Stonebrook Cottage. Carla Neggers

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СКАЧАТЬ what? He served six months in the pokey for a bar fight.” Big Mike had laughed, amazed. “Come on, Allyson. People’ll be thrilled you’re not just another rich, watery-eyed WASP.”

      She hadn’t taken that very well, but Big Mike loved to tease—it didn’t matter who. Kara was the one who could always give it right back to him. Allyson had enjoyed watching the two of them. She was more reserved herself, more formal by upbringing and temperament. Kara was a Texas hard-ass with a big heart, a combination that’d probably get her hurt one day.

      But Mike hadn’t been teasing that day. He could be judgmental, calculating when it came to political advantage and appearances.

      Did her caller know about the ultimatum? Would he—or she—try to make people wonder if she’d had something to do with Big Mike’s death?

      What did the bastard want?

      She jumped to her feet, knocking over her canvas bag, the contents spilling into the cool shade. She saw a state trooper, a woman, make a move toward her and waved her off. The special unit in charge of guarding the governor had come under heavy criticism for “letting” Big Mike die. Allyson had defended them. She knew what Mike could be like. He’d told her countless times he’d never get used to people hovering.

      She squatted down, scooping up her wallet and Rolaids and Palm Pilot, three tubes of the same shade of lipstick. She was shaking uncontrollably now, crying. Ridiculous. She was overreacting to the cryptic phone calls, reading into them something that wasn’t there. There was no real threat, and harassment was part of being in the public eye. Even if she mentioned the calls to her bodyguards, what could they do? The caller hadn’t even made a request for any action one way or another on her part. Get rid of Pete, keep him. Tell the world, don’t tell the world. Give money, support a particular piece of legislation—nothing. Maybe the calls were designed to soften her up—maybe they were just to get under her skin.

      “Allyson!”

      Hatch Corrigan ran across the shaded lawn toward her. Lawrence’s half-brother was always on the move, a hothead like his father, Frank Corrigan, Madeleine’s third husband, whose early success as an actor hadn’t panned out the way either one of them had hoped. Madeleine raised their son largely on her own—she hadn’t wanted Frank’s help after their divorce. Hatch and Lawrence both had their mother’s rangy build and sharp nose, but Hatch had his father’s clear blue eyes, auburn hair and dimpled chin, his notorious flair for drama. Hatch, though, was content to remain behind the scenes, like his older half-brother. Not Frank, who’d wanted the stage and an audience, but died five years ago when he fell off scaffolding in a rundown off-off-Broadway theater, dead drunk.

      Hatch didn’t stand to inherit a dime of Stockwell money, but Allyson couldn’t remember him ever complaining about it. His mother had some wealth to hand down, but not a lot, not compared to her first husband’s family fortune. Hatch loved Stockwell Farm and spent as much time as he could with Madeleine at the main house, when he wasn’t cooking up political schemes and gathering information, plotting, strategizing, advising. He’d been indispensable to Big Mike and, now, to Allyson.

      He slowed slightly as he approached her hammock. It wasn’t uncommon, she thought, to see Hatch Corrigan in a rush, grim-faced and focused.

      She grabbed on to the edge of the rope hammock and pulled herself to her feet, brushing away her tears. In time she might come to feel like a governor, but right now she felt like the thirty-seven-year-old mother of two middle-schoolers, a widow who could never again have romance in her life.

      “Allyson,” Hatch repeated, breathing hard when he reached her. “We have a problem. That damn dude ranch in Texas just called. The kids—”

      “Hatch!” She clenched his upper arms, her chest constricting, her knees going out from under her. “What’s happened? What’s wrong? Henry and Lillian—they’re okay, aren’t they?”

      “Let’s hope.” His expression hardened, reminding her that he was forty-seven and childless, not a man who got along easily with children, even his only niece and nephew. “They took off on their own this afternoon. They’re on the loose somewhere in Texas.”

      

      Susanna Galway called Sam at home, waking him up, and invited him to dinner, refusing to take no for an answer. He didn’t argue. Under the circumstances, showing up for dinner would be less provocative than not showing up. He buttoned his shirt, pulled on his boots and headed out.

      Dinner was hell. He hated hiding anything from his friends, but if Kara hadn’t told her brother and sister-in-law about her weekend with Sam, he didn’t feel it was his place to open his damn mouth. He was being a gentleman, he decided, not a coward. It wasn’t as if he’d taken advantage of her. Kara Galway was in her thirties, and she’d wanted their night together as much as he had.

      Jack, his wife and their twin daughters didn’t seem to notice he was suffering. Susanna was a slim, graceful, dark-haired, green-eyed financial whiz who’d tried to keep millions and a murderer showing up in her kitchen a secret from her Texas Ranger husband, not that there was keeping anything secret from Jack Galway, something that Sam knew he should keep in mind. Susanna was smart, and she liked her secrets. In her own way she was as protective of her family as Jack was. All four of them had come close to losing each other in a harrowing experience in the Adirondack woods six months ago. These days, Susanna seemed content with her work and her life in San Antonio. She was redecorating their suburban home and restoring a historic building downtown that nobody quite knew what she’d do with—including, apparently, her.

      The twins were getting ready to head to college in a few weeks. Maggie had decided on Harvard, following in her father’s footsteps, Ellen on the University of Texas, which she liked to say was following in the footsteps of no one in her family.

      They didn’t bring up the subject of Kara tonight, but Sam knew they all had welcomed her move back to Texas, teased her about losing some of her accent during her years up north. They expected her to take up with another lawyer or a University of Texas professor, maybe one of the artists who hung out at the Dunning Gallery. Not a Texas Ranger. Not Sam.

      He hadn’t taken up with her, he reminded himself. He’d slept with her that one night and one morning two weeks ago.

      After dinner, Susanna and Jack made espresso using the espresso machine Maggie and Ellen had given their father for Christmas. The girls retreated to the family room to watch television. Whatever the lingering effects of their ordeal this past winter, the twins were handling them, just a couple of high-school graduates excited about college.

      Susanna handed Sam a tiny white cup and saucer and eased onto a chair at the new, glass-topped table. She smiled over the rim of her own steaming cup, which didn’t look out of place in her slender fingers. “You look as if you’re afraid you’ll break the china. Relax, Sam. You like espresso, don’t you?”

      “I can drink it.”

      Jack downed his espresso in about two sips. He was one of the finest law enforcement officers Sam knew, a big, broad-shouldered man, a Harvard graduate, a dedicated Texas Ranger who tried to maintain a precarious balance between work and family. He was fifteen and his sister just nine when their mother was killed in a car accident. Sam knew some of the details. How mother and daughter had gone out shoe shopping and were hit broadside on the driver’s side by a speeding delivery truck.

      Kara had had to sit still, covered in shattered glass, splattered with her dying mother’s blood, until the paramedics could get her out. She’d suffered only minor physical СКАЧАТЬ