Luke (Armed and Dangerous Book 2) Read Free Page A

question. “A girl with strawberry blond hair and freckles?”
    “I see the same Trinity MacKenna that I’ve known and loved—only with bright, beautiful wings.” Nevaeh crouched so that she was eye level with Trinity and rested her hands on the bench to either side of Trinity’s hips. “Honey, you’ve always been a butterfly. You just finally had a chance to come out of your cocoon.”
    Warmth rushed through Trinity and she bit the inside of her lip before saying, “You’re wonderful, you know that? You always know the right things to say.”
    Nevaeh adjusted the spaghetti strap of Trinity’s dress, a no- nonsense look on her stunning features. “Hush up and get that tiny ass downstairs. It’s time to soar, Ms. Butterfly. Besides, I want to see which of my moneybags charity donors falls all over himself first.”

Chapter 3
    Luke hitched one hip against the bar while he nursed his fancy imported beer—twenty dollars a mug for charity’s sake—and studied the crowded reception room of Bisbee’s best-known bed-and-breakfast.
    According to Skylar MacKenna, Nevaeh always threw one hell of a holiday party in the name of toys and medical care for the towns’ orphans. It looked like everyone with a sizeable bank account in Bisbee and Douglas had turned out for it again this year. Especially the people he was most interested in seeing.
    Skylar played a good ranch “boss” to help his cover, even though she now knew he was DEA and not just a damn good foreman. Too bad Zack Hunter had showed back up when he did and swept Skylar off her teet. If he hadn’t, Luke would have asked the woman out, rules be damned.
    Not going there tonight.
    Not with three dead college kids on his mind, a bunch of blood on the Larson ranch, and a turf war exploding along a stretch of border land not big enough to hold that level of violence. Time to get down to business. The job had been his life anyway, for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to do something other than work.
    There was no way the Guerrero operation was running so smoothly in a place like Douglas without some local help. The DEA had long believed there had to be somebody cooperating, somebody with a ranching pedigree and some border land, or another front or cover that made it easier for the Guerrero cartel to move their drugs into the United States.
    This person wouldn’t have been born into a drug dynasty like Francisco Guerrero, and this person might screw up and leave a trail to follow. Whoever was making Douglas hospitable to the cartel might be the key to tearing down Guerrero’s perfect little world.
    Luke took another swig of his beer, then strode directly up to the next suspect on the list the DEA had developed in its year of research before sending Luke and Rios into the field.
    Bull Fenning, wearing pressed jeans and a crisp red flannel shirt despite the more formal occasion, claimed his scotch on the rocks from the bartender just as Luke drew even with him. He turned toward Luke, and he caught a flicker of surprise in the big man’s frost-gray eyes.
    Fenning’s thick white eyebrows lifted, and the lines in his weathered face tightened as he said, “Well, now, Mr. Rider. This party’s steep for a ranch hand.”
    “Foreman.” Luke offered his hand for Fenning to shake despite the dig. “But you’re right. I’m here representing the Flying M, since Skylar MacKenna couldn’t come.”
    “I forgot. Still on her honeymoon, even though she’s back in town.” Fenning grinned, but his expression remained wary.
    Luke gave a smile in 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