by Reina Torres
And that was true. He felt old, especially when he caught sight of the two of them side by side.
Miranda was almost a decade younger than he was and that’s when it showed.
She’d always looked a little younger than she was and well, his hair had started going gray when he’d hit his late thirties.
But then again, his thoughts reminded him, Miranda had met him when he already had silver at his temples.
He thought she’d fall for some guy from the city and have the big wedding and four or five gorgeous children, but somehow, she’d decided that she wanted him.
His grumpy moods. Addiction to bad coffee from an old-style coffee urn. And his hang ups about relationships.
“Damn lucky if you ask me.”
Another chime from his phone spurred him on and he stepped into the shower, needing to get ready for Conor when he showed up.
It didn’t take long to put out feed for all the animals and it was probably her favorite time of the day. Okay, well several times of the day.
The part that didn’t enthuse her nearly as much was cleaning all of the kennels and enclosures. And yet even that chore had its upside. Like the popular children’s book said, ‘Everyone Poops.’
That was true, especially if they were healthy. So, as much as the smell would sometimes wrinkle her nose, the task was one that gave her a certain amount of satisfaction.
A beep from her phone told her it was time to check on the barn owl she’d put into their aviary. She’d left the eager young male with a particular treat. Miranda had let loose a mouse just before closing the space. She was hoping that the little thing would be gone before she returned for two reasons.
Even though she loved caring for animals, blood and ‘stuff’ just weren’t her thing. And if the mouse was gone it meant that the owl had caught and consumed it, a sign that he might be ready to be released into the wilds again.
That was their mission.
That’s what they loved, reuniting the wild with the wild.
Stepping outside into the sunlight, Miranda raised her hand for a moment to block out the glare and let her eyes adjust, but it was what she saw at the edge of her vision that brought her up short.
Lowering her hand, she squinted and blinked until the shape in her driveway came into focus.
He, that was the first thing that became clear, was young. Not child young, but the kind of young when men haven’t quite finished growing.
Likely, he’d grow a few more inches, but with his slight form, he probably wouldn’t be very big on the bulk scale. None of that meant much, except he looked that much more out of place, nervous as he looked at her.
“Hey there,” she walked toward him and noticed the half step he took back before he stopped himself. Holding out her hand she introduced herself. “I’m Miranda, and you are?”
He looked at her hand but didn’t take hold of it. “You don’t recognize me.”
There seemed to be warring hints of relief and struggle in his tone and expression.
“No, sorry.” She lowered her hand to her side. “Where did we meet?”
He looked behind her at the buildings and seemed to tuck himself in even tighter, his arms pressed so close to his sides that he looked more like a caricature of a person.
“Didn’t exactly ‘meet,’” he explained, “but I saw you.”
He didn’t sound threatening, but a chill passed over her, nonetheless.
“Okay,” she hedged. “You saw me. Where?”
The guy looked trapped, like he wanted to turn tail and run, but there he stood, shifting from one foot to the other.
“In the woods.” He swallowed, hard enough for her to hear it. “You came to get the deer.”
Recognition was instantaneous.
“You were one of the men in the truck.”
He looked away and a scowl pinched at the corners of his mouth. “They left me there.”
Miranda shook her head. “In the woods?”
“In jail,” he grumbled, “I could have gotten out the day after.”
“Didn’t you have your arraignment that day?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t do me any good. I said not guilty like the rest of them, but when it came time for us to get out, they said they didn’t have bail money for all of us.
“I should’ve gotten out. It was my first time.” He looked up at her, pinning her with his gaze. “But they said it would be a good lesson for me. Learn to take it like a man.”
She felt his struggle even if she was a little worried about why he was telling her all of this.
“They said some other things too,” he told her, shoving his hands into his pants pockets.
Pressing her lips together, she lifted her hand, holding it out between them. “Could you take your hands out of your pockets, please?”
He looked down and looked back at her before he pulled both hands out at the same time... slowly. “Sorry.”
She shook her head. “No problem.”
Miranda didn’t mean it though. Pockets were a mixed blessing. Everyone wanted them to put stuff in, but when you were facing a suspect, and at this point yeah, she was considering him one, the last thing you wanted was someone’s hands hidden from view.
“What else did they say?” she was almost afraid to ask, but she needed to know.
He shifted his weight on his feet again and she noticed that he was starting to dig his feet into the ground with all of his awkward movements.
“They know who you are. They saw the name on the side of your truck.” He pointed off to the right.
Miranda darted a glance at the rehabilitation center’s truck. Their logo and name prominently displayed on the passenger’s door and the side of the truck bed. “They said they’re gonna get what you owe them.”
Something touched the back of her neck and she lifted a hand to brush it off.
Nothing. She felt nothing but the touch of her own hand.
She dropped her hand down to her side. “They’re coming after the deer?”
His head nodded a little toward the side. “They know you’ve probably got more here than the one. They figure it’s going to be easier than hunting.”
And it would be. Breaking into an animal rehabilitation center meant that the animals were easy pickings.
“I need you to stay.”
He shook his head and stepped back away from her. “Nuh uh. I gotta go.”
Before he’d taken another step, she’d grabbed his arm. “Wait. Just wait.”
He tugged, trying to free himself. “Look, miss, I gotta go. Okay? If they find out what I was doing-”
“Why did you?” she blurted out the question. “Why come here if you were afraid of them?”
His face went pale in the bright Texas sunlight.
His shrug was all thin, boney shoulders. “I felt bad,” he sounded sick to his stomach. “When I saw the deer and heard... those noises it made. It was hurt and we did it.”
“The deer’s going to be okay,” she told him, trying to ease his worry, “really. Do you want to see her?”
For one hesitant second, she thought he’d say yes. She even held out her hand to show him that she wasn’t upset with him.
Some of the best volunteers that she’d ever met were folks who had hurt animals in the past and found that the action had hurt them more than anything.
“I can take you to see her.”
A loud rumble of noise flared at the end of her road. The car moved along the road fast enough, but it slowed to a crawl when it reached her property line.
Miranda tensed as the passenger window rolled down, but the face that peered out at her was a woman.
Her expression wasn’t friendly. Not at all.
And when the car passed him, he backed away into the shadows of her cottonwood, but both of them knew that he’d been seen.
“I told you,” he threw the words at Miranda. “I told you I needed to go.”
She ran and stepped in front of him bef
ore he could charge out of the gate. Miranda reached out to touch him but he pulled back, afraid. “You have to stay. I have friends,” she smiled to calm him, but he wasn’t having any of it. “My friends can help you. I’ve got friends in law enforcement all over San Antonio. They can help you. They’ll protect you.”
“They can’t do shit for me, lady.” He looked back at the road. “Do you know how I met those guys? We all live in the same area. Eight square blocks of shit.
“You say you can protect me? That’s only going to last as long as the case lasts at the most and then what? Everyone’s gonna know that I helped you. Everyone’s gonna look at me like I’m trash. That’s not going to happen.”
She heard the defeat in his voice, and yet he stayed.
“It means something to me, that you came. That you felt enough for the deer that you came to tell me.”
Miranda reached into her pocket and took out her phone. “Could you at least stay long enough to give a statement to the deputies you spoke to the other night? Then we can find someone to drive you home in a car that’s not marked so we don’t cause you more problems.”
The only answer she got back was a quick shrug.
That was enough.
For now.
When Hayden was there, maybe they’d be able to talk him into allowing them to help.
“Come on!”
The man standing in front of Trace was fighting mad, but that didn’t stop him from writing the citation.
“I’ll go down on Monday and get the license,” the man just wasn’t giving up, “I needed the money from this catch so I could go and get the license.”
Trace tore the paper from the pad, the rip sounded like a zipper. “There’s a way to do things, sir. Shrimping is a great way to make money, but you don’t have a Captain’s license and it’s not just about the piece of paper.
“You need to know the safety procedures and the rules about weight.”
The buyer, standing a few feet away, cleared his throat and caught Trace’s attention.
“Well, Mike? How many pounds?”
Mike stepped away from the scale and Trace could see the electronic readout.
Nine hundred and twenty-two pounds.
Sighing, Trace turned back to the ‘not so captain’ of the shrimp boat. “I’m going to cut you a break, sir.”
“Oh,” he laughed, “you’ll excuse me if I’m not exactly hugging you in thanks.”
“Honestly, sir, I’m grateful you don’t feel like hugging me.” The man’s clothes had seen better days, and according to him, he’d been on the boat for the better part of the week before he’d taken it out shrimping. “But I’m about to explain how lucky you are.”
Trace gestured toward Mike. “He’s going to buy the catch from your boat, but the money from that sale is now going into our general fund and will help with education for hunting and fishing, and costs for conservation in the state.”
“I caught all of that!”
“Illegally,” Trace reminded him with a stern look. “If you’d only had your license you would have known the limits-”
“I knew the damn limits.”
“Not helping yourself, sir.” Turning away, Trace walked up to Mike. “You need any help?”
“I’ve got this.” The other man shook his head. “You know I do.”
Trace smiled. “Yeah, you’ve been doing this job almost as long as I’ve been a game warden.”
“Ouch,” Mike covered his heart with his hands. “Don’t remind me. I feel older and older these days.
Just great. Trace tried to ignore the man’s words, but they nagged at him.
His phone jumped to life in his shirt pocket and he tugged it loose. “Carson.”
He listened as Conor filled him in on the situation, his stomach tying in knots.
When Conor was finished talking, Trace answered him back. “I’m on my way.”
Miranda was almost glad for the roomful of people when Trace arrived. Conor opened the door to let him in, but she didn’t even stand when he crossed the room toward her. She wasn’t all that sure that her knees would hold her up.
Trace greeted the others with a nod and sat right down at her side.
She wanted to lean against him, borrow some of his strength, especially when Hayden went back through the new information they had thanks to her visitor.
“I’ll send the full write up as soon as I get it put into my computer,” Hayden’s tone was sharp and clipped. “I’m just pissed we couldn’t find all of this out on our own.”
Jake, her partner, spoke from his seat in the armchair. “He’s probably done more than what’s in his records here in the states. How could we have found out about his crimes in Mexico if he hadn’t come to see Miranda?”
Trace grabbed a hold of her hand and pulled it up onto his thigh, covering it with his other hand as well. Leaning closer, he turned toward her ear and gripped her hand a little tighter. “You all right?”
The sound of his voice, thick with concern, made her shiver from head to toe and all the most delicious places in between.
“I’m better, now that you’re here.”
“Damn, woman,” his breath tickled her neck, “when Conor said to come here… I thought the worst.”
She turned closer to him, pressing a kiss on his cheek. “I’m okay, Trace. I just wanted you close.”
When they turned back to the assembled group, Trace sent a look toward his partner and then Hayden. “Why wasn’t I the first call? Why did Conor hear first?”
Miranda leaned in closer, trying to calm him. She wanted to explain, but she felt his frustration and it made her tense up.
Hayden was her godsend.
“She called me first, since we were the ones who took the men to jail for the arrest. After that,” she looked at her partner, Jake, and he gave her his support, “we felt it best to call Conor, thinking the two of you might be riding together.”
Jake moved closer to his partner. “We thought that Conor would remain a little more… detached.”
Conor shrugged. “Makes sense, Trace. If Erin had been approached by someone I locked up, you’d have to talk me off the ledge.”
Miranda wished they would just get to the point. She could feel Trace tensing up at her side.
“Let’s remember that he didn’t come here to threaten me,” she addressed the group but it was for Trace’s benefit. “He came to warn me about the other men that the deputies arrested for the drug possession.”
“And a bunch of other stuff too.” Hayden gave her a smile. “But we’ve talked to the young man and offered him additional help from the Sheriff’s office if things get tough with his crowd. He may have been spotted here, but we’re not sure what that means for him. He’s got our numbers and we’ve got all the information he could think of, so we’re going to be paying a visit to the prosecutor and see if there’s any kind of pressure that she can put on the rest of the men.”
Jake agreed. “An order from the judge to keep away from anyone involved in the case would help.”
“They should know that already.” Trace’s voice was a bit too calm and he’d all but lost his accent. He was on the verge of losing his temper. “It’s the first thing an attorney tells their client if they’re up for criminal charges. They don’t want to make things look bad for their client.”
Jake nodded. “We can have a talk with the attorney, make sure they know.”
“Oh, they know,” Hayden looked at her notes, “the firm is a good one. Well, it has a good reputation.”
“But it couldn’t hurt to remind them,” Jake looked over at Miranda, “especially because she’s one of us, Hayden. If we can put a little fear of God into the attorney, maybe they’ll do the same with their clients.”
Hayden agreed and sat down beside Miranda, on the arm of the sofa. “You’re going to have us watching your back. If those men are coming back to get the deer, they’re crazy stupid. They’ll find out that you’re not alone in this. Yo
u’ve got us to support you.”
Miranda reached out her hand and Hayden did too, taking hold of her forearm. Miranda repeated the gesture and leaned closer when Hayden did. They met eye to eye and Miranda couldn’t help but draw strength from the other woman.
“You’re one tough cookie, Miranda. Folks say I am too, so I can tell you this.” She gave her a gentle smile, focusing her power in her voice and her words. “We’ll protect you; we’ll make it happen.”
Miranda swallowed down the rush of adrenaline that was coursing through her veins. “I know you can’t promise that, Hayden, but I know you’re going to try.”
She felt Trace’s hands tightening on hers.
“And that’s all we can ask of each other. If there’s one thing Texans can guarantee, it’s that we’ll stand with each other. If we fall, we fall, but we do it as one. We believe in the causes we fight for.
“And I thank you for standing with me, Hayden.” She turned and looked at the others. “All of you. Your support is all that I need to get through this.”
Conor cleared his throat. “Trace. You and I have to talk about a few things before I go, do you have a minute?”
Trace shook his head. Miranda could feel the movement through their joined hands.
She started to turn and heard Hayden and Jake’s murmured goodbyes as they left.
“We’ll talk later, Conor. I need to talk to Miranda.”
“Hey,” she turned toward him and set her free hand on his knee, “you two can talk. I’m not going anywhere.” She started to move forward on the couch, but by the way Trace’s hands were tightening on hers she wasn’t going to be able to get up, let alone walk away.
“It’s about Miranda, Trace. I need to talk to both of you.”
Trace’s quiet nod told her how on edge he was. He had no problem wading into danger, but when he became this quiet, he was barely holding on to his control. She was almost surprised that she recognized it, after all, the number of times that it had happened could fit on a couple of fingers.
But if there was one thing she’d done a lot of in the last few years, it was watch Trace. She learned from him, she’d grown close to him, and she’d tried to understand him from the inside out.
