Their Ex's Redrock Four Read Online Free Page B

close and personal had proved the grainy picture ID. But he wasn’t going to give up. He would come up with a way to keep Luna on a short leash if he had to toss all his money at it to do it.  
    Since he was stalled getting his belongings, he went to WTSF for a few hours to catch up on paperwork. He wasn’t officially back, but time off or not, paperwork never stopped. When he walked into the main reception area, he saw WTSF’s office manager, Carly, sitting behind the reception desk.
    “Hey, Olive-Oyl,” he greeted, walking toward her. They had a running joke.
    “Hey, Popeye,” she called, smiling back at him.
    “We lose another teenage receptionist?” he asked, leaning on the side of the desk beside her.
    Carly looked up at him with sparkling gray eyes. She had wavy, long blonde hair, and an asshole husband she’d dumped earlier that year. “One a week, I swear,” she muttered. “But this last one was pregnant and she’s having her baby.” Carly filled him in, then they talked about a security gig he was going to have to be the lead on, when he came back.
    “You bill for the wife I caught with the masseuse?” he asked, watching Carly’s gaze track someone in the offices to the right side of them.
    He knew by the look in her gray eyes who she was looking at. It had to be Cabe. Cabe never saw or maybe never “got” the looks she gave him when she thought Cabe wasn’t looking, but Vincent did. He didn’t have to turn to look and know Cabe was back there.
    “Yeah, I did,” Carly answered his question, then she whispered, “Cabe took her back.”
    Vincent raised an eyebrow, seeing the sadness reflected on Carly’s face. If Cabe hadn’t been married, Vincent sure as hell would have informed him that Carly, who Cabe had known since their oil days, always had, still had, and always would have a thing for him.  
    Vincent shook his head disappointed … for his friend. But he’d keep his opinion to himself. It just took a man as long as it took him, to give up on the promise of what was really not there.
    It was noon when Tess heard the bell on the door ring to her shop. She swiped at her eyes, looking up to see Vincent striding toward the front counter. Wow … he was in her shop, she should be excited.
    “Beautiful, what is it?” Dang, she couldn’t hide anything from him. She glanced over her shoulder to see that Shannon was in the walk-in cold locker as Vincent rounded the counter and arrived next to her. For a second she thought about fibbing, because he had enough problems with Luna.
    But Vincent curled her into his embrace and the words just fell out of her mouth. “I’ve lost the shop, unless I want to send Steven to prison.” Then, horribly, she burst into tears and burrowed into Vincent.
    “Let me guess,” he said. “He forged your name and double mortgaged it.”
    She nodded against him, crying harder, while praying Shannon or even worse a customer wouldn’t walk in. Then Vincent rocked her world, shaking it to the core and rearranging it.
    “It’s you, baby, not the damn building. You’re the business.”
    Why that made her cry harder, she didn’t know, but Vincent took it all with his hand cupped to the back of her head, while holding her tight. She didn’t know what she’d do without him.
    Her sobs finally quieted into the shoulder of his thermal, wet from her tears. Then he did a pure Vincent thing. “Here, use the end of my shirt to wipe your eyes.”
    That’s how Shannon found them with her pulling up Vincent’s thermal, exposing his ripped abdomen, while she bent forward as if she were drooling over his six pack abs.
    “Sorry!” Shannon squeaked. She was a tad shy.
    Tess unbent from Vincent and the bottom of his shirt. “It’s okay, Shannon. This is Vincent.”
    “Hey, Shannon,” Vincent said, pulling her back into his side, where his arm crossed her back, then his hand fitted into the waistband of her jeans skirt.
    “Hey, Mr. Whitehorse,” Shannon