Just Let Go… (14 page)

As she slipped on her clothes, she watched the foolhardy woman in the mirror and sighed. She told herself that an earth-shattering orgasm was no reason to love a man.

Then she thought of the dark, expressionless eyes, the tense walk and the quiet honesty of his words.

You were always the first.

Not Carolyn Carver. Her.

This was a man who didn’t share the small and pitiful pieces of his heart with just anyone. He didn’t share. He didn’t give.

After she restored herself, hair neatly combed, clothes neatly arranged, she looked in the mirror and smiled. It was a foolish, goofy smile because sometimes the bits that were smallest to give were the most precious of all.

When Austen emerged from the shower, he dressed in slacks and a shirt. His eyes once again untroubled. He picked up his phone, glanced at the log, and Gillian shrugged, noticing that he didn’t return Carolyn’s call. Ha.

Behind her back, she clasped her fingers together tightly because she owned one piece of his heart, and where there was one piece, there was another.

She smiled at him, foolhardy, and more than a bit reckless. Then she grabbed her bag and took his arm. J. C. Travis first, the Trans-Texas route second and Austen Hart would be last.

“You seem mighty cheerful for a woman who’s about to fail.”

Gillian grinned up at him. “Oh, ye of little faith. Fail? Not in this lifetime.”

They left the hotel, and she was still grinning, foolhardy and reckless.

Fail? Not in this lifetime.

She hoped.

T
HEY MET UP WITH
J. C. Travis at the Cedar Door, a traditional cave of a bar, conveniently located within walking distance of the state capitol.

They’d had a short car ride, an almost silent affair wherein Austen realized that Gillian expected him to step up to the plate. No matter his batting average, she still wanted him there. He remembered in the old days, working in Zeke’s shop, when he finally got the sound of the engines just right it was a heady feeling. It was a frightening feeling, but Austen was determined to try.

He owed her that much. He owed her a lot more.

J.C. was seated on a long, leather couch at the back, hidden in an alcove where people could speak in private, deal in private and yet still remain a presence. It was a politician’s dream. She was the current railroad commissioner, which was an elected position that managed the oil and gas leases within the state.

J.C., dressed in crisp Levis and some denim shirt that had big, crazy flowers stitched on it, waved as they approached. Her face was thin, tanned and tough from the sun, her hair was a short, cottony gray, but a man would be stupid to think helpless grandma. She was smart, canny and knew better than to trust anyone until she had a fistful of IOUs in her pocket.

There was a frosty mug of beer on the table, and J.C. looked over Gillian, before turning her attention to him. “Now, who is this, Austen? I don’t believe we’ve met before.”

Standing before her like a sixth-grader, Gillian extended her hand. “Gillian Wanamaker, ma’am. Third-generation Wanamakers out of San Angelo.”

At Gillian’s polite tone, J.C. raised her white brows. “Manners are so lacking in this town, I nearly forgot what to do with myself. Forgive me,” she said, shaking Gillian’s hand, and motioned for them to sit down. “J. C. Travis, current railroad commission of this great state, widow of the eight-term state senator Tommy Lee Travis, God rest his misbegotten soul.” Then she leaned back against the cushions and laughed. Gillian laughed with her. Feeling that laughter at a dead man wasn’t the thing to do, Austen stayed silent. Sometimes he didn’t understand women.

“What are you doing here, killing time with some lonely old woman? I’d figure you two young-uns would be kicking up your heels in some establishment a little livelier than this. It’s like a damned morgue in here on the weekends.”

“It’s important,” Austen told her. “We need to get the Trans-Texas route changed before Monday’s press conference.”

At that, J.C. busted out with chuckles, slapping her knee as if Austen had told the most outrageous story ever.

Gillian’s smile dimmed and Austen waited until J.C. caught her breath before he continued. “I was serious.”

The sharp green eyes shifted from him to Gillian, then back again. “Honey, I knew that. That’s why I was laughing.”

Gillian stepped forward, unintimidated, undeterred.

“We didn’t come to watch you bust a gut, ma’am. I live in Tin Cup, Texas, and Jack Haywood and the governor’s daughter are going to choke off my town. We were on that map before Friday, fair and square until people started meddling.”

J.C. studied Gillian, eyes alight. J.C. was having fun. “Meddling? You think that all this negotiating and compromising and horse-trading is meddling?” She nodded and turned her attention to Austen as if he should have known better, because, yes, he should have known better. The art of the deal involved days, weeks, months of long discussions, not just expecting people to turn on a dime. And deep down, he knew there was no way to get the rail route changed back.

“Did you expect me to snap my fingers?” she continued. “Wave some sort of wand and suddenly everyone will be happy again?”

Gillian spoke up, obviously not getting that this was a rhetorical question. “Austen said you could help. Isn’t there something you can do?”

“Do? My dear child, doing means work. It means finding a better carrot, using a harder stick. It means scraping budgetary dollars together, pulling from one pocket and filling another. Have you done any of that work?” Her brows rose, impossibly high.

Austen knew the honest answer was no. Austen had realized this from the start, but Gillian, the woman who wanted to believe the impossible, hadn’t known. Hearing the truth, she stared at him, eyes filled with disappointment. Disappointment meant mostly for him. Austen glanced away. He’d told Gillian that she was whistling at the moon. Was it his fault she hadn’t believed him? Possibly.

He tried to ignore the prick at his conscience, failed.

One more try. For her.

“Why are you toying with me, Austen Hart?” asked J.C.

“I came to you for advice. What to do, where to start. We’ve already got four legislators willing to vote down the governor’s budget. That’s enough to put him back in horsetrading mode. We have to do more, and you’re the railroad commission, you know the dealmaking that was done. We need to roll it back.”

She folded her arms over her thin chest. “Even if you put a burr under the governor’s budgetary saddle, it still can’t be done.”

“I think it could.”

The old woman’s eyes narrowed, sharpened. “How?”

How?
It was at that moment that Austen realized that both Gillian and J.C. expected him to have a ready-made plan. Up to this point, his entire plan had been to throw a wrench into the well-greased political machine and pray to the gods that once the deal-making was over, the rail route would run through Tin Cup again.

Panic rose up inside him because he wasn’t the smart Hart. He was the tumbleweed of the political landscape, floating merrily along, making people happy, saying whatever needed to be said, doing what he was told. People weren’t supposed to expect things from him. For God’s sake, he was Austen Hart.

Then he noticed Gillian’s intense, expectant expression. Here she was putting her eggs in a basket with a big ol’ damned hole in it.

He couldn’t hurt her again. He couldn’t. If she wanted a plan, then by God, he’d give her a plan. It would be a miraculous plan, the best plan the world had ever seen. He’d dazzle her with his ideas and the grand possibilities, and the sophisticated wizardry of his silver-tongued skills. It would be ambitious, it would be visionary—and then he looked at J.C. and stopped. The woman was smiling patiently at him, as if she could see the ten-dollar words that were spinning in his head, as if she knew he wasn’t capable of one measly thing.

“What are you thinking, Austen?” J.C. spoke as if she knew Austen wasn’t thinking.

Rather than opting for the razzle-dazzle, Austen motioned for the waitress. “Give me a second,” he told them, waiting until the waitress brought over a beer for himself, and a glass of wine for Gillian.

While they watched him, waiting, expecting, he slowly sipped his drink. There was the sound of a loud clock ticking in his head. He’d always hated a ticking clock. The old house had a clock. It never rang, never chimed, only ticked.
Tick. Tick.
Like a bomb waiting to explode, because every day, like clockwork, Frank Hart would explode.

Austen could feel Gillian waiting for him, needing him. Frank Hart was dead. Austen could do this.

He would do this. Now, sure, he was probably going to end up on his ass, but he was going to try. “Do you know what Boxwood Flats was holding out for in the original deal?”

J.C. nodded. “They wanted a prison.”

In any state, prisons were a boon for the economy, but Texas was one of the few that were honest enough to admit it. They added local jobs and a steady influx of tourists. The monetary effects of the initial construction alone could keep a county in the black for years. Crime might not pay, but the correctional facilities sure did. Austen thought for a second. “Pecos County got the prison, right?”

J.C. nodded again. “Yup.”

Gillian perked up. “What would Pecos take in lieu of a prison?” she asked, directing the question at J.C., who smiled and shook her head.

“I don’t know. I expect you’ll have to find out.”

Hearing that, Gillian looked to Austen, brows drawn together in a straight line. He wished she wouldn’t do that. Not at him. “Can you find out before Monday?” she asked, as if he was capable of miracles.

Austen’s smile was quick and smooth. “Hell, yeah.”

Both women were watching him, and he knew that quick and smooth wasn’t going to cut it. He had to find the Pecos County delegation, and see what else they wanted, find all the other dominos that Haywood had lined up, and see what those legislators would take instead of what Haywood had promised. All done before Monday?

Nope, quick and smooth wasn’t going to cut it at all.

A
USTEN GOT THE CALL
he’d been waiting for ten minutes after they left. News always traveled fast in the capital. He’d known he’d get found out, he was just hoping it wouldn’t be now. Wrong. Not giving anything away, he dropped Gillian off at her hotel, and told her he’d be back in an hour and then they’d go out, get something to eat and paint the town red.

Gillian wasn’t happy at being left behind, but he wasn’t going to be overruled now. There were some things that he didn’t want a lady to see, especially not a lady whose job it was to uphold the law. Yes, the indictment story was the product of some news-starved, highly imaginative, possibly hallucinogenically loaded mind, but that didn’t mean he wanted it to come true.

His boss, Big Ed Patterson, was waiting for him at his office, a rich mahogany-paneled room with walls covered in humanitarian awards, oil and gas industry awards and framed pictures of Big Ed’s life. The room smelled of cigar smoke and midnight poker games and the robust aroma of crude oil. On the far wall was an eight-by-ten of Big Ed leaning alongside the mile-long hood of his 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Seville. At one time, Austen had worked on that car. It was how they had met.

For the past nine years, Austen had worked in this office, collected a biweekly paycheck in this office, had zealously defended the political interests of the state’s oil and gas producers in this office. He hoped to have the opportunity to continue working in this office, because he liked the idea of food, a garage for his car and custom-made boots.

Behind his Texas-sized desk, Big Ed was decked out in a black tux. His hands kept pushing at the collar and Austen smiled since he knew the feeling, but Austen had learned not to tug.

There was a leather captain’s chair opposite the desk; the “electric chair” was what Big Ed termed it. Austen seated himself, and then poured a finger of Ed’s best whiskey, sniffing it appreciatively. Then he met the large man’s unwavering eyes. “You rang?”

“I thought you’d be at the dinner tonight, being as my wife’s mission of mercy for mindless misfits used to be your favorite cause.”

Austen crossed his legs, breathing easy, unconcerned. “I don’t have a heart, Ed. That was just to make her like me. She likes me. You like me.”

“I have two empty seats at my table. Why don’t you bring your lady friend with you? We’ll have a night of it.” Ed was fishing, trying to ascertain if Austen had plans for any disloyal acts that might put a hitch in his well-oiled machine. Big Ed didn’t like when political negotiations went on behind his back, especially by one of his own employees, and no matter the subject, the oil and gas producers had their collective finger in all the state’s pies. All that power was why Big Ed was Big Ed. He knew all, he controlled all; it was an unstated rule in Big Ed’s office, and usually Austen was on board with Big Ed’s rules. But in this case, he knew that Big Ed wouldn’t want Austen mucking with the railroad route. Big Ed would consider it disloyal, an act designed to make Big Ed look less powerful. Austen understood that, which was why he hadn’t told Big Ed up front.

“I’ve got plans,” Austen explained. “Need to track down Peter Pendergast, the Pecos County rep, and have a chat.” Now that he’d been found out, he thought it was smarter to be up front about the disloyal acts that he was about to embark on. Big Ed would appreciate that.

“I thought J.C. was pulling my leg.”

Slowly Austen shook his head. Easy, unconcerned.

“Pecos County is real happy with the idea of a new prison. They won’t take kindly to the idea of losing it.” Sorrowfully Big Ed shook his head. Easy, unconcerned.

Seeing how Big Ed was so unconcerned, Austen decided to press for some information of his own. “What did they get in the first deal? They wouldn’t have scored a prison unless something pretty sweet was being taken away.”

“Do you care?”

Austen didn’t want to care. Caring never ended well. “Don’t give a damn at all. What were they getting before?”

Big Ed swiveled in his chair. The motion made the wheels squeak annoyingly. Austen knew he did it on purpose. To intimidate. To strike fear into his opponent’s heart, but Big Ed was rational, sober and intelligent. Austen had never been afraid of that. The only thing Austen was afraid of was drunken irrational sons of bitches with a bolt-action Winchester and an itchy trigger finger.

Ed stopped his swiveling, his eyes shrewd. “I looked up Tin Cup, Texas. I had Ruby find the dirt, since in Texas, there’s always a shit-pile of dirt. Do you know what that town has printed about you?”

Austen’s fingers dug deeper into the chair arms. Other than that, he was still calm. “Sure I know.”

Big Ed continued as if Austen had never spoken a word. “According to reliable sources, Austen Hart was indicted eleven months ago on bribery charges. I didn’t know that. In fact, no other town in Texas knows that. No courthouse. No judge. No jury. They printed a bunch of bald-faced lies about you, but you don’t seem to mind.”

Austen cracked a smile. “Hell, Ed, you know the press never gets anything right. Look at all the things they’ve said about you.”

“And the stories about your brother? A drug dealer. What in Sam Hill were they thinking?”

“He does dabble in the trade,” Austen answered truthfully.

Ed viciously slapped the desk. Austen nearly jumped. “Horse shit!”

Austen kept his smile easy and unconcerned. “All drugs are not necessarily illegal in this country.”