long line of losers.”
“I’ll drive you home and put you to bed, Daddy.”
“Don’t act so damned superior.”
“It would’ve happened anyway!”
“The hell it would! You’ve got high-and-mighty airs, but you’re no better than me. Caesar said it was time all of us Knights got what we deserved—nothing! But that’s not the only reason I came over. Kinky called him and said Mia’s run off again. Caesar said she was upset because he hit you, and they think she might’ve come over here. I don’t reckon you know where—”
Shanghai shook his head just as a pot crashed in the kitchen inside the cabin.
“Who the hell’s in there with you then?”
“Nobody.”
“You lyin’ son-of-a skunk! Caesar’s on his way over here, you fool!”
His father rushed past him, whipped the screen door open and stormed through the house.
Mia screamed from his bedroom. When Shanghai ran inside, his father was dragging her out from under the bed by the hair.
“Let go of her,” Shanghai yelled, shoving him in the back.
“It’s not what you think, Mr. Knight,” Mia began. “He didn’t do anything. It was me. All my fault. He told me to go, but I—”
“I got eyes in my head. He’s bare-chested and you’re wearing his shirt. You were in his bed.”
“Under his bed. I told you. I came over here on my own,” she said.
“How long has this been going on?” his father yelled.
“Nothing’s going on,” Shanghai said.
“She’s here, in your bedroom. It’s the middle of the night. She’s underage. You’ve got a wild reputation and you’re madder than hell at her father. And you’re trying to tell me that you didn’t touch—”
“What do you care? You’re the one who gambled the ranch away!”
His father lunged at him. “That was your fault and you know it! You set me up tonight! Laid a trap. I should’ve seen it coming. You’ve been a wild ’un since the day you was born.”
“Wonder where I get it?”
“Not from me! ’Cause you’re not mine, boy! The only reason your scheming mother married me was to get a daddy for her no-good bastard.”
“You’re lying!”
His father lunged. Together they crashed onto the floor. When Mia leaned down to try to pull them apart, his father slugged her.
Unconscious, she slumped like a limp rag doll to the floor.
Instantly Shanghai forgot his father and dropped to his knees beside her. Smoothing her hair from her face, he touched her throat.
“I didn’t mean to hit her,” his father gasped, all the meanness going out of him at the realization he’d hit Caesar’s daughter. “I meant to knock some sense into you. Not that that’s possible.”
“I think she’s okay.”
Shanghai picked her up in his arms and laid her on his bed. As he held her wrist and found her pulse, which was strong and steady, he saw headlights on the road outside.
Shanghai glanced up at his father and felt an utter coldness. “Somebody’s coming. Go see who it is. I’ll stay with her.”
Her eyes flickered open, and she smiled at Shanghai. “This is where I’ve always wanted to be—in your arms.”
“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispered, stroking her brow.
“It’s Caesar Kemble.” Through the doorway Shanghai could see his father was cowering drunkenly behind the front door. “He swore I could stay at Black Oaks till I died, but if he finds you and her here, he won’t honor that. He’ll have us both locked up for the rest of our natural born years—if he doesn’t shoot us on the spot.”
His father had gone so pale and looked so terrified Shanghai felt sorry for him.
“You never saw me tonight,” Shanghai said. “I wasn’t here. You don’t know where or why I went—understand? You’ll ask questions and act worried. You’ll pretend that you’re concerned about your missing son.”
His father nodded, as if trying to understand, but his eyes were too glazed with booze.
Shanghai turned back to Mia.
“Your daddy’s outside,” he told her, reluctant to leave the brat until he was sure she was okay.
“Run,” she whispered. “I’ll catch up to you when I’m all grown-up.”
In spite of himself he smiled. “When you’re datin’ age, you’ll have every eligible bachelor in Texas chasin’ you. You’ll forget all about the likes of Shanghai Knight.”
“No…I’ll find you when I’m all grown-up. I swear. And I’ll make you love me!”
He laughed.
“I will. Somehow I will.”
“You do that then, little darlin’. But if I don’t git—now—there won’t be much left of me to find or love!”
Funny thing. His last act on the way out the door was to lean down and grab that dang-fool rose she’d pitched at him.
Then he hightailed it out the back door.
BOOK ONE
Smart Cowboy Saying:
You get used to hanging, if you hang long enough.
—L.D. Burke, Santa Fe
One
Fifteen years later
Big Bend National Park, Texas
Where was the damn plane?
“Where are you, you little shit? Why don’t you be a good boy for a change and just come to Daddy?”
DEA Division Director John Hart squinted as he lowered his binoculars and shoved on his sunglasses. His pale blue eyes burned from eye strain from searching the skies so long for one tiny airplane.
So far the seizure was going off as planned. Except for one skinny, dark kid in ragged jeans, who’d run like lightning, eluding his best agents and their bullets, his men had rounded up Octavo Morales’s ground crew. At this very moment the bastards were cuffed and cursing him as they sweated like pigs in a sweltering van
