A widow at the age of twenty-eight, Maggie Benning,
resolves to establish a successful and independent life for herself and her
five-year-old son, Andy. Her initial goal is getting back her RN job at the
hospital ER where she was accused of stealing the drugs that killed her husband
ten months ago. She's reconstructing her shattered life when Graeme McAlister
comes back to McTiernan, Texas and stirs up old memories and feelings she
thought long buried. Can she overcome past hurt and loss of trust to accept the
possibility of a new love in her life?
Excerpt:
Maggie took her place behind the scarred,
antique oak bar. She tied a worn bleached-white apron over her jeans, gathered
the empty glasses and bottles and swiped a bar towel over the sticky remnants
of beer and mixed drinks spilled earlier in the afternoon.
She
looked across the bar, through layers of swirled smoke, to the handful of
customers sitting at tables surrounding the dance floor. Businessmen and good
old boys exchanged stories from their day while enjoying the frigid indoor
temperature, band members set up their equipment, and a few cowboys played pool
off to the far right.
Two
men sat at a table in a shadowed back corner, their heads angled close in deep
conversation. It was too dark to see their faces, but they appeared almost
angry at times, each taking his turn stabbing the tabletop with an index finger
to make his point. Maggie wondered what their story was. Were they discussing a
major transaction, ranchers making a deal or enemies settling a score?
Before
her imagination could run any other direction, Harry walked up with a stack of
clean towels. He placed them on a shelf behind the bar then stood between her
and her curiosity, effectively blocking her view.
* * *
Jaw
clenched and tense as a bull rider waiting for the gate to spring open, Graeme
stared at the drink in his hand as his older brother took verbal swings at his
character.
"Now
that you're back, do you have the balls to stay, or are you going to turn tail
and disappear again?" With that final sarcastic shot, he finally shut-up.
Graeme
pushed upright in his chair to loosen the kinks from his back and shoulders.
Every muscle screamed a protest at being bunched in a knot.
Elliott's
words stung like the slap of Andrew's hand the first time Graeme had openly
defied an order. He supposed, in all fairness, his brother had a right to ask
the question. Whether one was born a Benning or raised as one, family meant
everything. And, while he hadn't had a choice on whether to go or stay, he
hadn't been available when the family had needed him.
While
Graeme didn't have an answer yet, he damn sure had a few questions of his own
for Dallas County's Assistant District Attorney.
Graeme
took a swig from his longneck as Elliott mirrored his actions. They were, he
thought, like two grade school opponents sizing each other up on the playground
at recess. Graeme swiped at the condensation on the beer bottle while deciding
where to begin.
"So
Wyatt never contacted you, at any time, before the crash? You had no idea he
was in trouble?"
"No.
Not a clue." Elliott shifted in his chair, repositioned his beer. His
foster brother made it apparent that he was unaccustomed to being questioned.
Either that or there was something else he wasn't saying.
"What?"
"Nothing
. . ." Elliott swiped at a water puddle under the bottle. "It's
nothing."
"Look,
if we're going to get to the bottom of this, we have to level with one another.
What were you going to say?"
"You
know Wyatt. He was never like the rest of us. He didn't act out, never bucked
the system. He always kept things bottled up."
"Yeah,
that goody two-shoes act used to piss me off. We could never wheedle anything
out of him." Graeme shook his head and grinned.
"Well,
it was the same thing this time, except…"
"Elliott,"
Graeme ground out his brother's name, huffed out a sigh in exasperation.
"Stop dragging this out. What?"
"Maggie
came to the office about a month prior to the accident. She asked me for the
name of a good divorce attorney."
That
news ripped through Graeme like a shot.
After digesting it for a minute, he asked, "Did you give her
one?"
"Yeah,
I did."
Graeme
leaned toward the table, rested his forearms against the edge. "Did she
go? Did she file?"
"No."
Elliott picked up his bottle, drained its contents then answered sadly,
"Whether or not she intended to, I don't know, because the next time I saw
her, Wyatt was dead. Soon after the funeral, she moved in with that ditzy
friend of hers like she didn't want anything to do with the family."
"Is
that when you decided to charge her with theft of the morphine Wyatt likely
overdosed with? When she was alone and vulnerable?"
Elliott
scowled. "D.A. Harrison was relatively new in his job and still trying to
impress the good people of Dallas County."
Snorting
in disgust, Graeme ground out, "And he did it at Maggie's expense."
"Yeah,
but not without cause. The drugs disappeared from the hospital's inventory and
the investigators narrowed the time down to Maggie's shift."
"What
did she have to say about that?"
"She
denied stealing the drugs, of course."
"You
don't really think she did, do you?"
"I
don't want to, but . . . hell, I don't know," Elliott said with a sigh.
"You knew her better when we were growing up. Do you think she's
capable?"
Graeme
pushed his chair away from the table. "I think I should talk to Maggie to
get her side of the story."
Elliott
leaned back in his own chair, sported a grin, and glanced past him.
"Somehow I don't think you'll have to go far."
Graeme
swiveled around to see Maggie standing behind the bar. While he tried to decide whether to go up to
her now or wait until tomorrow, Maggie looked out across the room and made eye
contact.
Sincerely,
Carra
photos of Maggie and Graeme purchased from iStock
I'm a guest today on Caroline Clemmons, A Writer's Life Blog. I hope you can stop by to visit with us. Caroline is an author of historical and contemporary romance, romantic suspense, mysteries, and paranormals and, after we chat, you can peruse her beautiful site to check out her books.
