be on the lookout for her, if Will had spread the word that she was missing?
A small town with more casual, less experienced law enforcement seemed a safer bet. If her logic was faulty, so be it. She felt more at ease with the thought of trying to make a home for herself and Billy someplace quiet and peaceful, someplace where they’d never heard of Will Longhorn. Her gut instincts had gotten her this far. She might as well trust them a little longer.
Staring at the choices on the map, all of them unfamiliar, she finally zeroed in on a tiny speck in the southwestern part of the state.
Los Piños. It was only a couple of hundred miles away. The name suggested forests of pine trees, which appealed to her. She craved the serenity such a setting suggested. It reminded her of the town where she’d grown up, the town she’d been in too much of a hurry to leave. Funny, what a difference a few agonizing years could make. She would have given almost anything to be able to go back there now. Since she couldn’t, it would have to be Los Piños.
The decision made, she got back on the highway, then took the next exit and stopped at a minimart to buy milk and some cereal for the baby and a ready-made sandwich and soft drink for her. After filling the car with gas, she had ten dollars left, that and whatever change might be buried in the bottom of her purse and in Billy’s diaper bag.
Despite the dire circumstances, Patsy felt almost upbeat as she drove into Los Piños a few hours later. She gazed around at the small downtown area with its quaint shops and family-owned restaurants. Though the buildings were old, everything was freshly painted and brightly lit. There was no mistaking that this was a town that took pride in itself. For a second she allowed herself to envision being a part of it, to imagine belonging. For a moment anyway, despair vanished. A feeling of contentment, mixed with a rare smidgen of hope, stole over her.
“We’re here, Billy,” she whispered to the now-sleeping boy. “We’re home.” Whatever it took, she would find a way to make that true.
She reached into the back seat and touched his cheek to seal the vow, then drew back in shock. He was burning up with fever. Hope gave way to panic and desperation.
“It’ll be okay, baby,” she promised. Whatever she had to do, it would be okay.
* * *
“Dadgumit, Justin, if you’d been the law around here when we were kids, I’d have spent my entire teens in jail,” Harlan Patrick Adams grumbled, standing on a corner in downtown Los Piños just before dinnertime.
Justin grinned at his cousin. “Probably should have,” he said.
“You were no better than me,” Harlan Patrick reminded him. “If I belonged in a cell, you surely belonged right there next to me. What happened to you? When did you turn into a saint?”
“Hardly that,” Justin said. “It’s just that there’s right and wrong. Somebody’s got to see to it that folks remember the difference.”
“Yeah, but that kid you just threatened with jail time threw a gum wrapper on the street. He didn’t rob the savings and loan.”
“Stop the little crime and you’ll have less trouble with the big stuff,” Justin retorted. “That’s what that mayor up in New York says and it’s worked.”
“It makes my blood run cold hearing you talk like that,” Harlan Patrick taunted. “Guess that means you won’t be playing poker with the rest of us out at White Pines later tonight, seeing as how gambling’s illegal. Or were you thinking of coming along and arresting Grandpa Harlan when he rakes in his first pot?”
Justin scowled at him. “Very amusing. I’ll be there and I intend to take every dime you lay on the table, cowboy.”
Harlan Patrick didn’t appear unduly worried. “Just as long as you leave that gun locked up at home,” he said. “It makes me very nervous to know that you’re carrying a weapon. You never could shoot worth a damn.”
Justin grinned and fingered his holster. “I’m better now. Want to see?”
Harlan Patrick shuddered. “I think I’ll pass, thanks.” He gave Justin a mock salute. “Later, cousin.”
“Yeah, later.”
After all their years of troublemaking, Justin got a kick out of watching Harlan Patrick squirm at the sight of his uniform. No one in the family, least of all his own father, quite understood what had motivated him to