After Tex

The pounding pulse slowed to a dull thud. “Is Tex okay? Has something happened to him?”

“There is no easy way to say this. He is gone, niña. Your grandfather passed away a few moments ago.”

The words echoed, nonsensical, impossible.

“No,” Megan protested in a whisper.

“I am so sorry, niña.”

“No,” Megan said again as tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks. “Not Tex.” He was big and blustery and strong. Indomitable. Immortal.

“I am so very sorry,” Mrs. Gomez repeated. “It was very fast. There was no time to call you. His heart, the doctor said. There had been signs, but your grandfather ignored them. Like always, he thought he knew best.”

“I’ll be there on the first flight,” Megan told her, dimly aware that another phone line had lit up, indicating that the ever-efficient Todd was already making the arrangements. He would clear her schedule, see that things ran smoothly in her absence. More than ever, she thought what a godsend he was.

“I’ll let you know when I’ll arrive,” she promised. “And I’ll arrange for a rental car.”

“No need to do that. There are cars here you can use. I will tell Señor Jake. He will pick you up.”

Megan was not so distraught that the name of a man she’d thought long gone from Whispering Wind, Wyoming, slipped past her. “Jake?”

“Sí. Señor Landers. You remember.”

Oh, yes, she remembered. All too well. Sexy. Arrogant. Big-time trouble. Also a man her grandfather had once despised. Tex had worked very hard to see that Jake was out of both their lives.

“Why is Jake Landers there?”

“I am sure he will explain it all to you.”

“You tell me,” Megan insisted.

“I do not know your grandfather’s business,” Mrs. Gomez said. “Just hurry home, niña.”

It was too late to worry about hurrying, Megan thought bleakly. It was too late for so many things she had vowed to do to let her grandfather know that she loved him, that she would be forever grateful for all he had done for her.

“I’m coming home, Tex,” she murmured.

But, of course, it was too late for that to matter, too.

2

“Is she coming?” Jake asked Tex O’Rourke’s housekeeper after she had talked to Megan.

“Well, of course she is,” Mrs. Gomez replied with a touch of indignation. “Did you think she would stay away at a time like this?”

The truth was Jake didn’t know what to think about Meggie after all these years. Once he’d had a world-class crush on her, but she’d been as out of reach to him then as if they’d lived on different planets. In a very real sense, they might as well have.

As Tex O’Rourke’s granddaughter, Megan had been part of Whispering Wind’s elite social circle, such as it was. Jake had been the son of the town whore and a troublemaker in his own right. No one was more stunned than Jake himself that he had wound up a lawyer. Then again, few people knew both sides of the law as well as he did.

Jake still wasn’t entirely certain what perversity had drawn him back to Whispering Wind a few months ago. Some would say he was returning to the scene of his crimes. Others would probably assess his motives even less charitably. The bottom line, though, was that he was back, and predictably enough, the whole town was still talking about it.

Ironically, Tex O’Rourke had been one of the few who hadn’t cast judgment, but then the old man knew better than most that not all of the tales about Jake’s misdeeds had been accurate. When Tex had turned up in Jake’s office late one afternoon asking for legal help, Jake wasn’t sure which of them had been the most uncomfortable.

The last time they’d met, Jake had been charged with trying to rustle cattle from Tex’s ranch. Even though he’d eventually been cleared of the charges, it had left a bitter taste in his mouth. As for Tex, he’d bought his way out of that misjudgment by sending Jake off to college, then funding his way through law school.

When his mother died before his graduation, Jake had had every intention of never setting foot in Whispering Wind again. He’d joined a prestigious law firm in Chicago, married and settled down, chasing after money the way he’d once chased after stray cattle.

Then he’d discovered his wife in bed with one of his law partners who was on an even faster track. In the midst of their very messy divorce, he’d won an acquittal for a guy who was a perpetual loser, only to discover the kid was guilty as sin. It hadn’t taken all that much encouragement from his stuffy, uptight, publicity-shy partners to get him to quit. Jake had taken his considerable savings and investments, his bruised and battered ego, and retreated to Whispering Wind. Maybe, he reasoned, if he finally dealt with his past, he’d be able to figure out his future.

Opening a law practice here had been a halfhearted gesture, a way to keep his old neighbors from referring to him as that lazy, no-account Landers boy once again. He’d figured not a soul in town would turn to him for legal advice, but he had enough money tucked away and enough income-producing investments not to care. In fact, whole days often passed before he stopped by to check his answering machine for messages from potential clients. He should have known the most powerful man in town—his reluctant benefactor—would be the first to show up and actually catch him sitting behind his desk.

“Surprised to see you back here,” Tex had said, sinking heavily into a chair opposite Jake.

“Displeased, too, I’ll bet.”

“No, the truth is, I’m glad for the chance to make it up to you for what happened back then. You’d done some foolish things. It was easy enough to believe you’d taken the cattle. I latched on to the notion when I shouldn’t have.”

It was more of an apology than Jake had expected. He shrugged, as if it made no difference at this late date. “You paid my way through school, old man. We’re even.”

“Not just yet,” Tex insisted. “I want to hire you. That’ll bring the rest of the folks in town flocking to you.”

Jake had shuddered at the prospect. He hadn’t actually wanted to be successful all over again. It certainly hadn’t suited him well the last time. “Thanks all the same, but I came home to take it slow and easy. I don’t need you building up business for me.”

“Yeah, I heard about that kid. Must have shaken you pretty bad.” Tex had regarded him knowingly. “Almost as bad as finding out your wife was cheating on you with a man you’d thought of as a friend.”

“I see you’ve kept up,” Jake said dryly, not the least bit surprised at the old man’s ability to ferret out secrets. Tex had always known what Jake and Megan were up to, that was for sure, and he’d done his best to see that things between them never went too far.

“You cost me enough,” Tex said, explaining away his interest. “I figured it was my duty to see how my investment was paying off.”

Anger, long denied, surfaced. “No, what cost you was misjudging me. I was never a thief, old man, and you should have known it. I respected you, looked up to you like a father. I gave you an honest day’s work for every penny you ever paid me, and then some.”

Tex nodded in agreement. “True enough. And that’s exactly what I expect of you now.”

“What kind of legal work do you want me to do?” Jake asked reluctantly.

“I want you to write up my will, make it airtight, so no legal shark can pull it apart after I’m gone.”

Jake studied him and noticed something he should have spotted earlier. Tex O’Rourke’s color was bad, his complexion ashen. His words came with a hitch in his breath. For a man not yet seventy, a man who’d always been in robust health, the changes were dramatic.

Jake was surprisingly shaken by the thought of his old nemesis dying. He’d realized in that instant that, even after all this time, he wanted to prove himself to this cantankerous old man. Until the day Tex had charged him with cattle rustling, he’d been the closest thing to a father figure Jake had ever known. The realization that there might not be much time left shook him.

“Is it your heart?” he asked, trying not to let his dismay show. Tex would hate pity more than most men, hate it coming from him even more.

“So the doc says. It’s my opinion I’m too contrary to die, but you never know where God stands on something like that, so I’m not taking any chances.” He leveled a look straight into Jake’s eyes. “Will you do it?”

Filled with reluctance, Jake reached for a yellow legal pad and a pen. “Tell me what you have in mind.”

An hour later he was reeling. “Megan’s going to be fit to be tied,” he said.