Colter wondered at her vulnerability. She didn’t seem the same woman who chided him about his handwriting at work. She was so withdrawn that it was like pulling teeth to even talk to her.

“Thanks for bringing us home,” she said, lifting her eyes no higher than the neck of his spotless white shirt. “It was kind of you.”

“No problem,” he replied.

Tad ran back to his room, to put up his treasure. Colter stared down at Clancey until she lifted her eyes, reluctantly, to his.

“I grew up on a ranch outside Catelow, Wyoming,” he said quietly. “My father had a few head of cattle. He’d been a rodeo cowboy, but he was crippled in the ring and had to give it up. He drank because he could never achieve his former glory, and when he drank, he went after me with a doubled-up belt. When Brenda was two years old, he died in an accident. Our mother sold the ranch to my father’s brother and moved us down to Jacobsville, where she had a sister. She got a job waiting tables and kept us going, with Dad’s Social Security check, until I was old enough to join the local police force. Her health was giving out by then. A couple of years later, I enlisted in the Army, where I got better pay and other benefits.”

She sighed. “I noticed the benefits,” she said wistfully.

He frowned. “And I’ll remind you about what I said. They come at a cost.”

She bit her lower lip.

He drew in a breath and averted his eyes. “I sent money home while I was overseas, to help Mom keep the household going. When I came home, I signed on with the Department of Public Safety in Houston and commuted. My mother died when Brenda was in grammar school. I eventually got in with the Rangers, in Houston. It’s been just the two of us ever since.”

“Brenda is nice,” she said. “She goes to my church.”

“She told me.” He looked around. “You live within your means. So did we, during lean times,” he said. He moved a step closer, bringing her eyes up to his face. “There’s no shame in being poor, Clancey,” he said, his voice deep and soft.

Her lips parted. She hadn’t known that about her boss. She’d assumed that he came from some normal, middle-class family. It was a shock that he knew about poverty firsthand. “Thanks,” she said huskily, averting her eyes.

“So there’s no reason to be embarrassed about where and how you live,” he added softly. His lean hand moved to her short, wavy dark hair and pushed back a strand that had fallen near her eyes.