Taming a Texas Devil - Katie Lane Page 0,46

brave enough to do what he felt he should have done.

It was Lucas and Chester’s love that had saved Lincoln from being consumed by that hate. They taught him being brave didn’t mean throwing the first punch. Being brave was facing your own weaknesses and doing the right thing even when the wrong thing was much easier. They had taught all the boys that. The last night before they left, he and his friends had sat around a campfire and made a pact that what Chester and Lucas had taught them wouldn’t be in vain.

The bad boys would become good men.

But Lincoln didn’t feel like a good man. A good man would’ve told people about his connection to Sam Sweeney. A good man wouldn’t hold a grudge against Maisy just because she looked like her father. And a good man wouldn’t be lusting after a woman he was supposed to be protecting.

And he was lusting after Dixie. His mind was constantly filled with thoughts of touching her, kissing her, and making love to her. For the last few days, he’d had a perpetual hard on just from watching her sit at her computer. She had all kinds of sexy little habits while she worked: twirling a strand of hair around her finger, chewing on her bottom lip, unbuttoning and buttoning the top button of her shirt. They drove him wild with the desire to take over for her—except he didn’t want to be as gentle. He wanted to fist those glorious golden locks in his hands, devour that plump bottom lip, and rip the shirt right off her body. If her phone hadn’t rung the other day at Mesquite Springs, he had little doubt they would’ve ended up on the ground in a tangle of naked limbs and sweet sighs. His desire for her had become a needy ache he couldn’t get rid of no matter how much he tried. And he was getting tired of trying.

Boomer’s bark pulled him from his thoughts and he clicked the horse to a gallop to discover what the dog had found. It was another gopher family. The dog was playing hide and seek with the critters. He raced over to one hole and stuck his head in, and then when a gopher popped its head out of another hole, he’d race to that one—only to have another gopher pop up in the hole he was just looking in. Lincoln couldn’t help but laugh as he watched the gophers get the best of the hound dog.

Figuring he wasn’t going to get any more out of the dog today, he started to whistle for Boomer so they could head home when his phone rang. He pulled it from his shirt pocket and looked to see who it was. It was Major Macky.

“Good morning, sir.”

“What’s going on, Hayes?”

“I’m waiting to hear back from forensics about the bone. As soon as I do, I’ll fill out a report and get it to you.”

“A bone? Oh, yes. The missing person’s case. I didn’t call to talk about your case. I called because the chief just called me and chewed my ass out for not having control over my officers. I thought you were going to discourage the senator’s daughter from being a deputy.”

“I never said I was going to discourage her, sir. I said I would keep an eye on her. And I have. I’m not going to discourage someone from doing their job when they’re good at it. Deputy Meriwether is good at her job. She has great instincts and excellent people skills. We need officers like her in law enforcement.”

“What happened to you thinking that she wasn’t fit to be a law officer?” There was a pause. “Please tell me that nothing is going on between you and the senator’s daughter, Hayes.”

“No, sir.” But it was a daily struggle.

“Good. If you stepped over that line, I wouldn’t have been able to keep the chief from firing you. He’s pissed enough as is that you didn’t go along with the senator’s desires.”

“The senator is wrong. If he loves his daughter, he should support her career choice and not try to squash her dream.”

“And just what makes you think being a deputy is her dream? If it was, she wouldn’t quit so easily.”

He tensed and Doris fidgeted beneath him. “Dixie is quitting?”

“That’s what the senator told the chief. I guess the senator came up with another way to get his daughter to quit.“ Major Macky snorted. “Rich people.