Читать книгу McKettricks of Texas: Garrett - Linda Miller Lael - Страница 8

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

She turned the pink Cadillac onto the winding dirt road leading to the old Ruiz house, where Tate and Libby and Tate’s twin daughters were living, and glanced into the rearview mirror.

Calvin sat stoically in his car seat in back, staring out the window.

Since Julie had to be at work at Blue River High School a full hour before Calvin’s kindergarten class began, she’d been dropping him off at Libby’s on her way to town over the week they’d been staying on the Silver Spur. He adored his aunt, and Tate, and Tate’s girls, Audrey and Ava, who were two years older than Calvin and thus, in his opinion, sophisticated women of the world. Today, though, he was just too quiet.

“Everything okay, buddy?” Julie asked, tooting the Caddie’s horn in greeting as her sister Libby appeared on the front porch of the house she and Tate were renovating and started down the steps.

“I guess we’ll have to move back to town when the bugs are gone from our cottage and they take down the tent,” he said. “We won’t get to live in the country anymore.”

“That was always the plan,” Julie reminded her son gently. “That we’d go back to the cottage when it’s safe.” Recently, she’d considered offering to buy the small but charming house she’d been renting from month to month since Calvin was a baby and making it their permanent home. Thanks to a windfall, she had the means, but this morning the idea lacked its usual appeal.

Calvin suffered from intermittent asthma attacks, though he hadn’t had an incident for a long time. Suppose some vestige of the toxins used to eliminate termites lingered after the tenting process was finished, and damaged his health—or her own—in some insidious way?

While Julie was trying to shake off that semiparanoid idea, Libby started across the grassy lawn toward the car, grinning and waving one hand in welcome. She wore jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt and white sneakers, and she’d clipped her shiny light-brown hair up on top of her head.

A year older than Julie, Libby had always been strikingly pretty, but since she and Tate McKettrick, her onetime high school sweetheart, had rediscovered each other just that summer, she’d been downright beautiful. Libby glowed, incandescent with love and from being thoroughly loved in return.

Julie pushed the button to lower the back window on the other side of the car, smiling with genuine affection for her sister even as she felt a brief but poignant stab of stark jealousy.

What would it be like to be loved—no, cherished—by a full-grown, committed man like Tate? It was an experience Julie had long-since given up on, for herself, anyway. She was independent and capable, and of course she had no desire to be otherwise, but it would have been nice, once in a while, not to have to be strong every minute of every day and night, not to blaze all the trails and fight all the dragons.

Libby gave Julie a glance before she leaned through the back window to plant a smacking welcome kiss on Calvin’s forehead.

“‘Good morning, Aunt Libby,’” she coached cheerfully, when Calvin didn’t speak to her to right away.

“Good morning, Aunt Libby,” Calvin repeated, with a reluctant giggle.

“He’s a little moody this morning,” Julie said.

“I’m not moody,” Calvin argued, climbing out of the car to stand beside Libby on the gravel driveway, then reaching inside for his backpack. “I just want to live on a ranch, that’s all. I want to have my very own horse, like Audrey and Ava do. Is that too much to ask?”

Julie sighed. “Well, yeah, Calvin, it kind of is too much to ask.”

Calvin didn’t say anything more; he merely shook his head and, lugging his backpack, headed off toward the house, his small shoulders stooped.

“What was that all about?” Libby asked, moving around to Julie’s side of the car and bending to look in at her.

Julie genuinely didn’t have time for a long discussion, but she had always confided in Libby, and now it was virtually automatic, especially when she was upset.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have let you and Tate talk me into staying on the Silver Spur,” she fretted. “It’s only been a week, but Calvin’s already too used to living like a McKettrick—riding horses, swimming in that indoor pool, watching movies in a media room, for heaven’s sake. I can’t give him that kind of life, Libby. I’m not even sure I’d want to if I could. What if he’s getting spoiled?”

Libby raised an eyebrow. “Take a breath, Jules,” she said. “You’re dramatizing a little, don’t you think? Calvin is a good kid, and it would take a lot more than a week or two of high living at the ranch to spoil him. Both of you are under extra stress—Calvin just started kindergarten, and you’re back to teaching full-time, with your house under a tent because of termites—and then there’s the whole Gordon thing….” Libby stopped talking, reached through the window to squeeze Julie’s shoulder. “The point is—things will even out pretty soon. Just give it time.”

Julie worked up a smile, tapped at the face of her watch with one index finger. Easy for you to say, she thought, but what she said out loud was, “Gotta go.”

Libby nodded and stepped away from the car, raised a hand in farewell. She seemed reluctant to let Julie go, and a worried expression flickered in her blue eyes as she watched her back up, turn around and drive off.

Libby had done her little-girl best to stand in after their mother had abandoned the family years before. She’d given up finishing college and arguably a lot more besides when their dad, Will Remington, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Libby had moved back to Blue River, started the Perk Up Coffee Shop—now reduced to a vacant lot across the alley from the house they’d all grown up in—and looked after their father as his illness progressed.

Of course, Julie had helped with his care as much as possible and so had Paige, but just the same, most of the hard stuff had fallen to Libby. Sure, she was the eldest, but the age difference was minor—they’d been born one right after the other, three children in three years. The truth was, Libby had been willing to make sacrifices Julie and Paige couldn’t have managed at the time.

Julie bit down on her lower lip as the town limits came into view, and she began reducing her speed. Their mother, Marva, had reappeared in Blue River months ago, moved into an apartment, and tried, in her own way, to establish some kind of relationship with her daughters. The results had been less than fabulous.

At first, Libby, Julie and Paige had resisted the woman’s every overture, but even after deserting them when they were small, breaking their hearts and their father’s as well, Marva was blithely convinced that a fresh start was just a matter of letting bygones be bygones.

In time, Julie and Paige had both warmed up to Marva somewhat, Libby less so.

The Cadillac bumped over potholes in the gravel parking lot behind Blue River High. The long, low-slung stucco building had grown up on the site of an old Spanish mission, though only a small part of the original structure remained, serving as a center courtyard. Classrooms, a small cafeteria and a gymnasium had been added over the decades, and during an oil boom in the mid-1930s, Clay McKettrick II, known as JR in that time-honored Southern way of denoting “juniors,” had financed the construction of the auditorium, with its two hundred plush theater seats, fine stage and rococo molding around the painted ceiling.

Erected on school property, the auditorium belonged to the entire community. Various civic organizations held their meetings and other events there, and several different denominations had used it as a church on Sunday mornings, while their own buildings were under construction or being renovated.

The auditorium, cool and shadowy and smelling faintly of mildew, had always been a place of almost magical solace for Julie, especially in high school, when she’d had leading roles in so many plays.

Although she’d performed with several professional road companies later on, Julie had never wanted to be an actress and live in glamorous places like New York or Los Angeles. All along, she’d planned on—and worked at—getting her teaching certificate, returning to Blue River and keeping the theater going.

There was no room in the budget for a drama department—the high school theater group supported itself by putting on two productions a year, one of them a musical, and charging modest admission. Like her now-retired predecessor, Miss Idetta Scrobbins, Julie earned her paycheck by teaching English classes—the drama club and the plays they put on were a labor of love.

Julie was thinking about the next project—three one-act plays written by some of her best students—as she hurried down the center aisle and through the doorway to the left of the stage, where she’d transformed an unused supply closet into a sort of hideaway. Officially, her office was her classroom, but it was here that she met with students and came up with some of her best ideas.

Hastily, she tossed her brown-bag lunch into the small refrigerator sitting on top of a file cabinet, kicked off her flat shoes and pulled on the low-heeled pumps she kept stashed in a desk drawer. She flipped on her computer—it was old and took forever to boot up—locked up her purse and raced out of the hideout, back up the aisle and out into the September sunshine.

She was five minutes late for the staff meeting, and Principal Dulles would not be pleased.

Everyone else was already there when Julie dashed into the school library and dropped into a utilitarian folding chair at one of the three long tables where students read and did homework. The library doubled as a study hall throughout the school day.

Up front, the red-faced principal puffed out his cheeks, turning a stub of chalk end over end in one hand, and cleared his throat. Julie’s best friend at work, Helen Marcus, gave her a light poke with her elbow and whispered, “Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.”

Julie smiled at that, looked around at the half-dozen other teachers who were her colleagues. She knew that Dulles, a middle-aged man from far away, made no secret of his opinion that Blue River, Texas, hardly offered more in the way of cultural stimulation than a prairie-dog town would have. He considered her a flake because of her colorful clothing and her penchant for putting on and directing plays.

For all of that, Arthur was a good person.

Like Julie, most of the other members of the staff had been born and raised there. They’d come home to teach after college because they knew Blue River needed them; high pay and job perks weren’t a factor, of course. To them, odd breed that they were, the community’s kids mattered most.

Dulles cleared his throat, glaring at Julie, who smiled placidly back at him.

“As some of you already know,” he began, “the McKettrick Foundation has generously agreed to match whatever funds we can raise on our own to buy new computers and special software for our library. Our share, however, amounts to a considerable sum.”

The McKettricks were community-minded; they’d always been quick to lend a hand wherever one was needed, but the foundation’s longstanding policy, except in emergencies, was to involve the whole town in raising funds as well. At the name McKettrick, Julie felt an odd quickening of some kind, at once disturbing and delicious, thinking back to her encounter with Garrett in the ranch-house kitchen.

The others shifted in their seats, checked their watches and glanced up at the wall clock. Students were beginning to arrive; the ringing slam of locker doors and the lilting hum of their conversation sounded from the wide hallway just outside the library.

Julie waited attentively, sensing that Arthur’s speech was mainly directed at her, but unable to imagine why that should be so.

No one spoke.

Arthur seemed reluctant, but he finally went on. He looked straight at Julie, confirming her suspicions. “It’s a pity the drama club is staging those three one-act plays for the fall production, instead of doing a musical.”

The light went on in Julie’s mind. Since the plays were original, and written by high school seniors, turnout at the showcase would probably be limited to proud parents and close friends. The box-office proceeds would therefore be minimal. But the musicals, for which Blue River High was well known, drew audiences from as far away as Austin and San Antonio, and brought in thousands of dollars.

The take from last spring’s production of South Pacific had been plenty to provide new uniforms for the marching band and the football team, with enough left over to fund two hefty scholarships when graduation rolled around.

Arthur continued to stare at Julie, most likely hoping she would save him the embarrassment of strong-arming her by offering to postpone or cancel the student showcase to produce a musical instead. Although her first instinct was always to jump right in like some female superhero and offer to take care of everything, today she didn’t.

They’d committed, she and Arthur and the school board, to staging Kiss Me Kate for this year’s spring production—casting and rehearsals would begin after Christmas vacation, with the usual three performances slated for mid-May.

She had enough on her plate already, between Calvin and her job.

The silence grew uncomfortable.

Arthur Dulles finally cleared his throat eloquently. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind any of you how important it is, in this day and age, for our students to be computer-savvy.”

Still, no one spoke.

“Julie?” Arthur prodded, at last.

“We’re doing Kiss Me Kate next spring,” Julie reminded him.

“Yes,” Arthur agreed, sounding weary, “but perhaps we could produce the musical now, instead of next spring. That way it would be easy to match the McKettricks’ contribution, since our musicals are always so popular.”

Our musicals, Julie thought. As if it would be Arthur who held tryouts every night for a week, and then two months of rehearsals, weekends included. Arthur who dealt with heartbroken teenage girls who hadn’t landed the part of their dreams—not to mention their mothers. Arthur who struggled to round up enough teenage boys to balance out the chorus and play the leads.

No, it would be Julie who did all those things.

Julie alone.

“Gosh, Arthur,” she said, smiling her team-player smile, “that would be hard to pull off. The showcase will be ready to stage within a month. We’d be lucky to get the musical going by Christmas.”

Bob Riza, who coached football, basketball and baseball in their respective seasons, in addition to teaching math, flung a sympathetic glance in Julie’s direction and finally spoke up. “Maybe the foundation would be willing to cut us a check for the full amount,” he said. “Forget the matching requirement, just this once.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Julie said.

Arthur folded his arms, still watching her. “I agree,” he said. “The McKettricks have been more than generous. Three years ago, you’ll all remember, when the creeks overflowed and we had all that flood damage and our insurance only covered the basics, the foundation underwrote a new floor for the gymnasium, in full, and replaced the hundreds of books ruined here and in the public library.”

Julie nodded. “Here’s the thing, Arthur,” she said. “The showcase won’t bring in a lot of money, that’s true. But it’s important—the kids involved are trying to get into very good colleges, and there’s a lot of competition. Having their plays produced will make them stand out a little.”

Arthur nodded, listening sympathetically, but Julie knew he’d already made up his mind.

“I’m afraid the showcase will have to be moved to spring,” he said. “The sooner the musical is under way, the better.”

Julie knew she’d lost. So why did she keep fighting? “Spring will be too late for these kids,” she said, straightening her spine, hiking up her chin. “The application deadlines are—”

Arthur shook his head, cutting her off. “I’m sorry, Julie,” he said.

Julie swallowed. Lowered her eyes.

It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate Arthur’s position. She knew how important those new computers were—while most of the students had ready access to the Internet at home, a significant number of kids depended on the computers at the public library and here at the high school. Technology was changing the world at an almost frightening pace, and Blue River High had to keep up.

Still, she was already spending more time at school than was probably good for Calvin. Launching this project would mean her little boy practically lived with Libby and Paige, and while Calvin adored his aunts, she was his mother. Her son’s happiness and well-being were her responsibility; she couldn’t and wouldn’t foist him off and farm him out any more than she was doing now.

The first period bell shrilled then, earsplittingly loud, it seemed to Julie. She was due in her tenth-grade English class.

Riza and the others rose from their chairs, clearly anxious to head for their own classrooms.

Julie remained where she was, facing Arthur Dulles. She felt a little like an animal caught in the headlight beams of an oncoming truck, unable to move in any direction.

He smiled. Arthur was not unkind, merely beleaguered. He served as principal of the town’s elementary and middle schools as well as Blue River High, and his wife, Dot, was just finishing up a round of chemotherapy.

“It would be a shame if we had to turn down the funding for all that state-of-the-art equipment,” Arthur said forthrightly, standing directly in front of Julie now, “wouldn’t it?”

Julie suppressed a deep sigh. Her sister was engaged to Tate McKettrick; in his view, that meant Julie was practically a McKettrick herself. Maybe Arthur expected her to hit up the town’s most important family for an even fatter check.

“Couldn’t we try some other kind of fundraiser?” she asked. “Get the parents to help out, maybe put on some bake sales and a few car washes?”

“You know,” Arthur said quietly, walking her to the door, pulling it open so she could precede him into the hallway, “our most dedicated parents are already doing all they can, volunteering as crossing guards and lunchroom helpers and the like. I know you depend on several women to sew costumes for the musical every year. The vast majority, I needn’t tell you, only seem to show up when they want to complain about Susie’s math grades or Johnny playing second string on the football team.” He straightened his tie. “It isn’t like it used to be.”

“How’s Dot feeling?” she asked gently. Arthur’s wife was a hometown girl, and everybody liked her.

Arthur’s worries showed in his eyes. “She has good days and bad days,” he said.

Julie bit her lower lip. Nodded. So this was it, she thought. The showcase was out, the musical was in. And somehow she would have to make it all work.

“Thank you,” Arthur replied, distracted again. Once more, he sighed. “I’ll need dates for the production as soon as possible,” he said. “Nelva Jean can make up fliers stressing that we’re going to need more parental help than usual.”

Nelva Jean was the school secretary, a force of nature in her own right, and she’d been eligible for retirement even when Julie and her sisters attended Blue River High. But aged miracle though she was, Nelva Jean couldn’t work magic.

Julie and Arthur went their separate ways then, Julie’s mind tumbling through various unworkable options as she hurried toward her classroom, her thoughts partly on the three playwrights and their own hopes for the showcase.

She’d met with the trio of young authors all summer long, reading and rereading the scripts for their one-act plays, suggesting revisions, helping to polish the pieces until they shone. They’d worked hard, and were counting on the production to buttress their college credentials.

Julie entered her classroom, took her place up front. She had no choice but to put the dilemma out of her mind for the time being.

Class flew by.

“Ms. Remington?” a shy voice asked, when first period was over and most of the students had left.

Julie, who’d been erasing the blackboard, turned to see Rachel Strivens, one of her three young playwrights, standing nearby. Rachel’s dad was often out of work, though he did odd jobs wherever he could find them to put food on the table, and her mother had died in some sort of accident before the teenager and her father and her two younger brothers rolled into Blue River in a beat-up old truck in the middle of the last school year. They’d taken up residence in a rickety trailer, adjoining the junkyard run by Chudley Wilkes and his wife, Minnie, and had kept mostly to themselves ever since.

Rachel’s intelligence, not to mention her affinity for the written word, had been apparent to Julie almost immediately. Over the summer, Rachel had spent her days at the Blue River Public Library, little brothers in tow, or at the community center, composing her play on one of the computers available there.

The other kids seemed to like Rachel, though she didn’t have a lot of time for friends. She was definitely not like the others, buying her clothes at the thrift store and doing without things many of her contemporaries took for granted, like designer jeans, fancy cell phones and MP3 players, but at least she was spared the bullying that sometimes plagued the poor and the different. Julie knew that because she’d taken the time to make sure.

“Yes, Rachel?” she finally replied.

Rachel, though too thin, had elegant bone structure, wide-set brown eyes and a generous mouth. Her waist-length hair, braided into a single plait, was as black as a country night before the new moon, and always clean. “Could—could I talk with you later?”

Julie felt a tingle of alarm. “Is something wrong?”

Rachel tried hard to smile. Second period would begin soon, and students were beginning to drift into the room. “Later?” the girl said. “Please?”

Julie nodded, still thinking about Rachel as she prepared to teach another English class. Probably because she’d had to move around a lot with her dad, rambling from town to town and school to school, Rachel’s grades had been a little on the sketchy side when she’d started at Blue River High. The one-act play she’d written—tellingly titled Trailer Park—was brilliant.

Rachel was brilliant.

But she was also the kind of kid who tended to fall through the cracks unless someone actively championed her and stood up for her.

And Julie was determined to be that someone. Somehow.

APHONE WAS RINGING. Insistent, jarring him awake.

With a groan, Garrett dragged the comforter up over his head, but the sound continued.

Cell phone?

Landline?

He couldn’t tell. Didn’t give a damn.

“Shut up,” he pleaded, burrowing down deeper in bed, his voice muffled by the covers.

The phone stopped after twelve rings, then immediately started up again.

Real Life coalesced in Garrett’s sleep-fuddled brain. Memories of the night before began to surface.

He recalled the senator’s announcement.

Saw Nan Cox in his mind’s eye, slipping out by way of the hotel kitchen.

He recollected Brent Brogan providing him with a police escort as far as the ranch gate.

And after all that, Julie Remington, a little boy and a three-legged beagle appearing in the kitchen.

Knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep after Julie had taken her young son and their dog back to bed in the first-floor guest suite—the spacious accommodations next to the maid’s rooms, where the housekeeper, Esperanza, stayed—Garrett had gone to the barn, saddled a horse, and spent what remained of the night and the first part of the morning riding.

Finally, when smoke curled from the bunkhouse chimney and lights came on in the trailers along the creek-side, Garrett had returned home, put up his horse, retired to his private quarters to strip, shower and fall facedown into bed.

The ringing reminded him that he still had a job.

“Shit,” he murmured, sitting up and scrambling for the bedside phone. “Hello?”

A dial tone buzzed in his ear, and the ringing went on.

His cell phone, then.

He grabbed for his jeans, abandoned earlier on the floor next to the bed, and rummaged through a couple of pockets before he found the cell.

“Garrett McKettrick,” he mumbled, after snapping it open.

“It’s about time you picked up the phone,” Nan Cox answered. She sounded pretty chipper, considering that her husband had stood up at the previous evening’s fundraiser and essentially told the world that he and Mandy Chante were meant to be together. “I’m at the office, and you’re not. You’re not at your condo, either, because I sent Troy over to check. Where are you, Garrett?”

He sat up in bed, self-conscious because he was talking to his employer’s wife, one of his late mother’s closest friends, naked. Of course, Nan couldn’t see him, but still.

“I’m on the Silver Spur,” he said, grabbing his watch off the bedside table and squinting at it.

Seeing the time—past noon—he swore again.

“The senator needs you. The press has him and the little pole dancer cornered in their hotel suite.”

Garrett tossed the comforter aside, sat up, retrieved his jeans from the floor and pulled them on, standing up to work the zipper and the snap. “I can understand why you think this might be my problem,” he replied, imagining Morgan and Mandy hiding out from reporters in the spacious room he’d rented for them the night before, “but I’m not sure I get why it would be yours. Some women would be angry. They’d be talking to divorce lawyers.”

“Morgan,” Nan said quietly, and with conviction, “is not himself. He’s ill. We still have five children at home. I’m not about to turn my back on him now.”

“Mrs. Cox—”

“Nan,” she broke in. “Your mother and I were like sisters.”

“Nan,” Garrett corrected himself, his tone grave. “Surely you understand that your husband’s career can’t be saved. He won’t get the presidential nomination. In fact, he will probably be asked to relinquish his seat in the Senate.”

“I don’t give a damn about his career,” Nan said fiercely, and Garrett knew she was fighting back tears. “I just want Morgan back. I want him examined by his doctor. He’s not in his right mind, Garrett. He needs my help. He needs our help.”

Although the senator was probably going through some kind of delayed midlife crisis, Garrett wasn’t convinced that his boss was out of his mind. Morgan Cox wouldn’t be the first politician to throw over his wife, family and career in some fit of eroticized egotism, nor, unfortunately, would he be the last.

“Look,” Garrett said quietly, “I’ve given this whole situation some thought, and from where I stand, resignation is looking pretty good.”

“Morgan’s?”

“Mine,” Garrett replied, after unclamping his jaw.

“You would resign?” Nan asked, sounding only slightly more horrified than stunned. “Morgan has been your mentor, Garrett. He’s shown you the ropes, introduced you to all the right people in Washington, prepared the way for you to run for office when the time comes….”

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.

HELEN MARCUS DUCKED INTO JULIE’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.