Colorado 03 Lady Luck (5 page)

And I had assumed by directions he meant
directions to wherever Ty Walker called home or wanted to make his
home. But I was thinking I assumed wrong.

“That’s it?” he repeated.

Yep, I was wrong.

“That’s it,” I replied.

He pulled in breath through his nose. Then
he crossed his arms on his chest and his eyes locked with mine.

Then he told me what I’d already figured
out. “He didn’t give you a full briefing.”

“Great,” I muttered.

“He owes me,” Walker stated, held my eyes
but tipped his head to the desk to indicate what was on it. “Big,”
he finished.

I nodded.

He continued to hold my eyes and then he
jerked his chin out at me and said low and quiet, “Big.”

Oh
shit.

“What?” I whispered as I took a step
back.

“Don’t move,” he ordered and I stopped
because his order was firm and serious and I didn’t want to test
how firm and serious he was. “He didn’t make it worth your while,
I’ll deal with him. So I’ll make it worth your while.”

“What…” my voice sounded choked so I
swallowed then started again, “Make what worth my while?”

“You and me are getting married.”

My head jerked again even as the rest of my
body froze.

Then I said shrilly, “
What?
”

“I need a wife, you’re her.”

Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Fucking
shit!

“Um…” I started, my heart hammering, the one
room and marital status of check in explained, my need to flee
overpowering, my sense of self-preservation keeping me rooted to
the spot but I got no further, he started talking.

“He didn’t take care of you, I will. You
need out from under him, I’ll make that happen. You marry me; I pay
you fifty thousand dollars. At the end, I deal with the divorce.
Once it’s done, you’re clear. I’ll see to it we’re untied, all
you’ll have to do is sign the papers, you’ll never see me again and
I’ll also see to it that wherever you decide to go, Shift doesn’t
follow.”

“The end of what?” I asked.

“My business.”

“What business?”

“That’s need to know and when you need to
know I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

In other words, I’d likely never know all of
it just what I needed to know.

“The gun… the money?” I asked.

“I just got let outta prison. I wasn’t in
there while the Pope considered my sainthood. I got enemies.”

“Oh God,” I whispered.

“You’re covered,” he told me.

I’d heard that before and now the person who
promised me that was dead and the person he promised to cover me
from was the reason I was standing right where I was.

I shook my head. “I don’t think –”

“I got no time and I got shit to do. You’re
gonna bail, you can walk out that door. I got nothin’ to offer you
but cash and my word. I can see you pickin’ me up from prison, my
word don’t mean dick to you but I’m tellin’ you right now, and it’s
up to you to believe it or not, my word is solid. No harm will come
to you and nothin’ from my business will blow back on you. You’ll
be my wife, you’ll act like my wife and you’ll do it until this is
done. That’s it. Then we go our separate ways.”

“I’ll act like your wife?” I asked
quietly.

He shook his head once. “You wanna let me
into that pussy, I’ll take it. No increase in money, I don’t pay
for pussy. That you give if you got a mind to give it. You don’t,
I’ll find what I need elsewhere and that won’t blow back on you
either.”

This was not exactly the romantic, tender
marriage proposal every girl dreamed of.

“Ty,” I started, lifting up a hand, palm out
then dropping it. “I’ve been…” I hesitated. “I’ve managed to…” I
stopped again.

“Jesus, spit out,” he rumbled.

I nodded and spit it out. “That world has
been at the edge of mine a long time, pushing in and I’ve managed
to steer clear. I don’t know what this business of yours is and I
don’t know you and I already have the leftover bullshit that comes
from broken promises. I don’t need more.”

“I told you none of my shit would blow back
on you,” he reminded me.

“And I told you I’ve heard that before and
here I stand,” I reminded him.

He stared at me, still unreadable but
something about him made me think that he wasn’t blank, he was
alert and assessing and he gave no indication of it but it
felt
like he was reading me down to
my bones.

Then he said quietly, “Shift has fucked
you.”

“I know,” I said quietly back and he had.
Shift knew this, he knew Walker wanted this, he sent me anyway, he
blew right through my boundaries, lying to me and putting me in the
clutches of a huge, terrifying, taciturn, freshly-released ex-con
with enemies and a gun.

“This time, you walk out that door, nothin’
bites you,” Walker told me. “You go back to him, he’ll find a way
to fuck you worse and how he does it, you might not be walkin’ out
the door.”

I pressed my lips together then unpressed
them and whispered, “I know.”

“I can get you clear of that.”

I had to admit, that was definitely
something to consider.

He kept talking. “Fifty G’s will set you up
anywhere you wanna go. I’ll take care of Shift.”

He held my eyes. I noted his were
unwavering. He was hiding from me, I knew it. Though I figured you
learned a pokerface in prison, probably not healthy to wear your
heart on your sleeve. But he held my eyes, he didn’t look away,
whatever he was hiding was his to hide from the world, not
something he was specifically hiding from me.

And he was also not in my face. He wasn’t
pissed. He wasn’t shouting. He wasn’t threatening. He told me I
could walk out and I believed him. In fact, everything he told me,
I believed. I’d been around a lot of the dregs, Ronnie saw to that,
so I had a highly tuned bullshit detector. Whatever this man was,
he was not bullshitting me.

And he could get me clear of Shift, I knew
it. I knew it because Shift was scared of him, I could see this
now. That was the reason behind the frantic phone call. He wanted
to make sure Ty Walker got what he wanted and liked what he saw.
He’d played me to make sure Walker didn’t lose it and take what
Shift owed him a different way.

And he was right, I pulled up stakes, fifty
thousand dollars would set me up.

And I’d be clear of Shift.

And away from that life, clean and free.

Clean and free.

Finally.

“How long would this, um… business last?” I
asked.

I didn’t know if I was seeing things but I
could swear it looked like his body relaxed even if the change was
so slight it seemed like an illusion.

“Don’t know,” he answered.

“I have a job,” I told him.

“You want clear of Shift, you gotta leave
Dallas. You leave Dallas, you leave your job. Might as well do it
now.”

This was true. It sucked because I liked my
job; I’d been working at Lowenstein’s for nearly ten years. But I
always knew I’d be leaving it one day, either when I gave up on
Ronnie or when Ronnie made a break for it and took a chance on us
and, more recently, to get away from Shift.

However…

“I didn’t give notice.”

“Emergency,” he said.

“What?”

“Emergency leave of absence. You gotta look
after your sick Mom. Your Mom don’t get better, you don’t go back.
Shit happens. They’ll deal.”

“I don’t have a Mom.”

He went silent and did that blank but still
alert and assessing thing.

Then he said, “Your Dad.”

“I don’t have one of those either.”

Again, I could swear something happened to
his body even though I couldn’t be sure but this time it wasn’t
relaxing, it was tensing.

“Don’t give a fuck who it is, a grandparent,
whatever –”

I shook my head indicating I didn’t have
grandparents either.

He stared at me.

Then he whispered, “Jesus.”

“Long story,” I muttered.

He went silent again and stared at me.

This went on awhile.

Then he said, “I told you, got shit to do. I
don’t have time to give you a chance to consider your options. It’s
now or never. Walk out that door or stay and become Mrs.
Walker.”

I pressed my lips together.

Then I took the nanosecond he was giving me
to consider my options.

Then I sucked in breath.

Then I asked, “Can I have the first
shower?”

* * * * *

Ty

Lexie’s phone rang as he walked out of the
phone store. He yanked it out of his back pocket, turned it and saw
the Colorado area code on the display, a number he knew. He flipped
it open and put it to his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Bad news, brother,” Tate’s voice came at
him and Ty pulled in breath.

Tate had been hard at work, not a
surprise.

That was because Tatum Jackson always had
his back. He probably didn’t sleep last night in order to have
Walker’s back.

“Yeah?” he repeated.

“Your woman, she likes clothes.”

Walker’s chest released.

“Already know that,” he lied. He didn’t know
it but the weight of her bag meant she stuffed that fucker so full,
the instant she opened it, it would explode all over the room.

Luckily, he’d given her her instructions and
took off so he wasn’t around when that happened.

So he reckoned it was a good guess.

And now he knew Jackson had pulled her
credit.

Guess confirmed.

He listened to Tate’s low laughter.

Then, “I bet.”

“That all you got?” Walker asked.

“Yep. She’s clean. No record. Four speeding
tickets the last five years and a shitload of parking tickets. Your
woman’s got a need for speed and thinks she can park anywhere she
wants and she does.”

Walker would have guessed that too
considering her ride. Not many women with classy shades, shoes and
purses had rides that sweet. Hinted at a wild side. He thought it
explained her connection with Shift but apparently it was something
else.

“She carries debt, not a lot of it, “Jackson
continued. “Over two credit cards a little over a thousand dollars.
All payments current though. She rents. Works steady. Saw her DMV
picture, brother. The State employee who took that should win an
award. Best driver’s license picture I’ve seen in my life.”

Lexie was photogenic. Also not surprising.
Though, probably the picture was actually shit, she was just so
beautiful even a shit photo looked good.

Though the debt, not good. Not smart. She
should have worried less about clothes and more about getting
herself out from under Shift’s thumb.

“Sucks about her folks though,” Jackson went
on.

Fuck.

He found shade and moved under it.

Then he demanded, “Talk to me.”

Silence then, “You don’t know?”

“Don’t know what you’re gonna tell me,”
Walker evaded.

Pause then, “Right.” Another pause then,
“She’s clean. Her parents were not.”

Fuck.

He was silent. Jackson kept talking.

“Caught that, did a little digging and
called a couple of guys. They’re digging too. I’ll know more but
what I got, they were junkies. Made the news in Dallas thirty-four
years ago. She was born in a crack house. Mother so gone, don’t
know she even knew she had a kid and probably a miracle the baby
survived and wasn’t fucked up, considering what the Mom was doin’
to her body. Someone in the house was together enough to phone
emergency, they went in, got her, placed her with her grandparents.
Don’t know what went down after that until I get callbacks but I do
know the Mom OD’ed five years later. Dad died four years after from
internal injuries when he got his ass kicked by a loan shark.”

He was right, it was definitely
fuck
.

“She was placed with her grandparents?”
Walker asked.

“That’s why I’m diggin’. It was the Mom’s
parents. Death records show the Grandma died when your girl was
six. The Grandpa died when she was thirteen. I don’t have access to
those kinds of files but my work takes me to Texas, got some people
I know so I’ve contacted those who can access the files or know
people who do. May take a couple of days.”

“What about her Dad’s grandparents?”

“That was easy. Traced him, found out they
died in a car accident when he was sixteen.”

“Aunts? Uncles?”

“Mom, an only child. Dad had a sister but
she didn’t step in. Don’t know why.”

Foster care.

Walker looked across the street to their
hotel thinking about Lexie and her shades and high heels and
short-shorts and bright smile in foster care then, thirty-four
years later, finding her shit tied to the likes of Shift.

Fuck.

Jackson spoke in his ear. “Ty, you’re
marryin’ this girl, you don’t know this shit?”

“Both of us prefer to look to the future,”
he lied again though he had no clue what Lexie preferred. However,
that statement was pure bullshit from him. He was living in the
past and would until mistakes were rectified.

Then, if he had a future, he’d look to
it.

“That’s good news,” Tate said quietly,
misreading him and Walker thought it was good this conversation was
happening on the phone. He’d learned a lot in prison but he didn’t
expect part of that was pulling shit over on Tatum Jackson.
“Though, that’s true, why am I doin’ what I’m doin’?”

“Can’t be too careful.”

“She know about you?”

“She picked me up outside the penitentiary
yesterday.”

Silence then Tate started digging, this time
somewhere else.

“You meet her in Dallas before you came home
and that shit went down with Fuller and Misty?”

“Yep.” Another lie.

“Again, brother, seen her picture. How the
fuck you leave that behind?”