Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown

“Blind Tiger.”

She laughed. “Isn’t that rather obvious?”

“The girl likes the way it sounds.” He tipped his head toward the kitchen where Thatcher could be heard responding to Corrine’s chatter. “Will you tell him?”

“He’s going to be my husband.”

“He’s going to be a lawman.”

“But he hasn’t been sworn in yet. One thing, though. Will there be girls?”

“Hell no. I’m too old, Ernie’s too much in love, and the girl would never hear of it.”

“What about your fix-it business?”

“I’ll keep it up for show.”

“Just promise me that you’ll be careful, Irv. Keep it exclusive. Locals only. People you know. No roughnecks.”

“Like I said, classy. Discreet like. Hush-hush.”

“Don’t let Mike take unnecessary risks.”

“None of us wants to get shot at again.”

“If things get hot—”

“We’ll head for the hills. Don’t you worry none.”

“I will.”

“I know.”

She patted him on the knee, then stood and placed her hands on either side of his face, tipped his head down, and kissed his bald pate. “You’ve become very dear to me, Irv. Thank you. For taking care of Pearl and me. For everything.”

His eyes filled. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and came off his barrel seat. “I’d better go see if I’m good for something.”

* * *



Another round of goodbyes was said outside.

As they pulled away, Thatcher reached across the seat and placed his hand on Laurel’s knee, giving it a squeeze. “Are you sad?”

“Melancholy.” She looked back to see the three of them still there, waving. Then, as one, they turned and filed back into the house. “But they’re a family. I had become the odd man out.”

As they drove past the cemetery, Thatcher switched the Model T into low gear. “Do you want to stop for one last visit?”

“No. Irv and I were here only a few days ago. He’s promised to keep the graves well tended.” She didn’t share the conversation she’d had with Irv about Derby, but she said, “When I think about Pearl, I don’t think of her being in the ground. I think of her sweet face looking up at me as she nursed. I’m not leaving her here. I’m taking her with me.”

Thatcher pulled her closer, and she rested her head on his shoulder. “It was thoughtful of you to ask. Thank you.”

They continued on their way. But she felt pressed to be candid with him. “Thatcher, we’ve joked about my accepting your proposal, but marrying you is a bigger step for me than you realize.”

He pulled the car off the road onto the shoulder and gave her his undivided attention. “I’ve known that. But your past with Derby is your private business. I didn’t want to dig into it until you invited me to.”

“Which I appreciate, but you should know this.”

“Okay.”

“After he did what he did, I vowed that I would never again surrender control of my life to someone else.”

“I don’t want control over you, Laurel. I want you. If you’re scared of marriage, we don’t have to do it. A piece of paper isn’t going to make me any more bound to you than I am.”

“You’d be willing to do that?”

“Not overjoyed about it, but willing. I’d like it if you used my name, though. Not because I care what you call yourself, but because I wouldn’t want people thinking bad of you, or our children.”

She touched his face. “You really do love me.”

He took her hand and kissed her palm. “I really do. But I can be stubborn, too. I’ll never stop asking you to be my wife.”

“I accept, Thatcher. I’ll marry you today, because you’re incredibly wonderful, and I love you with all my heart. But don’t ever stop proposing. Ask me every day to marry you.”

He grinned. “If you swear always to say yes.”

“I will.”





Acknowledgments




Doing the research for Blind Tiger was some of the most fun I’ve had during my writing career.

Mired in the muck of 2020, I went back one hundred years, looking for something interesting to write about. Prohibition. It became law in January of 1920.

I soon became fascinated by the anecdotal personal histories of moonshiners, bootleggers, and the lawmen who doggedly chased them. No doubt many of these stories were embroidered for dramatic effect or the aggrandizement of the storyteller. But I got the feeling that, whether comic or tragic, they were too far-fetched not to be based on truth.

One fact is indisputable: for the thirteen years that Prohibition was in effect, alcohol and blood flowed in comparable quantities.

I want to give special thanks to former Garland Police Department detective Martin Brown, whose nonfiction book The Glen Rose Moonshine Raid (The History Press) acquainted me with a sliver of Texas history that I never knew, although I’m a native and have lived most of my life within an hour’s drive of this small town that inspired my fictitious town of Foley.

Glen Rose earned the reputation of being the Moonshine Capital of Texas. In 1923, Texas Rangers, in conjunction with informers and local law enforcement, busted up one of the most profitable illegal liquor syndicates in the state—and that was saying something!