Free Texas Rose by Marie Ferrarella Page B

begun to slowly sink in,tempering his optimistic bent. He’d known early on that life had a nasty habit of rising up and hitting you right between the eyes when you least expected it.
    Hell, just look at what was happening with the commander. Westin had been sent to Central America on a secret mission to thwart a drug lord whose long tentacles were insidiously reaching more and more people in Texas. If anyone could bring down this El Jefe character, Spence knew it would be Westin.
    Had he still been a marine, Westin’s current status would have been M.I.A. No one knew where he was.
    And now, on top of that, Spence couldn’t reach Luke.
    As far as he knew, none of the others had seen Luke for several weeks, either. Granted Luke Callaghan was the original millionaire playboy who owed no explanations to anyone. At thirty-four Luke could certainly take flight at a moment’s notice if he wanted to, and he usually did.
    But this time…Spence mused thoughtfully, studying the way the amber liquid coated the sides of his glass as he tilted it. This time it felt different. Luke could always be reached before, either by the pager built into his Rolex, or via the cell phone he was literally never without.
    But Spence’d been unable to successfully reach Luke using either device.
    Then an uneasiness had taken hold of him and began to eat away at him.
    Spence knew for a fact that the celllular server Luke used, a high-tech, state-of-the-art service that was utilized by the government, didn’t experience downtime or out-of-calling-range regions. So what was going on?
    Where the hell was Luke?
    A slight commotion at the entrance had Spence raising his eyes and looking in that direction. Just in time to see Tyler Murdoch and Flynt Carson walking in. He’d called each of them, asking them to meet him here.
    â€œSo here we are, back at the old watering hole,” Flynt said, nodding a greeting at Spence as he took his seat.
    Taking the chair on the other side of him, Tyler looked around.
    From where he sat, the ex-demolitions expert looked a little uneasy. Curious, Flynt asked, “What is it?” as he looked at the man next to him.
    Tyler would have never admitted this to another living soul, but he trusted Flynt and Spence beyond all reason. He’d trusted both with his life and if he were ever in any dire situation, he would have rested easier knowing that the man coming to his aid was either one of them, or Luke, Westin or even Ricky Mercado for that matter, despite the recent unpleasantness that had flared up between Ricky and the others.
    â€œEver since the bomb went off, I’m always a littleuneasy coming in here.” He looked around at the temporary quarters. “I keep expecting something else to blow up.”
    Flynt dismissed the fear with a shrug of his shoulder. “Bombs never strike twice in the same place.”
    â€œThat’s lightning,” Spence corrected him, “and it does.”
    Picking up the new menu, Tyler opened it. “Well, that goes a long way in reassuring me.”
    â€œIt didn’t have anything to do with you. It wasn’t a random bombing,” Flynt reminded him. “We already found out that bomb was meant for Westin, to keep him from going to Central America on the mission. Sheriff Stone wanted to be sure that no one and nothing interfered with the sweet deal he and that band of henchmen of his had going with El Jefe, remember?”
    Stone, along with the men who were part of a group known to one another as The Lion’s Den, had since been arrested and were awaiting trial. At least one of El Jefe’s tentacles had been lobbed off, but they all knew there were others. A great many others.
    â€œStone needn’t have gone through all that trouble,” Tyler observed cynically, “seeing as how someone’s obviously gotten to Westin down there.”
    He tried not to worry about his former commander, but it wasn’t