Hot Texas Sunrise

by Delores Fossen

  Cleo had to hurry to catch up with him. “Are you going to threaten to shank Lavinia or something?” she asked.

  “Possibly. As a backup.” Judd said it with a straight face, too, and while he seemed calm enough, Cleo knew the woman was an expert button pusher.

  “My backup is a voodoo curse with a pretend wand.” She shrugged when he stared at her. Apparently, it didn’t sound any better coming from her than it had Daisy. “Just use your code words if things get tense. Dick inches,” she mumbled just as Lavinia opened the door.

  For some reason, Cleo’s voice carried as if she’d shouted it.

  Obviously, this visit wasn’t off to a good start, and Lavinia’s sneer confirmed it. Cleo hadn’t thought it possible for the woman to look more disheveled than usual, but she was wrong about that. Her hair was ratted up like a nest on one side of her head. Still no bra, and one of the holes in her gown lined up with her sagging right boob. The bottom edge of her nipple peeked out from that hole.

  Judd handed Lavinia a paper, and Cleo quickly realized it was a copy of the report that Crawford had given them. “SAPD has that, and if you don’t back off of Cleo, I’ll have you arrested for each and every thing on that list.”

  That didn’t tame Lavinia’s sneer any, and if Judd’s tone and body language hadn’t managed it, Cleo doubted she stood much of a chance. Still, she’d try.

  “Miranda would be happy to know that her sons are doing so well,” Cleo said. “There’s no need for you to keep taking swipes at Judd and me because the boys are all settled in with Sheriff Laramie.”

  Lavinia sneered, smirked and smiled all at the same time. It wasn’t pretty. “Mrs. Gateman just called me,” the woman said.

  Cleo figured she shouldn’t be surprised by that since Lavinia was the boys’ grandmother, but Lavinia’s smugness was skyrocketing with each passing second. It caused Cleo’s stomach to plummet to her ankles. Even if Lavinia had changed her mind about getting custody, there was no way CPS would give the kids to her.

  “You can’t be thinking about going after the boys again,” Cleo insisted.

  “Not me.” Butter wouldn’t have melted in her unbrushed, unflossed mouth. “Mrs. Gateman’s going after them. She said her husband and her want to foster the boys, and they just started the paperwork to make that happen.”

  * * *

  JUDD WANTED TO tell Cleo that what she was doing wasn’t working. Since they’d left Lavinia’s and arrived back at the ranch, she’d gone from a depressed, almost catatonic state to repeating “I curse you” while flicking her hand in the air. Probably a gesture for that imaginary wand she’d mentioned earlier.

  But wands and curses weren’t going to fix this.

  Before he’d jumped to the “doom and gloom” mode, Judd had called Mrs. Gateman to make sure Lavinia hadn’t lied to them. She hadn’t. The social worker and her husband had indeed decided to foster the boys, and Judd figured CPS wasn’t going to turn them down. A married couple with their credentials would stack up pretty damn well against a sheriff with family backup.

  According to the social worker, the boys needed a permanent, stable home now, and she was certain she’d be able to convince her superiors of that. Even though it was rare for a social worker to foster or adopt children from their own agency, it could be done in extreme cases. Mrs. Gateman considered this situation extreme since it would be next to impossible to keep the boys together otherwise.

  Judd didn’t flick anything, but he was back to mumbling “shit” and other assorted profanities. Of course, that would have to stop once the boys got home from school. Then, he’d have to keep his mumbled “shits” in his head while he tried to figure out a way to fix this.

  Judging from Cleo’s intense expression, she wasn’t in “figuring out” mode, either, but if she’d come up with anything better than a voodoo curse, she wasn’t passing that info along to Judd. Like him, she was sitting on the cabin porch, waiting for inspiration, which had better hit in the next hour before the boys got home.

  “I screwed up,” she said. She quit flicking and exchanged the nervous gesture for pacing across his porch. “I should have prepared the boys better for something like this.” She paused. “Or maybe I shouldn’t have insisted they be on their best behavior around Mrs. Gateman. If they’d acted out, she might not have wanted to foster them.”

  Judd had gone through the same things, and he had “bonus points” for promising Beckham that he’d make sure that he, Isaac and Leo stayed together. It was looking as if that’s the way things were leaning, but it was possible that Mrs. Gateman would cherry-pick and decide against taking the surly teenager.

  When her pacing ran its course, Cleo dropped back down beside him, and that’s when he noticed the hickey again. Definitely not one of his better lover moments to mark her up like that.

  “What?” she said, following his gaze, and she slapped her hand over her neck. “Oh, that. I’ll put some makeup on it before they get home so they won’t see it.”

  Good idea, but Judd was reasonably sure that out of sight was not going to equal out of mind for him. The memory of him neck kissing her was like X-ray vision. He’d still see the hickey, and, worse, he’d want to do things with her that had the potential to create more hickeys.

  Since that was giving him stirrings in a place that shouldn’t be stirred, Judd did a shift in thoughts and went with one of the other many things they could be talking about.

  “You’re really considering buying the Gray Mare?” he asked.

  Cleo lifted her shoulder. “I’ve been approached about doing that. In fact, Audrey’s uncle Marvin asked to meet with me tomorrow to discuss it. He’s calling himself a motivated seller who’d be willing to provide financing.”

  “Yeah, that has something to do with a nightclub dancer named Bambi that he met online. She wants him to move to San Antonio.”

  “The one whose specialty is a ‘slap and tickle’ lap dance,” Cleo mumbled.

  He wasn’t surprised that particular detail had made it to the gossip mill. Judd probably should have felt some concern over a sixty-something-year-old man he knew well falling for a stripper with a fondness for ass slaps, but considering he’d found his solace in a bottle of eighty proof, he wasn’t one to judge.

  “What exactly does get tickled in a slap and tickle?” she asked.

  He smiled before he could stop himself. “I’m not an expert, but I think that’s optional. The idea is just to keep it playful.”

  She smiled, too, and poked him with her elbow. “Want me to give you a slap and tickle?”

  More than his next breath. That was the sudden and intense reaction that went through him, but even with the dick-twitching her question caused, he managed to give a noncommittal grunt. Then he shifted the conversation away from what would earn him an erection and another hickey for Cleo.

  “You want to hold off on making a decision about the Gray Mare until you see what happens with the boys?” he asked.

  “In part,” she readily admitted.

  Judd pressed some more. “You’re holding off because you’re in love with an alcoholic.”

  “Yes.”

  He frowned because he hadn’t expected her to just admit it. Not without putting on kid gloves first.

  “I’m already putting pressure on you,” she went on. “First by asking you to help with the boys. Then by practically moving in with you. By the way, the Realtor did find me a rental house, but that’s on the back burner, too, right now.”

  Judd thought about that a moment. He hadn’t heard about the rental, but he’d figured something would come up sooner or later. “You didn’t put pressure on me.”

  “Sure I did, and I added even more when I told you I was in love with you. I’m not taking that back,” she quickly added, “but I feel guilty that I didn’t spell out that you’re not responsible for my feelings.” Cleo shrugg
ed. “Well, you are partly responsible because you’re a hot, decent guy who’s good in bed, but that doesn’t mean you have to do anything about me being in love with you. You don’t have to feel anything other than what you already feel.”

  Maybe not, but it sure as hell felt that way—especially since she thought he was hot, decent and a good lay. And now he was feeling guilty because Cleo was hot, decent and equally good in bed. Or on the bathroom floor.

  “Careful with those compliments or you’ll end up with another hickey,” Judd joked.

  It had the exact effect he wanted. Cleo smiled. She turned to him, their gazes connecting and holding. He knew what she said wasn’t lip service. Cleo did believe he didn’t have to do anything about that dose of “I love you” that she’d given him, along with the other “good in bed” stuff.

  But Judd sure felt as if he owed her something.

  “There was nothing bad for Lavinia or the reporter to find in my transfer records,” he said, knowing that the abrupt shift in conversation would get her complete attention. It did.

  She shook her head, maybe about to let him know that wasn’t what the gossips were saying. Her eyes combed over him, searching his face, but she stayed quiet. Ironically, it was her quietness, her no-pressure approach, that made him keep on talking.

  “There was a DS. A domestic situation,” he said to clarify. “A man had gotten drunk, had an argument with his pregnant wife, and when she’d told him she was going to leave him, he took her hostage. He did that to prove to her how much he loved her.”

  Judd couldn’t have kept the sarcasm out of that if he’d tried.

  “I responded to the scene because I was in the neighborhood,” he went on. “The front door was open, and I could see the asshole standing there wearing just his boxers. He had his terrified pregnant wife in a choke hold and was holding a paintball gun. It was one of the smaller ones that he probably could have shot with just one hand. It wouldn’t have killed her, but it could have put her eye out.”

  “God.” Cleo pressed her fingers to her mouth.

  “Don’t worry. This has a happy ending. While I was waiting for backup and the hostage negotiator, I talked the guy into putting down the gun and coming out so I could arrest him.”

  She kept staring at him. “How?” Her question was tentative, as if she might not want to hear the answer.

  “Not exactly standard procedure, but I told the guy I was going to shoot his dick off if he didn’t let go of her. And I reminded him that my gun had real bullets and that I was pissed off that a shithead like him would threaten to hurt a woman half his size just because he was pissed off. He put down the gun and let her go.” Judd paused. “Things went right that day. Not because of anything I did. It just went right. And that’s when I realized that I didn’t need to be there in Austin to try to outrun my past.”

  Cleo probably wouldn’t be able to see the connection, and it was the reason he never discussed it. But he’d gone into work that day and put in his transfer papers.

  “A moment of reckoning,” she said. “Like the one I had on the bathroom floor with you. What happened to the woman?” she asked before he could say anything about the reckoning. Not that Judd knew what to say about that, anyway.

  Had an orgasm really been responsible for her falling in love with him? If so, that sure put a lot of pressure on the future orgasms he had planned for her.

  So he could answer her question about the woman, he took out his phone and scrolled through until he found the picture of the wrinkled newborn baby, who, in Judd’s mind, resembled a pissed-off Hobbit. “She divorced the guy, gave birth to this kid that she named after me—Judd Lee O’Leary—and she applied to the academy so she could become a cop. The next time some guy tries to mess with her, she can handle it herself.”

  Cleo smiled when she looked at the baby. “Yes, a happy ending.”

  Of course, Cleo hadn’t meant that as some kind of code for the happy ending she wished for him and her. Cleo didn’t play word games like that. But still that didn’t mean it wasn’t what she wanted.

  Well, hell.

  Did she want that? Better yet, did he want it?

  Judd looked at her again, trying to tamp down his tornado thoughts and any equally tornado words that might come out of his mouth before he could think this through. That’s why the relief jolted through him when his phone rang and he realized he had a reprieve.

  Neither the relief nor the reprieve lasted when he saw Kace’s name on the screen.

  “I got a call from Mrs. Gateman,” Kace said the moment Judd answered the call. “And she’s on her way to the ranch. I figured one of us would need to talk to the boys about that so I went by the schools to pick them up early. They’re gone, Judd. All three of them are missing.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  BECAUSE CLEO WAS right next to Judd, she had no trouble hearing what Kace had just said. The boys were missing.

  “How long have they been gone?” Judd asked, already on his feet and heading for his truck. Cleo was up as well and hurrying after him, and even though she didn’t hear Kace’s response, she could see and feel the urgency in Judd.

  “Cleo and I are leaving now to look for them,” he added to his brother before he ended the call. The moment he had the truck started, he drove away.

  “How long?” she asked.

  Judd’s weary breath told her she wasn’t going to like his answer. “None of them even went to class. Lissy dropped them off,” he quickly explained, “but the boys weren’t there when attendance was taken.”

  Hours ago. God, hours. They could be anywhere by now.

  “Kace called Buck first,” Judd added. “Neither Rosy nor he has seen them since Lissy picked them up for school, but Rosy said there’s some food missing from the pantry.”

  Judd didn’t hesitate when he reached the end of the ranch road. He headed toward the elementary school. “I found Beckham down here once before. He might have come back.”

  Good. That was a start, though Judd didn’t sound especially hopeful. Neither was Cleo. Beckham had talked his brothers into running because they hadn’t wanted to leave the ranch and go with Mrs. Gateman.

  “I should have guessed something like this would happen.” But even as Cleo admitted that, she had to tamp down the fear.

  The boys had run, and now they could be in danger.

  She willed herself to think, to try to put all the pieces together. Beckham probably had a little money that he’d saved from working the part-time job that Judd had given him. And Beckham had perhaps even called one of his friends from San Antonio so they could get a ride. Not that most of his friends had their driver’s licenses, but it was possible there was an older sibling who could be talked into doing this.

  But a ride to where?

  “Would they try to go back to the place where they lived when their mom was alive?” Judd asked.

  “Possibly. It was a rental, and they hadn’t lived there very long, but they might go there.”

  She took out her phone to text both Tiny and Daisy so they could check at Miranda’s old house, Cleo’s apartment and also the bar. The kids had never been to the Angry Angus, but the address would have been easy enough to find, and if they made it to her apartment, they could have possibly talked the super into letting them in.

  Judd pulled off the road near a cluster of trees, and he muttered some profanity when he looked around. “This is where Beckham was last time he ran off, but they’re not here.”

  No. There was no sign of them, and since Beckham had likely figured out that they’d look here, this was probably the last place they would have come.

  Judd’s phone rang, and she saw Kace’s name pop up on the screen. She held her breath as Judd answered it and put the call on speaker.

  “They didn’t go to Shelby and Callen’s,” Kace said. “I had Callen check his
office in town, too. They’re not there.”

  Cleo had to play another round of mental Whac-A-Mole with her own panic because she knew that would only get in the way of her thinking straight. “Maybe they’d go to Audrey at the hospital?” Cleo suggested.

  “I’ll check,” Kace volunteered before he hung up.

  “And I’ll check with Mercy.” Judd immediately texted his sponsor. “I don’t think she had a lot of interaction with the boys when she was at the ranch, but it’s possible she told them where she lived.”

  Cleo considered that. Yes, it was something Mercy could have done, but it didn’t feel right. In fact, nothing about this did.

  “Where are Popsicle and Mango?” Cleo asked.

  Judd’s gaze snapped to her and, cursing, he snatched up his phone again. This time, he called Buck, and Judd did a U-turn in the road as Buck answered.

  “The boys aren’t in the pasture,” Buck immediately said—again, Cleo could hear. “I’ve been riding out here checking for them.”

  “What about the cat and puppy?” Judd asked.

  “You know, I haven’t seen them all morning. I just figured Lissy or Rosy was taking care of them.”

  “Ask them for me, will you, and then let me know?” Judd ended the call the moment Buck assured him that he would, and he hit the accelerator.

  Since Judd was heading back to the ranch, they were obviously on the same page, and Cleo could have kicked herself for not considering it sooner. Leo wouldn’t have left Popsicle, and Beckham probably wouldn’t have left Mango. That meant they were likely somewhere on the grounds.

  Cleo said a prayer when Judd braked to a stop outside his cabin, and they hurried out, both of them running to the barn. Judd took the right stalls. Cleo, the left. They ran the length of the barn and came up empty.

  And that’s when Cleo heard the sound.

  A muffled bark, followed by what appeared to be muffled voices. Sounds all coming from the hayloft. The relief came. It came like a flood. But the dread quickly followed. Cleo prayed that they weren’t hurt and that they’d see how dangerous it was for them to do something like this.