The Stronghold. Lisa Carter

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      His grandmother straightened. Venturing to the edge of the porch, she gazed into the inky blackness of the desert night. She lifted her face and sniffed the air. A strange look crossed her lined, broad-planed face.

      “What is it, Abuela? Can you smell the rain coming?”

      Isabel was legendary for reading the natural signs of her desert homeland. Drought or thunderstorm. Tornado or blue skies. She had married the only son of the powerful Don Torres and, after her husband’s early death, had been the driving force behind the success of the Torres family brand.

      “Not rain. But something is a-coming.” She tucked her hands into her elbows. “Something not good.”

      He darted a glance at the foreboding tone of her voice.

      She shooed him toward the door. “Get some rest. You’ve got a busy day ahead of you tomorrow.”

      “Aren’t you coming, Abuela?”

      “Not right this minute. Going to commune with nature a bit longer. But I’ll be in soon, I promise.”

      Over the years, he’d seen her do her “communing” countless times. As if she put out her antennae to things only she could see.

      She stood where he’d left her, poised and alert on the top step. Her stance guarded. Her head with its elegant silver chignon tilted as if she listened.

      Listened to what? Alex wondered as he closed the door softly.

      To sounds only she could hear.

      Chapter 6

      6

      Before

      Fifteen-year-old Alex didn’t miss L.A.

      Truth be told, he was relieved when the judge and his parents removed him from an environment increasingly out of his control. The gang pressured him to do things with which he wasn’t comfortable. Once in, forever in, and he’d escaped just in time.

      Being that this was Alex’s first offense, the judge ordered probation. And at their wit’s end, Alex’s parents arranged with his probation officer to send Alex as far from the gang’s reach as possible: to his grandmother, where the Torreses had ranched longer than the Anglos had been in Arizona.

      On the ranch, there was open space, towering mountains, and blue sky. Room to breathe. Room to dream. Room to be.

      Here he met the two best friends, Alex suspected, he’d ever have. Byron—quiet to the point of invisibility, but a force to be reckoned with on the football field. Coiled energy with something to prove, Byron loved only two people: his sister, Pilar, and Alex’s abuela.

      As for Pilar?

      He smiled at the thought of the defiant, Apache girl who almost matched him for competitiveness.

      She’d punch him in the gut for even thinking that. Just like she did every time she beat him to the top of the mesa. And he didn’t let her win. Cater-Pilar was, as Byron warned, swift as the wind.

      Little in stature, mighty in mouth. Feisty, tough as the spikes on a saguaro, and smart. She made him laugh. And unlike the other females he’d twisted around his finger with a smile since birth, Pilar didn’t seem overly impressed with Alejandro Roberto Torres.

      She was halfway between being a child and—he swallowed—halfway to being whatever Pilar was yet to be.

      Pilar and Byron were also the angriest people the laid-back Alex Torres had ever met. They didn’t erupt or rage. But anger seethed beneath the surface of their broad, high-cheekboned faces.

      Because their Chiricahua mother from the Mescalero rez in New Mexico was dead? Or because of their stepfather, a Western Apache from the White Mountain rez farther north? He was a strange, morose man.

      Morose. One of Pilar’s new words. And like the To-Clanny kids, Alex steered clear of the man whenever possible.

      Byron and Pilar had called the ranch home for the last two years. The longest, Byron told him, they’d ever lived anywhere after their mother drank herself to death when Pilar was only eight.

      Pilar—Tagalong as he liked to tease her—followed them everywhere that summer. Always dogging their heels. Never backing down from any challenge.

      He didn’t mind her hanging around. Surprisingly—because she was still such a little girl with her books, stray cats, and flyaway hair—Pilar was a lot of fun. She upped the ante on whatever scheme Alex devised. Brought a charge of electricity to every adventure he concocted for himself and his best pal, Byron.

      But when school began in Saguaro Gulch, Alex turned his attention to the future. He used his considerable charm on his teachers and the plethora of females who flocked around the football squad. Thanks to him, he and shy Byron never lacked for female attention.

      The first game of the season Alex scored a touchdown toward the final victory. The rest of the team engulfed him in a frenzy of triumph. And for the first time, he belonged.

      He emerged from the locker room to find Pilar waiting. “You gonna do one of those victory dances for me?” Alex grinned.

      Pilar looked down and then up at him out of the corner of her eye. “Maybe.” She tossed her long, glossy braid over her shoulder. “Once we get home.”

      Unease nettled him. Byron should’ve explained their plans to Pilar. “Where’s Abuela?”

      Pilar shrugged. “I told her I’d ride home with you and Byron.”

      Byron stepped into the hallway. “Not happening, Sister. We’ve got places to go.” He clapped a meaty hand across Alex’s shoulder blades. “Thanks to my man, the night is young.”

      The exit door squeaked open and the two blondes Alex had courted for Friday night dates waved.

      Pilar went rigid. Her eyes alternated between cold fury and a strange vulnerability.

      He and Pilar had been best buddies, too, all summer. But now?

      Summer was over.

      “Ladies,” Byron gestured to the freshmen girls. “Ready to go?”

      Alex’s so-called date clamped a possessive arm around his waist. His arm went reluctantly around hers in response. The strawberry blonde nuzzled his neck with her cheek. And she gave a throaty laugh that had intoxicated Alex in algebra.

      Pilar glared. If looks could’ve killed, he’d have been spit-roasted, Apache-style.

      “Go home, Sister.” Byron dug the keys to Abuela’s ranch Jeep out of his pocket. “Shall we, ladies?”

      The blondes giggled. Pilar rolled her eyes. Alex broke out into a cold sweat.

      Byron and his date ambled away. Alex’s date surged forward, putting his feet into motion. Chewing his lower lip, he glanced over his shoulder.

      Pilar remained where they left her.

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