Four views on the apostle Paul

171 Pages·2012·0.57 MB·English

by  Campbell

Texas Hold ‘Em
Kay David
Table of Contents
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
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Follow the Cowboy
About the Author
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Carla Luan. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce,
distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding
subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Entangled Suspense is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC
Edited by Tracy Montoya
Cover design by Fiona Jayde
ISBN 978-1-62266-707-9
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition April 2013
The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners
of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Cobra, Food Basket,
(Ford) F450, Harley Davidson, Jack Daniels, Jeep Cherokee, G30 Glock, Purdy, ZZ
Top.
To Marilyn; thanks for being a better friend than I deserve.
To Jill; thanks for that phone call.
To Pete; thanks for the support, the love, the patience, and everything else that keeps me
going.
Chapter One
Aqua Frio, Texas
He didn’t need another frigging disaster.
But when Timothy Santos found himself in a fight, he didn’t back down. Some of his
friends might have even said he looked for them. Either way, his life depended on how
he handled the scuzzy biker coming his way. And not just because of the broken
whiskey bottle the man was waving in the air.
They’d been pounding at each other for what felt like the whole damn night. His
cowboy boots slipping on the sawdust-covered floor, Santos swayed in the lingering
September heat, one bloody fist at his temple, the other one protecting his jaw. The
roadhouse was nothing but a roof, a bar, and some scattered picnic tables. Corrugated
sheets of rusted tin, propped up with sawed-off broom handles, served as windows. A
dry west Texas wind whistled through the openings, leaving a layer of grit that covered
everything from the beer kegs to the barstools. On their own accord, the ceiling fans
spun overhead.
The local bikers used the place for entertainment, to do business, and generally make
trouble, and it’d been packed since midnight, the band behind the chicken wire making
their steel guitars wail. The temperatures had finally begun to cool off, but the same
couldn’t be said for the crowd, especially the man drawing near. Santos blinked then
shook his head, his sweaty hair sticking to his neck, his cowboy hat lying crushed on
the floor.
“C’mon, old man,” he taunted. “Is that the best you’ve got?”
The men who ringed them hooted with laughter and urged his opponent to hit him
again, their catcalls lewd and vicious.
“Let’s see it, Nasty,” someone cried out. “Show the bastard how a real rider fights. Cut
off his dick and send him back to his momma…”
The sunbaked biker standing opposite him had been called Nasty so long no one knew
his real name anymore. Grey hair frizzed around his face, a skinny braid the same color
hung off his chin. His eyes were bloodshot and red patches of broken veins dotted his
nose. Underneath his tattooed gut was a layer of hard muscle—Santos knew because his
fist had bounced off it twice, and all the big guy had done was smile. What made things
even worse was that he didn’t even know why Nasty had started the fight. The other
biker didn’t have to have a reason, though. Arguments broke out on an hourly basis at
the bar. That was part of the fun, or so the other patrons claimed.
Nasty closed the gap between them and thrust the jagged spike of the bottle neck so
close to his face, he felt the air move. Santos stumbled into the sticky wall behind him
but the other man moved faster than he expected. The glass sliced his skin from his
shoulder to his elbow. The cut didn’t feel deep, and for a second, it didn’t even hurt.
Then a bright red line burned down his arm like a fuse, and the explosion of pain that
followed almost knocked him off his feet.
He tottered for a second, and then he held up his palms, blood dripping down his left
arm, leaving ruby drops between his cowboy boots. “All right, all right…” Leaning
over, he took a deep breath then swept up his straw cowboy hat, beating it against his
thigh before cramming it back on his head. “You win, damn it, you win.”
Nasty roared then strutted in a circle, the bloody glass in his hand glinting off the bare
light bulb swinging overhead. Cheers went up around the room while a flurry of money
changed hands. Finally, he dropped the bottle, ground it beneath his feet, and bowed to
the applause that followed.
Santos pointed a wobbly finger. “This ain’t the end of it, Nasty. Next time, I promise
you’re gonna be the one bleedin’—”
The biker stilled, and everyone seemed to freeze with him, the sour smell of bodies,
booze, and confrontation rising between them. Then Nasty threw back his head and
howled. Wrapping his arms around Santos in a bone-crushing hug, he squeezed until
Santos saw pinpoints of light.
“You betcha there’s gonna be a rematch, you worthless piece of shit,” the old biker
cried. “You and your sorry gang ain’t nothing but cowboys on Harleys, and I mean to
beat your dumb asses ’til them hats is the only thing left!”
The audience bellowed, a loving family brought together once again by sharing a little
old-fashioned fun. Someone slapped a beer in Santos’s hand, and someone else crashed
into him and he spilled it. When the men finally parted enough for her to get by, a
redhead with dark roots moved to his side and handed him a stained towel. As he
pressed it to the wound, a dark-haired girl took his good arm and pulled him toward the
bar. A battered metal box that looked like it got plenty of use was handed over by the
bartender, and the two women began to patch him. He let them slap a couple of
bandages on the wound then he pushed them aside. “That’s enough,” he growled. “I
don’t need you two operating on me.”
They giggled, the younger brunette, Brandy, he’d learned earlier, laughing a little too
long as she pressed her breasts against his chest. Another biker had told him she was
quite a prize. “Warm and sweet going down,” he had promised with a wink.
She’d had her eye on him as soon as he’d shown up. Twenty-one if a day, soft curves,
and inviting eyes, she had tempted him to bed her, the episode going a little farther than
he had planned a few weeks back. After they’d been interrupted, he’d been relieved and
put her off with an empty promise for more. The way her gaze met his now, he knew
she expected her more sometime soon. When he turned to the bartender instead, her
pout told him how she felt.
It was four a.m. before the last call went out. Half an hour later, the bikers moved the
party to the graveled parking lot, holding on to each other and their women as they
stumbled outside. Tossing their beer bottles at the trash can, Santos’s pack rose from the
scarred table where they’d been sitting and followed.
Some of the bikers had already pulled bottles of Jack from their saddlebags and were
passing the whiskey around in the dark. As he and his men walked by, they made
smooching sounds and mocked him.
“Hey, cowboy, y’all going back to the ranch? Better be careful now—them Harleys
buck better than your skanky-ass girlfriends!” More raucous laughter rang out. “Don’t
fall off and bust your butts…”
He and his crew heard the same taunts every time they came to the Rio County dive,
and they waved them away with one-finger salutes, the other men shouting with
laughter in response.
Mounting their motorcycles, Santos and his men pulled onto the highway and rumbled
toward their home away from home, a rundown house on the edge of the county line.
The cold wind rushing over his raw face helped him stay upright, his stinging arm doing
the same.
Thirty minutes later, they reached the caliche road that took them the rest of the way. He
owned the house and the six-hundred-acre cattle ranch where it sat, but for safety’s sake
—his own and, more important, the people he loved—the name on the deed could never
be traced back to him. His grandfather had turned over the property to him on his
deathbed, the section of land having been in the family since Santa Anna had come and
gone.
The ear-splitting roar of the Harleys echoed against the spreading mountains, a cloud of
dust marking their progress. They reached the stone house after another thirty minutes
and turned off their engines, the sudden silence as deep as the darkness. The mesquite
trees smelled like heaven after the smoky bar, their hollow shadows leading the men
toward the windows warm with light.
He made it to the living room and stopped before a ratty couch where he lowered
himself to the cushions, every muscle in his body crying out. He was doubly glad the
ranch was so isolated. If his newfound best friends could see him right now, they would
have wondered just what kind of badass biker he was. Of course, if they knew the real
truth, more than his reputation would be at stake.
Biker gangs and Texas Rangers didn’t normally mix.
He had never been the kind of man who cared about normal, though, and even if he had,
it wouldn’t have stopped him now. He and his undercover team had come to Rio
County to stop the violence that had taken control of west Texas—and he was there to
make that happen, no matter what it took, including cutting some corners that might
have made other officers uneasy. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d broken one law to
keep another one, and it wouldn’t be the last.
That was the only way to catch someone like El Brujo. Santos had been chasing the
brutal cartel leader, whose real name was Pablo Ortega, for two years from behind a
desk when he’d learned some of the west Texas motorcycle gangs, including the one
they had tangled with tonight, provided muscle for Ortega. Convincing the powers-that-
be to let him take the investigation undercover, he’d handpicked a group of agents and
formed ACES, the Ammunition, Contraband, and Explosive Suppression team. In the
field, they’d become Smokin’ Aces, a renegade biker gang.
Three months into the operation, the shit had hit the fan. His deepest-placed informant
had gone silent.
They called her “Lilith.” Only Santos knew her true identity. He’d tried so hard to
forget who she really was that he never thought of her real name. In every way that
counted, she’d become Lilith to him. But since he’d arrived in Rio County, her real
identity had become a lot harder to ignore.
Ortega was behind her silence. He had to be. She’d pushed the situation to the edge just
like she’d told Santos she would, and she’d fallen over. If she’d been lucky, Ortega had
killed her. He didn’t want to think about the other possibilities.
His main goal now was to recover her. He would have done the same for any member
of his team, because no one got left behind on his watch. No one. He would find her or
die trying.
He didn’t notice the blood trickling down his arm until the wetness reached his fingers.
Jessie Delacourt, the only woman on the team, muttered, “Good grief…” then she
turned and stomped toward the kitchen where her own first aid kit was kept. A former
medic in Iraq, she hadn’t been at the bar tonight, because Santos had sent her and one of
the others to Presidio the day before. They’d gone to investigate a tip that had,
unfortunately, turned out false. The whole team was frustrated and angry.