the perfect mark.
And suddenly he must have found it.
As Ross watched, the kid’s gaze sharpened on a pink flowered bag somebody had carelessly left on a folding chair.
He moved to take a step forward, his own attention homing in on the boy, but just at that moment somebody jostled him.
“Sorry,” muttered a dark-haired man in a Stetson who looked vaguely familiar. “I was looking for someone and wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“No problem,” Ross answered. But when he looked back, the kid was gone—and so was the slouchy flowered bag.
Adrenaline pumped through him. Finally! Chasing a shoplifter was just what he needed right now.
He had been bored to tears all day and would have left hours ago and headed back to San Antonio if he hadn’t been volunteered by his family to help out on security detail for the Spring Fling, which was Red Rock’s biggest party of the year.
At least now, maybe he might be able to have a little something to relieve the tedium of the day so he couldn’t consider it a complete waste.
He stepped out of the booth and scanned the crowd. He saw his cousin J.R. helping Isabella Mendoza begin to pack away the wares at her textiles booth down the row a ways and he saw the Latino man in the Stetson who had bumped into him standing at a corner of a nearby watercolor booth.
He also spied his despised brother-in-law, Lloyd Fredericks, skulking through the crowd, headed toward a section behind the tents and awnings, away from the public thoroughfare.
No doubt he was up to no good. If Ross wasn’t on the hunt for a purse snatcher, he would have taken off after Lloyd, just for the small-minded pleasure of harassing the bastard a little.
He finally spotted the kid near a booth displaying colorful, froufrou dried-flower arrangements. He moved quietly into position behind him, his gaze unwavering.
This had always been his favorite moment when he had been a detective in San Antonio, before he left the job to become a private investigator. He loved that hot surge of energy before he took down a perp, that little thrill that he was about to tip the scales of justice firmly on the side of the victim.
He didn’t speak until he was directly behind the boy. “Hey kid,” he growled. “Nice purse.”
The boy jumped like Ross had shoved a shiv between his ribs. He whirled around and shot him a defiant look out of dark eyes.
“I didn’t do nothing. I was just grabbin’ this for my friend.”
“I’m sure. Come on. Hand it over.”
The boy’s grip tightened on the bag. “No way. She lost it so I told her I’d help her look for it and that’s just what I’m doin’.”
“I don’t think so. Come on, give.”
“You a cop?”
“Used to be.” Until the politics and the inequities had become more than he could stomach. He didn’t regret leaving the force. He enjoyed being a private investigator, picking his own cases and his own hours. The power of the badge sometimes had its privileges, though, he had to admit. Right now, he would have loved to be able to shove one into this little punk’s face.
“If you ain’t a cop, then I got nothin’ to say to you. Back off.”
The kid started to walk away but Ross grabbed his shoulder. “Afraid I’m not going anywhere. Hand over the bag.”
The kid uttered a colorful curse and tried to break free. “You got it wrong, man. Let me go.”
“Sure. No problem. That way you can just run through the crowd and lift a few more purses on your way through.”
“I told you, I didn’t steal nothin’. My friend couldn’t remember where she left it. I told her I’d help her look for it so she could buy some more stuff.”
“Sure kid. Whatever you say.”
“I ain’t lyin’!”
The boy wrestled to get free, and though he was small and slim, he was wiry and much more agile than Ross had given him credit for. To his chagrin, the teenager managed to break the grip on his arm and before Ross could scramble to grab him again, he had darted through the crowd.
Ross repeated the curse the kid had uttered earlier and headed after him. The punk might be fast but Ross had two major advantages—age and experience. He had chased enough desperate criminals through the grime and filth of San Antonio’s worst neighborhoods to have no problem keeping up with one teenage boy carrying a bag that stood out like a flowery neon-pink beacon.
He caught up with him just before the boy would have slipped into the shadows on the edges of the art fair.
“Now you’ve pissed me off,” Ross growled as he grabbed the kid again, this time in the unbreakable hold he should have used all along.
If he thought the boy’s language was colorful before, that was nothing to the string of curses that erupted now.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ross said with a tight grin. “I’ve heard it all before. I was a cop, remember?”
He knew he probably shouldn’t be enjoying this so much. He was out of breath and working up a sweat, trying to keep the boy in place with one arm while he reached into his pocket with the other hand for the flex-cuffs he always carried. He had just fished them out and was starting to shackle the first wrist when a woman’s raised voice distracted him.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Let go of him right this minute!”
He shifted his gaze from the boy to a woman with light brown hair approaching them—her eyes were wide and he briefly registered a particularly delectable mouth set in sharp, indignant lines.
He thought she looked vaguely familiar but that was nothing unusual in a small town like Red Rock, where everybody looked familiar. Though he didn’t spend much time here and much preferred his life in San Antonio, the Fortune side of his family was among the town founders and leaders. Their ranch, the Double Crown, was a huge cattle spread not far from town.
The Spring Fling had become a large community event, and the entire proceeds from the art festival and dance went to benefit the Fortune Foundation, the organization created in memory of his mother’s cousin Ryan, that helped disadvantaged young people.
Ross was a Fortune, and even though he was from the black-sheep side, he couldn’t seem to escape certain familial obligations such as weddings and funerals.
Or Spring Flings.
He might not know the woman’s name, but he knew her type. He could tell just by looking at her that she was the kind of busybody, do-gooder sort who couldn’t resist sticking her lovely nose into things that were none of her business.
“Sorry. I can’t let him go. I just caught the kid stealing a purse.”
If anything, her pretty features tightened further. “That’s ridiculous. He wasn’t stealing anything! He was doing
