Pretty Reckless (Entangled Ignite)

by Jodi Linton

  Dobbs snorted. “I can’t believe you told her. I told you to keep quiet.”

  “Hell, Jimmy,” Nathan shot back, “I bent over backwards trying to keep her out of this mess. I set up that beating outside of Rusty’s hoping to knock some sense into her. I even did that damn dog hoping to scare the shit out of her. But she’s always had a knack for screwing things up.”

  Shit. He’d had me beaten, and he’d killed my dog when I thought things between us were still good. I was a fucking idiot.

  I heard him pace the floor.

  “Jimmy, you said this would be easy money. Now we’ve got people dead and the Texas Rangers in town. Doesn’t seem easy to me.”

  “How was I supposed to know that prick Wilson would come back to town?”

  The conversation had turned nasty, and the tempers had become heated. Last night, when he’d started to lay it out, Gunner had been right, and now everything was starting to make sense. I sucked up my sanity and decided it was time for a little reality check—for all of us.

  “It’s seems y’all both went to a lot of trouble for nothing,” I said. They turned toward me. I managed a shrug. “I’ll bet it seemed easy,” I told Nathan. “You’re in debt to your eyeballs. Dobbs offers you an out, and everything’s fine until Bosley wants to be dealt in.”

  I forced myself not to flinch when Nathan bent and tipped my face up to meet his eyes. “All you planned to do was kill a few cows to put a little scare into him. But then everything went to shit.

  “Pacey heard your conversation with Bosley, so you had no choice but to do him. When Gunner showed up, you had to erase your trail, so Dobbs killed Skinny, and you did Bosley, but it’s over now. If you touch me or Gunner, you risk bringing the full force of the Rangers and every other law enforcement agency down on you, because”—my lips twisted and I stared hard at them—“we take care of our own.”

  “Shit.” Dobbs slumped against the counter, nervously wringing out his sweat-soggy handkerchief. “She’s right,” he told Nathan, straightening and fumbling his weapon out of its holster, “we’re fucked.”

  “Dobbs,” my voice cracked.

  Dobbs shook his head dismissively. The next thing I knew, I was staring down the barrel of his gun. Before I had a chance to even try to throw myself out of the way, a shot blasted off, rattling my eardrums. I was on my belly, trembling, when I heard Nathan’s voice buzzing in my ears.

  “Thought you were a goner, didn’t you?” he said, grabbing my hair and pulling me to my feet.

  “Holy shit…” I gasped. “You shot Dobbs.”

  The line of his mouth tightened, and he gave my hair another yank. “Dobbs was a waste of tax payer’s money.”

  “Get off me,” I yelled and shot my boot back at his knee cap.

  We tumbled backwards. Nathan’s grip on me slackened when he slammed into a chair and fell, losing his hold on my gun. It thudded to the floor, and I spotted it lying a foot from my fingertips. I struggled to my knees and saw Nathan dive for the weapon even as I scrambled to beat him to it. The pistol slid away from both of us. My heart hammered, and I could feel his breath on my neck. I slammed an elbow back into his nose and lunged.

  I’d like to remember things differently. Like how I snatched up the gun and whipped back around, pointing the sucker straight at Nathan’s head. And I’d like to seek pleasure in the blast that nailed a bullet to his forehead. Most of all, I’d like to block out the memory of Nathan slamming my chin into the table leg and snagging the gun out of my sweaty palms.

  “God, you just keep making things worse for yourself.” He flipped me onto my back and straddled me. “Now this is the way it’s going to be.” He clamped his fists around my wrists, pinning my arms above my head. “First, I show you what it’s like to be screwed until you beg me to kill you”—he snickered—“then I’ll kill you.”

  He flattened down on top of me. “And just so we all go out with a bang, I’ll call the good Texas Ranger and tell him you’re in trouble, and when he races to your rescue, I’ll put a bullet in his head, too.”

  “Gunner’s going to kill you,” I bit out. “No matter what you do, it’ll never work. We have evidence of you selling the drugs. There’s a paper trail about your financial troubles a mile long. No matter what you do, they’ll know, Nathan. They already know.”

  But I was wasting my breath. He was too far gone to understand anything that made sense.

  Perhaps he always had been.

  “What evidence?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow over at the sheriff’s lifeless body. “Dobbs was the last person alive who knew anything, and when Gunner and you are in the ground, my secrets will be buried with y’all—”

  He broke off at the sound of the door bursting open and boots storming in our direction. The rage in Gunner’s brown eyes as he charged into the kitchen and catapulted into Nathan was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  “You mother fucker. I’m going to kill you,” he snarled.

  I scrambled out of the way, screaming “Grab the gun,” at myself, trying to break through the tears blurring my vision. Swiping the blood from my mouth and nose with the back of my hand, I hobbled to my feet.

  A lamp crashed, and the couch screeched across the wooden floor. I saw the flash of bodies barreling toward the wall. Then I saw Nathan bash Gunner’s head into the wall. Gunner responded with an uppercut to Nathan’s jaw.

  Blood splattered my curtains as Nathan stumbled and fell onto the coffee table. I saw him scrabble beneath the table for something, and then he came up with the gun pointed at my head.

  My gun.

  “Say goodnight, my love,” Nathan said, slipping a finger around the trigger.

  “NO!” Gunner shouted.

  And then I heard a gun fire.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The days were hot and dry, and my lawn looked like it’d been nuked in the microwave and left there. We didn’t have a new sheriff yet, but it’d been three weeks since the shooting, three weeks since the gravedigger lowered Nathan into the ground, and three weeks since I’d learned that Boomer really had gone back to his mother’s after running his truck into that stop sign while driving drunk for the first time ever.

  It had also been three weeks since Gunner moved back in with me while the dust from Dobbs’s and Nathan’s ketamine case settled and were cleaned up. Things had been unbelievably good between us until five days ago when he’d gotten a phone call from his office in Houston and bolted.

  Oh, he’d been all lovey-dovey apologetic beforehand, telling me there was just some stuff he had to take care of and then everything would be fine. Problem was, no matter how I felt about him, I still wasn’t sure I could trust him, let alone believe him about anything that dealt with us.

  I’d spent the days since his departure trying to go about my business as usual—just because Pistol Rock no longer had a Sheriff didn’t mean we also no longer had crime, such as it was. Elroy and I had been busy—well, I’d been busy, anyway—cleaning up the mess Dobbs had left behind, sorting through his files, and trying to do damage control when the whole Special K thing wound up hitting the national evening news.

  Lazily, I pushed open the picket fence gate and made a half-hearted attempt at dragging my ass into the garden. Spending an afternoon under the dead heat of the Texas summer sun, hacking away at the brittle earth on my day off—life sucked. With Gunner either out of town or just plain gone—no matter what he’d said, I was keeping that option open, no matter how much I wanted to believe otherwise—I was alone again. Paranoid though it might be, it felt like I was back to being the girl folks gossiped about on Friday afternoon while tossing back a cold one, then prayed for over the Sunday potluck.

  I squatted, slowly lowering my knees onto the hard, dry dirt. My bruises had faded, but my heart was still on the mend—no matter what kind of bastard Nathan had turned out to be, the fact that I’d trusted him enough to think I might love him hurt like the dickens almost every dang second of every dang day. Gun
ner being around had helped with that a lot, but he wasn’t here, and I’d been alone long enough for the pain to catch up with me.

  I was about to reach for my garden tools when the sound of tires rolling up my drive stalled me. I dusted my palms on my white, cotton tank top, tucked a few strands of dull, brown hair behind my ears, and turned around to greet my unwelcomed visitor.

  Parked on top of my prickly lawn was a black Yukon. The driver’s door swung open, a pair of long legs clad in Wrangler’s stretched out of the cab, and then Gunner stood in my yard. Heart in my throat, I watched him casually scan my pathetic garden and slowly zero in on me. A smile tugged at his cheekbones, and he headed across the yard toward me. “I don’t think it can be saved,” he said.

  I lifted a hand to cover my eyes so I could look up at him. “Miracles are known to happen.”

  “Every damn day,” he agreed and rocked back on his heels and pushed his hat back on his head. “Laney, I—”

  “Gunner, don’t.” I pulled myself up out of the dirt, smeared my hands down the legs of my jeans, and pushed through the gate.

  “Okay,” he said. “But you might want to know I got myself stationed in Odessa.”

  I looked at him a minute in disbelief. “Odessa?” I whispered, waiting for him to tell me I was dreaming, but all he did was smile.

  And hold his arms open.

  “Odessa!” I breathed—and then I shrieked, “Odessa? You bastard! You got yourself stationed an hour away, and you didn’t bother to—”

  But I got no further because he’d crossed the space between us, scooped me into his arms, and put his mouth at my ear. “I wanted to surprise you,” he murmured. “I thought you’d be okay with my working close enough to Pistol Rock so I could be here with you.”

  “Okay?” I mumbled as tears started in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I smacked his chest with a fist. “You giant prick. I thought…I thought…”

  “I know, sweetheart.” His mouth brushed just below my earlobe. “That’s why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to get your hopes up in case it didn’t work out.” He moved in and nuzzled my shoulder. “There was no way I was going to leave my girl again. And my boss and I both agreed it would be a damn shame for me to pass up my one chance at happiness.” He finished the longwinded explanation by placing a soft kiss on the nape of my neck.

  For a moment, I just stared at him in disbelief. Then something that felt a lot like forgiveness and maybe even happiness stirred inside me, and I forgot I’d ever been mad at him.

  “Do you think it’d be all right if the prodigal jerk came home, Laney?”

  I wrapped my arms around his waist and gazed into his eyes, unable to hold back a smile at the wicked grin spreading across his face. “Tell me, then. How do you plan on making this so unforgettable?”

  He grabbed me, pulling me against his rock hard chest. “Darling, I’m about to lay a kiss on you that’ll be so good, you’ll still be thinking of me when your hair turns grey.”

  When he bent to kiss me, I decided life was looking more reckless and promising by the minute.

  And boy, did I love a reckless ride.

  Acknowledgments

  I have to give a big shout-out to my amazing husband, Jared. I could never have gotten PRETTY RECKLESS published without your support, time, and belief in my writing. You were the first to read and fall in love with Laney, Gunner, and all things Pistol Rock. Thank you for loving me so I could take a leap of faith and pursue a lifelong dream.

  My two kids, Jake and Maggie, y’all are the best son and daughter a mother could ever ask for. My days are brighter, and my life has purpose since the two of you stepped into the world.

  My super agents, Sharon Belcastro and Ella Marie Shupe. I couldn’t have asked for better sidekicks. Thanks for taking a chance on a debut writer. Y’all have gone above and beyond the call of duty, and I owe my deepest gratitude to the both of you for seeing something in me and running with it. Working together is so much fun. I’m truly appreciative of the friendship and support you two have given me.

  My editor Terese Ramin, your editorial insight can’t be match. You got me from the start, and that means the world to me. I can’t thank you enough for loving Laney and the whole Pistol Rock gang like I do and helping me tell her story. I truly have learned so much from you, and Laney would not be the Laney today without your attention to detail and patience with a newbie writer learning the ropes.

  And to all the talented people at Entangled who helped turn this manuscript into a book.

  And to the writers of Ignite, Entangled, and the local Austin Romance Writers chapter, thank you for all the guidance and advice.

  And thank you to my grandmother Ruth for playing make believe with me in her living room.

  Finally, to my writer friends, who I have yet to meet in person, but who reached out to offer support, guidance, jokes, and HOT pictures which helped get me through my first publishing journey. You guys, rock! I’m very lucky to have made the connections.

  And to my readers, I can’t wait for you all to start this wild ride with Laney. Enjoy.

  About the Author

  Jodi Linton grew up across the street from a cow pasture, where she was more likely to been seen selling Kool-Aid in a Dixie cup at ten cents a pop, or inviting neighbors over to watch one of her plays staged on her father’s Bass boat. Even though she never owned one of the bovines, she’ll admit that the smell of cow manure had a lasting effect, making it easy to spot a cow a mile away.

  In 2001, she traded in the rednecks, cowboys, and mesquite trees of her hometown to chase destiny out west. After a few years of mucking it around with the roughnecks, dust storms, and droughts, she decided to dust off her boots and head home. With a History degree in one hand and a marriage license in the other, she followed her husband in 2006 to the Texas heartland, fabulous Austin.

  Somewhere down the line, she started writing. Maybe it was the boring job search, or maybe it was the crazy characters dancing inside her head that help put pen to paper. Whatever the case, writing sure beat the heck out of working for a temp agency. The first story was about a boy lookalike Indiana Jones who chased after vampires in small town Texas. The second story was aYA contemporary about the Grim Reaper, and well half-way through she decided to shuck them both, partly due to the birth of her son, and mostly because she wasn’t awe struck with the premises.

  Taking a break from writing to raise her son, she filled the time by reading, and insistently fell in love with mysteries, especially ones with witty, spunky heroines. Four months later, she had a manuscript about a smart-mouthed deputy and her rotten ex-boyfriend dueling it out in small town Texas.

  After settling into the Texas Hill Country with her husband and two kids, she joined the Writer’s League of Texas, and signed with The Belcastro Agency. Today she can be found cozied up to the computer escaping into a quirky world of tall tales, sexy, tight jean wearing cowboys, and a protagonist with a sharp-tongue quick enough to hang any man out to dry.

  There’s a good chance she’s brushed paths with a few of her characters, but she’ll never tell, those lips are sealed.

  Other Books by Jodi Linton

  Watcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy

  (novella, coming in summer 2014)

  Pretty Shameless

  (coming fall 2014)

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  On a Texas night twelve years ago, Vic Vargas kissed Delaney West so deeply that she almost came apart. Later that same night, evil crept into Delaney’s room as she slept – and everything in their world fell apart. Now Vic is a rancher living a half-empty life punctuated by one-night stands and a strained relationship with his 11-year-old son.

  Then Delaney returns to San Julio, and the past comes rushing back… along with the dark echoes of that night so long ago. Livestock are dying. Some say coyote, but others whisper another darker word. Chupacabra. Bloodsucker.

  The past hasn’t disappeared – nor has the instinctive desire that snaps and crackles between Delaney and Vic. And as those emotions ignite, so does the evil that hibernated for the last twelve years. The evil that waited for Delaney to return to San Julio… and to Vic Vargas.

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  Read Curse of Passion, also by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez

  http://www.entangledpublishing.com/curse-of-passion/

  Three River Ranch

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  This cowboy doesn’t know what he’s in for...

  Real-estate tycoon Mitchell Granger has a problem. In order to secure a lucrative deal with an eccentric client, he told the teeny white lie that he was engaged…and now he needs to prove it. Even worse? The only name that came to mind was Sabrina Becker, the girl he was never good enough for growing up, and who still lives near his family ranch.