Texas Thunder

by Kimberly Raye

  Surprisingly enough, the promo—including a heartfelt commercial with Les offering free turkeys to anyone who posted a Haverty Real Estate sign in their yard—had actually worked. Les was now running neck-and-neck with Tanner for year-to-date sales. Another biggie and he was sure to slide right past his nemesis, straight into first place.

  “I just want you to know you can take as much time as you need.” Les clapped Callie on the shoulder in a gesture that was meant to be friendly but came off more awkward. While Les was an easygoing guy, he wasn’t a touchy-feely person. Especially since he had an overpossessive wife named Selma who watched him like a hawk. He glanced around to make sure no one had seen the shoulder clap before he added, “No need to rush back to work tomorrow, even though we do have that big open house scheduled over at the Bachman place. I barely beat Tanner Sawyer out of that listing and I’m strapped to pull off a smooth open house. But don’t you worry, I can handle it all myself. I can pick up some crab dip at the Piggly Wiggly and maybe a cracker and cheese tray and some ginger ale.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Granted, it won’t be nearly as good as your ham and cheese pinwheels and that tiki torch punch that you make, but I’ll make do. I’ll greet the customers. And hand out all the freebies. And talk up the features. And field the offers. And work the numbers.” He seemed to realize the enormity of what he was saying. “Then again, it might be good just to climb right back on that horse. You know, put in a few hours just to get your mind off of things. I hear distraction is good for the grief process.” Hope lit his gaze and he gave her his most persuasive smile. “I’ll even pay time and a half to help with funeral expenses.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  She had to be. Haverty Real Estate was her only source of income at the moment and while it wasn’t nearly enough to reconcile her debt, she needed all the help she could get.

  “Fan-friggin’-tastic.” Les sighed as if the weight of the world had lifted off his shoulders. But then he caught sight of his wife, who stood across the room with a few ladies from the local bridge club, a frown on her face as if she’d glimpsed the shoulder clap. His shoulders slumped again. “But only if you’re sure.”

  “I’ll be there by eight.”

  He grinned again. “And don’t forget to pick up the new chip clips I had printed up over at the Print-N-Go. I’ve got a whole box of them back at the office. I’d swing by myself, but I have to drop Selma at her yoga class and it’s clear on the other side of town.”

  “I’ll pick up the chip clips. And the water bottles,” she added when he started to open his mouth. “And I’ll even grab a few rolls of the toilet paper.”

  “Atta girl. Oh, and don’t forget the pinwheels and punch.” He glanced around. “And maybe bring some of these leftovers, too. I bet those pigs in a blanket would go over way better than a crab dip.” Les headed for Selma, pausing only to wave at Loyd Vickers who, rumor had it, was this close to retiring and putting his pharmacy up for sale so he and the wife could move down to Port Aransas and fish their days away. While Haverty’s didn’t specialize in commercial properties, Les was always looking to make his next buck.

  Callie turned her attention back to the dessert table and a mouthwatering tray of peanut butter blossoms. Her stomach hollowed out and her hands trembled.

  “Who knew they made so many different kinds of egg salad?” The question came from the young woman who waltzed up next to Callie, effectively distracting her from a temporary fall from grace. “I thought one was bad, but we’ve got six.” She gave a shudder. “If I didn’t hate funerals before, I’d definitely have ammunition now.”

  At twenty-one, Jenna Tucker was Callie’s youngest sister. With her blond hair and green eyes, she looked like all the Tuckers who’d come before her. Even more, with her bossy manner and ballsy attitude, she acted like a Tucker.

  At least that’s what their granddaddy had always said.

  “Why, that gal’s the spitting image of my daddy, she is. She’s got his eyes and his mouth. She’s a ballbuster if I ever seen one.”

  A good thing to Grandpa James, who’d always had a good chuckle over Jenna’s bold ways. A bad thing to Callie, who’d been the one dealing with all of the messes caused by said ways.

  With their parents gone and their grandfather too old to take care of himself, much less anyone else, Callie had been the one trudging to the principal’s office whenever Jenna had called someone a name or picked a fight or set fire to the boys’ locker room.

  Not that her little sister had been a bad kid. She’d just never taken any crap. Not from the Sawyers. Not from well-meaning school officials. Not from anyone. She’d never had to because she’d been young.

  Free.

  Meanwhile, Callie had been the one stuck making the meals and washing the clothes and apologizing for every one of her sister’s transgressions. She’d looked after everyone, including their grandfather.

  Gone.

  “You might not like egg salad, but I’m sure there are a lot of people here who do.” Callie motioned to the influx of bodies pushing through the double glass doors and crowding around the food tables. “It sure is a big turnout.”

  “For one reason only. You know half these folks didn’t even speak to Granddad, don’t you? They’re just here so they can get to all the dirt. And when they realize there’s nothing to dig, they’ll just make up something.” Jenna motioned to their sister, Brandy, who stood in a nearby line behind Pastor Harris, waiting to get a cup of punch.

  Their middle sister had the same Tucker good looks, but she also had an overabundance of curves that put her right up there with Kim Kardashian.

  “I’m sure tongues are wagging right now,” Jenna went on, “because Brandy is standing too close to the good reverend. And flirting shamelessly.”

  “She’s doing no such thing.”

  “You know that, and I know that. But by the time this thing is over rumor will have it that she jumped him just as he was about to reach for a cup of sherbet shebang and humped him like a rabbit in high heat.” She shook her head. “You know how this town is.”

  Boy, did Callie ever.

  Which was exactly why she’d always wanted out. She’d hated the whole small-town life where everybody knew everybody’s business, and if they didn’t, they eagerly made something up. She’d wanted the bright lights of a big city like Houston or Dallas or Austin, and she’d been well on her way. She’d worked her buns off in high school, making straight As while serving as the editor of the Rebel High Gazette, president of the photography club, head photographer for the yearbook, and producer of the school’s daily five-minute newscast—and all to land herself a journalism and broadcasting scholarship. Her hard work had paid off and she’d earned a full ride to the University of Texas in Austin. Then her parents had died just weeks before her high school graduation and she’d had no choice but to forfeit the scholarship.

  She’d put her dreams of one day traveling the world as an investigative reporter or burning up the television screen as a hotshot news anchor on hold to take care of her family and work part-time for Les while she went after the ever-practical marketing degree at Travis Junior College. James had been seventy-six at the time and in no condition to care for two young girls. Even more, he hadn’t wanted to. He’d been too busy drinking and playing cards and cursing the Sawyers for his losing streak and his piss-poor lot in life.

  They’d caused all his trouble. And killed the family’s moonshine business. And stolen his beloved Texas Thunder recipe. And sullied the family name. To hear James Tucker tell it, the Sawyers had been responsible for every evil thing to come along in the past few decades, including the floods of ’92, global warming, and every cast member of Jersey Shore.

  While Callie wasn’t fool enough to lay blame on a handful of individuals for the world’s problems, she did blame the Sawyer clan for one thing—the car accident that had killed her folks.

  She swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat. The past was the p
ast. Over and done with. Time to move on.

  Which was exactly what she intended to do. Her gramps was dead. Her sisters were all grown up. If ever the moment had arrived for Callie to start thinking about herself and her own future, it was now.

  Or so she’d thought until she’d opened that notice from the bank.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat and fought down a wave of anxiety.

  “I know what you’re thinking and don’t.” Jenna eyed her. “You go for even one chocolate-chip cookie and the entire town will have you signing up for a lap band before the day’s over.”

  “I’m not going to eat a cookie.”

  If she was going to fall from grace, it was going to be with something much more substantial. Sweeter. More satisfying.

  “Same deal if you go for a piece of pie,” Jenna added, as if reading her thoughts.

  “Would you stop it? I’m not going to stuff my face with pie.” No, she was going to stuff her face with a cupcake—a big, fat, chocolate cupcake with lots of rich crème filling—and she was doing it in private. “Cover for me, would you? I’ve got some things to do in the kitchen.”

  “Sure you do,” Jenna’s voice followed. “Don’t take too long. The reverend wants us back in the sanctuary after lunch to say a farewell prayer before they take the casket to the cemetery. Sort of a private moment just for the immediate family.”

  “Ten minutes,” Callie told Jenna. “That’s all I need.”

  CHAPTER 2

  In the back parking lot of the church, Callie headed for the beat-up ’69 Ford pickup truck that sat near the end of the first row.

  It was a far cry from her mother’s late-model green Oldsmobile, but she’d been in a hurry that morning to get her grandfather’s only suit to the church and so she’d left the car for her sisters.

  The truck was the one and only thing her grandfather had owned outright. A rusted-out pile of blue metal that should have died a long, long time ago. Even so, it cranked right up every time because despite being old and beat to hell, it was at least reliable.

  Unlike the man who’d driven it for the past forty-odd years.

  She ignored the strange tightening in her chest and turned the key. The engine crackled to life like a two-pack-a-day smoker clearing her throat. The ancient eight-track tape player mounted under the dash fired up and the smooth, country twang of Hank Williams Sr. filled the small cab.

  Back in the day, Hank had been hell on wheels, which explained why Callie’s granddaddy had always liked him so much. She and her sisters had learned the words to “Honky Tonk Blues” long before the Lord’s Prayer. No wonder Pastor Harris had been more than a little surprised when Callie had asked him to conduct an actual church service.

  Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and she blinked against the heat behind her eyes. Tears were a wasted emotion. That’s what James had told her when her parents had died. He’d taken the news of his only son’s death with a somber shake of his head, followed by a forty-eight-hour drinking binge during which he’d sang and cussed and even slobbered a little.

  But no tears.

  He hadn’t even cried when he’d lost his beloved wife, Rose. At least that’s what Callie’s mom had told her. She couldn’t remember herself because she’d been only two at the time, but the story wasn’t all that hard to buy. James had always been as prickly as the fields of cacti that lined the nearby interstate.

  He’d been a hateful, mean SOB who’d never done anything for anybody other than himself. Even taking in his granddaughters had been self-serving. He’d needed someone to cook and clean and look after him whenever he drank himself into a stupor, and Callie had been right there. Ready, willing, and able at seventeen to get the job done if it meant keeping her younger sisters out of foster care.

  That’s why she’d forfeited her dreams for the time being and put up with James for so long. Not because he was family and she had some misguided sense of loyalty to him.

  She’d sacrificed for her sisters. So that they could stick together and see their own dreams realized.

  Mission accomplished. Jenna had graduated high school early—while she was hell on wheels, she was as smart as a whip—and finished her bachelor’s in animal husbandry. She’d just landed an internship at a local veterinary office while she did her medical training. Brandy had opened up a small bakery in the heart of Rebel. While they were both just starting out, Callie knew her sisters would be just fine on their own.

  They could make it without her now.

  If she could figure a way out of the mess that James had made and keep a roof over their heads. Jenna was barely making anything as a first-year animal med student and Brandy had stuffed every bit of cash she had into Sweet Somethings. Both women needed a place to stay and time to get on their feet, and Callie had to give it to them if she ever meant to get out of this town.

  But first things first …

  She was just about to shift the truck into reverse and head for the nearest convenience store when she caught the movement in her rearview mirror. She turned in time to see a shiny black pickup trimmed in shimmering chrome rumble into the parking lot.

  The monster engine vibrated the ground, temporarily drowning out Hank’s familiar whine. Tires crunched gravel as the truck swung into an empty spot. The engine died. Metal groaned as the door pushed open and a man climbed out. Dressed in faded jeans, a soft white T-shirt, and dusty brown cowboy boots, he looked like any of the ranch hands that called Rebel home.

  At the same time, there was something oddly familiar about him.

  Wranglers caressed his firm thighs, cupped his crotch, and outlined his long legs. The warm breeze flattened his T-shirt against his strong, muscular chest. Several days’ growth of beard darkened a strong jaw and cheeks, drawing attention to a firm mouth. A pair of Costa del Mar sunglasses hid his eyes. A straw Resistol sat atop his short, dark hair.

  He pulled off the cowboy hat and left it on the front dash of his truck. Slowly he removed the sunglasses from the bridge of his nose and hooked them on the front pocket of his tee. He turned his head just enough and his blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

  Her breath caught and her heart stopped because this wasn’t just some random working man come to pay his respects. He was the owner of the biggest spread in the county.

  Her first love.

  Her most hated enemy.

  The one and only Brett Sawyer.

  CHAPTER 3

  No freakin’ way.

  Callie blinked. Once. Twice. But he didn’t disappear.

  He simply stood there in the bright light of day, sunshine spilling down around him, making him seem that much darker and more dangerous.

  She licked her suddenly dry lips.

  Brett had been gone for the past ten years, having only recently returned to Rebel a few weeks ago when his own grandfather had taken a turn for the worse thanks to a bad case of Alzheimer’s. With his father deceased, his mother remarried and living far, far away, and his only sibling—a younger sister named Karen—away at college, there’d been no one to look after Archibald “Pappy” Sawyer once he’d become a danger to himself, and so Brett had come home to take care of his pappy and the fifty-thousand-acre spread that stretched clear across two county lines.

  Too little, too late, or so everyone said.

  The disease had taken its toll quickly and Pappy could barely remember his name most days, much less his only grandson. A shame since the man had doted on Brett once upon a time. He’d been at every rodeo his grandson had competed in back in high school and he’d sat front row at graduation. He’d even thrown Brett a huge going-away party when his grandson had announced to everyone that he was leaving for the PBR circuit and a career in pro–bull riding.

  Brett had certainly done the man proud. He’d made a name for himself over the past decade, and even won a few championships.

  Callie could still remember Pappy’s face on the front page of the Rebel Yell beneath an announcement that his pride
and joy had snagged himself a buckle.

  Her gaze went to the not-so-shiny metal plate at Brett’s trim waist. Far from the coveted PBR trophy, but then he’d never been the type to waltz around and brag. He’d always been too busy working his ass off to pay much attention to the fact that he stood to inherit the largest cattle spread in the state of Texas. Too focused.

  Unlike the Tuckers, the Sawyers had given up the moonshine business when Prohibition ended and demand for the product had taken a nosedive. They’d taken all that money they’d stashed during the prosperous years and put it into something much more legitimate—cattle.

  They’d hit pay dirt.

  They now owned practically the entire county, and quite a bit of the adjoining ones, and controlled nearly all of the prime beef industry in Central Texas.

  All the more reason Brett Sawyer shouldn’t be here right now. He was a busy man.

  Even more, he was a Sawyer. The Sawyer.

  A direct descendant of Elijah Sawyer, Callie’s own great-great-grandfather’s most hated enemy.

  No, he definitely shouldn’t be here.

  She watched as he leaned in and pulled a lush, overflowing plant from the passenger seat of his pickup. Closing the door with his hip, he strode toward the sanctuary even though the entire crowd had already shifted into the recreation hall. He’d missed the main event, but that truth didn’t seem to slow him down.

  Her gaze went to the push/pull of denim across his backside as he crossed the gravel parking lot and stepped onto the walkway.

  He’d always had a great butt. And great abs. And ripped arms. And a perfect face.

  He’d been the total package back in high school. Handsome. Rich. As wild as the summer was hot. He’d charmed more than one girl down to her skivvies out at Rebel Creek, that was for sure.

  Not Callie, of course.

  Contrary to popular belief, she hadn’t gone skinny-dipping with Brett Sawyer and given up the goodies that fateful night after their senior prom.