LITMIR.BIZ

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pulled the boy’s pants down and undid his diaper. “Oh, no!”

      “What?” Tuck glanced down and his stomach burned with fury. Urine and feces clung to the baby’s butt in infected sores. It looked as if the baby’s diaper hadn’t been changed in days. He had to be in tremendous pain.

      “Watch him for a moment, please,” Opal said.

      “What are you going to do?”

      “Call for another ambulance.” She reached for her cell in her pocket. “This baby needs medical attention immediately.”

      Tuck looked down at the boy, chewing on the straw. “It’s going to be all right, buddy. I promise.” He patted his chest and the boy slapped his hand away. “That’s okay. You hit all you want. You deserve to hit someone.”

      “An ambulance is on the way,” Opal said. “It was headed for the wreck on I-35, but all casualties have been picked up so it’s coming here.”

      “Good.”

      Tuck helped Opal bundle up the baby in the towels as an ambulance whizzed into the drive. Opal carried the boy to the paramedics, talking to them for a minute before running for her car.

      The ambulance screeched away and Tuck hurried to Opal. “May I have your phone number? I’d like to follow up with the boy. See how he’s doing.”

      She gave him a strange look but rattled off her number. Tuck reached for the pad in his pocket but realized he’d lost his pen, probably somewhere in the yard.

      “Don’t worry, Ranger Tucker,” Opal said, starting her car. “I’ll call you.”

      Tuck heaved a sigh as the vehicles disappeared out of sight. He was left standing alone while the crime unit members worked inside the trailer. Neighbors stood in their yards, talking and watching. Tuck’s hat lay on the lawn and he walked over and picked it up.

      The March wind ruffled his hair and he swiped a hand through it, staring at the bullet hole in the top of his hat. Damn. He’d bought the Stetson about two months ago and had just broken it in. Oh well, better a hat than his life.

      He crawled into his car with a weariness he hadn’t felt in a long time, the weariness of life and its cruelties. In his line of work he saw a lot of cruelty, but this particular incident hit close to his heart.

      Tuck himself had been abandoned as an infant, left in a cardboard box at the Tuckers’ mailbox. The Tuckers, who took in foster children, had adopted him. He’d often wondered about the woman who had left him there. When he was younger he’d carried a lot of resentment about being thrown away, but as he grew older he realized the enormous gift he’d been given—the gift of a life. His mother had to have known the type of people the Tuckers were, and must have known they would give her son the best.

      And they had.

      How Tuck wished that little boy’s mother had been as selfless.

      LATER TUCK SAT in his mother’s old rocker on his porch, soaking up that feeling of home. He still lived in the Tucker house, outside of Austin, and he probably always would. His mixed-breed terrier, Samson, better known as Sam, and his Siamese cat, Delilah, called Dee, lay at his feet. The cedar from the porch columns wafted to his nostrils, calming him. Laden rosebushes, his mother’s pride and joy, covered the back fence. Soon they’d be in full bloom. His horses galloped in the pasture, enjoying the brisk wind blowing through the Texas Hill Country.

      This was home.

      After a harrowing day, it was always great to come back here, the only home he’d ever known. His parents were gone now, but his foster brother, Eli, lived about half a mile down the road on the same property. He and Eli were the two kids who stayed forever with Jess and Amalie Tucker. Eli’s mom was Jess’s niece and she’d brought Eli to live with her uncle when Eli was thirteen. At that age Eli had been wild and uncontrollable, rebelling against a father who’d never claimed him.

      But Ma and Pa worked their magic and Elijah Coltrane turned into a fine young man, becoming a Texas Ranger just like Jess Tucker. That’s all Tuck and Eli ever wanted to be.

      They’d inherited equal parts of land, but Tuck had inherited the house. Even though he had family close, some days he felt so alone.

      All his friends were married and had families. He was the lone bachelor, but marriage wasn’t for him. He wasn’t sure when he’d first decided that. Eli said it was because he didn’t know who his parents were, but Tuck thought there was so much more to it.

      It probably had all started when he’d turned sixteen, got his first vehicle and started dating. He had a crush on one of the popular girls in school and he’d asked her out, but she didn’t want him to pick her up at her house. He’d always met her at the mall or the movies. Thinking that was strange, he’d told her that he would pick her up at her home. He had a truck and he wanted to show it off.

      She’d told him he couldn’t because her parents didn’t approve of him. That shook him. He was a good kid; he was Jess Tucker’s son. She said it wasn’t anything against him personally; it was those other kids his parents took in. Their parents were druggies, drunks, felons, and her parents didn’t want her anywhere near those types of people.

      Tuck reminded her he was one of those people. She said he was different, but he wasn’t. For the first time he realized there was a stigma attached to foster kids and abandoned kids. He never dated the girl again, nor did he want to. He was proud of his parents and he hated that the seed of doubt had been planted in his mind.

      In college he fell in love for the first time. Rachel said she loved him, too. They started to make plans and they talked about children. He’d told her that he didn’t want to have children of his own. He tried to explain that he felt it was selfish of him to bring his own children into the world while there were so many others who needed a good home. She informed him quickly that she wasn’t raising someone else’s troubled kids.

      He saw her in a different light then, but realized that he was asking a lot of her and broke it off. He was glad he found out her opinions before instead of after the marriage, though. A love he thought was forever died suddenly. That was an awakening in itself. The most powerful love he’d ever known was the love his parents had given to foster kids. It was selfless. Empowering. He saw it every day of his life as he was growing up.

      So many abused and abandoned kids had come through their home. Under Ma’s and Pa’s love and care he watched battered kids grow strong, confident. All it took was one caring person to change a life.

      He wanted to do that—to give back what he’d been given as a child. Ever the optimist, he had given love another try. Bethany worked at the courthouse and he saw her often. They talked about the future and she told him he was a wonderful man for wanting to help others, especially children. He relaxed, feeling secure in their love. Soon he asked her to marry him and he was happy in the knowledge that he’d found someone who understood him.

      Her girlfriends had thrown them a big engagement party. There were a lot of people there whom Tuck didn’t know and he was eager for the evening to end. Toward midnight, he went in search of Bethany. She and a couple of her friends had disappeared about thirty minutes before.

      He went upstairs to the bedrooms. A door was slightly ajar and he heard her voice. He thought they were talking girl talk and he didn’t want to intrude, but then he heard his name and something kept him rooted to the spot.

      Even today he could remember the conversation almost word for word. Hannah, Bethany’s friend, said how brave Bethany was for agreeing to Tuck’s plans of taking in foster kids and not having any of their own.

      “Oh, please,” Bethany had said. “Tuck doesn’t mean any of that stuff.”

      “He seems pretty serious to me.”

      “After we’re married, I can change his mind, and if I accidentally get pregnant, well, oops.”

      Tuck pushed opened the door then and as they’d stared at each

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