“Doesn’t have to be alcohol.” He glanced around them at the full, rowdy bar. “Are you a first responder like all your friends?”
“Yes. I’m an EMT.”
“Well, I’m the new guy,” he said. “Zero friends. You going to desert me like Jenna deserted you?”
She actually hesitated at that, until she caught that flash of humor in his eyes. “You’re messing with me.”
“I am.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond to this. It’d been a long time since she’d felt . . . well, anything. Just beyond him, she could see a group of her friends playing pool. CJ, a local cop, was winning. After Jenna, CJ was one of her favorite people. He glanced over at her, caught her eye, and gave her a chin nudge.
Guy speak for Are you all right?
She nodded and he went back to pool. Ryland was still flirting with two women, and she had to wonder: What was the worst thing that could happen if she let her hair down and enjoyed herself for a few minutes? After all, it was her birthday. “Maybe just one drink.”
Hot Guy nodded to the bartender, who promptly ambled over. “A Shirley Temple for Grandma here on her birthday.”
Piper laughed. She shocked herself with her reaction, making her realize how long it’d been.
Hot Guy took in her smile and almost gave her a small one of his own. “Or . . . whatever you want.”
She bit her lip. What did she want? That was a very big question she’d tried very hard not to ask herself over the past decade plus, because what she wanted had never applied. In her life, there were need to do’s and have to do’s . . . and nowhere in there had there ever been time for what Piper wanted’s.
Which was probably why she made lists like it was her job.
The bartender’s name was Boomer, and she’d known him for a long time. He was waiting with a smile for her to admit the truth—that she loved Shirley Temples. But she didn’t admit any such thing. She just rolled her eyes—honestly, she was going to have to learn to stop doing that—and nodded.
When Boomer slid a Shirley Temple in front of her, she took a big sip and was unable to hold in her sigh of pleasure, making Hot Guy finally really smile.
And, oh, boy, it was a doozy.
Just a little harmless flirting, she told herself. There was no harm in allowing herself this one little thing, right?
The lights flickered again, and this time they went out and stayed out.
She wasn’t surprised, and by the collective groan around her, she could tell no one else was either. Boomer hopped up onto the bar. “Storm—one, the bar—zero!” he yelled out to the crowd. “Everyone go home and stay safe!”
In the ensuing mass exodus, Hot Guy grabbed Piper’s hand and tugged her along with him, not toward the front door with everyone else, but through the bar and out the back.
Where, indeed, the storm had moved in with a vengeance, slapping them back against the wall.
“How did you know about the back door if you’re new here?” she asked.
“I always know the way out.”
That she believed. She took in the night around them, which was the sort of pitch black that came from no power anywhere and a dark, turbulent sky whipped to a frenzy by high winds.
“The rain’s gonna hit any second,” he told her, not sounding thrilled about that.
This tugged a breathless laugh from her. “Chin up, Princess, or the crown slips.”
The look on his face said that he’d never once in his life been called a princess before. “Sorry,” she said. “That was an automatic response. My dad used to say that to me whenever I complained about the rain. Do you know how often it rains in Odisha, India?”
“I’m betting less than Mobile, Alabama, where I once spent six months with my unit training the Maritime Safety and Security Team, and we never saw anything but pouring rain. Emphasis on pouring.”
“Six months straight, huh?” she asked sympathetically. “Okay, you win.”
His lips quirked. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
And with that, he took her hand and was her anchor as they ran through the wind to her beat-up old Jeep. She was actually grateful since the gusts nearly blew her away twice, saved only by his solid, easy footing. The man moved like he was at the top of the food chain, with quiet, economical, stealthy movements that if you knew what he did for a living made perfect sense.
She and Jenna waved to each other from across the lot, and when Jenna gave her a thumbs-up, Piper shook her head.
“Thanks for the drink,” she said, having to raise her voice to be heard over the wind.
“I’ll follow you to make sure you get home okay.”
“Not necessary, I’m fine.” Because no way was she falling for that line. There was flirting, and then there was being stupid. “And anyway, as a local, I should be checking on you to see if you get home okay.”
He laughed. And as it turned out, he had a great one, though she had no idea if he was so amused because he was touched by her worry for him, or because it was ridiculous, since clearly he could handle himself.
“I’m good,” he finally said. “Drive safe.” And then he stepped back, vanishing into the darkness.
Chapter 2
“Stressed is desserts spelled backward.”
Piper headed out of the bar parking lot, her Jeep swaying in the harsh winds. She hit the highway to get to the lake, and the slightly dilapidated, old—heavy emphasis on old—Victorian house and four small cottages on the east shore. It was there that she, Gavin, and Winnie had lived when their parents had sent them home to the States after . . .
Well, after their entire world had fallen apart, destroying each of them in their own way. Although, in hindsight, that event had been nothing compared to what had happened next—all nightmarish memories she didn’t want to face right now.
Or ever.
She’d been fixing up the cottages in between her shifts at the station. Once she got the property on the market and sold, they’d have some money to breathe, which would be a good thing because when she went off to school, she wouldn’t be able to help her siblings financially anymore.
There was little traffic tonight. Or ever in Wildstone, which had an infamous wild, wild west past, played up for the tourists in all the glossy California tourist guides. The buildings on the downtown strip—two streets, one stoplight that almost always worked—were all historical monuments, and added to the infamy, including a haunted inn.
By the time she turned off onto the narrow two-lane road out of Wildstone, away from the ocean and into the lush, green, oak-dotted rolling hills, the storm had settled in. The wind continued to push at the Jeep, along with the rain slashing down now as well, making visibility tricky. The already-drenched land couldn’t absorb the deluge, which had the roads slick.
Rainbow Lake was eighteen miles of bays and hidden fingers and outlets, a treasure cove of fishing, boating, hiking, and camping. Only the south and west shores were largely populated, and there was a nicer road to those areas, one that didn’t go all the way around the lake to where she lived. Five miles in, she turned off where the road went from paved to gravel. There weren’t many houses out here. It was relatively remote. Her closest neighbor on her left was ten acres away and she couldn’t see the house from her own. On the right was another large ten-acre parcel that held a small marina and a residence for the man who ran it, leaving her sandwiched in between with her single acre.