Harry fucking Potter?”
“It doesn’t take magic to get one inmate to shank another. A favor for a favor. You’ve made a lot of connections inside, Sparks.”
“That’s right. Connections help keep you out of the infirmary, out of solitary, out of the goddamn morgue. I order books. I help some of the cons who can barely write their name write letters to family on the outside. I help train in the gym. Denby’s my past, and in here you’d better stay in the present.
“You think about this.” He jabbed a finger that shook just a little at both of them. “If you’ve got anything on all this, I’m in the fucking barrel. I’ve got to watch my back until I get out. You do your time without moaning about it, and it’s still not enough. It’s never enough.”
He looked back at the guard on the door. “I want to go back. I’m done here. I want to go back.”
Michaela slid the photo neatly into the folder as the guard led Sparks out. “He’s good.”
“He is.”
“It’s hard to argue with anything he said.”
“It made sense, right down the line.” Red rose, rubbed lightly at his wounded arm. “And he’s a sonofabitching liar.”
“Oh yeah. He is.”
PART IV
LOVE, DARK AND BRIGHT
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Love is blind.
—GEOFFREY CHAUCER
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
April slid into May, and the world filled with poppies. They waved orange and fire red in warm breezes, blanketing hills, smothering fields in color. Bluebonnets sprang up, adding some sassy charm, and lilacs sweetened the air everywhere.
Mornings brought fog sliding, smoking, sometimes so thick it hung a curtain over the world until the sun cracked through, burned it away, and turned that world to sparkling.
Cate threw open all her windows, potted herbs—under Julia’s supervision—for her windowsill, set up a table out on her patio for breaks under the afternoon sun.
She watched the gardens surrounding her bloom and thrive, the crops at the ranch grow. The woods where she’d once run toward the light turned lush and green.
Of course the tourists came, and traffic on Highway 1 stalled like a clogged drain. But beauty had its price.
In the peaceful, blooming spring, she began to lean away from Michaela’s theory. Coincidences happened, and the connection was vague and old in any case. The second man in the stolen car turned out to be a cousin of the first. And neither had any connection to anyone else.
She had home. She had work. She had a man who made her happy. Why look for shadows when she could stand in the light?
With another audiobook on her slate, she spent her morning in the booth, broke at noon.
Time to take a walk, clear the head, give the throat a rest. She decided to walk up to the main house, sit in the peace of the walled garden with its climbing roses and impossibly blue clematis, all its pretty flowers and benches.
She could mooch some of Consuela’s excellent lemonade.
An hour break, she decided as she left the house. Another two hours in the booth. Three if she felt she had it in her. Plenty of time to fix herself up a bit before she drove to the ranch.
Dinner with Dillon, his ladies, and Red had become a weekly ritual, and a treat. And she’d stay at Dillon’s for the night. If she managed to get there a little early, she might catch him working with the horses.
God, she loved watching him with the horses.
She topped the rise, stopped, stared as Consuela rushed out of the house toward the woman holding a baby on her hip beside a Lexus SUV.
“Darlie!”
She went on the run, barely beating Consuela to wrap her friend and the little boy in a hug. “Oh, the best surprise. The best surprise ever. Let me see him. Oh, hello, handsome!”
He tipped his head to his mother’s shoulder, grinned at her. “Dog,” he said, clutching a stuffed dog. “Mine!”
“And nearly as handsome as you. He got so big.”
“He’s walking now. R-running.”
Cate heard the tremble in Darlie’s voice, looked over, saw the tears welling in her eyes.
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
She didn’t ask questions, not now. “You came to the right place.”
“Come to me, my baby, come to Consuela. Can he have a c-o-o-k-i-e?”
“Of course. He deserves one.”
“Would you like a cookie, mi pequeño hombre? Come with Consuela.”
“Kee!” Luke threw his arms out to her.
“He probably needs a change. Let me—”
“No, no, Mama, give to me the bag and the baby. Consuela will take