Free Lone Star Burn: Lone Star Escape (Kindle Worlds Novella) by N Kuhn Page A

you’d prefer the excitement of the city. A small town like this is boring.”
“We figure if we’re closer to you, we’ll get news faster. Yea?” Paulie crossed his leg, placing his ankle on the other knee. His fingers tapped his leg. Beau pulled up the reservation on the computer in front of him, marking them as checked in.
“My PO Box is in Dallas, how did you find me here?”
“We took a cue from you and hired ourselves a hacker. Only ours seems to work faster. We found you in a few hours and we think that they can get into those FBI files quicker too. Maybe you should cancel your guy and we’ll give you what you find? You can then earn your money we already paid you and check out any addresses we find.”
“Sure, sounds good. I’ll keep going on my end too. I need your credit card to check you in,” he reached his hand out. Paulie snapped his fingers, Jimmy jumping to and handing a credit card over.
     
    “Alright, you have rooms at the end of the hall. Go up the stairs, all the way down. Do you have luggage?” Beau led the men to the stairs.
“Yea, Jimmy will handle it.” He could see the man grumble as Paulie treated him like a lackey. Beau was anxious to get back to his gun in Mara’s room and get her out of here.
“Well, dinner is at six. Jennie will be here to serve it. I hope you enjoy Fort Mavis while you’re in town.” Beau turned to walk away but Paulie grabbed his arm. If it had been any other man, he would have knocked them out for touching him. But any ruckus would draw Mara’s attention and he couldn’t afford for her to come out here and be discovered when he was weaponless.
“I look forward to meeting your girlfriend too,” Paulie’s leer turned Beau’s stomach, but he forced himself to smile.
“Absolutely. See you fellows later.” He turned down the hall to Mara’s room. Opening the door, he found her bent over, putting the rest of her clothes into a suitcase.
“Hey there, everything go smooth? I’m almost done here.” Beau didn’t respond as he strode to the side table and grabbed the gun. He slid it into the waistband of his jeans and turned to Mara. Her eyes had widened as her hands began to tremble.
“We need to go, now. Forget the boxes. Go.” He calmly opened the door to her patio, calling out for Bear who was pacing the garden. The dog lazily bounded after them as he put his arm around Mara’s shoulders casually. He tugged at his shirt, making sure the gun was hidden. Knowing that the men were in the rooms on this side of the house, he wanted to make sure that they didn’t draw any suspicion in case the men were looking.
     
    As they crossed the yard and entered Beau’s house, he quickly dug his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Agent Parker. His phone went right to voicemail. Beau left a quick message, asking for a return call. Mara stood, ghostly white, leaning against his counter. Her whole body shook on the walk over, but now she looked like a statue. Bear sat at her feet, looking at her as if worried. Beau dialed Agent Parker’s office, also getting voicemail.
“Damn it, where is he?” His loud outburst pulled Mara from her trance. Beau looked at her just as tears spilled over. “Hey, hey,” he said softly as he moved to wrap her in his arms.
“I’m just so tired of it. I am done with being scared. I don’t want to live a life of fear.” She sounded more frustrated than scared.
“It’s going to be ok. We’re working something out.” Beau pushed Mara onto a stool, pulling another one up next to her. He opened his laptop, checking the email. He had a response from Agent Parker to his email from the night before.
Contacted Joey’s brother, who is in charge if both Joey and Paulie are gone. He’s power hungry and gave us someone else to testify. He said the girl would be off the hook if we can manage to get both men in prison so he could take over. She will be safe once we get those two, and find her ex, Jimmy. Meet with you