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she’d had to miss work so they could stand in line at the food bank. For whatever reason, the job would evaporate, and she’d go back to doing what she knew best.
    Then Mike Slider had come along and offered what Gloria had thought might be refuge from their grinding existence. An awful man who knew nothing but beer and beating, he had hidden his true personality until after they’d married. He’d proceeded to make both Gloria’s and Rose’s lives a nightmare they couldn’t escape.
    If anyone deserved to get what he had coming, even in her eyes, especially in her eyes , it had been Mike Slider. She and her mother had taken his abuse until it reached the point of no return.
    Gloria had been sentenced to a Texas prison for three years following his death. A kind judge and an understanding jury had been her salvation. Her mom had read Rose’s emotions when she’d walked out of the courtroom and mouthed the words “I love you…” over her shoulder. Rose had sent them back with tears running down her cheeks. She could remember the devastation of that day as if it had happened last week. But Gloria had done her time and paid for the crime. In fact, she’d paid much, much more than anyone, including Santos, could ever appreciate.
    Even though he didn’t know the secrets Rose shared with her mother, those very secrets perfectly represented the conflicting philosophy behind their breakup. His job was his job, and it meant everything to him. He simply didn’t care who got hurt, or why people did what they did, nothing mattered but the job.
    After she’d left prison, Gloria had drifted in and out of Rose’s life, and they’d both been okay with the arrangement. When Santos began repeatedly to warn her that having Gloria around could hurt her career, she didn’t believe him, and even if he was right, she’d told him, her mother was her mother and they needed to stay in touch, even if it was infrequently.
    Then one day Santos told Rose flat out to sever the already tenuous ties she and Gloria shared. He said her mother had gone back to her old ways, and he didn’t want Rose to get hurt. Telling her she was too close to see the situation clearly, he’d insisted she cut Gloria out of her life. Rose had refused.
    A month later, Gloria was gone.
    At the time, Santos said all he wanted was for Rose to be safe, and that wasn’t possible if she was still seeing Gloria. His insistence and Rose’s refusal had torn them apart. After a final blow up, he’d moved on. She couldn’t deny that, at the time, she’d been relieved. But it had still hurt.
    Going home to west Texas, Rose had left San Antonio, coming to Rio County to find her mother. Once there, she’d run for sheriff. She’d been a shoo-in because her grandfather had just retired from the same position. But after two years, she still had no idea where Gloria might be.
    And now Santos wanted her to help him find the very woman he’d told her to avoid. She’d give him credit where credit was due.
    He had balls.
    She threw a salad together, then took a bath and went to bed, but sleep refused to come, no matter how hard she tried to find it. A summer storm’s dry lightning flashed in the distance outside her window while unrelenting images of her past with Santos flashed equally bright behind her eyes: the reflection in the mirror of their naked bodies tangled in the sheets, margaritas on the patio of their favorite Mexican restaurant, the weekend they had spent on Padre watching the waves come in.
    She gave up at five a.m. and stumbled out of her bed to the kitchen, leaning against the counter with her eyes closed as the coffee pot gurgled. Carrying a full mug to the tiny porch off the back of her house, she sat down, sipped, and waited, the scent of coffee mingling with the clean, crisp morning air. Silas Renwick showed up right before the sun, just as she’d expected he would. Her grandfather had built-in radar that pinged whenever she was troubled.
    He gave