Texas Proud

Chapter One

Her name was Bernadette Epperson, but everybody she knew in Jacobsville, Texas, called her Bernie. She was Blake Kemp’s new paralegal, and she shared the office with Olivia Richards, who was also a paralegal. They had replaced former employees, one who’d married and moved away, the other who’d gone to work in San Antonio for the DA there.

They were an interesting contrast: Olivia, the tall, willowy brunette, and Bernie, the slender blonde with long, thick platinum blond hair. They’d known each other since grammar school and they were friends. It made for a relaxed, happy office atmosphere.

Ordinarily, one paralegal would have been adequate for the Jacobs County district attorney’s office. But the DA, Blake Kemp, had hired Olivia to also work as a part-time paralegal. That was because Olivia covered for her friend at the office when Bernie had flares of rheumatoid arthritis. It was one of the more painful forms of arthritis, and when she had attacks it meant walking with a cane and taking more anti-inflammatories, along with the dangerous drugs she took to help keep the disease from worsening. It also meant no social life to speak of. Bernie would have liked having a fellow of her own, but single men knew about her and nobody seemed willing to take on Bernie, along with a progressive disease that could one day make her disabled.

There were new treatments, of course. Some of them involved weekly shots that halted the progression of the disease. But those shots were incredibly expensive, and even with a reduced price offered by kindly charitable foundations, they were still out of her price range. So it was methotrexate and prednisone and folic acid. And trying not to brood about the whole thing.

She was on her way to her room at Mrs. Brown’s boardinghouse. It was raining, and the rain was cold. It was October and cool. Not the best time to forget her raincoat, but she’d been in a hurry and late for work, so it was still hanging in her closet at home. Ah, well, she thought philosophically, at least she had a nice thick sweater over her thin blouse. She laughed hysterically to herself. The sweater was a sponge. She felt water rolling down over her flat stomach under her clothes.

She laughed so hard that she didn’t see a raised portion of the sidewalk. It caught her toe and she tripped. She fell into the road just as a big black limousine came along. Her cane went flying and she hit the pavement on her belly. She was fortunate enough to catch herself on her forearms, but the impact winded her. Luckily for her, the driver saw her in time to stop from running over her. It was dark and only the streetlights showed, blurry light through the curtains of rain.

A man got out. She saw his shoes. Big feet. Expensive shoes, like some of the visiting district attorneys who showed up to talk to her boss. Slacks that were made of wool. She could tell, because she used wool to knit with.

You okay? a deep, velvety voice asked.

Yes, she panted. Just...winded.

She rolled over and sat up.

A tall man, built like a wrestler, with broad shoulders and a leonine head, squatted down, staring at her with deep-set brown eyes in an olive complexion. His jet-black hair was threaded with just a little silver, and it was thick and wavy around his head. A lock of it fell onto his forehead as he bent over her. He had high cheekbones and the sort of mouth that was seen in action movies with he-men. He was gorgeous. She couldn’t help staring. She couldn’t remember ever having a man send her speechless just by looking at her.

Nice timing, he mused. Saw the limo coming, did we? And jumped right out in front of it, too.

She was too shaken to think of a comeback, although she should have. She checked her palms. They were a little scraped but not bleeding.

I tripped.

Did you really?

That damned sarcastic, mocking smile made her very angry. Could you find my cane, please? she asked.

Cane?

She heard his voice change. She hated that note in it. It went flying when I hit the raised part of the sidewalk. It’s over that way. She indicated the sidewalk. On the other side, probably. It’s red enamel. With dragons on it.

With dragons. Mmm-hmm.

A car door opened. Another man came around the front of the car. He was older than Bernie but younger than the man squatting down next to her. He was wearing a suit.

What’s that about dragons? the man asked, faintly amused.

Her cane. That way, she says. He pointed.

The other man made a sound in his throat.

Look anyway, the big man told him.

All right, I’m going. There was a pause while Bernie sat in the road getting wetter by the minute.

Well, I’ll be...!

The other man came back, holding the cane. He was scowling. Where the devil did you get something like that? he asked as he handed it down to her.

Internet, she said. The pain was getting worse. Much worse. She needed a heavy dose of anti-inflammatories, and a bed and a heating pad.

She swallowed hard. Please don’t...stare when I get up. There’s only one way I can do it, and it’s embarrassing. She got on all fours and pushed herself up with difficulty, holding on to the cane for support. She lifted her head to the rain and got her breath back. Thanks for not running over me, she said heavily.

The big man had stood up when she did. He was scowling. What’s the matter with you? Sprain?

She looked up. It was a long way. Rheumatoid arthritis.

Arthritis? At your age? the man asked, surprised.

She drew herself up angrily. Rheumatoid, she emphasized. It’s systemic. An autoimmune disease. Only one percent of people in the world have it, although it’s the most common autoimmune disease. Now if you don’t mind, I have to get home before I drown.

We’ll drive you, the big man offered belatedly.

Frankly, I’d rather drown, thanks. She turned, very slowly, and managed to get going without too much visible effort. But walking was laborious, and she was gritting her teeth before she’d gotten five steps.

Oh, hell.

She heard the soft curse before she felt herself suddenly picked up like a sack of potatoes and carried back toward the limousine.

The other man was holding the door open.

You put me down! she grumbled, trying to struggle. She winced, because movement hurt.

When I get you home, he said. Where’s home?

He put her into the limousine and climbed in beside her. The other man closed the door and got in behind the wheel.

I’ll get the seat wet, she protested.

It’s leather. It will clean. Where’s home?

She drew in a breath. She was in so much pain that she couldn’t even protest anymore. Mrs. Brown’s boardinghouse. Two blocks down and to the right. It’s a big Victorian house with a white fence around it and a room-to-rent sign, she added.

The driver nodded, started the engine and took off.

The big man was still watching her. She was clutching the cane with a little hand that had gone white from the pressure she was using.

He studied her, his eyes on the thick plait of platinum blond hair down her back. Her clothes were plastered to her. Nice body, a little small-breasted and long legs. She had green eyes. Very pale green. Pretty bow mouth. Wide-spaced eyes under thick black eyelashes. Not beautiful. But attractive.

Who are you? he asked belatedly.

My name is Bernadette, she said.

Sweet, he mused. There was a song about Saint Bernadette, he recalled.

She flushed. My mother loved it. That’s why she gave me the name.

I’m Michael. Michael Fiore, but most people call me Mikey. He watched her face, but there was no recognition. She didn’t know the name. Surprising. He’d been a resident of Jacobsville a few years back, when his cousin, Paul Fiore of the San Antonio FBI office, was investigating a case that involved Sari Grayling, who later became Paul’s wife. Sari and her sister, Meredith, had been targeted by a hit man, courtesy of a man whose mother was killed by the Graylings’ late father. Mikey had made some friends here.

Nice to meet you, she managed. She grimaced.

Hurts pretty bad, huh? he asked, his dark eyes narrowing. He looked up. Santelli was pulling into a parking spot just in front of a Victorian house with a room-to-rent sign. Is this it? he asked.

She looked up through the window. She nodded. Thanks so much...

Stay put, he said.

He went out the other door that Santi was holding open for him, around the car and opened her door. He reached in and picked her up, cane and purse and all.

Come knock on the door for me, Santi, he told his companion.

Bernie tried to protest, but the big man kept walking. He smelled of cigar smoke and expensive cologne, and the feel of his big arms around her made her feel odd. Trembly. Nervous. Very nervous. She had one arm around his broad shoulders to hold on, her hand spread beside his neck. He was warm and comforting. It had been a long time since she’d been held by anyone, and it had never felt like this.

Santi knocked on the door.

Bernie could have told him that he could just walk in, but he wasn’t from here, so he didn’t know.

Plump Mrs. Brown opened the door, still wearing her apron because she offered supper to her roomers. She stopped dead, with her mouth open, as she saw Bernie being carried by a stranger.

I fell, Bernie explained. He was kind enough to stop and bring me home...

Oh, dear, should you go see Dr. Coltrain? she said worriedly.

I’m fine, really, just a little bruised dignity to speak of, she assured the landlady. You can put me down, she said to Mikey.

Where’s her room? Mikey asked politely. He smiled at the older woman, and she flushed and laughed nervously.

It’s right down here. She can’t climb the stairs, so she has a room near the front...

She led the way. He put Bernie down in a chair beside her bed.

You need a hot bath, dear, and some coffee, Mrs. Brown fussed.

There was a bathroom between Bernie’s room and the empty room next door.

Can you manage? the big man asked gently.

She nodded. I’m okay. Really. Thanks.

He shrugged broad shoulders. He frowned. You shouldn’t be walking so far.

Tell her, tell her, Mrs. Brown fretted. She walks four blocks to and from work every single day!

Dr. Coltrain says exercise is good for me, she retorted.

Exercise. Not torture, Mrs. Brown muttered.

The big man was thinking. We’ll see you again, he said quietly.

She nodded. Thanks.

He cocked his head. His eyes narrowed. First impressions aren’t always accurate.

Her eyebrows arched. Gosh, was that an apology?

He scowled. I don’t apologize. Ever.

That didn’t hurt, that didn’t hurt, that didn’t hurt, she mimicked a comedian who’d said that very thing in a movie. She grinned. Probably he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

He threw back his head and roared. Police Academy, he said, naming the movie.

Her jaw fell.

Yeah. That guy was me, at his age, he confessed. Take a bath. And don’t fall in.

She made a face at him.

His dark eyes twinkled. See you, kid.

He walked out before she could correct the impression.

He stopped at the front door. That room to let, he asked Mrs. Brown. Is it still available?

Why, yes, she said, flushing again. She laughed. You’d be very welcome. We have three ladies living here, but...

I’m easy to please, he said. And I won’t be any trouble. I hate hotels.

She smiled. So do I. My husband was in rodeo. We spent years on the road. I got so sick of room keys...

He laughed. That’s me. Okay. If you don’t mind, I’ll have my stuff here later today.

I don’t mind at all.

How much in advance? he asked, producing his wallet.

She told him. He handed her several bills.

I don’t rob banks, if that’s what you’re thinking, he said with a wry smile. I’m a businessman. I live in New Jersey, and I own a hotel in Vegas. Which is why I hate staying in them.

Oh! You have business here, then?

He nodded solemnly. Business, he agreed. I’ll be around for a while.

It will be nice to have the room rented, she confessed. It’s been vacant for a long time. My last tenant got married.

I’ll see you later, then. He hesitated, looking back toward the room where he’d left Bernadette. She’ll be okay, you think?

Yes. She might look fragile, but Bernie’s tough. She’s had to be.

Bernie? His eyes widened.

She laughed. That’s what we call her. We’ve known Bernadette all her life.

Small towns. He smiled. I grew up in one, myself. Far from here. He pulled out a business card and handed it to her. The lower number is my cell phone. If she needs anything tonight, you call me, okay? I can come and drive her to the hospital if she needs to be seen.

Mrs. Brown was surprised at that concern from a stranger. You have a kind heart.

He shrugged. Not always. See you.

He went out, motioning for Santi to follow him. They got in the limo and drove off. Mrs. Brown watched it go with real interest. She wondered who the outsider was.

Mikey was all too aware of the driver’s irritation. They told me to keep an eye on you all the time, he told Mikey.

Yeah, well, I’m not sharing a room with you, no matter what the hell they told you. Besides, he added, settling back into his seat, Cash Grier’s got one of his men shadowing me with a sniper kit.

It’s a small town, Santi began.

A small town with half the retired mercs in America, Mikey cut in. And my cousin lives right down the road. Remember him? Senior FBI agent Paul Fiore? Lives in Jacobsville, works out of San Antonio, worth millions?

Oh. Him. Right.

Besides, I know the sniper Grier’s got watching me. He chuckled. "He doesn’t miss. Ever. And they snagged The Avengers to watch when the sniper’s asleep."

The Avengers? Santi roared. That’s a comic book!

Rogers and Barton. They’re called the Avengers because Captain America’s name in the series is Rogers, and Hawkeye’s is Barton. Get it?

Yeah.

I know how bad Mario Cotillo wants me, Santi, Mikey said quietly. I’m the only thing standing between Tony Garza and a murder-one conviction, because I know Tony didn’t do it and I can prove it. Tony’s in hiding, too, in an even safer place than me.

Where? Santi asked.

Mikey laughed coarsely. Sure, like I’m going to tell you.

Santi stiffened. I’m no snitch, he said, offended.

Anybody can hack a cell phone or the elaborate two-way radio we got in this car, and listen to us when we talk, Mikey said with visible impatience. Use your brain, okay?

I do!

Well, you must be keeping it in a safe place when you’re not using it, Mikey muttered under his breath, but not so that Santi could hear him. The guy was good muscle and a capable driver. It wouldn’t do to upset him too much. Not now, anyway.

Mikey leaned back with a long sigh and thought of the woman he’d met tonight. He was sorry he’d misjudged her, but plenty of women had thrown themselves into his path. He was extremely wealthy. He had money in Swiss banks that the feds couldn’t touch. And while he’d been accused of a few crimes, including murder, he’d never even been indicted. His record was pretty clean. Well, for a guy in his profession. He was a crime boss back in Jersey, where Tony Garza was the big boss. Tony owned half the rackets around Newark. But Tony had some major new competition, an outsider who saw himself as the next Capone. He’d targeted Tony at once, planned to take him down on a fake murder charge with the help of a friend who worked in the federal attorney’s office. It had backfired. Tony also had friends there. So did Mikey. But Mikey had been with Tony in a bar when the murder had taken place and by chance, Mikey had a photo of himself and Tony with a date stamp on his cell phone. He’d sent copies to Paulie and Cash Grier and a friend down in the Bahamas. Before the feds could jump Tony, who might have been dealt with handily and at once before it even came to trial, Mikey and Tony had both skipped town.

The next obvious play by Cotillo would be to put out contracts on Mikey and Tony. Mikey smiled. He knew most of the heavy hitters in the business. So did Tony. It wouldn’t work, but Cotillo didn’t know that. Yet. Meanwhile, Mikey and Tony were playing a waiting game. Both had feds on the job protecting them. Mikey wasn’t telling Santi that, however. He didn’t trust anybody really, except his cousin Paul. The fewer people who knew, the safer he was going to be.

Not that life held such attractions for him these days. He had all the money he’d ever need. He had a fearsome reputation, which gave him plenty of protection back home in New Jersey. But he was alone. He was a lonely man. He’d asked a woman to share his life only once, and she’d laughed. He was good in bed and he bought her pretty things, but she wasn’t going to get married to a known gangster. She had her reputation to think of. After all, she was a debutante, from one of the most prominent families in Maryland. Marry a hood? Ha! Fat chance.

It had broken his heart. Even now, years and years after it happened, it was a sore spot. He was more than his reputation. He was fair and honest, and he never hurt anybody without a damned good reason. Mostly, he went after people who hurt people he cared about.

Well, there was also the odd job for Tony when he was younger. But those days were mostly behind him. He could still handle a sniper kit when he needed to. It was just that he didn’t have the same need for notoriety that had once ruled his life.

Nobody needed him. Funny, the main reason he’d enjoyed the debutante was that she’d pretended to be helpless and clingy. He’d enjoyed that. Since his grandmother’s death, there had been nobody who cared about him except Paul, and nobody who needed him at all. Briefly, he’d helped his cousin protect a young woman from Jacobsville, Merrie Grayling, before she married the Wyoming rancher. But that had been sort of an accessory thing. He’d liked her very much, yet as a sort of adoptive baby sister, nothing romantic. It had been nice, helping Paulie with that little chore, especially since he knew the contract killer who’d been assigned to get Merrie. He had known how to get the hit called off—actually, by getting Merrie, an artist of great talent, to do a portrait of Tony. The contract killer had ended badly, but that happened sometimes. Most sane people didn’t go against Tony, who’d told the guy to call off the hit.

But all that had been three years ago. Life moved on. Now here was Mikey, in hiding from a newcomer in Jersey, trying to protect his friend Tony.

He thought again about the young woman who’d fallen in front of the limo. He felt bad that he’d misjudged her. She was pretty. What had she called herself—Bernadette? He smiled. He’d been to France, to the grotto where Saint Bernadette had dug into a mudhole, found a clear spring and seen the apparition she referred to as the Immaculate Conception, and he’d seen Bernadette in her coffin. She looked no older than when she’d died, a century and more ago, a beautiful young woman. He wondered if her namesake even knew who Saint Bernadette was. He wondered why she’d been given that name.

So many questions. Well, he was going to be staying in the same rooming house, so he’d probably get the chance to talk to her, to ask her about her family. She was nice. She didn’t like pity, although she had a devastating medical condition, and she had a temper. He smiled, remembering that thick plait of blond hair down her back. He loved long hair. It must be hard to keep, for someone with her limitations.

His little Greek grandmother had been arthritic. He recalled her gnarled hands and the times when she hadn’t been able to get out of bed. Mikey had carried her from room to room when she had special company, or outside when she wanted to sit in the sun. He couldn’t remember what sort of arthritis she’d had, but it was in the family bible, along with plenty of other family information. He kept the bible in a safe-deposit box back in Jersey, along with precious photographs of people long dead. There had been one of the debutante. But he’d burned that one.

The car was eating up the miles to San Antonio, where Mikey had left his luggage in a hotel under an assumed name. He’d send Santi in to pick it up and pay the bill, just in case, while he waited outside in the parking lot. You couldn’t be too careful. He needed to send a text to Paulie, as well, but that could wait until he was back in Jacobsville. He should ask Paulie about hackers and what they could find out, and how. He still wasn’t up on modern methods of surveillance.

He leaned back against the seat with a long sigh. Bernadette. He smiled to himself.

Bernadette took a hot bath, and it did help ease some of the discomfort. Mrs. Brown had been kind enough to add a handhold on the side of the tub so that Bernadette would find it easier to get in and out of the tub. She took showers, however, not baths. It was so much quicker to stand up. Besides, the bathroom was used by all the boarders on the ground floor, although there had been just Bernadette for several weeks, and poor Mrs. Brown had enough to do without having to scrub the tub all the time. She did have a daily woman who came in to help with the heavy chores. But Bernadette was fastidious and it bothered her, the idea of baths when at least one of the former boarders had been male and liked lots of musk-smelling bath oil. For women, especially, baths in a less than spotlessly