Colleen Thompson - Lone Star Redemption

This was, instead, a miracle, a reason to go on.

Chapter 1

Three months later...

Stiff and tired from hours of driving across the desolate northern Texas prairie, Jessie Layton climbed from her blue hatchback and stepped into the howling wind.

Bent low against the gusts, she slung her purse over her shoulder and raced for the steps leading up to the wide white veranda without waiting for her cameraman to follow. By the time she made it to the mansion’s front door, she was choking on the brick-red dust, her eyes and nose streaming and long ribbons of her reddish-blond hair whipping across her face. Shivering with a cold that her leather jacket barely cut, she felt scoured and sandblasted—and angrier than ever.

Leave it to my sister to drag me halfway to Hell.

No. That wasn’t right. As she pushed the hair from her face, she reminded herself she hadn’t driven all the way up to the Panhandle ranch, where her twin’s trail had gone cold, for Haley’s sake, no more than she was here for the “very personal human-interest story” she’d pitched to her news director as a pretext to get out of Dallas for a few days. Though the request must have come as quite a shock considering that she’d been on the verge of breaking a story bound to make national headlines, She had really come because she’d made a promise. A promise to the mother she was about to lose.

The thought brought with it a stab of fear, the same swirling sense of panic that threatened to pull Jessie under several times a day. She was still working to get past her father’s sudden death two years before, and he had barely acknowledged her existence, except to criticize her. Now, her mother, too, was dying, the one parent she could always count on for support, for love—Jessie couldn’t bear the thought.

She closed her eyes for a moment, steadying her breathing, reminding herself that they still had weeks or months left. Or maybe even longer. Aggressive as the cancer was, her mom was holding her own at the moment, and the oncologist had allowed that spontaneous remissions had happened in a few rare cases.

If she could find Haley and bring her home to make peace, they might get the miracle they needed. Or maybe Mom just wants to see her one more time before she dies... The reason didn’t matter. Finding Haley, and getting her home fast, was more important to Jessie than anything else right now. Important enough that she scarcely gave a thought to the risk to her career and the story she’d been so focused on selling to her news director.

Henry Kucharski stumbled up the steps behind her, the bushy gray wreath that ringed his bald head swirling in the gale. A wiry little man with a woolly caterpillar of a mustache, he was struggling with the mini-cam, pulling off the lens cap as she pounded on the front door.

“Three in the afternoon, and it might as well be full dark,” he said anxiously. “Without decent lighting, this footage won’t be worth the—”

“Don’t you get it, Henry? I couldn’t care less about the lighting,” she said, “or the footage, either.”

Pried loose by the wind, a nearby shutter started banging. Concerned her own knock wouldn’t be heard, Jessie tried ringing the bell but didn’t hear it. As she’d suspected when she’d first spotted the darkened windows, the storm must have caused a power outage.

“That’s not what you told Vivian.” Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, Henry squinted against the wind. “And I’ll remind you, she’s my boss, too. You and I both know how she holds on to grudges. And how many ways she has of making our lives miserable.”

Jessie, who towered over him in the high-heeled boots she wore with a tunic and leggings, spared him an apologetic look, remembering how allergic the poor guy was to confrontation. And how sweet he’d been to postpone his wedding anniversary dinner with his wife of twenty-six years to make the six-hour drive out here with her when it was clear that no one else would. “I’ll take full responsibility. Don’t worry.”

She rapped at the oversize mahogany door again, more insistently this time. Please let someone be home. She’d spotted a big pickup parked out back, but for all she knew, the owners were off somewhere in another vehicle from the attached four-car garage.

“Oh, I’m not worried about me, so much. It’s you, especially after you jammed that story on the mayor down her throat. Vivian has friends, I hear, including one very close friend supporting—” As the doorknob rattled, Henry went silent, tensing as he readied his camera.

The moment the door cracked open, a gust sent a swirl of sand spinning into Jessie’s face. She cried out, covering her stinging eyes with her hands.

“Come inside, out of the wind,” insisted a female voice, thin and scratchy. “Quickly, please. You’re letting in the dust.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Henry as he ushered Jessie inside and pressed a handkerchief into her hands.

Blotting her streaming eyes, Jessie blinked in the dim light of a surprisingly formal entryway for this part of the world. Half a dozen tiny flames flickered, where someone had set out candles atop a fussy table with carved, curved ivory legs. The soft glow was reflected by a tall, ornately framed mirror, its illumination warming the cool marble floor beneath a vaulted ceiling. Like the huge old house, miles from its nearest neighbor, this entryway had been built to impress, even overwhelm, potential rivals.

Having grown up in Dallas’s upscale Highland Park neighborhood, Jessie had long since gotten past the notion that privilege necessarily deserved protection. It was part of what made her fearless when confronting those who considered themselves untouchable, from a beloved sports legend who was systematically cheating customers at the car dealership he’d purchased, to the mayor of Dallas, who would very soon be facing his own reckoning over his crooked reelection campaign.

The lady of the house would find herself no more immune, especially if the woman kept doing everything in her power to frustrate Jessie’s search.

“Mrs. Rayford? Nancy Rayford?” She blinked at an attractive older woman with a silvered pixie cut and blue eyes a shade darker than her soft cabled sweater. It was hard to imagine this was the same woman who had answered her questions on the phone so brusquely before repeatedly hanging up on her. She was a tiny, mousy-looking thing, so frail and insubstantial that Jessie quickly closed the door behind her, half-afraid that a stray gust could waft her up into the shadow of the elegant curved staircase just behind her.

“Yes, why—” Voice faltering, Mrs. Rayford took a step back before reaching for a candle with one trembling hand. Lifting its light toward Jessie, she gasped and spread her hand over her chest. “Haley? Oh, my— I thought you weren’t—”

Jessie shook her head. “My sister. Remember? I tried to tell you on the phone.” Her heart fell with a realization. “Then, Haley really isn’t here?”

She’d been banking on finding her sister hiding out here, after having talked her way into some menial job with some sob story about being pursued by an abusive stalker. It was Haley’s time-honored method for avoiding creditors, former lovers and, Jessie suspected, her family, as well.

Mrs. Rayford’s blue eyes widened before she flicked a fearful glance behind her, toward the stairwell. “You’re— Then you’re really not her? Truly?”

“We’re identical twins,” Jessie explained, offering a smile in an attempt to reassure the frightened woman. And more important, to gain her trust. “Our own father couldn’t tell us apart.”

Not that he’d ever made much effort. But Nancy Rayford didn’t need to know that.

From outside came a low hum, and a moment later, the chandelier above them flickered on. The sudden illumination revealed the older woman’s pallor, painting gaunt shadows in her hollowed cheeks.