Luke: Armed and Dangerous (10 page)

Tunnel hunting had been a long shot, but what the hell. Luke figured he might as well
be useful while he waited for Rios to get his ass back from the autopsy of the body—well,
body pieces— they’d finally located on Wade Larson’s ranch. It kept him busy, and
it kept him away from Trinity MacKenna.

Who might be back at Skylar’s house, naked in her bed, touching herself. . .

God help me.

Luke clenched his jaw so hard he almost cracked a tooth.

“You seem distracted,” Ralston called over the dull roar of the chopper’s whirling
blades. “Not on the same planet distracted.”

“Yeah.” Luke tried to ignore the hard-on building at just the thought of seeing Trinity
MacKenna with her fingers moving between her legs, of watching her flick that pretty
pink tongue against her dark nipples.

I’m killing myself.

“You get anything from Joyce Butler yet?” he asked, mostly to refocus his own thoughts.
Thinking about Joyce Butler definitely tamped his lust a few notches.

“We talked all of two minutes, at the most, after the Christmas party.” Ralston squinted
at his screen again, but didn’t act as if he was seeing anything important. “Joyce
left town early this morning to help with her father’s campaign. We did a fairly thorough
flyover of her boundaries after she was gone, and came up empty.”

“Why don’t you touch down and let me off over there?” Luke pointed to a flat stretch
of packed sand and rock to the east. “My truck’s close enough to K and K for me to
pay a visit to Ms. Garcia and walk from there.”

The walk would definitely do me good.

When Luke looked at Ralston, the CBP agent had a big smirking grin on his face. “You
like Gina Garcia? Is that where your head’s been?”

Luke shook his head. “I want to poke around a little, see what she’s scared of—because
she’s definitely nervous about something.”

“Uh-huh.” Ralston kept grinning even as he guided the ’copter down. “Well, if it’s
not Gina, it’s some other woman.”

“You need a girlfriend, Ralston.” Luke waited for the bird to touch ground before
he jumped out, keeping his head low. “Your fantasies are getting the better of you.”

Ralston shook his head, still smiling, as Luke moved clear of the rotors.

The chopper picked up in a swirl of dust and pebbles, leaving him alone for a few
long minutes before he started walking.

Luke glanced around.

No cold streams to dive into, damn it. This was Douglas. The desert. Right now, an
arctic shower might have been helpful.

He dusted off his jeans and Western shirt and figured he’d better start walking the
few miles to the K & K’s main house. The exercise would have to be enough to burn
off his interest in Trinity MacKenna.

For now.

The old K & K ranch house looked a lot like Luke remembered it when he’d visited it
as a kid—all white boards and angles, with a big porch and a bigger barn. The flower
boxes in the windows added a soft touch, and the tire swing hanging from a wooden
strut off the barn’s side door—that looked new.

The kid in the tire swing with the long blond braids—-she was definitely a new addition.
The little girl had big wide eyes that got even wider when she saw Luke coming across
the field toward the house.

Before he could call out to her, the girl jumped from the swing and ran for the house.
She yelled for her mother, spooking about thirty white hens and a couple of roosters
into loud squawking as she pelted across the driveway.

Good girl,
Luke thought as he let himself through the field’s back gate into the K & K’s sprawling
back lot.
You stay safe.

A minute or so later, Gina Garcia met him on the porch, looking nothing like she had
at the Christmas benefit. Today she had her hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, and
her white tank top had more purple stains than clean fabric. Probably blackberry or
blueberry juice, Luke realized. Gina had left the back door ajar when she came out,
setting free a tantalizing smell of baking pies.

The girl was nowhere to be seen, and Gina followed Luke’s glance into the kitchen.
“She took off to her bedroom.” Gina dusted flour-covered hands against faded jeans
and studied Luke with wary green eyes. “Lola gets nervous easily, and you scared her,
coming in the back way like you did.”

“Sorry.” He relaxed against one of the porch’s wooden columns. “Wasn’t my intention,
but you’ve got her trained well.”

“I’ve been homeschooling her since—we came here.” Gina reached behind her and pulled
at the back door until Luke heard it click shut, masking the delicious smells of home
baked pies. “I think I’ll let her try school next year. She’ll be in fourth grade.
What are you doing here, Luke Rider?”

Luke appraised Gina’s steady, emotionless face. Not nervous today, at least not on
her own turf, with her baby to protect.

Easy, mama bear. I’m not a threat to your cub.
“I was out with a friend and left my truck nearby. Thought I’d check by on my way
to get it and see how you’re doing, since you didn’t seem too happy or comfortable
at Nevaeh’s Christmas gig.”

This made her mouth twitch, there and gone, just a flicker of movement. “Neither did
you.”

“True.” Luke had to smile. He liked it when people were direct. She wasn’t finished
with the direct thing yet, either.

“I’m not in the market for a foreman, or a husband, or even a boyfriend.” Gina’s voice
took on a furious edge, sharp enough that Luke raised both hands as he continued to
lean against one of the back porch’s columns.

“Not trying to sell you anything like that. Seriously, I’m just checking on you.”

Gina’s green eyes turned as hard as her voice. “Why? I’ve got pies baking and a kid
already fifteen minutes late on starting her mathematics for the day, so if you’ve
got something to ask me, spit it out.”

Direct.

No kidding.

Bulls could take lessons in basic self-defense from this woman. Maybe he’d read her
completely wrong at the Christmas party. She didn’t look like someone who needed anybody’s
support or protection.

Luke met her stony gaze with his, and tried a little directness of his own. “Francisco
Guerrero seems to have scared a lot of women around here, according to some of my
friends. Are you one of them?”

Gina’s mouth came open, and her eyes misted so fast Luke blinked.

Well, hell. I pushed a button.

He felt like shit for spooking her, and the kid, too. Before he could apologize, Gina
appeared to collect herself. When she straightened up and lifted her chin, she looked
like a woman who should have on an evening gown again, and be drifting from high society
party to high society party instead of baking pies on a ranch outside of Douglas.

“I’m not afraid of Francisco Guerrero,” she said, but Luke heard it in her voice.

She wasn’t scared at all. She was terrified.

His fists clenched as he wondered why, wondered what had happened. What had that fucker
managed to do to her?

He tried to relax his fists. “If you need help, Gina, I know people.”

Gina closed her mouth, then let out a laugh that didn’t sound convincing. “You’re
a ranch foreman, Luke.”

“A ranch foreman with a lot of friends.” He pushed away from the porch column, careful
not to crowd her.

Gina studied him in absolute silence, hands frozen against her hips, and her expression
unreadable. The glint in her eyes seemed like anger mixed with fear mixed with—

What?

Hope?

Interest?

Luke took a chance on the last two emotions. “If you know anything you need to tell
somebody, my friends could keep you and Lola safe.”

Gina kept on staring at him, weighing and measuring. This time obviously considering
what he said, and considering it very seriously. Her eyes drifted toward the barn,
then snapped back to Luke’s face.

“Thanks,” she said, backing up toward the kitchen door. From somewhere inside, a timer
went off, beeping, and beeping and beeping. “I’ll keep that in mind. You have a good
day, Luke.”

She opened the kitchen door and had it closed behind her so fast Luke barely saw her
move. He heard the dead bolt thump into place. A few seconds later, the beeping timer
went quiet.

If Luke had less regard for laws and procedures and women in general, he would have
searched her barn right then, or banged on her door and demanded more information.

Something wasn’t right.

Gina was scared to death, and he’d made it worse just by coming here.

Luke didn’t even let himself glance toward the barn.

If anybody was in there watching, he didn’t want to give a hint that Gina might have
tipped him off.

He left the porch, walking toward his truck, slow at first as if he was just out for
a stroll.

A mile or so down the road, he picked up his pace and placed a call to the county
sheriff, Clay Wayland, and asked for a favor.

“Can you find out everything on Gina Garcia and her background, as well as the K and
K’s boundaries and history?” As he spoke with the sheriff, Luke glanced at the sky
as he walked, aware that Ralston had to be on the ground somewhere, since he didn’t
hear the chopper overhead. “I’d like the schematics on the barn if anybody filed construction
or plumbing and electrical permits for it.”

“Got something?” Wayland sounded like he might be writing the info down, to be sure
he kept it straight.

“Could be my office can help out. You know the number—I’ll get Rios on it when he
gets back, too.”

Wayland’s voice went a little crackly, like he had moved his mouth closer to the phone.
“Tell me what’s up.”

“I’ll let you know. Nothing I can get a warrant for.”

“Too damned bad.”

Luke thought about Gina and her little girl. “Yeah. No shit.”

Three days after the Christmas party at Nevaeh’s, Trinity waved her sister and new
brother-in-law off as Zack’s black truck sped down the dusty road away from the ranch
house. They had a holiday party to attend in Tucson, and had decided to spend the
night at a resort there, rather than making the hundred-plus mile drive back the same
night.

Skylar had wanted Trinity to come, but Trinity had begged off, telling her sister
that she still needed to recover from jetlag—never mind the half-zillion or so photos
Zack had dumped on her once he saw the initial output from her first rudimentary tracking
algorithm. She needed to get those scanned into her laptop, and factor them into her
equations. And she needed to e-mail Chloe and Nev about the whole Race situation to
get all the screaming and are-you-crazy’s over with.

For a moment she stayed on the porch, enjoying what was left of the early evening
sunshine. The December desert air smelled so fresh and clean. Over the Mule Mountains
to the west, the sun hung low, teasing the sky with wisps of lavender, peach, and
mauve. Skylar’s Border collie raised his head and sniffed the wind, then trotted off
toward the barn.

Trinity turned her gaze to the east, to the rocky Chiricahua mountains rising behind
the ranch. She’d explored parts of those mountains many times with her sister when
they were younger. Memories of the fun times they’d shared returned clear and crisp,
like they’d happened last week instead of years ago. Light glinted off a certain special
spot on the slopes, where Skylar and Zack always used to sneak off to carry on, like
they thought Trinity wouldn’t know.

Trinity had to fight not to cry, and she knew she really couldn’t stay here much longer
at all, even if she kept putting off the call to DropCaps.

Because it’s already happening. My old life is already sneaking down those slopes,
ready to pounce on me and try to keep me here.

She ran her palms up and down her upper arms, rubbing away the evening chill as she
headed back into the house. After she shut the door tightly behind her, the complete
quiet of the house settled over Trinity, reminding her of times she’d been home alone
as a teenager, and Skylar had been off working the ranch. Would she ever get over
the guilt of having left all the ranch’s responsibilities to Skylar?

Pausing in mid-step, Trinity’s gaze drifted over family photographs displayed prominently
around the room. Pictures of her with Skylar, of both the two of them alone, and with
their parents. After their father took off with his new wife and left them alone,
Trinity had refused to contact him. He never took the time to see how she was doing,
so why should she bother?

Trinity moved to one of the end tables, stopped in front of her senior photo, and
slid her fingers along the wooden frame. In the picture her face was pudgy, her smile
soft and wistful. Despite the wire-framed glasses she used to wear, her green eyes
were bright and full of hope for the future.

Next to her senior photo was a recent picture of Skylar and Zack. She was standing
in his embrace, her face tilted up to his, and the way he was looking at her with
so much love, it made Trinity’s heart ache with both pleasure for her sister, and
envy for herself.

She still couldn’t believe Skylar was married to Zack, after all these years. Trinity
had to admit they made the perfect couple now, as they had a decade ago. There was
so much fire and passion between the two of them then, and now... wow. To have sparks
like that. Trinity hadn’t thought that kind of passion between a man and a woman could
possibly be real—just something she’d read about in romance novels.

That was, until she’d met Luke.

With a groan of frustration, Trinity jerked herself away from the photographs, skirted
the Christmas tree, and started down the hall. Why the hell did that cowboy keep popping
into her mind? Maybe what she needed was a nice, long, relaxing bath.

Better yet, an evening dip in the hot tub would be perfect. They’d always kept it
heated and used it year-round. Knowing Skylar, it still would be ready for use.