LITMIR.BIZ

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no home to go back to,

      Fear is my destiny.

      The past is gone forever,

      It walked out the door,

      What once excited, excites no more.

      Rick could have written those lines himself. Whoever the composer was had to be a native Texan, considering the subject matter. It sounded like life had dealt them a hard blow.

      Realizing someone else out there in the cosmos was going through the same disquieting experience helped him to understand he wasn’t the only person who felt as if they were losing their mind.

      Absorbed in his painful thoughts, he was slow to process the fact that the white three-quarter-ton pickup truck moving toward him came to a stop as Rick passed it. He blinked, then reversed.

      His father’s familiar half smile had never been more welcome than in this back of beyond. They both put down their windows at the same time. The air still held the earth’s warmth. He could smell skunk.

      “Dad—” His throat swelled with unexpected emotion.

      “It’s good to see you, too, son. You told me you’d be driving a new M3. For a moment I thought I’d come upon James Bond. So…how did your first car handle?”

      Rick’s lips twitched. “A lot better than my first homemade go-cart.”

      “That’s reassuring. I’ll turn around so you can follow me the rest of the way.”

      Beyond tired, he was grateful to be led down the dark, dusty road. When they reached the ranch house three miles from the entrance, Rick regretted having to turn off the beautiful voice with the harp accompaniment. He wished her music could have kept him company all the way from Colorado.

      He got out of the car eager to feel Clint Hawkins’s famous bear hug.

      Silhouetted against a night sky partly obscured by clouds, the Queen Anne–style house loomed behind his parent. The two-story structure had many gables and a tower with a conical roof. For a ranch house it looked totally out of place and unlike anything Rick had been imagining.

      “IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN, ladies and gentlemen. We’re coming up on three in the morning. I’ll be taking your requests Friday at midnight on KHLB, the Hill Country station out of Austin at 580 on the AM dial. Thank you for listening to the Red Jarrett Show, where I aim to bring you a little bit of the best of everything.”

      The line-board operator back at the station in Austin turned the switch, and Audra Jarrett was off the air. Her boss had arranged for her to do her program from the ranch while she was recuperating from her accident. Several technicians from the studio had come out to the house to set up the mixing board, stands, plug-in mike and Telos digital sound system. So far everything had worked perfectly, but it seemed she had a ways to go before she was fully recovered.

      She let out a groan of exhaustion and ran her fingers through her hair, which was damp at the roots from exertion.

      After eyeing the short distance from her table to the bedroom doorway, she felt for her crutches and with superhuman effort, grabbed them from where they’d been leaning against the wall. She stopped long enough to turn out the lights, then moved out into the hallway and into the bedroom next door and lay down on the bed. The night was warm enough that she didn’t need a blanket to cover her.

      There was no way she’d be getting up again any time soon to brush her teeth or change out of her top and cutoffs. They were the only shorts loose enough around the legs to slide up and down over her cast.

      The strain of perching on the stool with her left leg in a full cast had been too draining. Whatever had possessed her to think she could transfer from her guitar to her harp between commercials while operating her own mixing board at the same time? Tonight she should have relied solely on recorded music.

      She’d been home from the hospital almost a month. By now she assumed it wouldn’t be a problem to perform some of her own music live during her radio show, broadcast from the bungalow on her uncle David’s property.

      It was a small three-bedroom home. With a few steps, everything was in easy reach. No stairs, no basement. But Audra hadn’t counted on the weakness that assailed her body through the simple act of singing into the microphone again. It may have just been her leg that was broken, but this seemed to affect her whole body.

      The car accident that had taken Pete Walker’s life could have done a lot more damage. But it hadn’t been her time to go.

      No. Destiny’s plan had been to kill her off in increments. She figured when her uncle found a buyer for the ranch, that would be the final blow.

      Her eyelids fluttered closed from sorrow and fatigue.

      What would she do without her music? Thanks to Pam, who’d started her on the piano in grade school, Audra had found her muse. Not even Boris, the talented French conductor she’d fallen in love with at the Paris Conservatory of Music, had been able to stamp out the solace when he’d rejected her.

      As she settled back against the pillows her cell phone rang. That would be her cousin calling from the main ranch house three miles away to make sure Audra was okay.

      Pam…the wonderful woman who’d been mother, sister and best friend rolled into one since Audra was a little girl.

      She reached for her phone. After checking the caller ID to make sure, she clicked on to talk to her cousin. “It’s 3:15 a.m., Mrs. Hawkins.”

      Audra loved calling her that. Clint Hawkins was the best thing that had ever happened to Pam. Audra was half in love with him herself.

      “Your new husband is going to resent me if you keep this up. I’ve been out of the hospital for some time now, yet you’re still hovering!”

      “That’s because I listened to your broadcast tonight. You were fabulous, but you overdid it.”

      Audra couldn’t hide anything from her. “I found that out as soon as I was switched off the air.”

      “I’m mad at you, honey. The doctor warned you to be careful.”

      “I wanted to start performing again. It’ll be easier next time.”

      “Why not wait till the cast comes off before you go back on the air, period?” Pam urged.

      Because I can’t stand the nights.

      Memories of the crash wouldn’t leave Audra alone. Her guilt—that she’d escaped death and Pete hadn’t—continued to haunt her.

      “I’d die of boredom, but I appreciate your phoning. I’m in bed, so stop worrying about me. Now, hurry and hang up before Clint discovers you’re awake and talking to me again.”

      “My husband isn’t here.”

      She frowned. “Has he flown to Colorado on another family emergency?” Audra hoped everything was fine with his recently married son, Nate. That marriage almost hadn’t come off.

      It didn’t seem as if Clint and Pam were ever going to get the time alone they deserved, no thanks to Audra, whose accident had ruined their honeymoon.

      “He’s out in the truck looking for his son who should have arrived by now.”

      Audra blinked. “I didn’t know you were expecting his family.”

      “He didn’t either until earlier in the day.”

      “Which one is it?”

      “Rick.”

      Ah yes, the famous race-car driver, Lucky Hawkins. The speed-loving son he’d secretly worried about for years. The one Clint feared would end up a statistic.

      Audra refused to entertain the thought that he might have been in a collision on the highway driving down here. She didn’t want Pam thinking bad thoughts either.

      “It would be

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