LITMIR.BIZ

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that Todd had masterminded. This time he’d made a few fatal misjudgments and the cartel had been waiting for him.

      So Todd Salatoya went down on a bitterly cold winter night and never went home to his beautiful wife and two kids. Merely weeks later his daughter had been abducted from the Houston Zoo.

      In spite of Craig’s insistence to the contrary, it was highly possible that the two were related—a payback against Todd’s family or a warning to other agents not to mess with the cartel. If so, Hawk might be about to open a load of trouble for himself and, worse, for Alonsa.

      His insides tightened as he took the short walk from his truck to Alonsa’s front door. This definitely wasn’t what he’d expected when he’d driven Alonsa home last night. Then he’d been a man following his libido. Not that he’d be able to just turn off his sexual urges where she was concerned. Some men claimed they could. Hawk figured they lied.

      What went on in the hormonal realm was beyond his control. What he did about that attraction was what mattered here. Hawk was a champion in the behavioral control game, which was why he wouldn’t try to jump Alonsa’s bones.

      In the meantime, he had plenty to focus on. If there was even a chance that little girl was still alive, she needed to be returned to her mother. He’d play this as if she were alive and that any wrong move could work against finding her.

      Alonsa opened the door before he knocked. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater the color of the Caribbean Sea. Her long dark hair was pulled into a knot at the back of her head with long silky strands left to hang loose and dance about her shoulders. She wore no apparent makeup but her full lips were soft and glossy. Her dark lashes curved above her bewitching eyes.

       Reel it in, Hawk. This is strictly business.

      IT WAS THE FIRST TIME in a year that Alonsa had been forced to go over the details of her husband’s death, though it had never stopped haunting her. Still, she described the events to Hawk as precisely as possible.

      Hawk listened without interruption until she’d run out of emotional steam and sank back in the big overstuffed chair by the window. She kicked off her leather slides and curled her left foot up in the chair with her.

      “What I know about that night came from Craig. Before Todd’s death, I never knew much about what he actually did,” she admitted reluctantly.

      “Is that because it was classified?”

      “Partly, but we had decided early in the marriage that the less I knew about the danger he dealt with the better.”

      “Makes sense.”

      Actually they’d quit communicating about much of anything except the children those last few months, but no reason to go into that with Hawk.

      “Were most of his assignments in the New York area?”

      “No. He was frequently gone for months at a time.”

      “That must have been hard on the marriage.”

      “I stayed busy,” she said, avoiding a direct answer. Busy with her children. They’d spent hours at the park. Lucy had loved the park. She maneuvered the climbing apparatus better than the older kids and almost never fell. Once she…

      Alonsa reined in the thoughts as pain threaded itself through the membranes of her heart.

      “Maybe we should take a break,” Hawk said, obviously recognizing the signs of a woman about to crater on him.

      She nodded her agreement. “I need to check on Brandon. I worry when he’s too quiet. There’s no end to what a curious three-year-old can get into.”

      She stretched to her feet, but didn’t bother to slip back into her shoes. Her bright teal socks mocked her gray mood as she padded to the small play alcove just off the kitchen.

      Originally the space had held a large farmhouse table surrounded by tall wooden chairs and benches. But she’d needed Brandon close to her, constantly in her sight for the first year after Lucy’s abduction. Even now, she liked having him nearby so that she heard him immediately if he called out to her.

      Brandon had given up on building towers and had constructed a ranch with his blocks and plastic animals, complete with a riding arena for the toy horses Linney had bought him. Carne was gnawing on a short length of rope. The well-chewed, soggy knot was his favorite toy.

      “Would you like a juice box?” she asked.

      “Cherry.” Brandon sat one of his cowboys on top of a horse. “Can I have a cookie, too?”

      “Sure. One cookie and some juice coming up.”

      “I want to go outside and ride my tractor.”

      “As soon as my guest leaves.”

      “Make him go home now.”

      “We still have things to talk about.”

      “Talk to me, Mommy. Outside.”

      He should probably be outside playing with kids his own age. Even Merlee had suggested Alonsa enroll him in the preschool program at church for at least a few days a week. Alonsa had gotten as far as registering him, but on the morning she was to drop him off, she discovered the class was going on a field trip to a local pumpkin patch.

      If she could lose Lucy when they were one-on-one at the zoo, how could a teacher possibly watch Brandon close enough in a group of children? She’d taken him home and given up on the preschool idea altogether.

      Brandon and Carne followed her back to the kitchen. Hawk helped himself to a refill of coffee as she handed Brandon his juice. Carne dropped the chew toy from his mouth and made a task of watching Hawk.

      It hit Alonsa how strange it was to have a man making himself at home in her kitchen. It should have been more awkward than it was, but Hawk had an easy way about him that made her comfortable. And a blatant virility that had the opposite effect.

      “Wanna ride my tractor,” Brandon said, directing the comment at Hawk and letting a few crumbles of cookie tumble from the corners of his mouth.

      “Remember the rule,” Alonsa reminded him. “Don’t talk with your mouth full. And I told you Mr. Taylor and I have business to discuss.”

      “You have a tractor?” Hawk said. “Awesome.”

      “It goes fast, too.”

      “I’d like to see it.” Hawk glanced at Alonsa. “If it’s okay with your mother.”

      “She don’t care, huh, Mom?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but started running toward the back door.

      “Get your windbreaker,” she called after him.

      “Aww.” Nonetheless, he followed orders and yanked a bright red jacket from a low hook by the mudroom door.

      Alonsa retrieved her cell phone from the counter next to the cookie jar and clipped it to the waistband of her jeans. “I suppose we can talk as well outside as in, as long as we stay out of Brandon’s earshot,” she said.

      “I don’t see why not. I could use a little fresh air myself.”

      Alonsa wasn’t quite sure how to take that. Was it her house in particular Hawk found stifling or houses in general? Not that it mattered. She detoured to the family room for her shoes then followed the both of them outside and into the bright sunshine that characterized living in this part of Texas. It was January, and at midmorning the temperature had already climbed into the high fifties.

      “It’s snowing in New York,” she said, thinking out loud.

      “Do you miss that?” Hawk asked.

      “Not often.”

      “Broadway?”

      “Sometimes,” she admitted. “And the city in general.” Her quiet life in Texas seemed a galaxy away from the life

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