The Governor's Wife by Mark Gimenez Page B

until they graduate, get a job, and start paying taxes. Becca sniffed the air and made a stinky face then leaned in and whispered.
    "Hank's wearing that yukky aftershave again."
    "At least he showered this morning—and shaved ."
    Hank Williams, Bode's Texas Ranger bodyguard, stood at attention behind them. His daddy had named him after the country-western singer. Senior, not Junior. Hank was even bigger than Bode and wore the khaki western-style Texas Ranger uniform complete with a cowboy hat and boots and a wide tan leather holster packing a nine-millimeter handgun, cuffs, Mace, and a fifty-thousand-volt Taser—and his sunglasses so he could check out the coeds without appearing obvious. Not much else for the governor's bodyguard to do. It wasn't as if a UT sophomore was suddenly going to jump up from her booth, pull an AK-47 from under her Spandex short-shorts, and shoot the governor of Texas dead. A loud crash of plates and glasses and silverware caused Hank to slap leather. Bode chuckled.
    "Easy there, Hank. No need to draw your weapon. Waiter just dropped a tray."
    Jim Bob sat at the next table. His head was down, and his fingers were fiddling with that fucking phone again. Mandy never came to Bode's lunches with Becca. Call him old-fashioned, but it just didn't seem right to bring his mistress to lunch with his daughter, particularly since his daughter was the spitting image of his wife. Becca had inherited her mother's looks and red hair and Bode's height and athletic ability and penchant for rebellious acts in college, like turning lesbian her first semester.
    Which reminded him.
    "Jim Bob, give me that photo."
    Without looking up from the phone, the Professor reached inside his coat and pulled out a newspaper clipping then held it out to Bode. He took it and unfolded it on the table and gave his daughter a look that said, "Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" She glanced at the photo and giggled.
    "Daddy, they're just boobs. And it's legal."
    The photo was of Becca and Darcy sunning topless at Barton Springs Pool, which was in fact legal in Austin. They were not named in the caption: "An Austin tradition."
    "No. They're the governor's daughter's boobs."
    "And the governor's daughter's partner's boobs," Darcy said. "They're nice, don't you think, Governor?"
    Darcy was being a smart-ass, but Bode had to admit it, her boobs were nice. In the photo and in person. Both girls were wearing biker shorts and tube tops with no bras. Bode pulled his eyes off Darcy's boobs and regained his derailed train of thought.
    "Becca, I'm trying to get reelected. If someone recognized you, I might've lost the evangelical vote."
    "Oh, so it's not about me going nekkid in public, it's just about politics."
    " Just? Honey, when you're the governor of Texas, everything's about politics."
    She abruptly jumped up with a big grin, as if she had a straight-A report card to show her dad.
    "Look what we did."
    Having a lesbian daughter wasn't nearly as traumatic as Bode thought it would be when she had first broken the news. At least he didn't have to worry about her getting knocked up by some dope-smoking hippie. Sitting across the table from these two girls, both young and beautiful, tall and lean, you'd figure them for athletes, not lesbians. But they were both. Athletes and lesbians. They played on the UT girls' volleyball team. They were now pulling up the legs of their shorts to display their muscular buttocks and matching heart tattoos—which didn't elicit even a raised eyebrow in Kerbey's, except perhaps from Ranger Hank.
    "You're not supposed to show your butt tattoo to your old man."
    But he smiled. She was a chip off the old block. She had been hell on a horse, and she would've been hell on a football field, if she'd been a boy. Bode Bonner had wanted a boy but had gotten a daughter. And he loved her with all his heart, even if she was a lesbian.

EIGHT
    "Boys marrying boys and girls marrying girls and both having babies and