giving him some problems with his injured chest and shoulder. “I need some fresh clothes. I had to come here in the shirt with the bullet hole.”

      “Just tell me what you need. I’ll bring it over.”

      Hayes gave him quite a list, including pajamas and robe and slippers. He noticed that his room had not only a television, but a Blu-ray player. “And bring my new movies over,” he added. “I’ll watch them while I’m bedridden.”

      “Where are they?”

      “On the shelf next to the DVD player.”

      “Okay.”

      “Who shot me?” he added curtly.

      “We’re working on that,” Zack assured him. “We have a shell casing and a cigarette butt. We think it may be tied to those recent arrests we made.”

      “The new Mexican drug cartel mules. Their bosses are fighting a turf war across the border in Cotillo. Its mayor owes his soul to Pedro Mendez, who took over the operation that used to belong to the Fuentes brothers bunch,” Hayes added quietly.

      “Yes, Mendez is the one his enemies call El Ladrón, the thief,” Zack agreed.

      “Mendez has a bitter enemy in El Jefe, Diego Sanchez, who has an even bigger drug cartel. Sanchez wants the Cotillo stronghold for himself. It’s the easiest path to Texas, through mountains where a sidewinder could get lost.” Hayes sighed. “Two of the most evil men on the planet. God knows how many lives they’ve snuffed out.” He didn’t add that his own brother was one of those. He’d never shared what he knew with another living soul. Only Coltrain knew, but he had the information from Hayes’s late father, not Hayes.

      “Hey, at least El Jefe takes care of his people, and he draws the line at killing women and children,” Zack reminded him.

      “Drugs kill women and children.”

      “That’s true, I guess,” Zack said. “I meant, he didn’t carry out vendettas against them. But even Manuel Lopez who used to own the