Where We Began (Stone Lake 2.5)

First, I use the flashlight app to shine through the backseat to make sure it’s empty. Then I get in the front seat and slam the door, locking it almost simultaneously.

I hate feeling like a damn coward, but right now, I’m kind of helpless.

It’ll get better. I tell myself. It’ll get better.

I’m not sure I believe it, but I hope like hell it’s true.

Ben

Two Days Later

“Keep away from my sister.”

Gavin’s words on the phone earlier today are still ringing in my head and pissing me off more with each minute that goes by.

What a fucking dick-wad. I was trying to do him a solid while he was out of town. No, hell, it wasn’t even like that. Junie is alone and she needs someone to look after her. If Lodge wants to be a dick, that’s one thing. The fact that Junie went crying to him about it is another. This is the first complete night I’ve had off in what seems like a year. I should be out enjoying myself, not spending it pissed off at Lodge yet again. He got Luna, does he think he can tell me what women are off limits in his world now?

I’d like to think the reason I’m spending my first Friday night off in forever at the local hotel bar is just to piss off Gavin Lodge. I know better. Something about Juniper Sellers keeps bringing me back to her, every single time I walk away. I don’t know what it is. Maybe the fact that she’s vulnerable and yet still appears hard as nails. Maybe it’s that she’s witty, smart, and pretty as hell to look at. Or maybe it’s just that I haven’t been laid in so long I’m not even sure my dick still works, and she’s the first woman who’s caught my eye since Luna threw me to the curb.

If that’s the reason, it’d be stupid. Junie might not have been raped in the traditional sense of the word, but she was violated, and you’d have to be completely blind not to see those scars on her. She’s also Lodge’s sister and despite maybe that making the perfect revenge on that asshole, she deserves better than to be my rebound sex. No, anyway I look at this, it would be crazy to keep putting myself in Juniper Seller’s world…

Yet here I am.

She works the bar like a total pro. You can tell she’s had this kind of gig before and often. She’s probably the smoothest I’ve ever seen. Hell, she’s better than Elaine was and that woman worked in her bar since she was old enough to sell alcohol. Junie’s dressed in a completely black leather outfit that looks as if it’s molded onto her like a second skin. Her long blonde hair hanging loose and wavy makes a man want to wrap his hands in it and take her—and knowing her history, just thinking that is enough to send me to hell.

If I wasn’t already going there.

I see the exact moment she spots me. She looks up, surprise moving over her features and then she shakes her head as she laughs. Fuck, but she really is beautiful. Now that I’m discovered, I leave the table and make my way to the bar—a bar, that by the way, has become ten times more crowded than normal with the new bartender in question.

“Sheriff,” Junie says with an easy smile that doesn’t really hit those beautiful blue eyes she sports, but it’s more genuine than any I’ve seen her give here tonight, so I’ll take it.

“Junie,” I respond, sitting down on the single empty stool that remains. Yeah, this place has become a lot more crowded. Some of these assholes I don’t even recognize, and I know everyone in Stone Lake, which means she’s already attracting notice of the guys in the next county over. Then again, that’s probably nothing new. I bet Junie attracts guys anywhere she goes, like moths to a flame. Too bad for her that one of those moths was a shit-for-brains, serial killer with even more twisted friends. Signs of her attack have disappeared from her beautiful face, but the shadows are still in her eyes.

“What can I get you?”

“Just a soda.”

“Soda? You on duty?”

“Nope, I’m off tonight.”

“You don’t drink?”

“I do, but I want a clear head tonight so I can escort a pretty girl home from work.”

She grabs a glass from under the bar, turns—giving me a great view of the way those leather pants curve over her ass—and goes and fills it with ice and cola. She puts it down in front of me with a coaster under it.

“Don’t need you to escort me home, Sheriff. Been driving back and forth without you. I can do it tonight too.”

“Didn’t say you needed me to, Junie. I said I want to. While we’re on the subject though, can I ask you a question?”