Red-Hot Texas Nights Read Free

He’d had to be in order to keep what was left of his family together and make a name for himself on the circuit. He sure as hell had no intention of stopping now when everything was on the line.
    His brother had a big, fat juicy scholarship waiting on him. A free ride out of the broken-down two-room trailer that held so many crappy memories. A chance to really make something of himself.
    Tyler wasn’t letting him fuck it up by falling in with the wrong crowd just to make a few quick bucks to satisfy their mother’s selfish habits.
    That was Tyler’s job. He sent home more than enough to pay the bills and buy the groceries. If Ellen McCall didn’t know how to budget, well, he’d give her a crash course before he left Rebel.
    He wasn’t letting his brother throw away his one opportunity just because the woman needed more cigarettes and another bottle of Jack.
    â€œI can’t just look the other way when my brother’s in trouble,” Tyler told Duffy. “I have to do something.”
    Silence ticked by before the cowboy let loose an exasperated sigh. “Then what the hell are you waiting for?” Duffy asked behind him. “Just get inside the damn house and let’s get this over with.”
    â€œThanks, buddy.” Tyler grinned. “I owe you.”
    â€œTell me something I don’t already know.”
    *   *   *
    â€œSo I know I’m usually the queen of bad ideas and it really isn’t my place to point fingers,” Ellie said when they pulled into the dirt driveway, “but this is just plain stupid.”
    â€œDon’t you think I already know that?” Brandy shoved the car into park and stared through the windshield at the beaten-down house with the overgrown yard. “But I can’t get any brewer to take me seriously without an actual sample, and I can’t take the first sample because that could be just a fluke. I need another sample that’s just as good, if not better, than the first.” And she needed it by the end of next week. In time for her meeting with Mark Edwards, the CEO of Foggy Bottom Distillers and the man who’d been trying to buy the original Texas Thunder recipe from her grandfather before he’d passed away. She’d called Mark about her new and improved version and he’d quickly cleared an hour from his schedule so that they could meet next Friday morning before he left for a distillers’ seminar in Kentucky. Followed by a trip to Germany to study brewing techniques and set up a foreign distributor for his company’s product list. He would be gone a minimum of two to three months. Maybe longer.
    She couldn’t wait months to find out if her recipe would even pay off. She needed money now, or at least the promise of it sometime in the near future, and so she had to meet with Mark before he left and present a viable product that was sure to snag his interest.
    In order to do that, she had to have another sample as potent as the first by next Friday.
    Otherwise, she was screwed.
    â€œMy mash will be ready to run next week and I need someone to run it,” Brandy told the woman sitting in the passenger seat of the old Buick.
    â€œSo wait until it’s ready and just leave it on the porch.” Ellie eyed the bare bulb surrounded by bouncing June bugs. “Kenny Roy will know what to do with it.”
    â€œMaybe so, but I have to talk to him. I need to know that whoever is doing the actual distilling doesn’t alter or contaminate it in any way. I need quality control.” And a primo product.
    â€œYou really think Kenny Roy is going to let you talk to his connection? Hell, do you think he even knows who’s actually running it? These guys are low-key. For all we know, Kenny drops it off to a guy who knows another guy, who knows another guy, and so on, until they get to the guy who actually runs the still.”
    â€œMy point exactly. It’s