“You know that young Border Patrol agent, Rob Valdez?”
“Pretty face, pumped-up arms? Yeah, I know Rob.”
“He’s off the market.”
“What market would that be, Gran?” Jolene clamped her mouth closed against the laugh bubbling against her lips. She knew exactly which market Gran meant.
Gran huffed out a breath. “The marriage market, Jolene. He and some young woman left on an extended vacation together.”
“A vacation? You’re kidding. That seals his fate right there. He might as well attach a ball and chain to his ankle.”
“Oh, you can laugh, but he was an eligible bachelor, one of the few left in town.”
“Nice guy, but not my type. Too young for one thing.”
“I know your type, Jolene, and the loss of Rob isn’t so bad given the other news I picked up while you were gone.”
Jolene’s jaw tightened for a second. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Gran. What is this other blessed event that occurred to counteract Rob Valdez’s vacation with a woman?”
Gran paused for maximum dramatic effect. “Sam Cross is back in town.”
Jolene’s hands jerked on the steering wheel, and a wall of water from the puddle she’d veered into washed over the side of her truck. She swallowed. “Sam’s back?”
“I know Sam is your type.”
Jolene gripped the steering wheel. “Sam is married. That is most certainly not my type.”
“He’s divorced.” Gran moved the phone from her mouth and yelled, “Just a few more minutes, Wade.”
Jolene snorted. “He’s been back for two days, and you already know his marital status? I doubt it, Gran. He would never leave his daughter.”
“He had lunch at Rosita’s yesterday, and Rosie told me he wasn’t wearing a wedding band and when she asked to see pictures of his daughter, he showed her pictures on his phone of the girl but none of his wife.”
Tears stung Jolene’s eyes, and she blinked them away. “That’s it, then. No wedding ring and no pics of the wife. You and Rosie are quite the spies.”
Gran lowered her voice. “You don’t have to pretend with me, Jolene.”
“Sounds like Wade wants his phone back.” Jolene cleared her throat of the lump lodged there and said, “I’ll drop by the rez tomorrow. I have something to do tonight when I get home.”
“Drive carefully and come over any time tomorrow.” Gran must’ve handed the phone back to Wade without hanging up, as voices floated over the line before Wade cut off the call.
Jolene blew out a long breath. What was Sam doing in town? It must have to do with work. He wouldn’t be in Paradiso long, and she could probably avoid seeing him. She hoped she could avoid seeing him.
She drove the rest of the way to Paradiso hunched over the steering wheel, the rain not putting her on edge as much as the task before her. She could do it. She had to do it. As her father had taught her, sometimes the ends did justify the means.
Twenty minutes later, as she rolled into Paradiso, the rain came in with her, lashing through the town, flooding the streets. By the time she pulled into her driveway, the storm had spent itself with the dark clouds rushing across the desert and breaking apart at the border, as if an invisible wall existed there.
She pressed her thumb against the remote-control button in her truck that rolled back the garage door. She slid from the vehicle and took a quick glance around her neighborhood before opening the back door of the cab. She pulled out her overnight suitcase and set it on the ground, and then she grabbed the duffel bag on the back seat with both hands and hauled it from the truck.
She hitched the strap of the bag over her shoulder and lugged it into her garage, wheeling the suitcase behind her. She stashed the duffel under a counter next to her ski boots and bindings, nudging it into place with the toe of her wet sneaker.
She locked her truck and closed the garage door, standing still in the middle of her garage for several seconds until the automatic lights went out. Her eyes picked out the duffel bag in the dim confines of the garage, and then she spun around and charged through the door connecting her garage to her kitchen.
There was no turning back now.
She unpacked her suitcase. She hadn’t lied to Gran about spending a few nights away, but she’d been in Tucson, not Phoenix. Nobody needed to know where she’d been.
After she unpacked, she searched through her kitchen for suitable dinner fare and ended up grazing on hummus, crackers, a stale flour tortilla and a handful of trail mix.
She watched the time on her cell phone and the rain outside the window. When the digital numbers ticked over to ten o’clock and the remainder of the storm clouds skittered across the sky, she headed for her bedroom and changed into a pair of jeans and a dark blue T-shirt.
She grabbed a small purse and a backpack, leaving her phone charging on the counter. Stepping from the kitchen into the garage, she hit the lights and stuffed some gloves, a spade, a flashlight, a rope, wire cutters and a few other items into the pack. She opened the garage door and unlocked her truck. The purse went into the front seat and the backpack went into the back.
She returned to the garage and curled one hand around a shovel. She balanced it on her shoulder and approached the truck. The puddle of water in the bed rippled as she laid down the shovel.
Placing her hands on her hips, she pivoted toward the garage and eyed the duffel. She huffed out a breath and strode toward it, her boots clumping on the cement floor of the garage.
She dragged the bag from beneath the counter and hauled it over her shoulder. She swung it onto the floor of the truck’s back seat and brushed her hands together—as if that were it. That wasn’t it. That was part one.
She climbed into her truck and punched the remote with her knuckle. She watched her garage door settle into place before backing out of her driveway.
When she merged onto the highway, she flicked on her brights. The crescent moon didn’t have enough power to light up the desert, and the road didn’t have many travelers. When the odd car did approach from the oncoming lane of traffic, she dimmed her lights.
Finally, she didn’t meet any other cars coming the other way, and she expelled a breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding. Nobody else would be out here at this time of night.
Her headlights illuminated the mile marker on the side of the highway, and she glanced at her odometer to track the miles. At two miles past the marker, she eased off her gas pedal and peered over the steering wheel.
She spotted the break in the highway and turned onto an access road. Her truck bounced and lurched as it ate up the rough ground beneath its wheels.