A Match Made in Texas by Katie Lane Page A

Daniel’s with pure rubbing alcohol that had sent him to the hospital for a week. And when his last wife had revealed his misappropriation of funds, he’d paid a very unsavory character to dish out punishment. Although a little physical intimidation wasn’t even close to the hell his ex had put him through.
    And now he had another score to settle.
    How dare the flamboyant hussy in the wheelchair ignore his congenial efforts at friendship and call him a blustering windbag. He was a man of God. A man of God who refused to be spoken down to by a two-bit hooker who should be spending her last days on earth repenting instead of enjoying her life in a mansion twice the size of his.
    It was wrong.
    And Josiah would not rest until he had corrected the error.
    He pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket and dialed through his contacts until he found the number he was looking for. As he waited for the television producer to answer, he steered the Cadillac with his knees and tried to repair his toupee in the rearview mirror. It was impossible. The expensive hairpiece was beyond repair. Just something else to hold against the whores at Miss Hattie’s.
    Instead of a friendly hello, the phone was answered with exasperation.
    “I told you, Reverend, I can’t get you another time slot,” Mike Fowler said. “Your ratings dropped lower than that Cadillac you like to tool around in, and I’m still dealing with lawsuits. And speaking of lawsuits, if you don’t stop hassling me, I’m going to slap a restraining—”
    “I would never dream of hassling you, my son.” He gave up on trying to fix the toupee and hooked a hand over the steering wheel. “Not when I’ve finally realized that you are absolutely one hundred and ten percent correct. My television show had run its course. Like Carol Burnett, Lawrence Welk, and soap operas, evangelistic television is going the way of the dinosaurs. People today want to watch something more than Bible preaching and choir singing.”
    “You got that right,” Mike said. “They want shows with plenty of action and—”
    “Scandal?” Josiah finished for him.
    “I was going to say realism, but scandal is definitely in the top ten. I’m sorry, Reverend. It looks like you’ll be forced to do most of your preaching from the pulpit. Now I need to—”
    “What if I could promise you scandal and realism?”
    There was a long pause. “What are we talking about here? Because if this has anything to do with coming clean about the money you used for that house in Malibu, I suggest you keep your mouth shut. Not only for your sake, but for the network’s.”
    Josiah pushed back a strand of his toupee that kept flapping in his face. “I have nothing to come clean about, Mike. I built that house as a home for the elderly who would otherwise be tossed out on the streets. I thought everyone knew that.”
    Mike snorted. “Yeah right. So what are you talking about?”
    “I’m talking about a television show like no one has ever seen before. One that would give people the action, scandal, and realism they crave and, at the same time, the righteousness that they need.”
    There was a pause before Mike spoke. “Go on.”
    “I would still preach the word, but I’d be preaching to the people who really needed it—the deprived, retched souls who had lost their way in the bowels of wickedness.”
    “Are you saying you want to take the cameras on location?”
    Josiah could hear the excitement in Mike’s voice, and he smiled. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Every week, I’d go to another den of iniquity and bring a ray of light to their otherwise dark world.”
    “And just what dens are we talking about?”
    “You name it. Crack houses, strip clubs… whorehouses.”
    Mike laughed. “You know of a lot of those, do you?”
    Josiah bristled. “Are you making fun of me?”
    “Actually, no. I think you could be onto something here. Of course, I’ll need to run it by the higher-ups. But