Joker Joker (The Deuces Wild Series Book 2)

by Irish Winters

  “Lockette, emphasis on the Lock.”

  Whatever that meant. “My last name was Lockette? What’d you call them?” Just tell me their first names. Give me something to hold onto.

  “Booker and Emma, now shut up and let me think.” Braking to a dead stop, Hattie’s fingernails set to drumming on the steering wheel. “See that road?” She stuck her index finger over the dash. “That wasn’t here twenty years ago. Nothing was but miles and miles of prairie.”

  Winslow had no idea what to say. Would her parents have moved after the loss of their baby? It seemed reasonable. Could grief have driven them elsewhere? She knew they were still looking for her, or there wouldn’t have been a reward, but where were they now, and why didn’t Hattie know where to look? She knew about the three million dollars. Why not the exact address to get that money?

  “No, no, no,” Hattie huffed, her eyes gone dark and her lids slanted. “This was supposed to…” A growl rumbled up from her throat and she looked at the houses then the road yet to be traveled. “Goddamn her. I’ll bet she put him up to this. Your mother’s a real bitch, Winslow. You know that, don’t you?”

  How would I know anything about my real Mom? It stung to hear Hattie cuss the woman Winslow had yet to meet. Fingering the black bandana Hattie had bought at one of the many truck stops along the way, Winslow braced her palm to her forehead, weary of the soap opera that was her life.

  Right on cue, the obnoxious woman at her left grunted. “Want to bet Booker thinks he’s smarter than me?”

  Well, duh. He isn’t here and you are. “You could, umm, Google him if you’re lost.”

  “I’m not lost.” Hattie turned a mean glare at Winslow. “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s keep driving up Stupid Angel Drive and see where it ends, why don’t we? If he thinks he’s gonna beat me out of that three mil, the ass has another thing coming.”

  God, help me, Winslow prayed. Please don’t let her hurt anyone today. Keep my real parents safe. Tate and Pepe too.

  She turned her face to the sun and for that one moment, the warmth of it bathed her face like a gentle kiss. Her heart fluttered. Tate’s smiling dark eyes reached out to her and Winslow took a deep breath, then let it slowly hiss out between pursed lips. Hang on, she told herself what Tate had said. There is always hope.

  Hattie stepped on the gas, kicked up a cloud of dust, and onward they went. The Lockette ranch was Texas big. The road into it tracked over gentle hills lined with barbed-wire fences and miles of green fields with stubby black cattle. Then horses. Lots of them. Buckskins and Palominos. Dainty dappled grays with white faces. Bays and sorrels the likes Winslow had never seen before. The little girl inside of her reached out to them. What would it be like to live here? To learn to ride a horse. A small horse.

  “Wow,” Winslow gulped as the car from Oklahoma rolled over the crest of yet another Texas-sized hill. They had to be a good ten miles inside the Lockette ranch by now, and maybe that was what irked Hattie the most. She’d wanted a quick getaway, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  Winslow’s pulse picked up. Booker Lockette had deliberately relocated his ranch deep into his property. He meant for the snake who’d stolen his child to have to work for that reward. My dad is smarter than Hattie.

  Spread out below was a magnificent stone and log home the size of a small hotel. A large porch surrounded the front and ran along the entire side that Winslow could see. Barns, stables, and other out buildings stretched nearby, but the kicker? Lost Angel Drive led straight up to that wide wooden porch and the front door.

  “Stop the car,” she breathed, her heart pumping, make that banging in her chest at this once in a lifetime moment.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Hattie hissed. “You’re going through with this or I’ll... I’ll...”

  “You’ll what?” Winslow asked, her fingers squeezing the door handle and her calves bunched to propel her away from this nightmare. “Kill me on my parents’ property? Give it a rest.”

  “You think I won’t?”

  “Please, I just want to take this slow.” Winslow shook her head, not wanting to fight. If what Hattie had told her was true—God, please let it be true—then this was her moment. Her homecoming. She wanted to savor every last step in this journey, every mind numbing first sight of the life that had been stolen from her.

  A slender woman stood at the top step of that front porch as if already waiting for someone. For me. Okay, that was—Winslow gulped—weird. How could this woman know that today her daughter was coming home? But she seemed to. She held one hand to her mouth, the other waving slowly as if...

  She recognizes me, and she’s still looking for me, and she looks like me—if I had hair. Doesn’t she? It’s her. I know it’s her.

  “Mom,” breathed out of Winslow’s heart.

  “What?” Hattie snapped.

  “N-not you.” Winslow pointed through the windshield. “H-her.” Goosebumps prickled up her bare arms and over her shoulders. “That’s my real mom. I know it’s her. Stop the car. I have to get out.” Now!

  But Hattie kept driving, so Winslow cranked her door open. Her heart beat like a hammer in her chest. She could barely breathe much less sit in that car any longer, not with her mother nearly in reach. I have to go...

  Hattie had to slow down then, or risk revealing what a nut job she was in view of the family she intended to cheat. Compelled by a force she couldn’t refuse, Winslow’s heart zeroed in on that woman walking down the porch steps, the one in a white blouse and jeans with her head up and long black hair streaming behind her. The one who’d just started running toward Winslow.

  “Mom?” she asked, her feet flying. Oh God, Oh God, it’s you! I know it’s you!

  They crashed together, all arms and tears, gentle fingers and…

  “My sweet baby girl,” this strange, familiar person cried. “My precious baby. I never thought I’d see you again.” She choked even as her hands slid over Winslow’s bare head, sweeping the bandana away as her beautiful brown eyes brimmed. “I never gave up on you, Brooklyn, not for one day. Let me look at you.” She eased back, then pulled Winslow’s forehead to hers. “It’s you. It’s really you. Oh, baby,” she cried as she crushed Winslow to her heart, her body trembling and her arms the best things ever.

  “I know you. I don’t know how but I know you,” Winslow cried, burrowing her nose into her mother’s neck, pulling in the scent of lilacs and vanilla. So familiar. Voices swirled around her where she stood, but this—this!—is home. This warm place right here. This is real. This is my mom. MY mom.

  She could barely contain her sobbing until a screen door slammed and a mean, male voice barked, “Get away from her, Emma. That’s not your damned daughter!”

  The tormented rage in that terse masculine voice brought Winslow’s head up. Daddy?

  “Yes, she is, Booker. She’s Brooklyn,” her mother said, still smoothing her hands over Winslow’s bare head. So much love washed over Winslow at that gentle touch, like a baptism of saving grace, that she simply closed her eyes and let it rain. Nothing had ever felt sweeter or more right. “This is our baby girl. I’d recognize her anywhere. She’s got your eyes. Come look at her. Come see.”

  “I don’t need to see anyone’s eyes to recognize a couple liars. Bullshit!” the man spat.

  The single word—Tate’s word—struck a comforting chord in Winslow’s heart even though it was spoken against her. She looked at her father then, certain that this man she didn’t know was truly her father, and that he didn’t mean what he was saying. Without a doubt, she knew he still loved her and he wanted her back.

  Still on the porch, he stood there with his shoulders square, his jaw set, and his feet spread. A holstered pistol rested on his hip, beneath the curve of a callused right hand with long, thick fingers. Bristly black hair capped his head. He looked as mean and as angry as Tate could, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Pride swelled in Winslow’s ragged heart. Just like Tate, this man would fight the world f
or her.

  “I’m not lying,” Hattie said as she strolled nonchalantly from the now parked Taurus, a manila envelope in her hand. She’d spent extra time on her make-up and hair this morning, had even dressed in nice slacks and a silky, peach colored blouse. Insisting on making a good impression, she’d stopped at Wal-Mart the night before to buy a change of clothes for Winslow, nice of her after four hard days on the road.

  But Winslow didn’t care that her jeans were name brand for the first time ever, or that her red shirt was stiff out of the bag. She had hold of her mother. Her real mother. And judging by the way this woman held onto her, she knew it too. Her dark brown eyes brimmed.

  “I can prove it’s Brooklyn, Booker Lockette,” Hattie said, the envelope raised high over her head. “Emphasis on the lock.”

  He stalked down the stairs, wary, one step at a time, his lips thin and his eyes as hard as diamonds. Soft green diamonds that seemed familiar.

  Winslow cocked her head at him. I know you. “Dad?” she dared ask, timid but certain. “Is that my dad?” she asked her mother.

  The lady nodded, but his gaze raked over her like claws. “You’re not fooling me. Get off my land. Both of you!”

  “I’ll have you know we drove four days to get here,” Hattie argued, “and we’re not—”

  “Take off!” he roared, his left index finger stabbed at the road behind the Taurus, his other still on the grip of that pistol. “I knew the second I re-posted that reward every scurvy snake and rat in the world would come pounding on my door. You think I don’t know what you two are up to? Get out before I run you out!”

  Hattie slapped the envelope to her thigh. “You’re still as pigheaded as ever.”

  Booker stopped in his tracks then. “Do I know you?”

  “No,” audacious Hattie spit out, confident now, “but you knew my sister. She was your nanny for a couple weeks about twenty years ago.” Another untruth. You’re going to blame Sue Ellen for your crime.

  “I watched her for years, ever since she showed up with a baby and no husband in sight. It took me all this time to put the pieces together, but,” Hattie jerked her head in Winslow’s direction. “God knows she ain’t much to look at. She’s puny and she’s been sick most of her life…” Because you poisoned me. “…but this here kid’s your flesh and blood, and I can prove it.”

  That merited a chin nod from Booker. “Then prove it.”

  Hattie strolled up to him, her hips swaying. She slapped the envelope to his chest with a, “Read it and weep, big guy. This little gal is your long-lost daughter, and like it or not, you owe me three million.”

  It took Booker Lockette seconds to scan whatever Hattie gave him. At last he looked up, his gaze on the woman holding Winslow. He blinked. “It’s true, Emma. That young lady you’re holding is... she’s our lost angel,” he said, his voice turned tight and thin, his chin quivering. His Adam’s apple bobbed once, like it was a hard truth to swallow, or else he was near tears.

  Shivers danced up Winslow’s neck at that tender paternal acknowledgement. She whined, needing to be in two places at the same time, in his arms as well as in Emma’s.

  Crass to the bitter end, Hattie stuck her open palm under his nose, her fingers waggling. “Hand it over, cowboy, and I’ll be out of your hair forever. Three mil and you get to keep the girl. Sounds like a fair trade to me.”

  Nice of you, Winslow thought as she held her breath. After all these years, you hand me over like you’re returning a jacket that doesn’t fit. Like you can get a deposit for me.

  “I never thought I’d be doing this, but...” Her father swiped the back of his hand over his eyes before he reached into his back pocket and tugged a wallet out. Opening it, he produced a folded check. “I wrote this the day I posted the reward, just didn’t know then whose name I’d be paying to the order of. Here, take it. Put your name on the line, and thank you, ma’am. I owe you more than that paltry amount for bringing Brooklyn home.”

  Hattie took the check, not even politely. She turned, scanned the ranch, and tapped her finger to her bottom lip. “Huh. If I were smart, I’d demand more than just three mil, but this…” She lifted the check to her lips and kissed it. “…is all I ever wanted.”

  Winslow nearly choked. Wasn’t that the cold, hard truth? That and a road trip to help me commit suicide was all you wanted.

  “My poor baby,” Emma murmured at the side of her head, her arms still wrapped protectively around Winslow’s shoulders. “That awful woman’s had you all these years? I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too.” Winslow nodded, her eyes fixed on the beautiful, crazy woman walking out of her life for the last time. There’d be time to explain everything to her real parents later, maybe. Some things were better left unspoken. Right then all she could do was stare at the monster who, even through the worst of times, Winslow had loved with all of her now breaking heart. She hadn’t expected to feel anything when Hattie left—but she did.

  “So we’re done here,” Booker stated, his hand extended, his green eyes sharp and as calculating as Hattie’s.

  She stuffed the check into the front of her blouse before she took hold of his hand. “I’ve got what I came for. I’ll be seeing y’all.”

  He offered one short nod as he released her, his hand back on the pistol grip. “Count on it.”

  Winslow watched Hattie go without a glance in her direction. Without one word. No ‘take care of yourself, Winslow’. No ‘I’ll miss you’. Not even a final ‘goodbye’.

  “Mom,” came unbidden to Winslow’s lips even as her real mother squeezed her a little tighter. Held her a little closer.

  “Let her go, Brooklyn,” Emma whispered into her cheek. “She’s the worst kind of woman there is.”

  I know and I will let her go. I want to, but... A part of Winslow was crushed at being left behind like a piece of trash.

  Hattie looked at her then, her eyes sharp. Questioning. “What?” she snapped. Like so many times before.

  “I... I...” The words stuck in Winslow’s throat. I don’t know what I want.

  Hattie scratched her neck below her right ear as if annoyed. “It’s not like I came all this way just to turn around and take you back home with me, now is it?”

  Winslow shook her head. No. Of course not. She’d never go back with Hattie, but the little girl in her was desperate to run to the only mother she’d ever known. To hold onto—something—before it was gone forever. This was goodbye. She’d never see Hattie—or Joyce—again. She’d never make excuses for her bad behavior, talk her out of her mood swings, or listen to her bitch about everything. She’d never need to rationalize Hattie’s lies to make her seem better and kinder than she was. Somehow, that space in Winslow’s heart where Hattie still lived, ached as if someone was tearing out a very long vine that stretched all the way to her toes.

  “Winslow! Spit it out.” Tap, tap, tap went those pricey heels that Hattie had charged on the credit card she’d found tucked into the visor pocket of the Audi she’d stolen in Nashville.

  “I just... I just want you to know that… I still love you,” Winslow said like a foolish, needy child. I always will.

  “Well, goodie, goodie for you.” Hattie shot a look of triumph over her shoulder at Booker, as if she’d won, when Winslow felt like she was losing everything. She could barely breathe. This was goodbye. Forever...

  Hattie turned her back on Winslow then, her long legs eating up the distance to the Taurus like a super model on some runway in New York City. As if she couldn’t get away from Winslow fast enough. “Buh-bye, losers,” she said airily.

  “Not so fast,” another familiar voice barked.

  Winslow’s neck snapped to the man who’d just come around the shaded side of the porch, his pistol drawn, his eyes as black as coal. “Tate?”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Tate stepped off the porch, the red dot of his laser sight set dead center on Hattie’s forehead, ready to take her down if she so much as blinked wrong.
Yeah, she’d seen him. Her head came up. Her nostrils flared, and Mama Bear was pissed. Too bad, so sad.

  “You,” she spat, those ugly Halloween fingernails hooked over the top of her car door like claws.

  Tate had seen the police reports on Hattie’s car thefts, courtesy of his new psychic vision. She’d stolen more vehicles than Bonnie and Clyde had robbed banks in her mad dash across the country. It was no wonder he and Tucker hadn’t been able to catch up with her.

  “FBI Special Agent Tate Higgins to you,” he shot back at her, edging closer and not taking his eyes off his quarry for one second. I’m the wild card you never saw coming.

  “You go, Tate,” Isaiah hissed from a couple thousand miles away. It felt good having the Deuces Wild team on his side.

  “I don’t have to tell you this, but Winslow’s heart rate picked up the moment she saw you,” Eden murmured.

  Tate nodded, though Eden couldn’t see him. He knew Winslow’s eyes were on him, that he was the last person she’d expected to see here at her parents’ ranch. But predators were unpredictable. Man-eaters more so. He didn’t dare break eye contact with the woman in his sights to acknowledge the woman he loved.

  Right on cue, Hattie’s right hand dropped below the window, no doubt going for the weapon she’d hidden in the side pocket.

  “Hands up,” he bellowed, ready to shoot through that car door if that’s what it came down to. She had a bullet coming. He owed her one for the one they’d dug out of his thigh. The hollow tips in his chamber would go through that flimsy car door as easy as a hot knife through butter. “Get them up. Now.”

  Did she comply? Did she ever do anything smart? Her hand came up, but just like that foolish old woman in the Mini Cooper had done, she brandished the gun he’d seen in his vision. A revolver. Smith and Wesson.

  “She will kill you,” Tucker stated the obvious from where he’d just broken cover.

  “You don’t want to do this,” Tate told Hattie, his elbows lifted away from his body, his nerves as steady as the game hunter he was born to be. She needed to keep her focus on him, not what was happening behind her. “Drop it and I’ll let you live.” Or keep it and die. It’s all the same to me.