2000 Kisses by Christina Skye Read Free Book Online Page A

red stone.
    The dark pavement stretched out against the white drifts, caught in uncertain sunlight, beckoning her to an adventure like nothing else she had ever known.
    With Damien's strange words ringing in her ears, Tess cranked up Andrea Bocelli and headed west.
     

JANUARY 5, 2000
SOMEWHERE IN THE SONORAN DESERT

    W hite clouds piled up on the jagged blue-gray spikes of the Chiricahuas. Dust whipped over the foothills to the east.
    Wind picking up. Storm weather coming.
    Just his luck.
    T. J. McCall frowned at the electronic beep coming from somewhere in his dusty denim pocket.
    Not the beeper. This time it was the cell phone.
    He shifted the reins into one hand and soothed his bay gelding with the other, then dug for the phone.
“What?”
he snapped as wind whipped dust and twigs around his face.
    “Is that all you've got to say to an old friend?”
    The cowboy's mouth tightened, drawing lines into his deeply tanned face. “If this is a prank call, you're gonna be real sorry come sundown.”
    “Prank call? You wound me.” Low laughter spilled over the line. “How soon they forget.”
    “O'Mara? Damn, is that you?” McCall guided his quarter horse around a stand of prickly pear cactus and smiled.
    “None other. How's life at the little house on the prairie?”
    “Wrong state. Wrong century.” T.J. McCall shoved back his sweaty Stetson and eased past a dry wash bordered by treacherous slip rock. “Wrong ecosystem.”
    “Says you. What's a cowboy know about ecosystems?”
    “Hell of a lot more than a T-man from Georgetown.”
    “You got a point there. What's all that noise?”
    “That's not noise, it's cattle. Three hundred prime Brahman steers to be exact, not that you'd know the difference. It's time to move them down to pasture.”
    “You really did leave it all behind, didn't you?” Andrew O' Mara was silent for a moment. Then he snorted.” “Can you still shoot a match out of a matchbook at two hundred feet?”
    “Maybe. I gave up smoking so who knows?”
    Andrew O'Mara hesitated. “Listen, I've got something for you, McCall. It's important.”
    T.J. McCall stared at the ragged line of the mountains shimmeiing like smoke above the vast green floor of the Sonoran Desert. “Forget it, O'Mara. I'm out of the business.”
    “No one as good as you were ever pulls out.”
    “Wrong.”
    “Anytime you want back in, Til make the call. You could have a Capitol assignment inside of a week. Probably Presidential in six months.”
    The cowboy sat up straighter, the cell phone gripped in hard, work-worn Angers. “I said forget it, O'Mara.”
    “Okay, I will. For now.” Andrew cursed softly. “Meanwhile, this is a favor, McCall. It's
personal”
    “Say again.”
    “You heard right.” Wind hissed, shaking the green clusters of a dense palo verde. T. J. McCall wiped a dusty bandanna over his sunburned forehead and frowned.
    The silence held. Both men knew that a line had been crossed, all the normal fonnalities broken.
Personal
meant someone near and dear was in trouble.
Personal
was something you never refused, because next time you might be on the asking end.
    Damn, why did it have to be personal!
T.J. thought in disgust.
    “McCall? You still there?”
    “Right here. I sure wish I wasn't.”
    O'Mara took a long, harsh breath. “I don't like asking favors, but it's my baby sister. I think she's in trouble.”
    “Drugs?”
    “Tess? She gets high on two aspirins and a cold soda. No possible drug problems with her.” O'Mara chuckled grimly. “Not unless Starbucks coffee and Belgian chocolate have been upgraded to the controlled substances category.”
    T.J. smiled, being the proud possessor of a fairly developed sweet tooth himself. “Alcohol abuse? Don't tell me it's some kind of man trouble.”
    “No way. Tess's idea of a hot date is curling up with the latest issue of
The Wall Street Journal.
Everything's business with her.”
    T.J.'s lips twitched. “Good to see someone in the O'Mara family