Colorado 03 Lady Luck (35 page)

“I love you guys,” I blurted.

This caused Bessie to hop off her stool and
mutter, “Bathroom.”

“Your right, door by the livin’ room,” Ty
said quietly and Bessie hustled away.

Honey smiled happily.

Ella took a sip of her cocktail.

* * * * *

Ty

Laurie and Jonas were loading into Tate’s
SUV, Tate was moving across the asphalt with Walker.

The truck unload descended into a party. Not
surprising. The women cackled on the deck furniture while the men
lugged boxes up two flights of steps, Ty and Wood putting together
Lexie’s bed in one of the middle floor bedrooms so one of the
sisters could have a bed tonight. Their surprise arrival meant
Walker and Lexie had company. They were Lexie’s family so this
wasn’t surprising either. It was good his couch was big and had two
sides. After the men did the work, Lexie expended the energy of
dialing the phone to order pizzas. Fortunately, but surprisingly,
she didn’t have much stuff to haul up the steps. Also fortunately,
since they both drank beer, she had an ample supply.

Now Wood, Maggie, their kids and Deke were
gone and Tate and his family were preparing to leave. But he’d said
he wanted a word. So Walker was giving him a word.

“What’s up?” he asked when Tate led him to a
position not in hearing distance of his truck or Walker’s house,
something Walker noted, also something Walker didn’t like.

“You got a night this week you can come by
my house for a talk?”

Fuck.

“About what?” Walker asked.

“You got a night, Ty,” Jackson said
quietly.

“This about Peña?” Walker asked.

“Ty, you got a night?”

Walker remained silent for a moment.

Then he replied, “Might have several, I know
why.”

“You trust me?”

Fuck.

“Yeah.”

“You got a night?”

Fuck!

“Let me talk to Lex. Her family’s here for
two weeks and knowin’ Lex, she’ll wanna pack everything in so it’ll
be busy. I’ll let you know,” Walker told him.

“Right,” Tate murmured.

Walker changed the subject. “Thanks for
droppin’ everything and comin’ over to help out.”

“Payback, you did the same for me this week
and I didn’t give you pizza and beer or feed your family.”

This was true.

“Speakin’ about family –” Jackson
started.

“Yeah,” Walker interrupted, mistaking Tate’s
comment. “They adopted her. They’re Rodriguez’s family.”

Tate shook his head. “No, I meant when are
you and Lexie gonna start yours?”

He’d breathed easy for awhile. A week and a
half to be exact. But at Tate’s question, that piercing feeling
again went through the left side of his chest.

Through the pain, he forced out, “Come
again?”

“Know you’re new. Know you’re both gettin’
on your feet after a lotta rough years. Know you probably got a
lotta shit in your head, reckon she does too. But ‘spect, what I
can tell of Lexie, she’s helpin’ you work through that. What I know
of you, you’re doin’ the same for her. What you probably don’t know
is, got somethin’ good, makin’ it better’ll give your mind good
things to think of rather than shit things to chew on. And I
promise you, brother, a kid is a good thing. Your kid with Lexie,
even better.” He paused while Walker stared at him through the
gathering dusk then continued, “Though, not if you get yourself a
daughter who looks like her. Then you’re fucked.”

A daughter who looks like her.

Christ.

Christ.

He’d never thought of it. Not in his entire
life. Never thought of making babies. Never met a woman in whom he
wanted his seed to take root.

Now it was in his head and he knew it was in
there in a way where it’d be near impossible to shake it out.

Christ.

“Ty?” Tate called.

“We need time to settle,” Walker told
him.

“Sure, I can see that. Though, you settling
only to shake things up with a kid, might as well settle knowin’
you got one on the way.”

“Man, we’ve been married less than a month,”
Walker reminded him.

“So?”

Walker stared at him.

Then he muttered, “Fuck me, Tatum Jackson,
family man and advocate for domestic bliss.”

“You been busy with your woman, not around,
you been around me, Laurie and Jonas, you’d see I got it goin’ on,”
Tate told him through a grin.

“Fuck me,” Walker muttered again.

Jackson kept grinning at him.

Then the grin faded and he whispered, “Think
about it. And call me with a night you can come over.”

“Right,” Walker murmured.

Tate gave him a chin lift and moved to his
SUV. Walker moved toward his condo and looked to Jackson’s truck.
Laurie gave him a wave through the windshield. He jerked his chin
up and stopped close to the condo to watch Tate swing in, switch on
the ignition and then he shifted his body to watch them drive away
until they were out of sight.

Then he turned around and was moving to the
stairs but stopped at the foot of them when he saw the shadowed
body of Ella Rodriguez sitting on a step in the middle.

He tipped his head back the inch he needed
to catch her eyes.

She started.

“Got good friends.”

“Yep,” he agreed because she was right.

Ella fell silent. Walker didn’t break it but
he waited because he knew she had something to say.

Then she spoke again.

“Later, when you got quiet time with her
tonight, my girl’s honest, she’ll tell you straight she laid it out
for us.”

This was also not surprising.

“Got nothin’ to hide,” he replied but this
was only mostly true.

She said nothing just held his eyes.

Finally, she murmured, “’Spect that’s
true.”

Then she said no more and didn’t move.

Walker waited.

Then she spoke again and she did it gently
and with feeling.

“I’m sorry that was done to you, boy.”

Fuck him, why did that coming from a woman
he barely knew feel as good as it felt?

He didn’t ask this.

He lifted his chin and said, “I am too.”

“Got no doubts you’ve felt it. But I’m older
than you, as bad as you’ve felt it before this happened to you,
I’ve felt it worse. And as bad as I felt it, what I know my parents
felt was worse. So I know, the like that’s done to you, it leaves
demons.”

She was not wrong about that.

Walker didn’t respond.

“What you don’t know is that you got
yourself a girl who’s not afraid of demons, she’ll take them on.
You don’t shut her out, lock her down when that time comes when
they threaten to overwhelm you, she’ll help you beat them
back.”

He responded to that. “I know what I got in
Lexie.”

“No,” she said instantly and shook her head,
“you might think you know but you have no idea.”

“Ella –”

“My boy had demons,” she whispered and
Walker’s body got tight. “He shut her out, locked her down. He told
himself he didn’t but he did. Started before he left for Indiana,
strugglin’ to keep his nose clean, stay outta trouble, not get
sucked into that life. But all he saw was struggle, all he felt was
responsibility, all he thought of was makin’ that right, his entire
focus was bein’ certain he was in the position to change that, not
for him, for us, for Lexie. He had no Daddy. He had no man in his
life to teach him how to be strong and he ignored my lessons to do
right, so determined to take care of us, no matter how he had to do
that and, when he was growin’ up, they were like a swarm of bees
buzzin’ around, constant, showin’ him a different path, teachin’
him bad lessons. They went at him hard and they went at him dirty
and one night they got to him and Duane stepped in and saw him
through. The only thing that boy ever did that was good in his
life, I figure. I don’t know all that happened, just know it
happened. He saw my Ronnie through and Ronnie never forgot it. But
that left him with demons and messed with his head and caught him a
debt he repaid by takin’ seven bullets. Instead, he shoulda taken
Lexie’s hand and let her lead him to the good life. And I’m tellin’
you this now so you don’t make that same mistake.”

She stopped talking and Walker didn’t
reply.

So she kept talking. “What was done to you
was no good, the worst, see you with her, see you reachin’ for
happy. But no matter how strong a man is, you take a hit like that,
it’s hard to bounce back. You’ll hit a wall and struggle to get
through. You’re a strong man and your first thought won’t be to
take a woman’s hand. But I’m older than you. I watched a lot of
boys fail ‘cause they made that same decision, thinkin’ wrongly
that that decision is weak. Be stronger than that and know when to
take your woman’s hand so she can help you break through.”

Again she stopped speaking and again Walker
didn’t reply.

She didn’t start again.

So Walker drew a line under it. “’Preciate
the wisdom, Ella.”

She looked at him through the growing
darkness. “Hope you take it to heart, Ty.”

He again lifted his chin.

She stood, turned and slowly walked up the
steps, timing it perfectly, she was close to the top before she
stopped, looked down at him and dealt the killer blow.

“
You don’t take it to heart, love she feels
for you, the kind of love she was smart enough not to give my boy,
you’ll break her. That’s
my
girl
and
I
know. I see it the way she
looks at you, talks about you, you don’t grasp hold and let her
give as good as she gets, you’ll destroy her. So when I say I hope
you take it to heart, Ty, I
really
do.”

Then Ella Rodriguez walked up the last two
steps, turned and disappeared.

And for a long time Ty Walker couldn’t move
because that thing piercing his chest twisted viciously.

When he got it under control he walked up
his steps toward a houseful of women.

Where She Parks Her
Charger

Ty

“I’m tellin’ you, brother, it’s hot.”

Walker was standing in the locker room of
his gym, side to the door so he could see if someone came in. Dewey
was hidden by the lockers. At the best of times, he wouldn’t be
seen with Dewey, they were tight, or as tight as anyone could be
with Dewey, but the kind of stink Dewey produced had a tendency to
make anyone reek. But considering they were both ex-cons, he
definitely shouldn’t be seen with Dewey.

But he had to meet Dewey and Dewey had just
two minutes ago shoved himself through the window so he was with
Dewey even though, at this moment, he did not want to be because
two seconds after he shoved himself through the window, he’d
launched into his bullshit excuses.

“Haven’t heard from you in weeks, Dew, no
return texts, no return calls and now your cell says disconnected.
Don’t like that shit. Don’t like finally hearin’ from you only for
you to spout shit. And don’t like givin’ you twenty-five K for six
weeks of nothin’,” Walker told him.

“Had to ditch that phone, Ty.”

Jesus. Nothing had changed. Dewey changed
phones like he changed underwear.

“Why?” Walker asked.

“They read it and hear it. I know it.”

Fuck. There it was. The reason why Dewey
changed phones like underwear, paranoia. The brother thought cops
had superhuman powers. This was because he got caught, sent down
and he wasn’t smart enough to admit he got caught and sent down
because he was a dumb fuck not because the cops had superhuman
powers.

Dewey went on, “You know and I know
that
they
know, you
want somethin’, you’ll come to me and I’ll get it for you. They
know we’re tight. They were all over me. I had to lay
low.”

With waning patience, Walker reminded him,
“Like I explained, Dew,
you
don’t do shit.
You
connect with brothers who will.”

“They see that shit too.”

“Bullshit,” Walker bit out. “You want it,
you’re a fuckin’ shadow and none of your connections live in the
light.”

Dewey pressed his lips together because
Walker was not lying and he knew it.

Walker took a step toward him, not too far
he couldn’t see the door but enough to make a point. “I need dirt,”
he said low. “And there’s so much dirt on these guys, I should be
up to my neck in it by now. This was not a hard assignment. This
shoulda taken you a fuckin’ week, not six.”

“They aren’t exactly out in the open with
their shit,” Dewey returned.

“And your connections aren’t gonna win
citizen of the year either,” Walker shot back.

Dewey stared at him.

Then he said softly, “Ty, this really the
way you wanna go? You push, they’ll push back.”

What the fuck?

“We’ve had this conversation, Dew.”

“But –”

“Don’t like repeatin’ myself.”

“Ty,” he took a step forward, “thinkin’ on
this awhile, I don’t think it’s good, I didn’t then, I don’t
now.”

“Right, then give me back my twenty-five K
and I’ll find someone who doesn’t have a fuckin’ opinion.”

Dewey took two steps back and Walker stared
him in the eyes.

Then he whispered, “Right.”

The fuckwad didn’t have the money. Six
weeks, he’d pissed away twenty-five K. Walker half expected it, it
was a risk he had to take because Dewey lived with his belly to the
ground and he was connected to anyone from there to Denver who
lived the same. Walker couldn’t shake his tail and make those
connections; he needed a man to do it for him. That was Dewey. But
his friend had fucked him, not altogether a surprise but that
didn’t mean he wasn’t disappointed.

“You sat a game,” he guessed.