Texas Thunder Read Free Page B

making straight As while serving as the editor of the Rebel High Gazette, president of the photography club, head photographer for the yearbook, and producer of the school’s daily five-minute newscast—and all to land herself a journalism and broadcasting scholarship. Her hard work had paid off and she’d earned a full ride to the University of Texas in Austin. Then her parents had died just weeks before her high school graduation and she’d had no choice but to forfeit the scholarship.
    She’d put her dreams of one day traveling the world as an investigative reporter or burning up the television screen as a hotshot news anchor on hold to take care of her family and work part-time for Les while she went after the ever-practical marketing degree at Travis Junior College. James had been seventy-six at the time and in no condition to care for two young girls. Even more, he hadn’t wanted to. He’d been too busy drinking and playing cards and cursing the Sawyers for his losing streak and his piss-poor lot in life.
    They’d caused all his trouble. And killed the family’s moonshine business. And stolen his beloved Texas Thunder recipe. And sullied the family name. To hear James Tucker tell it, the Sawyers had been responsible for every evil thing to come along in the past few decades, including the floods of ’92, global warming, and every cast member of Jersey Shore.
    While Callie wasn’t fool enough to lay blame on a handful of individuals for the world’s problems, she did blame the Sawyer clan for one thing—the car accident that had killed her folks.
    She swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat. The past was the past. Over and done with. Time to move on.
    Which was exactly what she intended to do. Her gramps was dead. Her sisters were all grown up. If ever the moment had arrived for Callie to start thinking about herself and her own future, it was now.
    Or so she’d thought until she’d opened that notice from the bank.
    She swallowed the lump in her throat and fought down a wave of anxiety.
    â€œI know what you’re thinking and don’t.” Jenna eyed her. “You go for even one chocolate-chip cookie and the entire town will have you signing up for a lap band before the day’s over.”
    â€œI’m not going to eat a cookie.”
    If she was going to fall from grace, it was going to be with something much more substantial. Sweeter. More satisfying.
    â€œSame deal if you go for a piece of pie,” Jenna added, as if reading her thoughts.
    â€œWould you stop it? I’m not going to stuff my face with pie.” No, she was going to stuff her face with a cupcake—a big, fat, chocolate cupcake with lots of rich crème filling—and she was doing it in private. “Cover for me, would you? I’ve got some things to do in the kitchen.”
    â€œSure you do,” Jenna’s voice followed. “Don’t take too long. The reverend wants us back in the sanctuary after lunch to say a farewell prayer before they take the casket to the cemetery. Sort of a private moment just for the immediate family.”
    â€œTen minutes,” Callie told Jenna. “That’s all I need.”

 
    CHAPTER 2
    In the back parking lot of the church, Callie headed for the beat-up ’69 Ford pickup truck that sat near the end of the first row.
    It was a far cry from her mother’s late-model green Oldsmobile, but she’d been in a hurry that morning to get her grandfather’s only suit to the church and so she’d left the car for her sisters.
    The truck was the one and only thing her grandfather had owned outright. A rusted-out pile of blue metal that should have died a long, long time ago. Even so, it cranked right up every time because despite being old and beat to hell, it was at least reliable.
    Unlike the man who’d driven it for the past forty-odd years.
    She ignored the strange tightening in