Stonebrook Cottage. Carla Neggers
But it was. She could tell by the quick intake of air on the other end. “Ah, Governor Stockwell. You like the sound of it, don’t you? What would the people of Connecticut think if they knew the truth, hmm? Their slut governor, screwing her working-class ex-con in secret. Do you think they might wonder if Big Mike had found out?”
Click. The call was over, the voice was gone.
Allyson shook. She’d never said a word to the caller. Never. She didn’t want to do anything to encourage another call or escalate the harassment into action. She just wanted the calls to stop. Each time she received one, she tried to convince herself it was the last.
The first one had come a few days before Big Mike’s death. Ye shall reap what ye sow. That was it. She’d dismissed it as a crank call, political harassment, nothing worth mentioning to anyone, never mind Mike or her security detail. Then, after Mike’s funeral, she received another one. Do you really think you can keep your ex-con lover a secret now?
And she knew. Someone had found out about her and Pete Jericho.
Pete was the salt of the earth, a man of the land. His family had owned the two hundred acres on the south border of the Stockwell Farm for generations. They used to be dairy farmers, but now they sold cordwood and Christmas trees, and for the past three years had worked a gravel pit. They plowed driveways and built stone walls and managed their rich neighbors’ properties, the mini-estates that had sprouted around Bluefield.
Pete had served six months in prison eight years ago for a stupid barroom brawl that should have been settled, and stayed, among friends—he wasn’t anyone’s idea of an ex-con. Yet Allyson had kept their affair a secret, begging the question of what she thought of his past. He’d undoubtedly saved her life—her children’s lives—when the gas can exploded during the Fourth of July bonfire. She could still feel his strong arms around her, his body covering hers, as she’d tried to protect Henry and Lillian from the blast.
Somehow an illicit affair with Pete Jericho was different now that she was governor. The anonymous calls didn’t make figuring out what to do about him any easier.
Mike had known. He’d given her an ultimatum a few days after the near disaster at the bonfire. He wanted her relationship with Pete out in the open or over and done with. No secret affairs. Period.
“But what will people say?” she’d asked.
“What the hell do you care? We’re not talking about your position on capital punishment or gay marriage. We’re talking about who you love. You do love the guy, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what? He served six months in the pokey for a bar fight.” Big Mike had laughed, amazed. “Come on, Allyson. People’ll be thrilled you’re not just another rich, watery-eyed WASP.”
She hadn’t taken that very well, but Big Mike loved to tease—it didn’t matter who. Kara was the one who could always give it right back to him. Allyson had enjoyed watching the two of them. She was more reserved herself, more formal by upbringing and temperament. Kara was a Texas hard-ass with a big heart, a combination that’d probably get her hurt one day.
But Mike hadn’t been teasing that day. He could be judgmental, calculating when it came to political advantage and appearances.
Did her caller know about the ultimatum? Would he—or she—try to make people wonder if she’d had something to do with Big Mike’s death?
What did the bastard want?
She jumped to her feet, knocking over her canvas bag, the contents spilling into the cool shade. She saw a state trooper, a woman, make a move toward her and waved her off. The special unit in charge of guarding the governor had come under heavy criticism for “letting” Big Mike die. Allyson had defended them. She knew what Mike could be like. He’d told her countless times he’d never get used to people hovering.
She squatted down, scooping up her wallet and Rolaids and Palm Pilot, three tubes of the same shade of lipstick. She was shaking uncontrollably now, crying. Ridiculous. She was overreacting to the cryptic phone calls, reading into them something that wasn’t there. There was no real threat, and harassment was part of being in the public eye. Even if she mentioned the calls to her bodyguards, what could they do? The caller hadn’t even made a request for any action one way or another on her part. Get rid of Pete, keep him. Tell the world, don’t tell the world. Give money, support a particular piece of legislation—nothing. Maybe the calls were designed to soften her up—maybe they were just to get under her skin.
“Allyson!”
Hatch Corrigan ran across the shaded lawn toward her. Lawrence’s half-brother was always on the move, a hothead like his father, Frank Corrigan, Madeleine’s third husband, whose early success as an actor hadn’t panned out the way either one of them had hoped. Madeleine raised their son largely on her own—she hadn’t wanted Frank’s help after their divorce. Hatch and Lawrence both had their mother’s rangy build and sharp nose, but Hatch had his father’s clear blue eyes, auburn hair and dimpled chin, his notorious flair for drama. Hatch, though, was content to remain behind the scenes, like his older half-brother. Not Frank, who’d wanted the stage and an audience, but died five years ago when he fell off scaffolding in a rundown off-off-Broadway theater, dead drunk.
Hatch didn’t stand to inherit a dime of Stockwell money, but Allyson couldn’t remember him ever complaining about it. His mother had some wealth to hand down, but not a lot, not compared to her first husband’s family fortune. Hatch loved Stockwell Farm and spent as much time as he could with Madeleine at the main house, when he wasn’t cooking up political schemes and gathering information, plotting, strategizing, advising. He’d been indispensable to Big Mike and, now, to Allyson.
He slowed slightly as he approached her hammock. It wasn’t uncommon, she thought, to see Hatch Corrigan in a rush, grim-faced and focused.
She grabbed on to the edge of the rope hammock and pulled herself to her feet, brushing away her tears. In time she might come to feel like a governor, but right now she felt like the thirty-seven-year-old mother of two middle-schoolers, a widow who could never again have romance in her life.
“Allyson,” Hatch repeated, breathing hard when he reached her. “We have a problem. That damn dude ranch in Texas just called. The kids—”
“Hatch!” She clenched his upper arms, her chest constricting, her knees going out from under her. “What’s happened? What’s wrong? Henry and Lillian—they’re okay, aren’t they?”
“Let’s hope.” His expression hardened, reminding her that he was forty-seven and childless, not a man who got along easily with children, even his only niece and nephew. “They took off on their own this afternoon. They’re on the loose somewhere in Texas.”
Susanna Galway called Sam at home, waking him up, and invited him to dinner, refusing to take no for an answer. He didn’t argue. Under the circumstances, showing up for dinner would be less provocative than not showing up. He buttoned his shirt, pulled on his boots and headed out.
Dinner was hell. He hated hiding anything from his friends, but if Kara hadn’t told her brother and sister-in-law about her weekend with Sam, he didn’t feel it was his place to open his damn mouth. He was being a gentleman, he decided, not a coward. It wasn’t as if he’d taken advantage of her. Kara Galway was in her thirties, and she’d wanted their night together as much as he had.
Jack, his wife and their twin daughters didn’t seem to notice he was suffering. Susanna was a slim, graceful, dark-haired, green-eyed financial whiz who’d tried to keep millions and a murderer showing up in her kitchen a secret from her Texas Ranger husband, not that there was keeping anything secret from Jack Galway, something that Sam knew he should keep in mind. Susanna was smart, and she liked her secrets. In her own way she was as protective of her family as Jack was. All four of them had come close to losing each other in a harrowing experience in the Adirondack woods six months ago. These days, Susanna seemed content with her