On The Texas Border. Linda Warren

      “Simon Brewster wants me to find his daughter.”

      “What daughter?” Jonas stared incredulously at Abby. “The old man doesn’t have a daughter. He’s using you because of his own agenda. Brewster does things for his own weird reasons and nine times out of ten, someone gets hurt. Go back to Dallas and forget about him.”

      “I can’t,” she whispered, and felt chills run up her spine. She thought of all the years her father had worked for Simon Brewster—all the hard work and loyal service Abe Duncan had given Brewster, only to be tossed aside like an old shoe. And the rumors…Brewster had promised to tell her the truth if she found his daughter. “I have to clear my father’s name.”

      But Jonas wasn’t ready to accept her answer. “What if you find out that your father did the things people say he did?”

      “No!” She shook her head. “You knew my father. How can you even say it?”

      Jonas took a step closer. “Because when you start digging into the past, you’d better be able to handle the consequences.”

      Dear Reader,

      You need to go. That’s what my brother J.O. said to me when he was drilling water wells in the Rio Grande Valley. He talked about the large fields of agricultural crops growing there, the Mexican laborers, the seasonal workers and the poverty across the Rio Grande River. The more he talked, the more questions I asked. I could definitely feel a story coming on.

      You have to go, he kept insisting. So my husband and I headed for the border. I’d been to Mexico years ago, but this time it was more vivid and real. I looked at the contrast between Texas and Mexico through the eyes of a writer, and a story emerged that I hope you will enjoy.

      Abby and Jonas are two very different people, and it took me a while to sort through the trails of their lives. I hope you will find these characters and the area as absorbing as I have. If you do, you will go there, too—if only in On the Texas Border.

      Thanks for reading my books.

      Linda Warren

      You can always reach me at P.O. Box 5182, Bryan, TX 77805, or e-mail me at [email protected]

      On the Texas Border

      Linda Warren

      To my brothers—

       James Otto Siegert, Bobby Louis Siegert and Paul William Siegert. Thanks for the love and encouragement. As we grow older, I hope we continue to grow together instead of apart and that we always remember the sense of family our parents instilled in us.

      And to the man who went with me to the RWA conference

       in New Orleans without one complaint— my husband, Billy Warren, my Sonny.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENT

      J.O. Siegert, Tammy and Rodrigo Medina and all the people who answered my endless questions about Texas and Mexico with such patience. Any errors are strictly mine.

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      “LOOK AT THAT, ABIGAIL,” Simon Brewster said as he stood at the huge windows overlooking the Rio Grande Valley. “It all belongs to me…as far as the eye can see.”

      “Are you proud of that?” Abigail Duncan asked, scribbling notes on a pad while a tape recorder picked up his voice. She was writing Mr. Brewster’s memoirs. The eighty-year-old’s life had been turbulent and fascinating, and she didn’t want to miss a word.

      “You’re damn right I am,” he told her in his gruff voice. “If you’ve ever known poverty like I have, you’ll make sure you never have to live like that again.” He paused, then added, “I was nine years old when my father died and my mother and me had to work the fields to make a living. It was during the Depression and there were a lot of days when all we had to eat was bread and honey. I vowed that one day my mother would never have to work again. She was the only person I ever really loved until…”

      She waited for his next words, but none were forthcoming. She glanced up to see him staring out the window and realized he was lost in another time. She doodled on the pad, knowing he wouldn’t speak until he was ready. She’d been working on his life story for a month and she had come to know his moods.

      Her pencil stilled as her mind drifted. She’d returned—after a bitter divorce—to Hope, Texas, her childhood home. She’d lived here until she’d left for college. After getting her degree, she’d moved to Dallas and joined a large newspaper as a reporter.

      She had been home two days when Simon Brewster had asked her to write his memoirs. The request had come as a shock because there’d been bad feelings between her family and Mr. Brewster for the past year. Her father had worked for Brewster Farms for thirty-five years, then suddenly Mr. Brewster had fired him. Her father said he hadn’t been given a reason for the firing, but the rumor that had circulated around the small town was that Abe Duncan had been caught embezzling funds. That had angered Abby and she’d wanted to find out the truth. But then her father became ill, and Abby had spent her time at home helping her mother to care for him. Nine months later he died. She’d loved her father, and had been devastated by his death. Her mother blamed Mr. Brewster. So did Abby.

      When Mr. Brewster offered her the job, she’d turned him down. She had no intention of writing his life story. But then she began to see it as an opportunity to uncover the truth. She knew Abe Duncan had not embezzled a dime, so why had Mr. Brewster fired him after so many years of loyal service? It was time to get some answers. Her mother was adamantly against the idea, but Abby was a reporter, and she had to clear her father’s name.

      So far she hadn’t been able to bring up the subject. The more Mr. Brewster talked about his life, though, the less she hated him. She didn’t understand that, but it didn’t change her mission.

      Feeling uncomfortable, she brushed a speck from her denim skirt, straightened her white knit top and studied the elderly man at the window. He was a formidable character. His gray hair was short and stuck out in all directions. She didn’t think he ever combed it. She remembered that from her childhood. When she’d see him in town, his hair was always disheveled, giving him a wild appearance, and all the kids gave him a wide berth. She wasn’t a child anymore, but Mr. Brewster was still intimidating. The thought brought her back to the memoirs. She checked her notes to refresh her memory.

      “Until what?” she prompted.

      “Until my son was born,” he muttered. Abby knew better than to ask about his wife because she’d already learned that Mr. Brewster had married her for her land. It wasn’t a love match. The son was a different matter, and Abby was reluctant to talk about him. He’d been killed in an auto accident when he was thirty-one years old. Marjorie, Mr. Brewster’s wife, had grieved herself to death, and for the past twenty years, Mr. Brewster had been a hard and embittered man.

      “I made people pay for his death and I will make them pay