Give Him the Slip (14 page)

All in all, it was a damned fine time. The brothers laughed and
joked and verbally jabbed at one another as they enjoyed their meal, then
listened in companionable quiet to the satellite radio broadcast of an exciting
eighth inning between the Rangers and the Yankees. A balmy, easy sea breeze
kept the temperature comfortable, the boat rocking gently as the sun sank
toward the sea, painting the sky in swaths of vermillion and gold.

As the lower edge of the sun dipped below the watery horizon, Matt
reached over and switched off the radio. He cracked open a bottle of the
Macallan and poured four glasses. Then the three brothers stood shoulder to
shoulder, silent and somber, and watched until the last bit of light winked
out.

They tossed back their whisky, then each took a sip from the
fourth, Matt going last and polishing it off. He handed the empty glass to
Luke, who reared back and threw it as hard and as far as he could.

Luke exhaled a heavy sigh.

Matt muttered, "This sucks."

Mark murmured, "It doesn't get a damned bit easier, does
it?"

"Actually, it does," Luke said. "Having you here
this year makes it easier." Last year on the third anniversary of their
brother John's memorial service, Mark had been on a mission on the far side of
the world and unable to join Matt and Luke on their "family" day. He
hadn't been sure he'd be able to hang around this year until he got a call the
night before the
Miss Behavin' II
rendezvoused with the
Siren Song.

The tradition of getting together to make a stab at a family
holiday of sorts dated back to their fifth year away from Brazos Bend. That's
when John used his computer skills to track his siblings down and reunite them.
Unable to spend any traditional holidays together, they'd decided to designate
a summer weekend each year when they'd do their damnedest to show up. Over the
years they'd done a decent job of keeping the date. Assignments caused Luke to
miss twice, Mark three times. Matt made it every year, as had John, up until
his death. It'd been at his memorial service, the first and only time the
Callahan brothers returned to Brazos Bend, that the three surviving siblings
decided to hold their holiday that same time every year.

Their father specifically wasn't invited.

"With this day coming on top of Terry's funeral, I admit I
was dreading today," Luke added, throwing his own glass out into the gulf.
"But it turned out okay. Considering that it sucked."

Mark chucked his glass overboard. "Considering that."

Matt lobbed his after his brothers', then dropped a little bomb.
"Langley thinks they have a lead on Curković."

Mark and Luke both went as stiff as fence posts. About a year ago,
the CIA had identified Curković as the sick son of a bitch who'd ordered
John's kidnapping and subsequent murder. "Where?" Luke demanded.

"Pakistan."

"You in on this one, Matt?"

Matt scowled. "They're telling me no. The leg's still not
worth a damn. The bullet did more damage than I realized. I'm holding out hope,
but I suspect my bosses will try to make my Treasury Department job fact rather
than fiction."

Mark rubbed the back of his neck. "Who could I contact
to...?"

"Won't happen." Matt shook his head. "The politics
of this one make it dicey. This team will be strictly official."

Knucklehead emerged from the cabin where he'd been sleeping,
padded over to Luke, and plopped down beside him. Scratching the dog behind the
ears, Luke said, "Does the old man know?"

"Branch?" Matt asked. At his brother's nod, he shrugged.
"Honestly, I haven't a clue. I've been trying to figure out his source for
years."

"What does it matter if he knows or not?" Mark said with
a sneer. "He doesn't do a goddamned thing with his information, now, does
he?"

Mark didn't have to explain his remark. Matt and Luke knew just
what he was talking about. The ransom demand arrived by e-mail the same day
John was taken hostage. Rather than contact the son who was on the CIA's
payroll, or the son who at the time was working in military intelligence, or
even the one who hung with bad-ass South American drug dealers who could teach
political terrorists a trick or two, Branch Callahan called his inept
congressman for help.

Three weeks later, John was dead, and Matt, Mark, and Luke learned
about the debacle after the fact. The Callahan brothers had come to understand
and even accept their father's reasons for cutting them off financially after
the boot-factory fire. They'd been worthless, rich-kid a-holes who hadn't had a
clue about the real world until forced to deal with it on their own. They
wouldn't argue that by making them make it on their own, Branch had made men
out of all four of them.

However, they'd never forgive him for failing to turn to them, to
trust them, when it counted. They'd never forgive him for ignoring the men
they'd become, men who had the tools and connections to give John a fighting
chance.

Instead, he'd listened to a good-old-boy congressman from Odessa,
Texas, and John, the best of all of them, had paid the ultimate price.

"How about we change the subject," Luke suggested.
"If I have to think about Branch Callahan too much longer, I'm liable to
lose my dinner, and that fish was too good to waste."

His brothers shared a look and a shrug, then Mark said, "Fine
by me. I was hoping to take the conversation back to the girl, anyway. I've
been thinking about this all day. So which is it? Are those perky, plump boobs
of hers the real thing, or are they plastic?"

Luke recalled the feel of her breasts crushed against his chest.
He knew he was being a pig to answer the question, but these were his brothers,
after all, and they'd been talking about girls this way as long as he could
remember. "Oh, they're real."

"So you
did
sleep with her!"

"Nope." He gave a slow, wistful smile. "Came close,
but..."

"Close only counts in horseshoes," Matt observed.

"Tell me about it."

Mark shook his head and clicked his tongue as he reached down to
pet Knucklehead, whose tail thwapped against the fishing boat's deck. "My
sympathies, bro."

"She's that fine?" Matt asked.

The twin brothers shared a look, then both nodded.

"What about her legs?"

Mark considered. "Showgirl quality. Even better than her
boobs."

"Damn, boy." Matt shook his head at Luke. "What the
hell are you doing here with us?"

Luke frowned. It was one thing to give his brothers a hint of
Maddie's appeal, but another thing to discuss it in detail. He didn't like it.
Didn't like hearing them talk about her like, well, like guys.

This was something new for him.

Luke rubbed the back of his neck. In the past, he'd have given them
play-by-play from first base to home. This time he didn't want them knowing a
damn thing. He didn't want them thinking about Maddie that way. The woman
was... special. She was... his.

Well, hell.

"Hmm..." Matt scratched his whiskers. "Okay, then,
here's the deal breaker. What about her butt?"

"Her butt!" Luke exclaimed. "Now, hold on just a
damned minute."

"She's got a fine ass," Mark contributed helpfully.
"Nice and rounded but not too big. A good handful."

"Excellent." Matt sat back with a satisfied smile.
"Nice image to take to bed. My fantasy life has needed some new
material."

"You two peckerheads need to keep your dirty minds off of
Maddie Kincaid's... attributes."

"Why?" Mark asked, his expression full of innocence.
"You might have had first dibs, Luke, but you released her back into play.
She's a Brazos Bend girl, and you're not going back there. Remember?"

"Neither are you."

"I am," Matt piped up. "I plan to go back
regularly."

"The hell you say," Matt's brothers simultaneously
chimed.

Mark added, "What the hell for?"

"Business. I visited Brazos Bend just last week, in fact.
Under the old man's radar." While his brothers tried to wrap their minds
around that bit of betrayal, Matt dropped his second bombshell of the day.
"I bought land there."

"What!"

"Wait a minute." Luke held up his hand and gave his head
a shake. "Hold on just a bit. I know you enjoy jerking me and Mark around,
but how about you take this from the top? What have you done, Matt?"

For a few seconds, it was a toss-up whether he'd continue his
infuriating teasing or offer up the truth. Luke saw Matt's decision in the
gleam of his eyes, then heard it in his voice when he said, "I need a
home."

"In Brazos Bend?"

"Near Brazos Bend. I bought the Double R ranch. Les Warfield
and I are well on the way to establishing a vineyard and winery there."

The Double R ranch was owned by Randolph Rawlings, Branch's number
one rival back in the day. Their father hated Rawlings with a passion.
Positively despised him. They'd wrangled over oil leases and political races
and horseflesh, to name a few points of contention. As a rule, Branch came out
on top, but the one thing he couldn't win, couldn't wrestle away from Randolph
Rawlings, was the prettiest section of land in Palo Pinto County.

Mark laughed. "Holy shit, that'll drive the old man
crazy."

"Especially when he learns Randolph wouldn't sell it to me
until I signed a sworn affidavit that Branch Callahan wasn't allowed to step
foot on the property."

"I can't believe he'd sell it. Figured he'd keep it in the
family for his son."

"Austin inherited his wife's property along the Pedernales
when she died a few years back. Since his interests lie in politics and law
rather than land, he didn't care that his father kept this property. Honestly,
I doubt Randolph would have sold it to anyone but me. He did it just to chap
Branch's hide."

"I always liked old man Rawlings," Luke observed. Then
he grinned. "It's perfect, Matt. Suits you to a tee. A farmer."

"If I can't be a spy..."

Luke understood both the tone and the sentiment. "Hey, I'm
retired now, myself. If you need an extra pair of feet when it comes
grape-stomping time, I'm your man."

"So, you'll go back to Brazos Bend?"

"I'd go to your ranch. Hell, I'd have to see it for myself.
Matt Callahan's grape ranch."

Mark snorted at the term, then the three brothers spent some time
discussing Matt's plan for the vineyard, Luke's post-DEA plans, and Mark's
concerns about his upcoming assignment. Eventually, talk turned to recent
events in Brazos Bend and Ms. Maddie Kincaid.

"I wonder what got into Jerry Grevas," Mark mused.
"He never seemed the type to get into drugs."

Matt nodded. "I'll bet it hit Gus by surprise. Poor old guy.
He doted on that boy."

"I figure I'll give the Brazos Bend Police Department a call
in a week or so, see what, if anything, they'll tell me about the case,"
Luke said.

"Checking up on your woman?"

Luke opened his mouth to deny that Maddie was his anything, but
the words wouldn't quite come. He hated feeling this damned uncertain. "I
always follow up on my cases."

"You have a case all right." Mark smirked. "A case
on Baby Dagger."

Suddenly bored with the conversation, Luke ended it like he'd
begun it. He gave his brothers the middle-finger salute.

After landing at DFW Airport, Maddie took a cab to the Fort Worth
auto dealer where she'd left her van for mushroom detox. She breathed deeply of
the fresh, new-car smell and decided she'd have her car detailed more often.
She tossed her purse onto the passenger-side floorboard, belted Oscar—now back
in his fishbowl after making the plane trip from New York in a plastic bag
inside a small cooler—into the passenger seat, and set her cell phone and a
bottle of water in the console beside her, then headed west. She experienced a
deja vu moment when her phone rang before she'd cleared Fort Worth.

Again she debated. Again curiosity got the best of her. She picked
the phone up, checked the number. "Branch Callahan. Imagine that."

She had to give the man points for dogged determination. He worked
the redial button on his phone better than he did his TV remote.

"Well, you can just wait, Branch Callahan," she
murmured, checking the display of missed calls. Twenty-seven. The first screen
showed two different numbers. Branch's and Blade's. She dropped the phone back
onto the console without checking the numbers further. "You and my father,
too."

What was it about fathers? Did they all meddle like Branch and
Blade? Blade had pulled a number on her in New York. The big surprise he'd
promised her had turned out to be a big nightmare.

"Why would he think I'd possibly want anything to do with
Liam Murphy?" she asked Oscar. "He knows about Liam's IRA
connections. He knows the man stole from me, put me through hell. What in the
world made him think I'd be interested in picking up where we left off years
ago?"