Free Their Ex's Redrock Dawn (Texas Alpha Biker) by Shirl Anders

circuit.”
    “The contest my boss just demanded I go oversee the preparations for to -day,” Carly exclaimed. Zeb nodded, glancing at her as he drove. “I’m judging it too, damn it,” she muttered.
    “I know, baby,” Zeb muttered back. “I’d picked that up.”
    “Just great,” Carly whispered, tugging on the end of her ponytail. “I have to judge your wife.”
    “Ex-wife as fast as I can make it,” Zeb growled.
    Carly’s worried gaze looked at him. “They’re both likely there where we’re going, Zeb.”
    All he could do was sneer so he wouldn’t cuss sharply and scare her. “Yeah,” he uttered.
    But he had a plan by the time they pulled into the back of the fairgrounds.
    “So if they can hide and cheat, we can hide and cheat,” Carly said, repeating the important part of his plan.
    He nodded. “And when in trouble of maybe being caught, fucking lie.”
    “Okay,” she said. “I’d be happy to lie to my asshole, but I sure hope I won’t see him.”
    “You said he should be at the rodeo side, not over on this side.”
    “Yes, this side is where Tula’s at,” Carly reminded him. 
    He hooked her neck and pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Get in, get it done, and get out, sweetness. I’ll be around.”
    She patted his chest. “Okay, baby.”
    He gave her a heated look. “I like that as much as ‘honey.’”
    Carly walked toward the auditorium with a glance back to see Zeb’s big body moving off toward the rodeo rings. Well, he wouldn’t want his freaking wife to see him, she supposed, so he was going off to what? Spy on Rick? She didn’t know what she thought he’d be doing, while she did her job. Maybe she was just still shaking from that car thing, but she felt wrung tight.
    So when she bumped into all that was fine about Justice Walkinghorse—she didn’t just meet him, she ran right into him around a blind corner and she ended up against his chest. Wow. He was built as good as he looked. Every woman worth her salt in town watched Justice Walkinghorse. He was that fine. Unfortunately, he was that much younger than her, but a girl could look. Or feel, as she was doing, before Justice helped her step back without falling over.
    “Carly, you all right?”
    “Oh heck yeah, sorry about that, Justice,” she muttered, nervously. She noticed he was decked out officially in his marshal’s shirt with his jeans painted on him, and a wide-brimmed, light-colored cowboy hat. Her gaze stuck on the badge hanging off his belt in front of his hips.
    “I wasn’t looking,” she offered, and she looked up under his hat at him.
    She noticed he looked kind of disturbed, in a way men looked with etched and stony features. She was starting to think he was mad at her running into him.
    But he clasped his warm hand on her arm, and he muttered, “Cheaters damn well bust my ass.”
    Carly gasped inwardly, expecting Justice to hail retribution down on her for cheating with Zeb. Justice must have seen them together, and she cringed when he said, “Sweetheart, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I cannot pretend I didn’t see what I damn well saw and I sure as hell am not pretending I don’t need to tell you about it.”
    Carly was so certain that she knew what Justice was going to say that she got stuck working out his words, then it dawned on her. “Tell me about what?” she asked, half exclaiming.
    Justice’s hand warmed up and down her arm as he tilted his head and leaned closer so the wide brim of his hat closed them in while his voice rumbled lowly. “You need anything, babe, anything at all, I’m here.”
    Carly felt a very inappropriate shiver course through her at Justice’s intimate words, then she consoled herself over her reaction because it was the beautiful Justice Walkinghorse she was shivering about.
    “I walked up on your husband, Carly, doing another woman in one of the fairground’s back offices. Fucking hate cheaters,” he finished on a male growl of anger.
    Carly