Long, Tall Texans--Christopher Read online

  “Not just like you,” she replied, smiling. “You used to hang out in bars with the Lafayette Escadrille and the SAS. I just walk in your shadow.”

  “Flatterer!”

  “Don’t forget to put the chain latch on at night,” she added worriedly. “And if you need me…”

  Chris already had the picture, from the brief snatches of conversation he overheard. “Give him this number,” he told her without taking his eyes from the road—a good thing, at the speed they were going. He recited the cell phone number, and then added one with a foreign exchange. “That’s in London. He can call anytime if he needs you. I’ll make sure the call is forwarded immediately.”

  She relayed the information.

  “Sounds young,” the old man cackled. “Is he?”

  “Sort of,” she replied warily. “Stay warm, too. Don’t worry about turning up the heat. Okay?”

  “Okay. Now stop worrying about me and get the job done. Don’t shame us.”

  “I wouldn’t dare!” she chuckled. “I’ll see you when I get back, Grandad.”

  “You take care, too. You’re the only family I got left.”

  “Same here.” She smiled as she put the receiver down. She glanced at the taciturn man beside her warily. “Thanks.”

  He shrugged. “You’ll do better sleuthing if you’re not worried. Your grandfather sounds like a character.”

  “He was, and still is. He was a reporter during the gang wars in Chicago, during Prohibition, and after that he was a war correspondent.” She laughed. “He can tell some stories. I followed in his footsteps, but not very well. I’m not sure I’m cut out for investigative reporting after all.”

  “What did you do before?”

  “I did political news and features.” She grimaced. “I was good at it, too, but Grandad said I was wilting on the vine and wasting away. He wanted me to do something exciting and risky while I was still young enough.”

  “Don’t you have any other family?”

  She shook her head. “My parents died overseas. They were touring the Middle East when the plane they were in was shot down accidentally. Grandad took me in when I was just ten and raised me.”

  “Tough luck,” he said. “No brothers, sisters, uncles or aunts?”

  “An aunt,” she replied. “She lives in California and never writes.” She glanced at him. “At least you have a brother.”

  “A brother and a mother,” he replied.

  “What’s she like?”

  “She’s a hell-raiser,” he returned amusedly. “I’ve never known her when she wasn’t in trouble. But she doesn’t kill people,” he added firmly.

  “I hope you’re right,” she replied.

  “I know I am.” But there was the faintest doubt in his voice. He turned the car onto the highway that led to the Jacobsville airport, new lines in his worried face.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Heathrow Airport was busy, especially for the time of year. Summer was high season for most tourists, and as Chris passed along the crowded path to the customs line, he heard accents from countries all over the world. He glanced at Della, surprised by the look on her face. She seemed overly affected by her surroundings, by the people around her. Some were wearing exotic dress, and she seemed to find those fascinating.

  He had a sudden thought. “You have your passport, but you’ve never been out of the States before, have you?” he asked.

  She glanced at him with a shy smile. “Actually, I haven’t. I always wanted to travel like my grandfather did, so I applied for my passport, but I couldn’t afford to go anywhere until I landed this latest job. Now that I can, I’ve been too afraid to leave him on his own. He’s diabetic, you see, and he won’t leave sweets alone. He’s been in a coma twice in the past three years, because he’s too stubborn to admit there’s anything wrong with him.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Chris murmured under his breath. He glanced at the line beside them, which had thinned considerably. He took Della’s arm and steered her and her wheeled suitcase to the shorter line.

  “You know how to do this, don’t you?” she asked, impressed.

  “I spend a lot of time overseas,” he commented. “Got your ticket?”

  “Right here.” She held it up.

  They passed through customs and baggage control with a minimum of fuss, and Chris went right to the rental car agency to hire a vehicle. Minutes later, they were on the way to their hotel to check in. He seemed to find driving on the left-hand side of the road very easy. It made Della nervous, but after the first few minutes, she relaxed and began to pay attention to the sights.

  “We’ll leave the luggage, get a bite to eat and head out for Back Wallop,” he said.

  “I’m glad to see you aren’t planning to let jet lag hold you back,” she commented dryly.

  He lifted an eyebrow and smiled. “What do you know about jet lag?”

  “I’ve read lots of travel books. Besides, my grandfather is an authority. As I mentioned before, he was a war correspondent.”

  “In which war?”

  “World War II, Korea, Vietnam and several other little wars in Hispanic countries.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “He can tell some stories,” she mused. “It’s killing him that he can’t do it anymore. He’s seventy-three, and he’s got arthritis as well as diabetes. It’s like he’s given up on life because he’s been slowed down.”

  “Tansy has the same problem,” he confided. “She thinks like a sixteen-year-old, but her body can’t do what her mind wants it to.”

  “She must be a fascinating person.”

  “I’ve always thought so,” he said. “My earliest memories of my mother are flamboyant, colorful images. She was always going somewhere, hosting parties, dragging us to cultural events like opera and the theater.” He shook his head. “She used to be just a little less reckless.” His face sobered. “I can’t believe she’d get herself mixed up in a murder. It’s not like her.”

  “Anyone can get in a circumstance where violence becomes the only answer,” she said, glancing out the window at the crowded streets. “Are we downtown?”

  “Yes. And here’s our hotel.” He pulled off the road into an elegant courtyard, where a man dressed like something out of medieval times was opening and closing car doors for guests.

  “It’s very elegant,” she commented.

  “When I travel, I always go first-class,” he said carelessly. “I find it’s less wearing to be pampered, especially if you’ve been to more than one or two countries on business.”

  “I thought you didn’t work,” she said.

  He gave her an incredulous glance. “I inherited money, but I have to work at keeping it,” he said. “I own interests in businesses all over the world, in several multinational corporations. I like to know where my money’s going, and how it’s being spent.”

  “So that’s how it’s done,” she murmured.

  He chuckled. “Stick with me, kid. I’ll make an entrepreneur of you in no time.”

  “That would be nice,” she said. “I think I’d like making a fortune.” She shrugged. “Well, I’d like the challenge of making it,” she added thoughtfully. “Money’s not really very important to me, except that I’d like to spoil Grandad a little while I’ve still got him. He sacrificed a lot to bring me up.”

  The uniformed man opened the door for Della and helped her out, while he signaled for a porter to take the luggage from the boot, which Christopher had already opened automatically from the driver’s side.

  Chris escorted Della to the front desk and registered them, in separate double rooms. He handed her the encoded card key and led the way into the elevator.

  “You look embarrassed,” he commented.

  She was. The clerk had asked if they were sharing a room. She felt uncomfortable. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I’m not used to sophisticated circles. I guess they get a lot of unmarried couples here and nobody thinks anything about it. I’m a little out o
f step with the rest of the world.”

  He was gaping at her. She was an anachronism, all right. It probably came from being raised by a man from a different generation.

  “No love life?” he teased.

  She didn’t rise to the bait. “Not now,” she replied.

  He paused while they got off on the fifth floor. He showed her how to work the card key.

  “The bellhop will bring the luggage up shortly,” he promised. “Meanwhile, I’ll freshen up and drop by to pick you up on the way out of the hotel.” He hesitated. “Ever eaten fish and chips?”

  “Not real English ones,” she said.

  He grinned. “You’ve got a treat in store.”

  They stopped at a roadside stand and gobbled down fish and chips and strong tea to the foreign sound of proper English being spoken all around them. Della was delighted with the new experience.

  “Later, we’ll have a proper, sit-down meal,” he promised. “But there isn’t time now. I want to find Tansy.”

  “Oh, this is lovely,” she protested. “I’m enjoying it!”

  He chuckled. “So I see.”

  She was standing on his right side, so that he could see her and vice versa. He looked very worried, and she wondered how she’d feel if it was her grandfather the police and the press were chasing.

  She put down her cup of tea, frowning.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I was thinking how I’d feel, in your place,” she said, looking up at him with darkened gray eyes. “Grandad is my whole life.”

  He searched her face and nodded slowly. “Tansy and Logan are the only close family I have. I didn’t worry so much about them several years ago. Since I’ve had the wreck, my perspective has changed.” He looked grim.

  “Life is short, and you hadn’t realized how short before,” she speculated.

  His eyebrows jerked. “That’s it, exactly. I had a concussion, internal and external injuries, as well as the damage to my left eye. It took months for me to get back on my feet, and I’ll never regain the sight in my eye. It woke me up.”

  “I remember reading about you in the tabloids, when you were younger,” she recalled. “You were like your mother, forever in and out of scrapes and scandals.”

  “Not anymore,” he said. “It isn’t worth the risk.”

  “What is?” she asked solemnly.

  He turned and looked down at her pensively. “Leaving the world a little better than we found it,” he said simply.

  She smiled. “I like that.”

  He touched his finger to the tip of her small nose and smiled. “I like you,” he said genuinely, and chuckled when she flushed prettily.

  “Are you sure? I thought I was at the top of your enemies list.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t fit the image of a hardened newshound,” he said simply. He frowned slightly. “In fact, I don’t think you have what it takes to do the job properly. You’ve got too much heart. Eventually, you’ll be wrung out like a damp cloth.”

  She stiffened. “I’ve been a reporter for several years and I can do this job,” she asserted stubbornly. “Grandad says I just have to put aside my hang-ups and concentrate on the process of gathering information.”

  “Your grandad can probably eat lunch while he watches war footage,” he replied. “I expect he’s grown such a hard shell over the years that nothing much affects him.”

  He was right. She hated admitting it. “He said he was sensitive when he started out, too.”

  “Bull. He’d have gotten over that the first day in the field.” His eyes narrowed. “Can you really see yourself printing everything you find out about peoples’ intimate lives behind the social masks they wear? Can you destroy a marriage by turning in stories on unfaithful spouses or headline-making news about their private sexual perversions? That sort of news destroys lives, Della. Are you really hard enough to hurt people deliberately for the sake of making headlines?”

  He was asking the same questions she’d asked herself. He made her uncertain, unsure of herself. He made her ashamed. She didn’t answer him. Instead, she wiped her mouth on the napkin and put it on her plate.

  He glanced at his watch. “Are you finished? We need to get started.”

  “Yes. I’m through.” She finished her last swallow of tea and didn’t look at him as she got up from the counter and left him to pay the bill. She started down the road toward the thick of the commercial district, thinking how ancient this country was and how many empires had embraced it. The history of Great Britain had always fascinated her, and now here she was in London itself, and she was too sick at heart to pay much attention to sights she’d always dreamed of seeing.

  She felt Chris’s hard fingers close around her elbow as he escorted her back to the car and put her in what would be, in the United States, the driver’s side of the car. The steering wheel was on the right side, here.

  “Curious feeling, isn’t it?” he asked with a smile.

  “Very.”

  He got in and cranked the engine. “Tell me everything you know about the murder,” he asked.

  “Well, honestly, I don’t know a lot,” she had to confess. “I was told that the late member of parliament was found floating in the river with a blunt-force injury to the right temple. The official cause of death was drowning, though.”

  “The right temple? You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He looked a little relieved, oddly, but he pulled out into traffic again and the moment for questions passed.

  Della was enchanted with the English countryside. She was full of questions, to which Chris seemed to know most of the answers. She was surprised to find him something of an authority on Tudor history.

  “I’ll bet you watch every British drama special on Henry VIII that comes on television,” she said with a chuckle.

  “I do. And pick holes in most of them,” he added. “History isn’t exciting enough for visual displays, because it happens over such a long period of time. In order for it to be palatable for the masses, it has to be compressed, and that distorts it. But I take fiction for what it is, simply entertainment, and I enjoy it just the same.”

  “I like Native American history,” she said. “The Indians got a raw deal.”

  “Everybody got a raw deal,” he countered. “What about the Irish who starved by the thousands during the great potato famine and received no outside help? How about the political prisoners who died in concentration camps in Nazi Germany, or the Russian people that Stalin purged? In fact, what about the French Huguenots who had to flee Europe or be slaughtered?”

  “Good grief,” she exclaimed.

  “That’s not a fraction of the whole,” he continued. “Civilizations long gone had their own vicious persecutions and slavery. Our own ancestors were probably among that number. Otherwise why would they have come to America in the first place? They were looking for something they didn’t have in their own countries.”

  She smiled at him. “You’re very interesting to talk to,” she said unexpectedly.

  He burst out laughing. “That’s new,” he murmured. He didn’t glance toward her; she was on his blind side, and it would have been dangerous to turn his head far enough to see her face. But she was already becoming a vivid portrait deep in his mind.

  “I don’t understand.”

  He gave a turn signal and pulled out onto a long highway. “In my younger days, I was what most people refer to as a rake,” he commented. “And I only dated a certain type of woman, very sophisticated and modern, if you get my meaning.”

  She did. She cleared her throat. “I see.”

  He smiled reflectively. “How I’ve changed,” he murmured.

  The wry comment caught her attention. “Why have you changed?”

  “Perhaps I’m not as confident as I was,” he said thoughtfully. “The scars depress me sometimes, when I look in a mirror. They could probably get rid of the rest of them, but I am so tired of hospitals and d
octors.”

  She studied him covertly for a moment before she shifted her eyes back to the road ahead of them. “The scars look rakish, you know,” she murmured. “Do they?”

  He didn’t sound amused. “I know it must have been terribly painful,” she added quickly.

  “I’m not offended. I’ve gotten used to it, I guess. But I miss having the sight in both eyes.”

  “Of course you do. I only meant that you aren’t disfigured.”

  “So I’ve been told.” He stopped at a signpost that indicated the way to Back Wallop. “Well, something’s gone right today,” he said, indicating the sign. “From the map, I’d say we’re about ten minutes away. I hope we can trace her,” he added uneasily. “England’s a big country.”

  “You’ve always found her before, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. But we had private detectives on the case,” he corrected. “And I don’t dare involve them again now, under the circumstances. Dane Lassiter, who does investigative work for our family, was a Texas Ranger. Regardless of his sympathies, he’d follow the law all the way and make no apologies for doing it.”

  “In other words, he’d turn your mother in,” she decided. “Is he really that hard-nosed?”

  “Less so since he married and had a family, but he’s still a law-and-order man. I didn’t want to put him on the spot.” He smiled grimly. “I wish I’d paid more attention to those lectures on criminal justice in college.”

  “Did you graduate?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I was too busy drinking and carousing to pay much attention in class. I dropped out in my sophomore year. It’s no great loss,” he assured her. “I inherited more than most college graduates make in a lifetime.”

  “So you just have fun.”

  He shrugged. “Up until the wreck, I didn’t know another way to live.” He turned fully toward her, so that he could see her face. “Things are more complicated now. I’m rather sorry that I wasted so much of my life on trivial things.” He searched her soft eyes and smiled warmly. “You’re a pretty little thing,” he murmured, liking the way she flushed. “I’d have had you for breakfast a few years ago. But you’d lie on my conscience like lead.”