deliver. Whatever you got to get somewhere, we’ll ride with it, and I personally guarantee it’ll get there safe, and so will your driver.”
“That’s a pretty big promise. That bitch of a sheriff here has made our life hell. We take the long way around Rio County, or she sics the dogs on us.”
“Leave her to me. I can handle that.” If only, he thought. If only her lips weren’t so soft, and her body didn’t curve just to fit his, and the dip right below her collarbone didn’t make him go weak with hunger for her touch.
Tony Ballas’s eyebrows met in the middle as he frowned. “If something goes wrong, you gotta answer to people besides me.”
Beside him, Austin stilled. Santos leaned back in his chair with a casual movement that hid his unwavering determination. This was what they’d come for, and he wasn’t about to show it. “You’re doing the hiring. Seems to me like you ought to do the firing.”
Ballas clearly agreed. His lips narrowed in the bar’s flickering lights, and Santos was sure he was going to talk about the people above him. Then he seemed to think better of his reaction, and his jaw loosened. “There’s new money coming in. I want a piece of it, and that’s why I’m talking to you. I don’t trust the lone wolves I’ve seen around here lately.”
He wondered if Ballas meant Carlos Hernandez, the man he’d run over at the trailer park. He’d been a paid hand with no affiliations to a cartel. He’d been a biker with no chapter as well.
“Maybe the wolves aren’t so lonely.”
“Maybe they belong to the big money,” Santos said. “I might have some info on that. We could trade names.”
“Trade names?” The other biker made a sound in the back of his throat. “Dead’s still dead, no matter what kind of trade you’re talking about.” He shook his head. “All I need is help. You interested or not?”
“No problem.” Santos held up his hands. “That works for us, too.” Now it was anger at himself that he hid. He should have been able to weasel out more info from the man. He’d just have to hope he might learn more on the run. He smiled grimly. “You know our rep, or you wouldn’t be here. We’ll cut our rate for the first run as a sign of goodwill, how’s that sound?”
This time it was Ballas who leaned forward, and thirty minutes later, the three men returned to the bar for fresh drinks to seal the deal.
He was one step closer to Ortega. It might take a million more. But Santos was prepared to take them—and more.
Chapter Eight
A shiny red pickup she didn’t recognize was parked in Silas’s driveway when Rose arrived the following evening. She closed her eyes against the blistering sunset for a second and remembered everything she’d shared with Santos last night. She was still kicking herself for telling him the truth. What on earth had come over her? She didn’t want to consider that the kiss they’d shared might have nicked her defenses and opened a hole big enough for her emotions to escape. No, she didn’t want to consider that at all.
As the cruiser cooled down and clicked in the heat, a quiet, still voice inside her head gave her another answer. The secret had festered inside her for years and, coming to west Texas and finding herself at loose ends, it had grown. The landscape was so empty, so vast, that she’d been forced to think about things she’d kept at bay for years. Santos’s arrival had not only brought up everything that was between them, it’d given rise to the secrets between herself and her mom. The perfect emotional storm, she thought regretfully. And it’d broken at just the wrong time.
She picked her way through the walking stick chollas in her grandfather’s front yard and knocked lightly on the screen door, peering through the wire mesh. “Can I come in?” Without waiting for Silas’s reply, she opened the door, its ancient hinges complaining at the effort.
Her grandfather lifted himself out of his recliner as she stepped inside, a smile breaking out across his face as he held out a hand. “Hey, baby, look who’s here.”
Her eyes went to the man on the plaid couch. After a moment’s struggle with his cane, Dan Strickland stood awkwardly.
She’d always wondered why Dan had returned to Rio County after his injury. He seemed so bitter and unhappy. Was he still