“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