Well, they wouldn’t have to face it today, Clancey thought. And if she could ever work up enough nerve to talk to Banks about it, there might be a solution of some kind. It was just that Banks intimidated her. He was pleasant enough, from time to time, but she knew that he resented her. She didn’t know why. He’d been antagonistic since her first day on the job and he’d tried infrequently to get her moved to another office. That would have been awkward, because she was the only person who applied for this job and he couldn’t find anybody else—mainly, another man—who’d take it on. So he was stuck with her.

It worked both ways. Certainly, she was stuck with him, too! Big, arrogant, irritating Texas Ranger. He was so self-contained that he didn’t even date anybody.

She knew why, of course. There was a lot of gossip about Colter Banks. He’d been in love with his best friend’s fiancée. His best friend, Mike Johns, had been a police officer over in Houston. He was shot to death in an attempted bank robbery, along with his mother. He wasn’t even on duty at the time. He’d just driven his mother to the bank.

Grace Charles, Mike’s fiancée, had mourned him long and hard. Banks had comforted her and would have loved to take Mike’s place, except that Grace suddenly enrolled with a missionary society and went to South America. She was deeply religious, something Banks wasn’t. So he lost his best friend and his love interest. His sister, Brenda, had told one of her girlfriends about it when they came to take Banks for lunch, and Clancey had overheard them talking while Banks had gone to bring the car around. Banks had asked for reassignment to San Antonio to get away from the bad memories. He seemed to have recovered. On the surface, at least.

But it wasn’t Clancey’s business. She put up with Banks because she had to, but he was too abrasively masculine to appeal to her. She’d had more than enough of belligerent men with attitudes.

She locked up the office and went to pick up Tad at the school he attended. They had an after-school class for students whose parents couldn’t afford day care. Not that Clancey was a parent, but she sure couldn’t afford day care!

“Hi, kid,” she teased, ruffling his blond hair. “Did you miss me?”

“Not since breakfast,” he teased, laughing. He was a tall boy. He came up to her shoulder now. He was beanpole thin and had blue eyes, like hers. He was always smiling. It made her feel good, just to be around him.

“How’d school go?” she asked when they were walking down the sidewalk.

“Better than usual,” he replied. “I made an eighty on my math test.”

“Very good!”