Texas Hold 'Em Read online

  I smiled and leaned back on my hands. “Love at first shot?”

  “Love at first shot.” She grinned. “I was a natural, and Dad was so proud. He kept betting other kids, mostly boys at the range, to challenge me. We walked out of there that first day with thirty extra bucks in our pockets, grabbed burgers and shakes, and decided to come back the following weekend. From there Dad took me skeet shooting and entered me in contests.”

  “Sounds like a proud father.”

  “He is.”

  “Does he know what you’re up to over here?”

  Carrie shook her head. “Hell no. If he knew the mess I was in? No. I could never tell him. I’d rather he think I’m just sitting behind a desk pushing papers, keeping my head down, being a good employee.”

  I wondered what would happen to Carrie’s father if the worst happened to her. What if we couldn’t protect her? What if he got a call in the middle of the night that his little girl had been blown away by a gangbanger with one good eye and a desire to see others suffer?

  My stomach tightened.

  Carrie drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Everything okay?”

  “Hm? Yeah, yeah,” I said, shrugging off the dark thought. “Everything’s fine.”

  She stared up at the exposed pipes in my ceiling with a nostalgic smile on her lips. “My dad is the best person I know. He taught me how to stand up for the little guy, you know. Even if it scared the hell out of him to find out what I was doing here, I have to believe he’d be proud of me for holding my ground, even if it is dangerous.” She licked her lips and stared evenly at me. “I’ve never been in a fight this big before.”

  “Me neither,” I admitted. “But Jackson has, and I trust him to see us out of this.”

  “Jackson,” she mused. “Yeah, I wish I could trust him the way you do, but I’m pretty sure he still hates my guts.”

  “It’s not personal.”

  “It feels pretty personal.”

  I sighed. “Jackson just doesn’t trust easy, and for good reason. Besides, he has a lot on his plate, and technically you were wearing the enemy’s colors up until two weeks ago. You can’t blame him for being cautious.”

  She bit her bottom lip. “Do you think he’d care if he found out that we’d, you know?”

  “Fucked?”

  She blushed. “Yeah.”

  I considered it for a moment. “Yeah, I think he would. For now, we should keep it between us. He wouldn’t understand. Getting tangled up with a law enforcer would make things even more complicated than they already are. You understand that, right?”

  She nodded. “But you got tangled anyway.”

  I chuckled. “Yes, I did. But there’s something you should know.”

  She cocked her head to the side.

  “I used to be a Ranger, too,” I said.

  Her eyes widened. “Come again?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. But it’s true. Born and raised Austin boy right here.” I pressed a hand to my bare chest while she stared incredulously at me. I frowned. “Oh come on. It’s not that hard to believe, is it?”

  “A little bit! How did you end up here? Why did you walk away? How long has it been since you wore the badge?” She pressed a hand to her forehead. “I have so many questions!”

  Chapter 10

  Carrie

  Tex used to be a Texas Ranger?

  “Is that why they call you Tex?” I asked daftly.

  He chuckled as he got to his feet. “You’re clever.”

  “Ha ha.” I followed him into the kitchen, where he opened the fridge and grabbed two cans of beer. He cracked one and handed it to me before doing the same with his own. He took a greedy gulp, and a trickle ran down his chin.

  I had half a mind to grab him and lick it off, but I stayed put.

  He collected our clothes off the floor and put his boxers on. I put my underwear on but not my jeans. Those went straight into the garbage bin under his kitchen sink, and so did my destroyed denim jacket.

  Tex snatched it out of the bin. “You could salvage this with some patches.”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  He frowned and ran his thumbs over the denim. He set it down on his kitchen counter before going into the living room and falling gracelessly onto his couch. I joined him and tucked my legs up under myself.

  “Tell me more about your time as a Ranger,” I said. “Why did you join?”

  Tex stared at his beer can. “You know, sometimes I ask myself the same question. I’m not the same man I was back then. Too much has happened between then and now. I used to think the law was righteous and good in all its forms. I thought I could make a real change and help people. But…” He trailed off and shrugged. “It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.”

  I knew what he was talking about. I’d spent more time at a desk filling out paperwork than I had out on the streets making any real difference for people who needed it.

  “So you quit because you felt stuck?” I asked, understanding that feeling all too well. I loved my career. I was proud of it. It took a lot of discipline and energy for me to succeed as a Ranger. It wasn’t something I could have easily washed down the drain.

  “No,” he said, his voice sounding farther away. “No, I didn’t feel stuck.”

  “Then why did you leave?”

  He sighed. “The cost was too high.”

  “How do you mean?”

  He studied me. “Do I strike you as someone who’s good at following the rules?”

  “No,” I said. “Not even a little bit.”

  “Well, me ten years ago wasn’t good at following rules either. Or orders. And when I got sick of filling out reports while real crime was happening right under my nose, I took matters into my own hands and started going after the big guys in Austin who were creating problems for the city. Trouble is, when you’re a rookie and you hit the bad guys where it hurts, they hit back ten times harder.”

  Oh. Had he lost someone?

  My stomach twisted in knots. “Not many people have the guts to try in the first place. What happened?”

  Tex stared at the wall, his eyes unfocused and glazed. “I lost people. Family. I had to walk away from them because my choices put them in harm’s way. I had to walk away from everything. The job. My life. My family. My city. All of it, all because my ego was too big and I thought life was like the movies. I thought I had a fighting chance.” He laughed without humor. “I was fucking wrong.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. “How long has it been since you talked to your family last?”

  He tipped his head back and drained half his beer. “Eight years.”

  Eight years?

  I couldn’t imagine going that long without speaking to my father. It would destroy me. But if I had to do it for his own good? For his life?

  I would.

  “I’m sorry,” I said softly.

  He tore his gaze from the wall. “You have nothing to be sorry about. Shit happens. I fucked up and I had to leave it all behind.”

  “And you picked Reno,” I said, smiling slyly. “Why?”

  He laughed. “It wasn’t my first choice. Hell, it wasn’t a choice at all. I passed through one night and stopped for a drink at a bar. A bunch of assholes rolled in looking for trouble. I was piss drunk and bitter. I’d only left home about a week ago and I had a chip on my shoulder the size of Texas. They wanted a fight, so I gave them one. Only I was outmatched ten to one. They had me out in the back alley and were wailing on me when Jackson and some of his boys pulled up.” Tex grinned at the memory. “We unleashed hell on those fuckers. Pounded them right into the dirt. I felt invincible. Afterward, Jackson bought me a beer, and I guess the rest was history.”

  It all made a little more sense to me now.

  Jackson and the others had given Tex a home after he’d torpedoed the only one he knew. No wonder his loyalty was so ferocious. All the men would have done anything to protect each other.

/>   Tex leaned forward and pointed to a thin white scar along his lower back. “I got this that night from a broken beer bottle. Brody sewed me up right there in the bar after hours while Gabriel and Grant played darts. It feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago all at once.”

  “Home isn’t a place,” I said, reciting wisdom my father had shared with me ever since I was a young girl. “It’s wherever your people are.”

  Tex lifted his beer and knocked it against mine. “Amen to that.”

  We sat in comfortable silence for the next few minutes, and in the quiet passing moments, I thought about the sacrifices Tex had made for his family back home. Did they think about him often? Did he ever battle inner demons and question his decision? Did he long to check up on them? To pick up the phone? To ask how they were? To see if they still thought of him?

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.

  He was a hard man to read. On one hand, he was hard as nails and guarded, but on the other, he was vulnerable and honest, almost soft.

  Did the situation with Walter Bates feel similar to the mess he left behind back in Austin? Was Bates the kind of enemy he’d provoked back home and had to flee from to protect the people he cared about? Did he worry about everything coming apart again?

  Did he think about running?

  “We’re going to get him,” I said without thinking.

  Tex turned to me with an arched eyebrow.

  “Bates,” I clarified. “We’re going to get him. I know what it’s like to worry about the people you love because of choices you’ve made. And I promise I will do everything I can to help you stop Bates. He doesn’t deserve to walk around free after what he’s done, and one way or another, we will all play our role in bringing down his empire. Brick by brick, stone by stone, until the bastard has nothing left but the four walls of a cell.”

  Tex nodded slowly. “I like your grit.”

  And I like your eyes, I thought as I gazed into their depths, full of more turmoil and pain than I ever realized, but full of hope too.

  I finished my beer and got to my feet. “We should try to get some sleep.”

  He set his beer down and nodded. “Yeah, go ahead. I’ll see you in the morning.” He settled deeper into the sofa.

  “No,” I said, holding out my hand and nodding toward the bedroom. “Come with me.”

  He came. We pulled the blankets down, slid under them, and settled onto the plush pillows. At first we lay on our backs staring up at the ceiling, but I craved closeness and rolled into him. He wrapped an arm around me and said nothing as I rested my cheek on his chest and listened to his heartbeat. The drumbeat steady and strong.

  I closed my eyes, sighed, and listened to his breathing even out as he drifted off to sleep first.

  Perhaps there was more to this biker than initially met the eye.

  Perhaps he was right about the law getting in the way sometimes.

  My heart kept me awake for another half hour or so. Everything I thought I was, and thought I wanted, was becoming muddy and unclear.

  Who is Carrie Hart, and where is she going?

  Chapter 11

  Jameson

  “Jameson! Open the fucking door!”

  Carrie sat bolt upright in bed beside me. “What’s happening?”

  I groaned and rubbed at my eyes. Sunlight streamed in through the warehouse windows over our heads and cast patches of amber light on the cinderblock walls. “Fuck me.”

  “Is that Jackson?” she asked, pulling the blankets up over her breasts like Jackson was there in the room seeing her naked body.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Sounds like it.”

  Jackson continued pounding on my front door.

  “My neighbors are going to love this,” I grumbled.

  “Should I stay here?”

  I paused in the doorway of the bedroom, wearing nothing but my boxers, and turned back to Carrie, whose blonde hair was a mess falling about her shoulders. Her nose was pink, her eyes heavy with fatigue, and she clung to the blankets like she wanted to disappear inside them.

  “Up to you,” I said.

  She grimaced, and I made for the front door.

  Jackson was still pounding on it when I unlocked it and swung it open. The President stood on the other side, out of breath, glaring at me while Mason, standing just behind him, looked pleased to see me.

  “Tex,” Mason said. “Glad to see you’re alive.”

  “Of course I’m alive,” I said.

  Jackson brushed past me with a grumpy grunt, and Mason followed with an apologetic nod. I closed and locked the front door behind them.

  Jackson stopped and looked around at the bloody gauze on my coffee table. “What the fuck happened?”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “I cut myself shaving.”

  “Stop fucking around,” Jackson said.

  I sighed. “We had a bit of a run in with some of Bates’s boys on our ride home from your place last night.”

  “Where’s Carrie?” Mason asked.

  “Here.” Carrie stood in the doorway to the bedroom. She’d put on one of my shirts, and I desperately wished Mason and Jackson weren’t there. She looked hotter than sin in the T-shirt that reached to the middle of her thighs. The sleeves nearly reached her elbows. “We took care of it.”

  “Took care of it?” Jackson hissed. “We’re supposed to be avoiding heat from the cops, and now we have three more bodies on our heads. Are you fucking kidding me, Tex? What were you thinking?”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but Carrie beat me to the punch.

  “It wasn’t his fault. I shot them.”

  Jackson looked incredulously from me to her and back to me. “Oh, great. That’s fucking great. Consider me relieved. The hero cop saved our asses by killing more bastards. Thank you, Carrie.” He bowed dramatically. “What would we do without you?”

  “Without her, I’d be dead, asshole.” I moved to the door off my kitchen, shoved it open with one shoulder, and stood in the fresh air while I lit a smoke. “We didn’t have any other choice. Those guys were on us and they weren’t fucking around. If we didn’t put them down, it would have been our blood on the pavement. Carrie only did what she had to.”

  Carrie nodded at me. “Thank you.”

  “You,” Jackson hissed, pointing a finger at her. “No more talking.”

  Mason sighed. “Jackson, give it a rest.”

  But Jackson wasn’t listening. “Give it a rest? Give it a fucking rest? Listen, you can think I’m overreacting all you want, but we busted our asses to get the cops off our tail. Hell, Mason, you almost died two weeks ago! And now we have three more bodies. Do you think Bates won’t know who did it? If he sent out a hit on one of us, which I assume was exactly what happened last night, then he’s going to know it was a Devil who killed his men.”

  “Only it wasn’t a Devil,” Carrie muttered under her breath.

  Jackson’s eyes narrowed on her. “What the fuck did I just tell you to do?”

  Carrie planted her hands on her hips. “Listen, Jack, I know you’re the big cheese around here and your boys have to listen to you, but I’m not one of your fucking boys.”

  Mason whistled. I looked back and forth between Jackson and Carrie. If she wanted him to trust her, this wasn’t the right way to do it.

  “Last night got out of hand,” she continued. “Killing anyone wasn’t my first, second, or even third choice. But our backs were up against the wall. Like Tex said, it was us or them. Personally, I didn’t want to die on a backroad in Reno. But that’s just me.”

  “Bates is getting bolder,” I said as I blew smoke. “If not for Carrie, I’d be a busted pile of bones on the side of the road. One of these times, Bates is going to succeed, Black Jack. He almost did last night. And like you said, he almost killed Mason, too.”

  Jackson never took his eyes off Carrie. “And our little Ranger happened to be there both times to save the day.”

  “Yeah, you’re w
elcome.” Carrie rolled her eyes and marched out of the bedroom doorway to the bathroom. “Shit talk me all you want. I’m going to take a shower.”

  She slammed the bathroom door behind her. Seconds later, we heard the water turn on.

  Jackson glared hotly at me. “I don’t like it.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed,” I said dryly.

  Mason leaned up against my kitchen cupboards. “We thought you were dead, Tex. The news didn’t report whose bodies they found, only that there were three of them, and two were motorcyclists. You weren’t answering your phone.”

  Oops. My phone must have died in the middle of the night. I’d been too tired to think about plugging it in. Too tired and too distracted by Carrie’s body.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “My bad, boys. But I’m all right. See? No harm done.”

  “No harm done.” Jackson sighed, shaking his head and closing his eyes. He looked like he’d aged a decade in the last couple of months. “We have no idea what the ramifications of this will be.”

  “Would you rather I let them kill me?” I asked. “To save you the headache?”

  “Of course not,” Jackson said. “But it’s still a fucking mess, and I have no idea how to clean it up.”

  Nobody said anything for a few minutes. We looked everywhere but at each other, and I could practically hear the thoughts of my friends raging in their heads.

  Who’s next?

  Bates hadn’t been playing coy with us. He’d boldly placed hits on Jackson, Mason, and me. We’d be idiots to think he wasn’t already planning a fourth attack. For all we knew, it was already under way.

  For all we knew, he had all our pictures in a drawer somewhere and a giant red marker close by to draw X’s over our faces once he’d taken us out.