Their Ex's Redrock Midnight (Texas Alpha)

by Anders, Shirl

  SEVEN ] TRUST YOU, CAPTAIN

  Justice Walkinghorse? Was there ever a hotter man in law enforcement, Rusty wondered with her gaze traveling over his cowboy hat, buzz cut, past his aviators, sharp nose, red bluff jaw without the red part. Then she wandered over his tan sheriff’s shirt, tight across his broad chest, to his skintight blue jeans packing a gun on one side and badge on the other, and then down to study his cowboy boots.

  They looked snake-skinned, like a pair she had, and wasn’t it too damn bad about Justice’s age. She and Tess had lamented the fact he was six years younger than them on several occasions, after seeing his fine ass saunter through town, on the occasions the town needed a federal marshal.

  Normally she could spend some time Justice gazing. Now wasn’t one of them.

  “No freaking way I’m going into protective custody with you or anyone else, Justice. I need to make money. I’m losing cash just arguing with you and the mysterious Finn, who can get a lawman out at his beck and call.”

  Rusty glared at Finn, who was leaning negligently against the front hood of her taxi. His hotter-than-shit mouth bracketed by a black goatee was not smiling as his eyes narrowed back at her. “Need-to-know basis law enforcement and you are not going to know any more than you already do,” Finn declared, in his badass bossy voice.

  “Which is squat,” Rusty declared right back at him, with her hand on her hip as she stomped one of her boots in the dirt. “I don’t know anything to tell anyone!”

  “Ma’am,” Justice said, and she felt his warm hand on her arm. Ohmygod.

  “Don’t—” she hissed, jerking from his touch. That did not affect her. “Call me ma’am. I’m not old enough to be a ma’am.”

  “Rusty Jean—” Justice started, then Finn overrode him.

  “Babe, you’ve got to let me try to protect you. I’d never live with myself anything happened to you,” he growled, and it rumbled right into her flesh and over her.

  Aw man ... She tried to look mean ... failed, and then tried again. Then she threw out past the lump in her throat, “You’ve got to give me something.”

  “There’s bad shit trying to work its way into town, Rusty Jean,” Justice said, and his voice wasn’t as deep as Finn or Cabe’s, but he was getting there. “Some people are trying to stop it.” Justice’s cowboy hat tilted toward Finn.

  Finn didn’t move, didn’t twitch, and did not blink his eyes or make any indication it was him as she sucked in a breath and whispered, “I need the money, Finn.”

  Then he moved with a growled curse and she was hugged up against all that was Finn O’Neil and that meant everything that was fine about a man. “Fuck, I’m sorry, babe,” he said. “Shit thinking on my part, jumping into your cab like that.”

  Rusty kind of cupped his hard waist with an even littler squeeze. “So okay, you were getting away from the bad guy.”

  Finn’s knuckles came under her chin, pushing her gaze up to his. “If you won’t go with Justice into protective custody that leaves me calling Cabe, babe.”

  She blinked into his mesmerizing green eyes. “Why Cabe?”

  Well, she found out.

  Twenty minutes later, she was up against her taxi with Cabe’s long, hard body pressed the full length of her. Finn and Justice were gone.

  “Now it’s my fucking duty to stick to you,” Cabe said with a wicked smirk, while she fumed. It seemed Finn’s solution was passing her off to Cabe, which was when she knew Finn knew about them. And Cabe seemed ready to give up his entire life to “stick” to her.

  She grabbed Cabe’s tee shirt by the side of his waist and tugged. “You know something about all this mystery, don’t you?” she accused. She saw instantly by the intensity coming into his brown eyes that he did as his lips outright lied to her.

  “Nope, nothing. But Finn says you need looked after, I listen.”

  She tugged his tee again with his eyes watching her lips. “It was protect, not look after like a little girl.” Something about saying that to Cabe—the minute it left her lips, a very sexual vibe rose up between them.

  “I like protecting my little girl, boo.” His mouth came close to the side of her face as he dipped closer. “I like doing a lot of things, little girl, like feeling your hard nipples on my chest.” She so should argue with him about not to call her that, as she quivered against him. What was wrong with her?

  Well, really, her nipples were hard against his chest.

  “Captain, I can’t take your life away like this,” she whispered.

  Suddenly, she was transported upward, until she naturally hooked her legs over Cabe’s hips and clutched his hard shoulders. His hands under her held her tight. “Take me away from it, Rusty.”

  She looked into his eyes and started messing with the hair on the back of his shoulders. Her inner thighs quivered because her entire body knew how close the position was to hot sex and amazing fulfillment. But she ignored her constant Cabe arousal.

  “You help me during the prime cab customer times and I will help you do whatever it is you do.”

  Well, it ended up being a good thing Cabe stuck to her, because later that day three very mean-looking Indians, with the one she’d seen before in the middle of them, were outside Redrock eyeing her cab up.

  Cabe’s large hand pressed to the top of her head. “Stay down, boo,” he ordered.

  Cabe looked at Ian Runningtree standing by two even-rougher-looking Indians as they scrutinized the several cabs outside Redrock’s main entrance. He could feel them looking for Rusty and it pissed him off. He knew Runningtree wasn’t a good man, because two of Runningtree’s young girlfriends had sought asylum from him at WTSF.

  Cabe could tell by looking at the tall man beside Runningtree that he was worse trouble, and while he didn’t know what Finn had been up to with these guys ... he could guess. Guns, drugs, or most likely it could be human trafficking. Just the thought that Rusty could be on their radar to seek out and ask questions chilled him to the bone as he slowly pulled away from the main entrance without picking up a customer.

  Good thing Rusty hadn’t fought him when he’d told her he was driving her taxi.

  “You know them?” Rusty asked from her scrunched position on the seat next to him.

  Cabe nodded, but kept watching the rearview when Runningtree’s meanest-looking companion kept watching Rusty’s empty cab pull away.

  “You’re staying at Rowdie’s with me,” Cabe ordered. “There’ll be no fucking going home, unless I’m there.”

  “So what you know, it isn’t good news,” Rusty surmised, then she added, sweet as hell, “Won’t it mess up your thing leaving Vega? Me being with you.” She paused while he let her straighten out of her scrunch. “Us being seen together,” she whispered.

  He grabbed her nape, curling her toward him. “So sweet, I feel it deep,” he muttered, then he glanced from the road into her worried but widening eyes. “We got each other’s back, right?” he asked, and she nodded. “That means we’ll have to deal with it.”

  She scooted closer and pressed her hand on his chest. “I just don’t want to make it harder on you, Captain.”

  He chose a bit of levity. “Boo, the harder the better to fuck your sweet, sweet pussy.”

  She smiled a little, but it didn’t go to her eyes as she petted him, and he liked her touch as she said, “Okay, I’ll take that as a promise.” Her gaze lingered on his mouth, and he felt it. “I’m glad you have my back, Captain.”

  She sighed and snuggled into him while Cabe wondered about a woman that didn’t tear him apart for his decisions, just sweetly accepted them. This thing between them was burrowing deep into him and the feelings he’d been having of “rightness” kept getting more solid and sure.

  After that, any call Rusty got on her business cell to pick up or let off at Redrock, she said she was too far out to take. So it was slow business, but they got about half a dozen. She’d scoot away from him every time a customer got in, but she’d be right back beside him each t
ime they left her cab.

  There were several more-than-interested locals wondering why he was driving her cab. But luckily they couldn’t find a way to come out and ask. Cabe was certain, though, that word would be spreading quickly he was spending time with Rusty.

  Rusty was curling a long strand of her rich auburn hair around her finger while gazing out the window, when she asked, “So you moved into Rowdie’s?”

  “Yeah, baby,” he said, glancing at her and seeing she had more on her mind, but might be holding back. “So ask it, boo.”

  Her long, dark lashes dipped as she glanced sideways at him, and he wished he had a camera to capture the sultry effect with her hair twirl, eyelash dip, and her bare leg propped up on the dash. “How’s Vega taking it?” she whispered the question, not looking at him.

  He took the turn onto WTSF’s long drive ... it was now his turn in their deal about the division of time. His belly clenched with unpleasantness, and he wasn’t about to share the sordid details, but out of his mouth came—

  “Fucking crying, wailing, threatening to kill herself, and trying to drag me to bed at the same time,” he growled out, remembering the first scene, but not the last one, when he’d told Vega he was divorcing her ass.

  He heard Rusty suck in a breath. “Sorry it’s so hard, Cabe,” she told him, now looking at him as her hand squeezed his thigh. “Must make you feel like it’s your fault or something, when someone acts that out of control.”

  Jesus. Cabe inhaled deeply. What was it about Rusty getting inside him and pulling out the parts he had the most trouble dealing with? It wasn’t Vega acting needy and crazed ... or her acting so fake fragile with tears, it was the fucking guilt she tried to lay on him.

  “Boo—” It was all he could get past his lips.

  She stroked his thigh to his knee and back again. “We all tried that on guys in high school. It’s when a girl learns her best manipulation weapons. Act crazy, tears, threats, or make them feel guilty. Whatever works to get hold of that cool guy you’re crazy about.”

  Cabe swallowed hard. “You’re shitting me,” he rasped.

  She scooted closer and moved, until he had to lift his arm over her shoulders. She dipped her gaze up to his. “Not shitting you,” she said softly. “I used them all on Finn. Even got him to feel guilty doing it a couple times. Gosh, I remember being so into it I nearly believed it myself ... Believed that I was that upset, when deep inside it was like I was looking out at him and gauging his reactions. Sometimes sucks to be a girl,” she muttered. “We’re kind of evil.”

  “She’s trying to push any button she can push?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Captain, any one that will get her what she wants. But the funny thing about it is ending up wanting it too much at the same time and it never gives you that golden feeling you’re jonesing for of being with that certain guy you want.”

  He stopped the taxi outside of WTSF, put it in park and ground a hand over his face. “Hell, I see girls trying manipulation all the time, boo. I even know Vega’s doing it, but she does it so fucking big, it’s scary.”

  “And you feel guilty,” Rusty whispered. “Un-crazy people ... normal and not-addicted people, they feel guilty because they can’t imagine playing such harsh games with anyone, let alone someone they love. So we feel guilty, thinking we must have done wrong or even we should help the poor, destroyed, addicted person, forgive them, and help them.”

  “You experienced this,” he asked softly.

  Rusty looked down at their fingers intertwined. “My druggy criminal mom would come in and out of my life, throwing guilt with each step, but her sister, my Aunt Clare that raised me, she’d fight hard to not let any of that stick.”

  Cabe let out a deep breath. “Your dad?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “He was gone before I was born. I don’t think my mom even knew who he was.”

  “Boo,” Cabe called softly, then lifted her chin. “I got fostered out of the boys’ home at ten but had to leave Vincent and Sam Blackfoot in there. But my foster mom was like your aunt; she’d fight to keep life as normal as she could.”

  “Just wow,” Rusty said, lifting a hand to touch his jaw too. “We have things in common, Captain.”

  He moved her hand on his jaw with his slow nodding, then both their hands dropped. “Let me ask you something,” he said slowly. Then he nearly didn’t ask, but he couldn’t help wondering. “You ever think of Finn?” He paused then added what he had to: “You two looked close.”

  Her head was already shaking halfway through his words. “My high school epiphany about him was solid, honey. We’ve just kind of known each other a long time without really knowing each other.”

  “Say that again,” he demanded, and she opened her mouth, but he added, “honey.”

  Her eyes darkened and her lips softened. “Honey,” she whispered. Then she said, “You said ‘she’s trying to drag you to bed.’”

  Cabe had never seen her look as vulnerable, and he didn’t even think about where they were. The next second he pulled her over his lap, until she straddled him and he had her face caught between his hands. “Baby, no way I’d let her touch me ever again,” he uttered. “If you need to know anything like that, you just ask me. I’ve put you in a bad place and I want you to know you can trust my word.”

  Rusty rubbed his shoulders, then squeezed them. “I trust you, Captain,” Rusty whispered as they looked deep in each other’s eyes. “Just needed to hear it like you did.”

  That got their lips meshed together in a meaningful kiss, turning hot as usual and just starting tongue action when—

  Rusty’s business cell phone rang and they both ignored it because they knew it was set to the answering service since she was off duty. But something caught the corner of his gaze and his fingers tightened on Rusty’s hips. As if she could read him, her brow scrunched while he turned his gaze slowly.

  Damn. It was several of the WTSF girls, stopped to look and giggle behind their hands in the parking lot from walking to and from somewhere in the compound.

  Rusty tensed. “We’re being watched,” she said.

  Cabe nodded. Yeah, he forgot where they were, and Rusty did that to him a lot.

  EIGHT ] NEED A SPANKING FOR THAT

  “That’s Vicki from Lulu’s, isn’t it,” Rusty whispered to Cabe as they approached the two young women outside the WTSF main building.

  Rusty knew Trish the main bartender at Lulu’s very well, and had been in enough to watch Vicki, a waitress there, go through her cowboy Goth stage into what looked like a new pink stage. Pink strands in her hair, a sweet pink tank top that said “Better than Barbie” Rusty wanted to steal off her body, pink shorts, and of course pink-shaded tennis shoes.

  “She hooked up with a bad rodeo dude twice her age, a mean drunk and possessive. We’ve had her for a month,” Cabe said lowly. Then he added, “She’s a handful.”

  “Hey,” everyone said to everyone.

  Cabe hooked his hands in his back pockets while Rusty watched Vicki’s companion giving Cabe a look through pretty blue eyes of I-have-a-crush-on-you-big-time. Rusty glanced at Cabe to see if he caught the deal. Oh yes, he had it tagged, and it occurred to her that Cabe might be pretty good at reading girls. Which could make him even better than average at reading women.

  Crush-on-Cabe girl gushed, “Boss, I tried to get those test security cameras wired up but I keep messing up and I need your help.”

  Vicki popped her pink bubble gum, rolling her eyes at Rusty, and Rusty took it as a sister-communicating lameness. But that was a child sister and Rusty was a woman sister who shook her head back, not in commune with the youngster.

  Cabe neatly commanded, “Go read your book again.”

  Crush girl pouted with a head tilt.

  Cabe added, “Again and again if you have too. Now I know you two brats need to be somewhere. So get there.”

  Crush girl looked crushed as Rusty watched both girls dutifully adhere to Cabe’s command. She was
impressed.

  He muttered, “I’m practically deep throating you, you plastered in my lap, and she sees it yet still makes plays.” He looked down on her. “Never fucking going to get women.”

  Rusty held back her laugh. “That was a girl’s play, not even close to a woman’s, and do they all call you boss?”

  He gestured toward the building and she moved when he moved. “Yeah, helps keep that distance I need.”

  She’d been going to unmercifully tease him, but that reason was so solid, she just smiled. Then she followed Cabe into his office, where he did freaking paperwork.

  An hour later, he lifted his head and asked, “You bored?”

  Rusty rolled her eyes like a girl, from where she sat in his really big office on his really big couch across from his really big desk, piled with really big piles of papers.

  “Yeah,” she said, tapping her cowboy boot on his plush carpet the color of deep plum. It was the nicest thing in his office; not that the rest was bad, just uninspired and boring. She’d like to get her hands on decorating it.

  “How can I get you un-bored?” he asked, and she noticed he must have had the same lascivious thought as her, because she saw heat touching his brown eyes briefly.

  But she said hopefully, “Let me go back to work?”

  “Not happening,” he said with that authority she had at times found delicious, but at the moment ... not so much.

  Then he stood and came around his desk. “Come on.” He held out his hand.

  She stood, but just looked at his hand. “But don’t you have paperwork?”

  He reached forward and grabbed her hand. “I always have paperwork.”

  She looked over at his desk as he started to pull her from the room. “Yeah, I can see that.” Now she felt bad. So she pulled on his hand and made him stop in the hallway. “I’ll help you with your paperwork, Captain.”

  Oops, she’d forgotten where they were at, but the minute she called him “Captain,” his aura started to become Captain and the heat was back to broil on high. Then she was against the wall with him deliciously against her and she hung on, wishing they could make out right there.