Once a Father

“Boys, boys, play nice,” Westin laughed. The serious nature behind the impromptu gathering blended into the laughter, making it fade. It was time he told them why he’d asked for this get-together. “Besides, this is probably the last time I’m going to be seeing you for a while and I’d like to take away an image of you overgrown Boy Scouts doing something other than clowning around.”

There was a great deal of affection between them that went beyond their time together in the war. They, along with the one missing, estranged member of their former group, had all attended Virginia Military Institute, then joined the 14th Marines after graduation. The Gulf War had seen them taken prisoner and required them to demonstrate exemplary bravery under fire and extreme conditions. Though none talked about it, each man would have gone to hell and back for the others in the group.

Some of them felt they had.

“Okay, I’ve had it with this country club facade.” Unlike Luke and Flynt, an endless supply of money had never been Tyler’s problem while he was growing up. He turned to Westin. “C’mon, Commander, straight out, tell us. Why’d you call us together? What’s this big mystery you’re keeping from us?”

Phil slid his club into his bag and debated over which club to use for the shot. He appeared unruffled, but his mind wasn’t on anything so trivial as the right club to use. “No big mystery, just don’t want it advertised just yet.” Taking a club out, he turned to look at the others. He needed them to know this. In case there came a time when he had to call upon them for help. “I’m being sent to Central America to see if maybe I can get a handle on how to bring down that new drug czar. Calls himself El Jefe.” He smiled thinly. “No ego problem there.”

Though their lives had taken them in different directions since the time they served together, the men were all up on the rumors that the newest drug route bringing illegal fare into the U.S. was passing directly through their part of the country. Maybe even through Mission Creek itself, though none of them liked to think that.

“Why you?” Luke wondered if Westin, like himself, was a secret agent. Wouldn’t that have been a hoot? Two of them in one small, tight circle, each not knowing about the other.

A steely grin curved Westin’s strong mouth. “Haven’t you heard? They always pick the best man for the job.” The hell with the game, he decided. He wanted to sit and hoist a few beers with these men before he disappeared into the jungle for who knew how long. “I’ve got reservations for us at the Men’s Grill.” He glanced at his watch. The reservation was for eleven. It was five minutes past that now. “It’s already getting late. Let’s go there and I’ll tell you all about it. Might be something to pass along to your grandkids if you boys can ever find yourself four good women whose standards aren’t too high.”

Luke gladly tossed his golf club into his bag. “I’m ready to call it a game.”

Eschewing carts and caddies, each man carried his own bag, just as they had once carried their own fifty-pound backpacks through a foreign land.

But as they turned toward the sprawling four-story brick complex known as the Lone Star Country Club where the Men’s Grill was housed, an explosion suddenly resounded, shattering the calm of a perfect morning.

Flames belched out, infecting the horizon with smoke as the men were sent tumbling pell-mell to the ground, their golf clubs scattered all around them like so many sticks emptied out of one giant bag.

Chapter 1

“I’m not a baby, Mom. I’m old enough to go to the bathroom myself,” Jake Anderson insisted. Rocking on the toes of the brand-new pair of shoes his mother had made him wear today, the boy who was five, hovering anxiously on the cusp of being six, looked to his father for backup. “Right, Dad?”

Daniel Anderson smiled affectionately at his only son. With his blond hair and fair coloring, the boy was the spitting image of his mother. The thought crossed Daniel’s mind that his own mother had been right. They did grow up so fast.

“He is five, you know, Meg.”

“Almost six,” Jake piped up.

Margaret Anderson sighed, knowing she was being overly protective. But it was still difficult for her not to think of Jake as her little boy and as such, she didn’t really want him to go wandering off on his own, even though this was the Lone Star Country Club, where only the best people came to pass the time.

As if reading her mind, her husband added, “And after all, this is the Lone Star Country Club, Meg. Nothing bad ever happens here. Best place in the world to start letting Jake be his own person.”

Assaulted on both sides, Meg had no choice but to relent. “I suppose.” As he was about to run off, she caught her son’s hand. He looked at her, obviously trying to curb his impatience. “Just to the men’s room and back, Jake. Don’t go wandering off and don’t dawdle.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jake mumbled dutifully.

Daniel made a show of checking his pockets. Not finding what he was looking for, he snapped his fingers. “And me without my compass. Think you can get there and back before nightfall, son?”

Jake laughed as his father ruffled his hair.

Meg took the teasing at her expense in stride. “All right, you two.” She looked at Daniel. “He’s still my little boy.” She curbed the impulse to hug Jake, knowing that displays of affection in public embarrassed him. “I’m entitled. Go now, before they bring your dessert and it melts.” She shooed her son off and then raised her coffee cup to her lips.

Trying not to run, Jake quickly made his way through the dining hall, afraid his mother would find some reason to call him back. He felt like one of the big boys now, off on his own.

In the hall, he paused, trying to remember which direction to take to get to the men’s room. He’d been there several times with his father, but he’d never paid much attention. The long hallways all looked alike. Stubbornly, he refused to go back and ask his parents for directions, knowing that his mother would take the opportunity to come with him as she showed him the way.

Hesitating, Jake made his choice and turned to his right. He saw the green-and-white sign all the way at the end of the corridor. It said Rest Rooms. That was grown-up talk for bathrooms.

Hurrying, he passed a partially opened door. The sign across it had words he hadn’t learned how to read yet. The sound of urgent voices aroused his natural curiosity and he peered inside.

What he saw was a partially darkened room filled with what looked to be a hundred television sets, all tuned to boring programs that had nothing but rooms on them. There was a single, sharp beam of light coming in from another opened door. It was on the other end of the room, to the left and the door was opened to the outside.

He thought he saw a truck and two men, each dragging a big, fat sack from the room to the door. They looked like the sack that Santa Claus had brought his toys in just last month, except that these were green. He wondered if there were toys in these sacks and if the men he saw were Santa’s helpers.

One of the men looked sharply at him.

“Hey, you, kid!”

Jake jumped back, afraid that the man would tell his parents that he’d strayed. Or worse, that he’d tell Santa and he wouldn’t get any presents next Christmas.

Spinning on his heel, he ran back toward the Grill, forgetting all about his maiden solo voyage to the bathroom.

Halfway back to the dining area, he heard a big bang coming from that area at almost the same time he went flying off his feet.

His head hit the floor just as bursts of light registered in his brain.

Everything went black.

Bonnie Brannigan wasn’t aware of wringing her hands, even though the action moved the large engagement ring on her hand to and fro and made her overly burdened charm bracelet jingle with each movement.

Nor did she realize that her platinum blond hair, usually so carefully and artfully arranged in a hair-style that had been dear to her heart since her teens some forty years ago, had sunk several degrees south of its rightful position atop her head. She was far too upset to notice anything but the flames shooting out from what had once been the Men’s Grill. It was clear that the restaurant and the billiards room next to it were lost. She prayed that the firemen she was watching so intently could contain the fire to this section.

What if they couldn’t? The whole club was in jeopardy.

As manager of the popular Lone Star Country Club these past few years, she’d been inside her office reviewing last month’s profits when the explosion had thrown her from her chair. Momentarily disoriented, the acrid smell of smoke reached her nose just as her ears were clearing of the deafening noise.

Stumbling out into the hallway, she’d been accosted by flames. One of the busboys had grabbed her hand, all but dragging her out of the building. In retrospect, he’d probably saved her life. She wasn’t even sure which young man it had been.

It seemed too incredible for words.

Well clear of the building, she stood shivering beneath a coat someone had thrown on her shoulders, fighting off the tightening grasp of shock. Her eyes stung, whether from smoke or grief she wasn’t altogether sure, and a tear trickled down her sooty cheek as she surveyed the damage that had been done. A panicked feeling was taking over the pit of her stomach.

Dressed in the pink colors she tended to favor, Bonnie stood out like a petite, colorful focal point amid the destruction that came in the wake of the explosion.

Her mind struggled to understand.

Was this some horrible accident, or deliberate? Who could have done this?

Noise, hoses and smoke seemed to be all around her. Right in front of her, yellow-jacketed firefighters were attempting to tame the flames.

“Nothing like this has ever happened here before,” she said more to herself than to the powerfully built man standing beside her.

“Yeah, bet old Peter Wainwright and Jace Carson are spinning in their graves right now. Like as not they’d each blame the other for this.” Ben Stone took a step back from the scene. He’d been the police chief of Mission Creek, the town that had slowly grown up and around the Lone Star Country Club that the once best friends had created, cutting the acreage equally out of both their properties before a blood feud had rent them apart, for more years than he was happy about. Agitated, he ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. At 6’2” he all but dwarfed the woman beside him.