tsp Italian seasoning
½ tsp crushed red pepper
Sauté vegetables and garlic in olive oil until onions are soft and transparent. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, Italian seasonings and crushed red pepper. Bring to boil, lower heat and simmer for twenty minutes.
This sauce can also be placed in a crockpot and slow cooked all day for an easy dinner after a long day at work. Leftovers freeze well.
Variation: Add one pound of browned hamburger, meatballs or a bag of soy crumbles to sauce, then simmer.
Contents
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Prologue
“Not bad.” Tessa Bancroft clicked the stopwatch as the black colt crossed the six-furlong mark. From beneath the protection of the covered stand her giddy delight galloped in time to the thunder of hooves making mud fly. Neither rain, nor mud, nor wind could slow him down. Nothing.
He was the one. Come November he would win the Texas Breeders’ Cup championship for two-year-old colts. She had no doubt. The first true test was in less than a month—the Texas Stars Derby. He would make a splash.
And so would she.
Then next year she would go national. She could practically taste the mint juleps now.
“Best I’ve ever seen,” said the trainer as he mopped rain from his face with a faded bandanna. “He’s got heart, soul and guts. Come inside. I’ll show you the training schedule for next week. I wish you’d reconsider and let me work him in the morning with the others.”
“No, I don’t want him seen until I’m ready.” She wanted to take all those highbrow blue bloods by surprise. Teresa Vega was born in the gutter, but Tessa Bancroft belonged among the cream. When they saw him, when he won…
Sharp trumpets of terror blared from the television set on the corner of the desk in the cramped barn office. The trainer reached for the knob. With a hand clawed around his wrist Tessa stopped him.
Spreading pools of blood, drumming spikes of rain and the fitful windmill of trapped equine legs filled the screen. Then the camera zoomed in on a pair of firemen opening the side of a trailer like a sardine can. A woman’s hand soothed one of the horses jammed inside. The animal’s eyes were wide with panic. Rain slicked its red mane against its neck. Blood ran in rivulets tracing pink worms on the white blaze on its face.
Horror crawled down her spine as she recognized the beast.
“On the outskirts of the small town of Gabenburg, northeast of Beaumont,” a reporter said, “a horse-transport van overturned on the slick roads caused by today’s torrential downpour and the near hurricane-strength winds blowing through the Gulf Coast region.” The reporter’s yellow slicker flapped in the wind, sending her careful hairdo into frenzied flight. Her eyes narrowed against the onslaught of rain and her grip tightened around the microphone. “The six horses trapped inside are still alive. Sheriff Conover, can you tell us how the rescue operation is going?”
Tessa swore and flicked down the volume. She didn’t need this. Not so close to reaching her goal. No one could know about the project.
Without asking, she snagged the phone off its cradle and dialed. “Have you seen the news?”
“No,” the voice hedged.
“Turn on your set. Now.” She waited until she heard the report buzzing in the background. “Get out there and take care of that mess.”
“I can’t leave—”
“How is your dear Lillian?” She let the threat hang.
The time to call on ethics was long past. The good doctor had made his choice years ago. He could blame his choice on youth. He could blame it on mistaken idealism. But that did not alter the fact he was responsible for making the decision in the first place. No one had held a gun to his head. At least not then.
Now, well, sometimes people needed a reminder of their goals. She would use every weapon at her disposal to ensure he saw the project he’d started to its perfect completion—even his dying wife’s welfare. “I want them back at the clinic tonight.”
Chapter One
“What is this?” Nina Rainwater asked in disgust, flipping through channels and landing on the only one showing news. “A million channels and this is what I get? I’m in Colorado, how come I’ve got to listen to weather from Beaumont, Texas?”
“Satellite dish, Grandmother,” Kevin Ransom said as he entered the hospice room. Nina looked out of place in the pink frill of the room. He’d always associated her with blue skies and green pastures, with the scent of sweet hay and the smoke of a wood fire—with undying energy.
She didn’t look well this evening. Strands of hair, dull as a rainy November sky, poked out of her usually neat braid. Her brown eyes were listless and her breathing seemed more labored in spite of the tubes feeding her oxygen through her nose.
The mock disgust was for his benefit. She didn’t want him to worry about her. But he couldn’t help himself. She’d given him his life back after he’d thrown it away. He owed her more than gratitude, and now, when she needed him most, he was helpless again. “Sometimes you can’t get local news with a satellite dish.”
“Pah!” She pitched the remote and looked longingly at the sun starting to set outside her window. The bearberry flowers, pussytoes and columbines in the rock garden bordering the property swayed in the breeze.
“Want me to turn off the TV?” Kevin asked.
She shrugged.
Kevin reached for the remote—a mere five inches from where she’d launched it—and aimed the gadget at the television set on the roll cart at the foot of Nina’s bed. He was about to press the power button when the image on the screen jumped straight out of his nightmare. It rose like a ghost from his past and laughed at him with satanic glee.
You can run as fast and as far as you want from trouble, but it will never let you forget.
