Garrett Read online

  Garrett closed his eyes, refrained from pointing out that he wasn’t a bellman, or a room service waiter. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Fifteen minutes later, he and Troy descended together, in yet another service elevator. For a black man, Troy looked pale.

  “Is he serious?” Troy asked.

  Garrett sighed deeply, looking up and watching the digital numbers over the doors as they plunged. His tie was dangling; he tugged it loose from his shirt collar and stuffed it into the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. “It would seem so,” he said.

  “Mrs. Cox says the senator is having a mental breakdown, and we all have to stick by him,” Troy said glumly, shaking his head. “She’s sure he’ll come to his senses and everything will be fine.”

  “Right,” Garrett said, grimly distracted. He’d sprint around to the side parking lot once he and Troy were outside, climb into his Porsche, and head for home. In two hours, he could be back on the Silver Spur.

  They were standing in the alley again when Troy asked, “Why do I get the feeling that this comes as a surprise to you?”

  The question threw Garrett, at least momentarily, and he didn’t answer.

  Troy thumbed the fob on his key ring, and the sedan started up. “Get in, and I’ll give you a lift to your car,” he told Garrett, with a sigh.

  Garrett got into the sedan. “You knew about Mandy and the senator?” he asked.

  Troy shook his head again and gave a raspy chuckle. “Hell, Garrett,” he said, “I drive the man’s car. He’s been seeing her for months.”

  Garrett closed his eyes. Tate had accused him once of having his head up his ass, as far as the senator’s true nature was concerned. And he’d defended Morgan Cox, been ready to fight his own brother to defend the bastard’s honor.

  “What about Nan? Did she know, too?” Remembering the expression on her face earlier, in the ballroom, Garrett didn’t think so.

  “Maybe,” Troy said. “She didn’t hear it from me, though.”

  He drew the sedan to a stop behind Garrett’s Porsche. News vans were pulling out on the other end of the lot, along with a stream of ordinary cars.

  Film clips and sound bites were probably already running on the local channels.

  Turn out the lights, Garrett thought dismally. The party’s over.

  The senator not only wouldn’t be getting the presidential nomination, he’d be lucky if he wasn’t forced to resign before he’d finished his current term in office.

  All of which left Garrett himself up Shit’s Creek, without a paddle.

  He got out of the sedan and said goodnight to Troy.

  After his friend had driven away, Garrett climbed into the Porsche.

  He made a brief stop at his town house, swapping the formal duds for jeans, a Western shirt and old boots. Once he’d changed, he could breathe a little better.

  Returning to the kitchen, he turned on the countertop TV, flipping between the networks, watching in despair as one station after another showed Senator Cox and Mandy slipping out of the ballroom, arm in arm.

  Deciding he’d seen enough, Garrett turned off the set.

  NOW, NEARLY TWO HOURS LATER, only about a mile outside of Blue River, Garrett sped on toward home, the word fool drumming in his brain. He was stone sober, though a part of him wished he were otherwise, when the dazzle of red and blue lights splashed across his rearview mirror.

  Garrett swore under his breath, downshifted—Fifth to Fourth to Third to Second, finally rolling to a stop at the side of the road. There, without shutting off the ignition, he waited.

  He buzzed down the passenger-side window just as Brent Brogan, chief of police, was about to rap on the glass with his knuckles.

  “Are out of your freakin’ mind?” his brother’s best friend demanded, bending to peer through the opening. Brogan’s badge caught a flash of moonlight. “I clocked you at almost one-twenty back there!”

  Garrett tensed his hands on the steering wheel, relaxed them without releasing his hold. “Sorry,” he said, gazing straight ahead, through the bug-splattered windshield, instead of meeting Brogan’s gaze. Tate had dubbed the chief “Denzel,” since he resembled the actor’s younger self, and used the nickname freely, especially when the moment called for a little lightening up—but Garrett wasn’t on such easy terms with Brent Brogan as his brother was.

  “You’re sorry?” Brogan asked, in a mocking drawl. “Well, that’s another matter, then. Garrett McKettrick is sorry. That just makes all the difference in the world, and pardon me for pulling you over before you killed yourself or somebody else.”

  Garrett thrust out a sigh. “Write the ticket,” he said.

  “I ought to arrest you,” Brogan said, and he sounded like he was musing on the possibility, giving it real consideration. “That’s what I ought to do. Throw your ass in jail.”

  “Fine,” Garrett said, resigned. “Throw me in jail.”

  Brent opened the passenger door and folded himself into the seat, keeping his right leg outside the car. He was a big man, taller than Garrett and broader through the shoulders, and that made the quarters feel a mite too close. “There’s no elbow room in this rig,” Brogan remarked. “Why don’t you get yourself a truck?”

  Garrett gave a harsh guffaw, with no humor in it. Shoved his right hand through his hair and waited, too stubborn to answer.

  It was the chief’s turn to sigh. “Look, Garrett,” he said, “I know you—you’re not drinking and you’re not high. Of all the people I might have pulled over tonight, shooting along this road like a bullet headed for the bull’s-eye, you’ve got more reason to know better than most.”

  The old ache rose inside Garrett, lodged in his throat.

  He closed his eyes, trying to block the images, but he couldn’t. He heard the screech of tires grabbing at asphalt, the grinding crash of metal careening into metal, even the ludicrously musical splintering of glass. He hadn’t been there the night his mom and dad were killed in a horrendous collision with an out-of-control semi, but the sounds and the pictures in his mind were so vivid, he might as well have been.

  For the millionth time since the accident, a full decade in the past now, Garrett tried to come to terms with the loss of his parents. For the millionth time, it didn’t happen.

  What would he have given to have them both waiting at the ranch house, just like in the old days?

  Just about anything.

  “You fixing to tell me what’s the matter?” Brogan asked, when a long time had passed. “I’m on duty until eight o’clock tomorrow morning, when Deputy Osburt relieves me. I can sit here and wait till hell freezes over and till the cows come home, if that’s what I have to do.”

  Garrett assessed the situation. Dawn was hours away. The September darkness was weighted with heat, and with Brogan holding the Porsche’s door open like that, the air-conditioning system was of negligible value. He tightened his fingers around the steering wheel again, hard enough to make his knuckles ache.

  “I had a bad day, that’s all,” he said. And a worse night.

  Brogan laid a hand on his shoulder. “You headed for the Silver Spur?”

  Garrett nodded, swallowed. He could feel the pull of home, deep inside; he was drawn to it.

  “I’m going to follow you as far as the main gate,” Brogan said, after more pondering. “Make sure you get home in one piece.”

  Garrett looked at him. “Thanks,” he said, without much inflection.

  Brogan got out of the Porsche, shut the door, bent to look through the open window again. “Meantime, keep your foot light on the pedal,” he warned. “About the last thing on this earth I want to do right now is roust your big brother from his bed and break the news that you just wrapped yourself around a telephone pole.”

  Tate was only a year older than he was, Garrett reflected, and they were about the same height and weight. So why did “big” have to preface “brother”? He was pretty sure nobody referred to him as Austin’s “big brother,” though he had a yea
r on the youngest member of the family, along with a couple of inches and a good twenty pounds.

  Garrett waited until Brogan was back in his cruiser before pulling back out onto the highway. The town of Blue River slept just up ahead; the streetlights tripped on, one by one, as he passed beneath them.

  At this time of night, even the bars were closed.

  As Garrett drove, with his one-man police escort trailing behind him, he thought about Tate, probably spooned up with his pretty fiancée, Libby Remington, in the modest house by the bend in the creek, and felt a brief but bitter stab of envy.

  They were happy, those two. So crazy in love that the air around them seemed to buzz with pheromones. Tate and Libby were planning the mother of all weddings for New Year’s Eve, following that up with a honeymoon cruise in the Greek Islands. The sooner they could give Tate’s six-year-old twin daughters, Audrey and Ava, a baby brother or sister, they figured, the better.

  Garrett calculated he’d be an uncle again about nine months and five minutes after the wedding ceremony was over.

  The thought made him smile, in spite of everything.

  The countryside slipped by.

  At the main gates opening onto the Silver Spur, Brogan flashed his headlights once, turned the cruiser back toward town and drove off.

  Pushing a button on his dashboard, Garrett watched as the tall iron gates, emblazoned with the name McKettrick, swung open to admit him.

  Home, he reflected, as he drove through and up the long driveway leading toward the house. The place where they have to take you in.

  HOW DID ANYBODY MANAGE to sleep in this huge place? Julie Remington wondered, as she flipped on the lights in the daunting kitchen of the main ranch house on the Silver Spur Ranch. She and her four-going-on-five-year-old son, Calvin, along with their beagle, Harry, had been staying in the first-floor guest suite for nearly a week because there were termites at their rented cottage in town and the whole structure was under a tent.

  Taking her private stash of herbal tea bags from a cupboard, along with a mug one of her high school drama students had given her for Christmas the year before, Julie set about brewing herself a cup of chamomile tea.

  Coffee would probably have made more sense, she thought, pumping hot water from the special spigot by the largest of several sinks, since it would be morning soon, but she still had hopes of catching a few winks before the day began in earnest.

  She had just turned, cup in hand, planning to head back to bed, when the door leading into the garage suddenly opened.

  Julie nearly spilled the tea down the front of her ratty purple quilted bathrobe, she was so startled.

  Garrett McKettrick paused just over the threshold, and she knew by the pensive look in his eyes that he was wondering what she was doing in his kitchen.

  She was unprepared for the grin breaking over his handsome face, dispelling the strain she’d glimpsed there only a moment before.

  “Hey,” he said, shutting the door behind him, tossing a set of keys onto a granite countertop.

  “Hey,” Julie said back, wondering if he’d remembered her yet. She crossed the room, put out her free hand for him to shake. “Julie Remington,” she reminded him.

  He laughed. “I know who you are,” he replied. “We grew up together, remember? Not to mention a more recent encounter at Pablo Ruiz’s funeral.”

  A trained actress, Julie was playing the part of a woman who didn’t feel self-conscious standing in someone else’s kitchen in the middle of the night, drinking tea and wearing an old bathrobe. Or trying to play the part, anyhow.

  It was proving difficult to carry off. Especially after she blew her next line. “I just thought—with all the people you must know—”

  All the women you must know…

  Garrett’s eyes were that legendary shade of McKettrick blue, a combination of summer sky, new denim and corn-flower, and solemn as they regarded her.

  Julie’s heart took up a thrumming rhythm. “I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here,” she prattled on.

  What was wrong with her? It wasn’t as if she’d been caught breaking and entering, after all. Tate had practically insisted that she and Calvin move into the mansion, instead of taking a motel room or making some other arrangement, while the cottage was being pumped full of noxious chemicals.

  One corner of Garrett’s mouth tilted up in a grin, and he walked over to the first of a row of built-in refrigerators, pulled open the door and assessed the contents.

  “Actually,” he said, without turning around, “I wasn’t wondering that at all.”

  Julie, who was not easily rattled, blushed. “Oh.”

  He plundered the refrigerator for a while.

  “Well,” Julie said, too brightly, “good night, then.”

  Holding a storage container full of Julie’s special chicken lasagna, left over from supper, Garrett faced her, shouldering the refrigerator door shut in the same motion. “Or good morning,” he said, “depending on your viewpoint.”

  “It’s barely four,” Julie remarked.

  Garrett stuck the container into the microwave, pushed a few buttons.

  “Don’t!” Julie cried, rushing past him to rescue the dish. “This kind of plastic melts if you nuke it—”

  He arched an eyebrow. “I’ll be damned,” he said. Then, while Julie busied herself transferring the contents of the container onto a microwave-safe plate, he added, “Are your eyes really lavender, or am I seeing things?”

  The question flustered Julie. “It’s the bathrobe,” she said, as the microwave whirred away, heating up the lasagna.

  “The bathrobe?” Garrett asked, sounding confused. He was standing in Julie’s space; she knew that even though she couldn’t bring herself to look directly at him again, which was stupid, because just as he’d said, Blue River was home to both of them. They’d gone to the same schools and the same church growing up. And with their siblings engaged, they were practically family.

  Julie, who never blushed, blushed again, and so hard that her cheeks burned. She was really losing it, she decided.

  “My—my eyes are actually hazel,” she said, “and they take on the color of whatever I’m wearing. And since the bathrobe is purple—”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Julie bit down on her lower lip. Why couldn’t she just shut up?

  Mercifully, Garrett didn’t comment. He just stood there at the counter, waiting for the microwave to finish warming up the leftover lasagna.

  “Mom?” Calvin padded into the kitchen, blinking owlishly behind the lenses of his glasses. He wore cotton pajamas and his feet were bare. “Is it time to get up? It’s still dark outside, isn’t it?”

  Julie felt the usual rush of motherly love, and an under-current of fear as well. Recently, Calvin’s biological father had been making overtures about “reconnecting” with their son and, although he’d paid child support all along, Gordon Pruett was a total stranger to the boy.

  “Go back to bed, sweetheart,” she said gently. “You don’t have to get up yet.”

  The dog, Harry, appeared at Calvin’s side. The adopted beagle was surprisingly nimble, although he’d been born one leg short of the requisite four.

  Calvin’s attention shifted to Garrett, who was just sitting down at the table, the plate of lasagna in front of him.

  “Hello,” Calvin said.

  Harry began to wag his tail, though Julie figured the dog was at least as interested in the Italian casserole as he was in Garrett, if not more so.

  “Hey,” Garrett responded.

  “You’re Audrey and Ava’s uncle, aren’t you?” Calvin asked. “The one who gave them a real castle for their birthday?”

  Garrett chuckled. Jabbed a fork into the food. “Yep, that’s me.”

  “It’s at the community center now,” Calvin said, drawing a little closer, not to his mother, but to Garrett. “The castle, I mean.”

  “Probably a good place for it,” Garrett said. “You want
some of this pasta stuff? It’s pretty good.”

  Unaccountably, Julie bristled. Pasta stuff? Pretty good? It was an original recipe, and she’d won a prize for it at the state fair the year before.

  Calvin reached the table, hauled back a chair and scrambled into it. With a jab of his right index finger, he pushed his glasses back up his nose. His blond hair stuck out in myriad directions, and his expression was so earnest as he studied Garrett that Julie’s heart ached a little. “No, thanks,” the little boy said solemnly. “We had it for supper and, anyway, Mom makes it all the time.”

  Garrett looked up at Julie, smiled slightly and turned his full attention back to Calvin. “Your mom’s a good cook,” he said.

  Harry advanced and brushed up against Garrett, leaving white beagle hairs all over the leg of his jeans. Garrett chuckled and greeted Harry with a pat on the head and a quiet “Hey, dog.”

  “Calvin,” Julie interceded, “we should get back to bed and leave Mr. McKettrick to enjoy his…breakfast.”

  Garrett’s eyes, though weary, seemed to dance when he looked up at Julie. “‘Mr. McKettrick’?” he echoed. His gaze swung back to Calvin. “Do you call my brother Tate ‘Mr. McKettrick’?” he asked.

  Calvin shook his head. “I call him Tate. He’s going to marry my aunt Libby on New Year’s Eve, and he’ll be my uncle after that.”

  A nod from Garrett. “I guess he will. I will be, too, sort of. So maybe you ought to call me Garrett.”

  The child beamed. “I’m Calvin,” he said, “and this is my dog, Harry.”

  And he put out his little hand, much as Julie had done earlier.

  They shook on the introduction, man and boy.

  “Mighty glad to meet the both of you,” Garrett said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE COMBINATION OF A FIERCELY BLUE autumn sky, oak leaves turning to bright yellow in the trees edging the sun-dappled creek and the heart-piercing love she felt for her little boy made Julie ache over the bittersweet perfection of the present moment.