Texas…Now And Forever. Merline Lovelace

choking, she dragged in huge gulps of air.

      When she gathered her strength enough to make a quick spin, what she saw almost sucked the air right back out of her lungs.

      “Dear God!”

      She felt as though she’d been under water for hours, but it must have been only a few seconds. Not long enough for Luke to regain control of the speedboat, which now tipped even more precariously to one side. Water flew up in white sheets as it cut a crazy swath toward the flickering lights.

      “Luke! Tyler!” Treading water, Haley screamed a desperate warning. “Flynt, she’s going to flip. Get the heck out of there, guys!”

      They were too far away now to hear her shout. Or too busy throwing their weight against the up-raised side. The maneuver might have worked on a sailboat tacking into the wind. On a speedboat with one of its dual engines still churning at full power, it had little effect.

      As Haley squinted through the darkening shadows, horrified, the fiberglass hull raised even higher. A second later the entire boat went over and hit with a crack that rifled across the lake like gunfire. Her heart stayed lodged firmly in her throat until she saw dark shapes bob to the surface.

      One. Two. Three.

      Where was the fourth? Oh, God, where was the fourth!

      She kicked, launching into a desperate stroke, but knew she’d never cover the distance that now yawned between her and the men thrown from the speedboat to do any good. They were closer to the far shore than they were to her. The people running down to the pier of her parents’ lakeside cabin would reach the capsized boat long before she could.

      Still, she swam doggedly, desperately, until a fourth dark shape broke the surface. Half choking, half sobbing with relief, Haley slowed her stroke until she was again treading water.

      They couldn’t see her, she realized, when she shoved her wet hair out of her eyes. The last, dying rays of the sun illuminated the far shore, but shadows were deeper out here. Darker. None of the figures on the far shore could spot her from that distance.

      But they’d come looking for her. As soon as they reached Luke and the others and learned Haley had been in the boat, too, they’d come in search of her. Her father. Her brother.

      Frank Del Brio.

      The heat generated by Haley’s frenetic swim evaporated. Ice crystals seemed to form in her veins. Her arms grew as heavy as the gray granite boulders lining the shore, her heart even heavier.

      She’d intended to disappear tonight. Not in such a dramatic manner, perhaps, but… Well, a drowning was a drowning.

      She swallowed. Hard. With little finning movements with her hands, she brought her body around. The closest spit of land was a hundred or so yards away. Several miles from the secluded cove where she’d planned to park her car to go for her last swim, but within walking distance of the judge’s isolated fishing cabin.

      Judge Carl Bridges. The one man she could trust. The lawyer who’d been both longtime friend to her family and calm advisor to an increasingly desperate Haley. With his cloak of client-attorney privilege, the judge knew how deeply Johnny Mercado had become entangled in his brother Carmine’s deadly web. He also knew that Frank Del Brio’s threats were anything but idle. He suspected the smooth, handsome thug of complicity in several vicious killings. He understood Haley’s wrenching decision to protect her father in the only way she could—by removing herself completely from the equation. If she was gone, Frank would have no reason to threaten her father.

      During the past weeks the judge had obtained a forged passport and purchased airline tickets that would send Haley crisscrossing three continents and, hopefully, cover her tracks from even the most determined scrutiny. Everything was ready. Tonight was the night. And, with this bizarre boating accident, she’d never have a better opportunity to make her death look real.

      Her heart splintering, Haley threw a last look over her shoulder. In a ragged whisper she said goodbye to her home and to her family.

      “I love you, Mom,” she whispered. “You and Daddy both. Keep safe, and keep Ricky safe.”

      Dragging off Frank’s engagement ring, she threw it as far as she could. Then she slipped beneath the cool, dark waters once more.

      Three

      Half-naked and totally exhausted, Haley dragged herself out of the lake. She didn’t look back. She didn’t dare.

      Twenty minutes later she stumbled down the path to a small, ramshackle fishing cabin tucked among a stand of scrub pine. No lights showed at the shuttered windows. The judge hadn’t yet arrived at the agreed-upon rendezvous site. But he would. Soon, she guessed.

      Once inside the back door Carl Bridges always kept unlocked, she grabbed a blue plaid flannel shirt from the hooks on the wall and hunched on one of the sturdy chairs drawn up to the scarred plank table.

      The immensity of what she’d just done—and what she was about to do—almost overwhelmed her. Shaking from head to toe, she wrapped her arms around her middle and rocked back and forth. Lake water dripped from her hair and ran down her legs to puddle on the scrubbed pine floor.

      She done it. She’d completed the first phase of her plan. Not the way she and the judge had envisioned it, precisely, but the speedboat accident would certainly make things more realistic. Now she just had to find the courage to take the next step. Could she really put her parents through the agony of believing she’d drowned? Really leave Texas and start a new life, away from everything and everyone she knew?

      Away from Frank?

      With a little moan, Haley dug her fingers into her sides. She had no choice. Frank would destroy her father. He was that determined. And that vicious.

      She’d find a way to let her parents know she was okay, she swore. Later, when she was sure it was safe.

      The thought gave her the strength to make it through the wait for Judge Bridges. As an old and trusted friend of the family, he’d been invited to celebrate the boys’ homecoming. He would have been one of the crowd gathered under the flickering lights. One of the witnesses to the accident out on the lake. When Luke and the others made it known Haley had been a passenger in the boat, Carl would guess that she’d altered the schedule.

      Sure enough, tires crunched on the dirt-and-gravel road leading to the cabin less than a half hour later. Haley was a bundle of raw nerves, but her rapidly developing self-preservation instinct kept her out of sight as she peered through the bedroom window. She almost wept with relief when Judge Bridges slammed the car door. His prematurely white hair shining like a beacon in the darkness that now blanketed the earth, he rushed to the cabin.

      “Haley? Haley, are you here?”

      “Yes!” She ran in from the other room. “Yes, I’m here.”

      “Thank God!”

      His lined face was a study in worry and relief. Opening his arms, he crushed her against his chest. Haley clung to him with everything in her. He was her last link with her family. The last link between the woman she was and the stranger she would soon become.

      Finally his hold loosened. He eased her away a few inches. “I thought… We all thought…”

      His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Behind his old-fashioned black-rimmed glasses, his watery blue eyes glistened. Blinking furiously, he glared at her with a combination of anger and admiration.

      “Why the dickens did you flip over Luke’s speedboat? That was a dangerous stunt and not part of our plan.”

      “I didn’t flip it! Well, I guess I did, but not on purpose. I swerved to avoid a submerged log and lost control.”

      “Well, it sure adds a grim authenticity to our plan. They’re searching the whole lake for you, missy.”

      “Oh, Judge!” Wracked with guilt, Haley almost abandoned the scheme right then and there. “My