Love on the Line Read Free Page A

it. They have no idea of his real nature.”
    Heywood placed his elbows on the arms of the chair, lacing his fingers together. “You don’t have to go undercover, Landrum.”
    Lucious allowed himself the first easy breath he’d had since entering the office. “Thank you, sir.”
    “I’ll send Harvey in. He won’t mind going undercover.”
    “No.”
    Heywood lifted a brow. “No?”
    “I don’t need Harvey or anyone else doing my job for me.”
    “Good.” Heywood sprang forward and shuffled through a stack of papers, sending dust wafting through the air. “You’ll check in with . . .” He extracted a page from the middle of the pile, dropped it in front of Lucious, then tapped it with his fingernail. “A Miss Georgie Gail. She’s switchboard operator for the Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company. She’s been told a troubleman is on his way.”
    Lucious skimmed the assignment.
    NAME: Lucious Landrum
    COMPANY: “A”
    ALIAS: Luke Palmer
    POSITION: Telephone salesman/repairman
    Incl. bill collection, books, accounting
    LOCATION: Brenham, Texas
    OFFICES OF: Georgie Gail, Operator
    Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company
    Lucious looked up. “Luke Palmer, sir?”
    Heywood had already returned to the document he’d been working on previously. “Thought it would be easy to answer to, Luke being a shortened version of Lucious and Palmer being your mother’s maiden name.”
    Lucious dragged a hand across his mouth. “Would it be all right if I just did repairs and the bookkeeping?”
    “You got something against selling telephones?”
    “As a matter of fact, I do. It’s dishonest, sir.”
    Heywood whipped up his head, brows lifted. “Dishonest?”
    “Those contraptions aren’t reliable. They barely work under the best of circumstances, but you can always count on them to go down in emergencies. They’ll lull people into a false sense of security. I’d just as soon not be party to it.”
    Had he voiced his concerns to anyone else, they wouldn’t have understood. But Captain Heywood did. He knew better than any the distrust Lucious had for modern communications.
    “You’re the best tracker we have, Lucious,” the captain said, gentling his voice. “And I need you. But I didn’t sign off on this without some reservations. The sheriff of Washington County is incompetent. The townsfolk think Comer’s a hero. And you tend to grow a mite impatient with that kind of thing. It’s occurred to me, more than once, you might not be the right man for the job.”
    Had Heywood walloped him in the gut, it couldn’t have caught him more off guard. He’d looked up to this man his entire life. Working for him had been a privilege. An honor. To discover his captain had doubts did not bear thinking.
    “Is there a manual of some kind?” Lucious asked. “I don’t know the first thing about telephones.”
    Heywood had the grace not to smile, but Lucious could see he was pleased. Opening a drawer, he removed a pale blue booklet. “Take this. It’s a repair and sales manual. You need to read it start to finish and become proficient as quickly as possible. It took some mighty convincing to get SWT&T to let us use one of our men.”
    “SWT&T?”
    “Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company. They want to expand their business. I assured them I was sending my best man and that he’d sell a lot of phones for them.”
    Lucious held his face in check. “I’ll see to it, sir.”
    “Good.”
    Picking up the manual, he headed to the door.
    “Landrum?”
    Lucious turned.
    The captain’s expression grew steely. “I want him. Alive if you can. Dead if you have to. But I want him. If he slips through your grasp again, I’m putting Harvey on it.”
    “I’ll bring him in, sir.” As he pulled the door open, it took every bit of control he had not to slam it behind him.

    Luke caught his first glimpse of Brenham, a predominantly German town, astride a paint horse and on a tenderfoot saddle no