by Jodi Linton
I stuck my boot in the doorway, prying the screen back open. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?
Wyatt stumbled backwards, tripping over an empty frozen pizza box. “I just thought I’d give you lovebirds some time alone on the firing range. It’s on the house,” he said, hand gunning for the door.
I kicked my boot further inside. “You really think I came all the way out to your little piece of paradise to enjoy myself?”
He gave me a blank stare.
“What do you know about the Special K making its way around Pistol Rock?” I asked.
His uncomprehending look turned to instant, but guilty, denial. “You’ve been talking to Skinny, haven’t you? I told him to keep his mouth shut.” He looked up at me, wide-eyed and nervous. “They’ll kill him, you know, if they find out he’s been talking to the cops.”
“Who’s they?” Gunner demanded, sidestepping around me to put himself directly in Wyatt’s path.
Wyatt thumped the back of his head on the door. “You know Skinny, Laney.” He ignored the Texas Ranger’s question in favor of playing the family card. “And you know how he’s always up to his eyeballs in shit. Why, just the other night he was hooting and hollering to Seth Moore and me over a game of poker that he was fixin’ to be a rich man. He told us the deal he made with those Special K guys was expanding all the way out to Lubbock.”
“Tell me, Wyatt,” Gunner interjected, “how cozy are you with the Special K?”
Wyatt reached for the screen door. “Never touched the fucking shit.” He sent a pleading look my way, knowing his mother would skin him alive if he did anything stupider than he was already doing. “You believe me right, cuz?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is there anything else you’d like to get off your chest, seeing that Gunner and I went out of our way to make this house call?”
He gulped hard, but shook his head. “Feel free to use the firing range, free of charge,” he said while closing the door on our faces.
Studying me from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat, Gunner kicked himself upright off the side of the trailer. “Well, I don’t see the need in wasting such a sweet deal.”
I adjusted my gun holster. “This is not a date.”
“Wasn’t going to ask,” Gunner said, muffling a laugh with his hand.
I am pretty damn sure Locked and Loaded wasn’t up to code when it came to policies to abide by for firing ranges. There weren’t any cinder block buildings where a paper man zipped out to shoot. Wyatt had gone the cheaper route by staking ten posts in the rocky land with empty beer cans placed on top. The ground was a dry, parched yellow and flat as the eye could see. Stickers stuck to my pant legs as I walked through them. Cottonwood trees spanned the left side of the empty field. Tumbleweeds rustled past, and ragweed began to make my nose twitch. I turned around once to look at Gunner. His head was down as he used his hat to block his face from the clouds of dirt circling the air. I touched my dusty, flyaway hair. It might have been better to have worn my hat after all.
After five minutes of swirling dust blasting my face, we reached the rotting, outer posts. Beer cans split open by bullets littered the sparsely growing grass. I kicked one aside. Underneath it was a half-burnt joint. I bent and pinched the joint between my fingers, dragging it to my nose for a quick sniff. The reek of burnt grass nearly made me gag. My dimwitted cousin had definitely been out here earlier. I flicked the weed aside.
“So, is this how you spend your down time?” Gunner’s voice whistled behind me.
“Yeah,” I said, realizing even as I said it that he now had me fingered for a woman marrying a man who stuck his arm up cow butts and whose closest friend was a 9mm. The image was truly sad.
Gunner picked up a few cans and lined them up, one by one, down the posts. Then he pulled his semi-automatic out of its holster, popped in a clip, and fired. A can flew back and landed on a cactus.
“Works pretty damn well for a target,” he said, holstering the weapon.
Since I wasn’t the type of woman that liked to be one-upped, so I pulled my Glock, squinted, and fired, clearing one post after the other. “I’ve been practicing.”
“It shows.”
The wind blew up Gunner’s black T- shirt. I swallowed hard at the glimpse of his chiseled abs. Gunner quickly took notice of the spectacle I was making with my wide eyes and cleverly tossed me a lustful wink. I blushed, and my pulse began to race.
“So do you have a special lady back in Houston?” I asked nervously, darting my eyes away from his face.
He tipped forward and pulled off his cowboy hat. “Nope, Laney. I left her here about five years ago.” He scratched his head and replaced his hat.
I gulped as a lump lodged itself in my throat. I just knew if I kept swallowing, it would wash away, but it didn’t. I could handle this. No comment like that from Gunner Wilson was going to cause me to buckle. “You don’t say.”
The corners of his mouth slid up, and dimples accentuated his cheekbones. I stared at the five o’clock shadow on his jaw, the strong lines of his chin, making my way up to his sexy lips. Remembered how many times they’d kissed my stomach and headed south below my navel.
The object of my lust interrupted my indecent memory. “You remember me telling you about the Special K tip we received in Houston?”
“Yeah.” I casually reloaded my gun.
“Well, it claimed that a rancher out here in Pistol Rock was pushing the drugs.”
I could feel my jaw start to drop, but managed to catch it before it went too far. “You mean to tell me you think Bosley’s a drug dealer?”
Gunner stuffed his hands in his back pockets and rocked onto the heels of his boots. “Not sure. I haven’t found any evidence linking the old man to the drugs. But we both know Bosley ain’t the only rancher in Pistol Rock.”
I frowned back him. “You’re talking about the Wagners.”
His smile returned. “Perhaps,” he nodded, amused by my shocked expression.
“When are you going to let this feud with Luke die?”
He laughed and pulled his hat down over his eyes. “When I nail his criminal ass. We both know the man’s dirty. He’s a Wagner. Just wait. He’ll slip up, and I’ll be more than willing to haul him into county lockup.”
“You’re holding out on me.” My hands hit my hips as I stepped closer to my tongue-wagging cowboy. “Why did you come out to Bosley’s ranch? And does Pacey Monroe’s death have anything to do with your Special K case?”
He shrugged. “Houston didn’t give me much Intel. The tip that an area rancher is involved in the ketamine outbreak came from an anonymous caller claiming he’d witnessed Special K being sold around town. He told Houston he worked the ranches out in Pistol Rock. I’m still not sure if the tip came from Pacey, but it’s looking damn suspicious that the man was found dead right after I arrived back in town.” He flashed me a look I didn’t want to read. “Given the history Pistol Rock and I have, my boss thought I was the best man for the job.”
His grin widened as he moved in for the kill, skimming his thumb down my cheek until his callused hand caught my chin. I bit my lip, knowing nothing good could come from me sneaking a taste—although, I would’ve given my right arm to melt in his arms and sample that sinfully delicious mouth again. He leaned into my personal space, placing his mouth at my ear. Ah hell, he still smelled as clean as a cotton sheet. His smile pressed into the side of my neck, electrifying my pulse.
“I took the job because we both know you want me back,” he whispered, tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear.
I gritted my teeth against temptation. “You’re an impossible man, Gunner Wilson.”
“So I’ve been told,” he admitted, reveling in tormenting me.
Instantly, I wanted away from the bastard. I dug a heel into the hard ground and spun around, stalking back toward the cruiser.
“Now, Laney, don’t be like that,” Gunner called, chasing after me.
As I stuck an ass
ertive middle finger in the air, a droplet of rain breezed past the back of my hand. I lifted my chin and looked up at the sky. It had turned a hazy gray with pillowing clouds at the horizon and a chill starting to blow across the parched land. Perfect. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck out in the rain with Gunner.
Before I had a chance to take off in a mad dash for the cruiser, the rain came down in torrents.
“Looks like you could use a little help there, sweetheart.” Catching up with me, Gunner smiled and quickly covered my head with his hat. I turned my face into his chest, and we sprinted for the cruiser. When we got there, he opened the passenger door and slipped his arm from my shoulders. I lifted my face to him. He smiled and swept a wet piece of hair out my eyes. Gaze fixed on him, I slid inside the cruiser.
“Wasn’t that fun?” He laughed, shaking off his cowboy hat and jumping behind the wheel. His shirt was drenched and clung to the rippling muscles of his chest and arms.
I tugged at my blouse, trying to stop it from sticking to my breasts.
Gunner was clearly enjoying the free peepshow. “A little nippy down there,” he observed.
I looked. Sure enough, my nipples were popping out like a thermometer in a Thanksgiving Day turkey. I crossed my arms over my breasts and gave him a stone-cold look.
“Just commenting, darling,” he said and turned the car on, put it in gear, and punched the gas. Mud squished under the spinning tires. He tried putting the cruiser in reverse. A lusty roar erupted, but the cruiser sunk deeper.
Oh shit, God. Please don’t do this to me, I prayed frantically, even though I wasn’t sure if he was listening.
“Are you talking to God?”
“Well, if you must know…I’m begging him to get me the hell out of here.”
“Would it be so bad if you got stranded out here with me?”
“Yes!”
As if in response to my annoyance, the tires chose that moment to screech and leap out of the pocket of mud. The cruiser jerked forward and steadily moved in the direction of the sheriff station. Good thing. My mother would have a cow if I was even a minute late to our regular Monday lunch dates.
“Looks like God answers your prayers,” Gunner muttered, disgruntled, as we hit the open road.
The tires bumped through the ruts on the flooded country roads. Rain puddled in the streets, making it a nightmare of a drive. Every time we hit a large enough puddle, Gunner took the “don’t drown, turn around” route so we wouldn’t wind up sitting on the roof of the car waiting for rescue. The land around Pistol Rock hadn’t seen rain in four mouths, which made flash floods a real possibility if the thirsty earth didn’t guzzle it down the right way.
We finally made it back to the station just as the rain had died, leaving behind a muddy mess. Gunner threw the cruiser into park and turned toward me. “Looks like we’re home,” he said opening his door.
I nodded. “Thanks.”
He stepped out and tossed me my keys. “Always a pleasure, Laney.” Eyes on me the whole time, he shut his door and walked on into the station.
Chapter Four
I was supposed to have lunch with my parents, so thirty minutes after leaving Gunner at the station, I was in their driveway. I pulled in and let the cruiser idle while I took a good look at the place.
The ranch style home was in need of repairs with a shabby, peach paint job on the siding, three overgrown boxwoods in an untidy row under the single, living room, bay window, and a short, cement front porch that spanned the left side of the house and sloped toward the driveway.
Familial obligation had pulled at my gut ever since my father was diagnosed with acute liver failure three Christmases back. Though I’d never let anyone know, I stuck around Pistol Rock to keep an eye on him—and to make sure my mother fed him his daily dosage of pills.
As usual, he was parked on the porch in his wooden rocker staring at the lawn with the intensity of a drunk gazing into his empty rocks glass. He’d retired from Freedman’s Meat Packing Company ten years back due to a bad hip. When painkillers didn’t help dull his constant discomfort, he turned to drink, despite his doctor’s advice against it. As a retired drunk, he drives my mother bonkers. I think she sometimes wishes she’d stuck with Luke’s father, Mitch Wagner, when she’d had the chance. The man might be a prick, but he was a wealthy one, and my mother could have lived with that.
Sighing, I put the Malibu in park and placed a boot on the paved drive. The stale odor of cigar flumes whiffed up my nose as I approached my father. His mouth widened into a smile when he caught sight of me.
“Laney, you look like a drowned cat,” he laughed.
My father always knew how to make me feel good about myself. I tugged at my clothes self-consciously. “Had a little incident with the rain.”
“I can see. Your mother’s going to have field day when she gets a look at you,” he said, rocking back in his chair. His eyes automatically closed as his hand habitually raised the beer for another swig.
“Is that you, Laney?” my mother shrilled.
“Yes,” I hollered, opening the screen door. I wasn’t sure who else she was expecting. It’s not like my parents got many visitors.
Most of the inside of my parents’ house pre-dated 1978. The couches in the living room were a brown, floral print and still had the plastic thrown over the fabric. Back in 1983, Hardy’s furniture store in town was having a huge blow-out sale. My mother bought three fake wooden tables encrusted with gold leaf inlay for our living room, costing her fifty dollars. Those tables were the newest purchased items in the house. Everything else, as a testament of her hard work and dedication, my mother had decorated with Marlboro Red merchandise she had earned from her rewards catalog. Above the fireplace mantel was a Marlboro leather jacket framed in glass. The coasters on the end tables, the calendar on the fridge, the printed wallpaper in the foyer, the clock above the television, the toilet seat covers in the bathrooms, and the fleece blanket on the couch were all courtesy of Marlboro. Not only was she proud of it, but she could tell you how many points and how many packs of reds each item cost her.
I walked down the hallway lined with snapshots of me from the day I popped out at the hospital to the fateful day Gunner tried to have me arrested. Quite possibly, my mother was a hoarder.
I crept into the galley kitchen. The smell of fried chicken lay heavily on the air. It was an odor I’d grown up with, so instead of smelling greasy, it smelled like home.
“Smells yummy,” I said, rounding the corner.
My mother pivoted, dangling a cigarette from her wrinkled lips and a spatula from her hand. “Well, there you are.” She puffed a cloud of smoke at me. She was wearing the pearl earrings my father had brought back after a weekend of gambling our savings away in Shreveport. It’d been a gesture of goodwill seeing that he didn’t want to get ripped a new one by my mother when he got home.
I walked in closer, picked a wing off the plate of chicken, and took a bite. “So how have things been?” I asked, licking my lips.
My mother gave me a full body scan. I caught her eyes stopping at the center of my chest. She had that look that could make a grown man cry.
“It seems I’m doing better than you,” she scoffed, scooping a couple chicken thighs from the frying oil while dropping ashes into it.
I shrugged to show her she couldn’t get to me no matter how hard she tried. “Got caught out in the rain, that’s all.”
She swung her left hip forward and placed a hand firmly on her knobby hip bone. “That’s not what I’ve been hearing,” my mother said, “I heard from Miss Stevens that you’ve been seen around town with Gunner Wilson.” She waved the greasy spatula in the air, slapping a splotch of grease on my cheek. “Laney, you’re practically married.”
I swiped the grease off my face. “Mom, Gunner’s here for work, and Miss Stevens should learn to keep her trap shut,” I sharply replied, “so don’t get yourself all worked up over nothing.”
“That boy’s a bad s
eed,” she said, placing the rest of the chicken on a platter.
“I thought you used to like Gunner.”
My mother snuffed the butt on the stove top and flicked it into the sink. “That was before you met Mr. Perfect.” She wiped her hands on a Marlboro dish towel and picked up the platter of fried chicken. “Now, if Nathan had been in your life five years ago, we wouldn’t have had that little embarrassment with the shotgun.”
No one in my family liked to admit that me shooting Gunner hadn’t really been an accident. We all knew it was an intentional act on my part. However, never admitting we were wrong was the Briggs family motto.
I grabbed a basket of rolls. “Mom, you just like Nathan’s money.”
“Well, that, too,” she said, shooing me off to take my place at the table.
My father had already taken his seat. He picked up his napkin and stuffed it into the neck of his sweat-stained undershirt. A koozied beer was to the left of his knife. I knew if I looked under the table, I’d see his cooler wedged between his feet. He was known to reload after every four bites. He claimed his mouth dried out quickly.
I poked my fork into a juicy breast of chicken. Immediately, my mother slapped my hand away. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting something to eat,” I replied confused.
“Oh, no you don’t, Laney. You have your dress fitting in three days.” She pushed a plate of salad in front of me. “I whipped this up just for you. We don’t want you bursting any of the seams on your dress.”
I forced a smile. “Jeez, thanks.”
I had never measured up to my mother’s standards. The weight issue was a hot topic, even though I wore a size six and fired a perky set of boobs at twenty-six—hey, I had to be proud about something. I forked up a bundle of lettuce and shoved it into my mouth.
“Yummy,” I mumbled.
My mother grinned and pulled off a piece of her fried chicken. “See, I knew you’d like it,” she said all chirpy.
I did my best to ignore the screwy woman whose joy at eating fried chicken while I ate air was making me feel testy.