At Close Range Read Online Free PDF Page A

burnt-sienna-colored Saltillo tile and seven giggling children raced to the sideboard.
    â€œChance? Would you pour the wine? Thanks, honey. So, Mack, what do you think so far?” Jeannie asked him over the children’s clamor and clanking of serving utensils.
    Mack accepted the glass of wine from an openly smiling Chance, and nodded at the kids. “I’m intrigued,” he said.
    â€œGood,” Jeannie said, and put her hand over her own empty wineglass and grinned up at her husband. “Can’t, remember?”
    Chance kissed her and lowered a hand to caress her neck. “Worth it?” he asked.
    â€œEvery minute,” she said, taking his hand to kiss it.
    Mack felt riveted by the overt love in their eyes. He’d read one of the tabloid accounts of the undercover marshal and the ranch owner falling in love, the first of the long string of Milagro’s so-called miracles.
    â€œJeannie’s pregnant and not letting a single second of the pampering get away,” Leeza explained in a dry voice. He’d have suspected a snipe hiding in her wordsif he hadn’t seen her eyes, which were, he thought, starkly and unknowingly wistful.
    Mack resisted the urge to look over his shoulder for a disaster lurking in the shadows of the large dining room. Kids laughing and jostling in line, adults relaxed and easy, mixed cultures and backgrounds, beautiful scents rising from the food spread on a lavish sideboard; it all seemed too good to be true.
    Instead, he nodded, as if Leeza had asked him a question. He gave a rusty smile at the glowing-faced and obviously happy Jeannie. She smiled back at him and raised a protective hand to her scarcely showing belly. “I’m sure it all seems pretty strange to you right now,” she said.
    He hoped the kids returning to the table, scraping chairs and trading friendly insults in a mixture of Spanish and English, precluded the need for an answer from him, for if he’d had to give one, it would have been in the negative. It didn’t seem strange; it seemed completely alien. It was too perfect. And anything too wonderful, too perfect was sure to have a downside.
    â€œSeñor Mack?” Pablo rose and waved his hand at the sideboard. “You first, yes?”
    Mack was in awe at the array of foods prepared for the Rancho Milagro crowd. Far from mere tacos and beans, the fare included an enormous roast beef tenderloin, a salad with seemingly every known vegetable and some cheeses he didn’t recognize, home-baked bread with sun-dried tomatoes, a large bowl of herb-and-butter pasta, and a host of soft or crispy finger foods that would normally be served as hors d’oeuvres.
    As he helped himself to a healthy portion of thedishes, knowing from the quantity that he needn’t stint whatsoever, he listened to the easy conversation behind him.
    â€œWhat’s this, Corrie?” one of the kids asked.
    â€œFried grasshopper,” she answered promptly. “With enough tempura batter, it tastes just like lobster.”
    â€œEew!” chirped one of the boys. “Not really?”
    After the pause that followed her question, several of the kids laughed, and so did the little boy. “It doesn’t taste like a grasshopper. It tastes good! ”
    â€œSee?” Corrie said, her sultry voice all the more alluring when filled with teasing laughter. “It’s all in the batter.”
    â€œAnd this?” another kid piped up. “What’s this?”
    â€œThat’s the snake that was bothering me by the back gate. Deep-fried rattlesnacks, I call ’em.”
    Beside him Pablo chuckled. “That Corrie, she’s like a kid herself.”
    Mack turned his head to look at her.
    No employer facade masked her face now. Pablo was right; she almost looked a child herself as she pressed against the table, her eyes sparkling, her face flushed, and a soft, inviting smile curving her generous lips. “And