Free Luke (Armed and Dangerous Book 2) by Cheyenne McCray Page A

and Gina Garcia, though he wasn’t happy about it. Ralston thought Guerrero was using more than his charm to rope women into doing his dirty work—and Ralston’s instincts had proven pretty sharp in the past. As for Guerrero, damn, but that bastard deserved something worse than a bullet between the eyes.
    Maybe he and Rios could accidentally castrate the fucker when they took him down?
    Luke wanted to smack the PDA on the table, but stopped himself before he destroyed the little piece of technology. He needed to get the sociopathic drug lord out of circulation, and fast, but he hated the idea of having to lean on scared, vulnerable women to get the information he needed.
    Guerrero probably knew that, too.
    Tomorrow Luke had plans to head down to the county hospital to interview a UDA who’d been used as a mule to smuggle drugs in from Mexico. The man had been beaten half to death by the coyotes who had been loosely connected to the cattle rustling they’d stopped at this ranch a few months back. Maybe he’d get enough information from the mule to leave Butler and Garcia out of the picture.
    The hum of his cell phone snapped Luke out of his consideration of the suspects to date. He picked up the phone from the end table and saw by the caller ID that it was Rios.
    “Denver,” Luke said into the phone at the same time he shut off the PDA.
    “Just talked with Miguel Cotino,” Rios said.
    “The Special Ops supervisor over at CBP?”
    “Yeah.” A feminine giggle could be heard in the background and Rios’s voice lowered. “Said to not bother heading to the hospital to interrogate that mule. He’s dead.”
    “Shit.” Luke ground his teeth and thumped the PDA onto the end table after all. “Anything else?”
    “Nah. Catch you tomorrow. I got me a hot little thing waiting for me.”
    “Lucky bastard,” Luke said before punching the phone off and setting it back down.
    At least Rios was getting some tonight. He could use a distraction himself, like Trinity MacKenna. That was about as likely as a tornado in Arizona.
    With a frustrated sigh, Luke got up from the recliner. Damn the coyotes. Damn, damn, damn. Without the mule, what did he have, other than suspicions and scared women?
    Scrubbing his hand over his stubbled face, Luke considered what to do next. He’d never get to sleep feeling as restless and edgy as he was.
    And as for distractions—well, he could go into town, but he didn’t think generic hookups would work so well, due to one sexy little strawberry blonde he couldn’t get off his mind.
    Didn’t help that he was sure she was only a few yards away from him.
    It took only a few minutes to lock up and secure the cabin. Luke found himself striding through the dark night and toward the MacKenna house without any real purpose or plan. Just on the hope of seeing Trinity, maybe catching her outside or in the kitchen, and getting to talk to her for a few minutes.
    He passed by the corrals and barn, the sounds of a horse whickering, the low of a cow, and the singsong of crickets filling the night.
    Luke knew the sounds well. He’d visited Douglas dozens of times as a kid, to see his favorite aunt on her little ranch that had been sold years ago. Not to mention he was a native Texan. He owned his own nice spread near Houston, full of its own cows and crickets. Once this case was closed and cleaned up, he intended to head back there.
    Although he enjoyed his work, he was accustomed to family dropping in, big get-togethers with his folks, his grandma, his sisters and brothers, and all his nieces and nephews. It had been months since he’d seen them, and he could sure use some of his mom’s blueberry pie, straight from the oven, with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream right on top.
    He might even talk to his mom about Trinity.
    Luke almost stopped walking, because that thought caught him totally by surprise.
    Not smart. Don’t even start thinking that way.
    Yeah, he knew how this movie ended, and the