My Kind of Trouble (5 page)

Well, no more. Fate had presented him with a
golden opportunity to get his head on straight again, and he was
going to seize it so he could finally move on from Cassie Bellamy,
and find something more lasting in his life. The old scars she had
left would be erased, and the unfinished business between them
completed, before the leggy blonde left Bowie again.

Luke wasn't into playing games, so he didn't
know how he was going to pull it off, she didn't seem overly
interested in seeing him again when he was with her earlier today.
No, she'd been too busy reacquainting herself with Cody Lawson at
the garage to even say goodbye to him.

Well, Luke was going to be on her like white
on rice until she got in the right frame of mind, and then he would
accomplish his goal. Luke looked both ways at the corner then
crossed the street with determination and walked to where his truck
was parked.

CHAPTER THREE

At 8 a.m. sharp, Luke walked into the
station and stopped at Julie Beth's desk to pick up the pink
messages on his spike there. The dispatcher wasn't around, so he
went to his office and grabbed his coffee cup then headed to the
kitchen for his second cup of the morning. As he neared the
kitchen, he heard a low murmur of female voices inside, one being
Julie Beth's. His footsteps faltered, and then he stopped right
outside the door to listen for a second. Julie Beth was in her
fifties and was probably the head engineer on the Bowie gossip
train.

"Yeah..." Julie Beth said a little above a
whisper. She craned her neck to make sure nobody was listening and
then said, "She told him to go fuck himself, and then threw water
in his face!" The other woman, an administrative assistant from the
mayor's office the next floor up, gasped then covered her mouth
with her hand and chuckled.

With a groan, Luke slapped his hand to his
forehead. It took less time than he'd anticipated for the events of
last night to travel. Hell, it had probably been spread to half the
town by midnight last night. This town didn't need a newspaper with
all the mouthy women--and men--it had carrying the news like
pigeons.

"Oh and did you hear that Cassie Bellamy is
back in town?" The other woman shook her head negatively, which was
Julie Beth's 'go sign'. "Well yeah, you know her Daddy fell off a
horse and broke his leg. She's back to take care of him and help
with the ranch til he's back on his feet. The old man must be off
his rocker, because he has over five hundred head of cattle out
there and a hundred acres of cotton." Julie Beth shook her head and
took a deep breath. "I don't know how the heck he thinks that
city-slicker girl of his is going to hold it together for him.
Bud's been asking around town for extra hands to help out, but so
far he's only found one."

Luke knew Bud was Carl's ranch manager. He
also knew the man would be hard-pressed to hire extra help right
now. It was calving season, and most of the cow hands around town
had already signed on with other ranches. Julie Beth was right
about one thing, there was no way that Cassie was going to be able
to handle it on her own.

One of the jobs he'd had in college was
being a cowhand at a local ranch. The other had been at a horse
farm, shoveling shit, cleaning stalls and feeding and exercising
horses on the weekend. Neither of the jobs was pleasant, but he did
them so he could go to school at night and get his degree in
criminal justice.

Once he got his degree and had gone to the
police academy, he left all that behind though, and swore he'd
never go back. This time he'd make an exception for two reasons.
Cassie needed his help, and he was going to finish their unfinished
business. Once and for all.

The three weeks vacation time he had coming
couldn't be put to better use, Luke thought and spun around without
going into the kitchen to head back to his office. This place could
run on auto-pilot without him for a few weeks. Bowie wasn't crime
central of the country, for sure. Hell, most of his calls were
either for bar fights or cattle on the loose. Cole Jackson, his
best friend and second in command, could certainly handle it by
himself for that long.

Walking behind his desk, he picked up his
phone and buzzed his friend. "Hey, you got a sec?"

"Yeah, something up?" Cole asked
gruffly.

Cole was not a morning person, and it took
at least half a pot of coffee for him to function. He was probably
only on cup two or three right now. "I need to talk to you...grab
your coffee and get in here."

"Yes, sir." Cole agreed sarcastically and
then slammed the phone down.

Luke chuckled and sat back in his chair,
tenting his fingers over his chest to wait. Within a second or two,
his slightly rumpled best friend and deputy walked in frowning.

"What's on fire?"

"No fire--just some smoldering ashes."

"Cryptic this morning aren't you?" Cole
walked to the chair in front of his desk and plopped down. "Spill
it...coffee hasn't kicked in yet, so go slow."

Luke just stared at Cole for a moment,
trying to frame what he was going to say. Cole wasn't going to like
what he had in mind, he knew that for sure. After all, he was the
one who had to put up with his sorry ass after Cassie had left the
last time. His was the shoulder Luke had leaned on after he tried
to drown his sorrows the same way his father had for so many years.
Cole had just barely kept Luke out of jail for the subsequent bar
brawl and public intoxication. Thank God his daddy, Wiley Jackson,
had been Sheriff at the time, or Luke might well not be sitting
behind this desk or wearing the badge he was now.

Cole's father hadn't thrown him in jail,
instead he sat him down for a conversation Luke needed to hear.
"You need to get your shit together boy or you're gonna wind up
just like your daddy," he said. "You can choose the side of the law
you want to be on right now. If you keep this up, you won't have
that choice." He went on to suggest that Luke go to school, and
maybe consider law enforcement as a career like Cole planned to
do.

"You gonna sit there eyeballing me or you
gonna tell me what's on your mind, Slick? Cole said and took a
large swallow of his coffee then asked, "This about what happened
at the Bluebird last night?"

Heat crept up Luke's neck and he cleared his
throat. "No, it's not about that."

"What then?" Cole asked and sipped at his
coffee again.

"You hear Cassie's back in Bowie?"

Cole groaned and sat up straighter in his
chair. "Yeah, but I was hoping you hadn't."

Luke picked up his coffee cup and went to
take a sip, then remembered he hadn't gone into the kitchen to fill
it and set it back down. "I ran into her yesterday on the road to
the Double B. Her truck broke down."

"And?" Cole pinned him with curious green
eyes. "Did you give her a Texas howdy when you passed by?"

No, he didn't give her the finger. "I
stopped to help her. Didn't know it was her at first."

"So what happened? How's she look?" Cole
asked curiously and then grinned. "That wart on the end of her nose
grow a hair?"

Luke chuckled then ran a hand through his
hair and admitted, "No wart. She looks the same fucking way she did
ten years ago, just better." God he hated admitting that. It would
have been so much easier if she'd come back toothless and
two-hundred pounds heavier, and actually did have the wart that
Cole joked about.

But she hadn't...Cassie Bellamy still looked
like a beauty queen, and had the sassy mouth he loved to kiss. And
she still lit that fire inside of him that no other woman since had
been able to ignite.

"Not good man. How'd she act? She spill on
why she left?" Cole leaned forward and propped his forearms on his
thighs.

"Didn't say a fucking word and treated me
like I had a communicable disease."

Cole shook his head and twirled his cup
around in his hand. "Not good at all...you ok?"

"Not really." Luke forced out a laugh. "We
have unfinished business, you know?"

"What'cha gonna do?" Cole drawled.

"Finish it." Luke told him with finality.
"Once and for all."

"Luke, you know that's not a good idea.
She's not worth your time, man. You always get into trouble when
she's around."

"Trouble or not, she needs help out at the
ranch, while her Daddy's down. I'm taking my vacation time to help
her," Luke told him firmly then asked, "Can you cover for three
weeks?"

"You know that's not a problem. The problem
is I'm not particularly thrilled about what you plan to do with
your vacation time. Why don't you go on that Alaska fishing trip
you wanted to take? Just get out of town for a while. She'll be
gone by the time you get back."

"I'm going on a different kind of fishing
trip, buddy." Cole smiled at his friend, ignoring the concern that
pinched between his brows. "There'll be plenty of time later for
that Alaska trip. This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity
to get my head right for the future, and put the past to bed."
There were a lot of things he'd like to put to bed, and the past
was just one of them. Now all he had to do was convince her it was
a good idea.

"Your head will never be right as long as
that woman is around. It's like she scrambles your brains or
something, man. Best thing you can do is stay away from her."

"Not happening, Cole. I'm doing this...I
have to do this."

***

Cassie tucked her hair behind her ears and
slipped on her old straw hat, before heading out the back door of
the house. Her boot heels kicked up dust with every stride she made
toward the bunkhouse. After wearing a suit and heels every day for
the past six years, being in boots and blue jeans felt like heaven,
so there was a bounce in her step as she headed out to the barn to
talk to Bud.

It was early, but Bud was usually an early
riser, so she'd probably catch him eating his breakfast. The six or
so horses in the barn nickered a greeting from their stalls when
she stepped up on the porch to the bunkhouse.

Although she was tempted to stop in there
and scratch every head, she didn't. Her mission this morning was
too important. She wondered if Bud had fed the horses yet though.
If not, she'd do that for him. It was going to take them a few days
to get a routine down pat, one that was necessary to run the ranch
right. Changing partners for the delicate dance her daddy and Bud
had been doing by rote for thirty years was going to take some
time, but she could do it. Her daddy had big shoes to fill, but her
feet weren't small, and she was determined.

She knocked on the whitewashed door of the
bunkhouse then twisted the knob and walked inside. Nobody was in
the kitchen, and she took a deep breath and inhaled the familiar
smell of hay, leather and dust. Someone had evidently been cooking
bacon in there recently, she thought, when the smoky rich scent
teased her nostrils. She took a look over at the old cast iron cook
stove and saw the skillet still sitting on the eye.

Walking around the long rough board picnic
like table skirted with flat wood benches, then across the narrow
kitchen, she looked down the long T hallway to the sleeping rooms
and called out for him. "Hey Buddy--get your old bones out here! I
need a hug!" Her voice echoed down the hall and bounced back
unanswered.

She walked down the long hallway to his room
at the end and knocked loudly. "Buddy, sun's up lazy bones. Open
up!" Still no answer. This was really odd, she thought. Her dad had
still been sleeping when she left the house, and Imelda wasn't
there yet to cook breakfast. Maybe her dad knew where Buddy could
be. But she wasn't going to wake him up. Sleep healed, and he
needed a lot of healing. No, she'd feed the horses, then go see if
he was up yet.

Excitement filled her at doing something
physical for a change. She felt empowered as she walked back
outside then into the barn and grabbed the thick hose from the
spindle on the wall, and a feed bucket. Dragging the hose to the
first stall, she dropped the feed bucket then opened the latch and
stepped inside. Politely, the pretty roan mare with a white blaze
on her muzzle took a step backward and then shook her head.

"Morning girl," Cassie said and scratched
the mare between her ears then shoved the hose nozzle into the
water bucket and turned it on. When it was filled, she turned off
the water and stepped back out and locked the stall. "I'll be back
with your breakfast in a few minutes." The horse whinnied as if she
understood and Cassie chuckled.

She made her way to all seven occupied
stalls and refilled water buckets then went to the feed closet and
filled up a feed bucket and grabbed a scoop. This job she'd done a
thousand times in her life, it had been one of her chores as a
teenager, and she loved it. Bonding with the horses in the morning
and at night gave her a sense of peace and accomplishment.

After she'd given all the horses their feed
and supplements, she went to the hayloft and got a couple of bales
and cut the string loose. A tabby barn cat rubbed at her ankles
while she peeled off several flakes from the bales. She stopped and
gave the fuzzy little kitten a scratch on his back. He licked her
hand then rolled on his back and she scratched his belly and he
purred loudly.