“They won’t take me away from you?” he added, frightened.

“Never,” she said firmly, and prayed that she wasn’t lying. “I’ll never let them take you away.”

He let out the breath he’d been holding. “Okay.”

They turned the corner and there was Banks, talking to a uniformed officer on the sidewalk, his big black SUV parked at the curve.

Clancey hesitated. She started to nudge her little brother back the other way, but it was too late. Banks had already spotted them. He said something to the uniformed officer, who nodded and started off down the street.

“Hi, Mr. Banks,” Tad said with a big smile.

Colter’s eyebrows lifted in a silent question.

“I saw you on TV, on the news! Sis talks about you all the time,” Tad volunteered.

Clancey went red as a beet. “I talk about work,” she interjected hastily.

“I want to be a Texas Ranger when I grow up and catch criminals,” Tad added.

Colter smiled down at the boy. “Do you?”

“Sis got me a book about Rangers. Do you really have to ride horses sometimes to chase bad guys?”

Colter nodded. “Yes, we do. Sometimes we’re involved in cases where we have to go into the brush country in pursuit. You can’t take a car in those places.”

“We’ve been to the movies!” Tad said. “Sis saves up so we can go to one every month!”

Colter glanced at Clancey, who looked as if she wanted to go through the pavement. Odd reaction, he thought.

“We should get moving...” she prompted her little brother.

“It’s pretty cold out here,” Colter said, noting her lack of a jacket. The boy had on one that, while clean, was obviously secondhand. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

“That isn’t...” Clancey began quickly, because she didn’t want her boss to see the painful poverty in which they lived.

But Tad interrupted her. “That would be great! Do you have a police radio in your vehicle? And does it have one of those blue lights and a siren...?”

Colter chuckled. He liked the boy’s enthusiasm. “Yes, I do, and a laptop that connects to the internet, as well.”

“Wow!” Tad exclaimed, all eyes and enthusiasm.

Colter led the way to the SUV.

“You can ride shotgun,” Clancey told Tad. “I’ll just climb in the back.”

Colter was puzzled by her behavior. At the office, she was all mouth and sarcasm. Here, out of the office, she was shy and introverted and hardly spoke. He put Tad up into the passenger seat after he’d moved his things out of it and started to reach for the seat belt. Tad already had it in place.

“Cal said I must always put on my seat belt every time I get in a car,” Tad explained.

“Cal?” he asked.

“Cal Hollister. He’s my friend,” he said proudly.