McKettricks of Texas: Garrett (5 page)

Her voice fell away.

Garrett thrust out a sigh.
Would
he resign?

He wasn't sure. All he knew for certain right then was that he needed more of what his dad would have called range time—hours and hours on the back of a horse—in order to figure out what to do next.

In the meanwhile, though, Morgan and the barracuda were pinned down in a hotel suite in Austin, two hours away. The senator was obviously a loose cannon, and if he got desperate enough, he might make things even worse with some off-the-wall statement meant to appease the reporters lying in wait for him in the corridor.

“Garrett?” Nan prompted, when he didn't speak.

“I'm here,” he said.

“You've got to do something.”

Like what?
Garrett wondered. But it wasn't the sort of thing you said to Nan Cox, especially not when she was in her take-on-the-world mode. “I'll call his cell,” he told her.

“Good,” Nan said, and hung up hard.

Garrett winced slightly, then speed-dialed his boss.

“McKettrick?” Cox snapped. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” Garrett said.

“Where
the hell
are you?”

Garrett let the question pass. The senator wasn't asking for his actual whereabouts, after all. He was letting Garrett know he was pissed.

“You haven't spoken to the press, have you?” Garrett asked.

“No,” Cox said. “But they're all over the hotel—in the hallway outside our suite, and probably downstairs in the lobby—”

“Probably,” Garrett agreed quietly. “First thing, Senator. It is
very
important that you don't issue any statements or answer any questions before we have a chance to make plans. None at all. I'll get back to Austin as soon as I can, but in the meantime, you've got to stay put and speak to no one.” A pause. “Do you understand me, Senator?”

Cox's temper flared. “What do you mean, you'll get back to Austin as soon as you can? Dammit, Garrett, where are you?”

This time, Garrett figured, the man really wanted to know. Of course, that didn't mean he had to be told.

“That doesn't matter,” Garrett replied, his tone measured.

“If I didn't need your help so badly,” the senator shot back, “I'd fire you right now!”

If it hadn't been for Nan and the kids and the golden retrievers—hell, if it hadn't been for the people of Texas, who'd elected this man to the U.S. Senate three times—Garrett would have told Morgan Cox what he could do with the job.

“Sit tight,” he replied instead. “I'll call off the dogs and send Troy to pick you up. You're still going to need to lie low for a while, though.”

“I want
you
here, Garrett,” Cox all but exploded. “
You're
my right-hand man—Troy is just a driver.” Another pause followed, and then, “You're on that damn ranch, aren't you? You're two hours from Austin!”

Garrett had recently bought a small airplane, a Cessna he kept in the ramshackle hangar out on the ranch's private airstrip. He'd fire it up and fly back to the city.

“I'll be there right away,” Garrett said.

“Is there a next step?” Cox asked, mellowing out a little.

“Yes. I'm calling a press conference for this afternoon, Senator. You might want to be thinking about what you're going to tell your constituents.”

“I'll tell them the same thing I told the group last night,” Cox blustered, “that I've fallen in love.”

Garrett couldn't make himself answer that time.

“Are you still there?” Cox asked.

“Yes, sir,” Garrett replied, his voice gruff with the effort. “I'm still here.”

But damned if I know why.

 

H
ELEN
M
ARCUS DUCKED INTO
J
ULIE'S OFFICE
just as she was pulling a sandwich from her uneaten brown-bag lunch. Having spent her lunch hour grading compositions, she was ravenous.

At last, a chance to eat.

“Big news,” Helen chimed, rolling the TV set Julie used to play videos and DVDs for the drama club into the tiny office and switching it on. Helen was Julie's age, dark-haired, plump and happily married, and the two of them had grown up together. “There
is
a God!”

Puzzled, and with a headache beginning at the base of her skull, Julie frowned. “What are you talking—?”

Before she could finish the question, though, Garrett McKettrick's handsome face filled the screen. Commanding in a blue cotton shirt, without a coat or a tie, he sat behind a cluster of padded microphones, earnestly addressing a room full of reporters.

“That sum-bitch Morgan Cox is finally going to resign,” Helen crowed. “I feel it in my bones!”

While Julie shared Helen's low opinion of the senator—she actually mistrusted
all
politicians—she couldn't help
being struck by the expression in Garrett's eyes. The one he probably thought he was hiding.

Whatever the front he was putting on for the press, Garrett was stunned. Maybe even demoralized.

Julie watched and listened as the man she'd encountered in the ranch-house kitchen early that morning fielded questions—the senator, apparently, had elected to remain in the background.

Helen had been wrong about the resignation. Senator Cox was not prepared to step down, but he needed some “personal time” with his family, according to Garrett. Colleagues would cover for him in the meantime.

“So where's the pole dancer?” Helen demanded.

“Pole dancer?” Julie echoed.

Garrett, the senator and the reporters faded to black, and Helen switched off the TV. “The
pole dancer,
” she repeated. “Some blonde the senator picked up in a seedy girlie club. He wants to marry her—I saw it on the eleven o'clock news last night and again this morning.” The math teacher rolled her eyes. “It's
true love.
He and the bimbette have been together in other lives. And there's our own Garrett McKettrick, defending the man.” A sad shake of the head. “Jim and Sally raised those three boys of theirs right. Garrett ought to know better than to throw in with a crook like that.”

Just then, Rachel Strivens appeared in the doorway of Julie's office. “I'm sorry,” she said quickly, seeing that Julie wasn't alone, and started to leave.

“Wait,” Julie said.

Helen was already turning off the TV set, unplugging it, rolling it back out into the hallway on its noisy cart. If Helen had planned on staying to talk, she'd clearly changed her mind.

Blushing a little, Rachel slipped reluctantly into the room.

“Rachel,” Julie said quietly, “sit down, please.”

Rachel sat.

“What is it?” Julie finally asked, though of course she knew. She'd announced the suspension of plans to produce the showcase—it was only temporary, she'd insisted, she'd think of something—in all her English classes that day.

Rachel looked up, her brown eyes glistening with tears. “I just wanted to let you know that it's okay, about the showcase probably not happening and everything,” she said. The girl made a visible effort to gather herself up, straightening her shoulders, raising her chin. “I can't do any extracurricular activities anyway—Dad says I need to start working after school, so I can help out with the bills. His friend Dennis manages the bowling alley, and with the fall leagues starting up, they can use some extra people.”

Julie took a moment to absorb all the implications of that.

Rachel hadn't said she wanted to save for college, or buy clothes or a car or a laptop, like most teenagers in search of employment. She'd said she had to “help out with the bills.”

She wasn't planning to
go
to college.

“I understand,” Julie said, at some length, wishing she didn't.

Rachel bit her lower lip, threw her long braid back over one shoulder. “Dad tries,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Everything is so hard, without my mom around anymore.”

Julie nodded, holding back tears. In five years, in ten years, in twenty, Rachel might still be working at the bowling alley—if she had a job at all. Julie had seen the phenomenon half a dozen times. “I'm sure that's true,” she said.

Rachel was on her feet. Ready to go.

Julie leaned forward in her chair. “Have you actually
been hired, Rachel, or is the job at the bowling alley just a possibility?”

Rachel stood on the threshold, poised to flee, but clearly wanting to stay. “It's pretty definite,” she answered. “I just have to say yes, and it's mine.”

Things like this happened, Julie reminded herself. The world was an imperfect place.

Kids tabled their dreams, thinking they'd get back to them later.

Except that they so rarely did, in Julie's experience. One thing led to another. They met somebody and got married. Then there were children and rent to pay and car loans.

Rachel was so bright and talented, and she was standing at an important crossroads. In one direction lay a fine education and every hope of success. In the other…

The prospects made Julie want to cover her face with her hands.

After Rachel had gone, she sat very still for a long time, wondering what she could do to help.

Only one course of action came to mind, and that was probably a long shot.

She would speak to Rachel's father.

T
ATE WAS WAITING AT THE AIRSTRIP
in his truck when Garrett landed the Cessna around five that afternoon.

Garrett taxied to a stop outside the ramshackle hangar that had once housed his dad's plane and shut off the engines. The blur of the props slowed until the paddles were visible.

He climbed down, shut the door behind him and walked toward his brother.

They met midway between the Cessna and Tate's truck.

Obviously, Tate had heard about the scandal in Austin by then, and Garrett figured he was there to say, “I told you so.”

Instead, Tate reached out, rested a hand on Garrett's shoulder. “You okay?”

Garrett didn't know what to say then. Flying back from the capital, he'd rehearsed another scenario entirely—and that one hadn't involved the sympathy and concern he saw in his brother's eyes.

He nodded, though he couldn't resist qualifying that with “I've been better.”

Tate let his hand fall back to his side. Folded his arms. “I caught the press conference on TV,” he said. “Cox isn't planning to resign?”

Garrett sighed, shoved a hand through his hair. “He
will,” he said sadly. “Right now, he's still trying to convince himself that the hullabaloo will blow over and everything will get back to normal.”

“How's Nan taking all this?”

“She's holding up okay,” Garrett said. “As far as I can tell, anyway.”

Tate took that in. His expression was thoughtful. “Now what?” he asked, after a few moments had passed. “For you, I mean?”

“I catch my breath and look for another job,” Garrett replied.

“You quit?” Tate asked, sounding surprised. If there was one thing a McKettrick didn't do, it was desert a sinking ship. Unless, of course, that ship had been commandeered by one of the rats.

Garrett grinned wanly. Spread his hands at his side. “I was fired,” he said.

Now there, he thought, was a first. In living memory, he knew of no McKettrick who had ever been fired from a job. On the other hand, most of them worked for themselves, and that had been the case for generations.

The look on Tate's face would have been satisfying, under any other circumstances.
“What?”

Garrett chuckled. Okay, so his brother's surprise
was
sort of satisfying, circumstances notwithstanding. It made up for Garrett's skinned pride, at least a little. “The senator and I had words,” he said. “He wanted to go on as if nothing had happened. I told him that wouldn't work—he needed to fess up, stand by his wife and his kids, if he wanted to come out of this with any credibility at all, never mind holding on to his seat in the Senate. I agreed to handle the press conference because Nan prac
tically begged me, but when it was over, the senator informed me that my services were no longer needed.” Still enjoying Tate's bewilderment, Garrett started toward the Cessna he'd just climbed out of, intending to roll it into the hangar. He stopped, looked back over one shoulder. “You wouldn't be in the market for a ranch hand, would you?”

Tate smiled, but there was a tinge of sadness to it. “Permanent or temporary?”

“Temporary,” Garrett said, after a moment of recovery. “I still want to work in government. And I've already had a couple of offers.”

Tate's disappointment was visible in his face, though he was a good sport about it. “Okay,” he said. “How long is ‘temporary'?”

Garrett wasn't sure how to answer that. He needed time—thinking time. Horse time. “As long as it takes,” he offered.

Tate put out a hand so they could shake on the agreement, nebulous as it was. “Fair enough,” he said.

Garrett nodded, watched as Tate turned to walk away, open the door of his truck and step up on the running board to climb behind the wheel.

“See you in the morning,” Tate called.

Garrett grinned, feeling strangely hopeful, as if he were on the brink of something he'd been born to do.

But that was crazy, of course.

He was a born politician. He belonged in Austin, if not Washington. He wanted to be a mover and a shaker, part of the solution. Working on the Silver Spur was only a stopgap measure, just as he'd told Tate.

“What time?” he called back, standing next to the Cessna.

Tate's grin flashed. “We've got five hundred head of
cattle to move tomorrow,” he said. “We're starting at dawn, so be saddled up and ready to ride.”

Garrett didn't let his own grin falter, though on the inside he groaned. He nodded, waved and turned away.

 

I
F
R
ON
S
TRIVENS
, R
ACHEL'S FATHER
, carried a cell phone, the number wasn't on record in the school office, and since Strivens did odd jobs, he didn't work in the same place every day, like most of her students' parents. In the end, Julie drove to the trailer he rented just across the dirt road from Chudley and Minnie Wilkes's junkyard, and found him there, chopping firewood in the twilight.

Seeing Julie, the tall, rangy man lodged the blade of his ax in the chopping block and started toward her.

Julie sized him up as he approached. He wore old jeans, beat-up work boots and a plaid flannel shirt, unbuttoned to reveal a faded T-shirt beneath. His reddish-brown hair was too long and thinning above his forehead, and the expression in his eyes was one of weary resignation.

“I'm Julie Remington,” Julie told him, after rolling down the car window. “Rachel is in my English class.”

Strivens nodded, keeping his distance. Behind him loomed the battered trailer. Smoke curled from a rusty stovepipe, gray against a darkening sky, and Julie thought she saw Rachel's face appear briefly at one of the windows.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Remington?” he asked, shyly polite.

Julie felt her throat tighten. Money had certainly been in short supply while she was growing up, and the family home was nothing fancy, but she and her sisters had never done without anything they really needed.

“I was hoping we could talk about Rachel,” she said.

Strivens glanced back toward the trailer. The metal was rusting, and even curling away from the frame in places, and the chimney rose from the roof of a ramshackle add-on, more like a lean-to than a room. “I'd ask you in,” he told her, “but the kids are about to have their supper, and I don't think the soup will stretch far enough to feed another person.”

Julie ached for Rachel, for her brothers, for all of them. “I'm in sort of a hurry anyway,” she said, and that was true. She still had to pick Calvin up at Libby and Tate's place, and then there would be supper and his bath and a bedtime story. “Rachel tells me she's taking on an after-school job.”

Strivens reddened a little, nodded once, abruptly. He'd been stooping to look in at Julie through the window, but now he took a couple of steps back and straightened. “I'm right sorry she has to do that,” he said, “but the fact is, we're having a hard time making ends meet around here. The boys are always needing something, and there's rent and food and all the rest.”

Julie's heart sank. What had she expected—that Rachel's father would say it was all a big misunderstanding and what had he been thinking, asking a mere child to help support the family?

“Rachel is a very special young woman, Mr. Strivens. She's definitely college material. Her grades aren't terrific, though, and she's going to have even less time to study once she's working.”

Pain flashed in his eyes, temper climbed, red, up his neck to pulse in the stubble covering his cheeks and chin. “You think I don't know that, Miss Remington? You think I wouldn't like for my daughter, for
all three
of my kids, to have a nice place to live and clothes that didn't come from somebody's ragbag and a chance to go on to college?”

“I didn't mean—”

Strivens glanced toward the trailer again. Softened slightly. “I know,” he said, sounding so tired and sad that the backs of Julie's eyes scalded. “I know your intentions are good. We've come on some hard times, my family and me, but we're still—” he choked up, swallowed and went on “—we're still a family. We'll get by somehow, but only if we all do our part.”

Avoiding Strivens's eyes, Julie opened the little memo book with its miniature pencil looped through the top and scrawled her cell and school numbers onto a page, then handed it out the window. “If there's anything I can do to help,” she said, “please call me.”

Strivens took the piece of paper, stared down at it for a long moment, then turned away from Julie, shoving it into his coat pocket as he did so. Prying the ax out of the chopping block, he silently went back to work.

Half an hour later, when Julie pulled into one of the bays of the McKettricks' multicar garage, it was already dark. The door had barely rolled down behind her before Calvin was scrambling out of his car seat to dash inside the house.

It would have been impossible not to note the contrasts between the mansion on the Silver Spur and the single-wide trailer where Rachel lived with her father and brothers.

Feeling twice her real age, Julie got out, reached into the backseat for her purse and the quilted tote bag she used as a briefcase. Harry, the beagle, could be heard barking a joyous welcome inside the house, and that made her smile.

The kitchen was warm and brightly lit, and fragrant with something savory Esperanza was making for supper.

Hungry and tired, Julie felt a rush of gratitude, smiling her thanks at the other woman as she stepped around
Calvin and the dog to carry her things into the guest quarters in back.

After getting out of her skirt and sweater and putting on jeans and a long-sleeved royal-blue T-shirt, Julie washed her face and hands in the guest bath and returned to the kitchen to help Esperanza.

“How many places shall I set?” Julie asked, pausing in front of a set of glass-fronted cupboards. The number varied—sometimes, it was just Esperanza, Calvin and herself, but Tate and Libby and the twins often joined them for supper, even on weeknights, and it wasn't uncommon for a couple of ranch hands to share in the meal as well.

Esperanza turned from the stove, where she was stirring red sauce in a giant copper skillet. “Four of us tonight,” she answered. “Garrett's back, you know.”

Julie smiled. “Yes,” she said, knowing how Esperanza loved it when any of her “boys” were around to cook for, fuss over and generally spoil.

Calvin, meanwhile, continued to wrestle with Harry.

“Go wash up,” Julie told her son. “And don't leave your coat and your backpack lying around, either.”

Calvin gave her a long-suffering look, sighed and got to his feet. He and Harry disappeared into the guest quarters.

Julie had just finished setting the table when she felt the prickle of a thrill at her nape and turned to see Garrett standing in the kitchen. He looked more like a cowboy than a politician, Julie thought, wearing jeans and old boots and a cotton shirt the color of his eyes.

Grinning, he rolled up his sleeves, revealing a pair of muscular forearms.

“Well,” he said, in that soft, slow drawl of his, “howdy all over again.”

Julie, oddly stricken, blinked. “Howdy,” she croaked, froglike.

Esperanza, about to set a platter of enchiladas on the table, chuckled.

“Where is el niño?” she asked, looking around for Calvin.

“I'll get him,” Julie said, too quickly, dashing out of the room.

When she got back, Calvin in tow, Esperanza was at the table, in her usual place, while Garrett stood leaning against one of the counters, evidently waiting.

Only when Julie was seated, Calvin on the bench beside her, did Garrett pull back the chair at the head of the table and sit.

Everybody bowed their heads, and Esperanza offered thanks.

Calvin had probably been peeking at Garrett through his eyelashes throughout the brief prayer, though Julie could only speculate. Grace seemed particularly appropriate that night.

The Strivens family was having soup. And not enough of it, apparently.

“Aunt Libby had the news on when Audrey and Ava and I got home from school today,” Calvin told Garrett. “I saw you on TV!”

Garrett grinned at that, though Julie caught the briefest glimpse of weariness in his eyes. “All in a day's work,” he replied easily.

Esperanza gave him a sympathetic glance.

“Tate says the senator ought to be lynched,” Calvin went on cheerfully, his chin and one cheek already smudged with enchilada sauce.

Julie handed him a paper napkin, watched as he bunched
it into a wad, dabbed at his face and wiped away only part of the sauce.

Garrett's grin slipped a little, Julie thought, and a glance at Esperanza revealed the other woman's quiet concern.

“Is that right?” Garrett responded, very slowly. “Tate said that?”

Calvin nodded, thrilled to be carrying tales. “He didn't know I heard what he said,” the little boy explained, “but when Aunt Libby poked him with her elbow, he almost choked on his coffee.” A pause. “That was funny.”

Garrett chuckled. “I suppose it was,” he agreed.

“What's ‘lynched'?” Calvin persisted, gazing up at Julie. “Aunt Libby wouldn't tell me when I asked her. She said I'd have to ask you, Mom.”

Thanks a lot, sis,
Julie thought wryly. “Never mind,” she said. “We're eating.”

“Is it something yucky, then?”

“Yes.”

“Will it give me bad dreams?”

“Maybe,” Julie said.

Again, Garrett chuckled. “How old are you, buddy?” he asked, watching the child.

“Almost five,” Calvin answered, proudly. “That's how come they finally let me into kindergarten. Because I'm almost five.”

Garrett gave a low, exclamatory whistle. “I'd have sworn you were fifty-two,” he said, “and short for your age.”