Luke: Armed and Dangerous Read Free Page B

return, just enough to keep some sort of rapport with Fenning.
     The old man was a big-time rancher in the area who had a big-time grudge against undocumented
     aliens— UDAs—for damaging his fence line.
    He’d lost thousands of dollars’ worth of cattle off his Bar F Ranch in the rustling
     operation Luke had helped to bust, and then he lost even more when the fences got
     cut. The cattle strayed out and died after getting into some bad feed.
    But Fenning had recovered quickly. Maybe too quickly. DEA financial snoops were doing
     their best to figure out where Fenning’s stream of cash came from, since his insurance
     and the income from his stock, weren’t sufficient to cover that kind of disaster.
    “Glad to see the Bar F made it back so fast from losing so much of your herd.” Luke
     kept his tone conversational, relying on his cover as a ranch hand to make him nonthreatening.
     “Skylar said she’d never have been able to come back from a hit that big.”
    “Skylar trusts banks. The government.” Fenning drank his scotch in one gulp, then
     set his glass on the bar for a refill. His cheeks flushed maroon—maybe from emotion,
     maybe from alcohol. “My daddy taught me not to put all my bullets in one gun.”
    Luke responded with a practiced silence, but he widened his eyes, playing his role
     as a younger man interested in Fenning’s wisdom.
    Fenning picked up his refilled scotch. “Diversity. That’s the key. You want to stay
     in business, you better know how to diversify. Always have one stream of income that
     won’t let you down, and a stash of cash the government can’t touch.” He killed the
     drink, and his face turned redder as his expression relaxed.
    Luke shifted his weight back and opened his stance to give the appearance of even
     greater interest. “So, if I get to the point where I can buy my own ranch and run
     my own cattle, what other streams of income should I think about?”
    The hard wariness came back in a rush, and Fenning answered with a snort. “Son, if
     you disappeared from Douglas tomorrow, I wouldn’t miss you. What makes you think I’m
     ready to tell you my business secrets?”
    Luke shrugged, as if to say, fair enough. “Maybe down the road, I can do some work
     for you—show you what I’m worth.”
    “I got myself a good foreman,” the old man grumbled, but Luke heard the hint of interest.
     Fenning’s foreman, Brad Taylor, was infamous in the community of ranch hands for partying
     hard, staying out late just about every night, and barely getting to work on time.
     Luke also heard that Taylor had a penchant for twins... at the same time. Maybe Fenning
     found that interesting enough to keep Taylor around.
    “If something changes, let me know.” Luke gave a short nod then took a drink of his
     beer as he moved away from Bull Fenning before he overplayed his hand. Every detail
     of the conversation was recorded in his mind to share with Rios.
    Diversity. Secrets. Cash the government didn’t know about. Definitely merited more
     digging—though the old man might be making his bucks filming Taylor’s exploits.
    Luke made his way across the room to Gina Garcia, a statuesque blond who had bought
     the old Karchner K, a couple miles north of the Bar F. Drug activity had escalated
     since her arrival in the area, and some big busts had been made in a corridor discovered
     between the Bar F and the K & K. Luke’s gut instinct told him that the single mother
     had nothing to do with Guerrero or the new operation that was starting the turf war,
     but it wouldn’t hurt to question her and check out the K & K for good measure.
    Gina was decked out in a long green dress and a glittering gold locket. Classy. Definitely
     easy on the eyes. Looked like she was born to wear evening gowns and sip champagne—so
     why was she so nervous she was picking lint off a branch on the Christmas tree?
    “Evening,” he said as he approached her, then felt bad when she