The Cowboy Genie's Wife: A Paranormal Romance (The Dirty Djinn Series)

THE COWBOY GENIE’S WIFE

Copyright 2014 © Lyn Brittan

www.lynbrittan.com

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No part of this eBook or bound book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. This eBook/Book may not be sold or given to other people. If you would like to share this story, please purchase additional copies.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Also By Lyn Brittan

THE COWBOY GENIE’S WIFE | The Dirty Djinn Series | Lyn Brittan

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Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

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Further Reading: Moonlit Embrace

Also By Lyn Brittan

About the Author

R
osa pulled her red sports car into the dusty driveway and plonked her head against the steering wheel. Going in immediately wasn’t gonna happen. One does not simply waltz into one’s ex-husband’s house and beg for a place to hide.

She looked up, rested her chin on the wheel, and groaned.

Nope. Not house, ranch. Big too—like the rest of him.

Unbelievable!

Being married ... ex-married ... estranged, whatever, from a genie was kind of a big deal. She shouldn’t have married the jerk in the first place, but that was a hundred years ago, and she was too stupid then to know better.

Literally a hundred years ago. She counted out the decades on her fingers. Well, eighty-something years ago. Nineteen thirties, America in the middle of the Great Depression, and she was the eldest of five. New York was rough in those days, and well, Fazil hadn’t been. He’d proven a soft, easy, and gentle reprieve, a bright spot in the grease and filth of the city.

What was a human supposed to do? Say no? She hadn’t stood a chance. Not against that delicious, ingenious djinn.

Floodlights from the house—no, fucking ridiculous ranch—lit up her car like a stadium, dragging her to the present.

Ugh, it should have never come to this. She should have stayed in the tenements that day so long ago, but instead, she’d blindly taken his hand. Now, everyone she’d known growing up was dead, or if they lived, she couldn’t just pop in looking the same as when she’d left.

She’d run out of time, money, and options. When she had problems these days, Fazil was the one person she could turn to. And this one was a doozy.

It
materialized in a puff of turquoise smoke. “I assume you need something?”

“Fazil.”

“Rosa. Lovely to see my wife again. I’d rather you did your groveling in the house.”

“I don’t need this.” She turned the ignition and shifted into reverse. Forget it. She’d hide out and starve first. She’d live in the woods and eat bear shit to survive before dealing with ... oh c’mon. “Get out of my car.”

“I’m djinn. I go where I want. Actually, that’s a lie, and you know it. I go where my
hamdullah
is.”

Hamdullah.
A life mate. It’d been cool, all shits and giggles in the start, but an eternity with a trifling, controlling, self-absorbed, alpha-every-possible-moment genie gets old. Even if he had a jaw cut from a cliff, sweetly lickable dark skin, and eyes the color of the Mediterranean.

And a mouth that wouldn’t shut up.

“Things must be really rough—”

“Fazil—”

“For you to come all the way out here—”

“Shut up, Fazil—”

“To see your deserted husband—”

“Ex-husband.”

He had the nerve to laugh. To her shock, a small, teeny-tiny part of her missed the sound.

“There are no papers between us,
hamdullah
, you’re my wife. I won’t ever force you to stay, but you can always come home again.” He rapped the dashboard and leaned over. “Stop the car.”

“Fazil...”

“Please.”

Whoa. Eighty years and she’d never heard the man say that. Always “should,” and “now,” and “must,” but never “please.” Not that he’d said it sweetly—there was an edge to it, almost as if it hurt him to spit it out. The old Rosa would have floored it, knowing at some point he’d have to pop back to his lamp or risk being too far away. Fazil wasn’t the type to hoof it back on foot. He didn’t do hard and tough, which begged a certain question. “Why a ranch in Arizona? Why a ranch at all? Can’t be good for your Armani suits.”

“It’s nice.”

“It’s in B-F-E.” She broke off into a chuckle and shook her head. “Don’t.”

Fazil turned, head still on the headrest, a small smile on his lips. “Sure?”

The last time she’d said that particular phrase, he’d whisked her away to Egypt in the blink of a gleaming eye. “Those were different times.”

“Better times. You’re not here to work things out?”

“No.” The wind shifted, and her eyes watered. Two huge swallows separated her from pride and throwing up all over herself. “What’s that smell?”

“Horse shit.”

She leaned against her own headrest and pinched the space between her eyes. She didn’t need a migraine right now. “I’ll bite. Why do you have horses?”

“Because I have a ranch. Keep up.” He reached for her, but she slapped him away. He didn’t acknowledge it. “Headaches back? I can’t do anything until you wish them away.”

“I have medicine. Why do you have a ranch?”

“You have a djinn, and because I want to. Let me ease your pain. You’re being stubborn for no reason, Rosalinda Wahid.”

“Rosalinda Gutierrez y Lobo.”

“And?”

She hated when he was right. She especially hated when he knew it, throwing a smirk around as if dismantling a curse. He was too close, too charming in those moments. If she had any chance of making it through this, she needed him to believe she’d left for one reason—that she’d grown weary of his boorish attitude. Heaven help them both if he ever discovered the true reason. “Fine. I wish I didn’t have a headache.”

And just like that, she didn’t.

Fazil cracked his neck and drummed his fingers against the doorframe. “Your wishes feel like firecrackers and tequila.”

“Glad it was good for you. Look, I need your help.”

“Wish us home. Save the gas.”

“I’ll wish us to the house.”

“Coward.”

She sure was. Home meant something very specific to a djinn and his mate. Lamp was home, and by
dios
, had she missed it. Green and fabric, white tiles, and a pool that glittered. Going into the lamp reset everything. Her aging would freeze again—not that it’d exactly been at warp speed these last five years. And the pull of the darn thing. She missed it. The sense of warmth and love and togetherness that just being there filled her with.

“It missed you too.”

“I wasn’t thinking about your stupid lamp.”

“Okay.” By the time he’d closed his mouth, her car was in a garage, parked next to his three. None she’d seen before, but no biggie. Djinn magic was weird that way. It worked off wishes, and people wished for things every day—money, a house, a car, and apparently a ranch. Whenever a djinn wanted something, they snapped their selfish little fingers and stole the wish for themselves.

“Where’s your bag?”

She popped open the trunk to his surprised whistle.

“I stand corrected. Bags. Many bags. So, more than a visit?” He mumbled something and slammed the trunk. “Well?”

She knew what the lazy bum wanted.

She silently wished them to her ... she stopped herself. Djinn were a tricky sort. Wishing them to her room, would wish them into the lamp and their bedchamber. Testing each phrase first, she closed her eyes and wished her bags into a room, a room separate from his, and that was all her own.

He grunted.

He snorted.

He coughed.

“Whatever. You want to tell me what this is all about?” He didn’t turn to her as he asked—just sort of forged ahead, leaving her no choice but to follow him inside. They wound up in a very East Coast kitchen. New appliances—everything steel, granite, or blue. “I’ll cook while you talk, and before you say anything smartass, you love my food. Or have you forgotten all about that too?”

“I’ll give you that.” She eased onto a stool next to the center island, her butt still sore from the unending miles of driving.

He turned to face her with a smile on his face but dropped it along with the jar of spice he’d been carrying. “What happened to you?”

“I have laugh lines. Your djinn magic’s wearing off.”

“That’s not what I meant, but whose fault is that? You have access to my ... to our lamp. And they’re fine. Your face, I mean...” His words trailed off for a more hands-on inspection. Searing eyes raked over her body, top to bottom. Her cheeks burned under his scrutiny, but she didn’t look away.

“You have ripped fingernails.”

“Yep.”

He tugged at her collar and she knew she was busted. “Is that a bruise on your neck?”

“Yes.”

The vein above his right eyebrow twitched. His face darkened, and something changed in the air. It got heavy, as if the very bonds holding the molecules together broke at his command. The last time he’d looked this way, the man up the street, who’d had a hankering for pretty little girls, lost his ability to
hanker
. And breathe.

“Do I need to kill anyone?”

“No.”

“Rosa. Baby, you need to tell me how—”

“You don’t need to kill him, Fazil.”

“Because?”

“I already did.”

“W
ell, that’s new.” He kept his voice calm, though his mind zoomed a billion miles per hour. His wife had never been one for violence. It was her kindness that had drawn him to her. She’d hardened over the years to be sure, but murder?

No. Not unless she had a damned good reason for one. “Are you hurt? Did someone...”

The constriction around his heart eased at the shake of her head.

“Okay. So no one attacked you, but you killed someone anyway?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So what the hell are you saying?”

“I don’t like your tone, Fazil. One might mistake it for sounding accusatory.”

His tone? Was she serious? None of this would have happened if she’d stayed where she’d belonged. Not that she’d bothered to tell him what
this
was yet.

When Rosa crossed her arms and her nails were digging into her flesh, Fazil knew he’d gone too far. She wouldn’t be here if things weren’t completely in the shitter. Whatever she thought of him, she was still his to protect. “Maybe you should start at the beginning.”

She clasped her hands together and looked heavenward. “Oh, Himself allows me to speak?”

“Rosa—”

She wished for a glass of wine, gifting him with a wobbly smile when he produced her favorite, along with bread and spiced olive oil. “The beginning. Right. Okay. I got a job cleaning houses and...”

He choked on his wine, shaking his palm in the air and sputtering out words
not
lost in translation. “A maid? That’s not the beginning.”

“It is for this story.”

“Rosa—”

“Just because you’re a billionaire—”

“Baby, they don’t have a word for how much money I have, and you’re telling me that you’re ... wait. Time out. I send you money. Even though you haven’t said a word to me in years, I send you money. A shit ton of it.”

“I needed more.”

“Ask! That’s all you ever have to do. Hell, wish. It’s kinda my shtick.”

She knew enough of the old language that her cheeks reddened at his curses. Good. It was bad enough that his
hamdullah
had morphed into a cash-guzzling parasite who couldn’t stand the sight of him, humiliating enough for him to avoid his brothers. It was something else to have it known that a djinn’s wife was out working for someone else. “Why do you need extra money? What the hell is it going to? Did anyone see you? Any—”