Operative Attraction Read online

  Operative Attraction

  RaeLynn Blue

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 RaeLynn Blue

  ISBN: 978-0-9831934-0-1

  Cover Artist: Nicole Givens Kurtz

  Editor: Chere Gruver

  Proofreader: Novellette Whyte

  Published by Mocha Memoirs Press, LLC

  All Rights Reserved. The following characters are copyrighted and used with permission: Shara Azod by Shara Azod. RaeLynn Blue by RaeLynn Blue. Laura Guevara by Laura Guevara. Jeanie Johnson by Jeanie Johnson. Jayha Leigh by Jayha Leigh. Reid Randolph by Reid Randolph. Dréa Riley by Dréa Riley. Yazmin Taylor by Yazmin Taylor.

  The Jumpoff is written by Jeanie Johnson and Jayha Leigh

  No part of this book may be produced or shared in any form, including but not limited to: printing, photocopying, faxing, or electronic transmission, without prior written permission from the authors.

  This book is a work of fiction. References may be made to locations and historical events; however, names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the authors’ imaginations and/or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), businesses, events or locales is either used fictitiously or coincidental.

  Other Works by RaeLynn Blue

  Shout Outs

  Alice-Down the rabbit hole we go, and in that falling dark, you won't be alone.

  To Dréa—Thanks, Mrs. Drano.

  To J&J—Peeps for the penny, peeps for the pound.—Rae

  Author’s Note:

  Originally, this book was part of the Ride It Like You Stole It anthology. Each story has the same jump off (a few pages that set the scene) but are stand alone tales.

  Premise:

  Having just returned from Europe, the Posse finds themselves in need of a vacation from their vacation. Thus, they end up in the beautiful North Carolina mountains at a town owned by their friends. Everything’s going along fine until they catch and beat the snot out of an escaped prisoner who is wanted by more law enforcement agencies than the cities the chicks have been banned from. Of course, someone calls “CHALLENGE!” Hot law enforcement personnel, plus authors whose imaginations have run completely amuck can only equal hot stories.

  This story has connections to the following stories:

  · Private Dick by Laura Guevara and Dréa Riley

  · Ride or Why Chick by Jeanie Johnson and Jayha Leigh

  This is the kind of thing that can happen when the Posse converges on one place at the same time.

  The Jump Off

  Having just returned from our long-awaited European road trip, where we’d spent the last month gazing at the castles, cathedrals, and villas of Europe and Greece, before flying over to the Nassau for a few days of fun, we needed about a week to unwind. Well, at least I (Jayha) did. Though I felt that I’d walked all of Europe, that wasn’t what made me tired. What had worn me slam out was trying to keep Jeanie from accidentally starting some kind of world war with her “tact;” trying to keep Dréa and Shara out of foreign prison; trying to stop Reid from attempting to pull off a coup d’êtat and declaring herself ruler of the Louis Vuitton headquarters; trying to keep Yazmin from peeking under the kilts of the Highland hotties in Scotland; having to forcibly pull Raelynn screaming and kicking from the sci/fi convention they were having in London; and keeping Laura from being kidnapped and forcibly married by either of the captains of the rival soccer teams who’d all decided she should wear their rings and bear their soccer progeny. It’d be one thing if they played football, but it was just soccer, so I couldn’t allow that.

  I’d managed to get the Posse back stateside with zero felonies, riots, or major incidents. Okay, sure, Jeanie is no longer allowed in Sweden (which is ironic being that we didn’t visit any of the Scandinavian countries); Dréa’s no longer allowed to even speak the name of Lichtenstein; Shara’s barred from ever again stepping foot in any of the Baltic countries; and we had to get two additional sets of luggage for Reid’s handbag purchases. All of that was balanced out by the fact that Yazmin got a holiday named after her in Scotland (don’t ask; don’t tell, but I now know what Scotsmen wear under their kilts), and we all got to spend a week in a castle thanks to the Spanish hotties who had a crush on Laura. I prevented disaster after disaster without nary a drop of iced tea…and without spilling a drop of blood.

  So yeah, I needed a vacation to rest from the vacation. And that was just what I’d spent the past week doing: chilling. Taking a swig of my tart lemonade, I settled deeper into my chair and propped my feet on the footrest. Pausing, I took a moment to admire the red leather boots with the gold tops. They didn’t go with a damn thing I had on, but no one here could call me on it, especially when every other woman was wearing the same damn shoes. Per the rules, every posse member had to wear the boots at some point during the day, and it just so happened we all fell into the habit of wearing them during afternoon tea.

  As I was thinking about the massage I had scheduled, my musings were interrupted by a stream of cussing the likes of which I hadn’t heard since this morning when I was coming down from my post-culinary bliss. Hey, the turtle cheesecake was the b-diggity, and if you’d wrapped your lips around it, you’d be cussing too. Opening my eyes, I turned and peered in the direction of the curses. Twenty seconds later I saw a man come running down the center of the street. Hot on his heels was Shara on her ATV, bayonet in one hand—and not just any bayonet, but one with a beautiful black blade with a serrated edge—the handlebars in the other.

  While it wasn’t strange for Shara to be running someone out of town, being she was the benevolent despot and all, what was strange was the outfit she was rocking while doing it. Wearing a midnight blue cupped overbust corset in silk with black lace overlay, six shirred garters and her Wonder Woman boots, Shara was a sight to behold. And so were her survival skills. Pulling even with the guy, she reached out and kicked him in the back of the knee, sending him sprawling. Executing a hundred and eighty degree turn, she brought the ATV to a stop, jumped up on the seat and did a spinning scissor kick, catching the unlucky guy in the throat. That was going to leave a mark. Rocking up on the fallen man, she looked like she was all set to wail on him. Before I could decide on whether this situation called for a da hell? or a WTF?, Dréa spoke out.

  “I’m going to need you to put on a turtleneck or something before you start whipping his ass because, yeah, while I don’t mind watching a good fight, one of your titties spilling out of that cup will ruin it for me.”

  “And there you have it, ladies and gentleman. In the midst of a capital offense, Dréa is worried about the possible sight of titty,” Laura joked even as she pointed her rifle in the direction of the dude.

  “Alleged capital offense,” I corrected, automatically going into CYA mode. In the midst of the Posse, being in CYA mode is like Pavlov’s dog and that bell.

  “Whatever,” Dréa said as she too pointed her rifle in dude’s direction.

  Grabbing her rifle case but not even bothering to remove the rifle, Reid stroked her custom-made case. I couldn’t do anything but shake my head. Only Reid would have a designer rifle case. She didn’t even carry a rifle in the thing; she simply stored small handbags inside of it.

  “You keep stroking that case like that, you’re going to be obligated to take it out to dinner,” Yazmin stopped stroking her weave long enough to joke.

  “At least my rifle case matches my favorite handbag. What does your weave match?”

>   “My hotness,” Yazmin threw back without blinking.

  Shaking my head at the chicks, I watched as Shara gave the man a few more swift kicks with her crime fighter boots.

  “Are you going to be beating his ass all day?” Raelynn asked without raising her eyes from the Advanced Reader Copy from her favorite sci/fi author.

  “Yeah, because that’s going to interfere with our afternoon activities,” Jeanie said.

  “The only activities Shara’s signed up for involve riding her husband into the sunset,” I joked.

  “I’m trying to do something here,” Shara protested.

  Being the mediator amongst the chicks, I offered a suggestion. “We see and respect that, but you could hurry up the ass whipping a little bit. Y’all have planned hell to raise, and the chicks would really miss you if you weren’t there with them.”

  “Fine,” she said. Giving dude one last kick, she went all rodeo mode and hog-tied him like she was going for the world record.

  “Eight point nine seconds,” Laura called out.

  “Dammit,” Shara whined. “I was going for less.”

  “Unless you’re in the Thomas and Mack Center in Vegas competing in the finals of tie-down roping [calf-roping], I’m going to need you to shut up. Anything under eight point five is respectable,” Dréa said.

  “And I’m also going to need you to put some clothes on,” she threw in.

  “I’m hot, so what’s the problem?” Shara egged Dréa on.

  “The problem is that I have enough titties and ass of my own, so I don’t need to be seeing yours. And I’m not riding that ATV since your almost naked butt has been sitting on it.”

  “Don’t even worry about that, babygirl. After Shara’s little display yesterday, that ATV is officially her boyfriend,” I said, smiling at the memory of Shara going vixen like she was doing a remake of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” video using the Can-Am Renegade 800R EFI instead of a Jaguar.

  Knowing this could quickly deteriorate into some kind of uncharted chaos, I reluctantly interrupted. I enjoyed their banter, but seriously, there was a bleeding man hog-tied in the middle of the town square, and that sort of thing usually indicated trouble.

  “Um, not to interrupt y’alls conversation, but can I direct everyone’s attention to the bleeding, trespassing man on the ground?”

  “Yeah, how did you get here, mate?” Jeanie asked the man.

  He mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘I ain’t saying shit,’ but it was hard to tell being that Shara had walked the dog on him.

  “Hey, I asked you a question,” Jeanie said again.

  Again, he mumbled something. Again, I didn’t catch most of it, but I clearly understood the word ‘bitch’—and that was when I knew homeboy was about to meet a bad end. Before I could say ‘no, stop, don’t,’ Jeanie and Shara had the man untied, on his feet and were taking turns kicking his ass.

  Oh damn. “Don’t kill him,” I instructed.

  “But I want to, Mommy,” Jeanie said all innocent-like. That chick actually stopped, poked out her bottom lip and batted her lashes at me like that was going to make me change my mind. Wow. Just wow.

  “Shara and Jeanie, what did I say?”

  “No killing,” they said in unison. From the looks on their faces, you’d think I’d told them ‘no freedom’ instead of ‘no killing.’

  “You never let us do anything,” Jeanie added.

  “I’m letting you beat him, but if y’all have a problem with the ‘no killing’ rule, I can also prohibit beating.”

  They hushed up right after that.

  Turning to the two Texans, I spoke. “Shoot him if you have to.”

  Seeing the smiles break over their faces, I turned back to Dréa and Laura. “Only if you have to…not simply because you can.”

  “Fine,” they simultaneously pouted.

  Walking past Yazmin and Reid, I spoke. “Yeah, um, make sure the Texans don’t kill him.”

  “Seems like dude might need killing,” Yazmin said.

  Her words brought a tear to my eye. Yazmin was all Cali girl but sometimes she said the most southern things.

  “If the authorities come here, they might confiscate your weave and Reid’s handbag collection as evidence,” I said. It was wrong of me to scare them thusly, but I really didn’t want them murdering anyone in my town. If dude had to be ended, they needed to drag him to another town to do it.

  Stepping into the saloon, I called Town Administrator of Awau. That woman was nothing if not practical. Okay, she wasn’t the least bit practical, but she had a houseful of big men who liked nothing better than beating the shit out of people. Her husband described himself as an ‘asshole by choice;’ her brother-in-law was co-holder of the Alaska Territory Asshole of the Year Award for the last three years; and his co-holder of the prestigious award was his best friend, who’d held the title for fifteen straight years before he came to town. The Posse could kick all kinds of ass, but we had our families in attendance, and um, yeah, that wasn’t cool.

  “Administrator speaking,” she answered on the first ring. Two seconds later, she screamed, “Settle down or I’m coming in there, and you do not want that!”

  “I know your baby girls aren’t cutting up,” I said.

  “Not my angels—it’s their daddy, uncle, and godfather that I’m talking to. If they don’t learn how to act, I’m going to toss their asses in your jail.”

  “Normally, I’d let you, but we have a situation.” Pausing, I filled her in on the details. I didn’t know why Shara was wailing on dude, but the fact that she was meant that he’d done something egregious…besides trespassing.

  “I’ll send the Asshole Trio your way…and being that I’m overrun by males who like to fight, send your kids over here. Ain’t nothing going to happen to our babies,” she said before clicking off.

  I had hardly set the phone back in the cradle when I heard the sounds of a big truck. Pressing the button to open the gates, I waved them through. Exchanging the kids for the assholes, we made our way to the jail where dude was cuffed, bound and duct-taped.

  “He seems to be enjoying his unconsciousness,” one of the men remarked.

  “Yeah, let’s beat him awake so we can find out why the hell he’s up here threatening our family,” his brother snarled.

  “And after we find out, let’s beat him back into unconsciousness,” his friend growled.

  Leaving the guys to the interrogation, they headed back to the saloon for a light lunch. Ten minutes later, the men rocked in with frowns on their faces, a gleam of ‘somebody’s fixin’ to take an l’ (as in loss) in their eyes and that familiar alpha swagger.

  “We broke him,” they announced.

  “You broke him, like we should be looking for some dirt to put him in, or you broke him meaning you got him to talk?” Shara asked.

  “Unfortunately, only the second.”

  “And?” I asked, getting a hinky feeling about what they hadn’t said.

  “You know that serial rapist and murderer who’s been eluding authorities?”

  “Yes,” we all responded.

  “That’s him.”

  There was a stunned silence. For about two seconds no one moved, breathed or blinked. A second after the shock wore off there was a mad rush for the door. Every woman in attendance grabbed a weapon and rushed to the jail. All set to storm our own jail, we were met by the Administrator’s husband, who stood guard.

  “Move,” Raelynn instructed.

  “Fuck off, dude,” Shara said almost simultaneously.

  “As much as I want to, I can’t do that, ladies,” he answered.

  “We really need for you to move. We like your wife and thus don’t want to hurt you,” Jeanie said.

  “That’s why I’m the one standing guard. I’m hoping that your like for my wife will stop you from leaving her without a husband and my baby girls without a father.”

  “You. Cannot. Use. That. Shit,” I growled.

&n
bsp; “Yeah, what my big sister said. We need to fuck him up a little bit,” Dréa yelled.

  “Hell yeah,” the rest of the chicks chimed in.

  “If it helps, the boys worked him over pretty good,” he said as he stepped from in front of the door.

  Stepping forward, the group let out a collective “damn.” Though they were only in there a few minutes, the boys had fucked dude up.

  Pissed but knowing we weren’t about to kill him for the chance to beat him some more, we stepped back. “Fine.”

  “We already called the authorities. They’re sweeping the area looking for accomplices, and one of the boys is going to retrace his steps and see where he came from.”

  “Yeah, but—” Shara said.

  “The other is going to stay here to make sure he doesn’t enjoy his consciousness. I’m going home to sit with the children.”

  Heading back to the saloon, we washed up and finished our lunch…and waited. Finally, Administrator called.

  “Lots of official-looking peeps just showed up, and I sent them your way.”

  “Gate’s still open, but tell them to leave their vehicles outside the gates. We’ll meet them at the front on the side-by-sides.”

  Knowing how much Jeanie and Dréa enjoyed the storehouse of toys, I asked them to go get the authorities. Not sure how many would show up, they took the six-passenger side-by-side ATVs. Of course, they raced all the way there. Seeing all the dirt that they kicked up and hearing all of the dares they tossed out was reason number one that vehicles weren’t allowed in town. There was no point in telling them to slow down or be careful. With only forty HP and a top speed of forty-six mph, there was only so much damage they could do—hopefully. Oh, well, it wasn’t like they had a long trek ahead or were transporting fine china. They were simply bringing back some officials. In their line of work they should be accustomed to dangerous situations, so riding with Jeanie and Dréa shouldn’t even faze them.