Texas Homecoming Read Online Free Page A

time.
    She drove as fast as she dared. And when she got to her neighborhood, she put on her sunglasses and skirted the outermost streets, then dared to get in closer. "Lie down on the floor, baby," she told Baxter. "Stay down low for just a minute, okay, honey?"
    He didn't argue, didn't ask why, for once. He just did what she said. She almost sobbed in a mix of relief and worry. It wasn't like her Bax to be so timid, so obedient, so quiet.
    She turned and went closer, not turning onto her own street but passing by it and glancing down it as she did.
    "Oh, no..."
    Lights, flashing red and blue. Lots of them. She could see people standing in the street. She turned the wheel, went around the block, came back up to her street on the other side—her building was on the corner. She could see clearly from this end. She drove, almost holding her breath, until she reached the corner. And then she stopped and just sat there and looked.
    Two men carried a stretcher out the front door onto the stoop, and started down the steps to the waiting ambulance. But the person on that stretcher didn't need any ambulance. Jasmine could see, even from here, the black vinyl that enveloped the victim on that stretcher. A body bag.
    The men paused on the top step as a uniformed officer spoke to them. Leaning over, he unzipped the vinyl tomb. A hand fell free, slender and white, and Jasmine sucked in a breath. Long, freshly done nails adorned that hand. Bright red, with something tiny and white on every one.
    She clapped a hand over her mourn to keep from crying out loud. But her tears rolled so thick and so fast she couldn't stop them.
    Behind her, a horn blasted. She was holding up traffic.
    The cop paused in zipping the body back up again and turned to look her way. Jasmine froze as she got a full view of his face. He was the same man who'd been with Leo this morning—the same man who'd killed a federal agent and done his best to kill her, too. He stood there with the sun winking off his shiny badge, and Jasmine whispered, "Petronella."
    His eyes narrowed on her, and he lifted a hand to shield them from the sun, as if trying to see better. Jasmine stomped on the gas pedal, and the car lurched away.

Chapter 3
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    LUKE KICKED A CHUNK OF moss off the wide stone steps of the old brick house and gnawed his lower lip. "I've made up my mind, Garrett," he said to his cousin, a man who, in the past three months, had become almost a brother to him, something that still amazed Luke to no end. "I'm staying."
    He looked up, saw the wide grin he'd known damn well he would see on the big man's Stetson-shaded face. Garrett slapped his shoulder. "The family's gonna be glad to hear that, Luke. Chelsea's been nagging me every single night on this one. ‘Can't you talk him into staying? Why don't you try harder?' And so on and on and on."
    Luke blew a long sigh. "I didn't mean to leave everyone hanging so long. It's just that, well, it wasn't an easy decision." He looked at the gleaming machine parked in the long driveway. "That rig's been my partner and pretty much my only friend for a long while now. But...well, hell, Garrett, I guess it took Buck's dying to make me realize it wasn't the only thing I wanted out of life."
    Garrett nodded. Luke had talked to him at length about Buck's life and death, and that moment when he'd made the decision to come out here. So he knew the story. "Does that mean you've figured out what you do want, Luke?"
    Luke smiled. "What I've figured out is that my options are wide-open. I loved my mother dearly, Garrett, but she did me a little bit of a disservice in raising me the way she did. Refusing to share me with anyone else, or to let anyone else get close to her—to either of us. She raised me to believe it was better to be closed off, independent, solitary." He shook his head. "I never in my wildest dreams imagined being a part of a huge, sprawling family like this one."
    Garrett nodded. "I can't imagine not being a part of