Smooth-Talking Texan Read online

  Most of all, she relived that moment in the parking lot when he had kissed her, feeling all over again—though never, disappointingly, with quite the same intensity—the sensations that had flooded her when his lips touched hers. No matter how she tried, she could not banish the thought from her mind, and as a result, half the night had gone by before she at last fell asleep.

  The next morning she awoke heavy-lidded and tired, but she pushed through the day determinedly. She drove to her office in a plain brick building a few blocks from the center of Hammond. It was there that the Texas Hispanic League maintained its legal aid office. Her office was a small one tucked into one corner of the second floor. It was provided by the League and she shared the services of a secretary with one of the other lawyers. She was required to handle a certain proportion of the work of the legal aid office, but it was not really enough to fill her time, and the stipend she received from them was barely enough to get by, so she was also free to take on other legal work that might come in. Most of that extra work, like Benny’s case, was in the area of criminal law, and it generally involved acting as a court-appointed attorney, paid for by the state. A customer who paid out of his pocket, like Mr. Garza had done for Benny, was something of a rarity.

  Her thoughts, having gone to Enrique Garza, stayed there. Given the reaction of Benny’s grandmother when she had told her who had hired her to represent Benny, she was inclined to think that Sutton was right: Benny was involved in something, and Garza was involved in it as well. He obviously was not a relative or friend; Señora Fuentes would have recognized his name if he had been. The odds were he was not even someone from Angel Eye, a town small enough that surely Benny’s grandmother or someone in the sheriff’s office would have heard of him. Just as obviously, Benny had recognized the name, for his look of puzzlement had changed immediately to a carefully blank expression. And there was little reason to suppose that someone who was not a relative or friend would have gone to the trouble and expense of hiring an attorney to get Benny out of jail. But if Benny were involved in something illegal and Garza was involved in it, too, he very well might pay in order to make sure that Benny didn’t tell the sheriff all about it.

  She frowned, remembering the contempt in the sheriff’s voice as he had told her that she ought to help her client rather than merely represent him in court. That was what she would do, she argued mentally. She would help Benny, but the scope of her help was professional, after all, devoted only to legal problems. It did not include seeing that her client stuck to the straight and narrow or stayed away from bad influences. To expect a lawyer to do that would be like expecting one’s doctor to hang around supervising one’s diet or exercise program or reminding them to take their pills. She was there to represent Benny, that was all. And the fact that Mr. Garza might have pretended to be someone he was not did not change her duty to her client.

  Lisa stood up and walked out to the small open area where her secretary sat at a desk, busily typing on a word processor. “Kiki…?”

  The secretary turned toward her inquiringly, her fingers pausing on the keys. “Yes?”

  “You know that man who came in here yesterday afternoon…Mr. Garza? Had you ever seen him before? Did you recognize him?”

  “No.” Kiki frowned thoughtfully. “I didn’t know him. I just remember thinking that he was dressed awfully nice to be coming here.”

  Lisa thought back, trying to remember what the man had had on. It had been a suit, fashionable and rather expensive looking, as she recalled. Kiki was right; their clients were generally far too poor to be able to afford a suit like that.

  “My guess is he wasn’t from around here,” Kiki went on. “Nobody in Hammond dresses like that.”

  “True.” Hammond, like Angel Eye, ran more to jeans and boots and work shirts, and when a man wore a suit here it was definitely not as stylish or as well-made as that Enrique Garza had worn yesterday. “He looked like he was from the city, didn’t he?”

  Kiki nodded in agreement. “Why? Who is this guy? What did he want?”

  “He wanted me to get someone out of jail. And the kid shouldn’t have been in there. But Mr. Garza told me he was the kid’s cousin and he isn’t. Just wondering why he’s lying to me.”

  “Sounds fishy.”

  “Yeah.” Lisa turned away, hesitated, then turned back. “Do you, ah, do you know Sheriff Sutton?”

  “Quinn?” The other woman’s face smiled, her eyes warming. “Sure. Everybody knows Quinn Sutton. Is that the jail your client was in?”

  Lisa nodded.

  “Did you meet Quinn?” Kiki continued enthusiastically. “Isn’t he gorgeous? Well, I mean, maybe not gorgeous exactly. But there’s something about him.”

  “His smile?” Lisa suggested a little sourly.

  “Oh, yeah, definitely that. And there’s that little twinkle in his eye, like he knows all kinds of wicked things….” Kiki sighed a little ruefully.

  “I take it he’s a ladies’ man,” Lisa added with great casualness.

  “Yeah. He’s dated lots of women. He’s a terrible flirt. But charm!—that man’s got it coming out of every pore.”

  “I suppose. I found him rather rude, personally.”

  “Quinn?” Her secretary look surprised. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him be rude. I heard he’s got a bad temper, though. People say not to tangle with him.”

  “Well, he seems to be accustomed to bending the law to suit himself.”

  Kiki looked at her blankly. Obviously little had ever entered her head about the sheriff except his charm and looks. Lisa was not surprised by her secretary’s description of Quinn Sutton. It had been clear that he was a flirt. She had no doubt that he had had lots of brief encounters with women, but no relationships. It was simply another reason to steer clear of him.

  She went back into her office and tried once more to settle down to work. She was drawing up a will for a young single mother with little money but a need to establish guardianship for her children if she should die. Then there was a plea to draw up in a tort case that had grown out of a landlord/tenant dispute. It was one of the more interesting cases she had had since she’d moved to Hammond, and it held her interest enough that she was able to settle down to work and forget about Quinn Sutton for a while.

  She spent the latter part of the afternoon looking up precedents in the office’s small legal library down the hall, and she was a little surprised when she heard someone call her name and glanced up to see that it was after six o’clock. No doubt Kiki and most of the others had already left.

  “Hello?” came the man’s voice again. “Ms. Mendoza?”

  “Yes?” she called, starting down the hallway toward the small area where the secretaries sat and which passed for a reception area as well.

  A tall man in a sheriff’s uniform was standing with his back toward her, looking toward the stairs. He held a light felt cowboy hat in his hands, which he slapped lightly against his leg as he waited. Lisa recognized the long, lean figure instantly, and her heart picked up its beat. She remembered their kiss of the evening before, and a thrill ran through her. She had to pause for an instant to school her features into calm.

  “Sheriff Sutton?”

  He turned around, a smile lightening his features, and Lisa could not help but smile back.

  “Ms. Mendoza. Say, do you think, all things considered, we could drop the Sheriff and Ms. thing? I’m Quinn.”

  “My name is Lisa.”

  “Lisa.” He nodded to her.

  “Quinn.”

  “I had an errand to run over at the district courthouse,” he went on. “So I thought I’d stop by. See if maybe I could persuade you to go out to supper with me.”

  Lisa was taken aback by how badly she wanted to accept. “Sheriff—I mean, Quinn—I, well, I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

  He grinned. “I won’t take you anyplace real rowdy. I promise.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. We are o
n opposite sides. How would it look? I don’t think it would be ethical for a defense attorney and the head of the county law enforcement to—”

  “What? Have dinner together? I don’t think it would turn all that many heads. You know, things are different in a small town.”

  “So you’ve told me. But ethics don’t vary from city to rural areas.”

  “Look. In a little town, people know each other. You can’t help it. And when you’re involved in the same general thing, say, law, then you run into each other even more. It’s not criminal to be friends with someone who’s sometimes on the other side.”

  “We aren’t exactly friends.”

  “Ah, but we could be.” There was caressing note in his voice that promised something, but Lisa doubted that it was friendship. Being with a friend didn’t make her nerves sizzle like being around this man did.

  “Hell,” he went on persuasively, “even in the city, I’ve seen D.A.s and defense attorneys grabbing lunch together. It’s worse in a small town. You see each other in the courthouse, on the street, in restaurants. You can’t avoid it. You just put aside the cases for the moment. Talk about something besides work.”

  “I don’t think we have anything besides work to talk about,” Lisa said pointedly. “And I have a lot of work to do. I really can’t spare the time.”

  “To eat?” He made a comical face of amazement.

  “You know,” she remarked with some asperity, “persistence is not necessarily a virtue.”

  “Well, I wasn’t really trying to be virtuous.”

  Lisa could not keep from letting out a chuckle, and Quinn quickly pursued his advantage, “What about drinks, then? That wouldn’t take long. We’ll run down to the steakhouse. It has a bar, and we can get a quick drink. Then you can come back to work if you have to.”

  Lisa hesitated. She could not keep that kiss last night out of her mind. Perhaps if she spent a little time with him, she would be reminded of all the reasons why she didn’t like the man, and the memory of the kiss would fade. Another voice inside warned that she might find out just the opposite, but she ignored it. “All right,” she agreed finally, adding warningly, “But just drinks.”

  Quinn grinned, knowing he’d won. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”

  He offered her his arm, and Lisa took it. The quiver that ran through her at even this touch told her that she had probably just made a huge mistake. But she could not summon up a bit of regret as they started down the stairs. She was too filled with a bubbling sense of anticipation.

  Chapter 4

  The steakhouse to which Quinn took her was an old-fashioned place, with brick interior walls and red leather booths and chairs, lit dimly, candles in squat red holders on all the tables lending a warm glow. They sat at a small intimate table in the bar, and Quinn asked her what drink she would like.

  “Oh, a gin and tonic, I think.” She glanced at him, a smile teasing at her lips. “Let me guess—you’re going to get a beer—no, wait, a bourbon.”

  He chuckled. “You got me there.” When the waitress came, he ordered a bourbon.

  “You think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?” he asked her, smiling. “Good old boy, redneck sheriff.”

  “Ladies’ man.”

  He managed a wounded look. “Now where’d you hear that?”

  “I didn’t have to hear it. I figured that out all on my own.”

  “You ought to know better than that,” he said teasingly. “People are more complicated than they seem on first impression. Take you, for example.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. You’ve got a few contradictions.”

  “Oh.” Lisa grimaced. “You mean my not being able to speak Spanish.”

  “That and some other things. The way you talk, your mannerisms—now don’t bite my head off, but you don’t seem like any of the Latina girls I grew up with.”

  “Maybe that’s more your prejudices showing than my contradictions.”

  “Tell me this, did you have your quinteñera?” he asked, mentioning the debutlike celebration common among Hispanic girls when they reached the age of fifteen.

  Lisa frowned at him and grudgingly admitted, “No, I did not. And we never made tamales at Christmas, either. Or even celebrated Cinco de Mayo. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not Hispanic.”

  “I never said you weren’t. I’m just saying that people are more complicated than their stereotypes.”

  “All right. Point taken.” Lisa sighed. “My father is Latino. My mother’s Anglo. But I grew up all Anglo. Even Daddy can’t speak Spanish—I mean, he knows some phrases and stuff, but he couldn’t carry on a conversation in it. His parents were the cook and gardener for this wealthy family in Amarillo, and they lived in the servants’ quarters behind the house, so they lived in a very Anglo, rich community, and he went to a neighborhood school, where all the kids were Anglo. He didn’t even have big family get-togethers. His parents had left all their relatives behind in Mexico. Their goal in life was for him to be successful. They wanted him to get a good education, go to college, make money. It was what they came to the U.S. for.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. Sounds like the typical immigrants’ dream. That’s what everybody’s ancestors came here for.”

  “All they wanted was good for him,” Lisa agreed. “But, I don’t know, it seems that they rejected his heritage to do it. They didn’t let him speak Spanish even in their home. They didn’t want him to have an accent, they wanted him to be like all the other kids. That’s what he wanted, too—to be like everyone else, to be a success. He was smart and he got scholarships, and he went to college then dental school. Even though it was the sixties, he never got into the whole Chicano movement. He wasn’t political; he just wanted to make good grades and go on to make good money. Then he married my mom, and she’s Anglo, and they settled down in Dallas and—well, I had a very upper-middle-class, Anglo upbringing.”

  Quinn shrugged. “That’s not a crime.”

  “No. But sometimes it makes me feel…embarrassed. Like I was a traitor to my people. Except for my name and having black hair and skin that tans easily, there was nothing Hispanic about my life. I mean, we didn’t even go to the Catholic Church. All my friends were Anglo. I never felt like I was any different from them. Robby Maldenado was the only other Mexican-American in our whole circle of friends, and he was just like me.”

  “So what happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, here you are in Hammond, working for the Texas Hispanic League legal aid office, rescuing Mexican-American kids from bad old sheriffs like me…I figured something must have raised your consciousness about being Hispanic.”

  “It was college. I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t know I was Hispanic before then. It was just…I was sheltered. It was different when I went to U.T. There wasn’t my circle of friends. And I began to realize how different I was. I wasn’t Anglo, but I didn’t fit in with the Hispanic kids, either. It wasn’t just the language—obviously they spoke English, too. But I didn’t share any kind of background with them. Like that quinceañero thing—I didn’t have one. I didn’t even know what it was. I didn’t have the same life experiences. And I began to realize how much I had missed, how I was cut off from this whole aspect of myself. So I started reading. I took a class about Mexican-American culture. And a minicourse about the Latino movement. The more I studied it, the more I got into it, the more I wanted to do something. You know?”

  Quinn nodded. “Sure. So is that when you decided to go to law school?”

  Lisa nodded. “Yeah. I’d always been a good student, made good grades. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do, really. Then, when I started looking at the typical Mexican-American experience in this country, the one I didn’t have, I wanted to do something to help other Hispanics.” She paused, then added honestly, “I felt guilty about having lived the kind of life I had, about not having had to face poverty and prejudice—I mean the worst thing that had ever
happened to me was one time in the mall when this jerk told me I ought to go back where I came from.” She giggled. “I was so clueless, I thought he meant University Park, where we lived. Anyway, it wasn’t exactly like growing up in a colonia in the Valley.”

  “It’s not anything to be ashamed of—it’s only natural for your parents and your dad’s parents to give their kids the best life they could. Who doesn’t want that for their children?”

  “Yeah. But in doing so they had denied their heritage, and that made me feel ashamed.”

  Lisa looked at him, thinking how strange it was that she was talking to this man about such things. She hadn’t explained her tangle of feelings about her background to even her best friend, yet here she was telling a virtual stranger—and one who she would have said wouldn’t have the slightest empathy for what she was talking about. She wasn’t sure why it was—maybe it was the intent way he listened, his eyes on her, his body leaning slightly toward her. Was this how he encouraged criminals to confess their crimes?

  “It’s a funny thing, heritage,” Quinn said. “Some people have a real need for it. Others…it doesn’t seem to matter to them at all. Me—I like old things. It means a lot to me that I have something that my grandparents owned. If I go to East Texas, I look around at those farms and trees and houses and I think, ‘This is where my ancestors came from.’ It’s like, somehow, it makes it part of me. But my sister Beth’s not like that at all. Or Cory. He looks at a pie safe and thinks, ‘What the hell is that old thing?’ People are different. Maybe it just wasn’t important to your father.”

  “Obviously not. But I wish that he had thought about the fact that it might be important to me.” She shrugged. “But he’s too nice a guy to get mad at him. And I can’t dislike Anglos, either. I mean, my mother’s Anglo and her family, and they’re my family. Besides, it’s pretty ungrateful, not to mention unrealistic, to be upset with your parents because they gave you a great life and protected you from poverty and prejudice.”

  “So you just felt guilty.”