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you put up fruits and vegetables so that they don’t spoil. I can do jam and jelly and pickles and all sorts of stuff.”
    Marquez raised an eyebrow. “My mother used to do it, but her hands aren’t what they used to be. It’s an art.”
    “A valuable skill,” Glory said smugly.
    “You’ll need to wear jeans and look less elegant,” Marquez told her. “No suits on the farm.”
    “I lived in Jacobsville when I was a child,” Glory reminded him with a forced smile, without going into detail. Marquez was old enough to have known about Glory’s ordeal. Of course, a lot of people didn’t, even there. “I can fit in.”
    “Then you’ll go?” Marquez persisted.
    Glory sat back against the desk. She was outnumbered and outgunned. They were probably right. San Antonio was a big city, but she’d been in the same apartment building for two years and everyone who lived there knew her. She’d be easy to find if someone asked the right questions. If she got herself killed, Fuentes would walk, and more people would be butchered in his insane quest for wealth.
    If her doctor was right—and he was a very good doctor—the move right now might save her life, such as it was. She couldn’t admit how frightened she was about his prognosis. Not to anyone. Tough girls like Glory didn’t whine about their burdens.
    “What about Jason and Gracie?” she blurted out suddenly.
    “Jason’s already hired a small army of bodyguards,” Marquez assured her. “He and Gracie will be fine. It’s you they’re worried about. All of us are worried about you.”
    She drew in a long breath. “I guess a bulletproof vest and a Glock wouldn’t convince you to let me stay here?”
    “Fuentes has bullets that penetrate body armor, and nobody outside a psycho ward would give you a gun.”
    “All right,” she said heavily. “I’ll go. Do I have to ramrod this farm?”
    “No, Jason’s put in a manager.” He frowned. “Odd guy. He isn’t from Texas. I don’t know where Jason found him. He’s…” He started to say that the manager was one of the most unpleasant, taciturn people he’d ever met, despite the fact that the farm workers liked him. But it might not be the best time to say it. “He’s very good at managing people,” Marquez said instead.
    “As long as he doesn’t try to manage me, I guess it’s okay,” she said.
    “He won’t know anything about you, except what Jason tells him,” he assured her. “Jason won’t have told him about why you’re there, and you can’t, either. Apparently the manager’s just had some sort of blow in his life, too, and he’s taken the job to get himself over it.”
    “A truck farm,” she murmured.
    “I know where there’s an animal shelter,” Marquez replied whimsically. “They need someone to feed the lions.”
    She glared at him. “With my luck, they’d try to feed me to the lions. No, thanks.”
    “This is for your own good,” Marquez said quietly. “You know that.”
    She sighed. “Yes, I suppose it is.” She moved away from the desk. “My whole life, I’ve been forced to run away from problems. I’d hoped that this time, at least, I could stand and deliver.”
    “Neat phrasing,” Marquez mused. “Would you like to borrow my sword?”
    She gave him a keen glance. “Your mother should never have given you that claymore,” she told him. “You’re very lucky that the patrol officer could be convinced to drop the charges.”
    He looked affronted. “The guy picked the lock on my apartment door and let himself in. When I woke up, he was packing my new laptop into a book bag for transport!”
    “You have a sidearm,” she pointed out.
    He glowered at her. “I forgot and left it locked in the pocket of my car that night. But the sword was mounted right over my bed.”
    “They say the thief actually jumped out the window when he brandished that huge weapon,” Glory told Haynes, who grinned.
    “My apartment is on the ground floor,” Marquez informed