Colorado 03 Lady Luck

Kristen Ashley

Published at
Smashwords by Kristen Ashley

Copyright 2011 Kristen Ashley

Discover other titles by Kristen Ashley:

Rock Chick Series:

Rock Chick

Rock Chick Rescue

Rock Chick Redemption

Rock Chick Renegade

Rock Chick Revenge

The ‘Burg Series:

For You

At Peace

Golden Trail

The Colorado Mountain Series:

The Gamble

Sweet Dreams

Dream Man Series:

Mystery Man

Wild Man

Fantasyland Series:

Wildest Dreams

The Golden Dynasty

Fantastical

Other Titles by Kristen Ashley:

Lacybourne Manor

Mathilda, SuperWitch

Penmort Castle

Sommersgate House

Three Wishes

www.kristenashley.net

Smashwords
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*****

Acknowledgement
s

A big shout out to members of my facebook
page for helping me with this book.

When I was at a loss as to what my hero
should drive, Rebekah Oliva had the fabulous idea that Ty should
own a Viper. So he does. I’m not sure in real life if Ty would fit
in a Viper but, lucky for me, in my books I can make anything
happen.

But my cousins, Jane and Lew Foster, thought
Ty should drive a Land Cruiser and since Carla Griffin, Lisa
Bachlet Smith and Josephine Ingram all quickly agreed, I decided Ty
should have two rides. So he does.

Not to mention, during my name-fests on my
facebook page, Beccy Golding gave me the awesome last name
Champion, which I used. I also used Erika Wynne’s suggestion of
Dewey, Penny Peers’s suggestion of Elijah and Kellie Shircliff
Purdy’s suggestion of Zander.

And last, another shout out to Lisa
Bachlet Smith who thought “Ty” was a good name for a hero. I read
Lisa’s suggestion and loved it. So my Ty was born.

And I love him. I hope you do
too.

* * * * *

A Miracle

My cell rang, I snatched it off the
passenger seat, looked at the display and it said, “Shift
calling”.

Then I sighed.

Then I flipped it open, my other arm
twisting so I could look at my watch.

Twelve oh two.

Shift was impatient, as usual.

“Hey,” I said into the phone.

“He out?”

My eyes went out the passenger side window,
through the two guard towers, down the long tunnel created by two
sides of high, cinderblock walled fence topped with razor wire
circling through lines of barbed wire, the heat sweltering on the
day making the air down that open, empty tunnel wave and
shimmer.

“Nope,” I answered.

“Fuck!” Shift clipped. “What’s takin’ so
fuckin’ long? He’s supposed to be released at noon.”

“Shift, it’s noon oh two,” I told him.

“Yeah, so?” he asked back, sounding pissed
and impatient. “They’re releasing him from prison; I doubt he’s
sticking around for a going away party.”

I doubted that too.

“I’ll call,” I promised.

“They got seven minutes,” he threatened and
I stifled a sigh.

This was Shift. He was a thousand miles
away. He was a full-time pimp slash drug dealer and part-time
asshole (though, that said, he put far more effort into being an
asshole than his other occupations) and he thought he had some sway
over the California Corrections Department.

“All right,” I said.

“Call me the minute that brother breathes
free air,” he bit off and then hung up.

I flipped my phone shut wondering, for the
seven thousandth time, why the fuck I was doing this.

I came up with no answers except for the
fact that when Ronnie was murdered, he’d left me with one
thing.

Shift.

I would have preferred a vast estate, a
fortune in jewels or, perhaps, nothing.

I got Shift.

And although after Ronnie died I wanted
nothing to do with that part of his life, I wanted to move on, turn
my back on it all, Shift wouldn’t allow that. If Shift got his
talons in you, they went deep, attached straight to the bone, the
tips sprung open into claws that sunk into your marrow and didn’t
let go. Not for anything.

And Shift had his talons in me. I didn’t
want it, didn’t invite it but there they were.

The good news was, he didn’t often scroll
down to my number on his phone.

The other good news was, when he did, the
shit he asked for was usually not that hard to do and it was never
illegal. He knew me. He knew where I stood. He knew there was no
fucking way I’d get involved in any of his garbage.

But he also knew I loved Ronnie more than
anything in this world and Ronnie, for reasons only known to
Ronnie, loved Shift only slightly less than he loved me (though, I
had to admit, sometimes then and now, I wondered if he loved me
slightly less than he loved Shift – but I didn’t often go
there).

So he knew I’d take Shift’s back.

Unless Shift tried to get me dirty. Then he
knew I’d throw him right under the fucking bus even if I had to
take my life in my hands to do it.

So he avoided that. Not that he cared about
my life, just that I might succeed before he took me down.

The other good news was, Shift loved Ronnie
more than anything in the world so he didn’t play me… too much.

The bad news was, he was in my life and
therefore I was sitting outside a prison in southern California in
my 2011 electric blue Charger with the two wide, white racing
stripes that went up the hood, over the roof and down the trunk and
spoiler waiting for a man named Ty Walker to be released from
prison.

Shift did not give me a full brief about
this assignment. He told me to be sitting right where I was at
noon, to wait for Walker, to call him the minute Walker got
released and then to take further directions from Walker. He also
told me Walker would know it was me and my Charger waiting for
him.

I took a week’s vacation to do this. I had
nothing else planned for my vacation and Shift was footing this
bill so I thought… whatever. I thought this mainly because that was
the only thing I
could
think.
Shift didn’t take no for an answer very often and Shift freaked me
out. He loved Ronnie, this was true, they weren’t blood but they
were closer than it. But Shift was not right. Not at all. There
wasn’t something missing in Shift that most other human beings had.
There were
multiple
somethings missing. And all the things that were missing
were the good things like compassion, humor, decency, honesty. He
knew about loyalty, he knew brotherly love. That was all he knew.
Other than that, he had no morals that I’d witnessed.
None.

And Ronnie was dead.

When Ronnie was alive, he stood between
Shift and me and he stood between Shift, his world and my
world.

But Ronnie was dead and I didn’t suspect
loyalty and brotherly love for a dead man would stop Shift from
doing what he had to do to get what he wanted, including from
me.

I didn’t have to balance this line often but
it was there. I knew I could push him and I also knew just how far
I could push him. And, for whatever reason, me picking up Ty Walker
was important to him, important enough that I knew Shift’s loyalty
to Ronnie would vanish if I pushed him too hard and then I’d topple
over that line.

I didn’t need that shit.

So there I was, waiting for a soon-to-be
ex-con to walk out of prison.

I sat in my car in the hot sun, no breeze
flowing through my opened windows thinking that it seemed like I
spent a lifetime doing this kind of crap to steer clear of shit. It
was exhausting. I was tired of it. Bone tired. And scared. Because
I knew the odds were against me that I could stay clear of it. With
Shift in my life and my number on his phone, someday, he’d need me
to do something and it would be something where I’d get hit with
shit.

I had to get out.

I glanced at my watch to see it was twelve
oh seven then I glanced down the tunnel again and something was
moving through the shimmers. That path was long and the heat on the
day was immense so I didn’t see much but something made me keep
watching.

And as the thing moving through the shimmers
formed into a man, I kept watching as my breath started sticking in
my throat.

Then the man kept getting closer, coming
into focus through the heat waves and my breath grew shallow as my
body got still.

I didn’t blink. I didn’t move. I just
watched that man coming at me and my car.

Then he got even closer and my body moved
for me. I didn’t tell it to move, it just did. Without taking my
eyes off him, my hand reached for the door handle, released it and
I unfolded out of the car, losing sight of him only when the roof
was in my way for less than a second.

Shit.

Shit, shit,
fucking shit!

He was huge.
Huge.
I’d never seen a man that big. He had to be six
foot five, six foot six, maybe even taller.

His shoulders were immensely broad, the
wall of his chest was just that.
A wall.
His hips were narrow, his thighs enormous. He was
muscle from neck down, pure, firm, defined muscle. I saw it through
his skintight black t-shirt, his tattooed arms, his jeans that
tightened on his thighs as he moved.

His hair was black and clipped short on his
head, another tat drifted up his neck.

His jaw was square and strong. No stubble.
Clean-shaven. His brow was heavy, his eyebrows black, arched and
thick but the left one had a line through it, a scar that matched
the smaller one under the eye.

But this scar did nothing, not one thing, to
mar his utterly perfect features. Strong, straight nose. High, cut
cheekbones. Full lips. His eyes were shaped like almonds, turned
slightly down at the sides and ringed, even when he was the width
of my car away, I could still see, by thick, curling black
lashes.

That said, his face, though sheer male
beauty, was blank. Scary blank. Expressionless. Completely. His
eyes were on me standing in my opened door watching him round the
hood and turning with his movements. But there was nothing in those
eyes. Nothing. Void.

It was terrifying.

Ronnie and Shift didn’t hang out with good
people. There were the dregs of society but even dregs had dregs
and the dregs of the dregs were who Ronnie and Shift hung out with.
Again, it didn’t happen often but it wasn’t like I hadn’t come into
contact with some of these people. And I didn’t like being around
them but I learned a long time ago to hide that.

But this man, Ty Walker, was something
else.

I did not think he was the dregs of the
dregs. Or even the dregs.

I just had no idea
what
he was except downright terrifying.

I made an almost full circle as he cleared
my door and walked a half a step in, pinning me between him and the
car and I had to tilt my head way, way,
way
back to look up at him.

It was not an optical illusion, a trick of
the heat waves. He was
tall
and he was
huge.

And also, his eyelashes were long and
curly.

Extraordinary.

I’d never seen eyes that shape, lashes that
thick and curly. I’d never seen any single feature on any living
thing as beautiful as his eyes.

He stared down at me with his beautiful but
blank eyes and my only thought was that he surely could lift one of
his big fists and pound me straight through the asphalt with one
blow to the top of my head.

“Uh… hey,” I pushed out between my lips,
“I’m Lexie.”

He stared down at me and said not a
word.

I swallowed.

Then I said, “Shift wants a call the minute
you’re out. I, uh…”

I stopped speaking because he leaned into me
with an arm out and I couldn’t stop myself from pressing my back
into the car. But he just pulled my cell from my hand, straightened
as he flipped it open, his gorgeous eyes staring at it as his thumb
moved on the keypad. Then he put it to his ear.