Their Ex's Redrock Twilight (Texas Alpha) (Texas Alpha Series Book 4) Page 9

  “I am,” Jagger answered from the driver’s seat. “Blue and I go on our second date tomorrow night.”

  Coco watched Rusty as she scooted forward and grabbed Jagger’s shoulder from behind. “Honey, her father will kill if you try to get in there.”

  Jagger and Link both snorted, with Jagger saying, “No shit. I do not want on his bad side.”

  Link offered, “You might live, kid.”

  Rusty sat back, and then leaned toward Tess to whisper, “What happen with her and Justice?”

  Tess shrugged. “It’s just them dating around, I guess.”

  “Angel?” Carly asked in a whisper.

  They both shook their heads with small shrugs.

  “Last person I heard had seen her was Sam. He said he’d hired her to do some tribal council work, and then event planning for Redrock. Took her under his wing, I think,” Tess said. “I’m hoping she will help me with the orphanage’s charity ball.”

  Coco perked up immediately upon hearing there was going to be a ball, and it was for charity. Two of her favorite things and a chance to dress up and party.

  “It’s going to be a blast!” Rusty exclaimed. “We’ll party our booties off and make so much money for the reservation orphanage.”

  “I can’t wait,” Carly said. “And this trip is perfect timing to start looking at dresses.”

  “And shoes!” Coco said, having learned her girls were true shoe whores, and she could get in on that.

  “Damn women,” Link muttered, with his arms crossed over his pumped-up chest, but it wasn’t long before Link found appreciation in ladies modeling gowns and killer heels.

  And that was how Coco found Desperado Dolly four-inch stilettos with studded stirrups and chain-embellished ankle harnesses that were—

  “Oh my God! Those are so hot. I think I might have climaxed a little,” Tess exclaimed, looking with awe and lust at Coco’s feet in the Desperado Dolly stilettos.

  “Those are ass-kicking sexy,” Rusty whispered.

  “Eighteen hundred dollars’ worth of; so damn hot they are filthy good,” Carly said. “I think they outdo my Rockstud heels.”

  “Damn, woman.” Coco looked up into Link’s light blues. “Wicked, babe,” he growled, in a really good way.

  “I’ll take them!” Coco said to the sales lady, who looked as if she worked off commission, and might climax herself.

  Coco agreed they were that smoking sexy, and clearly outdid Carly’s new Louboutin metallic ombre effect python heels, Tess’ new Jimmy Choo black suede crystal-studded pumps, and Rusty’s new Jimmy Choo black suede Vamps with crystal anklet stilettos.

  Then all the ladies decided to wear their new heels out of the uber-expensive shoe boutique and to the designer clothes shops. Coco saw that Link looked pretty pleased as he hooked arms with Carly and her, while they strutted their stuff to a nearby shop.

  Coco leaned past Link’s massive chest so she could say to Carly, “I need a new style, something as far from suburban cheated-on wife as I can get, sweetie.”

  Carly nodded, and ahead of them, over her shoulder, Tess said, “I’d go for designer biker babe with a classy edge.”

  “Oh!” Rusty exclaimed, looking back to them. “I saw these new black denim lambskin jeans that will be freaking perfect for that! In fact, they are so fine, we all ought to get a pair as a must-have signature piece in our wardrobes.”

  Coco’s eyes widened and she nearly purred. They sounded so sexy and hot, she couldn’t wait to see a pair!

  Link made them promise not to leave the shop, while he left them crowded around the black lambskin jeans rack, and he went outside to “scout around.”

  “They look like soft leather,” Coco said.

  “Aren’t they amazing?” Rusty added.

  “I’ve got to have a pair!” Carly exclaimed, right along with her.

  “I hope they have sizes here,” Tess said. “I need a pair of these like I need to breath. And my butt’s pretty big.”

  “So’s mine,” all the ladies chimed in at once.

  “Tess, Vincent sees you in these, you will be preggo instantaneously,” Rusty declared.

  Everyone laughed as Coco pulled her size and clutched it. With her new heels, she would look so bad, but in a very good way.

  “Are you trying for a baby, sugar?” Coco asked Tess.

  “We are,” Tess said with a smile. “But we’re adopting too, so it will be like an instant family.” Then Tess looked past Coco and said, “Oh, those tops might look great with these jeans.”

  Everyone turned as a unit to see the tops. The oohs and ahs commenced as they hustled over to the sexy tops.

  “We should try both on at the same time to gauge the effect,” Rusty suggested. Then she added, “Tess and Vincent are adopting a boy from the reservation orphanage.”

  Coco stopped admiring the sexy backless metallic top to look over the round rack at Tess.

  “Sugar, that is so special.”

  Tess had the most awesome look on her face. “His name is Navi, and he has our heart,” she said.

  Coco had always wanted children, but Gordon continually said no. It was a surprise to her, that she’d found out after a few years of their marriage. Maybe she’d been too young to think about asking him that question when they dated.

  It had actually caused many fights between them, before she just gave up trying to convince him. Then she started selling beauty products, and often thought that she’d put her heart into that instead of the child she’d wished for.

  “I can’t wait to meet him,” Carly said.

  “He’s a little Vincent, just wait and see,” Rusty said.

  They were all side by side in the dressing room cubicles when the first passionate squeal sounded.

  “These are making my butt look so good!”

  “My butt never looked so hot!”

  “Oh my God, they feel like they’re caressing my curves.”

  “They stretch!” Coco exclaimed.

  “We can’t all buy these same tops, though,” Carly said. “We’ll pick which one of us looks best in it.”

  “But they are different colors,” Rusty said.

  “If we don’t wear them on the same day,” Coco added.

  “We could text if we’re going to wear it that day,” Tess said.

  “Because,” Coco said, as she strutted out of the cubicle to look in the full-length mirror, “I just have to have this entire outfit!”

  As the ladies joined her, they all exclaimed at how good they looked.

  “These outfits are made to catch the eye of smoking-hot alpha guys,” Rusty declared.

  Everyone nodded.

  “’Kay, we will do the text thing, because we all look too fine in these,” Coco said, and her heart filled with the knowledge that she had some fun new girlfriends to share with, especially in her time of need.

  It was on their way to look at dresses and gowns that Coco first saw him. Immediately, she pulled everyone to a stop, while Link went on alert at her tone. They were at the inside shopping mall area, and the Indian was so big, he was hard to miss, even from as far away as he was.

  “It’s one of those traffickers!” Coco said, but only loud enough for her group to hear.

  “What the hell,” Link muttered.

  But Coco was veering and urging all of them behind some fake ferns and a water feature. When they settled, hidden, she grabbed Link’s huge bicep.

  “Finn showed me pictures of the bad guys after his huge bust. He didn’t know exactly who I was then, and he wanted to know if I knew any of them.” Coco peeked around the ferns and looked down the mall in front of what appeared in the distance to be a coffee shop. She pointed a black-tipped shiny gold fingernail at a tall Indian in a leather jacket who was loitering out front of the coffee shop. “That,” Coco said sharply, “is one of them—Creed, I think his name is.”

  “Creed!” Rusty and Carly exclaimed at once.

  Coco turned wide eyes on them.

/>   Rusty said, “He was running with a really bad man called Runninghorse, and they assaulted us. But Finn saved us.”

  Carly offered, “His name comes up too much with the girls we rescue, and it is never good.”

  “Wow,” Coco whispered, then she shared, “Finn wanted to catch him in his sting, but Creed got away.”

  “That’s with the human traffickers Finn caught from his motel?” Tess asked.

  Coco nodded.

  “Bad tangos,” Link muttered.

  That was when, nearly too loud, Rusty exclaimed, “Angel!”

  But Coco prayed the water feature they huddled by had masked it.

  “Oh my God, it’s Angel,” Carly said, sounding anxious.

  Coco remembered them talking about Angel before, about how she was dating Justice or something.

  “It’s a meet,” Link announced decisively.

  They all turned to watch the very tall man called Creed glaring down on the petite Angel as she animatedly talked to him.

  “This can’t be good,” Rusty whispered.

  “I want to go grab her away from him,” Carly said.

  Coco was just going to suggest they call Finn when Creed grabbed Angel’s arm and he began pulling her away. It didn’t look as if Angel totally agreed with that move.

  Link growled under his breath. He was clearly at odds about being Coco’s bodyguard, and what that held him to, as opposed to following and trying to free Angel from a reportedly very bad man.

  So Coco made a bold move.

  “We have to follow them!” she exclaimed.

  Twelve] On Edge

  “Get them out of there,” Finn ordered sharply.

  “Can’t,” Link snapped back through their cell phone connection. “They are hellbent on getting their young babe friend Angel away from him.” There was a pause while Finn slammed open the door to his Jeep. “Can’t say as I disagree with them, buddy,” Link muttered.

  “Damn it,” Finn swore, slamming the door shut, and then starting his Jeep.

  He was going to have Vincent, Cabe, and Zeb ready to decapitate him for getting their women even close to this dangerous mess.

  “Convince them to get back in the limo,” he growled. “Let Jagger bring them back here, while you keep Angel and Creed in sight.”

  Finn wanted Creed like he wanted his babe’s pussy. But not the way it was going down, which was putting her in more danger than he already thought she was in.

  “Man,” Link said. “I don’t think you feel me on how determined this posse is. Plus, I gotta lose sight of them to keep Creed in view before they get back in the limo.”

  “Which direction are you heading?” Finn demanded sharply.

  Once Link told him, Finn cut the call without another word. Ten seconds later, he had Jagger on the phone, and he told him who he was and where he needed Jagger and his limo to be, like, twenty seconds ago. Then Finn speed-dialed Justice as he took a corner too sharp and skidded, with his sirens blaring, but he managed to straighten out his Jeep.

  He told Justice where he needed him to be, and then he cut the call to ring another number.

  “This ain’t fucking funny, babe,” he growled into the phone. “You are going to listen to me and do exactly as I say without another damn word.” Coco sputtered at the other end of the call, but he overrode her. “Jagger should be pulling up—you get your posse into that limo, then let Link go do his thing. If you do not do this, what happens to Angel because you interfered is on you and your friends.”

  It took two seconds for his babe to blurt, “Okay! I will, baby. I swear.”

  Finn cut the call and threw his phone on the passenger seat so he could put both hands on the steering wheel as he drove too fast.

  Justice beat him there, and Finn wasn’t surprised, because it involved a little redhead who had a habit of stirring up Justice’s life. The fact Angel was clinging to Justice while she was crying, and he held her tight, wasn’t much of a surprise either. However, not seeing Creed in handcuffs or anywhere nearby, while Link had a bloody head, was a messed-up surprise.

  When Finn jumped out of his Jeep, he was glad not to see any sign of the limo.

  Then, pretty savagely, Link muttered, “Bastard got away.” But more calmly, he added, “I got the girl, though.”

  “He was trying to kidnap me,” Angel wailed. “I-I never thought—” She broke off, and then said, “I knew he was bad, but—”

  “But what the hell,” Justice demanded, right before Finn could say the same thing. “What possessed you to meet him alone or even at all, babe?”

  Finn thought Justice didn’t realize that he’d called her “babe.”

  “You swore to me you were done with the lone-wolfing and trying to rescue girls out of bad situations by yourself,” Justice growled, but he still held Angel tightly to him. “You promised Vincent, and that is not a promise you want to break,” Justice added.

  Finn cooled his heels to hear the answer.

  “I wasn’t lone-wolfing. I swear!” Angel cried. “I haven’t done that all year, but this really nice girl who works with me, but she’s kind of dumb”—Angel got caught on a hiccupping sob—“got h-hooked up with Creed.”

  Right there, both Finn and Justice growled their immense disapproval.

  “I know,” Angel said, tugging on Justice’s marshal shirt as she clung to him. “I tried to tell her that he was not boyfriend material and how bad he was, but—”

  “He snowed her,” Finn said, harshly.

  Angel nodded, throwing her light red hair around with force. “Yes! She wouldn’t listen. Then I just tried to keep tabs on her and look for an opening. But she went and disappeared two days ago, and I—”

  “Damn it,” Justice said, holding Angel with one arm, while he scraped his hair with obvious frustration. “You didn’t think to tell me this? Let me handle it!”

  “Handle what?” Angel demanded. “She just didn’t show up to work for two days, and she wasn’t at her apartment either.” Angel pushed away from him. “We haven’t exactly been friends, you know, Justice,” she accused.

  Finn thought there was a lot going on with the two of them, but he needed answers that led him to Creed.

  “How does that get you to the point of meeting with Creed?” he asked.

  “She called me once from his cell, so I called him, and asked him where she was. He suggested we meet,” Angel mumbled.

  Right then, Justice did a very unlike-Justice thing, and he fiercely growled, “Fuck.”

  “I only said I would meet him in public, Justice!” Angel exclaimed, defending herself—but doing it badly, in Finn’s opinion.

  “Look where that got you. Damn it, woman,” Justice said angrily.

  Finn agreed. Justice needed to take her over his knee and wallop her ass for not thinking things through. Finn kind of knew about that, because now he had a wild, unpredictable woman on his hands. But it still didn’t explain—

  “Listen, you can be mad at me later,” Angel exclaimed. “But Creed grabbed me, saying that I was going to replace the merchandise he’d just lost. Because his buyer would kill him if he didn’t have women to give him, and I’d just become the one woman that would be worth losing three more.” Angel clutched her middle and cried, “He was going to sell me!”

  Then it was Finn’s turn.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. He punched his cell phone and then he held it under Angel’s nose. “Are any of them your friend?”

  Angel was shaking as she looked down at the picture on his cell phone, then she gasped. “Yes that’s Hola! Is she all right?”

  It was a picture of the women they had rescued from the sting at his motel. Women intended to be sold, just like Angel.

  Justice saw that, and he grabbed Angel back against him as he said, “Damn it, what am I going to have to do, marry you to keep you out of such dangerous damn trouble all the time?”

  A few minutes later, Link looked at Finn while holding a folded bandanna to his bloody head, as
they watch Justice kissing Angel as if she was his last breath.

  “They might just do it right here,” Link muttered.

  “You know making up is damn powerful, brother,” Finn said.

  Justice and Angel were pissed as hell at each other, but they couldn’t keep their hands off one another. Finn shook his head. He felt like that about Coco, but he was older and it wasn’t as easy to overlook the bad signs, such as the two in front of him were doing. He’d already had one bad marriage and ultimately a decision about a woman go wrong. He was not into that happening a second time.

  Some of the things Coco had been pulling were getting into his head. At night, he had her complete obedience, but during the day, she was a wild thing. It made him wonder if he could trust her, and that was messed up.

  “You give me a ride and I’ll give you all the details about that bastard Creed that I can remember,” Link said.

  Finn shook the thoughts out of his head and zeroed in on Link. “Appreciate that, brother. Appreciate all you did here.”

  The big man’s smile was kind of savage. “I like messing up the bad guys. Makes my day.”

  Finn nodded. He could relate. So they left Angel and Justice, still glued together. He’d get with Justice later, because they had to take everything they’d learned and make it public. It was past time to inform the reservation police, tribal council, and reservation population that there were human traffickers on their land.

  Finn knew Justice was past ready to go to the council about it.

  Once they were headed back to Finn’s place, so he could drop Link at his vehicle, Link offered up an unexpected bit of praise.

  “Heard what you did for the town and this whole area, by taking down those scumbag tangos who thought they were going to make some little town Mafia here. Damn righteous job, man.”

  Finn felt an unexpected slug of emotion tighten his throat. Not many had mentioned it. A couple of guys on the takedown teams had nodded his way, and Justice, of course, had razzed him about doing a good job.

  Finn glanced Link’s way. He hadn’t heard praise about it from a regular citizen of the town. Of course, Link wasn’t all that regular. The way he’d said “tango,” and a few other tells, showed the man had been military. Still, the dude lived inside the town limits.