Their Ex's Redrock Twilight (Texas Alpha) (Texas Alpha Series Book 4) (7 page)

Back out in her car, she took the time to make certain her makeup was perfect and her hair was fixed. Well, she couldn’t do much with it but pin it up and let some strands fall free, before she started her car to drive to River Avenue.

***

F
inn was in the hidden crawlspace in the hallway behind the front desk area of Rowdie’s. He was grabbing his concealed mission journals when he first heard the kid called Hammer, who worked for him, saying Katie’s name.

“Damn, the witch must be doing her shit here again today,” Finn muttered.

He was surprised a moment later to think even less about it than he normally did. Little did Katie One-Nighter know, but he had the divorce nearly finalized. It would be completely over in less than a week, and he was certain Katie didn’t even remember that at the height of one of their knock-down-drag-out arguments months back she’d signed the dissolution paper.

He hadn’t said a word about it since, and he figured she’d forgotten it, after being so busy sleeping with about twenty guys in between.

She was one messed-up woman, and he still believed that she was trying to hide from the world, and from him, the fact that she was totally frigid with all her one-night-stands. The only thing that really screwed with his head was how it all went down, because in the beginning he would have sworn Katie was a highly sexual and sensuous woman who was going to want his body and sex with him until they were eighty.

But hell no ... slowly and fucking inevitably, she’d started turning him down. A little turn of her head when he tried to kiss her, jumping into bed first and pretending to be asleep, grumbling if he tried to touch her in the deep of night, and, of course, every ailment known to man to sidestep sleeping with her husband, who had wanted her hot little body, and now couldn’t remember why.

He hadn’t lied to Tess all those months ago; he really did study women since Katie, and once he’d started paying attention, he saw patterns in some women. But he wondered if he could still be duped again. He thought he’d known Katie ... and he’d been damn wrong.

“I wasn’t wrong about Tess,” he muttered. He’d known she was sweet, and he’d been right.

Finn looked at the journals in his hand. There was over two years of undercover work laid out in them, and much of that time he’d had to lie down in the same corrupt life as the bad guys. He’d gotten dirty ... real dirty, but he’d always managed to stay above the law. Still, he could admit it fucked with a man’s head. Doing it all alone and staying on the edge for so long.

He gripped the notebooks tighter. He’d not put one thing on the computer just for the fact if he’d been found out, it was the first place the bad guys would look. He’d thought it would be safer to do something as unusual as writing it down.

Finn backed out of the crawlspace, and just as he raised his head, he heard Katie’s name again. Once he stood and closed up the crawlspace, he grimaced, because he didn’t want to see Katie and whatever new lay she had that day, but there was only one way out of the building.

“What room did you give to fucking Katie,” he asked Hammer as he approached the front desk.

“Katie’s not here, boss,” Hammer said, giving him a what-the-hell look.

“I heard her name, a-hole,” Finn said. “You covering for her now?”

“No way,” Hammer said. “I was just telling that hot chick from number six where your ex lives. I probably said her name a few times, boss.”

“What the hell,” Finn growled, knowing he was glaring as tightness stiffened him up. “
Who
did you tell where my ex lives?”

Hammer looked at the computer screen while tapping a few keys. “Man, her name is Coco Maxwell, and she said Katie won some beauty products.”

––––––––

F
ive minutes later, Finn was in his Jeep headed toward the house he still owned with Katie, which was soon going to be all hers. And he nearly put the lights and siren on to get there. How could he have read Coco that fucking wrong? Her sweet smile that morning, while saying she’d stay put. But then he realized she’d never really said that—he had said it to her. Like an order, which he’d intended her sexy ass to obey.

He couldn’t figure out what it was she wanted with Katie. Everything he came up with had to do with him. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good, and it brought him back around to the fact he’d already misjudged Coco. How much more was he wrong about her?

He made it to his house before Coco hit the front door. She was stepping up to the front porch when she looked back at his tires squealing into the driveway. She looked amazing ... as if she was ready to hit the nightlife and was dressed to make men beg to be in her company, buy her a drink, or dance with her.

Those melting brown eyes of hers widened at seeing him. Then a regretful look passed over her beautiful face, because she still turned and walked up to the door instead of heading for him. He sprinted out of his Jeep and up the front steps. Hitting it just as her knock on the front door still lingered and he’d stopped close behind her.

He was going to blurt something, but some instinct stopped him. Instead, he lifted his hand to cup the side of her waist, waiting to see what the hell she was up too. Then Katie opened the door.

“
Is
Gordon Maxwell here?” Coco demanded.

Hell, Finn hadn’t even thought of that. Katie, of course, looked very startled.

“Tell him his wife is here,” Coco demanded loudly.

“Finn? What?” Katie exclaimed.

Then, behind Katie from further in the house, a man yelled, “Coco? My wife!”

“Gordon!” Coco yelled as she grabbed the screen door to pull it open.

Katie moved as if she was a security guard who was guarding something important, and Finn saw a tall, slender man arrive behind Katie’s right shoulder.

“Coco, what in the world are you doing here?” Gordon Maxwell demanded severely, then he added unnecessarily, “You shouldn’t be here.”

Before Coco could say anything, Finn jumped in. “Let us through, Katie. We need to talk.”

“Talk? Who needs to talk? How do you know her?” Katie asked shrilly.

“He’s
my
new man!” Coco exclaimed, and she did it with a snotty Southern sound. Finn felt surprise shoot through him.

Well, okay ... he damn well loved that, so he growled, “Coco and I are together now, so back it up so we can fucking talk.”

He had decided that it seemed his woman had a need to confront and finalize, so he was going to take her back so she could do that. Coco had said “
my
man” right in Katie’s face.

It made him grin inwardly, while outwardly he scowled at Coco’s tall and thin husband, who looked distracted and not at all like a married man caught with another woman.

Katie looked peeved as Coco pushed past her, and that backed up Gordon.

“I don’t want you in
my
house,” Katie snarled. “Either of you.”

Coco seemed to ignore her as she stalked after the retreating Gordon, while Finn stopped next to Katie with the screen door closing behind him.

“Fucking
my
house too, Katie,” he muttered, not telling her it was a finger close to being all hers. “You’re lucky I don’t push it.”

“Gordon, I thought you were dead or kidnapped or terribly hurt so you couldn’t contact me for
six
weeks!” Coco screeched the last three words, which turned his and Katie’s eyes toward their battle.

“I was protecting you,” Gordon declared. “You don’t understand how noble I was being.”

Finn saw that Coco had managed to back Gordon up into the built-in bookcases in the living room. She’d grabbed the front of Gordon’s button-down shirt, fisting her hand in the material.

“
Leaving
your wife without a word!” Coco exclaimed. “Screwing another woman!” Coco’s finger on her free hand lifted and pointed at Katie with sharp jabbing motions. “Doing that was being
noble
,” she spat.

“You’re doing
her
,” Katie muttered, at Finn’s side. “You must be hard up,” she said snottily, and then she amazed him by adding, “You should come home, babe. Let me show you what I’ve learned in bed and you can get away from that shrew.”

A rumble of disgust filled Finn’s chest as he twisted his neck with an irritated pop, then he strode past Katie, while not even bothering to respond to her craziness. He stopped at Coco’s back and he smoothed his hand down it.

The dress she was wearing was a dick-stirringly sexy dress. She shuddered at his touch, and then stilled slightly beneath his hand, as he dipped his mouth to her ear.

“I need to know what this talk is about protecting you, bella,” he murmured.

Coco moved back into him with a nod, but her fingers were still clenched in dickwad’s shirt.

“You can’t possibly be with
this
biker,” Gordon exclaimed, pointing over Coco’s finger at Finn. “You’re just trying to get back at me with your lies about being with
him.
”

Finn started to rumble an irritated growl, but Coco grabbed his hand behind her and squeezed it.

“Please, baby,” she whispered.

Finn noticed both he and Gordon’s attention moved to Coco, as if that “baby” was for each of them.
Fuck this,
Finn thought, grabbing Coco around the waist from behind and holding her obviously close.

“You can talk like this,” he growled.

Gordon’s eyes widened, and then widened more when Coco didn’t break the hold.

Coco tugged hard on Gordon’s shirt.

“I’m
with
Finn and he’s the best man I’ve ever been with, Gordon, and I won’t have you trying to put him down. But you are so dense you don’t even know it’s more of a compliment, because I’ve got a hot man doing me five times a night, with six orgasms every time!”

Whoa.
Finn bit back his chuckle while forcing a mean-ass look to stay on his face, and further forcing himself not to pick up his babe and kiss her silly.

Gordon sputtered, as if he was choking, while Coco dropped her hand from his shirt.

Her head tipped back onto Finn’s shoulder and she turned up to his face, saying, “I’m done. I thought I needed something here, but I just
don’t
.”

Finn tightened his arm around her. She’d said the “don’t” with finality.

“Coco, what you need to do is go back home!” Gordon exclaimed. “I’m not asking, Coco, I’m telling you as your husband!”

Coco stiffened under Finn’s arm, but it was he that let go of her, to step forward with a growl.

“You do not fucking talk to my woman like that, asshole.” Finn got in Gordon’s face, and Gordon paled. “
Ever
,” Finn snapped.

Gordon twisted his face away from Finn’s venom. “She’s just a housewife. She needs my direction,” he muttered. “I need to get her away from here.”

Before Finn could explode, he was lucid enough to catch a very important reference, and his anger cooled by degrees as he demanded, “What are you protecting her from, dickwad? Why does she need to get away from here?”

“It’s not like that!” Gordon yelled. “I didn’t say that!”

“All right, fuck this,” Finn muttered back. “I’m taking you in, get some answers.”

“Taking me in?” Gordon wailed.

“He’s a dirty cop,” Katie yelled at Gordon. “But a cop!”

Coco flinched at Katie’s nasty accusation, then she got very angry and she clicked her heels up to Katie, which put her just below eye level.

“Finn just broke up the biggest criminal ring this town has ever seen. That shows how much you know as his wife, and honey, that is plain pathetic.”

“Oh, you Southern witch!” Katie screeched. “Take your cheating husband and get out of here!”

Coco looked Katie up and down, and then she smiled.

“Honey, I’ll gladly take them both out of here. You just remember when I’m snuggled up to Finn, and you have nothing, that you threw him away for
that.
” Coco pointed at Gordon with disgust.

“Coco, a wife doesn’t act like this,” Gordon declared.

Then Finn grabbed him and turned him to face the bookshelves, while pulling out handcuffs from his back pocket.

Coco decided that apparently hot, sexy special agents always carried handcuffs, just in case.

But she was devastated and confused over Gordon’s behavior and actions, even though there were a lot of amazing and wonderful things that had happened during the confrontation she’d produced. The first one was that, when put together, the differences between Gordon and Finn were meaningful ... as in Gordon was a limp wimp compared to Finn’s smoking-hot animal attraction.

The second was, as she’d argued with Gordon, she became less and less interested in knowing why he’d done what he’d done. Maybe it was because Gordon didn’t seem to regret just disappearing from his faithful wife.

And there was the third thing—shouldn’t she feel more jealous that Gordon was doing Katie? But all she felt was amazement and bitter disappointment, because Gordon had never,
ever
showed such passion in their marriage.

The fact Gordon could get upset and mean after all she’d been through worrying and looking for him. Then when she’d found him, he’d acted like a dickwad, as Finn called him—well, she simply didn’t care any longer what his reasons were. She was just thankful that she’d been able to throw something’s into Gordon’s face, and she was really grateful that Finn was handcuffing Gordon and hauling him away.

“This is one of those
Punk’d
shows, right?” Gordon yelled. “This is all a joke!”

Finn grasped her wrist as he started to push Gordon ahead of him, until they were out the front door and down the steps to the front sidewalk leading from the house. Gordon was exclaiming all kinds of nonsense, while Finn held his wrists from behind, pushing him toward his Jeep.

Suddenly, Finn stopped and turned to her.

“What’d you say this bastard does, babe?”

“Accountant,” she answered, looking up at him, puzzled.

“Hell.” Finn shook his head and looked down at Gordon with some kind of speculation on his face that she couldn’t get, but he kept his thoughts to himself.