The Grandmaster’s Legacy: Masters of Love and War (A Taylor Lee HOT Historical Romantic Suspense Collection) (The Grandmaster's Legacy)

by Taylor Lee

  Tom spent the next ten minutes in a rapid fire update of the arrangements to date.

  Wyatt listened intently to Tom’s presentation. He interrupted with occasional questions and recommended specific people who would be good volunteers in a given area. They agreed that Wyatt would look over the list of volunteers they had assembled and add his comments. It was clear from his questions that he knew the state intimately. Like Tom, he was an excellent strategist but also a hard taskmaster. It was clear that he expected the best, and from the quality of the people around the table, that he would get it.

  “Any other questions, Wyatt?”

  “Just, admiration, Tom.” Wyatt turned and nodded to the group. “Once again, welcome to Wyoming. Thank you for coming. Tom is a master at what he does. It is a privilege to work with him. And with all of you. A special welcome to the Caballeros. Goddamn, it’s good to see you men. For those of you who are just meeting us, the Caballeros are the smartest, toughest men you will meet. No one joins me unless specifically invited. I am proud to say that in the twenty years we have ridden together, not a single Caballero has chosen to leave. There isn’t one of them that I wouldn’t trust with my life. It just so happens that is exactly what I do on a daily basis.

  “While the primary reason you are here is to help me get elected governor, our task has a higher purpose. Wyoming deserves good government. Clean honest government where everyone gets a fair shake, where they have the ability to rise or fall based on their own ability and hard work, where they can count on a government that has the interests of everyone at heart not only the wealthy few. Those of us who live here fought hard for Wyoming to become a state. We were successful. We also were the first territory to give women the vote. The people here are hard working, honest people who, for the most part, live and let live. Many of them are my friends. Most of them share my desire to make this state a model of good government for the rest of the country.

  “But we also have our issues like every other part of the country. I am part Indian, my children are mixed and their mother is part Chinese. Even those of you from the east coast know that is a powder keg. One that can easily be lit by a careless match. Unfortunately, our opponent intends to use a load of dynamite. I promise you, the result will be explosive. Grant Forrester’s goal is to take this state down the road he and his cronies have taken New Mexico. Their vision of success is a place where money is the only language that talks. Where open graft and corruption are the accepted state of affairs. Our task is to stop them. It won’t be easy and it won’t be pretty. With all of you, and with Tom at the helm, I am confident we have the team to give them a hell of a fight, and ultimately succeed.”

  There was silence around the table as everyone stared at the impressive man whose eloquent words came easily. There wasn’t a person present who didn’t sense his power and feel committed to the task ahead. Tom’s face glowed with pride.

  Wyatt lit a cigar and took a puff. Glancing around the table, he asked, “Any questions?”

  Sarah leaned forward. “I have a question, Wyatt. May I call you Wyatt?”

  Wyatt leaned back in his chair with an easy smile. “Everyone else does.”

  “Why aren’t you married?”

  There was a gasp from a number of people and a few uneasy laughs. Tom’s face tightened with anger as he glared at Sarah.

  Wyatt continued to sit back. Looking directly at her from half closed eyes, he said, “Before I answer that question, I have one for you. Why do you want to know?”

  Loud chuckles from most of the men at the table greeted his response. It was obvious to everyone that the brash woman had met her match. It was equally obvious that none of the Caballeros liked what they saw as a confrontational attitude from an outsider.

  Sarah felt heat flush her cheeks. She saw that Tom was angry and noticed the protectiveness from the Caballeros. She tossed her head, thinking to herself that maybe he was accustomed to pushing everyone else around, but he wasn’t going to be able to do that with her.

  “I will be writing notices for newspaper people. They are likely to ask about your family. I need to know what to say.”

  “I see. My understanding is that everyone who works for Tom is good with words. Why don’t you and your team come up with some ideas? Tom can present the best ones to Lei and me. We will decide which ones we prefer. Any other questions?”

  Even Sarah was impressed with the way he cut her down, without losing his pleasant smile or easy attitude. Impressive. He would be a formidable candidate. It was the kind of response that politicians work on for years before they participate in debates or question and answer sessions. Wyatt’s response was natural, unpracticed, and cutting. Tom gave her a look that said he hoped she wouldn’t try that again. Overall she was impressed, and pissed.

  As the meeting wound down, Wyatt looked again at the two senior women Tom had brought from Washington. There wasn’t any question about their interest in him or their intentions. The tall blond woman who had asked him why he wasn’t married had the kind of looks many men lusted after. She had a voluptuous body, large breasts, ample hips, and an ass to match. She was all curves and pink flesh. She had the open look of a woman who would give as good as she got. She was older, probably in her mid-thirties. There was a hardness, a brashness about her that said she had been around. That she wasn’t easily fooled. Her blond hair and blue eyes spoke to her Scandinavian background. If she had been younger, Wyatt and his friends would have characterized her as a “hay roller.” It was a disrespectful term that referred to buxom farm girls who were good for a roll in the hay. She also had the kind of body that if she wasn’t careful, verged to fat. Indeed, most of the women Wyatt had known who looked like Sarah were solidly heavy women as they aged.

  Ella was about the same age and not as pretty as Sarah. Her features, while plain, were pleasant. The lines around her eyes and lips, and her wry smile, promised smart conversation. Lots of experience pushing men around, giving orders. Both women had a toughness that spoke to years of working with politicians and their hangers on. They looked like they didn’t take any crap and usually got what they wanted. Wyatt sighed and thought to himself that it was too damn bad that Sarah had blond hair. He hoped she would be on assignment, somewhere far away, when Lei came to town.

  Tom and Wyatt were standing off to the side of the room. Looking over at Sarah and Ella, Tom said in a low voice. “Sorry about that, Wyatt. I will talk to both of them.”

  Wyatt took a drag off his cigarette, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “That’s a good idea, Tom. The sooner the better.”

  ~~~

  Later that day, as promised, Tom jumped all over Sarah and Ella. He didn’t pull any punches. He called them into his private office and told them to close the door and sit down.

  He put two pieces of paper on the desk in front of him.

  “In case you are wondering these are, they are one-way train tickets back to Washington. They have your names on them. They don’t have a date but are good for any time I want them to be. This is your only warning. If you do anything like what you did today, Sarah, you are no longer part of this campaign. Ella, the same thing goes for you. Do you understand?”

  Both women nodded, surprised and embarrassed. Tom continued.

  “This campaign is the most important one any of us will ever be involved in. I will not have it ruined by two women who can’t keep their legs together. Wyatt is my friend. He is the man I respect more than any other. He also is a man with large appetites. You pegged him correctly, Ella. One of those appetites is for women. But he is in love with a beautiful woman. He is creating a happy family for the first time since his wife died eight years ago. This campaign will be over in less than three months. We will all go back to Washington. Wyatt and Lei and their children will be here, together. This is not a game. Do you understand?”

  Again, both women nodded. Sarah looked angry and was silent. But Ella gave Tom a cheeky smirk. “Is Wyatt the only one who is
off limits? Do we have to stay away from all those good looking cowboys with their tight asses and “guns” in their pants?”

  “I don’t care if you fuck the lamppost. Or that goddamn horse out front. Just stay away from Wyatt. Remember, you two set the tone for all the other women on our staff. You are the senior members of my staff—my personal representatives. You speak for me when I am not here. The young girls out there all look up to you. Do I care if you sleep around, or, if they do? I never have and I don’t now. As I said, the only person I care about is Wyatt. Stay away from him.”

  He turned to Sarah who was glaring at him, not trying to hide her anger.

  “Sarah, you haven’t said anything. You need to answer me. If you have a problem with anything I have said, it will be better for you to take this ticket and leave now.” He waited for her to respond.

  Sarah’s face was flushed, her voice harsh. “Listen, Tom. I am offended and angry by what you are saying. Yes, I will leave your precious poster boy alone. Apparently, he can’t be trusted to keep his prick in his pants without you protecting him from the big bad women who want to corrupt him. You might want to give his “woman” a little advice from someone who knows men like her hot-assed cowboy. If he has to be protected by the likes of you, Tom, that “woman” of his is in a precarious position. And, I have a feeling she knows it.”

  With that, Sarah got up and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

  ~~~

  Chief and Alono arrived later that evening and didn’t try to hide their surprise and concern when they met Tom’s personal staff. Chief was shocked when he saw all the women Tom had brought from Washington, in particular Sarah and several of the younger, blond, blued-eyed women.

  He pulled Tom aside. “You are playing with fire, Tom. May I presume you don’t know that? Or do you like living on the edge, and enjoy pulling the rest of us out there with you?”

  Tom was surprised by Chief’s anger. “I don’t understand.”

  Chief’s expression was hard, concerned. “You weren’t around before Deshi was born. I understand that. But you know that Lei left Wyatt because he was unfaithful to her. That fact continues to plague them, even today. The real issue they had to resolve between the two of them was Wyatt’s unwillingness to let go of Vivian. He has now done that. We both know he is deeply in love with Lei, as Vivian would have wanted him to be. To this day, Lei is particularly threatened by blond women. I hadn’t known until Wan mentioned the other day that, like Vivian, Lei’s mother has blond hair and blue eyes. In addition to giving Lei her extraordinary green eyes, that may explain some of Lei’s obsession with blonds. I don’t know. All I can tell you, Tom, is that if Lei walked in here right now, all hell would break loose.”

  Tom was relieved that the Chief had not seen Sarah’s brash display earlier. He was glad that he had laid down the law with both Ella and Sarah. He also felt a little like Sarah must have felt when he warned her. He couldn’t hide the defensive tone in his voice. “Look, Chief, I understand that Wyatt and Lei have unresolved issues. I will do what I can to enforce a level of professional behavior among the staff. Ultimately, Wyatt and Lei, and all of the people working for me, are adults. I am not a babysitter. I am the chair of this campaign. Not a member of the Temperance League. The person responsible for keeping Wyatt’s prick in his pants is Wyatt. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get back to the work I was hired to do – elect the next governor of the State of Wyoming.”

  Chief understood and appreciated Tom’s angry response. That didn’t stop him from feeling uneasy, a feeling that would get stronger, not weaker, as the campaign progressed.

  Chapter 10

  Grant’s team was stunned by Wyatt’s professional campaign. It was unbelievable. In three weeks, there wasn’t a town or watering hole in Wyoming that Tom or his team hadn’t visited. Every saloon in the state had at least one poster of Wyatt in the window or on the door, more often, on both. Christ, even the churches had the fucking posters. The final straw for Grant came when he went to one of the high priced brothels in Cheyenne for a group fuck. Plastered throughout the pussy stalls were no fewer than seven posters of that goddamn half-breed in his black cowboy hat, grinning like the son of a bitch that he was.

  Grant called his team together for an emergency meeting. The Forrester campaign had planned from the beginning to run a negative campaign. They assumed that all they would have to do was let people know that Wyatt was an Indian shacking up with a Chink. They planned to play those cards closer to the end of the campaign, so Wyatt wouldn’t have time to undue the damage. Their plan was to stay low. Then ten days before the election, hit the state hard with slander sheets and pictures of Wyatt looking like the scariest fucking Indian you’d ever wanna see. That was to have been followed up by worse pictures of Lei. Finally they would start a whisper campaign about Wan’s connections to Wyatt, with pictures of the Chinese doing the violent things the Tongs were doing across the country.

  That plan was now dead. They had a one note campaign and they decided they needed to play it now and play it hard. Within days, fliers with a distinctly Indian-looking Wyatt started to appear. The cowboy hat had been replaced with a fierce looking war bonnet. Some of the posters even had him carrying a spear with a bow and arrow strapped on his back. The pictures would have been laughable, except that they worked. They conjured up an image of Indians that a lot of whites had, if not overtly, hidden away in some part of their subconscious.

  When Tom showed Wyatt the first picture, they both laughed. As they became more vicious and despicable, they no longer seemed humorous, at least to Tom, who was outraged by the overt bigotry.

  Wyatt was more sanguine. He sat with the planning team and looked over the fifteen or so fliers that were now showing up everywhere. As always, Chief was in the meeting, as was Alono.

  Chief shook his head, more in wonder, than dismay. “I wonder where they dug up these headdresses. Christ, I haven’t seen anything like these since I was a young man. Even then, they were only worn on special occasions by the highest ranking members of the tribe.”

  “I’ll bet Alono has never seen them at all, have you, Alono?” asked Wyatt.

  Alono shook his head no. The stern expression on his face indicated he didn’t see the humor that both Chief and Wyatt saw in the portrayals.

  He hesitated and then uncharacteristically spoke. “These are terrible, Wyatt. They make you look like a savage. If I was a white person, and I didn’t know you, they would make me afraid of you.”

  Tom agreed. “I think Alono’s right, Wyatt. These pictures are more dangerous than we have been thinking they are. To you and me, and Chief, they look ridiculous. But think about a farmer and his young wife out on a secluded farm in western Wyoming. They were taught to be afraid of Indians. The image of Indians they grew up with is exactly what you see on these fliers.”

  Wyatt nodded with a frown. “Hmm, you’re right. Thanks, Alono, for speaking up. We haven’t given Grant and his asshole friends enough credit. Hell, Tom, you and I know the fastest way to dig our grave is to underestimate the sons of bitches. We’re done doing that, as of this moment.

  “Tom we have planned for this. We didn’t expect it this soon, and, sure as hell, Grant hadn’t planned on using it this soon. We spooked them by getting out of the gate so quickly. If anything, this feels like a panicked response. In a crazy way, it plays to our advantage.”

  “You’re right, Wyatt. Don’t look surprised,” Tom said in response to the questioning looks from most of the people around the table. “This is what both Wyatt and I expected them to do. Remember team, we have an answer.”

  He looked over and pointed at Wyatt. “Our answer is him.”

  Tom smiled at the group. “Yeah, folks, our answer is Wyatt, the real Wyatt. Not this caricature of a wild Indian. Let’s go right to our strategy. For every picture like this, we need a picture of the real Wyatt – our poster. That’s step one. The next step is to reinforce our fliers with testimonies from
our volunteers. Every one of these ugly pictures needs to come down. Moreover, it needs to be addressed by real people pointing out how ludicrous they are. Finally, we need to get Wyatt, the man, out across the state. Five minutes with him in person will make these pictures seem as ridiculous as they are.”

  The team pulled together and added more appearances to Wyatt’s already crowded schedule. They had him making fifteen appearances in seven days throughout the southeastern corner of Wyoming. It was the job of the planning team and the Caballeros assigned to the area, to be sure that there was as large a crowd as possible at each stop. Fortunately, Wyatt turned out to be as big a draw as Tom hoped. Tom also gauged the crowd response correctly.

  The format of Wyatt’s appearances remained the same throughout the campaign. Wyatt opened with a few remarks, then spent the rest of his time answering questions. His knowledge of the state and the issues they were facing was profound. Because he was a rancher, a horse breeder, a businessman, and the father of three young children, he could relate to just about anybody in the crowd. By the time each meeting was finished, everyone there had their own impression of Wyatt. None of them were of a wild Indian in a strange headdress carrying a spear.

  Tom wanted him to make an immediate one week swing through the central part of the state. Wyatt insisted that he have two days at home before he headed out to another full week of campaigning. It had been nearly two weeks since he was home and he missed the children terribly and was aching for Lei. This was the longest they had been apart since before they had Nicolas Deshi. He craved her presence. Not only her body, but her love.