"Well, if you don't understand English or Spanish, we may be out of luck. I'm just a good old Texas boy and those are the only lingoes I know."

"Are we going to drive around town all night?" Ross asked.

"No, I guess we'd better go home."

"Right." Ross turned left at the next corner.

"We're going to take you to my place," Gideon said into the girl's ear. "It's right on the edge of town. I won it in a poker game a few weeks ago, and it's a little run-down, but I think it's kind of pretty. I've been batting around the world since I was a kid and it's… it's nice to have a place that belongs to me. I have to warn you, the house is almost empty. The furniture wasn't thrown into the pot and I only made a deal with Garcia to leave the bedroom and kitchen stuff. That was as far as he'd go. He even took the chandelier in the foyer. It's a two- story hacienda with a red-tiled roof and a patio with a fountain. The fountain doesn't work, and the patio has weeds growing between the tiles, but I'll get around to having it fixed up eventually. I've been too busy to bother…" His voice droned on. He was paying little attention to what he said, merely trying to keep the patter bland and unthreatening. When your world had been blown to smithereens, it was always the ordinary that helped to balance the picture. He had found that out a long time ago.

The lights of the jeep suddenly illuminated two beautiful wrought-iron gates. They were standing open and one was hanging drunkenly from a broken bracket.

"I haven't had a chance to fix that either." Gideon made a face as the jeep turned into the pebbled circular road forming the driveway through tangled, overgrown foliage. "I wasn't expecting visitors quite so soon."

The silence was suddenly broken by loud barking interspersed with joyous whines. "Don't be afraid. That's only Frank, my dog. I think he's half Lab and half German shepherd, but only the stork knows for sure."