Marie Ferrarella - The Coltons - Nick, Clay & Jericho

But this was different. These e-mails and letters smacked of someone dangerous. Someone seeking to “take you out” as one of the last ranting communications had threatened.

Nick had learned a long time ago to take seriously anything that remotely resembled a threat. The risk was too great not to.

He’d just informed the Senator that the sender was someone living in or around Esperanza, Texas, and that he intended to confront the man face-to-face. It was against the law to threaten a presidential candidate.

“That it’s coming from there?” Nick asked, then went ahead as if he’d received a positive response. “I wouldn’t be coming to you with this if I wasn’t sure,” he told the Senator simply.

Between them, on the desk, was a thick pile of papers that Nick had emptied out of a manila folder. Letters that had arrived in the last few weeks, all from the same source. All progressively angrier in nature. It couldn’t be ignored any longer, even if he were so inclined.

“We’ve tracked him down,” Nick repeated. “And, unless you have something specific that only I can take care of here, I’d like to go down to this little two-bit hick place and make sure that this nut-job doesn’t decide to follow through with any of his threats.” He had no qualms about leaving the Senator. He was the head of the Secret Service detail, but by no means was he the only one assigned to the popular Senator. Hathaway and Davis were more than up to watching over the man until he got back.

“These are all from him?” Nick nodded in response to the Senator’s question. “Sure has spent a lot of time venting,” Joe commented. He picked up a sheet of paper only to have Nick stop him before he was able to begin to read it.

“No need to read any of it, Senator.” Nick wanted to spare the man the ugliness on some of the pages. “It’s pretty awful.”

Joe didn’t believe in isolating himself, but he saw no reason to immerse himself in distasteful lies and name-calling, either. He let the letter remain in Nick’s hand. “Then why did you bring it to me?”

In Nick’s opinion, the volume of mail spoke for itself. No sane person invested this much time and effort in sending vicious missives, and the future actions of an insane person couldn’t be safely gauged. It would take very little to push a person like this to where he would become dangerous.

“To let you see that the man could be a threat and that I’d like the chance to stop him before he becomes one,” Nick stated simply.

In the short time they had been together, Joe had learned to both like and rely on the head of his Secret service detail. Nick Sheffield had impressed him as a hard-working, honorable man whose interest was in getting the job done, not in gathering attention or praise for his actions. He more than trusted the man’s instincts.

Joe liked the fact that Nick always looked him in the eye when he spoke. “When would you leave?” he asked.

“Tonight.” Nick saw a glint of surprise in the Senator’s eyes. “I should be back in a couple of days—a week at most,” he promised, although he was hoping that it wouldn’t take that long. He intended to locate the sender, take him into custody and bring him back. The federal authorities could take it from there.

Joe nodded. There had been mutual respect between the two men almost from the very first day. Their personalities complemented one another. Joe trusted Nick not only with his life, but, more importantly, the lives of his family who meant more to him than anything else in the world, including the bid for the presidency.

“All right,” the Senator agreed. “Go if you really think it’s necessary.”

There was no hesitation on Nick’s part. “I do.”

“That’s good enough for me,” the Senator replied. And then he smiled that smile that had a way of cutting across party affiliations and verbose rhetoric, burrowing into the heart of the recipient. “Just get back as soon as you can, Nick. I feel a whole lot better knowing that you’re on the job.”

Nick knew the man was not just giving voice to empty words, that praise from the Senator was always heartfelt and genuine. While exceedingly charming, with a manner that drew people to him, the Senator was not one to toss around words without thought or feeling behind them, like so many other politicians.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Nick had promised, taking his leave. At the time, he sincerely meant what he said.

Georgeann Grady, Georgie to everyone who knew her, struggled mightily to keep her eyes open. For the last twenty minutes, she’d debated pulling over to the side of the road in order to catch a few well-deserved winks before falling asleep at the wheel. But she was only five miles away from home. Five miles away from sleeping in her own bed and after months of being on the road, sleeping in her own bed sounded awfully good to her.

She told herself to keep driving.

Digging her nails into the palms of the hands that were wrapped around the steering wheel of her truck, Georgie tried to shake off the effects of sleepiness by tossing her head. It sent the single thick, red braid back over her shoulder. Squaring them, she glanced into the rear-view mirror to check on her pint-sized passenger.

Big, wide green eyes looked right back at her.

Georgie suppressed a sigh. She might have known that Emmie wasn’t asleep, even if her nonstop chatter had finally run its course. Ceasing about ten minutes ago.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” she asked her precocious, almost-five-year-old daughter.

“Too excited,” Emmie told her solemnly in a voice that could have easily belonged to someone at least twice her age.

Emmie sounded almost happier to be getting back home than she was. Sometimes, Georgie thought, it was almost as if their roles were reversed and Emmie was the mother while she was the daughter. There was little more than eighteen years between them. They could have just as easily been sisters instead of mother and daughter.

And, as far as daughters went, she couldn’t have asked for a better one. Raising Emmie had been a dream, despite the unorthodox life they led. A good deal of Emmie’s life had been spent on the road, as a rodeo brat. It was out of necessity so that Georgie could earn money by competing in various rodeo events—just as her mother and her grandfather had before her.

At all times, her eye was on the prize. The final prize. Not winning some title that would be forgotten by the time the dust settled, but amassing as much money as she could so that she and her daughter could finally settle down and live a normal life.

She owed it to Emmie.

Her mother, Mary Lynn Grady, had quit the life, walking away with nothing more than medals and trophies, as she took up the reins of motherhood. But she intended to be far more prepared than that. It took money to make dreams come true.

Emmie was coming of age. She’d be turning five next week and five meant kindergarten, which in turn meant stability. That translated into living in a home that wasn’t on wheels, nestled in a place around people who loved her. That had been the plan for the last four-something years and Georgie was determined to make it a reality.

Every cent that hadn’t been used for clothing and feeding them, or for entrance fees, had faithfully been banked back in Esperanza. By her tally, at this point, thanks to her most recent winning streak, the account was exceedingly healthy now. There was finally more than enough for them to settle down and for her to figure out her next move: finding a career that didn’t involve performing tricks on a horse that was galloping at break-neck speed.

Any other career would seem tame in comparison, but right now, tame was looking awfully good. The accident that she’d had a few months ago could have been disastrous. It made her very aware that she, like so many other rodeo competitors, was living on borrowed time. She wanted to get out before time ran out on her—and now, she could.