The Girl with the Golden Spurs

“Nicaragua,” the caller said without identifying himself.

Electra was a damn fool. He’d told her to stay out of hot spots like that. She was nearly forty-eight, old enough to know better. Funny, when he thought of her, she was forever young. She always looked young when he saw her pictures in the newspapers.

Forty-eight was too young to die. How many times had he warned her about those countries? He’d even gone down to Columbia once and rescued her when she’d gotten herself kidnapped.

“How? How did she die?”

“Did you know she kept a journal…so she could write a book? An intimate tell-all?” Laughter.

Caesar remembered the way she used to sit up at night, writing with the lamp shining on her blond curls. Just like Lizzy. His head began to pound. His throat was so dry he couldn’t swallow.

“She wasn’t a virginal, saintly heroine, was she? Any more than you’re the legendary, responsible Texas hero. Or the faithful husband. You ever wonder who else she slept with…or how you rate?”

Hell, yes, he’d wondered. “Bastard! Who the hell are you? What do you want?”

More laughter. “She wrote about you. Did you know that? Does Lizzy know who her real mother is?”

“What the hell do you want?”

“The world is full of shortages. You have so much.”

“Who else have you told?”

“Nobody…yet.”

“How did she die?” he repeated.

Laughter. “In her bed.”

“How?”

“The bitch got what she deserved. Other people you love will die, too, if you don’t release more of the oil and gas revenues to the rightful shareholders.”

So the bastard had killed her. Moreover, the lowlife wanted money. Everybody always wanted money.

Caesar had no doubt he was talking to the traitor.

A warrior’s scream rose inside him, like the screams of cattle in a burning barn. He must have made some sound because vultures exploded out of nearby oak tree and circled slowly, as if he were a stricken creature.

“You won’t be around forever, old man. When you’re gone, whatever will happen to Lizzy?”

Caesar cursed. Then pain, the likes of which he’d never felt before, burst inside his head. His right hand lost its grip on the leather reins, and he cried out.

The pain subsided as quickly as it had come, as it always did. Other than feeling curiously empty as if a part of himself was gone, he felt all right. It was nothing, he told himself. Nothing. He’d had headaches all his life. He was too young for it to be anything serious. Just in case, he pulled an aspirin out of his pocket and chewed it, swallowing the bitter taste.

“Who are you? Who the hell gave you this number?”

Laughter. Peals of it. Then the line went dead.

He had no idea how long he sat in the saddle thinking about Electra, wondering what had happened to her, before the phone rang again. Quickly he answered it.

“Hi there. I got worried when you didn’t call right back.” Cherry’s voice was soft and friendly, but he couldn’t talk, couldn’t say anything.

“Hey, big boy, are you there? Are you okay?”

Caesar cleared his throat and tried to focus. “I can’t talk right now.”

“I’m sorry.” She sounded genuinely sympathetic. “So, do you want to get together?”

He didn’t answer. That he was even considering cheating on Joanne with a woman like Cherry had to be a sign that the tremendous strain he’d been under was taking its toll.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” he said. “Look, I shouldn’t have called you—”

“You won’t be sorry,” her low, sultry voice promised. “I swear. I think this is fate. Your name starts with C—my name starts with C. I looked up your birthday. You’re a Taurus and I’m an Aquarius.”

What the hell did that have to do with anything?

“I’m free…late, every single night,” she whispered, “after I finish dancing. We could unwind…after a long day. I’m off all day Sunday, and I never go to church. Get your cowboy son-in-law or his pilot to fly you up here again.”

“You’re awful sure of yourself.”

“You called me,” she said.

He remembered Electra and his wild passion for her that had lasted even until now. Sorrow, not lust, gripped his heart.

“You called me back—twice. Don’t chase, girl. If I want you, I’ll do the chasin’. Frankly, I’m not in the mood.”

“Ohhhh!” She sucked in a breath. “Go to hell. Go straight to hell.”

When she slammed the phone down so hard she made his ear pop.

She was a pistol.

A woman like her could take a man’s mind off his worries. His sorrows…

All things considered, he had half a mind to call her back.

Two

Six months later

Manhattan,

Upper West Side

The cell phone rang just as Lizzy made it up the concrete stairs outside her brownstone with baby Vanilla. Golden leaves fluttered on the trees that lined her street. Not that she paid much attention to the afternoon’s beauty.

She was too preoccupied at her front door as she buzzed Bryce, her present live-in, who didn’t answer. When he didn’t, it was panic time.