“Good. I have run this company for forty years without a hint of scandal until now. I woke up yesterday to see my face next to yours on all the morning news shows. Today it’s on the cover of every newspaper and tabloid in the country. A bad picture, Tucker. My suit was out of season. And every article uses the words ‘penis’ and ‘prostitute’ over and over. I can’t have that. I’ve worked too hard for that.”

She reached out and tugged on his catheter. Pain shot though his body and he reached for the ringer for the nurse.

“Don’t even think about it, pretty boy. I just wanted to make sure I had your attention.”

“The gun pretty much did it, Mary Jean,” Tucker groaned. Fuck it, he was a dead man anyway.

“Don’t you speak to me. Just listen. This is going to disappear. You are going to disappear. You’re getting out of here tomorrow and then you’re going to a cabin I have up in the Rockies. You won’t go home, you won’t speak to any reporters, you won’t say doodly squat. My lawyers will handle the legal aspects and keep you out of jail, but you will never surface again. When this blows over, you can go on with your pathetic life. But with a new name. And if you ever set foot in the state of Texas or come within a hundred yards of anyone involved in my company, I will personally shoot you dead. Do you understand?”

“Can I still fly?”

Mary Jean laughed and lowered the gun. “Sweetie, to a Texas way a thinkin’ the only way you coulda screwed up worse is if you’d throwed a kid down a well after fessing up to being on the grassy knoll stompin’ yellow roses in between shootin’ the President. You ain’t gonna fly, drive, walk, crawl, or spit if I have anything to say about it.” She put the gun in her purse and went into the tiny bathroom to check her makeup. A quick primping and she headed for

the door. “I’ll send up some flowers. Y’all heal up now, honey.”

She wasn’t going to kill him after all. Maybe he could win her back. “Mary Jean, I think I had a spiritual experience.”