Texas Tough (The Tylers of Texas 2)

“What are you looking at?” he asked her, switching to a less volatile subject.

“That photograph above the sideboard. I’ve never paid attention to it before. When was it taken?” Lauren was making small talk now, but the picture, mounted in a rustic knotted pine frame, was intriguing. The faces and figures were slightly blurred, as if the image had been blown up from a smaller photo. It showed a summer gathering—a party or picnic—on the front steps of the ranch house.

Rising with her coffee, Lauren moved in for a closer look. One figure was unmistakable. Standing in the center of the photo, dressed in hunting clothes and holding a glass in one hand, was a smiling Ronald Reagan.

“He was still president then,” her father said. “Some party bigwigs invited him to come bird hunting, and my dad volunteered to host a picnic here afterward. See, that’s me standing next to the great man. I was still a pup, not even married yet, but that was the day I decided I wanted to go into politics. That’s why I hung the picture, to remind me.”

Lauren studied the photo. Her father would have been about twenty. She recognized the wavy blond hair and slightly receding chin. His parents, both of them gone now, were standing on the other side of the president—Ferguson Prescott, short and thickset, with a bristling mustache and a gaze fierce enough to cut steel; his pale wife, Edith, looking drained as always. Ferg had made her pregnant five times. Only Garn had survived.

There were other people in the photo—neighbors, party dignitaries, and Secret Service agents skulking in the background. At the edge of the picture, a tall, slender young woman in an apron held a tray of cocktail glasses. It appeared she’d meant to step back out of camera range but hadn’t moved far enough.

“Who’s that woman?” Lauren asked.

“The dark one? Nobody. Just the maid.”

“She’s beautiful. Look at those dark eyes, and those high cheekbones. She could have been a model. What ever happened to her?”

Prescott shrugged. “Who knows? After this picture was taken, I went away to school. When I came home for my mother’s funeral, she was here, but the next time I came back she was gone. I never asked about her. Why should I?” Prescott slathered butter on another slice of toast. “That fund-raiser tomorrow night—is it negotiable?”

“What do you mean, negotiable?” She turned back toward him, setting her coffee cup on the table.

“I don’t have the time or energy to spend the whole summer fighting with you, Lauren. So I’m prepared to bargain. Tell me something you want, within reason of course. Go to the fund-raiser with me, and it’s yours.”

Lauren took a moment to think. Much as she disliked giving in, her father’s offer made sense. The constant friction was wearing them both down. Why not go to the fund-raiser if it meant getting something she wanted?

But what did she want? The idea—so bold that it kicked her pulse into high gear—sprang out of nowhere.

“Only this one fund-raiser, right?”

“For now,” he said. “So what do you want in exchange?”

A thoughtful smile tugged at her mouth. “I haven’t ridden since high school,” she said. “I want to take it up again. And I want my pick of any horse on the ranch.”

Garn Prescott remained at the table after Lauren left, sipping his coffee and sopping up his eggs with his bread, the way he’d liked to do as a boy. He reached for the carafe to refill his empty coffee cup, then changed his mind and pulled a thin silver flask out of his hip pocket. He was sipping the bourbon he’d poured when his cell phone rang. The name on the display was that of Ted Abernathy, his campaign manager.

“Howdy, Ted.” His voice took on the folksy tone he used with his constituents. “Yup, I’m good to go for the fund-raiser. Even bringin’ my pretty daughter along to sweeten up the contributors. Are we set with the barbecue?” He paused as the voice crackled on the other end of the call. “What? They want payment in advance? The hell you say!”

Prescott’s fingers snapped the handle on his late second wife’s Limoges cup, spilling a trickle of bourbon on the table. He’d planned to reimburse the caterer out of funds raised at the event. To pay in advance would drain his war chest down to pocket change at a time when he needed every penny. Hoyt Axelrod’s arrest had taken care of his most worrisome opponent, but other candidates were crawling into the open like rats out of a haystack—and one of them was even a damned war hero. Prescott was fighting for his political life. And the one weapon he desperately needed—cash—had become as scarce as rain in this drought-ravaged summer. Once he got the nomination, the party machine would kick in. But until then—with the nomination in peril, the conservatives deserting him and the primary less than two months away—he was on his own.

All the more reason word mustn’t get out that his campaign was hard up for money.

“Pay the bastards, Ted,” he sighed. “If there’s not enough in the account, let me know and I’ll dig into my own pocket. Let’s hope we can make it up at the fund-raiser.”

“Will do.” Abernathy’s voice came through as the static cleared. “Did you hear that Hoyt Axelrod died in his cell?”

“What? Hell, no!”

“It’s been on the news all morning. Since he was set to run against you, making a statement would get you some press. I can write it up for you—good lawman gone bad, the final tragedy, whatever.”

“Fine. E-mail it to me and set things up with the TV station—maybe that hot little blonde, Mindi Thacker, could do an interview. At least she’s good-looking.” Prescott hung up the phone and poured himself another three fingers of bourbon. The way the day was starting out, he was going to need it.

Sky pulled the pickup into the hospital parking lot and switched off the ignition. As he turned sideways to swing down from the driver’s seat, he felt the press of the little pocketknife he’d slipped into his jeans. All the way to Lubbock, he’d been wrestling with his conscience. Sooner or later he’d have to show the knife to Beau and Will and tell them what it meant. But did he have to do it today, or could he leave it till he’d had the chance to check things out for himself?

Either way, Sky knew the conclusion would likely be the same. Jasper had been shot and left for dead by a member of his own family.

For years Sky had struggled to put his ugly childhood behind him. But there could be no denying who he was and where he’d come from—especially when pieces of his past kept resurfacing in the present.

After losing his mother, young Sky had gone to live with her brother’s family in Oklahoma. His aunt had descended from a long line of Comancheros—border bandits who’d dealt in guns, liquor, and slaves. Their lawless traits had filtered down through the generations. Smuggling, theft, forgery, grift, and abuse were a daily part of life in the Fletcher household. At fifteen, Sky had run away, his back scarred by blows from his uncle’s belt.