She stared at him. “I don’t own a microwave oven.”

“Everybody owns a microwave oven. I even have one,” he said.

“Well, I don’t.” She turned and went back into her office, aware of hurt pride. She didn’t have a lot of things that most people did. Times were hard. She and her little brother, Tad, had to live on what she made, and even though it was a good salary for the work, it didn’t cover any luxuries at all. She and Tad dressed out of thrift shops. She made her lunch and had to scrape up enough for Tad’s lunches at school.

She only worked for Banks because this office was within two blocks of the house that Morris now owned, where she and Tad lived. She’d worked for Cal Hollister up until she wound up here with this infuriating lawman. She missed Cal. He was the best boss any woman could have asked for, polite and grateful for the work she did, full of praise and encouragement.

She glanced at Banks, who was on the phone now, and thought how she’d love to trade him for Cal. The problem was that the office where Cal worked was way downtown and about two miles from her home. She couldn’t afford to buy even an old used car, much less afford the insurance and upkeep and gas to run it. Her legs were in great shape, even if her lungs weren’t, so she could walk to work. She could also walk Tad to school every day and over to pick him up afterward at the after-school program for children of working parents. She wasn’t Tad’s parent, but she was responsible for him, legally responsible. Cal had helped her with that. He’d helped her with a lot of things.

“Ungrateful wretch,” she muttered under her breath as she finished the last of her cooling coffee.

“Nasturtium,” he countered.

“Will you stop calling me that!” she exclaimed. “I am not a nasturtium! I’ll bet you don’t even know what it means!” she added, throwing his own comment from the other day back at him.

He just laughed.

She put up her thermos, threw her trash into the can under her desk and went back to work on the files.

She’d never put her whole name on the employment application she’d filled out at the Department of Public Safety, under whose umbrella the Texas Rangers operated. So Banks didn’t know her whole name. Wouldn’t he be taken aback to know what her second given name was, and its definition? The thought amused her.

“I have to go over to the sheriff’s office to see about a case I’m working,” he said from the doorway. He frowned. “What were you doing at the Army recruiting office?” he asked out of the blue.