Colorado 03 Lady Luck (3 page)

He sat back and stared at me again. Then he
dropped his fork, grabbed his cup of coffee and stared at me while
he took a sip. Then he kept staring at me as he put his coffee cup
back.

I was over the staring so I told him, “This
conversation is bizarre. Maybe you might want to say what’s on your
mind or ask what you want to know, like, straight out and try not
to annoy me seeing as I’m not a prostitute, junkie, bookie or
sleeping with Shift or anyone like him but instead I’m a buyer at a
mid-to-upscale department store.”

“All right,” he agreed immediately. “What
the fuck are you doin’ here?”

“Shift asked me to do him a favor.”

“And how does a buyer for a department store
know Shift?”

“We had a mutual acquaintance. That
acquaintance died,” I replied, just as immediately. “Unfortunately,
the relationship didn’t die with that acquaintance because Shift’s
an asshole. He sometimes invades my life and asks me to do stuff.
It’s healthier and less of a pain in the ass to agree. So, he asked
me to do this, he’s footing the bill and I’m here.”

“No marker?” he asked.

“As in, Shift calling in one?” I asked
back.

“Or you givin’ him one,” he replied.

I shook my head. “I don’t want anything
from Shift so, no, I’ve never asked and there will never be a time
when I’ll need to call on Shift to do
anything
for me. There’s no marker involved.”

“But you’re still here.”

I was sitting across from him so I didn’t
think that merited a response.

“People don’t do somethin’ for nothin’,
‘specially bitches like you,” he noted.

I ignored him calling me a bitch, something
Shift and his crew did frequently. I also didn’t get into what kind
of “bitch” he thought I was.

Instead, I stated, “You obviously know
Shift.”

“Unfortunately,” he answered and this
surprised me. First, it indicated we had something in common.
Second, it was a five syllable word. Third, Shift acted like this
guy was important to him in some way. It occurred to me only then
that when he phoned Shift, they didn’t have a heartfelt
conversation about his joy at his newfound freedom. In fact, except
for Shift (probably) greeting him, he’d said two words to him.

I found this intriguing.

I also didn’t get into that.

As far as I was concerned, I was going to
drop this guy off wherever he wanted to go (and I hoped that wasn’t
northern Canada) or, more to the point, let him drive himself
wherever he wanted to go then I was going to go back to my
apartment, my job and my frequent musings about pulling up stakes
and getting far, far away from Duane “Shift” Martinez.

What I did do was take a chance.

And the chance I took was sharing, openly
and honestly.

So I leaned forward and said quietly,
“We’re connected, Shift and me, not by my choice. I do not want him
in my life but he wants to be there and he stays there. He can make
things difficult for me just being Shift. I know this. I avoid
this. And the way I avoid this is, when he calls me and asks me to
do something, I do it. He knows where my boundaries are and, so
far, he’s respected them. I’m not stupid, I know he’ll push those
boundaries and I know I have to get out from under this before he
does but it takes a lot of shit to start a new life and I only have
half of that shit, the half being me
wanting
to start it. The money, the job, the destination,
all that I
don’t
have. So,
until then, he calls, he asks, I do and he stays in the shadows of
my life instead of taking center stage and fucking everything up.
Hence,” I threw out a hand, “I’m here. Simple as that.”

His beautiful eyes held mine.

Then he grunted, “Phone.”

I blinked.

Then I turned to my purse, dug in, pulled
out my phone and handed it to him.

He took it and slid out of the booth,
saying, “You finish, pay the bill. Meet you at the car.”

Then he walked out of the diner.

* * * * *

Ty

“Jackson,” Tatum Jackson said in Ty Walker’s
ear.

“Jackson, Walker,” Ty Walker replied.

Silence for a long moment then, “Shit,
fuckin’ hell, Ty?”

“Yep.”

Another pause then, “Shit, brother, you
out?”

“Yep. Today.”

Another pause before, “Ty, fuck, Wood told
me it was soon but I didn’t know it was today.” He paused again
then quietly, “Fuck, Ty, good to hear from you, man.” Another pause
then, “Where are you?”

Walker didn’t respond to that. Instead he
said, “Got somethin’ I need you to do.”

More silence then, “Talk to me.”

“Alexa Anne Berry. Dallas resident. Buyer at
Lowenstein’s department store. I need everything you can get on
her.”

“Walker, I’m a bounty hunter, not a PI,”
Jackson reminded him.

“You got resources. You got connections. I’m
askin’ you to use them.”

Pause then, “Who is this woman?”

“I’m marryin’ her tomorrow.”

Silence.

Walker broke it. “You do this for me, I owe
you.”

“You’re getting married?” Tate Jackson
asked, disbelief clear in his tone.

“Yep.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yep.”

“No joke?”

“Nope.”

“Fuckin’ hell, brother, who is she? How’d
you meet her?”

“Doesn’t matter. You gonna look into
her?”

Pause then, “I’ll do what I can do, Ty, but
I don’t know how much I can pull together before tomorrow.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re gettin’ married
tomorrow, you find shit, I’ll deal with it.”

“Don’t you know her?”

Ty Walker thought about the woman he left
behind in the booth.

He didn’t know her. Not at all.

He knew she had great fucking legs,
fantastic fucking tits, a generous, round ass and more fucking hair
than he’d ever seen on any woman’s head. It looked thick, it looked
soft and he knew it’d feel good trailing on his skin. He knew she
spoke with her eyes
and
her face
even before words came out of her mouth. He knew he wanted to taste
her pussy and he knew he wanted it in a way that he’d want it even
if he wasn’t in a situation where he hadn’t tasted any pussy for
five, very long fucking years.

And he knew he was going to marry her
tomorrow.

“I know enough,” Walker answered.

Silence.

Then, “Ty, brother, is this a big setup? Can
you delay? Give me a chance to –”

“I’m not asking for marriage counseling,
Tate,” Walker said low. “I’m askin’ a favor. You gonna do that for
me?”

Silence then, “You know I will.”

Walker knew he would.

“You comin’ home?” Jackson asked.

He felt his blood heat and his voice was
like the rumble before the break of thunder when he whispered, “Oh
yeah.”

More silence.

Jackson heard the rumble and Tatum Jackson
was far from stupid so he knew what it meant.

Therefore Jackson stated, “You’re not gonna
let it lie.”

No he fucking wasn’t. He was not going to
fucking let it lie. No fucking way.

No
fucking
way.

He didn’t answer.

Jackson went on, “Best thing you could do is
let it lie. It’s done. Move on. You come home, Wood’ll take you on.
You don’t want that, we’ll find you something. You got friends,
brother, and you know it. We’ll set you up.”

This was easy for him to say. Five years of
his life hadn’t been stolen then flushed down the toilet. He didn’t
have a record. He wasn’t an ex-con needing to lean on friends for a
fucking job. He didn’t rot in a cell, sharing air with scum, eating
shit food, no pussy, no beer, told when he could sleep, when he
could eat, when he could play ball, when he could work out, what he
could wear, what he could read, watch on fucking television. No
choice. No freedom. None. Constantly looking over his shoulder.
Forced to use his fists to make his point and keep the jackals at
bay.

All that shit for five years.

Five years.

Only to come out and have a tall, leggy,
rounded, beautiful woman with a fantastic ass wearing a tight tank,
short-shorts and sexy shoes back away from him and press herself
into a car just because he leaned in to grab her fucking phone when
that shit would
not
happen
with
any
woman five
years ago.

Yeah. Easy for him to say.

“I’ll talk to Wood when we get home,” Walker
told him.

“That’d be good,” Jackson said quietly. “And
it’ll be good to see you.”

Yeah. It would be good to see Tate. And
Wood. And even Krystal though that bitch was a pain in the ass and
she was a pain in the ass mostly because she was a bitch. Still, if
she liked you, she was good people. If she liked you, she was the
best people you could have. And luckily she liked him and she’d
done what she could. So had Tate. So had Wood. So had Pop, Stella
and Bubba. But none of them could do anything to stop the shit
storm swirling around Ty Walker.

“I’ll look into Alexa,” Jackson said.

“Lexie,” Walker corrected.

“Come again?”

“She calls herself Lexie.”

“Right,” Jackson muttered, a smile in his
voice, not getting it but thinking he did.

“Catch you at Bubba’s in a few days,” Walker
said, referring to the bar Tate owned with Krystal.

“Lookin’ forward to it, Ty,” Jackson
replied.

Walker flipped the phone shut.

Then he scanned the parking lot.

Then he saw the car that picked them up a
mile from the prison.

Shit tail. Total shit. How did these fucking
guys take him down? They were all part-idiot.

Except Fuller. Fuller was all asshole. All
asshole with a badge. Not a good combination.

His eyes moved from the car into the diner.
Lexie was at their table, paying the waitress while smiling at
her.

He took in that smile.

The bitch had a fantastic smile. Nearly as
good as her tits, not as good as her ass and nowhere near as good
as her legs, still, it was good.

She finished paying and walked toward the
doors, hitching her purse strap up on her shoulder with one hand,
her other hand going into her hair at her forehead, pulling the
thick, shining, waving dark mass back, lifting a huge bunch of it
at the back of her head and shaking it a couple of times before
dropping it only for it to fall into and around her face again,
settling on her shoulders and streaming down her back.

He felt his cock twitch.

Fucking magnificent.

Shift chose well. Who knew that useless,
piece of shit motherfucker had the likes of Lexie on tap? It was a
miracle.

He watched her move and noticed she walked
in those shoes like she was barefoot, her hips swayed with her
strut, the lifting of her arms moved her tits and, when he could
tear his eyes off her, he saw the two men sitting at stools at the
counter watched her every move, swiveling around so they wouldn’t
lose track of her.

Looking back at her he noticed she was
oblivious. Completely.

Walker had not said no to Shift sending a
girl in his stable but he had said no junkies but considering Shift
was a useless, piece of shit motherfucker, Walker expected he’d
have to take what he got or, if she was unacceptable, scrape her
off and find someone who would serve his purposes. It would be a
frustrating delay. He had work to do.

But she had to be right.

And it went without saying Lexie Berry was
right.

It didn’t sit well with him that she was on
Shift’s hook and how she was on it. In fact, what she said to him
at the table he still felt like it clogged his throat. She had no
love for Shift, just fear he’d fuck up her life or worse and
obviously she knew him enough because that useless, piece of shit
motherfucker would do it and before he did it, he wouldn’t
blink.

What he didn’t get was how she ever got
connected to Shift. No light shined in the world of Duane Martinez
and light shone off Lexie Berry like a beacon.

But he’d find out or, more accurately, Tate
would do it for him.

He would have preferred one of Shift’s
whores who would know her place and do what she was told. Walker
had a feeling Lexie Berry was not going to do that. Clearly, the
sass she was holding in check when she met him had broken through
if the attitude she threw at him and her Mr. Humongo comment was
anything to go by. But Walker knew he, like the vast majority of
the human population who happened to have dicks, would put up with
a whole fuck of a lot from Lexie Berry and he happened to have a
dick.

Just as long as she did what she was told in
the end, even if she gave him shit before doing it.

And there was no denying the cover Lexie
Berry could provide was a far sight better than one of the girls in
Shift’s stable, considering the few he’d seen. Fuller would look
into her, Walker had no doubt. But if she was a whore, there would
be little question now that Ty Walker would accept whatever he
could get. Pussy was pussy, Walker had always liked his pussy and
everyone knew that. Too much, it would turn out. But now, his
future limited in a way he’d never have foreseen just because he
liked his cunt, he’d have to take what he could get.

So Lexie Berry was definitely a miracle.

As she made it to the door, she’d been
looking down, digging into her purse and when she pushed through,
she lifted her head and came out into the sunshine squinting her
eyes but pulling out a pair of shades. She flicked the arms out
with a practiced movement of her wrist and shoved them on her
nose.

There it was. The shades, the purse, the
shoes, they all said buyer for a mid-to-upscale department store.
The tank and the shorts she could get anywhere but those shades,
that purse and those fucking shoes said class.