Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3)(38)

To this she snapped, “Ohmigod, Ty! What the f**k?”

“It was stale,” he told the windshield, trying not to smile because he’d learned from her tone which he’d heard before that this was going to be good.

“So! You just littered.”

“It’s food so it isn’t litter.”

“You’re telling me food is omitted from the official definition of litter?”

“Yeah.”

“All Knowing Ty Walker, also known by his superhero alter-ego, Mr. Humongo has memorized the definition of litter?”

Yep, he was right, this was good. Even pissed, the bitch was funny.

“They make you do that kinda shit in prison.”

“They do not.”

“Babe, five years in one building, they gotta do something to keep us occupied.”

“You’re full of shit,” she mumbled, he looked to her and saw her shove an entire Ding Dong in her mouth.

Ding Dongs.

Christ.

Total goof.

They hit the highway, she jacked up the music and he experienced the unusual desire to beg someone to drive ice picks in his ears so he wouldn’t have to listen to it.

Then she started singing while sipping her coffee, just like the day before, at the top of her lungs with occasional car dancing.

And again. Total goof.

The country-rock song finally died and she snatched up the iPod to consider his next agony.

“Baby?” he called and he felt her eyes on him.

“Yeah?” she replied, her sweet voice soft, another tone he was getting used to and this was because the last couple of days it had started to come at him often.

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“In a second, I’m gonna pull over, get out my gun and give it to you. When I do, shoot me with it.”

“What?” she whispered.

“I’m facin’ another hour and a half of your music. I’d rather be dead.”

Silence then, “Shut up.”

“No, seriously.”

A smile in her voice then a repeated, “Shut up.”

He bit back his own smile.

Then he heard her say, “Actually, a pit stop wouldn’t be amiss at this juncture.”

He glanced at her then back at the road. “What?”

“I need to use the restroom.”

He sighed.

Two liter cup of coffee.

Jesus.

“We been on the road two hours,” he pointed out.

“You are correct but that doesn’t change my need to use the facilities.”

“Next time, you get a coffee the size of mine.”

“I have a small bladder.”

She didn’t have a small anything, thank Christ.

“You drank a two liter of coffee.”

“It was hardly two liters, Ty.”

“A liter and a half.”

“Are you trying to be a pain in my ass?”

“No,” he straight out lied.

“I’m rethinking my ‘I do’,” she muttered and he grinned at the windshield not knowing his wife had her head bent to her iPod selecting his next torment and missed it and also not knowing she would have given him fifty K in order to see it.

Then straight on hillbilly music filled the car and some had-to-be white man started singing about a man called Amos Moses.

“Jesus,” he groaned and when he did, he heard his wife giggle.

Since he was listening to hillbilly music, he wasted no time finding a restroom for her but as he hit the exit off the highway and Lexie bent to strap on the sandals she’d taken off, he looked in the rearview mirror, saw the SUV follow and his mouth got tight.

Bag of Bones had disappeared at the Utah/Colorado border and the SUV had taken his place. Fuller’s California connection was off-duty, the local boys had been sent in.

They either expected him to make trouble, they wanted to make trouble for him or they wanted to make a point. No matter what the f**king reason, he didn’t like it.

He hit a gas station and decided to fill up so as not to totally waste this waste of time so he guided the Charter to a pump. He was angling out his side as Lexie folded out of hers when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at his display, flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“Tate, can you hang on a second?” he said into it, eyes on Lexie strutting to the building.

“Yeah,” Tate replied.

Then he took the phone from his ear, whistled, Lexie stopped and turned to him.

“Money,” he called across the fifteen feet that separated them.

“I got it,” she called back.

“Money,” he repeated.

“Ty, I got it,” she repeated.

“Woman,” he growled and knew by the slight upward shift of her chin she’d rolled her eyes to the heavens behind her shades then she strutted to him.

He shoved his hand in his back pocket and slapped some bills in the opened palm she’d stretched over the car door.

Her fingers curled around it and her hand moved away as she asked, “Do you want anything?”

“No, and you don’t either.”

Her head tipped to the side just as her hip hitched the opposite direction.

“I don’t?”