Just Let Go… (15 page)

“Son, he’s a world-famous surgeon. Hell, he operated on my own mother four years ago, so don’t play coy. If that town had a lick of sense, they would have strung up your daddy and called it a good day’s work. But no, they just carried on trash-talking you, tarnishing your good name, and yet you still want to commit hari-kari in order to get them one stupid train station that doesn’t amount to squat.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re not hearing me, boy. That train is running through Boxwood Flats.”

There was a resoluteness to Big Ed that Austen had always admired. He’d rescued Austen in more ways than one; given him direction, ambition and a career that didn’t involve motor oil. Austen had always thought that the resoluteness was short-sighted; better to keep your eye on the road ahead and be flexible. Until now. Now he understood that sometimes the road ahead didn’t matter. Sometimes you had to keep your eye fixed on what you had to do. “Tell me what Pecos County wanted.”

Ed stayed silent for a minute, obviously contemplating Austen’s future. “Pecos County wanted to expand the number of their wind turbines. Nolan County passed them by, and they were miffed at not being the wind capital of the world anymore. But then Jack Haywood pointed out—rightly so—that even if they built the turbines, the power lines were operating at ninety percent capacity. They’d be blowing a lot of hot air and sitting on a gold mine of power with absolutely no way to cash in.” Ed shook his head sadly. “If God had intended for man to use wind power, he’d have never invented the car.”

Then Ed shot him a what-do-you-do look.

Austen shot him a what-do-you-do look back, but his mind was already rolling down a list of possibilities and rejecting every one.

“The prison was a good choice,” Ed continued. “You can see why everybody left the table happy. It isn’t a good time to mess it up.” Then he rocked back in his chair and smiled a fatherly smile. “You’ve got a bright future here. I’ve been proud of what you’ve done. You talked J.C. into lowering the regulations on abandoned wells. You got the governor to kick in extra for the fracking industry. I sent you to D.C. to fight on the carbon tax, and when you came back, every honcho from Houston to Midland lined up to shake your hand. People like you. They know better than to trust you, but they still tell you things anyway. It’s good for business. Keeps everybody happy. I like happiness. It makes a man live longer. It makes a man rich. Don’t make me unhappy, son, especially since there’s not a damned thing you can do.”

Austen stood. “I should let you get to your dinner. I didn’t mean to hold you up. Give my regards to Margaret and tell her I put a check on her desk.”

This time, Big Ed didn’t look quite so unconcerned, but just like he said, what the hell could Austen do? “You’ll think about what I said?”

Austen nodded. “Of course.”

W
HILE
A
USTEN
was visiting Big Ed, Gillian went on a mission of her own. A secret mission, because she had seen the knowing looks between J.C. and Austen, and as a law-enforcement professional, she always knew to follow up on a lead.

J.C. was lounging poolside in blue-jean shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, reading a gossip magazine under the patio lights and sipping iced tea. Gillian wasn’t fooled. The woman’s blue john legs meant she hadn’t worn shorts since the Carter administration.

Still, J.C. was polite, sliding down her reading glasses and peering at Gillian with real interest. “I don’t know why you’re here. I can’t help you.”

“I’m not here about the train. I’m here about Austen.” Gillian pulled up a patio chair and crossed her legs in a ladylike, yet an “I’m-not-going-anywhere” manner.

“Don’t know that I can help you there, either.”

“I think you can. I think you definitely can.”

“I don’t interfere,” answered the woman who appeared a world-class interferer, but Gillian didn’t need help, only answers to questions that had eaten at her for years.

“I don’t need you to run interference. He helped you, didn’t he?”

J.C. kicked her legs over the side of the lounger, and stopped pretending to be a woman of leisure. “Why are you asking? You think if I owe him, I’ll be more inclined to back the original plan?”

“I told you I wasn’t here about that. It’s him.”

J.C. pulled off her sunglasses and studied Gillian, and after a moment seemed to find the answers she needed. “Well, go ahead, then. What’s on your mind?”

And where to start? Gillian rubbed her hands on her legs, took a deep breath, and began to speak. “I made a lot of mistakes recently. I made assumptions and misassumptions and, I don’t know…I wasn’t as smart as I should have been.”

J.C. smiled gently at her. “Since it looks like we’re going to be here for a while, why don’t you start at the beginning?”

Gillian nodded. “Austen and I grew up in the same town. We lived on the opposite sides of town, but we might as well have been on different planets. He was always quiet, kept his head down, but I was fascinated by him. I knew he had a good heart. It was there, but since we’ve seen each other again, it’s like, I don’t know. He keeps telling me how he’s the world’s most miserable SOB, but—”

“But?”

And there was always a
but.
“He’s not.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” J.C. said, her voice sly.

“Did he ever tell you about his father? Frank Hart?”

“No,” the woman answered, but Gillian knew she was lying. J. C. Travis was a pretty good liar, but Gillian had spent some time in the company of professional liars—a career in law enforcement did that—and she knew when people were hiding things from her.

Like J.C.

Like Austen. But this wasn’t an interrogation, and Gillian needed the woman’s help.

“Frank Hart was a drunk, a misogynist and the most ratlike human being I’ve ever known, and I’m a sheriff. I’ve seen some real rats, but Austen’s father… He was miserable and he wanted the world to be miserable, too. Have you ever known anybody like that?”

“Why’re you telling me all this?”

“I don’t think I’m telling you anything that Austen hasn’t told you himself.”

“Why would he?”

“I don’t know, but it’s obvious he cares about you, he respects you. He protects you.”

J.C. waved a feeble hand, but Gillian wasn’t fooled. “Lord, honey. Your eyes are worse than mine.”

Gillian plunged onward, ignoring the denial. J.C. liked the world to see what she wanted them to see. Gillian understood it, but she wasn’t just anybody. She had a huge personal stake in this matter and she wasn’t about to back down. “It’s all right. I’m glad to see it. In Tin Cup, well, nobody had great expectations for Austen Hart.”

“Not even you?”

She shook her head, ashamed of the truth, but admitting it for the first time. Something that Austen always knew. “Not even me. I liked to think I did. You know people are blind that way. We don’t want to acknowledge the bad in ourselves. I wanted to think I was open-minded, but I truly don’t believe I ever thought he was capable of anything. I wanted to, and there’s a difference, and I think Austen knew that. I think he still thinks that.”

“But you don’t?”

“Now I think he’s capable of great things.” Gillian stopped, corrected herself. “I think he’s already done a lot of great things, but he doesn’t trust me with the truth.”

“That sounds like a conversation you should have with Austen.”

“I’ve used up all my chances with Austen.”

“There’s always another chance.”

“Not always.” Her chances were almost used up, and he deserved better from her. In her heart, she had expected Austen to end up a car mechanic with a fondness for Jim Beam. She had never pictured him with a fine career, a two-car garage and an annual paycheck. No, in her own way, Gillian Wanamaker had done what the town had done and relegated Austen Hart to the bleachers.

“You think you’re right about him doing great things?”

“Yes, ma’am, and I think you know that for a fact.”

J.C. stayed silent, and then rose, looking out over the pool, her arms crossed in front of her, like a woman holding back the worst sort of pain.

“A long time ago I was in love with a man that I thought I knew, but I was wrong. Deep down, I knew I was wrong. We women should trust our instincts more, but nobody who knew him ever set me straight. It would have saved me a world of hurt.”

“I’m not the one who’s hurting. I never had to hurt like he did. I don’t know what to do.”

J.C. shot her a weak smile. “Austen’s a good man. He’s done things that a lesser man wouldn’t.”

Her words were honest ones, and Gillian appreciated that. It was the only answer that Gillian needed. A long time ago she should known that the allegations about the Hart brothers were wrong, but she had always been too hard-headed for that. Not anymore. “Thank you,” she said, and then turned to leave.

“Don’t you want to know? Or are you going to just fly on faith?”

Gillian shrugged. “I think it’s time I did,” she said. “Fly on faith, this is.” And then she made her way down the sidewalk.

“Gillian, wait.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

J.C. gestured toward the patio chair. “Have a seat. I’m feeling charitable this evening and the company would be nice. Do you mind?”

Gillian shook her head.

J.C. stared at the quiet waters of the pool. “This is my secret to tell, but you should know it. It’s not good when a woman has doubts. A woman should know.”

Gillian waited for the woman to go on. “My husband was a Texas legend. A man larger than life, with big ambitions and bigger dreams. He could do it all, and he had a booming laugh that would fill the room. It was easy for a girl to be star-struck and I was. You ever been star-struck?”

“No, ma’am. I’m too practical.”

J.C. hooted with laughter. “Well, I was a damn fool. I was young. In love. We were eighteen when we married, and Tommy Lee wanted a houseful of kids, but I couldn’t have kids, and at first, I didn’t think it mattered, but Tommy Lee had an idea of what he wanted in life and anything that he felt was a black mark against his legend, that was like a burr in his saddle and it made him twitchy. When Tommy Lee was twitchy, he got mad and mean and I was the one who bore the brunt of it. I had some broken ribs, fell off my horse a few times, rode under some branches and got a black eye. I bet the people of Texas thought I was the clumsiest rider ever, but I never rode a horse. That was my cover. Hate horses, always have.” She shook her head at her own foolishness.

“I stayed with the man until he died because I didn’t think I could do anything else. He’d gotten me convinced that I was stupid and weak and selfish, and after thirty-three years of marriage, I was sure that he was right. After all, what sort of fool stays trapped in hell? But then, after his funeral, people were pushing me to throw my hat in the ring as a tribute to his legacy.” She laughed again. A hard laugh, full of self-derision. “Can you imagine? The Democrats said I was everything this state needed. A tough, canny woman who knew the lay of the land, but still had a heart. I figured if the party was dumb enough to want me, then, hell, they’d get what they deserved, and I signed up as a state senator. And I won.”

She smiled then, a woman lost in her memories.

“You’ve had a good career, ma’am. Railroad commissioner in Texas is the closest thing to being a king in this state, keeping the oil execs from being too oily, doling out the revenues from the reserves. It’s no small miracle that they put a woman in charge of it at all. And you’ve been reelected three times, so it’s not a fluke. You should be proud of what you’ve overcome.”

“Almost didn’t happen. The railroad commissioner was the gold crown, the shining star, and I was getting cocky after ten years of dressing myself up in suit jackets and too-tight shoes. I thought I could win, but Big Ed wasn’t happy. He had his own horse in the race, and so he started digging through my closet and out came all those broken bones.”

“You were a victim, not a criminal,” Gillian defended, appalled at the idea of it.

“But who wants a victim for the most powerful job in the state?”

Gillian studied the woman who occupied the most powerful job in the state. “You won,” Gillian pointed out, wondering about the rest of the story, the part that J.C. was leaving unsaid.

“Late one night, Austen came to see me. Ed always sent a messenger. He never dealt with the dirt directly. It was his way of staying friendly. Austen was still wet behind the ears, I could see that, but I listened to him talk. Soon I could envision my entire political career getting flushed down the toilet, and I could hear Tommy Lee laughing at me from beyond the grave. Everything came back, and there I was again, just the same spineless coward who’d told the world she was a clumsy rider. I knew I couldn’t face all that, I was embarrassed and ashamed, and I told Austen that I wasn’t going to run after all. I told him that I was happy that he’d been to see me because the job was getting to be a lot of pressure, and I had a lot of money, and I didn’t need the headache. I told him it was time I retired from politics, and do you know what happened then?”

“No, ma’am.”

“He got this look on his face. Damnedest thing. Peaceful. I thought he must have been relieved that I was going down without a fight, but he told me that I had to run because sometimes running is the smarter thing to do. Sometimes, when you run, you think it’s going to be smooth going, but it ends up being a lot of work. Then he looked at me, and I figured that he’d been doing a lot of running himself, and we both laughed. It was sort of a dark joke. I still didn’t think he was serious, but he was. He said that he’d take care of Ed. I didn’t want to trust him, but part of me wanted to believe in him, believe that there was one good-hearted man in the state, and so I did. To this day I don’t know what he told Ed. I’ve tried a few times, but he clams up whenever I ask, and eventually I stopped asking.”

In the twinkling patio lights, J.C. seemed wistful, still a young girl at heart. Impulsively, Gillian took her hand, held on in gratitude. “Thank you.”

“He’s a good man. You needed to know.”