Roping Ryan (The West Series Book 6) (9 page)

“Isn’t he?” Fear and worry jumped into his mind.

“I suppose, but he worked undercover narcotics.”

“And? I’m a detective working undercover narcotics.”

She pulled back and looked up at him. “He never told me.”

He shook his head. “I guess I don’t understand.” He watched her get up and wipe her eyes with the back of her hands. “He would never really tell me what he did, just that he was a detective. I guess I’d always assumed it was like the TV shows. You know...” She sniffled and wiped her eyes again.

He tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t stop it. “You think what we do is supposed to be glamorous. Like you see on TV or in the movies.” He got up and put his hands on her shoulders. When she looked up at him, he smiled. “Princess, you do live in your own fairy tale.” He pulled her chin up until she looked at him. “What I do, and what your father used to, isn’t glamorous. There were months at a time that I didn’t even bathe. Months I spent living on the streets until I could prove to someone that I wasn’t a nark.” He pulled her back towards the couch.

“Would you lie to someone you love though?”

He pulled her close. “Lie? I think of what your father did as sheltering you from the raw facts.” If he’d had a daughter during all this, would he want to come home from work and tell her the gritty details? The answer was a definite no. Not even if she was an adult would he want her to know the facts of what he’d lived through over the last few years.

“Nikki, I know it’s hard to understand.” He shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment, “But there are some things that I wouldn’t even want my brother to know about this job.” He looked at her, begging for her to understand.

Nikki’s heart broke a little, seeing the concern in Ryan’s eyes. What had this man gone through in the last few years? Then her heart skipped. What had her father lived through? She’d been so focused on feeling the betrayal, she’d never once considered that her father had been trying to protect her from the ugly truth about his job.

She sighed and rested her head against Ryan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I guess I never thought of it like that.”

He rubbed her hair, almost causing her to purr with pleasure. “I hope you weren’t too harsh on him.”

She sat up and gasped. “I have to call him back.” She made to move, but he held her still.

“It can wait until morning.” He smiled at her. “Besides, I’m sure he already knows how you really feel.”

She closed her eyes and tried to remember everything she’d said to her father hours ago. She shook her head no. “I think I made it very clear how I felt, and I definitely owe him an apology. But you’re right. It will have to wait until morning.” She leaned back as he flipped through the channels.

She ended up falling asleep against his chest as he watched the news, the only non-scary thing on at the time. She woke briefly as he carried her into the bed and crawled in next to her. She sighed as his arms wrapped around her and then drifted off into sleep.

I
t was still too dark to see clearly when she opened her eyes. But somehow, she knew she was no longer in the small house on the ranch in East Texas. The floor under her was hard and cold. Pain shot up her arms like there were a million needles pricking her. Her eyes felt heavy and when she tried to focus, she had a hard time, as tears streamed out of her eyes.

Finally, a bright light shone in her face, and she blinked a few times before she could make out the shape in front of her. Her father sat across the small room from her. His head was down, his gray hair was wet, and she could see blood dripping from his face. When she tried to call out to him, her tongue wouldn’t work and it just came out as a moan.

Then the light shifted and she saw Ryan walking towards her. He had a smile on his face, and she noticed that his hair and beard were back. But now they were twice as thick. His clothes were slick and shiny, almost hurting her eyes. She tried to call out to him, but again her mouth wouldn’t work. Looking down, she realized she was tied to a chair as well. Then she tasted the dirty rag that was shoved in her mouth and realized she’d been gagged.

“Oh, princess. Don’t fight it,” Ryan said, laughing. “Can you believe all this trouble I had to go through just to get my hands on him?” He pulled her father’s hair and raised his face so she could see the blood dripping from his nose and mouth. His eyes were shut and when she tried to call out to him again, Ryan dropped his head so she could no longer see his face.

Ryan laughed, but instead of the warm sound she’d grown used to, it came out more as a deep cackle.

“Years.” He walked towards her. “Years I’ve wasted looking for him. To pay him back for what he did to me.”

Nothing was making sense. She kept looking for any sign that her father was still alive, but he didn’t move. Then Ryan stood in front of her and crouched down until his face was right in front of her. His blood-covered hand ran up and down her face gently. “I guess getting to play with you was just the bonus I needed.” He smiled and she noticed how really thick his beard was. She could barely see his teeth through the dark coarse hair. When he leaned down to place a kiss on her lips, she screamed.

“Nikki?” Ryan shook her out of the nightmare.

Hearing his voice, she swung out and clocked him, catching him off guard. Her mind was still back in the nightmare, so she kept swinging until he finally had her arms pinned above her head as he sat across her legs.

“Nikki?” he said again. “Are you okay?” He held both of her hands in one of his and leaned over to flip on the light.

When the light hit his face, she realized that his face was clean shaven, and his hair was short. She closed her eyes and immediately hated her mind.

She knew all about reading dreams. Years after the abuse had stopped with David, she had attended counseling to help her get over the effects.

“Are you alright?” Ryan asked, releasing her hands.

She nodded her head, keeping her eyes closed tight and trying to hide her embarrassment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, hovering above her.

When she opened her eyes, she gasped and sat up. “You’re bleeding!” She rushed from the room and grabbed a clean washcloth and soaked it in cool water. She returned to his side of the bed and watched in horror as he wiped the blood away with the back of his hand.

She pulled his hand away and dabbed at his lip, which was quickly growing in size. She sat next to him on the bed, cleaning his mouth, and she felt like crying.

“I’m sorry,” she said when his lip was clean. She tried to avoid looking at him, but when his fingers pulled her chin up, she couldn’t deny his wishes.

“Do you want to tell me why you just tried to kill me?” He smiled slightly, opening the cut on his lip again. She started to clean it, but he shook his head and took the washcloth. “Come here.” He pulled her until they sat against the headboard, his arms wrapped around her.

“It was a stupid dream.” She closed her eyes and rested her head back against his shoulder. He slept without a shirt, and she loved the warmth of his skin against her cool cheeks.

“And in this dream I was hurting your father?”

She looked up at him, shocked.

He chuckled. “You talk in your sleep as well as give a mean right punch.” He held his jaw and she felt her cheeks turn red.

“I’m sorry.” She rested back down, not wanting him to see her embarrassment.

“Don’t be.” He chuckled. “It’s good to know that you can throw a punch.”

She nodded. “Yeah, my father made sure of that.”

“I bet. There’s that protection again.”

She nodded and closed her eyes. “You were using me to get to him.” She sighed. “It was just a stupid dream.”

“Oh?” She could tell he was thinking about it.

“I guess it makes sense.”

“What does?”

“It’s nothing.” He started to slide back down, but she stopped him. “Your father was the one who took down the father of the man I’m trying to take down.”

She sat up and looked at him. “You know about my father?”

He nodded. “Everyone I work with does. He’s somewhat of a legend.”

“My father?”

He smiled. “One of the first stories I heard in training was about the Cougar. That was his street name. Anyway, I didn’t know it was your old man until I talked to Mr. Holton.” He shook his head. “Cougar took down Hijo del Diablo’s old man almost twenty years ago. But it was how he did it that was so ingenious.”

“How?” she asked, scooting up and crossing her legs in front of her.

“He used the kid.” He frowned a little. “Everyone knew that Diablo—that’s what we called his old man—had been running drugs into the states for almost seven years. He’d been responsible for over three hundred deaths in the US alone. It was rumored that an entire town in Mexico had been killed to protect his identity.”

“What happened?” She was caught up in the story.

“Well, according to what I heard, the Cougar showed up and befriended the kid, who was a teenager, at his birthday party. Over the course of the next few years, he convinced him to betray his old man. When they came to take his father away, the kid turned.” He shook his head. “I guess he decided he didn’t want to be responsible for taking out his old man. Anyway, he grabbed one of the agent’s guns and shot Cougar in the leg.”

Nikki gasped.

“Sorry.” He held onto her.

“No, it’s okay. Go on.” She leaned closer to him.

“Well, after he’d shot your dad, the kid took off in all the commotion. It’s been rumored that he escaped to the US where he contacted all his father’s buddies and took over as head of the business under the name, Hijo del Diablo. Son of the Devil.”

She shivered and he pulled her closer.

“Thank you for telling me all this. I couldn’t get anything out of my father. All he would do was not deny that he’d worked for narcotics.”

He nodded. “We shield ourselves so much in deceit, sometimes it is hard to come out of it.” He rubbed her hair away from her face. She looked up at him.

“You did. For your family.”

He nodded. “Sometimes you have to step out and ask for help.”

She frowned, wondering why her father hadn’t talked to her.

“He had his reasons for not telling you. I’m sure.”

She nodded but could think of nothing that would have kept her father from talking to her.

Over the next few days, Ryan stayed busy helping his cousins separate the cattle and brand the ones they were keeping. The weather had made a turn towards winter sooner than everyone had predicted, and he spent half his time fighting to stay warm.

Nikki had left a message for her father that next morning but hadn’t heard back from him. He could tell that she was concerned that she’d offended him, but Ryan was certain he was just busy trying to help them out of the situation they had gotten into.

The last time he’d talked to her old man, he was back in the states and tracking down Hijo del Diablo. Even though her father hadn’t said so, he could tell that he’d felt a little responsible for unleashing the kid on the world. No one in the department blamed him—the Cougar was legendary. But still, he’d done his job.

One thing he’d learned early on was that you did what you had to in this job. No matter what. Especially when you were deep in cover. Ryan learned that lesson on one of his first undercover jobs when he’d been initiated into a gang that was distributing meth at a high school. He’d crossed a few legal lines, but in the end, he’d closed the gang down and the school was a safer place for his actions.

He was actually enjoying the hard work that he’d been doing over the last few weeks at the ranch. He’d always loved working on the back of a horse. His roping was improving, and he knew that he could regain his title of best roper. He’d been practicing every chance he could. Nikki had been helping him and seemed to enjoy it, especially when he used her as bait.

They had agreed to go with everyone in town to the big Halloween party at the Rusty Rail that night, and he still hadn’t had time to put together a costume. By the time he drove up to the house, it was only an hour before they were due to go out.

He planned on a quick shower so they could get going, but when he walked into the house and saw Nikki sitting on the couch waiting for him in her little outfit, he knew they’d end up being much later than he’d planned.

It didn’t register what she was dressed as. All he knew was that the skirt was short and the top was low. Her hair was tied up in two long braids that laid perfectly across her breasts, which where magically hoisted up under her chin.

When he started walking towards her, she shook her head and held out her hands.

“Don’t! You are not going to do what I think you’re thinking about.” She stood up and ran around the couch. He followed her and she laughed and screamed for him to stop.

But when he finally got his hands on her, all arguments fell away. Instead, she started pulling him closer as his mouth moved over hers. Not until he pulled her towards the bedroom did she start objecting again.

“Ryan, stop. Do you know how long it took me to do my hair?”

“You can do it again.”

“No, I can’t.” She put her hands on his chest and pushed him away. “Besides, we’re already late. Now, go in there and shower then put on your outfit.”

“I don’t have a costume.” He smiled and tried to pull her closer.

“You do now.” She smiled and pointed to the bedroom.