LITMIR.BIZ

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      Henry straightened, as if what they did next was entirely up to him. “Come on, Lil. Let’s get out of here. If Aunt Kara won’t come with us, we’ll just have to manage on our own. We can do it.”

      Lillian seemed less confident, but nodded.

      “Listen,” Kara said, “there’s someone I can call—”

      Henry shook his head, adamant. “No.” His face had turned a grayish white, and he started to shake uncontrollably, his self-control crumbling. He stiffened visibly, but the shaking didn’t ease. Tears rolled down his cheeks, shining in the light from the street. “Aunt Kara… please, you have to believe us. We’re in danger.”

      If they were in danger, there was no question she should call Sam, but she’d never get that far. The kids would bolt. They’d skipped out on the dude ranch and made it all the way to damn Austin on their own—they’d skip out on her, too.

      She still had to deal with the letter from Allyson. Did she believe Allyson had written it? Did it even matter at this point? It demonstrated what Henry and Lillian believed was at stake.

      And if they didn’t release her from attorney-client privilege, there wasn’t much she could tell Sam, anyway.

      “All right.” Kara tried to sound decisive, although her plan was still sketchy, in its early stages—and crazy, every bit of it. “You’re going to have to trust me and let me make some decisions. I’ll get you to Stonebrook Cottage and your mother, okay? I’ll do what she says in her letter.”

      They nodded, Henry brushing at the tears on his thin cheeks. Lillian was solemn, very pale.

      Kara hugged them both, squeezing hard, smelling the rancidness of their fear. The hell with everything. She had to get them safely to Stonebrook Cottage and their mother and stay one step ahead of anyone who might be after them—no matter the reason, good, bad, real or imagined.

      She couldn’t believe she was cutting out on Sam Temple, Texas Ranger.

      She smiled suddenly, and she noticed how reassured her godchildren looked now that she was taking charge—and they were getting their way. Well, what else could she do?

      “Let me throw a few things together,” she told them. “Then we’re out of here.”

       Five

       P ete Jericho regarded the stripped logs piled on the edge of the gravel pit with satisfaction. He’d always liked work he could see getting done. Finish one job, move on to the next. Hard, physical work suited him. He squinted up at the hazy August sky, the humidity on the rise, seeping in from the south. He had a lot of work to get done before the first killing frost. Maybe keeping himself busy would put in check his anger and frustration—his sense of loss since Allyson had stepped up to the governorship.

      Stupid to fall in love with her in the first place. He’d known it years ago, when he’d see her and Lawrence up at the Stockwell place, around town. She was a few years older than Pete, but that never mattered to him. After Lawrence died, Allyson was so overwhelmed and quiet, and Pete realized what he felt wasn’t just an infatuation. He was truly in love with her.

      But Madeleine Stockwell had recognized it before Allyson did—maybe even before he did—and that was his undoing.

      He started back to his truck, knowing there was no point in trying to blame Madeleine for his current predicament. Even without the prison record, he suspected Allyson would want to keep their relationship secret. He was the blue-collar guy down the road. He lived on the family homestead and worked with his father chopping wood. The Jericho family had been working their land for seven generations. They used to dairy farm, but now they scraped together a living cutting wood, growing Christmas trees, leasing hay fields to the few dairy farmers left in the area, raising chickens and sheep. Bea Jericho, Pete’s mother, handled the chickens and sheep. She was talking about getting some goats and making her own goat cheese, something Pete’s father wasn’t too keen on.

      But these days they earned the bulk of their money managing other people’s property, the trophy country houses rich part-time residents built on ten-acre mini-estates carved out of land once owned by people like Charlie and Bea Jericho.

      Pete knew his parents didn’t know about him and Allyson. Otherwise they’d have said something. Just as well, because it looked as if he’d been dumped; she didn’t even plan to call and tell him. He was supposed to figure it out. An affair with Allyson Lourdes Stockwell, lieutenant governor, was difficult enough. Now that she was governor, it was impossible.

      Six months in prison eight years ago for a stupid barroom brawl would end up costing him the woman he loved.

      He hadn’t been involved with Allyson then. Madeleine Stockwell had done her job and made sure he knew her son’s widow deserved better than a Jericho. She nipped any romantic intentions on his part in the bud. He remembered that bright, cold afternoon when Madeleine stood out on the patio of the only home she’d known since marrying Edward Stockwell and told Pete he had no ambition, no real prospects. “You’ll make a living. You’re a Jericho. That’s what you do. But it’s all that you do.”

      She knew he had a “crush” on Allyson, a choice of words designed to further diminish him. And if he loved her, he would understand it was in her best interests that he never act on his feelings.

      Furious, humiliated, he hadn’t gone home and hit the heavy bag or chopped wood. Instead, he’d headed to O’Reilly’s Pub in town and intervened when an idiot he’d known from high school harassed a woman. Words were exchanged. Fists flew. A couple of beer bottles. He ended up with torn knuckles and a broken nose, the idiot a cut on his jaw that required five stitches. Pete figured the score was even. O’Reilly went along. He wasn’t looking to see an account of a brawl in his pub in the local papers, and he hated cops and lawyers.

      Walter Harrison thought otherwise. He was an off-duty cop who happened to witness the brawl. He made a wimpish attempt to break it up, then pushed to have Pete arrested on felony assault charges.

      Stories changed. The woman, who was from out of town, said she wasn’t really being harassed and begged Pete not to get involved. Not true. The former classmate said Pete threw the first punch and smashed the first beer bottle and was generally out of control. Walter corroborated their versions. O’Reilly stayed out of it. Pete was convinced, then and now, and so was his father, that Madeleine Stockwell had her hand in it. A few greased palms, a little intimidation. A criminal record would make any romantic relationship between him and her daughter-in-law that much more unlikely.

      He knew he was screwed, but Mike Parisi, a man who understood barroom brawls and the ways of Madeleine Stockwell, recommended Kara Galway, said she was a hell of a lawyer. Big Mike spent a lot of time in Bluefield even after Lawrence’s death, wooing Allyson into state politics; he’d always gotten along with the Jerichos.

      Recommending Kara hadn’t worked out, at least in Pete’s estimation. He’d expected her to find a way to bring out the truth. Instead, she suggested he take a plea bargain when it was offered. The odds were against him if he went to trial, she explained. If he was convicted of felonious assault, he could count on spending three years in a nasty state prison. Plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and he was in and out of the local jail in six months.

      Pete took the deal. He didn’t like it, but he took it. He supposed it was unfair of him to blame Kara, but he knew he’d lost any hope of having Allyson in his life the minute he heard the jailhouse doors shut behind him. It was as if Madeleine Stockwell had planned it that way.

      Then last fall, he ran into Allyson when he was delivering wood up to the barn she and Lawrence had converted. She was alone, the kids off for the weekend with friends, and it was like two old friends suddenly seeing each other for the first time, that old cliché. Since then, they met each other when they could, content to watch television together when she was at the barn alone on weekends. Pete would sneak through the woods so Madeleine and Hatch wouldn’t find out. That was no longer possible now with round-the-clock security.

      And

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