Page 7 of Lone Star Protector

Caroline went ahead and rolled her eyes and didn’t hold back a very loud huff. “Insecure and gullible,” she muttered.

“And rich,” Nash supplied. Info he’d almost certainly gotten from Oz. “Her daddy is Leland Harris, owner of many, many businesses in central Texas. Jordana is his only child and lives off a trust fund.”

Caroline had to wonder if Jordana had used some of her money to help Bodie escape. Maybe so husband and wife could ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. If so, then it clearly hadn’t turned out the way Jordana had wanted.

“Where’s Bodie?” Malley demanded from Jordana.

Jordana opened her mouth, closed it, and again seemed to go through the rethinking process of what to say. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t put it past her to have murdered him and hidden the body. You should look inside that big building. And her house.”

“He’s not inside the big building,” Nash supplied. “I haven’t searched the house yet.”

“We’ll do that,” the female cop said. “We’ll search the Mercedes, too, in case he’s hiding in the trunk.”

That shot some alarm through Caroline, and it twisted away at her that Bodie could still have that effect on her.

“Open the trunk,” Malley told Jordana, and he looked up at Nash and Caroline. “We tailed her here so we know this vehicle is registered to her. It was also seen in the vicinity of the prison around the time that Bodie escaped.”

“I was visiting my husband,” the woman howled as she used the keypad to pop the trunk. “I had no idea he wasn’t there.”

“So, he didn’t fill you in on his plans for the future?” Nash asked, and this time, he let the sarcasm reign.

Jordana’s eyes narrowed again. “He wouldn’t have wanted to involve me in something that could get me in trouble. And it probably wasn’t his idea to escape. Something must have happened. Someone must have threatened his life, or mine, for this to have happened.”

Caroline didn’t get a chance to respond to that because she heard the whirring sound of a helicopter. She looked up, thinking that it might belong to SAPD, but then she spotted the logo on the tail.

Maverick Ops.

“Great,” she grumbled. Her mother was here.

And Ruby was piloting the helicopter. Of course, she was. She had done that plenty of times during her military career.

All conversation halted to an abrupt stop, mainly because it was impossible to be heard over the sound of the chopper, but Caroline noticed the noise didn’t stop Nash from doing his whole protector thing. He still had his gun drawn, and he moved back in front of her.

Caroline kept watch, too, because, hey, she wasn’t that clueless teenager.

From the corner of her eye, she saw her mother land the helicopter in her pasture and cursed at the wildflowers that were crushed. Ruby made a quick exit, heading straight toward them.

Her mother was wearing a dark gray business suit, but she still managed to look as if she had on a uniform—complete with her rank. Of course, she’d worn a uniform for so many years, twenty-three of them, that it was probably imprinted on her body or something.

Caroline tried, and failed, not to scowl about that.

“That’s Ruby Maverick,” Nash said when he saw the female cop shift to take aim in Ruby’s direction.

“Yeah. It is. I recognize her from her pictures in the media. She’s head of Maverick Ops, and Miss Caroline Maverick here is her daughter,” Malley supplied, and he motioned for his fellow cop to stand down while he resumed his search of the trunk of the Mercedes.

“It’s empty,” Malley announced. “But I’ll have the CSIs go over it and the interior in case she gave her husband a lift somewhere.”

“I didn’t,” Jordana insisted.

“The CSIs will still go over it,” Malley fired back, and he obviously wasn’t any more pleased with the woman than Caroline and Nash were.

Malley turned when Ruby got closer and gave her a nodded greeting, along with a “Ma’am.”

Ruby nodded a greeting in return, and with her gaze sweeping around the grounds, she continued toward Nash and her. Once she reached them, she lifted her hand just a fraction as if she might touch or hug Caroline.

She didn’t though.

Must have remembered her military bearing, Caroline thought with all the rancor that went with pretty much any thought about her mother.

---