Their Ex's Redrock Twilight (Texas Alpha) (Texas Alpha Series Book 4) Page 5

  He’d silently debated which part he liked the best: the part on the bottom showing her bare legs with glimpses of her thigh and bare ass a few times, or the top, where those breasts he now coveted looked like they were going to pop the buttons every time she moved. Maybe the tits part was the best, sitting across from him with her bare toes curled on the bottom rung of his kitchen chair.

  Who the hell was he kidding ... he damn well liked all of it; every last bit of her, everything about her, and everything she’d done so far. In fact, he liked it so much it bothered him. But he wanted it bad, so he was overriding his hidden doubts, and trying not to give them life.

  “You can’t just keep me here, sugar,” she said.

  Yeah, he could, but to her he said, “A few days. Let me get straightened out where my busts are leading, and during that time I’ll look into who is threatening you, yeah.”

  He’d found her ... he was keeping her.

  She sighed, tilting her head at him. “Explain ‘get straight where my busts are leading,’ please.”

  Finn opened his mouth to tell her he didn’t explain shit about his undercover work. But then he realized he was finished with his undercover mission and he really wanted to tell someone and share, after living deep on his own for so long.

  He took Coco’s hand next to her coffee and he caressed the tops of her fingers, noticing the light impression where wedding bands had been. Seemed Coco was moving on, like he was.

  “Been working this mess for over two years. Started as me trying to infiltrate local drug action, and it grew much bigger as I was able to poke the edges. But some of these busts are spilling their guts, hoping for better deals, and that information is leading to higher criminals than I knew existed.”

  “Human trafficking,” she whispered, reaching forward to smooth the hair on the side of his face.

  “Yeah, that bad shit, I had no clue it was at my motel. I knew it was around. I’ve been out on reservation land trying to track it and get a line on it. But the biker gangs are pulling with the Indian thugs, and they’re wrapped in the damn local Mafia, with all of them possibly doing the trafficking of women.”

  Finn shook his head slightly as her hand cupped his cheek and he deeply felt her touch. Probably the thing he’d wanted the most, living in the hell of undercover for so long, was to share what was happening to him with someone who gave a damn.

  “Honey,” Coco murmured.

  Yeah, that was it, right there. He fucking needed that.

  “Okay, no more talk about me leaving. You just do what you have to do,” she whispered.

  Finn took her hand and kissed her palm. “You always this sweet?”

  She smiled with a heated look at his lips on her palm. “Southern sweet,” she drawled softly.

  Six] She Blindsided His Life

  Finn had left Coco back at his house drinking coffee, sitting in one of his dress shirts, and he was hoping like hell when he returned that night he’d find her dressed in as little or nothing at all. He might call her that day and see if he could coax her into doing some naked waiting.

  She had completely blindsided his life, but he was damn well rolling with it.

  He’d told her at the front door to his lake house he’d bring takeout and be back home by six. Man, it had been damn nice saying that—her doing it—then double amazing having a woman who was going to be waiting for him.

  They’d done a make-out session at the door, so hot he’d nearly picked her up and fucked her on the stairs. The only thing that had stopped him was his cell constantly ringing. But he’d left Coco wet, hot, and exquisite.

  Now he had something to come home to.

  That made him start whistling as he entered the police station with accompanying jail, where the ATF, which were his men, the DEA, and a team of U.S marshals had set up shop for the big takedown. A lot of people in town thought he was a lowlife, but by that morning, it was known who the hell he really was, at least in local law enforcement, so he even got chin nods as he entered the station.

  He could not say that didn’t feel fucking good.

  “Detective special agent,” Justice Walkinghorse said. He was the U.S. marshal that had been assigned to the reservation and surrounding area for the last several years, and he gave Finn a knowing half-smile. Justice seemed pleased to be able to finally call him his correct rank in public, and Finn shook Justice’s hand. “Hell of a takedown, man,” Justice said.

  Finn released his hand with a nod, then Finn’s AFT handler Ty Booth came into the office area they’d commandeered. Ty was tall, with spiked blond hair and wicked eyes that looked so intense they appeared electrified.

  “Ghost dick,” Ty greeted Finn, and they slapped hands, then shook.

  Finn got his dig in by saying, “Ghost dick’s handler, how’s it hanging.”

  Some of the street people had called him “Ghost” while he was undercover.

  Justice chuckled, while Ty looked pissed, but then he smiled. “Okay, buddy, you deserve a couple after what you’ve been through.”

  They finished shaking hands, then let go, as Justice said, “Bad mess here last night.”

  Finn raised an eyebrow, looking at Ty. Ty set his paperwork down on a desk and stuffed a hand in his front jeans pocket.

  “We have one dead, Finn,” he said.

  “Jesus,” Finn muttered. “How the hell?”

  Justice answered, “They’re like magicians, and one got enough to make a shank.”

  Finn made an irritated sound as Ty told him the rest. “Good thing is Runningtree is ready to spill after that. If we get him safe.”

  Finn felt his heartbeat speed up. They’d not gotten Creed yet, but Runningtree was in the thick of it.

  “Let’s see what he has to say,” Finn said.

  An hour later and Finn was pissed. Runningtree was playing games. He’d given them some useless information, not really enough to do anything with, except one piece that kept nagging Finn.

  “Did he say he heard their bookkeeper was from out of town?” Finn asked Ty.

  “Yeah, then proceeded to tell us he didn’t know the dick’s name, what he looked like, what he drove, or anything.”

  “You know the head over all of this has got to be Coronado, don’t you?” Finn asked. “No one will say his name, but it’s got to fucking be him.”

  “I think so too, Finn. We just have to turn one of these bastards so we can get to him.”

  “Look, Ty, I left my mission logs hidden at Rowdie’s. I need to go get them and look through them. Maybe something will line up. Back then, I didn’t know the local mafia was the top dog of all of it.”

  Ty tapped Finn’s shoulder. “See you this afternoon. I’m going to work on a couple others we pulled in on the sting. See if I can get them to slip up with some more information.”

  Finn nodded and went to go get his hands on his mission logs.

  ***

  Coco got out of the taxi in front of her room at Rowdie’s. Everything looked normal, and not as if there had been a huge multi-agency bust there the day before. She looked over her car, and then over at the office of the motel. She was thinking that she’d never exactly told Finn outright that she wasn’t coming back there, on her own, to get her things.

  But a woman could only stand so much time without her necessities. Men would just never understand that. How was she supposed to pull off a smoking-hot affair unless she had some perfume, lingerie, and lipstick? And that was just grazing the surface of what she needed.

  However, that wasn’t what was making her hesitate, because she couldn’t lie to herself about why she was really at the motel, where her car and room were.

  “Maybe I can make Finn believe I just came for my things,” she muttered hopefully. “He might never know about the rest, if I do it right.”

  Lord, it was so hard having any thoughts about doing something that might jeopardize what she’d just found with Finn. She was batshit crazy even thinking about doing something that had the s
mallest chance of losing him. She wanted the thing they had started so badly, and she didn’t think she’d ever desired anything as much.

  But if she didn’t do what she had to do, it could mess she and Finn up anyhow. He would just have to see that if he caught her. She had to be clear of her old life so she could give herself fully to Finn, because it certainly looked and felt as if that was what he was after.

  Shaking off her doubts, because she had to—there just wasn’t any other way—she went to her motel room to pack, and then put her luggage in her car. Once that was done, she drove her car up to the motel office. Taking her room key, she went inside to check out and to try to sneak some information anyway she could get it.

  The nice young man with a Mohawk that she’d dealt with before was at the counter. That was good, because he was talkative and bribable.

  “Hey, lady, hope everything’s okay with the room,” he said, as she clicked her heels up to his counter.

  She had changed into the best outfit she’d brought along, which was a black sheath dress with a lace insert down the front, and black platform heels that raised her height four inches. She wanted to tower for her confrontation.

  “You going on a date?” he asked, leaning over the counter to look down at all of her.

  Coco was ready to admonish him for the once-over he gave her, but then she realized she could use it.

  “I’m giving out an award today for selling the most beauty products. I’m their top seller for this area,” she told him, setting her purse on his counter, along with a bright pink and very recognizable product bag. She really was a dealer and a top seller, just not in this town.

  “That’s cool,” he said, straightening. “Going out to party after, you think?”

  He winked at her.

  She shook her head and bit her tongue so she wouldn’t scold him.

  “Maybe with our biggest prize winner, if I can find her.” Then Coco used her more distressed look, tilting her head. “I lost her address and they are going to kill me. I looked it up in the phone book, but you know with cell phones these days.”

  “What’s her name? I know everybody in town,” he said, and he’d fallen right into her trap.

  “Well, let’s see,” Coco said, pulling the pink bag over to look inside it. “It says Katie O’Neil. Do you know her?”

  “Hell, lady, Katie O’Neil is my boss’s ex-wife. She lives on River Avenue. It’s the brown house across from the school.”

  Coco smiled at him.

  “Thank you,” she said sincerely, and she handed him the key. “I’m giving up my room for now.”

  Once she’d assured Mr. Mohawk that she’d swing by if she did go partying, which she’d never do, but she didn’t want him telling his boss about this customer that had pissed him off, Coco left to go find her lying, cheating husband, who just had to be at Katie O’Neil’s house. Or if he wasn’t there, that witch Katie would know where he was.

  Back out in her car, she took the time to make certain her makeup was perfect and her hair was fixed. Well, she couldn’t do much with it but pin it up and let some strands fall free, before she started her car to drive to River Avenue.

  ***

  Finn was in the hidden crawlspace in the hallway behind the front desk area of Rowdie’s. He was grabbing his concealed mission journals when he first heard the kid called Hammer, who worked for him, saying Katie’s name.

  “Damn, the witch must be doing her shit here again today,” Finn muttered.

  He was surprised a moment later to think even less about it than he normally did. Little did Katie One-Nighter know, but he had the divorce nearly finalized. It would be completely over in less than a week, and he was certain Katie didn’t even remember that at the height of one of their knock-down-drag-out arguments months back she’d signed the dissolution paper.

  He hadn’t said a word about it since, and he figured she’d forgotten it, after being so busy sleeping with about twenty guys in between.

  She was one messed-up woman, and he still believed that she was trying to hide from the world, and from him, the fact that she was totally frigid with all her one-night-stands. The only thing that really screwed with his head was how it all went down, because in the beginning he would have sworn Katie was a highly sexual and sensuous woman who was going to want his body and sex with him until they were eighty.

  But hell no ... slowly and fucking inevitably, she’d started turning him down. A little turn of her head when he tried to kiss her, jumping into bed first and pretending to be asleep, grumbling if he tried to touch her in the deep of night, and, of course, every ailment known to man to sidestep sleeping with her husband, who had wanted her hot little body, and now couldn’t remember why.

  He hadn’t lied to Tess all those months ago; he really did study women since Katie, and once he’d started paying attention, he saw patterns in some women. But he wondered if he could still be duped again. He thought he’d known Katie ... and he’d been damn wrong.

  “I wasn’t wrong about Tess,” he muttered. He’d known she was sweet, and he’d been right.

  Finn looked at the journals in his hand. There was over two years of undercover work laid out in them, and much of that time he’d had to lie down in the same corrupt life as the bad guys. He’d gotten dirty ... real dirty, but he’d always managed to stay above the law. Still, he could admit it fucked with a man’s head. Doing it all alone and staying on the edge for so long.

  He gripped the notebooks tighter. He’d not put one thing on the computer just for the fact if he’d been found out, it was the first place the bad guys would look. He’d thought it would be safer to do something as unusual as writing it down.

  Finn backed out of the crawlspace, and just as he raised his head, he heard Katie’s name again. Once he stood and closed up the crawlspace, he grimaced, because he didn’t want to see Katie and whatever new lay she had that day, but there was only one way out of the building.

  “What room did you give to fucking Katie,” he asked Hammer as he approached the front desk.

  “Katie’s not here, boss,” Hammer said, giving him a what-the-hell look.

  “I heard her name, a-hole,” Finn said. “You covering for her now?”

  “No way,” Hammer said. “I was just telling that hot chick from number six where your ex lives. I probably said her name a few times, boss.”

  “What the hell,” Finn growled, knowing he was glaring as tightness stiffened him up. “Who did you tell where my ex lives?”

  Hammer looked at the computer screen while tapping a few keys. “Man, her name is Coco Maxwell, and she said Katie won some beauty products.”

  Seven] I’m The Man Who Has Your Back

  Five minutes later, Finn was in his Jeep headed toward the house he still owned with Katie, which was soon going to be all hers. And he nearly put the lights and siren on to get there. How could he have read Coco that fucking wrong? Her sweet smile that morning, while saying she’d stay put. But then he realized she’d never really said that—he had said it to her. Like an order, which he’d intended her sexy ass to obey.

  He couldn’t figure out what it was she wanted with Katie. Everything he came up with had to do with him. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good, and it brought him back around to the fact he’d already misjudged Coco. How much more was he wrong about her?

  He made it to his house before Coco hit the front door. She was stepping up to the front porch when she looked back at his tires squealing into the driveway. She looked amazing ... as if she was ready to hit the nightlife and was dressed to make men beg to be in her company, buy her a drink, or dance with her.

  Those melting brown eyes of hers widened at seeing him. Then a regretful look passed over her beautiful face, because she still turned and walked up to the door instead of heading for him. He sprinted out of his Jeep and up the front steps. Hitting it just as her knock on the front door still lingered and he’d stopped close behind her.

  He was going to blur
t something, but some instinct stopped him. Instead, he lifted his hand to cup the side of her waist, waiting to see what the hell she was up too. Then Katie opened the door.

  “Is Gordon Maxwell here?” Coco demanded.

  Hell, Finn hadn’t even thought of that. Katie, of course, looked very startled.

  “Tell him his wife is here,” Coco demanded loudly.

  “Finn? What?” Katie exclaimed.

  Then, behind Katie from further in the house, a man yelled, “Coco? My wife!”

  “Gordon!” Coco yelled as she grabbed the screen door to pull it open.

  Katie moved as if she was a security guard who was guarding something important, and Finn saw a tall, slender man arrive behind Katie’s right shoulder.

  “Coco, what in the world are you doing here?” Gordon Maxwell demanded severely, then he added unnecessarily, “You shouldn’t be here.”

  Before Coco could say anything, Finn jumped in. “Let us through, Katie. We need to talk.”

  “Talk? Who needs to talk? How do you know her?” Katie asked shrilly.

  “He’s my new man!” Coco exclaimed, and she did it with a snotty Southern sound. Finn felt surprise shoot through him.

  Well, okay ... he damn well loved that, so he growled, “Coco and I are together now, so back it up so we can fucking talk.”

  He had decided that it seemed his woman had a need to confront and finalize, so he was going to take her back so she could do that. Coco had said “my man” right in Katie’s face.

  It made him grin inwardly, while outwardly he scowled at Coco’s tall and thin husband, who looked distracted and not at all like a married man caught with another woman.

  Katie looked peeved as Coco pushed past her, and that backed up Gordon.

  “I don’t want you in my house,” Katie snarled. “Either of you.”

  Coco seemed to ignore her as she stalked after the retreating Gordon, while Finn stopped next to Katie with the screen door closing behind him.

  “Fucking my house too, Katie,” he muttered, not telling her it was a finger close to being all hers. “You’re lucky I don’t push it.”