Bucked (The Invincibles Book 6) Read online

  “It’s okay,” said the girl I’d bumped butts with. She was a cute little thing, all bright smiles and eager eyes. There might’ve been a time when I would’ve taken this kind of opportunity to flirt, maybe even get her number. Now, though, she just looked young. Too young. And vapid. When I saw she was trying to reach a bag in the opposite overhead, I grabbed it and handed it to her. “Go on ahead,” I said, noticing the aisle was clear in front of us.

  I waved a few more people by and then stepped out of my row, hoping the woman wasn’t waiting for me at the end of the ramp that led from the plane to the terminal. This kind of thing happened to me often enough that I knew what to expect and how best to avoid it.

  I put on my cowboy hat and walked off the plane. When I reached the terminal, I could see her waiting in the distance. I pulled out my phone, took a sharp left, and made a beeline for the men’s room.

  When I came out, I didn’t see her, and even if I had, I’d made my lack of interest clear. I took the train from my terminal to baggage claim and the airport exit. When I reached the top of the escalator that went from the platform to the main level, I saw a familiar face.

  “Hey, man,” I said to my brother Porter. “I didn’t expect you.” He and I moved out of the way and embraced.

  “Couldn’t just let you sit here at DIA,” he muttered.

  “I would’ve rented something and driven over.”

  “Is that all you’ve got?” he asked, pointing to my bag.

  “That’s it.”

  “Guess you aren’t planning on staying long.”

  “I don’t stay anywhere very long, Port.” My attempt at a joke fell flat, not doing a thing to alleviate the tension that seeped from my brother’s pores. “I also left behind a closet full of shit.” The clothes I wore when I was at the ranch weren’t a lot different than what I wore everywhere else, but the truth was, I traveled light.

  “Gotcha.”

  “I appreciate this, Port.”

  “It isn’t completely unselfish, Buck. There are things we need to talk about.”

  I’d expected there would be. “How’s Flynn?” Of all my siblings, the youngest—my sister—would take our dad’s death the hardest. I couldn’t speak for my three brothers, but knowing they carried the same memories I did, I could understand if they didn’t give a shit if the old man was burning in hell.

  “Stoic,” answered Port.

  That didn’t surprise me. Like our mom, Flynn held everything inside. I only hoped my sister could find a way to let the things that bothered her out. Otherwise, also like our mother, she might die of a heart attack before she hit thirty-five.

  We didn’t talk again until we were in Port’s truck and on the highway.

  “There’s some stuff you need to know about the ranch, Buck. Finances in particular.”

  Roaring Fork Ranch, one of six hundred Centennial Farms in the state of Colorado—meaning owned by the same family for over one hundred years—hadn’t always prospered. It was the second largest in Gunnison County, and our family, like so many others, struggled with whether to divide the property and let a portion of it be used for development. It was something our pop had vehemently opposed, regardless of whether the ranch was profitable.

  Stubborn didn’t begin to describe Roscoe B. Wheaton, Sr. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, and how he wanted. He had no interest in hearing the opinions of his offspring or that of other ranch owners.

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “Bad enough that we might lose it.”

  Whether my siblings lost it or not would be dependent on how our father had divided the ownership. One thing I knew for certain was that none of it would be coming to me, and for that, I was thankful.

  “You leave, and you won’t be welcome back,” the bastard had said the day I told him I was given a full-ride scholarship to a university on the East Coast. He took it a step further when I actually left. “You turn your back on it, you’ll never own a square foot of Roaring Fork,” he’d warned.

  I didn’t hesitate to tell him I didn’t give a shit. I still didn’t. But that was between my father and me. Nothing that had happened was Porter’s fault.

  “The brothers and I have some ideas.”

  “Look, Port, I’m happy to let you run stuff past me, or even give my opinion if you really want it, but what happens at the ranch isn’t any of my business.”

  It was dark in the truck, but I could see the look of confusion on my brother’s face.

  “He cut me out, Port. You know that.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “The lawyer is going to read us the will after the funeral, but we had to assure him you’d be here.”

  What the hell? What had the old man done? Left me a dollar to humiliate me? The fucker was dead, so I wouldn’t be able to tell him that no matter what he did, he no longer had any kind of hold over me.

  “What are your ideas?”

  I laughed out loud when Porter turned his head and his face broke into a wide smile.

  “I can’t wait to hear this.”

  4

  Stella

  I knew better than to have so much to drink. Not only did I have a headache and feel sick to my stomach, it also gave me indigestion. Long gone were the days when I could consume whatever I wanted. Now, at the ripe old age of thirty-six, I had to stay away from things like pizza too late at night, alcohol any time of the day it seemed, plus a myriad of other things my digestive system used to be able to handle.

  Even eating an apple, usually a fail-safe cure for heartburn, was no match for the combination of whiskey, bitters, and vermouth.

  “Fucking Buck,” I muttered. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t his fault I felt like shit. At least not physically. Scratch that. It wasn’t his fault my stomach was bothering me. It was his fault I was so horny that even my vibrator, equally as fail-safe as the apple, did nothing to combat how much I wanted to feel his naked body against mine.

  I’d hoped that after the wedding, he and I would end up back here, purging our desire for people who could never be ours by ravaging each other’s bodies. I’d even managed to ignore the possibility that Buck might not be interested in having sex with a woman so much older. The last relationship I’d had was with a man sixteen years older than me. I hadn’t had to worry about my age with him—I was practically a kid in comparison.

  So here I sat with a huge itch that needed to be scratched. Buck was gone God knew where other than here, and it wasn’t likely he’d be coming back. He’d only been in DC initially to protect Ali. When she went home to California, he went with her. It wasn’t a job that had brought him here last week; it was the bachelor party and today’s wedding.

  I grabbed my laptop, got in bed, and searched for him on the internet. Nothing. Just like I expected.

  “What the hell,” I muttered out loud, pulling up the dating website I trolled from time to time. Given Buck was no longer an itch-scratching option, maybe I should consider doing what others did and find a stranger who could take care of it for me.

  After a few minutes, I slammed my laptop closed, turned off the light, and opened up the reading app on my tablet.

  When I opened my eyes again, the sun was streaming through my window. I reached for my phone, remembering then that I’d turned it off last night. I dreaded the idea of turning it back on enough that I let it sit on the nightstand when I went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

  At the same rate the steamy brew filled my cup, guilt over Aunt Barb filled my chest. It wasn’t just that I’d abruptly ended our call last night, today was Sunday—the day of the week I usually paid her a visit.

  I’d so much rather stay in my pj’s, read more of the book that had put me to sleep last night, and eat pizza early enough in the day to not have to think about its effects on my esophagus. But if I didn’t visit Barb, the only other human contact she’d have all week would be Nancy, her housekeeper. I figured the two
women looked forward to my visits just to escape each other’s company for a short amount of time.

  Why was I Barb’s only other human contact? Because my aunt never left the confines of her apartment. She wasn’t housebound for any physical reason. If she wanted to, she could do her own shopping, have lunch with friends, even visit me. It was her mental state that kept her from venturing out into the world.

  It started a little over ten years ago, right after I’d graduated from NYU with my master’s degree, that my aunt took a journalistic fall from grace. Her reclusion began almost immediately after she was accused of manufacturing evidence against then-Interpol president, Nicholas Kerr, a married man with whom it was alleged Barb had had a torrid affair.

  In my aunt’s career-ending story, which the AP had inexplicably passed on, she accused Kerr, along with the other members of Interpol’s executive committee, of years of accepting bribes in exchange for a massive cover-up of what she’d reported as being called Operation Argead.

  Days after the story ran, the AP ran their own piece, accusing Barb of being a spurned lover when Kerr ended the affair. The article alleged she’d falsely accused those named in it, out of spite. Within days of that, Kerr, along with the vice president and secretary-general of Interpol, sued her for libel. While that suit was later dropped, the damage had already been done.

  Making matters much worse at the time, my aunt was unable to produce the evidence she’d said she had to back up her allegations. When pressed about it, Barb said her apartment had been burglarized and, suspiciously, all that was taken was every shred of evidence she had against Kerr and his co-conspirators.

  The story took on a life of its own—not against Kerr, against my aunt. Her fellow reporters hounded her so relentlessly she remained locked inside her apartment, refusing to venture out for any reason. Even after the story died down, she’d refused to go out in public.

  Her weekly therapist appointments continued, but over the phone, not that the woman had helped my aunt overcome or even battle her extreme agoraphobia.

  The one thing the therapist had recommended, and that I agreed with wholeheartedly, was that Barb hire a companion, housekeeper, assistant—however my aunt wanted to define the position—in order to free me up to live my life.

  I couldn’t remember exactly where Barb had found her, but Nancy proved to be as invaluable to my sanity as she was to my aunt’s. The arrangement worked out well for both women when she offered Nancy a salary to include room and board.

  Online shopping became her favorite pastime, besides the endless research she conducted, which culminated in assignments for me.

  I couldn’t begrudge her, though. When my mother was first diagnosed HIV positive, my father had not only accused her of being unfaithful, he left the house one morning and never came back.

  The following day, she was served with divorce papers. The day after that, Aunt Barb had shown up and never left. I was five. Four years later, my mother was gone, I had zero contact with my father, and my aunt had dedicated her life to caring for me.

  My aunt was the one who’d first called me TJ when, right after my mom died, I told her I detested my first name—which I hadn’t divulged to a single soul since. The J was for Jackson, my father’s last name.

  It wasn’t long before my aunt adopted me and we legally changed my name to TJ Hunter. Hunter was Barb’s last name, my mother’s maiden name. The adoption was easy, given my father had relinquished his parental rights in my parents’ divorce.

  When it came time for me to go to college, she made sure I had every penny I needed to earn both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She sublet her apartment in DC and rented a place in Manhattan for the two of us while I attended NYU.

  During that time, Barb, for the most part, quit working. When she did write, they were mainly fluff pieces.

  The Kerr-Interpol-Operation Argead story was the first big investigative piece she took on after I graduated from college. I wondered now if the time off had made her rusty, diminished her previously honed skills, and resulted in her being sloppy. The idea that she blew the story for those reasons, only added to my already overwhelming sense of guilt.

  With that burden firmly in place, I got my shit together, showered, and was on my way to her apartment an hour later. My laptop bag was slung over my shoulder, and I had Greek takeout in hand from the café in the lobby of Cope’s building—the same place that had catered his and Ali’s wedding yesterday.

  “It’s just me,” I shouted, letting myself in.

  “TJ?” she hollered back. Uh, who else would it be? She didn’t recognize my voice after thirty years?

  “I brought your favorite for lunch.” I pulled plates from the cupboard and filled each with gyro, rice, tzatziki, and Greek salad. I looked up when she walked into the kitchen.

  “I thought you meant Italian,” she said with a sour face. For a moment, I considered dumping the food back into the takeout containers. Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to come over. My hangover—along with my missed opportunity for post-wedding sex—already had my tolerance-for-shit level close to zero.

  I stabbed my fork into the salad and took a bite. “More for me and Nancy, then,” I said with food in my mouth. “Where is she, anyway?”

  My aunt made a noise of disgust, picked up her plate, and sat at the dining room table. “In her room.”

  “You two have a spat?”

  “I’m old as the hills, and that woman is ten years older than I am. It’s time she retired and I said so.”

  Admittedly, my aunt was in her mid-sixties, which meant her housekeeper was seventy-five, at least. But if she retired, how would Barb get on without her?

  “You were in a mood last night,” she mumbled after we’d eaten in silence for several minutes.

  “Still am.” I finished what was on my plate and took it into the kitchen to clean up. “Do you want me to leave this or take it with me, since it’s no longer your favorite?”

  “You can leave it.”

  I peeked around the corner and saw her sitting with her chin resting in her hand. “What’s up?” I asked.

  She dropped her elbow from the table and leaned back in her chair. “I wish you were making more progress, TJ. By the time you report on some of the leads I’ve given you, the stories will either be old news or someone else will have gotten the scoop.”

  I sat back down at the table. “Why don’t you write them?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I’m serious.”

  “No one would publish a word.”

  “Of course they would; you’re a Pulitzer-winning journalist.”

  “Must we go down this road again, TJ?”

  “The way I see it, you can do it yourself or stop giving me shit when I’m not quick enough for you.”

  The truth was, with few exceptions, Aunt Barb’s “scoops” held little interest for me. I doubted any news outlets would find them compelling either. The subjects lacked the kind of sensationalism required for even AP to pick up the bylines. What might have been considered newsworthy ten years ago was hardly a radar blip now.

  The worst part was that Aunt Barb held a personal vendetta not only against Interpol and even the CIA, but every journalist and media outlet that had disgraced her. She looked for and called out bias on a regular basis and expected me to report on it. The problem with it was, no one cared.

  Everyone who watched the news, read a newspaper or magazine, knew exactly what the media outlet’s slant was. Whether middle-of-the-road, conservative, or liberal, there was rarely an attempt to hide personal or collective opinions. I’d hardly be shining a light on anything not already widely accepted.

  “You know I’m working on something else.”

  “For the love of God, please tell me you’re not entertaining the idea of that book again.”

  Compared to the stories she wanted me to cover, the book was the one thing that would truly cause a stir, not just in the US intelligence world,
but globally.

  It all began when I got an anonymous tip about an arrest involving a CIA agent by the name of Paxon “Irish” Warrick, whose handler at the agency was none other than Sumner Copeland.

  I covered the arrest and subsequent indictment, all the while believing Irish was a double agent who had been selling secrets to the Chinese government for almost a decade, which had resulted in the deaths of dozens of CIA agents, operatives, and assets around the world.

  On the first day of his trial, I met Ali Graham—actually Ali Mancuso—who was undercover as a reporter also writing the story, but who I later learned was a CIA internal affairs agent brought in to see if Cope was in cahoots with Irish.

  Much to my own heartbreak at the time, I stood on the sidelines and watched Ali and Cope fall in love.

  When we both believed Cope had been killed in a car explosion, we not only became close friends, we also agreed to collaborate on the real story of what turned out to be a years-long mission undertaken by Irish, Cope, and a man named Decker Ashford to expose the true mole and his co-conspirators.

  Like on the night I received the anonymous tip about Irish, my cell phone rang shortly after midnight. A computer-modified voice informed me that before dawn, multiple arrests would be made both in the States and around the world. I lay awake as reports of each hit the wires, the biggest of which was CIA Director Ed Fisk.

  A few hours after that, I learned that Cope was alive. His death had been faked as part of the mission.

  “TJ?”

  I looked up and realized my aunt was studying me. “Yeah?”

  “I would’ve thought after his wedding, you would stop following that man around like a puppy dog.”

  I sat back in my own chair. “You’re on fire today, Barb.”

  “You need to walk away from it.”

  I leaned forward and rested my arms on the table. “From what? The book?”

  “Yes, and lower your voice.”

  Now I was pissed. “Not on your life.”

  “Maybe on both of our lives.”