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  PROLOGUE

  RICK GRAYSON stared into the casket as it sat atop the raised dais in the funeral parlor. Mourners milled around the room, stopped by the casket, whispered their condolences to him and then moved off, uncertain, hesitant in the face of his silence.

  Everyone mourned the lovely, vivacious Sienna Grayson, except her husband and the friend she had betrayed.

  She was as beautiful now as she had ever been, perhaps more beautiful in death than ever before. Her long dark brown hair curled around her shoulders, contrasting with surprising warmth against the white dress her family had picked out for her to wear through eternity.

  Her brown eyes were closed, long lashes feathering against her cheeks. The makeup artist the funeral home employed had done an excellent job. Her skin wasn’t death-white, but instead had been given a warm golden glow. The bullet that had exited the front of her neck and torn off half her face was nowhere in sight. There was not so much as a glimpse of the damage that had been done to her.

  The damage he had done.

  He stared at her. His cheating, lying wife. The woman who had sold out her friends, her family, her husband, and her son, for drugs. For the thrill, the high, God only knew what other reasons she had had.

  How could he have not known?

  He stared at her now, realizing that all the clues had been there, and he had overlooked them.

  He had known someone was betraying the agents sent to Alpine, Texas, to track down a homeland terrorist group. He had suspected it originated from his office, and he had been investigating it for years, but he had never known the extent of it.

  His wife and his deputy had betrayed him.

  How had he lived with such evil and not known it? he wondered. How had something so vile mothered the child that now lay sleeping in a chair in the corner of the room? Their son, Kent.

  Rick glanced over at him, seeing the peace on the boy’s face, and realized, not for the first time, that his mother’s death had barely affected him.

  He turned back to his wife. Sienna. Lovely, lying, murderous Sienna. The county mourned her now as they would have a fallen hero. The truth about her death, and the kidnapping of another woman, had been hidden so deeply that even he wondered exactly what had happened at times.

  Only a handful of people knew the truth. Knew that his wife and his deputy Hershel Jenkins had been involved with a militia group so bloodthirsty and powerful that even America’s law enforcement agencies hadn’t been able to get to them. It had taken a team of dead men to catch them.

  He continued to stand there, to stare at her. Tried to figure out why she would turn into nothing more than a camp whore for a small group of powerful men who thought they could determine who was and who was not American.

  A group of men that kidnapped, hunted, raped, and murdered those they targeted, and his wife had helped them.

  He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t suspected her. That he couldn’t have known. That somehow it had slipped by him.

  A cocaine whore. That was what had been written in the report by one of the federal agents who had wrapped up the paperwork in the case.

  His wife had been a cocaine whore.

  He wanted to shake his head. He wanted to deny it. He didn’t want to accept that he hadn’t seen it. He couldn’t believe that the years of training, that his years as a sheriff, had taught him so little that he hadn’t even suspected her.

  Or had he?

  Had he even been surprised the day a bleeding, nearly hysterical Rory Malone had given him and that team of “dead” men the information that tied it all together? He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but he realized now that despite his horror, his shock, he hadn’t disbelieved it.

  Some part of his mind had already accepted that something was wrong with Sienna. Something was lacking. She hadn’t been a wife in years but she had refused to divorce him. She had threatened more than once to take their son, and to make certain Kent’s life was hell, if Rick ever divorced her.

  He’d convinced himself at one time that it was an empty threat. That she wouldn’t hurt Kent. Now he knew what a monster she truly was, and he thanked God that his sister had done more to raise the child than Sienna.

  But it didn’t ease his guilt. Six federal agents had died over the years because of information she had given the militia. One had been a young woman. She had been hunted like an animal, brutalized, tortured. Raped.

  His soul felt as though it were being ripped from his body at the thought of what had happened to her. Her and other young women. Wives. Mothers. Sisters. Women whose only crime had been the color of their skin. They had been Mexican or of Mexican descent. And they had been punished for it in the worst ways. By his wife.

  He could still feel the hollow, brutal shame that seared his guts like a brand. He may as well have killed those women himself. He should be as liable for their deaths as she was, yet he had been cleared.

  “Daddy, I’m hungry.” He stared down at where Kent now stood by his side.

  At five, the boy was still small for his age, and still incredibly innocent. Rick thanked his sister for that.

  Mona had kept him through the years as he worked, because Sienna was always busy. She had things to do, events to plan, hair appointments or lunch or dinner with her friends. She hadn’t had time for their child any more than she had had time for her husband over the years.

  He thanked God again.

  “Come on.” He reached out his hand to his boy, gripped his little fingers, and moved to the door of the funeral parlor.

  “Is Mommy coming back?” Kent asked as they left the funeral home.

  “Mommy’s not coming back, son,” he told him as they walked to the truck parked on the other side of the parking lot.

  Kent didn’t say anything, though Rick hadn’t expected him to. As he opened the door to the truck and lifted the child into his car seat Kent looked up at him solemnly.

  “Daddy,” he said softly.

  “Yeah, son?” Rick clipped the seat belt around the car seat.

  “I’m glad.”

  “What?” Rick looked back at him, shock welling inside him once again. “You’re glad of what, Kent?”

  Kent stared back at him, his brown eyes, so like Rick’s, somber and suddenly too grown-up.

  “I’m glad Mommy’s not coming back.”

  Rick could feel the blood draining from his face, felt something in his stomach curdle in fear. What the hell had Sienna done to their child?

  “Why?” Rick touched the boy’s thick hair, hoping to dispel whatever memories would have made Kent say such a thing.

  “Because she was gonna hurt Miss Brookes,” he said quietly. “I heard her on the phone, Daddy. She said she hated Miss Brookes and wanted her dead and that she was going to strangle her. Just like she strangled my puppy.”

  He was going to throw up. Rick swallowed back the bile that boiled in his stomach and rose to
his throat.

  “Your puppy ran away, Kent,” he told his son.

  Or had it? Sienna had hated the dog he had bought Kent last year. Had she done something to it?

  Kent shook his head. “She said on the phone, ‘I’m going to strangle her like I did that damned dog.’”

  Rick didn’t correct the profanity. He could only stare back at his son in horror.

  “You didn’t tell me,” he whispered. “Why, Kent? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Why hadn’t his son trusted him enough to tell him, to bring his fears to him?

  “Because, Daddy,” he said quietly. “Mommy sent me to Aunt Mona’s, and Aunt Mona promised she wouldn’t strangle anyone. Now she won’t strangle no more puppies, will she?”

  There was an edge of fear in Kent’s voice, in his eyes. Rick wanted to howl in fury, and in rage. God help him. Sweet, merciful God, forgive him for letting that monster touch his child after his birth.

  “She can’t hurt any more puppies, Kent.” He clasped the little head in his hand, unclipped the seat belt, and gathered him into his embrace. “Never again, Kent. Never again.”

  And now, he would have to make damned certain she hadn’t hurt Hannah Brookes, either. Because if she had, that guilt would rest on his shoulders, as well. Because Sienna would have never hated her, would have never focused on her, if it hadn’t been for him.

  If he hadn’t watched her when he shouldn’t have, and if he hadn’t been so careless in doing so that Sienna had caught him.

  It was his guilt. It was his shame. He just prayed no one else had paid for it.

  CHAPTER 1

  Two Years Later

  HANNAH BROOKES pulled into the parking lot of the Brewster County sheriff’s office and sat staring at the glass entry door.

  Texas heat shimmered off the pavement in waves as a hot desert sun beamed down with all its fierce summer rays. She could literally feel the warmth outside the air-conditioned comfort of the car and hesitated once again before shutting off the car engine and stepping out into it.

  It was a typical summer day, she reminded herself. It shouldn’t bother her now any more than it ever had. But it did. Because that heat on the outside reminded her of what was awaiting her once she entered that building and walked into Rick Grayson’s office.

  She breathed out heavily at the thought, wishing there was a way to buy an AC that could counter the effects that man had on her. He made her, a normally confident, self-assured teacher, feel like a teenager with her first crush.

  She was thirty years old. She wasn’t a teenager anymore, and she damned sure shouldn’t feel like one. Her hands shouldn’t be shaking and her heart shouldn’t be racing.

  She’d been married. Her virgin days were long behind her. She’d had a lover or two since her divorce. So why was she sitting here like a ninny that had no idea how to talk to a man like Rick Grayson?

  Probably because she didn’t know how to talk to a man who made her heart race and her hands shake, she reminded herself. It had never happened before, even when she had been young and inexperienced.

  “Dumb,” she muttered as she shut the car off, pulled the key from the ignition, and pushed the door open.

  Standing to her full five feet three and three-quarter inches, she hit the remote lock on the door, clutched her handbag tighter, and strode to the door.

  She was not a ninny. Her heart might race, her hands might shake, but she could come up with a very, very good reason for it this morning.

  Pushing through the door, she strode, shoulders straight, head high, to the receptionist’s desk.

  “Carl Dee, how are you doing?” she greeted the officer standing behind the desk with a smile.

  Carl Dee had always been Carl Dee. No one called him Carl or Dee, it was always both, and he was quick to remind anyone that called him otherwise.

  “Hey, Miz Brookes.” His wide grin was slightly awry as he ran his hand over his frizzled red hair and glanced at the computer he’d been typing on. “Sheriff’s making me learn a new program here. Save me, please.”

  She laughed at the playful teasing in his expression. His five-year-old daughter looked just like him. The same grin, the same playfulness.

  “It looks pretty complicated.” She shook her head with mock seriousness. “I don’t know, I might mess it up for you, then the sheriff will lock us both up.”

  “The mood he’s in this week, I wouldn’t doubt it. He’s grouchy as a sore-tailed bear coming out of hibernation,” Carl Dee grumped, shaking his head. “What can I do for you?”

  Hannah grimaced. “Well, I need to talk to the bear, if you think he’d see me?”

  “Poor Miz Brookes.” Carl Dee chuckled. “Let’s hope you’re not here to yell at him. He yelled back at the last pretty girl that stomped in here on him.”

  Her lips twitched. “Mona was here today?”

  Mona was the sheriff’s sister. Those two had been arguing and yelling at each other since they were kids, from what she had heard.

  “In the flesh, pretty as she can be, and raging hell and brim-stone down on his head again.” He picked up the phone on the desk. “Give me a sec here and I’ll see if he’s calmed down some.” Carl Dee winked at her, his brown eyes twinkling in laughter as he punched the line into the sheriff’s office.

  Hannah turned and surveyed the lobby of the new sheriff’s offices as he talked. Slate-gray tile floors blended nicely with the pale cream walls. Photographs of the county were displayed on the walls, and the chairs in the waiting area looked reasonably comfortable.

  Arrangements of dried desert flowers filled pots on metal and glass tables, while a television droned quietly in the background.

  “Miz Brookes, the sheriff’s secretary will be out in a minute to get you.” Carl Dee drew her attention back to him. “Just give her time to bring him fresh coffee so he’ll be sure to be nice and polite.”

  Hannah laughed at the aside. She remembered a time, though, when Sheriff Grayson’s good humor had been the norm. When he had smiled, even laughed some. A time before his wife had been murdered by homeland terrorists who had been friends.

  “Hannah, how good to see you again.” Mae Livingston came down the hall, immaculate as always in black dress slacks and a light gray cotton shirt and two-inch heels.

  She envied the other woman’s svelte figure. Short blond hair brushed against her neck and jaw and framed a heartshaped face and gray eyes.

  Hannah had had all three of her children in school. They were just as easygoing, and as frighteningly self-confident, as their mother.

  “Hello, Mae.” The hazards of a small town, Hannah thought. She knew just about everyone.

  “Come on back, dear,” Mae hooked her arm with her own and began leading her back. “Are you enjoying the summer without all those kids yelling back and forth?”

  Summer vacation had just started the week before.

  “I’m still missing them.” Hannah shook her head with a laugh. “Those are my kids, too, Mae. Their parents have all taken them away from me for the summer.”

  In part, it was the truth. There were days she prayed for summer vacation, but once it arrived, she missed all those young minds and amazingly adept personalities.

  “Lord, child, you should remarry and have your own kids,” Mae told her as they reached the sheriff’s office. “You’ll change your tune.”

  They were still laughing as Mae opened the door and they stepped in. Hannah almost came to a hard, pulse-pounding stop at the sight of the sheriff, dressed in his customary jeans and dark gray shirt as he laid a file on Mae’s desk.

  He had a brooding, wary look as his eyes narrowed on Hannah. The golden-brown gaze was disconcerting, probing, and she often feared it saw more than she ever wanted it to see.

  “Hannah.” He nodded shortly.

  “Good morning, Sheriff.” She clutched her purse tighter. “How’s Kent doing?”

  Kent had been in her class two years before, just after his mother’s death. He�
��d been well adjusted, happy, laughing. He hadn’t acted like a child that had just lost his mother.

  “Doing fine,” he answered as he leaned against Mae’s desk, his gaze intent. “Mona browbeat me into letting him take another of those summer trips with her. Stole him right away from me about an hour ago.”

  There was an attempt at humor, but she could sense the vein of discontent, as well. He hadn’t wanted to lose his son for the summer, but evidently Mona and Kent had outvoted him. Kent, charmer that he was, was good at getting his way.

  “I hope he enjoys himself,” she stated as she drew in a long, slow breath and glanced at Mae. “Could I speak to you a moment alone, Sheriff? I promise not to take up much of your time.”

  She didn’t dare.

  He glared at her, his eyes narrowing as though she were indeed putting him out.

  “Come on.” He nodded toward the office. “Would you like coffee or a soft drink?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head and entered the office.

  The door closed forcefully behind her, causing her to jump and turn in surprise to face the glare that had turned into brooding anger.

  “Since when the hell do you call me sheriff, Hannah?” he growled as he stalked to his desk before turning back to her, his expression dark.

  “Well, you are the sheriff.” She hooked the strap of her purse over her shoulder before crossing her arms mutinously over her breasts. Mostly to hide the fact that her nipples were hardening in his presence.

  His frown deepened. “You didn’t call me sheriff last summer.”

  “Last summer we had two dinner dates and I never heard back from you.” She smiled sweetly to cover the fact that it bothered her. A lot. He hadn’t even kissed her. Two wasted evenings, two wasted weeks waiting, hoping, fantasizing. For nothing.

  The bastard.

  “So we’re strangers because I never took you out again?” If anything he seemed angrier.

  Hannah sighed wearily. “No, Rick, I’m not here because of a dinner date or as a friend. I’m here because I need your advice in an official capacity.”