Luke: Armed and Dangerous (13 page)

He’d be seeing her for lunch in a few, the first time he’d actually be with her since
the night in the hot tub. He’d force himself to wait and indulge in his fantasies
when he was looking into her green eyes.

He and Rios used this ranch hand gathering place to cover their own meetings. During
their time off from their ranch cover jobs, they both pretended to be fairly heavy
beer drinkers, starting early and finishing late, like the five or six guys already
here before lunch.

The bartender knew how to keep his distance, too, and never approached unless they
waved him over—which Rios had done twice already. The man’s dark face already had
a little flush to both cheeks.

Luke ignored the sour sawdust-and-sweat stench of the place and gave his beer a fake
swig. At the same time, he looked at the autopsy report on the UDA from Wade Larson’s
place.

His eyes swept over the incidental findings, major issues, cause of death, and—

“No drugs in his system, no traces on the skin—but a chainsaw cut him up? Shit.” Luke
closed the folder. “What happened to the vats of lye they used in Douglas?”

Rios downed a third of his beer. “This may be a separate issue. Doc said the guy was
already dead—and already dead for a while— when some sick fuck turned on the spinning
saw blades. All the shit on the ground around the prints—cow’s blood, to make it look
like a new kill site.” Rios tapped the autopsy report. “This guy, he’d been on ice
somewhere. Literally.”

Shit.

A turf war. UDAs out of control and surging across the border. Coyotes, mules, and
drug lords. Scared women with barn issues. And now a freak-job with a chainsaw cutting
up an unknown kid and going to huge pains to dump the body—for what?

Welcome back to the new version of the wild, wild West. Luke shook his head and thought
of Tombstone, not fifty miles northwest of here.

“What happened to the good ol’ days like in Tombstone, when a man called out his enemy
and shot him dead in the street? Or death by hanging. These bastards definitely deserve
a public hanging.”

Rios snorted back a laugh. “Reminds me of that old Toby Keith song, ‘Beer for My Horses’.”
Rios faked a drunken man swaying on his bar stool and belted out, “ ‘Take all the
rope in Texas, find a tall oak tree.’”

Luke smiled, closed the folder, and passed it back to Rios. The DEA agent dropped
pretenses and his dark eyes went serious as Luke asked, “Who was the victim?”

“No idea. No prints in the system, no identification.” Rios drained the rest of his
beer. “Harder, since we just found the pieces, no clothes.”

Luke was very tempted to drink all of his own beer, but decided it wouldn’t help him
stay alert. “Somebody had Juan Doe in a freezer, pulled him out, cut him up, and staged
a kill site on Larson’s land.”

Rios shrugged. “Or Larson had enough of the UDA traffic across his land, killed him,
froze him, waited for a good dump time, and splat.” He popped his palm against the
bar. The hard smack made a big man at the far end of the bar raise his head.

Luke pretended to drain his own beer, surprised to recognize Bull Fenning. The big
rancher had on rumpled, dirty clothes and a thick gray-white stubble that suggested
he’d been a few days without a shave. He didn’t seem to recognize Luke or Rios, and
even if he’d seen them, he couldn’t hear them from where he was sitting.

Damned odd, to see him in here, this time of day, looking like that.

Luke gave an almost imperceptible nod to Rios in the direction of Fenning. Rios followed
his gaze until his eyebrows lifted a fraction.

“Wouldn’t have taken that one for a drunk.” He glanced toward Luke, then Fenning again.
“Obnoxious, maybe. A little unhinged, but his accounts and ranch upkeep suggest he’s
taking care of his business.”

“Maybe it’s a binge thing, or recent.” Luke studied Fenning, who had already gone
back to nursing his drink, seemingly numb and oblivious to the bar around him. Something
in his posture suggested to Luke that Fenning was very familiar with this place, with
that seat, and with slumping over a drink before lunchtime. “Could even be some woman
dumped him.”

Fenning still had his big head down, toying with the edge of his glass. If Fenning
spent a lot of time here doing close observation of shot glasses and highballs, who
was really minding his store?

As if to answer that question, the door to the bar knocked open, spilling light across
the dusty, empty dance floor. Luke recognized Brad Taylor by his height and build,
and watched as Bull Fenning’s foreman strode over to the old man.

They exchanged a few words, then Fenning got up and walked toward the door with Brad
holding his arm to give him some support.

For a time, Luke and Rios just watched the men go, but as the door swung shut, Rios
said, “Rumor says he does twins.”

Luke glanced at his partner. “So I heard.”

He sighed and filed the whole Bull Fenning—Brad Taylor situation in his mind for consideration,
then went back to the autopsy report. “About the murder—there were a lot of tracks
for it to be just Larson.”

“A lot of tracks, from one man, going back and forth.” Rios lifted a foot off his
bar stool rung and pointed to the boot. “About the right shoe size for Larson, though
we need to check that out for sure. Zack Hunter’s got himself a computer expert analyzing
the print patterns. The expert says it was just one guy, and our people confirmed
that. Hunter’s expert wants body temp info from the doc. Says maybe we can get a search
grid based on how thawed the body was.”

Luke pushed his nearly full beer toward Rios as he got up. “Sounds promising. Sick,
but promising.” He checked his watch. “Think Clay Wayland could find out Larson’s
shoe size for us?” “Already called him.” Rios took a look at his own watch. “Expect
to hear from him in an hour or so. Want me to head out to Gina Garcia’s and give winning
her over a go?”

Luke shook his head. “She’s already suspecting I’m more than a ranch hand. If you
show up, too, asking similar questions, she’ll be on to both of us. Let Wayland handle
it.”

Rios’s normally friendly, open face tightened a notch, and Luke knew he was thinking
about Gary Woods, the deputy who went bad and rustled cattle at Skylar’s ranch, not
to mention others in the area. “Are we sure about Wayland?”

“Sure as we can be about anybody in Douglas. Catch you this afternoon.”

“Hot date?” Rios gave a low whistle behind Luke. “Give her a good one-two for me.”

A blinding surge of protectiveness almost made Luke wheel around and punch his best
friend and partner, which immediately made him remember the depth and level of shit
he had stepped into with respect to one Trinity MacKenna.

Yeah, he had it pretty bad.

And in a few minutes, it was about to get worse.

Warm, heated air brushed Trinity’s cheeks as she sat at a table in the back section
of Zappati’s, the newest restaurant in Douglas.

Unusual these days for the border town, the place had a certain class to it, with
low lighting, even at lunch, and clean, bright tablecloths—with, er, no red checkered
pattern. The Mayan decor and motif gave the place a Mexican flavor, but the dining
area smelled like fresh baked bread with a hint of spices and fruit, and the establishment
served an eclectic menu.

What was a place like this doing in a dirty border town?

Trinity had allowed herself some cheese sticks to munch on while she worked on Zack’s
footprint analysis on her laptop and waited.

For Luke.

God, I’m really doing this.

She looked up from her computer screen and the folder of photos next to it and almost
groaned. She still couldn’t believe what had happened that night in the hot tub. Every
time she thought about Luke—naked and doing the things he’d been doing to her—her
stomach twisted and her body had an instant reaction. She swore she was walking around
with permanently damp panties and her nipples poking through her T-shirt like someone
had stuck jelly beans in her bra.

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a couple of cowboys trooping in for lunch,
but she refused to look outright at the door to see if Luke might be there. Of course
she knew she really didn’t have to see him to know whether or not he was near. If
he had been, she’d have been able to sense him, to feel his presence.

“Work, MacKenna,” she told herself, and got lost in the calculations all over again.

It took her some time, but between chewing cheese sticks and mumbling curses at dark
digital photographs, she finally managed to superimpose the footprint data over a
satellite-generated topographical map of Douglas. For a touch of the bizarre, she
added a wavy-looking pirate’s X to mark the spot where the body pieces had been found.
Now, when she got the temperature and weather information from Zack, she could—

“Señorita. What a pleasure it is to see you again.”

Trinity jumped so hard at the smooth, lightly accented voice that she almost knocked
her dish with its last half of a cheese stick onto the restaurant’s stone floor.

The man standing beside her had on jeans and a white casual shirt with the sleeves
rolled up and the collar open. His tanned skin and muscled build accented his dark
hair and eyes, and in another place, in some other world, Trinity would have thought
he was way past handsome.

As it was, Luke had warned her about this man, then Nevaeh and Skylar and Zack had
taken turns doing the same thing.

Drug lord...

Bastard...

Scary son of Satan...

She’d heard enough to be a believer, and she just wanted to close her folder and computer
without being too obvious. “Mr. Guerrero.” She pushed down the lid of her laptop,
hearing the motor rev, then switch off as the machine hibernated. “I remember you
from the Christmas party.”

“And you, you are unforgettable as well.” The man’s smile made him look like a heart-stealing
movie star, but Trinity saw a hint of wolf in his gaze as his eyes roved over the
pictures of footprints she was trying to slide back into the folder. “Forgive me,
but do you work in law enforcement?”

Trinity managed a laugh that didn’t sound too fake. “Me? No. I’m a software engineer.
I work for a gaming manufacturer.”

“Computer games.” Guerrero didn’t sound convinced. “And what does your boyfriend think
of your work?”

“My boyfriend.” Trinity almost gave an automatic response, that her boyfriend worked
in the same field, but then she remembered. No more Race. No more comfortable, easy
future with comfortable easy answers.

Next, she almost said she didn’t have a boyfriend, but that wasn’t true either, was
it? Because she was meeting Luke here for lunch, because she intended to sleep with
him as soon as humanly possible. More than once. All night long. All week if she could,
before DropCaps called her back with moving plans.

Her lust didn’t make Luke a boyfriend.

But since he’d touched her, since he’d kissed her—hell, since the first moment he’d
looked at her, Trinity had felt... taken.

Claimed.

“He’s—ah, we haven’t talked about it that much.” She picked up her piece of cheese
stick, then laid it back down. “But I’m sure we will soon.”

Guerrero’s gaze turned more wolfish, and Trinity wished Luke would show up fast. To
cover her own rising anxiety, she said, “So, yeah, computer games. That’s what I do.
Like
Grand Theft Auto
— oops, sorry. You own a luxury car dealership, right?”

“I do. And if I could be so bold, you would look splendid in our new Jaguar XK-5.”
Guerrero held up his hands to frame her face. “Black would accent your natural beauty,
though silver would work well, too.”

Trinity shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with how Guerrero was looking at her cleavage.
“Do you come here often?”

“This is my restaurant now.” Another meant-to-be-dazzling smile radiated from his
angular face. “A recent acquisition. What are you driving, Ms. MacKenna?”

“A Mustang. It’s rented—but it’s a sweet ride.”

Damn, that was stupid. He might not have known—but he could find out pretty easily,
I bet.

Trinity had a sense she was in some sort of chess game, and losing. Badly.

“A Jaguar is infinitely faster than a Mustang. Much more powerful.” Guerrero flexed
one of his well-ripped arms, and his expression turned downright dangerous. “If you
ever want to experience true speed, Ms. MacKenna, a thrill you cannot imagine—see
me.”

Coming from anybody else, Trinity would have found that line laughable, but nothing
about Francisco Guerrero seemed humorous to her.

“Let me give you a ride,” he said, moving closer to her table. “A ride you will never
forget.”

“If the lady needs a ride home, I’ll be the one to take her.”

Luke!

Trinity almost jumped to her feet and threw her arms around Luke’s neck.

He was standing behind Guerrero, a quiet mountain made out of muscle, handsome as
sin in his dark T-shirt and jeans. He laid his Stetson on the table but kept one hand
on the top of the table’s empty chair, like he was thinking about smashing it over
Guerrero’s head.

“Sorry I’m late, sugar.” Luke’s eyes swept over Trinity, and she heard how his voice
vibrated with possessiveness and concern. When she saw the pain and death radiating
from Luke’s overly calm face, she almost jumped to her feet a second time, this time
to throw herself between the two men before Luke did something to Guerrero that might
land him in prison.

Guerrero wasn’t giving an inch of ground, and his expression didn’t look any friendlier
than Luke’s.

“You’re not late, Luke,” Trinity babbled, trying to diffuse the tension. “I came early
to work on the new gaming program I’ve been trying to develop.” She tapped her nails
against her laptop as her pulse raced. “Made good progress, too. Are you thirsty?
I could order us some tea.”