Chapter 10 Retribution #3
“We?” Tucker flicked his gaze around the cozy church sanctuary, wondering who Gray was including in his statement. The two tall Christmas trees flanking the platform twinkled back at him, lending a warm and festive touch to the ominous scene unfolding.
“Oh, please!” Gray scoffed. “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet.”
Tucker had no idea what he was talking about.
“Wow! You’re losing your touch, detective.” Gray shook his head in false dismay.
Detective. Tucker latched onto the word. It felt significant that Gray didn’t seem to realize he was no longer serving as a police detective.
“I’ll cut to the chase.” Gray adopted a long-suffering tone. “Pete Flournoy and I go waaaaaaaay back.” He exaggerated the word to maximize the drama. “You don’t think I ran all those cocaine packages in and out of El Paso without a little inside help, do you?”
Tucker digested the claim. “You and Pete, eh?” Theirs was an unlikely partnership. Pete was a politician at heart, but he’d never impressed Tucker as having a criminal mindset.
Gray shrugged. “You know firsthand how hard it is to move our products across state lines, and don’t even get me started on the red-tape plastered across the border between us and our southern neighbors. Having a little federal muscle behind us makes things a lot easier.”
“Really?” Tucker was too fascinated by what his ex-partner was revealing to keep quiet. “I thought that’s what Mallory’s cattle were for.” It troubled him deeply how badly thugs like Gray Duncan used and abused livestock while carrying out their nefarious deeds.
Gray was all too eager to explain. Like a lot of criminals, he craved credit, a detail Tucker filed away for later use.
“If you’re whining about your girlfriend’s herd, she got off light.
Most of the cattle rustling problem in Heart Lake was fabricated.
” He sounded supremely proud of that fact.
“We brought in a few low-level thugs like the Silvas to lend it some authenticity—from rival gangs, too, to make it look like a turf war.” He gave an ugly laugh.
“It was the surest way of getting your pals in El Paso to send you here undercover, and it worked!”
Tucker dissected Gray’s latest revelation. If there wasn’t a real cattle rustling problem in Heart Lake, then the only reason Gray could possibly want his old partner assigned to such a small town was because…
“You ordered the hit on me!” There was no other conclusion to draw.
“Ding! Ding! Ding!” Gray looked pleased. “Where’s my cowbell when I need it?”
“This is retribution.” Tucker hadn’t known it was possible for the man sitting in front of him to sink any lower. “For what? Trying to bring you to justice, or failing to die the last time you shot me?” He would forever wear the scar from their last encounter above his heart.
The pianist on stage started playing a beautiful old gospel song. The chatting in the sanctuary died down, and the wedding guests took their seats.
“Oh, boohoo!” Gray shooed him away like a moth. “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty for doing this on your wedding day, you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“I don’t know you at all.” Whoever Gray had become was someone Tucker no longer recognized.
“Go!” Gray gestured with the pistol in his pocket. “Go get married and pretend for a few minutes like everything is going to be okay, even though it isn’t.” He snorted at his own joke. “Not for you.”
Tucker didn’t budge.
“Or…” Gray adopted a lazy tone. “I can just give the order and turn this place into a bloodbath right now. Your choice if you don’t get moving in three, two…”
Tucker forced his feet into motion. “Just leave everyone else out of it. I’m the one you want.” Gray didn’t answer as Tucker woodenly moved to the altar to receive his next surprise.
The minister standing behind the pulpit wasn’t a man he recognized, and there was no mistaking the bulge of a weapon beneath his suit jacket.
Tucker wasn’t catching any breaks today.
He was indeed surrounded. Gray hadn’t been bluffing about that.
So much for Gil’s promise to have their backs!
Tucker should’ve known better that to believe him.
Gil helped run a small-town security firm.
He clearly didn’t understand what he’d gotten his team tangled up in.
Lonestar Security was out of its league.
Tucker’s only remaining hope—outside of Divine intervention—was on Pete Flournoy enjoying his pristine political image more than he liked the prospect of being behind bars.
Knowing Pete the way he did, it was entirely possible the guy was playing everybody in the room.
He was skilled at running multiple agendas at a time.
Unfortunately, whatever agenda Pete was operating on didn’t change the fact that Gray Duncan was sitting in the front row with a loaded gun trained at the groom. Or that the man posing as a minister had him pinned in from the other direction.
Tucker turned around to face the back of the church.
His heart ached to see Chip standing there with his mom clinging to his arm.
His best man sure cleaned up good. Chip looked a few years older in his suit.
He’d even found time to get a haircut. It was too bad the spiffed-up teenager was about to step into the crossfire of a dangerous set of criminals.
As Chip made his way down the aisle, Gray deliberately stepped in his path. The kid’s face turned ashen. It was clear he recognized Gray.
Tucker watched Martina’s lips tighten. She recognized Gray, too, though she wasn’t afraid of him. Just angry and puzzled, as if she hadn’t expected him to be present.
Chip let go of his mother’s arm and took his place on the other side of Tucker, looking like death warmed over. Not good.
The pianist ended the first song and played the opening chords of the wedding march. Mallory appeared at the back of the church in her beautiful velvet dress. Gil was at her side.
What a great guy! Tucker hadn’t been expecting that.
He mentally sent him a final thank you, fearing the retired sheriff only had seconds to live.
If everything Gray said was true, there were at least five armed gangsters in the room—Gray, Pete Flournoy, the fake minister, Dexter, and Martina. There might be more.
At best, Tucker might be able to create a distraction to give the Lonestar Security team time to react and put up a fight.
As his fast-dwindling options swam through his mind, Gil gave him a slight head shake.
It was such a small gesture that Tucker almost missed it.
If it was Gil’s attempt to be reassuring, it wasn’t working.
The game was over. The good guys were about to suffer a few more losses.
Tucker met the gaze of his bride-to-be one last time, silently bidding her goodbye.
I love you, Mal. I love you more than I thought it was possible to love another person. What little time we had together was enough. You were enough.
Her face paled at what she read in his gaze, and tears started rolling down her face .
His heart clenched beneath his ribs. He hadn’t intended to make her weep.
A collective awww rose from their audience, most of whom didn’t know what was coming.
Tears burned Tucker’s eyes, too, clouding his vision as Gray raised his pistol and trained it…not at Tucker like he’d expected, but at his bride!
“Nooooo!” Tucker heard Chip’s frantic scream as he and the lanky teenager lunged in unison toward Mallory.
A single gunshot went off.
The church erupted in cries of terror. Some guests hit the floor. Others ran for the exits.
Mallory stood in the middle of the aisle, clinging uncertainly to Gil’s arm. She took a stumbling step toward Tucker and slumped forward into his embrace.
“Mal!” Horror filled him as he caught her. “Ambulance,” he hollered, though it was doubtful anyone could hear him above the chaos. “Someone call an ambulance!” He lowered her gently to the floor, afraid to look at the front of her dress.
As a trained lawman, however, he couldn’t stop himself.
All he saw, though, was cream-colored velvet clinging to her boyishly slender frame.
He stared blankly at the fabric, wondering where the blood was.
Maybe he couldn’t see it, because he’d already passed out from grief.
Or maybe he was dead, too, from a bullet he’d never felt.
He watched dazedly as her eyelids fluttered against her cheeks and opened. Her beautiful brown eyes were clear and focused as they settled on his face. Then she reached for him.
With a hoarse cry, he gathered her close. She was uninjured. He didn’t know how or why, only that the bullet must have missed her .
She was laughing and crying at the same time. “I’m okay,” she wept against his throat. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He sent a wild glance around the room and discovered a lone figure stretched out in the aisle. It was Gray. Tucker quickly adjusted his position, using his shoulders to shield Mallory from his ex-partner’s motionless body.
Chip crawled their way, looking close to throwing up. “Is she?—?”
“She’s fine.” Tucker loosened his arms around Mallory so the kid could see for himself that she was unharmed.
“Chip!” She fluttered a hand at him.
He clung to it, right up to the point he was placed in handcuffs and led away.
“This isn’t over,” she called brokenly to him. “I promise.”
“I’m holding you to it,” Martina declared tearfully as she and Dex were led up the aisle in handcuffs. Gray was rolled away on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance.
Pete Flournoy appeared and squatted his stocky frame beside Tucker and Mallory.
“My deepest apologies, Agent Pratt, for the timing of our sting operation, but we needed you as bait to bring that scoundrel down. The bonus I’m putting you in for…
eh, maybe we should call it a late wedding gift now that you’ve turned in your resignation. ”
Holding Mallory was the only reason Tucker didn’t take a swing at the smug regional manager. “You still owe me,” he growled.
“Sure. Anything,” Pete returned merrily. “Not only is it your wedding day, it’s almost Christmas.”
“We want Daniel Silva remanded in our custody,” Tucker declared firmly. “I don’t care how many favors you have to call in or how much paperwork we have to sign to get Evans Ranch officially recognized as a work-release program.”
“Done!” Pete stood and dusted the knees of his pine-green suit. His white dress shirt, red-and-white striped tie, and snowy beard made him look like a dressed-up version of Santa.
He gestured imperiously toward the front of the nearly empty sanctuary. “Again, I apologize for the mess, but the agent presiding over your wedding ceremony is, in fact, an ordained minister. So, if you’d like to go on and exchange your vows…”
Tucker turned his agonized gaze to Mallory. “If you’d rather reschedule?—”
“No, I would not , Tucker Pratt!” She reached up to dab the edges of her eyes. “You aren’t getting off the hook that easily.”
He gazed at her in wonder, feeling a wide grin steal across his face. “That’s my girl.”
His girl.
His heart.
His life.