Linda Lael Miller - McKettricks of Texas: Garrett

G ARRETT M C K ETTRICK WANTED A HORSE under hima fleet cow-pony like the ones bred to work the herds on the Silver Spur Ranch. But for now, anyway, the Porsche would have to do.

Because of the hourit was a little after 3:00 a.m.Garrett had that particular stretch of Texas highway all to himself. The moon and stars cast silvery shadows through the open sunroof and shimmered on the rolled-up sleeves of his white dress shirt, while a country oldie, with lots of twang, pounded from the sound system. Everything in himfrom the nuclei of his cells outwardvibrated to the beat.

Hed left the tuxedo jacket, the cummerbund, the tie, the fancy cuff links, back in Austinright along with one or two of his most cherished illusions.

The party was definitely overfor him, anyhow.

He should have seen it comingor at least listened to people who did see it coming, specifically his brothers, Tate and Austin. Theyd done their best to warn him.

Senator Morgan Cox, theyd said, in so many words and in their different ways, wasnt what he seemed.

Against his will, Garretts mind looped back a few hours, and even as he sped along that straight, dark ribbon of road, another part of him relived the shock in excruciating detail.

Cox had always presented himself as a family man, in public and private. A corner of each of his hand-carved antique desks in both the Austin and Washington offices supported a small forest of framed photoshimself and Nan on their wedding day, himself and Nan and the first crop of kids, himself and Nan and more kids, some of whom were adopted and had special needs. Altogether, there were nine Cox offspring.

The dogsseveral generations of golden retrievers, all rescued, of coursewere pictured as well.

That night, with no warning at all, Garretts longtime boss and mentor had arrived at an important fundraiser, held in a glittering hotel ballroom, but not with Nan on his armelegant, articulate, wholesome Nan, with her own pedigree as a former Texas governors daughter. Oh, no. This powerful U.S. senator, a war hero, a man with what many people considered a straight shot at the White House, had instead escorted a classic bimbo, later identified as a twenty-two-year-old pole dancer who went by the unlikely name of Mandy Chante.

Before God, his amazed supporters, the press and, worst of all, Nan, the senator proceeded to announce that he and Mandy were soul mates. Kindred spirits. Theyd been lovers in a dozen other lifetimes, he rhapsodized. In short, Cox explained from the microphone on the daishis lover hovering earnestly beside him in a long, form-fitting dress rippling with ice-blue sequins, which gave her the look of a mermaid with feethe hoped everyone would understand.

He had to follow his heart.

If only the senators heart were the organ he was following, Garrett lamented silently.

One of those freeze-frame silences followed, vast and uncomfortable, turning the whole assembly into a garden of stone statues while several hundred people tried to process what theyd just heard Cox say.

Who was this guy, they were probably asking themselves, and what had he done with the Morgan Cox they all knew? Where, Garrett himself wondered, was the man who had given that stirring eulogy at the double funeral after Jim and Sally McKettrick, his folks, were killed a decade before?

The mass paralysis following Morgans proclamation lasted only a few seconds, and Garrett was quick to shake it off. Automatically, he scanned the room for Nan Coxhis late mothers college roommateand found her standing near the grand piano, alone.

Most likely, Nan, a veteran political wife, had been in transit between one conversational cluster and another when her husband dropped the bombshell. She was still smiling, in fact, and the effect was eerie, even surreal.