they had been married a year already but they were still very much in love.-chrissy had known almost from the first time she had seen johnny swinging across the yard and whistling a lively irish tune that she would fall in love with him.-she loved his dimples and his red hair and freckles ; she loved his irish brogue and well , she was just plain crazy about him.-he had thought she was the cutest thing he had ever seen the first time he saw her , too.-he had noticed her and her family when they first came to the big old house for refuge when they ran out of gas on the back roads near there.-now , the two families were firmly intertwined with mutual love and respect.- ramon had been almost envious of them and their close-knit family.-his own family was back in nueva laredo , mexico , and though they loved each other dearly , they had never had the carefree closeness that the wroes and o'reillys had.-sometimes his father could find work and other times his family went hungry.-that had been why ramon had gone across the border , got his green card and looked for work in texas.-he had found part-time employment at a car wash , but it had gone out of business ; then as a dishwasher in a small restaurant but that had n't lasted either.-he had met another countryman , pablo alvarez , at a pool hall he frequented and they had become fast friends.-one day , after they had spent the last several days unsuccessfully looking for work , pablo told him his sister thought she could get them a job making a lot of money with a friend of her husband's.- they knew it sounded too good to be true and ramon had been suspicious from the beginning but he had needed desperately to be able to send some money to his family , so he and pablo had signed on.-it took only a short while for both of them to realize the illegal nature of their activities as well as the danger involved but the boss had let them know in no uncertain terms that trying to back out could be extremely detrimental to their health .