Hot Texas Sunrise

by Delores Fossen

  “I want you out of here!” Lavinia yelled again, and Cleo looked out the door at the woman to make sure she wasn’t coming in their direction. She wasn’t. Lavinia was still on the couch and flailing around like a turtle that had been tipped over on its back.

  Cleo shut the boys’ bedroom door and looked at Judd. “Miranda’s husband died in a construction accident when Leo was just a baby. They have no kin, other than Lavinia, that is. Yesterday she showed up at the funeral with her biker boyfriend and his buddies, who blocked me from taking the boys. I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning trying to reason with her and to get the local cops to intercede and give me temporary custody.”

  Judd studied her face. “I’m guessing they said no or the boys wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here,” he added. The face-studying continued a moment more. “You want me to go to the locals and continue reasoning with them, badge to badge?”

  “It might be too late for that.” Cleo dragged in a long breath. “For reasons known only to her, Lavinia clearly hates me.”

  Judd didn’t disagree with her about that. “She’s not fit to raise kids.”

  That was an understatement. She stared Judd straight in the eyes for this next part. “Lavinia doesn’t want the kids, and she’s going to put them in foster care.” She gave him some time to let that settle in.

  It didn’t settle well.

  The muscles in Judd’s jaw went to work, stirring and tightening, and the old emotion drew his mouth into a grimace. Emotion that she hoped would swing in the right direction so he would help her.

  “I talked to Child Protective Services, and they don’t think I’m a candidate to be a foster parent. Because of the police record, and because I work at a bar,” she added under her breath. “I figure I have a day or two at most before the boys are taken, and you know as well as I do that they probably won’t end up together.”

  Yes, Judd would know all about that firsthand since his brothers and he had often been separated as they’d been moved from one home to another. Judd hadn’t told her all the details, but Cleo knew enough.

  “Buck said he would help,” Cleo went on. “But he’s sixty-nine, closing in on seventy, and with his health problems, he’s out as a fostering candidate as far as CPS is concerned.”

  Which was too bad because Buck had been a top-notch foster father and would have been great with the boys.

  “You talked to Buck about this?” Judd snapped.

  She nodded. “And Rosy.” Buck’s bride of only four months. “They said I could use their house for the boys since my place isn’t big enough.” Cleo took another deep breath and spelled the rest out for him. “I’m tapped out financially and can’t buy a bigger place. And no, I’m not asking you for money,” she added.

  Cleo left it at that for more of that sinking-in time. It didn’t take long.

  This time there was a different emotion that flared in his eyes. “You want me to foster them.”

  Bingo. But since Judd clearly wasn’t on board with that, she spelled out some of the details. “The boys and I can live at Buck’s, and I can commute to work. Buck will help me, and you won’t have to do a thing except legally be listed as their foster parent. No way would CPS turn down a cop with a spotless record.”

  She hoped.

  While she was hoping, Cleo wished Judd’s jaw would relax a bit. And that he would stop with the head shaking. “There’s gotta be somebody else who can do this. One of my brothers could...”

  She gave him a flat look as he trailed off, and he was no doubt mentally going through why that wouldn’t work. Because of his business, Callen spent a lot of time in Dallas. The youngest Laramie brother, Nico, had a police record that was even more splotched than Cleo’s. The oldest, Kace, was the sheriff of Coldwater and would never agree to a shade this gray when it came to the law. In fact, Kace would likely report her to CPS for what she was trying to do.

  “Someone else then,” Judd amended. “A friend of yours. Daisy could do it.”

  Now she was the one shaking her head. “Daisy’s a single mom of a two-year-old. A very cute but very active little girl named Mandy Rose. Despite Daisy having her hands full with her daughter, she’s going to put in more hours at the bar so I can do this. All I need is your signature on the CPS paperwork, and you’ll be their foster parent in name only.”

  They stood there, eyes locked, while Lavinia shouted out slurred obscenities and Leo tattled that Beckham was trying to get out the window again. Definitely not an ideal environment for thinking.

  Judd didn’t say anything. He took something from his pocket and showed it to her. It was one of those token coins that AA handed out. Judging from his expression, he thought this would come as a complete surprise to her.

  “I know you’re a recovering alcoholic,” Cleo said. “But there’s nothing about that on any record. No arrests for it, no mention of it anywhere on the internet. That gives you a clean slate as far as CPS is concerned.”

  “I’m an alcoholic,” he declared. “I’ll figure out some other way to help you, but I’m sorry, Cleo. I can’t do this.”

  And with that, Judd turned and tore her heart to pieces by walking out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I WASN’T FLASHING NOBODY,” Gopher Tate protested. It wasn’t his first protest, either. He’d been saying variations of that since Judd had cuffed him and put him in his truck to take the man two blocks up to the Coldwater Police Station.

  Judd didn’t bother to point out that Gopher had been wearing only a pair of tighty-whities and a ribbon beneath his raincoat—a raincoat he was wearing despite there not being a chance of a single raindrop in the scalding-hot forecast. Of course, the coat was just the tip of the iceberg here. That red ribbon was as good as a smoking gun. Gopher had taped it on the front of his underwear as if the contents beneath were some kind of present.

  Too bad Gopher had decided to do his flashing just as Judd had been driving by. If Judd hadn’t been right there, someone would have called it in, and another deputy would have responded. Then Judd wouldn’t have had to take the time away from the calls he’d been making on his entire drive back from San Antonio.

  “I just didn’t have any clean clothes, that’s all,” Gopher went on. “And I needed to run to the Quik Stop for some cigs. How was I to know a gust of wind was gonna catch my coat and flip it open?”

  Judd also didn’t point out that the coat flipping had happened in front of two female customers who’d been coming out of the Quik Stop. Nor did he point out that there were no gusts of wind and that Gopher had been arrested eleven other times for flashing women all over town.

  While he drove to the station, Judd glanced at his phone to make sure he hadn’t missed any calls. He hadn’t. His screen was blank, something that would have normally pleased him.

  But not this afternoon.

  He wanted some answers on the feelers he’d put out on the Morrelli kids. Heck, he wouldn’t have even minded seeing a call from Cleo. One where she’d left him a scathing voice mail because he hadn’t done her that favor. No voice mail, though, scathing or otherwise.

  Of course, maybe Cleo hadn’t reached the point where she could even yell. He’d obviously taken the wind from her sails, along with robbing her of her breath because she hadn’t said a single word to him when she’d driven him back to his truck that he’d left parked at her bar.

  “All I need is your signature on the CPS paperwork, and you’ll be their foster parent in name only,” Cleo had said.

  She’d made it sound simple, but he’d be lying by signing those papers. Bending the law, and “in name only” wouldn’t last the first time there was a hitch.

  And there would be hitches.

  Three kids would be a big-assed handful. There’d almost certainly be times when Cleo needed help, especially since she had no experience raising kids. With the boys living o
nly a stone’s throw from him, Judd knew that Buck and Cleo would look to him for that help. Buck’s continuing health problems—yes, the health problems that Buck hadn’t gotten around to discussing with him—would mean Judd would get sucked into something that he couldn’t handle. Hell, there were times when he couldn’t handle his own life.

  Too many times.

  Rosy, Buck’s wife, had no doubt assured Cleo that she would help, too. And she would. But Judd knew the woman was sick with worry over Buck. It had only been four months since he’d been diagnosed with lung cancer and then gone through chemo and radiation. While the doctors thought they’d gotten all the cancer, it would be months or longer before Buck got an all clear.

  “You can’t make me believe you’ve never had your raincoat come open at the wrong time,” Gopher complained.

  “Believe it,” Judd retorted, and he tuned the man out as he led him into the police station.

  The dispatcher, Ginger Marlow, who was Gopher’s cousin several times removed, sighed and rolled her eyes when she saw them. Eyes that the woman had “adorned” with what appeared to be a vat of green sparkly makeup. Judd supposed it was coordinated with the tower of flame-red hair that she’d swirled on top of her head. She had a quick smile, a flirty wink and, Judd suspected, a dirty mind since her gaze always wandered in the direction of his crotch.

  “Why is it that only ugly geezers flash their junk?” Ginger complained.

  “That’s a question for the ages,” Judd replied, and kept moving.

  He got the man in lockup and headed back to his desk to do the paperwork on the arrest. For all the good it’d do. Gopher would get some jail time, some community service, probably even mandatory counseling, and then in about six months he’d do it all over again. Of course, by then it’d be winter and maybe the threat of his balls freezing off would have him delaying the next incident until spring.

  Judd’s desk was in the squad room, along with three others that belonged to his fellow deputies. Kace was the only one with an actual office. Such that it was. Coldwater wasn’t exactly a hotbed of crime so there was no door on Kace’s office and a large window allowed anyone to look right in. Judd could see his brother doing some paperwork, as well.

  “What color was the ribbon on Gopher’s junk?” Deputy Liberty Cassaine called out from her desk. No eye gunk for her. She was as plain and unadorned as a sheet of recycled printer paper, and she never glanced at his crotch.

  “Red,” Judd answered without looking in her direction. He immediately heard groans from the two other deputies and a satisfied “pay up” from Liberty. Apparently, there’d been a bet involved.

  Judd stared at his laptop, silently cursed. His mind was a mess. A tangle of raw guilt and flashbacks. Being in that filthy house, knowing those boys needed help, had sent the past crashing into him like a fully loaded Mack truck. Too damn many memories of the beatings, the hunger and the fear. Other more recent memories of what’d happened at another house.

  Those two jolts combined also brought back the gnawing hunger for a drink.

  His drug of choice was whiskey, straight and from the bottle. No adornments for him. He hated the taste. Hated the searing burn it caused in the pit of his stomach, but without it, it was hard to squash down the darkness that choked him.

  He could feel that dark hole eating through him again so he yanked out his phone and called his primary “feeler,” Sergeant Darrell Boyd at San Antonio PD. Judd had worked with the man for two years when they’d both been on the force in Austin. Before things had gone to hell in a handbasket and Judd had transferred to Coldwater to work for Kace. Darrell had also ended up transferring—to San Antonio—so Judd suspected that “hell in a handbasket mess” that had happened there had also made it impossible for Darrell to stay at Austin PD.

  Thankfully, Darrell had agreed to keep the call and request Judd had made earlier as a personal favor and not make it official. Also thankfully, he answered after just a couple of rings.

  “It’s not the news you’ll want to hear,” Darrell said without a greeting. “After we talked, I drove straight out to the house. You’re right about CPS not allowing the kids to stay there for long even if the grandmother wanted them. She doesn’t. What a piece of shit in the global gene pool.”

  Judd made a sound of agreement, but “piece of shit” was too mild of a term.

  “I had a look around,” Darrell continued, “and from what I can tell, the kids aren’t in immediate danger. Then I talked to CPS—off the record. I spoke with a friend there who used to be on the force. When she checked the house, the piece-of-shit grandmother was sober. So, my friend told me they’re leaving the boys there tonight with the hopes they can find a place where all three of the kids can go together first thing in the morning.” He paused. “CPS thought you’d be interested in taking the boys.”

  “Cleo Delaney told them that,” Judd spat out.

  “Actually, it was Buck McCall who mentioned it to my friend in CPS who then mentioned it to me. In the last couple of days, your former foster father’s been active in trying to find placement for the kids.”

  Active. That was an interesting word. Sneaky was another word Judd had for it, and he suspected that’s why Buck wasn’t answering his phone. He didn’t want Judd calling him out on that sneakiness.

  But Judd rethought that.

  Buck of all people knew him. Knew what he’d been going through, and that meant Buck knew that Judd wasn’t the right person to do this.

  “The boys have been through a rough time, losing their mom, but I can understand why you wouldn’t want to take on fostering them. Especially the oldest one,” Darrell added. “He’s fifteen and already got a two-count juvie record. One for assault and another for evading arrest after he ran from a uniform who suspected him of truancy. That kid’s got trouble written all over him.”

  No, he had “acting out” written all over him. Judd had done the same—he just hadn’t gotten caught.

  “What are the odds that CPS will be able to keep the boys together?” Judd asked, though he already knew the answer.

  “Slim to none. You know how this works. The little kid is cute, and the middle one does okay in school so somebody will want to take them. The older kid keeps threatening to run away. Not sure what they’ll do with him.”

  Drag him into custody and keep dragging him with the threat of juvie lockup. Judd knew something about that, as well.

  “Too bad Buck’s too sick to take them,” Darrell remarked. “Or that your friend Cleo fell so short in her background check. My friend at CPS mentioned her, too. Both Buck and Cleo seem to want the kids.”

  Yeah, too bad, and it sucked about Cleo’s record. Either of them would have been better suited to this than Judd would.

  “Sorry the news wasn’t better, but if anything changes, I’ll give you a holler,” Darrell assured him, and he ended the call.

  Judd put his phone away, and tried to do the same thing to his emotions, then turned back to the laptop to start the paperwork on Gopher. He got two words into the report before he stood and kicked his trash can. It turned out not to be a very satisfying outlet for anger since there was no trash in it. The mesh metal can just made a clanging sound as it bounced and rolled across the floor.

  His fellow deputies wisely didn’t say anything about it, but Kace did. His brother came out of his office and looked at the can. Then at Judd.

  “A bad mood or are you testing the durability of office equipment?” Kace asked.

  Judd gave him a glare that could have frozen every sweaty armpit in El Paso in August.

  “Bad mood,” Kace concluded. He calmly picked up the trash can, put it in its usual place and then sank down onto the chair next to Judd’s desk. “I got the message you left, telling me that you were taking an early lunch so you could go see Cleo. What’d she want?”

  “A favor,” Judd grumbled an
d downed the rest of an old, cold cup of coffee.

  Kace stared at him. “Sex?”

  Judd cursed him and cursed himself for telling Kace about what had gone on between Cleo and him all those years ago. “No,” he managed to say once he got his teeth unclenched. “Something bigger. Much bigger.”

  “This is about Buck, isn’t it?” Kace’s forehead bunched up. “You know, because he’s still looking a little shaky.”

  Judd wasn’t surprised that Kace had noticed that, but he wondered if Buck knew his secret health problems were in no way a secret. “Not about Buck. Cleo wanted me to help her foster some kids.”

  Now it was Kace who ground out some profanity. “Sheez, did Cleo think your onetime roll in the sack bound you two together or something? That it obligated you to do whatever she wanted, including raising some kids?”

  Judd nearly explained that Cleo’s favor didn’t involve kid raising. Not in her mind, anyway. But Kace’s opinion of Cleo would lower even more if Judd mentioned the whole part about her bending the law.

  “She’s just trying to do the right thing for a friend who died,” Judd insisted. “I’ve made some calls to see if I can find her some help.”

  Kace studied him a moment. “Then you’re doing all you can. I’m sure Cleo appreciates that,” he added before he gave him a friendly slap on the arm, got up and went back to his office.

  Yeah, right. Cleo was probably cursing him, and there’s no way she would believe he was doing all he could.

  His phone rang, and Judd answered it right away when he saw Darrell’s name on the screen. Maybe this time the cop would have good news.

  “I just got a call from the Morrelli boys’ grandmother,” Darrell said, his words rushing out. “I’m heading over there now because she’s claiming the boys ran away.”

  Hell. Definitely not good news.

  “I’ll look for them,” Darrell went on, “but if you want to keep this unofficial, then you should get over here. If I haven’t found them soon, I’ll need to report this. I can’t keep it off the books for long.”