LITMIR.BIZ

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to Boots, too. For all his rough edges, the man worked hard at doing what he’d never been able to do on the outside—be a decent human being. And that had included befriending a wild, out-of-control kid who’d landed in the adjoining cell.

      Ryder’s idea of learning hadn’t included Boots’s lectures, but with him in the next cell, he hadn’t been able to avoid hearing the man. He’d taken to working on his collection of prison-style weapons. This, at least, he saw the need for; the looks and youth that had been a benefit on the outside earned him attention he could do without in prison. He learned fast, and was starting with a shiv made out of a toothbrush handle, since he wasn’t allowed a belt with a buckle to hone to an edge. The work helped him tune out Boots’s seemingly endless supply of reasons to turn his life around.

      And that had included, later, convincing him to take the chance he’d been offered to clear his record and get out of prison before he was hardened beyond redemption.

      A chance to do something good with his life.

      A chance to help put away some guys doing some very nasty things.

      A chance that had ended up with him coming full circle, back to Esperanza, where he’d grown up and gotten into trouble in the first place.

      A chance that landed him, after following a trail that led all over the Southwest, where he was now. Spying on the Bar None ranch.

      Home.

      Not that he’d ever felt that way. All he’d ever felt at the Bar None was out of place. And a disappointment to his big brother. His little sister had been better; she had enough fire in her to understand Ryder’s restlessness.

      And look where that got her, he told himself. With a kid at eighteen, after she fell for some handsome, sweet-talking city dude. He’d have thought his sassy little sister would have been too smart for that, but some women were just suckers for a pretty face.

      Lucky for you, he thought with a wry grimace, knowing that, except for the city part, he could have been talking about himself. He’d loved—well, in the here today, gone tomorrow sense—and left more than one woman, although after Georgie had turned up pregnant at eighteen he’d taken the lesson to heart and been very, very careful. Up until then he figured if a pregnancy ever happened he’d do just what his father had done—have nothing to do with it.

      But after seeing what Georgie, the one sibling he could almost relate to, had gone through, the last thing he ever wanted was a baby to muck up the works, so he’d taken every precaution. His plan from early on had been to have as much fun as he could for as long as he lived, and that included taking advantage of how much women were attracted to him. That they weren’t the kind of women who stayed didn’t matter; he wasn’t that kind of man, either.

      “You are quiet this morning, chico,” Julio said after they’d eaten, one of Elena’s usual vast spreads of eggs, beans, and fresh tortillas made and patted out by her own hands.

      Ryder wasn’t sure how to respond. “I say fewer stupid things that way,” he finally answered.

      That earned him a smile from the usually taciturn Mr. Sanchez. “More should do as you do.”

      By way of thank you—and habit; there had been no one to clean up after them in their house, whether they were Gradys or Coltons—he helped clear the table. And he was thankful; the full, warm meal might help him actually get some sleep before he had to start in again.

      Back in his small but clean and tidy room, Ryder took a quick shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and sat on the edge of the bed. He reached into the nightstand drawer and took out his pay-as-you-go cell phone. He had the other one, the one they’d given him to use, the one they paid the bill on. But there were some things Ryder preferred to keep private, and his talks with Boots definitely fell into that category, for both their sakes. The convict had gruffly made him promise to stay in touch, which, according to him, meant to take the weekly call Boots made.

      That was a lot more staying in touch than Ryder was used to, but he hadn’t been able to say no to the older man. Not after everything he’d done. So for the past seven months, when the phone rang on Wednesday mornings, he answered it.

      Right on cue, the cell rang.

      “How goes it, boy?”

      “Not backward,” Ryder said dryly.

      Boots chuckled, that raspy, wry sound Ryder always associated with the older man. He could picture him, on the phone in the dayroom, lean, wiry and leathery. After fifteen years in prison, his ability to laugh at all was a marvel. Ryder thought his own three years had leached all humor out of him, and left him with only that new appreciation of irony.

      “Sometimes,” Boots said, “that’s the best you can hope for.”

      “It’s not enough.”

      “Depends on who’s doing the grading. You always did want more faster.”

      Boots didn’t point out that that very trait had been what had landed Ryder in trouble so many times—okay, most times—in his life. Perhaps he assumed it was obvious, even to Ryder, that he didn’t have to.

      Perhaps it was that obvious. Ryder jammed a hand through his thick, dark, and still shower-damp hair.

      “So no progress?”

      “I’m running out of cigars,” Ryder said. “Is that progress?”

      “Of a sort,” Boots said with another chuckle.

      Ryder had to consider his words carefully. After all, he wasn’t supposed to be discussing his new “job” with anyone. But since Boots already knew about it—he’d been with Ryder when the men in the dark suits and the government-issue sunglasses had shown up in the first place—Ryder didn’t figure he was giving away any state secrets talking to him, as long as he was careful.

      “It’s strange. To be out there, but…not to be. To have to hide.”

      He’d managed to let Boots know how the trail he’d been following had led him to, of all places, his brother’s Bar None ranch.

      “You don’t think he’s involved, do you?”

      At the very thought of straight-arrow Clay being involved in anything illicit, Ryder had to smother a laugh. “No way in hell,” he said succinctly. “I’m the problem child in that family.”

      “Were,” Boots said gently.

      “You’d be hard-pressed to convince my brother of that, I’m guessing.”

      “I won’t have to,” Boots said. “You will. Once you’re free of all this.”

      This was old ground; Boots was determined that Ryder would reunite with his family, once this was all over. Ryder had tried to tell him Clay had washed his hands of him, and once Clay made up his mind, it took heaven and earth to change it. While Ryder believed in earth—at least the six feet of it he expected to be under before he was forty—heaven? No.

      Somewhat to his surprise, Boots, a deeply religious man now, didn’t push it on him. He believed enough for both of them.

      “I’ve got to get some sleep, if I’m going to go out and play spy again tonight.”

      “You’re not playing,” Boots reminded him. “If this is for real, it could be dangerous.”

      Ryder couldn’t quite imagine baby smugglers as armed and threatening.

      As if he’d read his thoughts—Boots was good at that, even over the phone—the man chided him gently. “You’re not taking this seriously enough, Ryder. Don’t let the nature of the contraband fool you. There’s a lot of money at stake in this venture. Probably more per ounce than any you’ll ever come across.”

      He’d never thought of it that way. He really had no idea how much it cost to buy a kid, and he hadn’t asked. Maybe he should. Because Boots was right; where there was money, there were men who would

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