“Don’t dress up,” he added. He scowled. “You know that I carry the gun everywhere I go, right?” he asked suddenly.

“Well, yes,” she said.

“It won’t bother you?” he persisted.

She moved closer to the desk, file folders pressed to her breasts. “My grandfather was a lawman,” she reminded him softly. “He always wore a sidearm. We never thought anything about it.” She smiled. “My great-grandfather was a lawman, too.”

“A lawman.” He smiled. “What sort?”

She drew in a breath. It was safe to tell him. He didn’t know about her family. “He was a deputy United States Marshal,” she said. “His son, my grandfather, was a sheriff’s deputy. It sort of runs in my family.”

“Not in mine,” Banks said wistfully. “I was the first. My mother was scared to death that I was going to get killed. She tried to talk me out of it, but it wasn’t possible. I love what I do.”

She smiled. “I used to think I’d like to go through the police academy, when I first went to work for Cal Hollister.”

His eyebrows arched. “What changed your mind?”

“Cal gave us a ride home one afternoon,” she said very quietly, her hands holding the file folder even tighter as the memory invaded her mind. “There was a bank robbery in progress. Cal stopped at the scene, said for us to stay in the car. He pulled out his service revolver and walked right into the shotgun one of the perps was holding. He should have been killed. The robber actually missed. Cal didn’t.” She swallowed, hard. “There was so much blood,” she whispered, her eyes blank as she relived the incident in her mind. “When Cal finally came back, to drive us home, his eyes were terrible. He didn’t speak the whole way. Tad and I just sat quietly. Both of us were shaken. We’d never seen anyone killed.” She stared at the wall behind Banks. “Cal said that you never got used to having to shoot somebody. It was like giving up a piece of your soul that you could never get back. He was on administrative leave for a few days and he got stinking drunk. Lieutenant Marquez went out to his ranch and talked him down.” She shook her head. “After that, I knew I wasn’t cut out for a career in law enforcement.”

“But you didn’t stop working for him,” he said.

She shook her head. “There was a case, a criminal case, some years ago. Cal had just made lieutenant. He helped investigate the case, and he offered me a job. I owe him a lot.”

“A criminal case?” he prodded.

She hesitated, wary of giving anything else away. She’d already said too much.

The phone rang. Banks made a face and answered it. He spoke to someone on the other end, said he was on his way and hung up.