I have Benny Hernandez’s best interests at heart.”
Lisa leaned back against the padded seat of the booth, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows expressively. “You do?”
“Yes, I do. I don’t know what you’re used to. Obviously you come from the city somewhere. San Antonio? Houston?”
“Dallas.”
He nodded. “Well, things are different here. I don’t look on the sheriff’s job as getting criminals so much as protecting the people of the town. People like Señora Fuentes, for instance. And her grandson, little as you would like to believe it. I am trying to help Benny.”
“I see. So you are sort of the Great White Father of Angel Eye, is that it? Protecting all the poor and ignorant Mexicans, even if it means incarcerating them illegally.”
Sutton’s jaw tightened. “You know, you’ve got a hell of a chip on your shoulder—especially considering the fact that I can speak Spanish better than you can.”
Fury spurted up in Lisa at his words. She grabbed her purse and scooted out of the booth, sending a flashing angry glance at him before striding quickly out of the restaurant.
As she strode across the parking lot, she heard his bootsteps on the pavement behind her, but she ignored him, marching straight to her car. He caught up with her before she reached it, grasping her arm and pulling her to a halt.
Lisa spun around, jerking her arm from his grasp. Her skin seemed to burn where he had touched it, and her anger was fueled by the fact that his nearness, his touch, made her feel weak in the knees. “Let go of me! What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m sorry. Don’t go storming off. I’m trying to explain things to you. I’m trying to make amends.”
“You’re doing a really lousy job of it.”
“I know,” he agreed ruefully. “I seem to have a knack for offending you. Please, ignore what I said. You’re off base in saying that I’m acting out of prejudice, but I understand why you’d feel that way. This isn’t about singling Benny Hernandez out because he’s a Latino. Maybe I’m too paternal in the way I feel about this town, but it isn’t only regarding the Mexican-American community. I have a duty to help the people of this town, to protect them. That’s what I was elected to do. That’s why I haul the kids I catch drinking and driving down to the jail, not because I enjoy hassling drunk teenagers or causing their parents grief, but because I want them to think before they do it next time. I don’t want to have to scrape them up off the road.”
“No doubt that’s admirable. But we are not talking about a drunken teenager here. We’re talking about a trumped-up charge, and I don’t care if Benny’s grandmother wanted you to teach him a lesson or whatever, you violated that young man’s rights.”
“It isn’t always that black and white,” he responded tightly. Quinn truthfully had come to apologize and make things right with Lisa. He had been thinking about her ever since she’d left the courthouse this afternoon, and when he had spotted her car in the parking lot of the Moonstone, it had seemed a heaven-sent opportunity to make a fresh start with her. But somehow, as before, he had wound up right back in an argument with her. And, as before, his loins tightened involuntarily at the sight of her, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with fury, her curvaceous body thrumming with tension.
What was it about this woman that made him respond at the basest level? She filled him with the hot lust to subdue her, to kiss her until she melted beneath him, her fury transforming into passion beneath his touch. He balled his hands into fists and tried to shove down the distinctly erotic images that were flooding his mind.
“Will you let me explain to you?” he asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral.
“Please do.” Lisa crossed her arms over her chest and waited, her gaze challenging.
“Look. I’m going to be straight with you. Benny’s grandmother came to me because she was worried about him. He’s gotten into a few scrapes with the law over the years, but he’s not a bad kid. But because of his father and stepfather and her own son Pablo, she’s worried about him. She called me and told me that he’s hanging out with a bad bunch of guys. He used to work over here at the Moonstone, busing tables, but then he quit and now he doesn’t have any job. But he never asks her for money, not for clothes or gas or burgers or anything. Where is he getting his money? And he’s gone a lot. She tells me that she thinks his friends are a bad influence, especially this kid named Paco.
“Now, it so happens that this Paco is frequently seen at a house in town where suspicious things are going on. When she told me Benny was hanging with Paco it worried me, too. I’ve been keeping a close eye on this house and you know what? Now I’ve seen Benny over there, too.”
“That’s it?” Lisa asked. “You’ve seen him at some other house? Where suspicious things are going on? What suspicious things? And he has a friend that his grandmother doesn’t like?”
“I can’t tell you what’s going on at this house. I’m not even sure yet myself. But I can pretty much guarantee you that it isn’t legal. There are a lot of kids coming and going at this house, and only some of them are from Angel Eye. That outside element adds something serious to it.”
“This sounds extremely vague. You have no evidence of a crime.”
“Not yet. But I will have. And I would hate for Benny to have been sucked into it. In this part of the country, especially with those outside people involved, the odds are it’s large-scale auto theft, drugs or smuggling illegal aliens. Those aren’t minor offenses. I’d like to get Benny out of if before it’s too late.”
“Oh, I see. So you hauled him down to jail and questioned him for hours without an attorney present just because you were concerned about him. It didn’t have anything to do with trying to get information out of him about this house and these activities that you know so little about?”
“Why are you so all-fired determined to dislike me?” he shot back. “I’m telling you things I wouldn’t normally reveal to a suspect’s attorney. To anyone, in fact. I’m giving you information about an ongoing investigation, because I want to help Benny, not put him in prison. I am trying to make you understand why it’s so important.”
“Why?” Lisa asked bluntly.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Why are you telling me this? Are you hoping that I will encourage my client to tell you what you want to know? Is that it?”
Quinn clenched his teeth together, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “You are the most exasperating, pigheaded woman I ever had the misfortune to meet.” It did not help his irritation any that he knew he was laying out his reasons for her partly because he hated for her to continue thinking of him as a bumbling redneck going around trampling on the rights of others.
“Why, thank you,” Lisa told him sweetly. “You have certainly succeeded in winning me over now.”
She turned on her heel and started toward her car again.
“Wait!” He hurried after her and stepped in front of her, facing her, forcing her to stop. “Think about this—who is Enrique Garza? He’s no cousin to Benny Hernandez.”
“So? He’s a friend, I suppose.”
