Carla Neggers - Stonebrook Cottage

Not Sam Temple. He was another possibility for her queasy stomach, but not one she wanted to consider.

She’d been putting in long hours since Big Mike’s death two weeks ago, but memories of their long friendship would sneak up on her no matter how deep she buried herself in her legal work. Kara had met him through her friend Allyson Lourdes Stockwell, now the governor of Connecticut. She and Kara had gone to law school together, before Allyson’s husband died of cancer and left her with two toddlers to raise on her own.

Henry and Lillian Stockwell were twelve and eleven now. After Big Mike’s funeral, they’d flown back to Texas with Kara, and she’d dropped them off at a kids’ dude ranch southwest of Austin, a long-planned adventure that Allyson had decided not to cancel, despite the trauma of Mike Parisi’s death. Henry and Lillian had loved him, too. Everyone had.

The kids wrote to Kara, who was their godmother, from the ranch, complaining about the food, the heat, the bugs, the snakes. They never mentioned Big Mike.

Kara tried not to think about him, or his funeral. How he’d died. The Connecticut state police and the state’s chief attorney’s office were conducting a joint investigation. But none of that was her concern. All she should concentrate on were Henry and Lillian, who would be spending a few days with her after their dude ranch experience, then flying back to Connecticut to enjoy the last of summer and get ready for school.

Seeing them would be a welcome distraction.

George Carter stopped in the open doorway to her office and peered at her. “You sick?”

Kara focused on her boss. “I think I had bad seafood tacos at lunch.”

He winced. “There’s no such thing as a good seafood taco.”

At sixty-two, George Carter was a man of strong opinions, a prominent and respected attorney in Austin, a founding partner of Carter, Smith and Rodriguez, African-American, straightforward, brilliant, father of three, grandfather of two. He was also one of Kara’s biggest doubters. He made no secret of it. He said he liked her fine and didn’t hold her Yale education or her years as an attorney in Connecticut against her. He’d never even asked her about her Texas Ranger brother. His doubts weren’t personal. George was a buttoned-down lawyer who fought hard and played by the rules, and Kara was an out-of-the-box thinker, someone who came at problems sideways by nature, training and experience. She liked to get a fix on the complexities of a problem, understand every angle, every approach, before committing herself to a strategy. In other words, the two of them were polar opposites.

He’d agreed to hire her the previous fall on a one-year contract because, he said, he thought she brought skills and a way of thinking to the firm that it needed. At the end of the year, if the fit between her and Carter, Smith and Rodriguez worked, she’d become a full partner. If not, she’d be looking for work.

“Damn, it’s freezing in here.” He gave an exaggerated shiver. “I’m getting goose bumps. What’s the air-conditioning on?”

“Sixty-eight. I’m still acclimating to August in Texas.”

“You’re wasting energy and running up the electric bill.”

He was six feet tall, his hair just beginning to turn gray, an impressive figure in court with his deceptively understated suits and manner—but Kara didn’t believe for a second he was cold. He had on a coat and tie. She just had on slacks and a simple top, and she wasn’t cold.

She felt her stomach roll over. Maybe she’d developed an allergy to seafood.

She thought again of Sam Temple. She was accustomed to men who preferred to love her from afar. Romantics. Nothing about Sam Temple was from afar—it was up close and personal, immediate. And crazy, inexplicable, totally unforgettable. She pushed him out of her mind because thinking about him was insanity. Having a Texas Ranger for a brother was one thing—sleeping with one was another. George would hold that against her.

He shook his head. “A born-and-bred Texan like you, fussing about the heat.”

“When I first went up to New England, I was always complaining about the cold. I thought I’d never get used to it, but I did. It’s like that now with the heat.”

“There’s no end in sight to this heat wave, you know.”

She’d seen the long-range forecast on the news that morning. It was August in south-central Texas. What did she expect? She pushed back her chair slightly from her desk. Her office was small, with standard furnishings. She hadn’t bothered adding pictures and her own artwork, the lack of personal touches giving it a temporary feel, as if she was stuck between the kid she’d been here and the woman she’d become up north.

She smiled at George. “You didn’t come here to listen to me complain about the heat.”

“No, I didn’t. Kara—” He sighed, obviously not thrilled with what he had to say. “You’ve had a rough couple of weeks. I can see they’re taking their toll on you.”

She knew what he was talking about. “Mike Parisi was a good friend.”

His warm, dark eyes settled on her. “Nothing more?”

“No.”

But Big Mike had wanted more. He admitted as much after she’d decided to move back to Texas. He was half in love with her, he’d said, and had been since his wife had died, but didn’t want to ruin their friendship by saying anything. Now that she was leaving, he wanted her to know. When she met a man in Texas, he’d told her, don’t hold back. Go for it. Life was too short, his own missed opportunities too numerous, too bitter, to contemplate.

Would it have made any difference if he’d told her sooner?

No, she thought. She’d never been in love with Big Mike. Nor had he been in love with her—not really. He knew it that day in Connecticut and so did she.

Kara smiled, picturing him in his cluttered office, a fat cigar stuck in his mouth. “He liked to tell me bad Texas jokes,” she told George Carter. “He thinks—he thought we were all hard-asses down here.”

“The new governor, Allyson Stockwell, is a friend of yours, as well?”

Kara nodded. Allyson’s husband, Lawrence Stockwell, had died ten years ago, now Big Mike. Two strong, powerful men in her life. Lawrence’s half brother, Hatch Corrigan, didn’t have that kind of magnetism or influence, but he was all Allyson had left.

Allyson had insisted for months Hatch was another one who loved Kara from afar. Kara, who never noticed such things, refused to believe it until Hatch decided to tell her at Big Mike’s funeral. We were both in love with you, Kara. Stupid as hell, huh?

No wonder she had a sick stomach.

“Worried about her?” George asked.

“I don’t know. Allyson’s only thirty-seven—she let Big Mike talk her into running as his lieutenant governor. But she’s devoted to public service…”

Kara trailed off, remembering her friend’s panicked voice the night of Big Mike’s death, not long after she was sworn in as governor. I’m not ready, Kara. I’m just not. She’d called on her cell phone to give Kara the terrible news. Kara had just arrived at the Dunning Gallery in Austin for the opening of the Gordon Temple exhibit. Temple was a prominent Cherokee artist, raised in Oklahoma, a former teacher in Texas who was now based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Getting him for their gallery was a coup for Kevin and Eva Dunning, whose daughter Susanna was married to Kara’s brother Jack.

That Gordon Temple and Sam Temple, a Texas Ranger, shared the same last name was, Sam said, just one of those things. Kara didn’t believe it.

Every second of that surreal evening was etched in her mind.

“Big Mike was a larger-than-life kind of guy,” she went on, aware of George’s scrutiny. “He won’t be an easy act to follow, but people shouldn’t underestimate Allyson. Once she gets over the shock of his death, she’ll do fine.”