by Becky McGraw
Ronnie knew Trace Rooks was not guilty. She knew that someone was being paid off. But she made the recommendation to him, because sometimes that’s just the way things worked in politics, and in law. During the pre-trial conference Judge Jennings had intimated he would be amenable to probation. No big deal.
It became a big deal at the actual sentencing when Judge Jennings handed down a three year prison sentence that stunned them all, and then her appeals had fallen on deaf ears. Later, she figured out the judge had probably been paid off too. Too late, Ronnie also heard whispers around her office that Senator Leland Rooks had been a busy boy behind the scenes. That his son was being taught a hard lesson about crossing his daddy. The man must be a cold bastard to do that to his own son.
Ronnie had gotten her promotion, but Trace Rooks had paid the price for it.
In the end, it hadn’t made a damned bit of difference to her father. He’d sent her flowers and that damned ink pen. From Antigua. Where he was on vacation with his latest fling. A woman just two years older than Ronnie.
Ronnie never got the whole story though. She had asked Trace, but he wouldn’t talk to her again after they carted him off to prison. After that, she stopped digging because some things were better left under the rock where they were hidden. She knew if she dug around too much, she might turn over that rock herself, and wind up in the same position as Trace. If Leland Rooks could do that to his own son, he wouldn't hesitate to take care of her too. At least Trace hadn't had to serve the entire term.
For unknown reasons, he had been released six months early.
It wasn't for good behavior, that was for sure. Trace had been in fights with other inmates every time they released him from isolation. Ronnie had kept up with him, while he was incarcerated. The warden at the prison had put him into general population. An ex-cop in general population usually didn't survive to the end of his term. He had obviously made it through the ordeal alive, but not unscathed.
Everything about the man was hard now. His face, his body and his attitude.
Her eyes moved to the scar on his cheek. Trace was damned lucky that was the only souvenir he had from the experience. Even with the scar though, the man was more good looking than he had a right to be. More so now, in her opinion. Before, he was a cocky, silver-spoon fed, pretty boy. The scar just made him edgier, more masculine. So did his new attitude. But those scars, both physical and mental, probably also reminded him of the time he spent in jail when he looked in the mirror every day and the cause for it. Her.
No wonder he hated her so much, and had become so hardened.
Before his prison term, Trace had been a smooth-talker, a man who knew the effect he had on women, and used it to his advantage. Back then he was charming enough to make even her want to take her panties off and hand them to him on a silver platter. That didn't happen often. Men usually had to work damned hard to get Ronnie’s attention. Trace Rooks had done that with one of his sexy smiles.
Trace Rooks wasn't smooth anymore though, and she hadn’t seen him smile once. He was rough, always ready for someone to take a swing at him. A man who used abrasiveness like a coat of quills to protect himself from the world. Sort of like her.
If she was going to help him, she had to find a way to get around that coat of quills. Maybe an apology would be a good start to mending fences with him. "I'm sorry for how things turned out before, Trace. I know it must've been...rough for you."
All he did was grunt in response. But Ronnie saw his shoulders tighten and the muscles in his back flex tightly under his t-shirt. Ronnie didn't apologize, ever. Things were what they were, and she couldn't second guess herself in her profession. If she showed one ounce of weakness, her peers and opponents would eat her alive.
For her to give Trace Rooks the apology he deserved, she had let down her defenses, put her own quills aside. And all he could do was grunt? Ronnie was winding up, prepared to blast him, but before she could, Trace grunted again, then without looking up, he asked sarcastically, "You charging by the hour to sit here and stare at me?"
"Trace, stop being an ass, and let me help you."
He snorted, then lifted his head to pin her with his angry dark eyes. "Like you helped me last time, sugar? You gonna get me sent to the pen for life this time?"
"That's what I'm trying to help you avoid," she replied with a frustrated sigh. "If you did something to Leigh Ann Baker, you need to tell me."
"I didn't do a damned thing, just like I didn't do a damned thing last time. But that won't matter, they'll crucify me anyway, and I'm sure you'll help them drive in the nails."
"So, she's alive?" Ronnie asked, zoning in on what he really said.
"I'm not saying anything, so you can just march your tight ass back out the same door you came in, Veronica."
"Do you have counsel?"
Trace huffed out a short breath, and Ronnie flinched as he sat up and slammed his hands down on the table. "What the fuck do you care if I have counsel? Even if I wanted you to represent me, which I'd be a fool to even consider, I don't have a dime to pay you. I know you like your expensive things," he said, his dark eyes glittering angrily. "My daddy isn't paying you this time. So, you're wasting your time here, Ms. Winters."
"I'll do it pro bono," she offered quickly.
"Why would you do that, Ronnie?" he asked warily. Heat shot through her as his eyes took an insolent tour down to her breasts, then back up to her eyes.
"Because I want to make it up to you."
Trace wanted to laugh. If she hadn't gone into law, he thought this woman would definitely have made a killing as an actress. Her tone had just the right amount of sincerity, her brown eyes were just earnest enough, to make him almost believe her. But he wasn't a fool. He knew Ronnie Winters always had an agenda.
"You could spend a lifetime trying to make it up to me, Red, and still have miles to go when you're eighty. You helped them take two years of my life that I'll never get back."
Not to mention his career, and his dignity. No, apologies weren't going to fix what she had taken from him, done to him.
"I didn't have a choice," she said and dragged her eyes away to stare at the wall. At least she wasn’t saying it wasn’t her fault anymore. That was progress, he supposed.
"There are always choices, Red. You made the wrong one, and one day you will pay for it, just like my daddy will," he promised.
Trace hoped that would be sooner rather than later, but he had enough fish in the frying pan right now. He would deal with her later. But he did want to revisit his own agenda. Finding out the truth about why she'd sold him out.
So, Trace went fishing. "You don't need to lie. I know why you sold me out, Red."
She had either been sleeping with Leland, or he had paid her off to put him away.
"You know?" Her voice broke on the words, and her face couldn't look any guiltier.
Disgust traveled thorough his every pore. Trace shoved his chair back and stood. Breathing hard, he leaned over the table. Almost in her face, he ground out, "The old man must be a damned good fuck to have you panting to do his dirty work. Could the old bastard even get it up? I thought you had better taste." Trace shook his head and backed away a little to look at her through narrowed eyes. "Or did he pay you? How much, Ronnie? How much was two years of my life worth to the old fuck? To you? Did you buy that fancy sports car you drive with that money?"
Her hand flew to her throat, and her eyes slid to his shackled wrists. "I wasn't sleeping with him," she said indignantly.
But she didn’t deny he had paid her off. Trace finally had his answer.
"Bullshit. I know you didn't fix his problem for free." He wanted to know how much she had been paid. This is the information he had been waiting for three years, and if he had to strangle it out of her, he would.
Trace had become Leland's problem when he made the mistake of confronting his daddy about some things he and his partner had discovered in the course of another investigation. Things that could ha
ve put Leland behind bars, or at least have him removed from office. Trace thought because he was family, he would give Leland the opportunity to explain himself, rather than taking it through channels and letting the D.A. handle it.
Big mistake. Next to trusting Ronnie Winters, the biggest mistake of his life.
Leland had laughed it off, and tried to convince him he was imagining things. Butter couldn’t have melted in the old bastard’s mouth. But after Trace left his office, his daddy went to work covering his ass and hanging his son out to dry. His partner had lost his life over it, and Trace had lost his freedom. Dead men didn’t talk, and convicts were not credible witnesses. Problem solved.
Trace was arrested and convicted of negligent homicide in his partner’s death, and possession of narcotics. Then Leland hired Ronnie Winters, supposedly the best criminal attorney in Amarillo, to represent him so he kept face with the public. He pandered to the cameras and news crews as the shamed, but supportive parent of a fuck-up. A bad cop. Then he paid Ronnie to put a knife in Trace’s back, and twist it a few times.
It all made perfect fucking sense to him now.
Senator Leland Rooks was a master manipulator. A spin artist. A seasoned politician. That is why he had been in office as long as he had, even with people knowing what they did about him. It was also why his own mother had walked around with blinders on for so long. Leland was damned convincing. Trace was glad that Allison was finally seeing the light. After thirty years, she had filed for divorce. It was about damned time.
"What problem?" the beautiful redhead asked, batting her eyes in confusion. Ronnie Winters was beautiful, but she was also like poison in a perfume bottle. And just as lethal. He had learned that the hard way. He wasn’t falling for her act again.
"Get a better acting coach, Ronnie. And stay the hell away from me," he said with contempt, then yelled, "Guard!" as he walked around the table to stand by the door. It flung inward and the guard filled the door. He took a threatening step toward Trace, but Ronnie rushed over to him.
"I'm not done with him yet," she said with a pointed look at Trace.
Well, he was done with her.
If it took getting his ass kicked by this burly guard to get out of this small room with Ronnie Winters before he killed her, that is what he was going to do. Just like he'd kicked those other inmates asses in prison so he'd' be put in isolation, so he could at least sleep with his eyes closed. Trace would do what he had to do to survive.
Trace met her eyes, then put his shoulder into the guard, knocking him off balance. The burly guard grunted, then shoved him into the door, before taking him to the ground and slamming his head into the floor with a forearm to his neck. Pain shot through his skull, and Trace saw stars. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, and he figured he'd either bitten the hell out of his tongue again, or his nose was broken. It wasn't a little blood.
The guard pushed down hard on his back for leverage to stand, then yanked Trace up to his feet. Definitely a broken nose, he thought as his airway closed off, his head swam and blood dripped down his face onto his shirt.
Veronica gasped, and Trace smiled at her, as the guard pushed him through the door ahead of him. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, he thought, laughing as the guard led him down the hallway. He definitely had the will to pay Ronnie Winters back, and he would find a way to do that.
CHAPTER THREE
"Get your ass up.” Goddamn, Trace loved that wakeup call. All prison and jail guards must be trained the same way, because every one of them said the same thing.
Trace sat up on the edge of the cot and squinted his eyes trying to focus. Since his incident with the guard yesterday, his vision had been in and out. They’d taken him to the nurse, but all she had done was pack his damn nose and give him ice. He imagined this morning his eyes were going to be as blue and swollen as his nose was yesterday.
Add a crooked nose to his scar, and he was going to have to beat women off with a stick, or they would beat him off. At the rate he was going, pretty soon Quasimodo would have more luck with women than he would. Trace wasn’t worried about that though. There was only one woman on his mind these days. A certain redhead who he owed a rude awakening, but even she wasn’t his first priority. Taking down Leland was. Trace was so damned close to doing that he could taste victory. If he could just get the hell out of here to finish what he started.
Pushing up off the cot, he swayed on his feet and swallowed down the nausea that rushed up to his throat. That nurse said he didn’t have a concussion, but Trace didn’t believe her. His head felt like he had been hit with an iron skillet, and every time he moved too quickly, he wanted to hurl. His price for getting away from Ronnie Winters, and he would pay it again. He put his hand over his stomach to ask the same question he asked every time a guard came into his cell. “Am I getting out?”
When the guard walked inside, Trace assumed the position against the wall, but the guard grabbed his shoulder, instead of cuffing him. "You're out. I don't know how, but we just got the order to let you go."
Trace knew how. Susan Whitmore, Special Agent In Charge of the Dallas FBI office, had finally sprung him. He was thankful, but damn, it had taken the woman long enough. He’d been in here for more than a week. He was impatient to get out, but he trusted Susan to do what was best for him and for the operation at the Double Bar Ranch. If that meant spending a few more days in hell, he would do it. And thank her. If all this worked out in the end, he had a lot of reasons to thank the woman.
She might be a tough cookie, but miraculously, she had listened to him when nobody else would. Trace had written to her, saved up the pennies he got from his labor in jail, and then paid to have it snuck out through the convict underground mail. In an eight page handwritten letter, he had told her his story. Instead of ignoring him, Susan had looked into it, and then she offered him a deal—help her nail Leland and she would get a year shaved off of his sentence. A win-win proposition in his book. But something nobody else in Texas would do.
Leland Rooks wielded a heavy and long stick in the Lonestar state. Most people wouldn’t dare cross him. Trace was crossing him, and crossing back, because his father meant absolutely nothing to him now. Less than nothing. He had lost everything because of that man. Trace wasn’t afraid of him, because he had nothing left to lose. And the beauty of it was Leland had no idea he was doing it. His father had even helped him get the job at the ranch after he was released from prison.
Trace had to apologize to him and beg for his help getting that job, of course. It was the most difficult thing he'd ever done in his life. But somehow Trace had convinced Leland that he believed he should have covered the old bastard's back. Shoved all the information he had about him under the rug, and forgot about it. Even though it barely fit through his throat, Trace also thanked him for all he had done to help him when he was fighting the charges. Paying for his attorney. Pulling strings with the judge to lessen his sentence. Putting him in fucking jail for three years, was something Trace didn’t thank his father for though. Taking him down would be his thanks for that.
Leland had bought it and Ray Brown hired him on Leland's recommendation.
The guard shoved him toward the cell door and Trace cast him a hot look, shifted his shoulders then took a deep breath as he walked out of the door into the hallway. Trace stood back, while the guard opened the outer door and he walked through first. Heading across the lobby toward the front door where he saw sunshine and freedom, Trace stopped in his tracks when Ronnie Winters stepped out of a side room and called his name. A harried looking Lieutenant stepped out behind her. Without a word, the man walked off, his back stiff.
Trace knew how the man felt. Every man who came into contact with her was either instantly intimidated or scared shitless. That's why most men steered clear of her. Trace wanted to steer clear of her for another reason. He just didn't have anything to say to Ronnie Winters. When she needed that damned backbone of hers to save his ass, she sold him out.
Unforgivable.
"What the fuck do you want, Red?" Trace asked as he shoved open the front door and inhaled deeply of the clean air.
"I'd like to talk to you. I thought I could give you a ride to wherever you're going," she offered stepping outside and letting the door shut behind her.
"I have nothing to say to you, and I'd rather walk," Trace grated as he walked down the steps.
She rushed behind him down the stairs. "I got you released.”
What did she want? A fucking prize? "I'd say thanks, but it's the least you owe me," he replied sarcastically, but stopped as the implication of her words sunk into his brain. The FBI would have gotten him out if it was safe for him to be out.
"Fuck," he said shoving a hand through his hair.
"What?" Ronnie asked, coming down the steps to stand beside him.
“What you did is probably get me killed.”
"Really? Why do you think that?” Ronnie asked walking beside him as he stalked across the parking lot.
“Quit following me, Ronnie,” he replied gruffly as he reached the sidewalk. “Slither back under whatever rock you crawled out from and leave me the hell alone.”
She grabbed his arm, and Trace spun around, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. If she didn’t leave him the hell alone, Trace was afraid he would go with his instinct to just strangle her. Then he would have real problems.
“Trace, I want to help you,” she persisted and his irritation grew.
At the point that her voice and words almost felt like sandpaper rubbing against his brain, Trace turned to wait for the traffic to clear. “Help yourself, Red and stay the hell away from me,” he growled, then started across the street to the pay phone he saw beside a convenience store. He had to call Susan and tell her what had happened. They needed to regroup and fix this shit, before Leland found out.
If Ronnie and Leland weren’t in cahoots, she could have signed her own death warrant too by getting involved, because Leland would think they had double-crossed him and were working together. Leland knew exactly how he felt about Ronnie Winters, and would definitely get suspicious when he found out she had gotten him out of jail.