“Guess Candice knows what she speaks of,” I tell Dan.

Having told the kids to scoot back in the house, and after settling down the dogs, Dan and I are standing on the porch, letting them cameras with long telephoto lenses get a solid bead on us.

“I count four,” he says, referring to the news vans that line up along the side of the road. Their antennas poke up high, ready for live coverage.

I don’t need my binoculars to read their markings. One will have the logo of the local independent station. The other three will have come up from Denver, emblazoned with their major network insignias.

Advance notice from Candice and all, my stomach flutters. The tip of my lips tingle with that sense of powerlessness I’ve dreaded plenty before. I have to tell myself to take nice, even breaths.

“They aren’t calling,” Dan adds.

“Just here to watch the show. Not much use for interviews and questions when they can record something juicier.”

“We can tell them to back off to the main road,” he says, given how the vans have parked short of my locked gate, along the unpaved road that lies well inside my property line.

“Nah. If Candice is right, this might give us good practice for waving and smiling to the cameras.” Out of orneriness more than confidence, I do just that.

Dan shoots me a sideways disapproving glare he would follow up with a verbal reprimand. But his eye catches a fifth vehicle, one of them big and black SUVs that screams federal with every roll of its tires.

“At least we don’t need to wait long,” I say.

“How are we going to do it?”

We talked about it a few minutes ago without coming to a conclusion. Since then, I’ve been pondering it some more. Go up to the gate and do the meet-and-greet there, keeping it short and inhospitable. Or buzz them through and do it inside my property. One of these will place me closer to the cameras than I care for, so…

“Let’s show ‘em our best manners,” I say.

Dan half-steps into the house and presses the button to the remote gear he installed not two months ago. Though I don’t hear it, I can imagine the gate’s latch clanking open. I watch it swing to let our visitors through. Dan presses the button again before the news media get the idea that the invitation also extends to them.

The SUV approaches at a steady, but unhurried clip. It pulls up under my oak tree.

To their credit, the two suits don’t make much of a fuss about it. I appreciate that, keeping the theater to a minimum. They flash us their IDs, hand us an envelope with the subpoena, and then they’re rolling back to the gate.

“Mind if I open it?” Dan says once we step back into our living room.

I shrug, already knowing what it says, how I’m supposed to appear before a Congressional committee. Just as Candice said. To answer for my sins and those of others, she didn’t add. But my head screams it all the same.

Thank you for reading this installment of Wounded Honor. Leading up to and following it’s release on April 21, I will be sharing preview samples for my readers. Keep checking in, and don’t forget to join my Reader’s Club if you haven’t already to stay up to date on future announcements and giveaways.