Luke: Armed and Dangerous (25 page)

Taylor shook his head and smacked his damaged hand against his leg. “Call him back.
How do you know you can trust Thorn not to get Gina killed like these DEA assholes
almost did?”

Rios winced, and Luke didn’t even try to defend himself. A crime syndicate hit man
working for the FBI wasn’t anything he could have prepared for.

Wayland’s reassurance came out smooth and simple, and completely convincing. “Levi’s
got plenty of money—his own, and from his family. Trust me, he doesn’t owe anybody
anything, and he’s not corruptible. He’ll take care of your sister and niece.”

That seemed to help Taylor settle down, at least a little bit. Luke had to admit he
felt better, too, thinking that Gina and Lola had a good man like Levi Thorn on their
side. Seemed like they’d need that help—and a lot more—to escape Gina’s past.

“When we’re sure all of this is settled,” Wayland added, “when we’re positive Gina’s
ex can’t do her any harm, Levi will bring Gina and Lola home.”

Luke picked up the cue from Wayland’s voice and the glance he fired in Luke’s direction.
“Taylor, we want you to wait for them at the K and K, keep it fixed up for them.”

Wayland looked at Rios, who brought it home with, “And we want you to give us whatever
information we need, whenever you hear or see anything related to Francisco Guerrero.”

Taylor cut his gaze in the direction the squad car had taken, the one that had carried
Bull Fenning off to jail for murdering the UDA, then trying to cover up his crime.

His non-response let Luke know what Rios and Wayland no doubt saw, too. Taylor understood
his position, that he was staying out of jail for Gina’s sake—and to be useful to
the DEA and local law enforcement. He didn’t yet know what they’d be asking him to
do, or all of what they’d demand, but whatever it was, Taylor would do it. For himself,
and for his sister.

Luke didn’t much like this aspect of his job. Cultivating informants was one thing.
Conscripting them—another. But in its own way, the border situation was a war, after
all. And Taylor’s other options weren’t viable for him, or for Gina.

“All right.” Taylor rubbed his knuckles again.

“Better let me get somebody to look at that hand,” Wayland said, right about the time
Luke’s phone buzzed.

Luke pulled out the little cell and glanced at the display before answering.

“Denver?” Noah Ralston’s tense voice boomed across the sensitive connection.

Shit. This already doesn’t sound good.

“Em here,” Luke said, motioning for Rios to take Taylor out of earshot.

“Is Wayland with you?” Ralston asked as Rios led Taylor back toward Fenning’s big
stone house.

“Yeah, and half the county’s resources. We’ve got a situation at the Bar F—”

Ralston cut him off without so much as a wait-a-sec. “I’m at the Rocking B. You and
Clay—get over here. Now.”

“I’m sorry, Noah.” Clay Wayland’s green eyes had a grim, dark cast as he studied the
destroyed ranch house with Luke. “I know Joyce meant something to you.”

Ralston said nothing as Wayland turned away and got on his phone, and Luke couldn’t
blame the man. Ralston barely had his temper and reactions under control.

Joyce Butler had gone missing.

Somebody had really trashed her place, and apparently taken her with them when they
left.

Everywhere Luke looked, he saw busted furniture, walls with big smashed holes, no
glass intact—like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to every inch of the place. The
walls that hadn’t been knocked to smithereens contained a variety of messages and
slurs, painted in garish red that Ralston had already determined to be paint, not
blood.

Ptita had been used most often, but Luke saw a fair number of chingada madre and chocha,
and some death threats.

At first blush, the whole scene could be taken for vandalism, maybe even a random
attack by a group of delinquent UDAs. The more reactionary racists in Douglas and
along the border would no doubt take this crime for exactly that.

Luke knew better, and so did Wayland and Ralston.

This attack had been deliberate, and planned, and designed to leave a powerful message
for any enemy of the Guerrero drug cartel.

This is what happens to people who cross us.

Ralston must have been right all along. Joyce Butler had gotten in over her head with
Guerrero, and now she had paid the price. He hated to think what her body might look
like when they found her—if they found her at all.

Even though Noah Ralston’s interest in Joyce Butler had been purely the loyal-old-friend
variety, it had to kill him inside, knowing what the woman was probably going through
right now.

“Her father’s given permission for us to search every inch of border dirt he owns.”
Wayland snapped his phone shut. “He’s kicking in equipment and volunteers. If there
are any corridors or tunnels on this land, collapsed or still standing, we’ll find
them.”

A little too late,
Luke thought, and cursed their lack of resources. Every agency, from local to federal
and everything in between, needed more technology, more people, more money, and they
just didn’t have it.

“I’ll head straight to the field office,” he told Ralston. “You know the DEA will
be in this eyeball-deep, right beside you, like we have been.”

When Ralston turned to face Luke, Luke saw a full version of the flash of hot, steely
rage he had first seen from Ralston at Nevaeh’s. “Guerrero’s going down. If you and
your people don’t take the bastard out, Denver, I will. Count on it.”

Trinity hadn’t gotten to play out her fantasy in the mountain caves with Luke. In
fact, she hadn’t gotten to spend much quality time with Luke for days now, not since
Bull Fenning got arrested. Skylar and Zack kept telling her how Luke was helping Brad
Taylor on the Fenning spread, and at the K & K, too, since Gina Garcia had to leave
town suddenly.

When she’d actually gotten to see Luke, he was so covered with dirt and exhausted,
she could swear he’d been helping to dig up half of Cochise County.

I’m sorry, sugar,
was the best he could do.
Sometimes, this is my life.

As for Zack, he’d been absorbed with the rest of the world, in the hunt for Joyce
Butler. Which is why he’d interrupted her work again after her morning shower, to
go over her analysis of the unrelated prints at the Fenning crime scene.

“I still don’t know who this would be,” Zack said, his gray eyes tired as he evaluated
the printout and her theories that the prints could have originated from the direction
of Fenning’s house, or from Gina Garcia’s K & K. “Maybe a female UDA in the wrong
place at the wrong time.”

“The prints are my size.” Trinity rubbed her hair with her bath towel, glad she’d
already been dressed when Zack came banging on her door. “The woman would have to
be about my height.”

Zack actually gave her a grin—rare these last few days. “Other than you and Sky, that
leaves, what, half the females in Douglas? If we don’t count Bisbee.”

“But this woman knew where she was going, I think. Or what she was doing. Not much
hesitation.” Trinity pointed to her list of print depths. “See? She didn’t press in
and turn often. She just walked up, stopped, then walked away.”

Zack folded up the printout to take to the ICE field office, and share with the other
agencies searching for Joyce. The prints were her size, but like Zack pointed out,
that didn’t mean much.

“Sky’s going to town for a feed run since Luke’s tied up,” Zack said as he got up
to leave. “You’ll be okay?”

Trinity knew that was code for, Is your gun loaded?

“Fine,” she told him, glancing at the zippered pouch on her nightstand where she kept
the pistol.

They hadn’t had any trouble on the Flying M since all the chaos at Fenning’s Bar F,
and Guerrero wasn’t even in town. Trinity figured the drug lord would keep himself
way past quiet until all this died down, but she supposed he might have henchmen,
or minions, or whatever the hell she was supposed to call his hired help. She knew
she couldn’t be too careful.

“Rider’s here today, by the way,” Zack said as he reached the door to her room, sounding
almost casual even though his smile told Trinity he knew how that news would affect
her. “He’s, ah, taking the day off, and he asked me to tell you he’d meet you at noon
in front of Dancer’s stall, if you’re still up for a ride.”

Zack took off down the hall, leaving Trinity standing there with her hair in a towel
and her heart racing.

Luke...

Day off...

Ride into the mountains...

Trinity’s entire body seemed to catch fire at the same time, a slow delicious burn
that touched her everywhere. The ache she’d barely been ignoring for days took her
over, and she wanted to run straight to Luke’s cabin, beat down the door, and climb
on top of him.

But... she’d promised to make them lunch for the trip, back when they first planned
it.

Crap!

She didn’t have much time.

Dressed in a comfy pair of old blue jeans, a jade-green T-shirt, Nikes, and a jacket
to keep out the chill, Trinity hurried from the ranch house toward the barn to meet
up with Luke. She’d French-braided her hair to keep it out of her face and had kept
her makeup light. After all, she was hoping he’d be kissing off all her lipstick anyway.

Flutters stirred in her belly in anticipation of seeing Luke. She shrugged the lunch
bag higher on her shoulder and entered the dark recesses of the barn. The acrid smell
of smoke from the fire was finally starting to fade, but it still surprised her every
time she entered the barn, reminding her that their little world wasn’t as safe as
she’d always thought it to be.

Except today.

Today, she refused to think about Guerrero or Joyce or DropCaps or decisions or anything
at all, save for Luke, and spending time with him.

As she walked past Satan’s stall, she caught the sound of Luke’s voice at the same
moment she saw him ahead, standing next to Dancer’s stall. The mare was already saddled
up, and Tequila, Luke’s sorrel mount, was right beside Dancer.

Trinity’s pulse rate picked up and those flutters in her belly magnified. Lord, oh
lord, he looked good wearing his black duster, black Stetson, jeans, and boots. Dark
and dangerous-looking, that was her man.

“... if you don’t hear from me in four,” Luke was saying into a cell phone as she
got closer. “Just stay back.” He caught sight of Trinity as she drew closer. She saw
a flicker of something in his eyes, and then he gave her a brief smile and a nod as
he listened to whoever it was on the other end.

“Uh-huh,” he said into the phone, his gaze focused on Trinity. “Gotta head on out,”
he added and then took the phone away from his ear and punched it off before stuffing
it into his duster pocket.

Trinity wanted to ask who he’d been on the phone with, but she knew it was none of
her business. Instead she placed her palms on her hips and gave him a teasing look.
“Cowboys and cell phones... somehow that just seems wrong.”

With one finger, Luke beckoned to Trinity to come closer. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong,
sugar.” When she reached him, his eyelids lowered as he settled his hands at her waist
and brought her hips flush with his. “Waking up every morning without you in my bed
where you belong... that’s a serious problem in my book. The world needs to get sane
again, in a hurry, so I can give you the time you deserve.”

Trinity realized he sounded worried. That he looked worried. “It’s okay, Luke. I miss
you—but I understand. I’m not a preschooler you have to amuse or anything. I do have
other things to keep me occupied.”

He pulled her closer, and closer still, his gaze doubling in intensity. “I don’t want
to lose you,” he murmured. “Now, or ever.”

The lunch bag fell to the dirt floor of the barn as Trinity sucked in her breath.
She moved her palms to his chest, feeling the tenseness in his muscles through his
denim shirt. “You won’t. Not like that.”

Luke’s blue eyes flashed with sensual fire as he lowered his mouth to claim hers,
and he sank his teeth into her lower lip. Trinity moaned into his mouth, and then
took him deep as he thrust his tongue inside. He tightened his grip on her, rubbing
his erection against her belly at the same time.

She ached all over as she tasted his unique flavor. His masculine smell, spicy aftershave,
and the clean scent of soap wrapped around her. She couldn’t think ... she could only
feel as he kissed her absolutely senseless.

When Luke drew away, Trinity was so dazed that she just stared up at him. He gave
her that sexy grin of his that brought out the dimple in his cheek.

“Office,” she said. “You. Me. Now.”

He grinned down at her. “We’d do just that if three ranch hands weren’t already in
there helping Skylar with her record-keeping.”

With a sigh, Trinity replied, “Yeah, well, they can’t possibly be having as much fun
as we did.”

Luke chuckled softly as he captured her mouth in another searing kiss. Trinity was
so hot for him that she was ready to take him in a stall and have her way with him,
no matter that someone might come by.

Hot breath blew across her cheek and a soft muzzle nudged the two of them apart. Trinity
laughed and rubbed the nose of her black mare, Dancer. “You looking for some attention,
old girl?”

“I don’t know about her, but I sure am.” Luke tweaked the end of Trinity’s braid.
“Let’s head on out. Maybe we’ll find ourselves someplace a little more private.”

The ride into the mountains behind the Flying M was a form of torture, Luke decided.
While he rode Tequila, the slow and easy gait of the roan mare only added to his sexual
discomfort. He swore he caught Trinity’s peaches-and-cream scent over the smell of
horses and pinon, and could hear her heartbeat over the creak of saddle leather and
the sound of hooves against dirt and stone.