Disclaimer: The characters of, "Sons of Thunder" and "Walker Texas Ranger", are owned by Chuck Norris, Aaron Norris, CBS and whoever else was involved with the creation and production of these two shows. Any new characters and story lines that come into play are of my own creation. No copyright infringement is intended. This is a fan fiction intended for entertainment purposes only and no money is being made off of it.

Chapter 3: Uppercuts

Hunter was in his office going through his messages and returning several phone calls. He returned a call that was from a college buddy wondering whether he was going to go to a mutual friend's bachelor party. Another call he returned was to the lead detective of Billy Pillar's murder who had called to congratulate him for finding a witness who had busted the case wide open. The rest of the calls were to gather more information about Diego and his associates. He had just finished a phone call and returned the phone to its cradle when Alex knocked on his open door to alert him of her presence.

"How are you feeling?" She asked with concern etched onto the fine features of her face and that was reflected in her blue eyes as she sat down in a plush chair that was situated in front of his oak desk.

"I'm fine. I've got a headache, which I'm not sure if it is from John Diego's fist or from his lawyer, but I took some Tylenol to relieve the ache." He answered with a charming grin to reassure her.

Alex nodded her head. "So, did you speak to the lead detective on Pillar's murder?"

Hunter nodded his head. "Yeah, Detective Standish, he wanted everything we have on Diego so he can start working on the connection between him and Pillar."

"Good." Alex said.

Then they discussed the charges the DA's office would bring against Diego to ensure that he stays in prison for a long time. They tossed around preliminary ideas on how they would present the case to the jury and what Thompson would try and pull to get his client a lesser sentence.

"I'll leave you to your work so you'll have time to meet with the young lady tonight." Alex said as she stood up. "Have a good evening, Hunter." She said her eyes twinkling and with a knowing smile on her face.

"You have a good evening yourself, counselor." Hunter replied and went to work on the many piles of paperwork on his desk.

Carlos and Trent had left to catch up on some much-needed sleep and Tommy had gone home a little after the boys had left. After Kendra's shift, she headed home to grab some money so she could pay the man that she had run into earlier that day. She returned within twenty minutes and sat at the bar, conversing with Butch until the man came into the bar at about 9 P.M.

"Hello, stranger." The man said, as he sat down on a bar stool next to Kendra.

Butch gave him a look and Kendra gave Butch a smile. "Hey. What happened to you?" She asked with a concerned frown, having noticed his black eye.

"Oh just a little fight, it's nothing to worry about. I thought we were here to discuss a transaction?" He said with a smile and Kendra was annoyed about the brush-off, even though she didn't know the man, she sensed he was a decent person and didn't want anything bad to happen to him.

"How much?" She asked, as she pulled her wallet out from her pocket.

"My father always said 'if you're going to do business with someone, you have to know that person's name'. I'm Hunter Prescott." He introduced himself and held out his hand to Kendra.

"I'm Kendra Stone." She took his hand and they shook.

"Hey, are you related to a Lyle Prescott?" asked Butch.

"Yeah. He's my uncle." Hunter answered. "You know him?"

Butch grinned. "Yeah. He's a friend."

"That you owe a favor to." Kendra reminded him. Butch nodded his head as Kendra grinned.

Hunter didn't understand why that had amused Kendra, but understood that it must have been an inside joke. "Uppercuts, that's an interesting name for a bar." Hunter commented.

"It's a good name for a bar." Butch said as he started to hand-dry some glasses with the towel that he had earlier placed over his shoulder.

"Yeah, it's called Uppercuts because Butch used to be a boxer. Plus he was once a PI. Now, he's the owner of this bar and is the bartender. Who knows what else he has been? Or will be?" Kendra added.

Butch just handed her a black cup of coffee. "Would you like anything, Hunter?"

"I'll have a beer." Hunter ordered. As he waited for Butch to fill a glass with beer, he took the opportunity to observe the woman next to him. She is very pretty, he thought as he studied her face. Her light blue eyes were bright with humor and her smile was heartwarming but with a hint of mischievousness. Hunter could sense strength flowing from her and a feeling of stubbornness. He was able to detect a profound sadness behind her eyes but it quickly vanished from sight.

"Right. Now, that we've introduced ourselves, how much?" Kendra asked, getting right back to business.

"Thirty." Hunter answered, taking a sip of his beer.

Butch whistled. "That's quite a bit."

"Well. The dry cleaning place does an excellent job of removing stains, especially coffee stains from suits." He explained as he took the money that Kendra offered, placing it into his black leather wallet and returned it to his pocket.

"Well, if they are that good, they deserve the money." Kendra remarked.

"Now, you owe me a cup of coffee." The words had come out of Hunter's mouth before he had even realized it.

"Well, you can have one on me." Kendra nodded to Butch to get him a cup.

"No, I mean, you owe me the same type of coffee that I had this morning." He explained, shaking his head at Butch's offer of a cup.

"So, you want a cup of coffee from the same place that you had gotten it this morning?" Kendra asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes. Since you're going to be there anyway, why don't you join me?" Hunter asked with a smile on his lips.

Kendra hesitated for a moment. "Okay. But this is not a date." She said firmly.

"It's a date then." Hunter said with a smile as Kendra glared at him.

"Young-ins." Butch said sighing and shaking his head and going to the other end of the bar, while Hunter and Kendra couldn't help but laugh at his jest.

Since the boys hadn't had the time to do some of their own research on the Miller case, Kim had offered to do the work for them so they could get some much-needed sleep because of the late night stakeouts. Kim was sitting at her desk in the office surfing the web and the many databases that only licensed PIs had access to, taking sips from her energy drink and munching on some snack food, being careful not to get any crumbs on the keyboard.

The two PIs had followed the thieves with the stolen merchandise from Miller's warehouse and ended up at a warehouse that was located in a town just outside of Dallas. Trent and Carlos had watched and photographed the thieves as they unloaded the merchandise off of the truck. The thieves would then sell the merchandise on the black market.

Kim had searched for the owner of the thieves' warehouse, which she had discovered, was under the name of a bogus corporation. She had been trying for the last couple hours to find out who really owned the warehouse, but she wasn't having any luck, so she searching the databases for information on the thieves or the truck.

One of the databases she was searching on beeped at her, signaling that one of the searches had discovered something. Kim left her game of Spider Solitaire and opened the page of the database. Reading the information on the computer screen, her lips became a tense line and then she reread the page her instincts screaming at her that something wasn't right.

Tomorrow morning, once Trent and Carlos came into the office, she was going to tell them exactly what she had discovered and see what they thought about what she had discovered.

guardianM3: Thank you guys for the reviews. Reviews are always welcome! The updating for this story might be more spread out than the last two because even though I have most of it planned out there are still many details that I need to iron out.