Be Mine Read online

  “That’s not it. He’s growing pot. That little bastard has a whole greenhouse set up out back.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No. It’s a shit job, made out of two-by-fours and plastic sheeting. I can’t believe it hasn’t collapsed under the snow yet, but I guess the heaters and lamps are melting it off. It’s full of plants. And he’s clearing out more land, like he plans to expand during the summer. That’s why the truck is so muddy. He was trying to pull stumps out of half-frozen ground, because he apparently doesn’t have even half a brain.”

  “Okay, listen. I’m glad you came to me. You’re not responsible for it just because it’s being grown on your land. This happens all the time these days. Somebody picks a secluded area, and—”

  “It’s not just on my land,” Luis interrupted. “That damn greenhouse is sitting half on my land and half on federal forest. And that’s not the worst of it.”

  Nate took a deep breath. “Do I want to know?”

  “I have no idea, but I don’t know who else to turn to. I need your help, Nate. It’s...”

  “Shit. Is James involved? Tell me the truth.”

  Luis slumped. “I don’t know. He’s a good boy, but he loves his cousin. Looks up to him. And I found out he skipped school last week. The same day Victor borrowed the truck. Regardless of what Teresa wants, if I was sure James wasn’t involved I would’ve just called you and had your guys go out and shut it down and arrest that little shit. But if he’s pulled James into it...”

  “Listen. Even if James is marginally involved, he’s a good kid, like you said. He’s only fifteen. He won’t—”

  “He’s fifteen, yeah. And he’s almost six feet tall, and he’s got brown skin and the last name Hernandez, just like me. To a lot of people around here, he doesn’t look like a good, harmless kid. He looks like an ad trying to scare people about dangerous illegals.”

  “Come on, Luis. People around here know you and your family.”

  “Yeah. And some of them probably remember when I was a kid and got up to no good.”

  Nate sighed. He’d forgotten about that. Luis had gone through a rebellious stage, and rebelled himself right out of school a couple of times. And into jail once after stealing beer from a local gas station. The same kind of trouble lots of kids got up to, but it was different when you were one of the few brown-skinned kids in the school.

  “I’m scared, Nate. If my boy’s involved and it’s on my land, it’s going to look like a whole damn Mexican family operation.”

  “You’re as American as I am,” Nate snapped. “I shouldn’t even have to say that. We were both born right here.”

  Luis raised an eyebrow, and Nate didn’t bother arguing further. Sure, Nate bore the Hernandez name, as well, but it was his middle name, not his last. And he had his father’s gray eyes and lighter skin than his cousins. He knew it wasn’t the same for him.

  He cursed and ran a hand over his jaw. “All right. Listen. Is there anywhere you can send James for a few days? Maybe a week? Doesn’t Teresa’s family live in Colorado?”

  “Yeah. Maybe I can arrange something. But I’d have to pull him out of school. Teresa won’t like that at all.”

  “You’re going to tell her, though, right?”

  Luis’s eyes shifted away.

  “Come on, man. You have to tell her.”

  “She won’t like it. Better to lie. If I tell her, she’ll want to let—”

  A sudden shadow cut off Luis’s words. “Hello, boys! You’re not conspiring to lie to an innocent woman, are you?”

  Luis flashed wide, panicked eyes up at Jenny, whose ponytail was still swaying from her abrupt appearance. “What?” he yelped.

  She waved off his alarm. “I’m a bartender. Believe me, I see it every day. Just be kind to her, okay?” Smiling, she tipped her head toward Nate to include him in her advice, but still didn’t seem to recognize him. “You gentlemen want a pitcher?”

  Luis shook his head, but Nate said, “Sure.”

  Her eyes flickered down his body. “Light?”

  Nate was suddenly damn glad for all the hours he put in at the gym to keep in shape over the winter. “Bring us the real thing. We’ll indulge.”

  She flashed that smile again. Wide and open enough that it shouldn’t have felt intimate, but did. He’d thought that smile was something secret for him. But no. It was just her. She offered it to everyone in the crowd.

  Good to know.

  Nate laughed at himself as she turned away, already moving toward the bar to get their pitcher. But while he was still shaking his head at his own foolishness, Jenny jerked to a stop, frozen midstep.

  Luis was leaning toward him, but Nate held up a hand and kept his eyes on Jenny as she slowly pivoted.

  She frowned and cocked her head. Her eyes narrowed at him. And then her face broke into a grin wider than any she’d ever given to him.

  “Deputy Hendricks?” she asked.

  He tried not to feel thrilled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She laughed, her blond hair swinging as her chin tipped up. “Oh, my God! I didn’t recognize you without the shades!”

  “Yeah, I noticed,” he said dryly.

  “It’s not my fault! You look totally different. Not nearly so scary.”

  “Still a little scary, though, I gather?”

  Instead of answering, she just stood there looking at him for a few long seconds. “My God,” she finally said. “Look at you. You’re a real person.”

  “That’s just a rumor.”

  “Okay,” she said, still smiling. Then she shook her head. “Okay. Well, the beer’s on the house, Deputy.”

  “It’s Nate,” he responded.

  Her eyebrows rose. “I like that.”

  She liked that. Thank God she finally turned away, because Nate knew he looked far too pleased with her opinion of his name.

  “Hey,” his cousin said, the worry in his voice making it clear he’d already dismissed any idea of the cute server. “What the hell am I going to do, man?”

  Nate kept his eye on Jenny Stone’s swinging hips until she was swallowed by the crowd at the bar before he gave up the vigil and met Luis’s eyes. “No kidding around, are you asking me as a cousin or a cop?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Both?”

  “We’ve got two options, but whichever way we do this, I don’t want James around. If you want me to handle this as your cousin, I’ll do that. We send James away to keep him out of the fight, we tear down the greenhouse, burn the plants and put the fear of God in Victor. But that means he’s got to go. You have to be sure Teresa understands that. I can do this on the quiet, but he has to leave.”

  “Okay. Yeah. We could do that.”

  “But,” Nate added, letting the word hang there.

  Luis gave him a weary look. “But what?”

  “Are you sure he’s working alone? If he doesn’t have a truck, how did he get all this set up in the first place? And where did he get the money? The plants, the heaters, the lamps. Do you really think he built that greenhouse and started clearing that land on his own?”

  Luis had gone pale. “If James...but he doesn’t have any money, and he’s only missed one day of school!”

  “I don’t mean James. But that’s the other reason I want him gone. I want to watch the place. See who’s coming and going. And I don’t want to see James. If Victor isn’t the only one involved, if he’s not the money and the brains, I’m going to have to handle this as a cop, and I can’t have any reason to mention James in the reports.”

  Luis looked grimmer than ever.

  “How do you want to handle it, Luis?”

  “Christ. Victor isn’t a great guy, but he’s not a criminal mastermind, either. He’s working for someone. Some guy who uses kids to do the dirty work, I’m sure. Will you check it out for me?”

  “Yeah. You’ll send James away?”

  “He’s going to be out of school for a day or two next week for Presidents’ Day, anyway. I’ll te