Stranger At My Door (A Murder In Texas) by Mari Manning

already in the hallway. “I’ll get it, Miss Dinah.”
    It was a brown-shirted UPS man. “I have a delivery for Dinah Pittman.”
    Dinah stepped forward. “That’s me.”
    She took the box and signed for it.
    “Who’s it from?” Hollyn studied the narrow box.
    Dinah turned the box over. “The Texas Department of Corrections.”

Chapter Seven
    Was his phone ringing? It couldn’t be. Not on his day off. Not at seven-thirty in the morning. Rafe grabbed a pillow and put it over his head. Through a thick layer of down, the jangle of his 1950s ringtone crashed against his ears. It was ringing. Mierda.
    He felt around on his bedside table until he located his cell. “It’s seven freaking thirty in the morning,” he grumbled.
    Uncowed, Miss Peppie released a string of curses in Spanish. “Is that the way you talk to your mama, Rafael Ernesto Morales? Get up. You are supposed to be at the ranch already. Your father is setting up the barbecue, and you are not here to help. His own son.”
    Between double shifts this week and the murder, the party had slipped his mind. “And buenas to you, too, Mama. How are you this fine morning?” As if he had to ask. She was in steamroller mode.
    “Don’t try your honey on me. We have a hundred people coming this afternoon. A hundred people who agreed to move their fourth of July to the third of July so you could join us.”
    “You didn’t have to—”
    “No arguments. They are coming today, and your father needs help.”
    “Can’t the girls help?” Why couldn’t one of his sisters have been a boy? It would have made his life so much simpler.
    “Erica and Ernesta are in the kitchen with me. Esme’s fixing the beans.”
    “Esme’s coming?”
    “No.” Miss Peppie sounded sad. “She’ll stay with the animals when the party starts.”
    Rafe sat up and rubbed his head. Sunlight seeped into his one-room apartment around the edges of his window shades. Through the pale darkness, his discarded clothes reminded him of lifeless bodies. A stack of empty pizza boxes rose from the kitchen counter amid half-filled coffee cups. He closed his eyes, but he was too jacked now to fall back asleep.
    “I’ll jump in the shower and be there in an hour.”
    “You be sure to shave. We want to see your dimples. And wear that blue shirt I gave you for Christmas. You look so handsome in it.”
    His eyes narrowed. “What are you up to, Mama?”
    “I am up to making a nice supper for our third of July party. That’s what I’m up to.”
    “You’re trying to set me up with someone again, aren’t you? What did I tell you about this?”
    “I am not setting you up.”
    “But…” He paused and waited.
    Miss Peppie emitted an indignant huff. “Ernesta has invited a friend to the party. You remember the Vincennes girl? Wonderful family. Enchanting girl. You two will hit it off, and she is very excited to meet you. She’s seen you around town. In your police uniform.”
    He’d been matched with every unattached, “sweet” El Royo girl his mama could dig up. Each year the pool of girls got younger, while he got older. He’d begun to suspect Peppie equated sweet with virginal. There weren’t many virgins over the age of eighteen in El Royo, and none made him forget Sam. None had her spark, her courage, her straight-from-the-shoulder ways, her beauty. Not that it mattered. He was done with strong women.
    “I’m not ready for a relationship. We’ve been through this.”
    “You said you wanted to find a nice girl. This is a nice girl. A sweet girl.”
    “I didn’t mean a nice girl that’s half my age. This is almost cradle-robbing.”
    “She’s eighteen, and you’re thirty-two. That’s only fourteen years. I’m ten years younger than your father, and we’ve had a wonderful life together.”
    “Did it ever occur to you I might want to choose my own dates?”
    “Yes.” Peppie snapped the word through the phone like a flying rubber band. “Three years ago. I’m still