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“Yea, but it wasn’t the same. Hunan Province has great beauty, but it doesn’t have hot spots of bluebonnets you can’t wait to run through. We always came home in April so we wouldn’t miss them in bloom.”
“I take it you’re happy to be home,” Luckey murmured. The dreamy expression on her face said it all, and a vision filled his mind. He could see her riding through purple-blue fields with the wind blowing her lustrous black hair back from her face.
“Oh, yes. I’m never leaving again, except to go on vacation.”
While her pronouncement trickled through Luckey’s awareness like mist, exciting him, the waitress brought their dinner.
“I’m a Texas man myself.”
Ally flashed him a smile that blew him away. “I would never have guessed. Since we’re exchanging information, are you involved with someone who wouldn’t like it that you’re having dinner with me tonight? Even if it is because of the case you’re investigating?”
He put down his fork. “For me it stopped being about this case the moment you opened your office door and we ran into each other. Does that answer your question?”
“Not all of them,” she said unexpectedly. Her smile had faded. “If you told me you’d never been in love, I wouldn’t believe you.”
“I fell hard for a woman in college and married her. We were both twenty-two. But when I was taken on as a Ranger, our problems began. I thought she understood what it meant, but I was naive. Within two years we divorced, and she went back to Houston, where she lives now with her new husband and two kids. He sells insurance, a nine-to-five man.”
“Not every woman could handle what you do for a living. I was surprised my mother could handle the life she shared with my father.”
Luckey was extremely interested in the answer to his next question. “What do you think was the key?”
“When I asked her, she said, ‘Ally? I fell in love with a cowboy and that never changed, because no job can ever take the cowboy out of a real man.’”
“Your mother sounds a lot like mine.”
Ally cocked her head. “In what way?”
“Both my parents came from ranching families who’ve done it for generations. Dad was a rancher before he became a police officer and eventually the sheriff of Travis County. Mom got her nursing degree. Last year they both retired and are back to full-time ranching.”
“Where?”
“In Dripping Springs.”
“That’s only half an hour away. How nice that you can be close to your family. I bet your mom loves it. Are you an only child like me?”
“No. I have a younger brother, Randy. He’s on the police force here in Austin.”
“Law enforcement is alive and doing well in the Davis blood. Didn’t he want to be a Ranger, too?”
Luckey nodded. “It’s odd you’d say that. Randy hopes to be taken on next year. He’s married and has two little girls.”
“Do you have lots of extended family?”
“Lots. They all live in Dripping Springs. What about you?”
“I have my share, too. Some of our relatives lived on our ranch for different periods while we were away, to keep watch over everything.”
“That’s the beauty of a large family.” They’d finished eating. “My twenty questions are over. With that discussion concluded, what do you say we go get your car? I’ll follow you home.”
“Sure. Sounds good.”
The whole time they were driving to the orphanage, and after, on his way to her house, Luckey had a hard time believing that this was really happening. He could thank providence that TJ had let him take this trafficking case. If it hadn’t been for Randy and their conversation about the dumped body, Luckey would probably have picked the case of the wheelchair-bound victim who’d been set on fire.
His grandfather had used a wheelchair before his death. The possibility of him being murdered that way didn’t bear thinking about. In any event, Luckey couldn’t comprehend not knowing Ally now.
He could hardly believe that, after all these years of being alone, he’d met a woman who’d managed, without even trying, to break through the wall he’d built around himself. She brought out every male instinct in him. Thank heaven her father had forbidden her to travel back to China. At this point Luckey’s protective instincts were on full alert. No matter how much she cared about her friend, one wrong move and Ally could disappear. He’d known her only a few days, but that didn’t matter. He wanted her in his life.
She drove fast. He liked that.
