Broken Fences (A TroubleMaker Novel, #1) (2 page)

“All right.” He
sighed. “How ‘bout we make a deal then?” His eyes swept suggestively down her
body. The heat from his hot look lingered behind, and when she didn’t respond,
he said, “Come on, girl. I
know
you’re a risk-taker.”

She remained
silent, because he was right. She was a risk junkie, and that was the only
reason she’d bought the bar. She’d never been able to resist a challenge, and
she certainly wasn’t going to resist Colden’s now.

He stood there
for a few seconds, penetrating her with acute eyes. After a fleeting glance to
the center of the bar, he grinned. “How ‘bout this. You stay on that there
mechanical bull longer than I do, and Jimmy’s all yours. You can take my little
brother behind the bar and rough him up a bit. Hell, if you win, I’ll even help
you.”

Knowing that
Colden wasn’t the mechanical bull-rider in the family, the deal took her by
surprise, much like his unexpected visit. The one and only time she’d seen
Colden get up on the thing, he hadn’t lasted longer than five seconds before
being tossed onto his fine ass. The fall had injured his backside as well as
his pride, and it had been difficult to watch. Whenever Colden James did
anything, it was usually done to perfection. Unlike most things in his life,
the mechanical bull was something he just couldn’t seem to conquer.

“It’s not gonna
happen, but just for shits and giggles, what do you get if I lose?”

“You’ll make
like a genie,” he said, running a finger over the top of his beer bottle. He
slid his hand down the neck, gripped, and then lifted it.

“A genie?”

“Yup. You’ll
grant me one wish,” he said before taking a sip.

“And what would
your wish be?” she asked, watching him take a long, slow gulp of the beer. His
neck thick and taut she wanted to sink her teeth into it.

He finished
swallowing. “I think,” he said, leaning in closer to her, “for shits ‘n’
giggles, we’ll keep that a surprise.”

“This surprise
has to be legal and…moral,” she wagered, recalling that adultery was immoral.

His eyes
twinkled with mischief. “It’ll be perfectly legit.”

Up for the
challenge to put his sex-smelling, fine-looking ass into its rightful place,
Dusty smiled wide and cocky. “Okay.”

Always
competitive, Dusty mounted the bull like a pro, and everyone in the bar stopped
to watch her. Normally, the owner of The Bucking Barrel didn’t ride the
electric beast outside of official competition, sometimes she romanced the bull
when the bar was closed and no one was around, but this was a battle she
couldn’t back down from.

At top speed,
the bull would buck sixty-five times and spin forty-five spins in sixty
seconds. Dusty lasted on the beast at top speed for fifty-six seconds. It was
nowhere near her best time, but she knew it’d be nearly impossible for any
amateur to beat. She climbed down from the saddle with a smug grin on her face,
then marched confidently back to Colden with the crowd cheering in the
background.

Colden was still
leaning against the wall, and his eyes had never left hers.

She stopped in
front of him. “Okay, cowboy. Let’s see what you got,” she urged, still trying
to catch her breath from the ride and the heated look Colden stroked her with.

He grimaced.
“Now that I think about it, you’re right. My brother needs to fight his own
battles.” He took a swig of his beer. “I’m gonna pass, but let me know if you
need any help getting him out to the back of the bar,” he said with a wink.

“What!” Her
mouth dropped open in astonishment. “Why the hell did you make that deal with
me if you didn’t plan on following through?”

“I just wanted
to see your cute little ass up on that bull.” He winked. “You know…for old
time’s sake.”

Not once, but
twice the smug son-of-a-bitch had had the audacity to wink at her! Dusty’s
hands clenched at her sides. “St. James, I am not here for your entertainment!
We had a deal. Now get your bony, cocky ass up on that damn bull right now!”
She wasn’t one to enjoy a win without actually winning it, and she stomped her
foot to let him know just how serious she was.

“All right, all
right. Calm down, girl.” He raised his hands and chuckled, a deep, sexy noise
that tickled her insides. As he strutted away, he dropped his beer on a nearby
table.

Hot damn.
She’d
forgotten all about that, his walk
.
And his ass wasn’t bony at all. It
destroyed those worn-out jeans. They were doing what she wanted to be doing,
clinging to him in all the right places.

“I’m only
staying on long enough to beat your time. Not a second longer,” he said, not
even bothering to look back.

Pulling her eyes
from his amazing backside, she smirked. “Oh, okay.”

“I mean it.”
This time, he glanced at her from over a broad shoulder. “The second I beat
your time, shut that damn thing down. Ya got me?”

“Oh, I got you all
right.” At least, she had him and that amazing ass for one night six years ago.

Dusty walked
over to the controls, turned around, and found that Colden was already situated
on the electric beast. Once more, everything inside from the neck down had
dropped to the floor. For a split second, she wished she was the electric bull.
She’d seen cowboys climb up there countless times before, but none of them
compared to an all grown up Colden James. He secured one hand to the saddle and
stretched the other out in the air, flexing the tattoos that snaked around his
bulging bicep. The bow of his back had every muscle outlined by his tight
shirt, and his thighs swelled beneath his weathered jeans. Black boots dangled
with authority from long, sturdy limbs. And, of course, those wicked James eyes
beamed right down at her.

Colden grinned
and gave a slight nod, and Dusty hit the button. The beast started right up. At
around forty-three seconds, when Colden still looked to be in total control,
Dusty started to get nervous. She lost all track of time until the loud
one-minute buzzer went off. The sound shook her from the shock. She slammed her
hand on the button to stop the bull.

Holy shit!
Colden had beaten her time, but that wasn’t what had her squirming inside. It
was the naughty smile on his face and the thought of having to be his personal
genie. She shuddered to imagine what the man would wish for. She tried to
relax.
At least he won’t be rubbing this genie to get his wish
. No
matter what his emerald eyes were saying, she was sure he wouldn’t ask for anything
naughty. After all, the long-lost do-gooder was married, and had three kids.

Chapter
Two

Colden jumped
down from the mechanical bull, grabbed his phone from his pocket, and texted
the agent stationed outside his parents’ home to inform him to keep an eye out
for Jimmy. Sissy had shown up, and from the looks of it, she was about to take
his little brother’s drunken-ass home. Colden was taking a risk letting Jimmy
and Sissy out of his sight, but to be fair, it was only a four-minute drive to
their parents’ ranch, and there’d been no sign of Riggs since Colden had
arrived in town four days earlier. If Vince Riggs, Detroit’s biggest gun
smuggler, planned to retaliate against Colden and use his family to do it, he
hadn’t made his move yet.

Colden ordered
two beers at the bar and watched as Dusty gave her cousin a hug. He knew it was
going to be tough being back in Odessa, especially being so close to Dusty
Owens again, but he couldn’t take the chance of anything happening to her
because of him.

Back in Detroit,
once Colden’s cover had been blown, the first person he thought of was Dusty
and that fucking little star tattoo just below her left eye. A distinct and
identifiable factor in the troublemaking picture. The snapshot he’d
precariously carried around in his wallet for the past six years. The photo
that had disappeared a few days prior to his cover being questioned.

The FBI couldn’t
be sure where the leak had come from, and they had no idea whether or not Riggs
knew Colden’s real name or where his family lived. Until it was all sorted out,
and due to budget costs, they’d only agreed to put one detail on Colden’s family
around the clock. The special agent in charge, Jack Norton, had chewed him a
new asshole when Colden had confessed about the photo of Dusty, the one he’d
allegedly “forgotten” about in his wallet. Jack had told him, “Well, you stupid
fucker, now she’s
your
responsibility. Maybe you won’t forget that.”

So, for the past
four days, Colden had been tailing his responsibility.

His family
hadn’t even known he was in town until that morning, when one of the agents did
him a solid and, on his own time, watched over Dusty while Colden checked in
with his parents. That was when he found out about the wedding and realized he
had a legit reason for returning home, a reasonable excuse that Dusty would
buy. The way he’d left her had been wrong on so many levels. He’d taken her
virginity and skipped town the very next day, an asshole move if there ever was
one.

He watched Dusty
wave goodbye to Sissy. When she twirled around, nearly black eyes scanned the
place just as they had when she’d first arrived at the bar. His body was still
on edge just from being so close to her. Dusty Owens had always had a way of
making all of his man parts go all hard. She even messed up his head. Since the
moment he’d first laid eyes on her, he’d been overly protective of her, to the
point of being possessive. Back in the day, he’d convinced himself that she
belonged to him, and although he’d always been reluctant to take her himself,
he was glad no one else had tried. It could have caused some trouble in Odessa,
Texas, but Colden had been a different guy back then.

He’d believed in
discipline, but he’d thought in order to control it, one needed to be reserved.
It had held him back from Dusty, among other things. Years of working
undercover had taught him that reservation took too damn long and was too much
work. To be in control and still survive, one needed to be fearless, a quick
thinker and without any hesitation. He’d learned that he had to take what he
wanted when he wanted it, period.

He laughed at
his new way of thinking. It was going to cause all kinds of problems where
Dusty Owens and all of his man parts were involved.

When they landed
on him again, her eyes slanted. He flashed a smile her way.
Yep, all kinds
of problems.
He called her over with a tilt of his beer. She glared at him
but gave in and headed his way.
That’s it, girl. Come on over here.

“You still
here?” She snatched the beer he was offering and took a long sip.

“I got nowhere
to go in a hurry,” he said, watching her lick the leftover ale from her lips
and wondering if she knew how sexy it was. He growled a bit on the inside as he
realized other guys were probably enjoying the scene too.

Her pretty mouth
curved upward, as if she knew she was driving him and most of the other males
in the room crazy.

Keeping his eyes
locked on hers, he took a swig of his own beer. “The years have been good to
you, Dusty.” He set his beer down. He was pleased by the flicker of surprise he
caught running across her face in the wake of his compliment, and he wanted to
see it again. “Then again,” he said, swaying toward her over the table,
“Odessa’s Southern belles…well, they never could hold a candle to the likes of
you, Dusty Owens.”

This time, her
expression didn’t give her away. Instead, her smirk widened. “You might not be
in a hurry to get anywhere, but chivalry isn’t gonna get you there slowly
either, St. James.”

Oh, how he
missed that quick tongue of hers. “Chivalry? Why, I don’t need chivalry to get
me what I want.”

A skeptical,
arched eyebrow joined her little smirk. “No?”

“Nope.” He shook
his head. “First, I kindly ask for what I want.” He dropped his eyes to her
mouth.

“And then?” he heard
her barely whisper.

“If that doesn’t
work…” He leaned closer, looked up to find her big, beautiful, bated eyes
peering back at him. “Well, sweetheart, then I just take it.”

She may not have
even known it, but he saw it. Her body veered back from him. Satisfied by the
reaction, he slumped back in his chair and took another swig of beer. She
glared at him, but he only grinned back, until she finally blinked and looked
away.

“So I take it
you’re here for the next two weeks,” she sneered, clearly annoyed and irritated
by the thought.

Whether her
obvious angst stemmed from the fact that he’d just kicked her ass on the
mechanical bull or that he’d won their little stare-down, he wasn’t sure.
Regardless, she was holding a grudge, one that was etched into every crease on
her pretty face. Sure as shit, she was sore at him, no doubt for any good
reason. Maybe it was more deep rooted, something that went way back to when he’d
taken her virginity. In his defense, a little warning would’ve been nice. He
truly hadn’t known until it was too late. She hadn’t exactly been the portrait
of innocence. In fact, she’d been the one pursuing him.

“Dusty,” he
quietly said.

Her eyes danced
around the bar in a blatant effort to ignore him, to act as if he wasn’t even
there.

“Look…about the
way I left…” he started, unsure where he was going to go from there.

Her wandering
eyes snapped back to him, and a hand shot up. “Stop right there!” She shook her
head. “Let’s not stroll down Memory Lane, St. James. I’m completely over it. I’ve
moved on…and so should you.”

“Yeah, I can see
that.” He glanced around the bar, allowing her the time she apparently needed.
If she wasn’t ready to talk about the past, he’d stick to the present. “You’ve
really made some improvements to this place. That’s a nice addition on the
back, and I love the new name, The Bucking Barrel. Fitting, since you’ve got a
mechanical bull. That’s not some run-of-the-mill machine either. Looks like it
set you back some.”

The spitefulness
in her eyes softened a little. “I got it a few months ago. When Aunt Lulu
passed away, she left me a stipend in her Will. I used it to buy the bull and
pay off the loan for the addition.”

“Lulu? The aunt
you stayed with in New York before coming here?” He still remembered Dusty
Owens, the New Yorker with pink streaks in her hair, a loud-mouthed, big-city
girl. It hadn’t taken long for the people of Odessa to realize that Dusty Owens
took shit from no one, a trait Colden had always admired.

A slow, long
smile teased across her lush lips. “You remember that?”

“Girl, I
remember a lot of things,” he admitted. In fact, those Dusty memories were
sometimes just what he needed to get through the day.

Dusty cautiously
watched him from the corner of her eye as she took another long sip of beer.

He nudged his
head. “Doing a bit of mud-restlin’ on the side, huh?”

Her forehead
crinkled. She followed his eyes to her shirt, then laughed. “Yeah…with a pig.”

Colden’s
eyebrows crept together.

She sobered and
explained, “You remember Jesse Walker, that kid everyone said carried his pet
gerbil in his pocket at school?”

Colden confirmed
the legend with a nod.

She continued.
“Well, he still likes to keep his pets close. Every time I see his truck
outside, his pig is crated in the back. Thing is, Walker couldn’t make a secure
cage if his life depended on it. I’m constantly chasing after his runaway
animals. Too bad I don’t like bacon, ‘cause if I did—let me tell you—I’d be
damn tempted to eat Jesse Walker’s best friend.”

Colden
restrained himself from laughing, but he did permit a small smile to spread
across his mouth. While time may have made her even more beautiful, Colden
deduced on the inside that Dusty Owens hadn’t changed too much, something he
was thankful for. Although, a pretty girl was always nice to look at, he
preferred a woman with some substance to her, and Dusty had lots of that. She
was smart, funny, and tough, as well as kind-hearted and honest, sometimes to
the point of being painfully honest.

It was the smart
part that worried Colden. As nice as it was to follow her around, Colden was
done tailing her ass. The agent in charge wanted Colden to come out from the
shadows to try and draw Riggs out, and while Colden wasn’t too fond of that
plan, he understood why. He had to get up close and personal to keep Dusty
safe, but he sensed that before he had the chance, she was going to shut him
down.

She gazed at him
with vigilant eyes, and he could tell she was going to confront him.
Furthermore, she was fully prepared to squash him in the process
.
Just gotta
hold out a bit longer
,
he told himself. He knew he needed to be patient,
to wait for the prime time to catch her off guard, a moment that rarely came
for Dusty.

She began to
open her mouth, and he assumed his time had run out. The quick thinker in him
stood on command but was saved by a petite blonde.

“Dusty,” the
girl said, interrupting the careful stare-down Dusty was aiming his way.

Her eyes slid
over to the blonde, who appeared to be an employee, maybe a waitress.

“Sorry,” the
girl said with a grimace. “Sam’s trying to cash out for the night, but she’s
havin’ problems with the register.” Her big blue eyes flashed at Colden. “I
tried to help, but—”

“It’s okay,
Liz,” Dusty clipped, pulling the blonde’s eyes back to her. “I’ll go take a
look at it.”

“Thanks,” little
Liz said, turning that sweet smile on Colden before she walked away.

Dusty watched
the employee caper off. “Cute, isn’t she?” she asked. Her eyes shifted to
Colden, but he wasn’t watching the perky blonde walk away. He was looking right
at Dusty.

“I guess,” he
said with a shrug, giving the waitress a fleeting glance, “if a guy’s into
breakable blondes.” He turned back to Dusty. “As for me, I prefer something a
bit more…sturdy, with dark hair and even darker eyes.”

A short chuckle
slipped from Dusty as she stood up. “The way you break fences, you’d need
somebody like that, St. James,” she cleverly snapped prior to walking away to
help with the register.

This time,
Colden allowed a full-bellied laugh to break from his gut. He’d figured right.
She was still sore about the whole fence ordeal.

Granted, she was
correct. He hadn’t been able to handle himself that night. But hell, after two
years of watching her, two torturous years of yearning and needing and two
painfully long years of desperately wanting to be inside of her, Colden had
lost it. For Dusty, since it had been her first time, he could only surmise it
had been rough and probably painful. When he heard that fence snap under their
combined weight, beneath the pounding he was doing to her body, it had taken
everything in him to stop them from falling to the ground. The break was a
blessing, really, for it had jolted him back to reality and saved Colden from
doing some real damage to the girl.

* * * * *

Dusty grabbed
the remote and settled into the sofa cushion, releasing a sigh. After fixing
the register problem, she’d looked for Colden, but he was nowhere to be found.
Trying not to fixate on his sudden disappearance, something he seemed to be all
too good at, she’d jumped in her truck and headed home. Now, in her cozy
clothes, nestled down to finish watching her favorite show, she kept wandering
to Colden. His cocky little smile, that damn walk, and those allusive eyes. The
distraction had her rewinding her program three or four times to see what she’d
missed while fantasizing about a man she’d never be able to touch again.

Forget about
St. James
. She hit the back button—
click, click, click—
rewinding the
program as her mind slipped back to the image of Colden atop that bull. The way
he’d handled the electric beast, she was sure he’d been practicing somewhere.

Shit!
She’d passed the start of her show again.

She knew she had
to stop thinking, stop obsessing over him.
Click, click, click.
She
straightened her arm and pointed the remote at the TV as though it would work
better that way, then beat down hard on the forward button.

He’s married,
with three kids, and—

A rapping noise
echoed in the room, and her finger stilled on the button. The show shot forward
in fast motion as she tilted her head to be sure she’d heard right.