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in, and hit the gas. He didn’t bother watching the setting sun light the sky ablaze behind the barns with their creaking wild-mustang weather vanes. His old Ford had bounced down the rutted lane, dried sow thistle and Johnson grass scratching the underbelly of the truck as it rolled past acres upon acres of fields dotted with cattle and horses, land he and his brothers had inherited from their father.
    A red-tailed hawk had swooped through the darkening sky as he drove past the old windmill that sat solitary and still in the dead air. A good omen. Right?
    He’d snapped on the radio, then turned the truck past the battered mailbox onto the county road. He drove through the small town of Bad Luck until he came to San Antonio, where he cruised onto I-10, the long strip of asphalt cutting dead east. He’d left his brothers, Texas, and the sun far behind him.
    To chase down a woman who didn’t want him.
    He had the divorce papers in the glove compartment of his truck to remind him of that sorry fact.

CHAPTER 5
    T he call came in not long after midnight.
    Montoya groaned as he rolled across the bed and answered his cell. While his wife, Abby, burrowed under the blankets, he kept his voice down and slid out of bed as he had a hundred times before. He was a detective with the New Orleans Police Department. Odd hours and late-night calls were part of his job.
    â€œWhat now?” Abby asked, her voice muffled before she tossed the blankets off and shoved a tangle of hair from her eyes as he hung up.
    â€œDead woman. A nun. Possible homicide.”
    Abby pushed herself upright, propped her back against the pillows, and clicked on the light. “A nun?”
    â€œAccording to the officer who responded to a nine-one-one call.” He slid into a pair of battered jeans that he’d tossed over the foot of the bed, then found a clean T-shirt in the closet and pulled it over his head.
    â€œWhy would anyone kill a nun?” She scraped her hair back from her face, but wild curls sprang loose.
    â€œDon’t know, but I’ll figure it out.” He flashed his wife a humorless grin and thought back to another time when a nun had been killed—that one being his own aunt. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”
    â€œYeah, right.” She didn’t smile as she tugged at her hair. “Just be careful.”
    â€œAlways am.” He started for the door.
    â€œHey! Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked, angling her chin toward him, practically begging for a kiss.
    â€œOh, yeah!” He walked to the closet, found the locked box holding his sidearm, and retrieved his weapon. After strapping on his shoulder holster, he slid his arms through his leather jacket and started for the door.
    â€œYou can be a miserable SOB when you want to be,” she charged.
    â€œI always want to be.”
    â€œI know.” But her eyes twinkled and the reddish blond curls that framed her face were sexy as hell. “You’re a father now, so . . . don’t take any unnecessary risks, okay? I want Benjamin to know his daddy.”
    He snapped his Glock into place, then crossed the room and pushed her back onto the mattress. “So do I.” He stretched his body over hers and kissed her hard, his tongue probing her mouth, his hands splayed wide across her backside. “Wait for me,” he whispered against her ear.
    â€œNot on your life, Detective,” she said, but there was a smile in her voice, and he had to keep his thoughts on the coming investigation to control the tightness in his groin and the rock-hard response she always elicited from him. One interested arch of her eyebrows could cause a reaction deep inside of him. Man, did he have it bad.
    â€œPussy-whipped,” his brother, Cruz, had commented on more than one occasion.
    In this case, Cruz was right.
    â€œI’ll be back as soon as I can. Be ready.”
    â€œOh, God, save it,