Gambling On a Heart (5 page)

“And finally, Baby Jesus, keep Miz Tracy and Bobby safe. Amen.” She opened her eyes and smiled lazily up at him.

He swallowed past the thickness in his throat.

“I thought I should stop asking God to send Momma back to us, since I know now she can’t come home. It might make her sad because she can’t. But I thought it would be nice to add Miz Tracy and Bobby to my list.”

His smile grew stiff. He remembered their conversion over the wedding dinner. The little wheels in Mandy’s head were working. She hadn’t included Tracy and Bobby into her prayer without considering possibilities Zack didn’t even want to think about.

“That’s nice. Bobby is your friend,” he said past the dry tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.

She yawned and shrugged under the hideously pink bedspread. The ruffle must have tickled her chin, because she pushed it away. “I like Miz Tracy, too. She’s your friend, isn’t she?”

Tracy and him friends...fat chance. He hoped he never had to deal with her again. “I suppose.” He patted her covered chest. “Nighty-night, baby girl. I love you.”

“Nighty-night, Daddy.” She grinned at him. “I love you more.”

He leaned over her and kissed her forehead. “I love you ’til the cows come home,” he whispered, and into her arms placed the stuffed bunny Lisa had given to her when she was a baby.

“We aren’t missin’ any cows.” She giggled and hugged the raggedy stuffed animal. “So, none of ’em needs to come home.”

It was an old ritual. He chuckled and stood, giving her one last kiss on her forehead and feathered back her black hair. “Then I’ll have an even longer time to love you. Now go to sleep.”

She nodded, yawning again. He tucked the sheet and comforter around her. For several moments after he’d turned out the light, he stood by the door until her breathing evened into sleep.

He snagged a beer from the fridge, then made his way into the big master bedroom next to Mandy’s room. His grandparents had built on the master suite when they’d married. He’d completely gutted the bathroom and modernized it, much as he had the kitchen, when he’d moved in almost two years ago. He’d never be as good at carpentry as Dylan Quinn was. Dylan had practically rebuilt the old house on Butterfly Ranch, but Zack had learned from trial and error and called in the experts when he got in over his head. The work had helped him come to terms with living in a house he’d always dreamed of sharing with Tracy.

Like the rest of the house, the walls of the room were off-white and the wood trim aged oak, but the flooring was plush forest green carpet, which his feet sunk into as he crossed to the sliding glass door leading out onto the patio. He looked out over the darkened land. A horse whinnied in the distance, and from somewhere out on the ridge, a coyote howled for its mate. Stars twinkled overhead and the last of the season’s fireflies flickered in the tall grass, which he really had to find the time to mow.

He drank from the longneck bottle. How many times had he and Tracy lain on the bank of the lake out in the pasture with fireflies dancing around them?

He gulped down more beer and turned away from the yard. What the hell was wrong with him? She’d cheated on him with his best friend. Regardless of what Mandy was planning in that precocious little mind of hers, he was never falling in love again. It hurt too damn much when it all fell apart.

Setting the bottle on the patio table, he pulled his smart phone from his pocket and checked his voicemail. The only message was from his mother-in-law wanting to know if he’d considered coming to Wyoming for Thanksgiving.

He supposed he should think about it. The Fosters had only seen their granddaughter a half-dozen times since Lisa’s death two years ago, and for all of those times, they’d come to Texas. But he wasn’t ready to go back. He’d sworn he’d never set foot in Wyoming again after Lisa’s death.

Surprised not to have a call from his second in command, he dialed Dawn Madison’s cell number. She answered and he asked, “Madison, what’s going on?”

“Sheriff, it’s your day off. Why the hell are you calling me?”

“Because I
am
the sheriff and figure it’s my duty to know if the people who elected me are safe.”

“Well, other than watching Simms get fatter with each creampuff he stuffs into his mouth and listening to Grant complaining about not getting any, all’s well in Dodge.”

He winced and looked up at the starry heavens. Larry Simms was on his way to clogging his every artery. Zack tried to promote good health among his deputies, but Larry didn’t care. Zack only prayed the man didn’t croak on county time. The paperwork would be a bitch. Doug Grant wasn’t the only one not getting any, but Grant’s reason–his wife had just had a baby–was a temporary one. There was definite light at the end of his forced celibacy tunnel. Zack’s was a black hole.

“So, are Kennedy and Timmons out on patrol?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer. “Those cattle rustlers are getting bold.”

“Boss, do you take me for an idiot?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want to think you doubted my abilities because I’m a woman.”

He laughed and shook his head. He was sometimes slow on the uptake, but he got the point this time loud and clear. “Madison, you and I both know I don’t think that.”

“Then why the hell are you calling on your night off?”

He sighed and picked up the beer.
Because, besides my daughter, my ranch, and my job, I don’t have a life.
“Take care, Dawn. Call me if you need backup.”

“
Goodnight
, Zack.” She hung up.

He slipped the phone into his pocket and finished off the beer.

As he glanced out over the last of the summer fireflies, Tracy drifted into his mind like a phantom. The huskiness of her voice, the sexy whisper of her laughter, the way she bit her lip when she was unsure of herself. With her heels, she was almost as tall as him. Could he still fit his hands the entire way around her waist as he had back when they’d dated? He clenched his hand at the surge of desire to try it sometime.

The dance they’d been obligated to share had been pure torture. The short blue dress showed off her long, long legs and the flawless, creamy skin of her shoulders. She smelled like sunshine and honey. He’d purposely held her away from him and refused to look at her. If he hadn’t done both, he honestly wasn’t sure what would have happened.

He’d convinced himself he hated her. Then, last year, he’d called her to come down to the jail to pick up her brother after a drunken binge. As they’d contrived ways to help Dylan, he’d been exposed to the side of Tracy he’d fallen head over heels for when they were thirteen–her inner beauty, her tenacity, her compassion.

Qualities she bestowed on him, even though he’d given her a nickname she’d never outgrown: Olive Oyl.

Zack’s mind returned to her skimpy dress and the way it showed off her body. He’d always loved her long legs. He sucked in a breath at the image of the low-cut dress that made her breasts seem bigger.

Tracy had been self-conscious of how small she was back when they’d dated. However, once he’d discovered how sensitive her nipples were, he couldn’t get enough of them. He’d never known a woman who could almost orgasm with just having her breasts stimulated. Had Jake, or the man she’d left Jake for, been able to push her over the edge?

“Damn.” He shook the question from his head and re-entered the bedroom. Remembering his time with Tracy was as sadistic as thinking about his and Lisa’s last fight.

He tossed the bottle into the garbage can by his dresser and headed for the shower.

Four in the morning came too damn early. Tonight was going to be one of those nights. He was strung as tight as his brother’s guitar strings.

Chapter 3

“How was the Rangers game?”

Jake Parker looked across the console of the semi-truck cab at his brother. Younger by five years, Brent still reminded Jake of a baby with his round face and potbelly. “How the hell am I ’posed to know?”

Brent beetled his flabby brow as they neared Highway-6. “Didn’t you go to the baseball game?”

Jake geared down the truck when the intersection came into view. No one was out at this hour in the morning. “I didn’t even have tickets.”

“But Bobby told me the other day you were going.” Brent chuckled and folded his hands over his gut. “The kid was mad as a hornet he couldn’t go ’cause of Dylan’s weddin’ to that pretty little filly who bought Uncle Jock’s place.”

Jake snorted, stopped at the stop sign, and turned left to head north on Highway 6. “I only told Bobby I wanted to take him to the game to mess with the bitch. I knew he’d cause Tracy all kinds of hell at the wedding.”

Brent shook his head. “You’re one hard bastard, bro. I hope I never get on your bad side.”

“Then don’t ever double-cross me.”

In the side mirror, Jake watched their cousin Johnny Blackwell head south.

“Don’t worry. I won’t.” Brent reached for the radio dial and turned it on to a classic country station. Soon the cab was filled with harmonica and guitar music and the voice of Willie singing about blue eyes crying in the rain. “So, are you still determined to try to get full custody of Bobby?”

“Damn straight. I’m suing Tracy for support, too.” Jake glanced at his younger brother with a smirk. “I know just what to do, too. She’s rich now that she inherited all that money from her grandfather. I deserve to have some of it, don’t I?”

Brent shrugged and fiddled with the seatbelt over his paunch. “I don’t know how you survived being married into that family. Her brother and father are two arrogant assholes.”

Jake glanced at his brother. “Fortunately, General Dickhead and GI Prick were off saving the world when me and Tracy were married.”

They approached the town square and stopped at the red light. He tapped the steering wheel, looking out the side window at the old courthouse and the massive tree in the front of it–the Tree of Justice, it had been dubbed over the years. A shiver slithered down his spine at the sight of the old oak tree where his forbearer Elijah Blackwell, along with his cousins Cole Cartwright and Dylan Ferguson, had hanged anyone who broke the law in their county a century and a half ago.

“Well, Tracy’s still always been too damned skinny,” Brent said. “I can’t imagine what you saw in her.”

Jake shifted the truck into gear, thankful the light turned green. The town was too damned spooky in the dark. “Tracy might be skinny, but she’s sexy skinny–all long legs and tiny waist. I’d still fuck her if she’d let me.”

Brent shook his head. “She has no ass or tits. Huh-uh. Not me. I want some meat on my woman. Hell, she doesn’t even have anything to hold onto. Popeye can have Olive Oyl.”

Jake laughed and shifted the trunk into a higher gear. He wasn’t about to tell his brother just how wild in the sack normally shy, sedate Tracy Quinn was. At least, she was until she found out he didn’t love her.

“Speaking of Popeye and Olive Oyl.” Brent fiddled with his seatbelt. “Is it true Tracy is seeing Zack Cartwright again?”

Jake spared Brent a glace. He’d almost forgotten who gave her that nickname.

Brent’s blubbery gut jiggled from laughter. “Don’t you get it? Tracy is Olive Oyl and Zack was a Marine–Popeye was a sail–”

“I get it. I’m hoping she is screwin’ Sheriff Asshole because that’s how I’m gonna get Bobby. I refuse to let that prick anywhere near my son.”

Brent held out his hands. “Whoa. Bro, you need to get over this anger you have with him.”

“I’d be playing professional football right now if it wasn’t for high and mighty Zack Cartwright. I’ll never forget what he did to me.”

“You know that almost sounds like crazy talk, Jake.” Brent sucked in a deep breath, bent over his belly and reached down between his legs to get the plastic grocery sack at his feet. He pushed his hair back from his fat face before he pulled a bag of pork rinds and a bottle of Dr. Pepper from the sack. He held the bag toward Jake, who winced and shook his head. Brent shrugged and stuffed one of the disgusting deep fried pieces of pig skin into his mouth.

“Speaking of crazy people,” Brent said around the crunching of the fried fat. “You know, I’m still a little freaked by the fact Leon Ferguson was Uncle Jock’s son–and that Leon killed his own father.”

Jake shrugged and let some of the tension leave his shoulders. They’d cross the county line in another few miles. The closer to Fort Worth they got, the easier it was to get lost within the metropolitan morning traffic. The eastern sky was beginning to purple with predawn light.