“I thought it would be best if we all met together like this, so I could clarify everything to everyone at once.”

FBI Special Agent Bryan Tate addressed the somber group assembled in Avery Daniels’s hospital room. Her bed had been elevated so that she was partially sitting up. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. A bandage covered her left shoulder; her arm was in a sling.

The others—Jack and his family, Zee and Tate—were sitting in the available chairs or leaning against the walls and windowsills. All kept a wary distance from Avery’s bed. Since Tate had disclosed her true identity to them, she had become an object of curiosity. After the tragic events of the night before, Mandy had been taken to the ranch and left in Mona’s care.

“All of you experienced what happened,” Bryan Tate said, “but you don’t know the reasons for it. They’re not easy to talk about.”

“Tell them everything, Bryan,” Zee said softly. “Don’t leave out anything on my account. I want them, need them, to understand.”

Tall and distinguished, he was standing beside her chair, a hand on her shoulder. “Zee and I fell in love years ago,” he stated bluntly. “It was something neither of us predicted or wanted, particularly. We didn’t set out to make it happen. It was wrong, but it was powerful. We eventually surrendered to it.” His fingers flexed on her shoulder. “The consequences were far-reaching. They culminated in tragedy last night.”

He told them how he had returned home from Korea a few months ahead of his buddy Nelson. “At his request, I checked on Zee periodically,” he said. “By the time Nelson got home, the relationship between Zee and me had grown way beyond friendship or simple mutual attraction. We knew we loved each other and would have to hurt Nelson.”

“I also knew I was pregnant,” Zee said, reaching up to cover Bryan’s hand with her own. “Pregnant with you, Tate. I told Nelson the unvarnished truth. He remained calm, but laid down an ultimatum. If I went with my lover and his bastard child, I would never see Jack again.”

Tears welled in her eyes as she smiled at her older son. “Jack, you were still a toddler. I loved you, something Nelson knew very well and used to his advantage. When I vowed never to see Bryan again, he said he forgave me and promised to rear Tate as his son.”

“Which he did,” Tate said.

His eyes locked with Bryan’s. The man was his father, though he’d never met him before last night. And the man he had known and loved as his father had been gunned down right before his eyes.

“I didn’t know about Nelson’s ultimatum,” Bryan said, continuing the story. “I just got a note from Zee saying that our affair—and I couldn’t believe she’d given it such a shoddy name—was over and that she wished it had never happened.”

Despair had prompted him to volunteer for a dangerous overseas mission. When his plane malfunctioned and began spiraling down toward the ocean, he actually welcomed death, since he’d just as soon die as have to live without Zee. Fate intervened, however, and he was rescued.

While recovering from the injuries he had sustained, the FBI approached him. He had already been trained in intelligence work. They proposed that Bryan Tate remain “dead” and start working for them undercover. That’s what he’d been doing for the last thirty years.

“When I could, I came to see you, Tate,” he said to his son. “From a careful distance, never getting close enough to risk running into Nelson or Zee, I watched you play football a few times. I even tracked you around the base in Nam for a week. I was at your graduation from UT and law school. I never stopped loving you or your mother.”

“And Nelson never forgot or forgave me,” Zee said, bowing her head and sniffing into a Kleenex.

Bryan touched her hair consolingly, then picked up the story again. His latest assignment had been to infiltrate a white supremacist group operating out of the northwestern states. At the outset, he had come across an extremely bitter Vietnam vet whom he recognized as Eddy Paschal, Tate’s former college roommate.

“We already had a thick dossier on him because he had been implicated in several subversive and neo-Nazi activities, including a few ritualistic executions, although we never had enough evidence to indict him.”

“Jeez, and to think I slept with him,” Fancy said with a shudder.

“You couldn’t have known,” Dorothy Rae said kindly. “He had us all fooled.”

“I would rather have kept him alive,” Bryan said. “He was ruthless, but extremely intelligent. He could have been very useful to the Bureau.”

Bryan looked toward Tate. “You can imagine how astonished I was when Nelson contacted him, especially since Paschal’s philosophies were antithetical to yours. Nelson cleaned him up, gave him that spick-and-span image, paid for a crash course in public relations and communications, and brought him to Texas to be your campaign manager. That’s when I realized that Nelson’s intentions weren’t what they seemed.”

Tate backed into the wall and leaned his head against the pastel plaster. “So he planned to have me killed all along. It was one big setup. He groomed me for public office, instilled in me an ambition for it, hired Eddy, everything.”

“I’m afraid so,” Bryan said grimly.

Zee left her chair and went to Tate. “Darling, forgive me.”

“Forgive you?”

“It was my sin he was punishing, not yours,” she explained. “You were merely the sacrificial lamb. He wanted me to suffer and knew that the worst punishment possible for a mother would be to see her child die, especially during a moment of personal triumph.”

“I can’t believe it,” Jack said, also coming to his feet.

“I can,” Tate admitted quietly. “Now that I think back on everything, I can believe it. You know how he preached about justice, fairness, paying for one’s mistakes, retribution for transgressions? He believed you had made atonement with your life,” he said, nodding toward Bryan, “but mother hadn’t yet paid for betraying him.”

“Nelson was very subtle, very clever,” Zee said. “Until last night I didn’t realize just how clever or how vindictive. Tate, he manipulated you into marrying Carole, a woman he was sure would remind me of my own unfaithfulness. I had to close my eyes to her flagrant infidelity. I couldn’t very well criticize her for committing the same sin I had.”

“It wasn’t the same, Zee.”

“I know that, Bryan,” she stressed, “but Nelson didn’t. Adultery was adultery in his estimation, and punishable by death.”

Jack was upset. His face was pale, ravaged from a night of mourning. “It still doesn’t make sense to me. Why, if he hated Bryan so much, did he name the baby Tate?”

“Another cruel joke on me,” Zee said. “It would be another constant reminder of my sin.”

Jack pondered that for a moment. “Why did he favor Tate over me? I was his real son, but he always made me feel inferior to my younger brother.”

“He counted on human nature taking its course,” Zee explained. “He made it obvious that he favored Tate so that you would resent him. The friction between you would be another burden for me to bear.”

Jack stubbornly shook his head. “I still can’t believe he was so conniving. Not Dad.” Dorothy Rae reached for his hand and pressed it between hers.

Zee turned toward Avery, who had remained silent throughout. “He was dedicated to getting vengeance on me. He arranged for Tate to marry Carole Navarro. Even after I learned of her shady past, it never occurred to me that Nelson was responsible for her conversion from topless dancer to wife. Now I believe that he engineered that, just as he recruited Eddy. In any case, they formed an alliance at some point.

“Carole was instructed to eat away at Tate’s emotions. Nelson knew that the unhappier Tate was, the unhappier I would be. She did everything she was told to do and then some. The only decision she made independently was to have an abortion. I don’t think Nelson knew about that. It made him furious, but only because he was afraid it would cost Tate the election.”

Zee moved toward the bed and took Avery’s hand. “Can you forgive me for the cruel accusations I made against you?”

“You didn’t know,” she said gruffly. “And Carole deserved your antipathy.”

“I’m sorry about your friend Mr. Lovejoy, Ms. Daniels.” Bryan’s expression was gentle—far different from when he’d taken aim on Eddy and fired. “We had a guy watching Paschal, but he slipped past him that night.”

“Van is really the one responsible for saving Tate’s life,” Avery said emotionally. “He must have viewed hours of video before finding the tape that explained why Eddy Paschal looked familiar to him. Eddy must have eluded your tail on several occasions, Mr. Tate, because he no doubt followed me to Irish’s house. That’s how he knew they were connected. It also helped him trace who Carole really was.”

“Have you heard anything about Mr. McCabe’s condition?”

She smiled through her tears. “After I insisted, they let me see him this morning. He’s still in an ICU and his condition is serious, but they think he’s going to pull through.”

“Ironically, McCabe’s massive heart attack saved his life. It kept Paschal from shooting him. Paschal’s mistake was not making certain McCabe was dead when he dragged him off that elevator.

“May I ask, Ms. Daniels,” Bryan continued, “what first clued you that Mr. Paschal was going to make an attempt on Tate’s life?”

“She was told,” Tate said.

Surprised reaction went through the group like an electric current. Jack was the first to speak. “By whom? When?”

“When I was in the hospital,” she replied, “while I was still bandaged and being taken for Carole.” She explained her involvement from that time up to the moment the night before when she had rushed up on the stage. When she finished, she glanced at Bryan and apologetically said, “I thought you were a hired killer.”

“So you did notice me?”

“I have a reporter’s trained eye.”

“No,” he said, “I was personally involved and not as careful as usual. I took tremendous chances of being recognized in order to stay close to Tate.”

“I still can’t distinguish the voice, but I believe it was Nelson, not Eddy, who spoke to me that night in the hospital,” Avery remarked, “though I’ll admit it never occurred to me that he would be the one.”

On her behalf, Bryan said, “Ms. Daniels couldn’t say anything to anyone at the risk of putting her own life in danger.”

“And Tate’s,” she added, shyly casting her eyes downward when he glanced at her sharply.

Jack said, “You probably thought I was out to kill my brother. Cain and Abel.”

“It did cross my mind on more than one occasion, Jack. I’m sorry.” Because he and Dorothy Rae were still holding hands, she refrained from mentioning his infatuation with Carole.

“I think it’s freaking wonderful how you pulled it off,” Fancy declared. “Pretending to be Carole, I mean.”

“It couldn’t have been easy,” Dorothy Rae said, slipping her arm through her husband’s. “I’m sure you’re glad that everything’s out in the open.” She gave Avery a look that conveyed a silent thank-you. It made sense to her now why her sister-in-law had been so compassionate and helpful recently. “Is that all, Mr. Tate? Are we free to go and let Avery rest?”

“Call me Bryan, and yes, that’s all for now.”

They filed out. Zee moved to Avery’s side. “How can I ever repay you for saving my son’s life?”

“I don’t want any repayment. Not everything was faked.” The two women exchanged a meaningful gaze. Zee patted her hand and left under Bryan’s protective arm.

The silence they left behind was ponderous. Tate finally left his position against the wall and moved to the foot of her bed. “They’ll probably get married,” he remarked.

“How will you feel about that, Tate?”

He studied the toes of his boots for a moment before raising his head. “Who could blame them? They’ve been in love with each other for longer than I’ve been alive.”

“It’s easy now to understand why Zee always seemed so sad.”

“Dad kept her an emotional prisoner.” He gave a dry laugh. “Guess I can’t refer to him as Dad anymore, can I?”

“Why not? That’s what Nelson was to you. Whatever his motives were, he was a good father.”

“I guess so.” He gave her a lengthy stare. “I should have believed you yesterday when you tried to warn me.”

“It was too unbelievable for you to accept.”

“But you were right.”

She shook her head. “I never suspected Nelson. Eddy, yes. Even Jack. But never Nelson.”

“I want to mourn his death, but when I hear how cruel he’s been to my mother, and that he hired my best friend to kill me… Jesus.” He exhaled loudly, raking his hand through his hair. Tears came to his eyes.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Tate. You’ve got a lot to deal with all at once.” She wanted to hold him and comfort him, but he hadn’t asked her to and, until he did, she had no right to.

“When you do your story, I have one favor to ask.”

“There won’t be a story.”

“There’ll be a story,” he argued firmly. He rounded the foot of the bed and sat down on the edge of it. “You’re already being hailed as a heroine.”

“You shouldn’t have revealed my identity during the press conference this morning.” She had watched it on the set in her hospital room while it was being broadcast live from the lobby of the Palacio Del Rio. “You could have divorced me as Carole, as you planned to.”

“I can’t begin my political career with a lie, Avery.”

“That’s the first time you’ve ever called me by my name,” she whispered, left breathless from hearing it on his lips.

Their gazes held for a moment, then he continued. “So far, no one but the people who were in this room, and I guess a few FBI agents, know that Nelson Rutledge engineered the plot. They’ve surmised that it was all Eddy’s doing and have attributed it to his disillusionment in America after the war. I’m asking you to keep it that way, for my family’s sake. Mostly for my mother’s sake.”

“If anyone asks, I will. But I won’t do a story.”

“Yes, you will.”

Tears started in her eyes again. Fretfully, she groped for his hand. “I can’t stand having you think I did this to exploit you, or that I did it for fame and glory.”

“I think you did it for the reason you told me yesterday, and which I stubbornly refused to believe—because you love me.”

Her heart went a little crazy. She threaded her fingers through his hair. “I do, Tate. More than my life.”

He gazed at the bandage on her shoulder and, shuddering slightly, squeezed his eyes closed. When he opened them again, they were misty. “I know.”