Pretty Reckless (Entangled Ignite)

by Jodi Linton

  I blinked and wiped away the rain. “This one needs a ride to the hospital,” I said pointing at Gunner still stretched flat on his belly in the puddle-filled parking lot.

  Nodding, the emergency tech said soothingly, “We’ll take care of him, ma’am,” then went about checking Gunner over while I watched. A minute later, I got the impression the EMT was trying hard not to laugh while Gunner ground his teeth and looked like he wanted to smack someone.

  “That outta do it,” the medic said, still fighting a grin. “I’ll get the gurney.”

  I followed and tapped him on the shoulder. “Is he going to be okay?”

  The medic laughed as he grabbed some sort of bandage from the ambulance. “Honey, the man got shot in the ass,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve heard of anybody dying from that.”

  For a second, I just stared at him. Then a fizzling snicker spilled out of me, and I quickly cupped my mouth, trying to hide my wide grin. At least now I knew Gunner wasn’t a suspect. The man would have to be insane to get shot in the ass—twice.

  I got control of myself. “We also have a dead one over there.” I pointed to Bosley, who’d taken a bullet directly to the center of his forehead. From the looks of it, I believed he was the intended target.

  “Sorry…” he searched my face, looking for my name.

  “Deputy Briggs.”

  “I’m sorry, deputy. I don’t deal with the dead ones. That would be the coroner.” He grimaced and pulled the gurney over to Gunner and rolled him on his side to apply the bandage to his left butt cheek. Then he and his partner hoisted the Texas Ranger carefully onto the gurney, strapped him in, and rolled him into the ambulance. Once the medic stepped inside, too, I poked my head past the doors.

  “Everything okay?” I asked Gunner.

  He twisted his head to see me. “That’s my sweetheart,” he told the attendant in a voice that was starting to slur. “She tried to kill me.”

  I laughed—shocked—then quickly sputtered, “He has no idea what he’s talking about.”

  “You blew a hole in my ass,” Gunner said in a garbled voice—then he sighed, and his head dropped onto the gurney.

  The medic smiled in disbelief. “Holy shit! You’re Laney Briggs. You’re a legend.” He chuckled and started Gunner on an IV. “We used to talk about you back in school. I went to Harper’s Ridge High. Loved the mug shot, by the way,” he said, twisting Gunner’s IV to a drip.

  “Damn it, it was rock salt. Has nobody else done anything stupid around here?”

  “Nothing like plug a guy who became a Texas Ranger,” the medic said.

  “That’s hard to believe,” I huffed. “I know a lot of people who wanted to shoot him and never did. Some might call that stupid.”

  While the EMT hooted, I turned to tell Gunner I’d meet him at the hospital, but he was already snoring. After the ambulance drove away, I started toward the bullet-riddled Yukon where the Odessa Mobile Crime Lab was busy collecting evidence. Well, hell, now I was out not only a way to get to the hospital, but back to Pistol Rock, as well.

  “Deputy Briggs,” a gruff voice called.

  I stopped and looked up at the giant, slowly lowering my gaze to the gold star pinned to his stocky chest.

  “Sheriff Daryl Lindsey,” he said, reaching out a hand.

  I took his firm shake and tried to keep my wits about me.

  “I just need you to wrap up some paperwork on this mess. Hopefully, you can explain why a Texas Ranger was shot in my jurisdiction and why an old man is lying dead in the parking lot.”

  I gulped and nodded, then followed Sheriff Lindsey inside the sheriff station.

  The intense interrogation lasted two hours before I was released from the Odessa sheriff’s department offices. Sheriff Lindsey demanded that I leave my weapon with them—SOP in any officer involved shooting, but that didn’t mean I liked it—and send over all the paperwork on Bosley Conrad’s case and arrest. I told him Pistol Rock would fax it by tomorrow morning. Not that I expected Dobbs to jump on a task that fast, but my quick response got me out of Dodge a whole lot faster.

  Once I noticed the crime lab wasn’t even close to being done with processing Gunner’s Yukon, two of the deputies were nice enough to offer an Odessa Sheriff cruiser as a loaner so I could pick up my wounded Texas Ranger. Before I left, one of them even asked for my number, but I simply waved my ring in his face. He apologized and then told me to drive safely.

  If only the damn ring worked like that on Gunner.

  Just as I was ready to drive over to the Odessa Regional Medical Center, they called to inform me Gunner was already released and would be waiting in the emergency docks for pick up. Normally, having the receptionist fill me in on how lovely the Texas Ranger had been to his attending nurse would’ve made my eye twitch. But then again, I was cruising down the highway in a clunker that made my department vehicle look like a shiny new Beemer.

  …

  The rain had petered off by the time I hit the road to the hospital. Annoyingly, the burrowed cruiser’s console squeaked the entire drive. I pulled into the parking lot of the Odessa Regional Medical Center. A tiny, blonde nurse was standing by Gunner’s wheelchair at the discharge entrance. I watched his hands tugging at her purple scrubs. That sure was a quick recovery. And judging by the look in little miss Florence Nightingale’s eyes, she seemed to be enjoying his twiddling fingers. Even though I was an engaged woman, and he was probably as high as a kite, it still irked me to see her flirting with Gunner. I threw the gears into park and wrenched open my door.

  “Does that ass of yours repel bullets now?” I asked, eyeballing the blonde nurse.

  “It was just a flesh wound. Nothing a big, tough cowboy couldn’t withstand,” the nurse told me as she patted Gunner on the shoulder.

  Gunner rocked forward in the wheelchair, smiling. “She gave me her number.”

  I snapped the paper from him. “He won’t be needing this,” I said and handed it back, glaring at her as I slid an arm under Gunner’s shoulder to help him to his feet and into the loaner cruiser. His weight and drugged good humor proved too much for me, and he stumbled before falling face down onto the back seat, snickering.

  “See, I told you she would be mad,” he sputtered into the leather seat.

  I grabbed his cowboy hat from the nurse’s hand, threw it at him, and slammed the back door shut. “Thanks.” The word came out bitchy, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying anything more. Damn it, I was engaged. What right did I have to be jealous of anyone Gunner wanted to…

  Ah hell. I was jealous, that was just the long and short of it. No matter what passed between us, I was still that little high schooler, following him around like a puppy. And he was still the big, badass cowboy dead set on luring me to my doom.

  Unhappy with myself, the nurse, and Gunner in particular, I got into the driver’s seat and drove the cruiser out of the lot.

  It had been one goddamn horrible day.

  …

  An hour later, Pistol Rock Motor Lodge came into view. The drive home hadn’t been bad since Gunner slept the whole way. I rolled into the parking lot, turned off the cruiser, and found the keys to his room in the plastic bag labeled “Wilson’s Belongings” that’d been sent home with him from the hospital. I grabbed them and hopped out. The keys rattled in my trembling hands. It’d been five years since I stood on a doormat of the Pistol Rock Motor Lodge. Lord, that night hadn’t ended well for either of us.

  Marty Stockherd and his wife Chrissie owned the run-down Lodge. They even lived in room ten, adding a kitchenette in the tiny space for themselves a few years back. Pistol Rock Motor Lodge used to have nine rooms available, but after Chrissie had the twins, Bobby and Carter, it went down to eight when they co-opted room nine into the family home. Dead bushes were stuffed into the rotting flower boxes outside the office entrance and Ziploc bags filled with murky water hung from the porch awning in an attempt to ward off the mosquitoes.

  I strode purposefully
up to room six and stared at the battered, green paint job on the door before sticking Gunner’s key in the lock, wiggling it a bit because I remembered the lock tended to be out of true, and opening the door. Nothing had changed, but I hadn’t expected it to. The rooms were still featuring a ghastly ’80’s vibe with pale peach, floral bedding, mint green carpet, and plastic gold shades over the windows. There was a small round table in the center of the room with a bundle of daisies tossed on top. I was a sucker for daises. I walked over and picked up the photo lying next to the flowers. It was of us at a Tim McGraw concert. I’d never imagined he’d still have it.

  When I was seventeen, I snuck away with Gunner to Dallas. The next day, my father showed up at the motel and hauled both our ass’s home. That sucked. No girl wants to be caught by her father fresh-from-the-shower naked and wet and wrapped in her boyfriend’s arms. To this day, my father hasn’t let me live that one down. I sometimes have the feeling that’s why, when things between my mother and me get tense about the wedding, he advocates for me dropping Nathan and choosing Gunner. In his old-fashioned wisdom, he still believes the man who popped his little girl’s cherry should make an honest woman of her.

  There was a knock on the door frame. I turned to find Gunner bracing his weak body against the doorway.

  “You staying the night?” he asked, giving me a droopy smile.

  “Nope,” I said and quickly put the photo down, “and you shouldn’t be walking, either.”

  I went over, took the weight of his sluggish body on mine, and dragged him over to the bed. He fell sideways onto it and pulled me down on top of him, brushing his index finger across my mouth.

  “Stay with me Laney,” he mumbled.

  Pushing myself up with both hands, I looked down into his tired eyes. “You’re exhausted. Get some rest. There’s Tylenol on the end table with a glass of water, and I’ll have Dobbs come by to get you in the morning.”

  I walked out, locking his door behind me as the pressure of the entire situation—from my engagement to today’s shooting—built inside me, and surrounded my heart once again.

  Chapter Nine

  I parked the Odessa cruiser in front of the station and locked the doors. Tying my tangled hair back with an elastic band, I headed across the street to Rusty’s Saloon. After the day I’d experienced, I could sling back a couple of beers.

  Our local bar was older than dirt. The pine exterior walls were rotting away at the edges, leaving flakes of black wood chips covering the sidewalk beneath. There was one window that faced Center Street and a stoop that was commonly used by the nightly vomiting drunk. In the mornings, Rusty Weir could be found with the water hose in hand, blasting away the dried stuff from the pavement.

  I waved at the two older men perched outside the door in lawn chairs, making suggestive comments to any passing woman, and pushed through the door into the dingy, smoke-filled air. It was hazy, and the flashing, crystal blue and green lights overhead hurt my eyes. I knew if I went right, the odor of moth balls from Rusty’s taxidermy office would make my eyes water and overpower the stale fumes of cigarettes. A stained oak wraparound bar sat in the center of the room, and behind it was a wall lined with liquor cabinets that showcased beer cans all the way back to the 1950’s. The only pool table was pushed up against the back wall. Rusty had purchased the table three years ago to help bring some entertainment to the bar. He’d thought a game of pool would put a stop to the brawls that always erupted by ten o’clock. It didn’t help. Once the clock struck ten, there never failed to be a fist thrown by a toppling-over drunk who took exception to something someone else said or did.

  And then there was Buster, the bucking bull, our local claim to fame. Many a fine but drunken man had tried to ride out old Buster only to find himself on his ass, rubbing his aching noggin at the other end of the room. Watching the nightly, um, entertainment never failed to relieve a day’s tedium.

  I pulled out a stool at the bar and hunched over on my elbows, calling for Rusty.

  “What’ll it be?” Rusty arrived in front of me, scrunching up the sleeves of his red plaid, flannel shirt.

  “A Shiner,” I said, “with a Jim Beam sidecar.”

  “Rough day, Laney?” he asked in his grizzly, smoke-seasoned voice. He twisted the cap off the beer before he started on the bourbon.

  “If you only knew,” I replied, wrapping my hand around the chilled bottle. I chugged back half of the beer and wiped my mouth.

  He smiled, uncovering the years on his face. The fine skin had gone slack over the years and was pale from all his years burrowed up in his dingy bar. He had wrinkles evenly spaced along his upper lip like longitudinal lines on a map.

  “Gunner giving you a run for your money?” Rusty said gruffly, but sincerely.

  “You could say that.” I polished off the rest of the beer and pick up the bourbon.

  Rusty grunted to show he understood, then asked, “So when’s the vet back in town?”

  I crossed my fingers and said, “This weekend.”

  He pulled out a white dish towel and started to mop up some excess water on the bar top. “Hang in there, kiddo. Soon, you’ll have this whole damn case solved, and that son of a bitch Gunner will head back to Houston where he damn well belongs.”

  “Cheer’s to that.” I raised my bourbon in a heartfelt toast to that sentiment, then tossed it back.

  He slid another Shiner in front of me and smiled at me in a way that my dad never did but should’ve. “On the house, Laney,” he said, gently slapping the towel two times on the bar top. Then he tucked it into the back of his faded pants and walked off to the other end of the bar to pick up bottles left around the pool table.

  Rusty was right about the case and all that, but I realized sitting there that one of the reasons I was at Rusty’s Saloon drinking was that I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted Gunner to disappear back to Houston. I finished off my second beer and signaled for a third. For now, I was going to drink away those nagging thoughts before they took control. I rationalized by pretending there was nothing to worry about tonight except my wounded heart.

  It was a lie, of course, and my usually reliable ability to shove what I didn’t want to think about out of the way let me down by reminding me that someone had wanted Bosley Conrad dead. The only plausible explanation for the drive by that killed him outside the Odessa jail was that someone didn’t want him blowing the whistle on the Special K or Pacey’s and Skinny’s murders.

  Sinking to rest my chin on the bar, I sighed, fiddling with the yellow label on the beer bottle. A firm tap on the shoulder made me lift my head enough to see Luke Wagner propped up against the bar in a denim button up and tight Levi’s.

  He winked and pulled out a stool. “Is this seat taken?”

  I would have liked to have said that it was taken—and might have before I drank my third beer, even though there were only five of us in the bar before Luke arrived. Instead, I shrugged and said, “I won’t be good company, but go ahead.”

  Grinning crookedly at me, Luke dropped onto the stool. I’d melted under the spell of those blue eyes for a while after Gunner first left, but things were different now. The fewer complications I had in my life, the better.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” Luke asked.

  I waved my half full beer in his face.

  He laughed and shook his head, tossing his messy blond hair. “Looks a little empty. I’ll get you another.” He raised a hand and waved at Rusty to bring us a round of beers.

  I really should have gotten up and left, or at least moved around to the other side of the bar until I’d waited off the effect of the beer enough so I could drive unimpaired, but sometimes…well, my sense of self-preservation just deserted me in the face of good looking cowboys. Still, I could feel myself squirm when Rusty came toward us down the back of the bar. He slung the white, beer-stained dish towel over his right shoulder and narrowed his gray eyes, giving Luke a warning not to cause a scene inside his bar, and then gave me the “dadd
y glare”.

  “You’ve had enough,” he told me, popping the cap on a single bottle and shoving it toward Luke.

  I considered grabbing it out of sheer defiance, but the look Rusty sent me made me sigh and drain the mostly empty bottle at hand. “Time for me to get gone,” I agreed, reminding myself that aside from me being not only engaged but a tad screwed up by the emotions raised by Gunner’s return, I was a mature, responsible officer of the law, and Luke Wagner was all kinds of bad news wrapped up in a pretty package.

  Smiling his approval, Rusty winked and dropped me a reassuring nod before walking off.

  The minute he was out of earshot, Luke leaned into me. “So what’s brings you out prowling the streets this evening?”

  “I just wanted to be alone for a while.” It was a stupid thing to say, since I’d be even more alone out at my house, but alone with people nearby was way different for me than alone with nobody around.

  “I heard about Bosley. I haven’t seen my father that happy in years. I finally couldn’t take it anymore.” He took a long draw from his beer and then slammed it down on the bar top.

  I glanced sharply at him, watching his face for any sign that he’d been behind the murder. “I didn’t think anybody knew about Bosley’s death,” I replied.

  “You know how word travels fast around here.”

  He wasn’t lying there. The murder happened in Odessa. If there was gossip to be had, Lord, just give it five minutes, and the church choir would be singing about it on Sunday.

  I knocked back the remaining dregs of my beer and rose. “Thanks for the company,” I said and started to stand.

  Luke stood up and touched my face. “Why did you leave me?”

  I winced. “Oh, come on, Luke. What we had was a drunken one night stand in a motel room.”

  Luke twirled his toothpick between his lips. “Is that what you told Gunner?”

  “Yes.” I really didn’t see why the past was so important lately. Why had nobody else moved on? I accepted a man’s invitation of marriage, and it turned into open season on bad memories and men who had no reason to remember me fondly but seemed to anyway.