Their Ex's Redrock Twilight (Texas Alpha) (Texas Alpha Series Book 4) (11 page)

“D
amn it, I’m not going to Dallas,” Link declared, with a menacing growl.

Coco kept looking at her fantastic gold nails with the polished black tips while she sat in the back of a limo so new it had that new-limo smell. It seemed Rusty was expanding her taxi business into a limo service in town, which worked out fantastically, so her new girl posse could travel to Dallas to shop together.

Coco saw Rusty ignore Link, who took up one full side of the limo with his muscular bulk, and Rusty ordered her driver, “Jagger, take us to Northpark, and don’t drive it above seventy-five.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jagger said, who was wearing a Gothic tux and had spiked silver and black hair.

“No damn way,” Link said over Jagger.

But Coco felt the limo start to move as Tess and Carly giggled. Coco leaned over and poked Link’s massive chest with her beautiful nail, and the movement slid a lock of her new blond hair over her shoulder. It felt so strange and yet magnificent to have such long hair, and all of it a stunning blond.

She’d never tried extensions before, but now that she had, she thought she couldn’t live without them.

“Sugar,” she said to Link. “I paid you to guard my body, and it’s going to Dallas to shop. I have a new smoking-hot man I must impress. This is important.”

Link’s lips drew a straight line, then he muttered, “You were fine the way you were, babe.”

That made her feel so good that she stopped attacking him with her nail and sat back.

“Sometimes,” Tess told Link, “a woman just has to update.”

Link shrugged, while Carly exclaimed, “Okay, champagne time!”

Coco was pleased to see Link helped them open the champagne, and he even took some in a paper cup as opposed to the ladies’ crystal flutes. It was amazing, and she barely felt like an old suburban wife who had been left for another woman.

She could try to cover the hurt with new hair and clothes, but she didn’t think it came close to healing like having new girlfriends did, or having a hot and sexy special agent in her bed.

Coco flipped back a long strand of her blond hair and she lifted her glass for a toast.

All the ladies and Link clinked glasses, as she declared, “To the new me that’s just been waiting to bust out!”

“To cheating ex-husbands getting rotten genital diseases!” Rusty declared.

Tess sputtered a laugh at Rusty’s outrageous toast, as they all did, before she exclaimed, “To new friends and BFFs!”

“To each one of our new men, who are so alpha and smoking hot we need this cold champagne to cool us down!” Carly said.

Then Link surprised them all by growling a sort of toast. “To four sexy and damn hot women that better do what I tell them, when I tell them, if I see something I don’t damn well like.”

All the ladies paused from touching Link’s cup with their flutes, while he looked at them, intent and serious.

Coco broke the suspense by asking, “Sugar, you really think we are sexy and hot?”

Coco’s mind was blown a second later, when it looked as if Link might have blushed a little, as he nodded, then he added, “Hell yeah.”

Her posse smiled, and then they all toasted, with Tess saying, “Link, honey, we will follow your protection orders.”

Carly added, “It’s something we already learned from our men.”

Coco nodded as they all sat back. “I’ve been learning that Finn is big into protection too.”

Then Carly cocked her head at Link and said, “Link, why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

That started it! And Coco happily helped delved into Link’s dating life, while he groaned and gave curt answers, which showed the ladies that they really needed to find a match for him, because he was doing poorly on his own.

But the best came when they turned their attention to their hot young driver Jagger.

“You’re dating
Blue
, Jagger? Oh my God, I didn’t know that!” Rusty exclaimed.

Coco saw Rusty looking at Tess, and then Carly whispered to Coco, in case she didn’t know, which Coco was certain she didn’t, “Blue is Caval Rome’s daughter.”

Coco raised an eyebrow, while thinking that Caval might not like his daughter dating what looked like the cross between a rock star and a bad boy. But then again, they had to be old enough where Dad’s only recourse was to be worried, but not able to tell them what to do.

“I am,” Jagger answered from the driver’s seat. “Blue and I go on our second date tomorrow night.”

Coco watched Rusty as she scooted forward and grabbed Jagger’s shoulder from behind. “Honey, her father will kill if you try to get in there.”

Jagger and Link both snorted, with Jagger saying, “No shit. I do not want on his bad side.”

Link offered, “You might live, kid.”

Rusty sat back, and then leaned toward Tess to whisper, “What happen with her and Justice?”

Tess shrugged. “It’s just them dating around, I guess.”

“Angel?” Carly asked in a whisper.

They both shook their heads with small shrugs.

“Last person I heard had seen her was Sam. He said he’d hired her to do some tribal council work, and then event planning for Redrock. Took her under his wing, I think,” Tess said. “I’m hoping she will help me with the orphanage’s charity ball.”

Coco perked up immediately upon hearing there was going to be a ball, and it was for charity. Two of her favorite things
and
a chance to dress up and party.

“It’s going to be a blast!” Rusty exclaimed. “We’ll party our booties off and make so much money for the reservation orphanage.”

“I can’t wait,” Carly said. “And this trip is perfect timing to start looking at dresses.”

“And shoes!” Coco said, having learned her girls were true shoe whores, and she could get in on that.

“Damn women,” Link muttered, with his arms crossed over his pumped-up chest, but it wasn’t long before Link found appreciation in ladies modeling gowns and killer heels.

And that was how Coco found Desperado Dolly four-inch stilettos with studded stirrups and chain-embellished ankle harnesses that were—

“Oh my God! Those are
so
hot. I think I might have climaxed a little,” Tess exclaimed, looking with awe and lust at Coco’s feet in the Desperado Dolly stilettos.

“Those are ass-kicking sexy,” Rusty whispered.

“Eighteen hundred dollars’ worth of; so damn hot they are filthy good,” Carly said. “I think they outdo my Rockstud heels.”

“Damn, woman.” Coco looked up into Link’s light blues. “Wicked, babe,” he growled, in a really good way.

“I’ll take them!” Coco said to the sales lady, who looked as if she worked off commission, and might climax herself.

Coco agreed they were
that
smoking sexy, and clearly outdid Carly’s new Louboutin metallic ombre effect python heels, Tess’ new Jimmy Choo black suede crystal-studded pumps, and Rusty’s new Jimmy Choo black suede Vamps with crystal anklet stilettos.

Then all the ladies decided to wear their new heels out of the uber-expensive shoe boutique and to the designer clothes shops. Coco saw that Link looked pretty pleased as he hooked arms with Carly and her, while they strutted their stuff to a nearby shop.

Coco leaned past Link’s massive chest so she could say to Carly, “I need a new style, something as far from suburban cheated-on wife as I can get, sweetie.”

Carly nodded, and ahead of them, over her shoulder, Tess said, “I’d go for designer biker babe with a classy edge.”

“Oh!” Rusty exclaimed, looking back to them. “I saw these new black denim lambskin jeans that will be freaking perfect for that! In fact, they are so fine, we all ought to get a pair as a must-have signature piece in our wardrobes.”

Coco’s eyes widened and she nearly purred. They sounded so sexy and hot, she couldn’t wait to see a pair!

Link made them promise not to leave the shop, while he left them crowded around the black lambskin jeans rack, and he went outside to “scout around.”

“They look like soft leather,” Coco said.

“Aren’t they
amazing
?” Rusty added.

“I’ve got to have a pair!” Carly exclaimed, right along with her.

“I hope they have sizes here,” Tess said. “I need a pair of these like I need to breath. And my butt’s pretty big.”

“So’s mine,” all the ladies chimed in at once.

“Tess, Vincent sees you in these, you will be preggo instantaneously,” Rusty declared.

Everyone laughed as Coco pulled her size and clutched it. With her new heels, she would look so bad, but in a very good way.

“Are you trying for a baby, sugar?” Coco asked Tess.

“We are,” Tess said with a smile. “But we’re adopting too, so it will be like an instant family.” Then Tess looked past Coco and said, “Oh, those tops might look great with these jeans.”

Everyone turned as a unit to see the tops. The oohs and ahs commenced as they hustled over to the sexy tops.

“We should try both on at the same time to gauge the effect,” Rusty suggested. Then she added, “Tess and Vincent are adopting a boy from the reservation orphanage.”

Coco stopped admiring the sexy backless metallic top to look over the round rack at Tess.

“Sugar, that is
so
special.”

Tess had the most awesome look on her face. “His name is Navi, and he has our heart,” she said.

Coco had always wanted children, but Gordon continually said no. It was a surprise to her, that she’d found out after a few years of their marriage. Maybe she’d been too young to think about asking him that question when they dated.

It had actually caused many fights between them, before she just gave up trying to convince him. Then she started selling beauty products, and often thought that she’d put her heart into that instead of the child she’d wished for.

“I can’t wait to meet him,” Carly said.

“He’s a little Vincent, just wait and see,” Rusty said.

They were all side by side in the dressing room cubicles when the first passionate squeal sounded.

“These are making my butt look so good!”

“My butt never looked so hot!”

“Oh my God, they feel like they’re caressing my curves.”

“They stretch!” Coco exclaimed.

“We can’t all buy these same tops, though,” Carly said. “We’ll pick which one of us looks best in it.”

“But they are different colors,” Rusty said.

“If we don’t wear them on the same day,” Coco added.

“We could text if we’re going to wear it that day,” Tess said.

“Because,” Coco said, as she strutted out of the cubicle to look in the full-length mirror, “I just
have
to have this entire outfit!”

As the ladies joined her, they all exclaimed at how good they looked.

“These outfits are made to catch the eye of smoking-hot alpha guys,” Rusty declared.

Everyone nodded.

“’Kay, we will do the text thing, because we all look too fine in these,” Coco said, and her heart filled with the knowledge that she had some fun new girlfriends to share with, especially in her time of need.

It was on their way to look at dresses and gowns that Coco first saw him. Immediately, she pulled everyone to a stop, while Link went on alert at her tone. They were at the inside shopping mall area, and the Indian was so big, he was hard to miss, even from as far away as he was.

“It’s one of those traffickers!” Coco said, but only loud enough for her group to hear.

“What the hell,” Link muttered.

But Coco was veering and urging all of them behind some fake ferns and a water feature. When they settled, hidden, she grabbed Link’s huge bicep.

“Finn showed me pictures of the bad guys after his huge bust. He didn’t know exactly who I was then, and he wanted to know if I knew any of them.” Coco peeked around the ferns and looked down the mall in front of what appeared in the distance to be a coffee shop. She pointed a black-tipped shiny gold fingernail at a tall Indian in a leather jacket who was loitering out front of the coffee shop. “That,” Coco said sharply, “is one of them—Creed, I think his name is.”

“Creed!” Rusty and Carly exclaimed at once.

Coco turned wide eyes on them.

Rusty said, “He was running with a really bad man called Runninghorse, and they assaulted us. But Finn saved us.”

Carly offered, “His name comes up too much with the girls we rescue, and it is never good.”

“Wow,” Coco whispered, then she shared, “Finn wanted to catch him in his sting, but Creed got away.”

“That’s with the human traffickers Finn caught from his motel?” Tess asked.

Coco nodded.

“Bad tangos,” Link muttered.

That was when, nearly too loud, Rusty exclaimed, “Angel!”

But Coco prayed the water feature they huddled by had masked it.

“Oh my God, it’s Angel,” Carly said, sounding anxious.

Coco remembered them talking about Angel before, about how she was dating Justice or something.

“It’s a meet,” Link announced decisively.

They all turned to watch the very tall man called Creed glaring down on the petite Angel as she animatedly talked to him.

“This can’t be good,” Rusty whispered.

“I want to go grab her away from him,” Carly said.

Coco was just going to suggest they call Finn when Creed grabbed Angel’s arm and he began pulling her away. It didn’t look as if Angel totally agreed with that move.

Link growled under his breath. He was clearly at odds about being Coco’s bodyguard, and what that held him to, as opposed to following and trying to free Angel from a reportedly very bad man.

So Coco made a bold move.

“We have to follow them!” she exclaimed.

––––––––

“G
et them out of there,” Finn ordered sharply.

“Can’t,” Link snapped back through their cell phone connection. “They are hellbent on getting their young babe friend Angel away from him.” There was a pause while Finn slammed open the door to his Jeep. “Can’t say as I disagree with them, buddy,” Link muttered.

“Damn it,” Finn swore, slamming the door shut, and then starting his Jeep.

He was going to have Vincent, Cabe, and Zeb ready to decapitate him for getting their women even close to this dangerous mess.