Trouble With the Law Read Online Free PDF Page B

taken him to the nurse, but all she had done was pack his damn nose and give him ice.  He imagined this morning his eyes were going to be as blue and swollen as his nose was yesterday. 
    Add a crooked nose to his scar, and he was going to have to beat women off with a stick, or they would beat him off .  At the rate he was going, pretty soon Quasimodo would have more luck with women than he would.  Trace wasn’t worried about that though.  There was only one woman on his mind these days.  A certain redhead who he owed a rude awakening, but even she wasn’t his first priority.  Taking down Leland was.  Trace was so damned close to doing that he could taste victory.  If he could just get the hell out of here to finish what he started.
    Pushing up off the cot, he swayed on his feet and swallowed down the nausea that rushed up to his throat.  That nurse said he didn’t have a concussion, but Trace didn’t believe her.  His head felt like he had been hit with an iron skillet, and every time he moved too quickly, he wanted to hurl.  His price for getting away from Ronnie Winters, and he would pay it again.  He put his hand over his stomach to ask the same question he asked every time a guard came into his cell.  “Am I getting out?”
    When the guard walked inside, Trace assumed the position against the wall, but the guard grabbed his shoulder, instead of cuffing him .  "You're out.  I don't know how, but we just got the order to let you go."
    Trace knew how .  Susan Whitmore, Special Agent In Charge of the Dallas FBI office, had finally sprung him.  He was thankful, but damn, it had taken the woman long enough.  He’d been in here for more than a week.  He was impatient to get out, but he trusted Susan to do what was best for him and for the operation at the Double Bar Ranch.  If that meant spending a few more days in hell, he would do it.  And thank her.  If all this worked out in the end, he had a lot of reasons to thank the woman.
    She might be a tough cookie, but miraculously, she had listened to him when nobody else would .  Trace had written to her, saved up the pennies he got from his labor in jail, and then paid to have it snuck out through the convict underground mail.  In an eight page handwritten letter, he had told her his story.  Instead of ignoring him, Susan had looked into it, and then she offered him a deal—help her nail Leland and she would get a year shaved off of his sentence.  A win-win proposition in his book.  But something nobody else in Texas would do. 
    Leland Rooks wielded a heavy and long stick in the Lonestar state.  Most people wouldn’t dare cross him.  Trace was crossing him, and crossing back, because his father meant absolutely nothing to him now.  Less than nothing.  He had lost everything because of that man.  Trace wasn’t afraid of him, because he had nothing left to lose.  And the beauty of it was Leland had no idea he was doing it.  His father had even helped him get the job at the ranch after he was released from prison.
    Trace had to apologize to him and beg for his help getting that job, of course.  It was the most difficult thing he'd ever done in his life.  But somehow Trace had convinced Leland that he believed he should have covered the old bastard's back.  Shoved all the information he had about him under the rug, and forgot about it.  Even though it barely fit through his throat, Trace also thanked him for all he had done to help him when he was fighting the charges.  Paying for his attorney.  Pulling strings with the judge to lessen his sentence.  Putting him in fucking jail for three years, was something Trace didn’t thank his father for though.  Taking him down would be his thanks for that.
    Leland had bought it and Ray Brown hired him on Leland's recommendation. 
    The guard shoved him toward the cell door and Trace cast him a hot look, shifted his shoulders then took a deep breath as he walked out of the door into the