A Cowboy To Keep. Karen Rock

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

       CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

       Extract

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      “LET GO OF ME, FREAK.”

      Jackson Cade’s answer was to shove his knee harder into the wanted man’s back, clap on handcuffs, then stand. “On your feet, Butch.” The ponderosa pines surrounding the small white trailer at the foot of Denver’s Front Range rustled overhead.

      “Go to hell.”

      “Someday,” he responded drily, prodding a shackled Butch toward his truck, his three-week chase over. He squinted when the midafternoon sun reflected off his side mirror and shot him straight in his good eye.

      “Don’t you have to read me my rights?” jeered the fugitive as he struggled and yanked against Jack’s grip.

      “Bounty hunters don’t have to do anything they don’t want to.”

      Jack opened the rear cab door. His scar tightened at his grim smile. Some people belonged in cages; he’d learned that firsthand. He made sure they got there. “And right now, the only thing I’m wanting to do is bring you in.”

      The door closed on his slumped captive and Jack ambled to the driver’s side. A pulse of satisfaction beat through him, chasing the shadows that’d consumed him these last two years, though the respite wouldn’t last long. No matter how many criminals he caught, it’d never make up for what he’d done, or failed to do.

      You promised, he heard his mother’s cry again as he slid behind the wheel. You promised to keep your brother safe.

      His fingers tightened on the gearshift and he revved the engine, as though he could outrun his past, as if his slashed left cheek wasn’t a constant reminder of his crime, as though bringing in another lowlife somehow settled his unpayable debt.

      He peered in his rearview mirror, studied the scowling crook behind him and nodded. It helped some. He couldn’t bring back his brother, and hadn’t crossed paths with Jesse’s killer yet, but he’d never stop looking.

      He cranked up a Waylon Jennings song and tuned out his cussing passenger as his pickup ate up the miles back to fugitive recovery in Denver. He pulled his hat brim low against the late-May sun, dropping in the west over the range.

      Purple haze thickened in the timbered notches he passed. Gray foothills, round and billowy, rolled down from the higher country. They were smooth, sweeping, with long velvety slopes and isolated patches of aspens that glowed with newly minted leaves. Mount Evans, scarred by avalanche, towered above the valley, sheltering it from the north.

      Nice looking country, he mused as he turned onto Interstate 25, though it wasn’t home. He stomped down the marrow-deep ache that sprang up when he pictured Carbondale. His family’s cattle ranch in western Colorado, in the center of the Rockies. No sense wishing for something he’d never get back. Or wouldn’t go back to. Not when he was reminded of his younger brother everywhere he looked and his guilt hung from his neck, a heavy yoke that made it hard to hold his head up. To stand tall.

      Thirty minutes later, he pulled up in front of the one-story bond office and cut the engine beside a black Denver Sheriff Department SUV—Lance’s. He’d called ahead, since Butch’s warrant stipulated that he’d enter into custody. A department member had told him an officer would meet him. Could be his cousin had come to do the honors.

      Butch spewed another stream of expletives when Jack jerked open the door and hauled him out. When he pressed the door buzzer, Lance opened it with a relaxed air that belied his serious intent, his badge glinting. The creases in his blue uniform were as sharp as knives. He wore that smug, got-you look Jack recognized from their boyhood days. He still had the same freckles and left-sided cowlick.

      “Sheriff Covington.”

      “Nice work,” drawled Lance, cocking a dark eyebrow at Jack before stepping close to the criminal. “I’ll take it from here. Butch, let’s walk.”

      Jack hooked his thumbs in his belt buckle and watched them march to the SUV, satisfied. Justice served. The repeat offender wouldn’t be burglarizing homes in the area for a long while.

      He took off his sunglasses and headed inside for his bounty. Considering money from his share of the family ranch revenues was dumped into his account every quarter, he wasn’t in a hurry for a payout. He did look forward to getting his next assignment, though...and returning to his trailer for the baseball game and TV dinner that waited on him.

      “Jackson Cade for...”

      “I know who you are,” interrupted the secretary. He’d clearly made quite the impression, since he’d only been to this bond office once before, when he’d taken this case. She averted her eyes behind large-framed glasses that covered most of her pinched features. Short little thing, scrawny, shoulders curled in. Fidgety fingers, twisting at her skirt. She snatched up her phone, spoke into it, then pointed down the hall without looking back up at him.

      “Kind of you, ma’am,” he muttered, conscious of the office staff’s gazes fluttering his way. The paused conversations. The whispered comments that rose like a chorus when he passed. His jaw clenched. He should be used to this, yet somehow he wasn’t. He seldom ventured out in public anymore, and much preferred being on his own or hunting runaways—the one job where looking this scary worked to his advantage.

      “Hey, Jack,” boomed the bond agent, Randall Cook. The gray-haired man smiled and stood, revealing a row of crooked teeth. His line-free face told of years spent indoors crunching numbers, and a touch of pink around his nose hinted at evenings afterward. “Can I get you a drink?”

      When Jack shook his head, the talkative man continued, “Was almost ready to call it with Butch. Three other bounty hunters couldn’t nab him. Glad the sheriff recommended you.”

      He shifted in his boots, uncomfortable with praise or anything else that called attention to him. “Glad to help.”

      “I’ve got another one for you.” Randall shoved a folder across the cluttered table in front of Jack as Jack grabbed a seat. “Bill ‘Smiley’ Reno. Alias Ned Terrill.”

      Words jumped out at Jack as he scanned the warrant.

      Wanted for drug possession and dealing.

      Fifty-thousand-dollar bond.

      Known to carry a .45.

      Considered armed and extremely dangerous.

      A rap sheet that included assault with a deadly weapon, gun possession and armed robbery. Just as bad as he liked them. And he’d been caught with heroin—the same drug that’d ensnared Jack’s younger brother after he’d gotten hooked on oxycodone following surgery.

      He shoved the folder under his arm and stood, determination firing through him. “A real sweetheart. I’ll get him.”

      Randall pushed to his feet and extended a hand. “I believe you will. There’s more to his story, but I’ll let Sheriff Covington fill you in.”

      Curious, he pumped Randall’s hand and strode outside where Lance leaned against his SUV, Butch slumped in the backseat.

      “So. Smiley.” Lance nodded at the folder. His mouth flattened at Jack’s nod and he stepped closer. Dropped his voice. “An informant fingered him in the Remy Phillips case.”

      The name sounded familiar. It rolled in his mind, then fell into place. He whistled.