Black Dog Security- Complete 5-Part Series

by Camilla Blake

“Good. I was thinking that I’d have you start building the barn back up. I’ve been too busy to work on it, but Susie would kill me if she could see the way this place has gotten.”

  “Sounds good.” Grabbing a plate, I piled it high with bacon and eggs and found a nice surprise of biscuits and what looked like homemade jam. “Susie must’ve taught you something because this looks delicious.”

  “You must not have had many meals cooked for you, son, if you think this looks delicious.”

  I shrugged. Lauren had cooked for me once upon a time. It’d been shit at first, but by the time I was well enough to live on my own, it’d gotten better. She made great midnight snacks. When I couldn’t sleep during the first few months I was back home, she’d make us snacks and sit up with me, talking my ear off until I pretended to fall asleep so she’d go to bed. She always knew, though. I’d end up nodding off for real while she talked quieter. I’d wake up and she’d be asleep in the chair next to my bed, the snack plate empty between us on the floor.

  “You going to stand there all day and think, or are you going to move so I can get some bacon, too?”

  I snapped into reality and took a seat at Henry’s small table. It’d been handmade and coated with sealant enough times that the gloss on the thing was probably as thick as the wood it was made of.

  “Well? Did you get many home-cooked meals before you left wherever you were and came here?”

  “Not many.”

  “No one to cook them for you?”

  I hesitated.

  “Ah. There was someone. I’ve seen that look on a man’s face before.” He sat down across from me, in what he’d let me know was his chair, and shoved a piece of bacon into his mouth. His mustache wiggled as he ate, and he waved a second piece in my direction. “Whatever the case, maybe it’s best it didn’t work out. A woman who can’t cook you a decent meal isn’t worth the trouble.”

  I raised my eyebrow. “Some people might take issue with that statement.”

  “Let ’em. I’m old. I get to be a little bit awful.” He grinned. “My Susie used to say that all the time while she was running over people’s toes with her wheelchair to get to the front of the line at the buffet.”

  “Sounds like a hell of a woman.”

  “She was. Better than I deserved.” He picked up his plate and made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle. “I’m going to eat on the porch. Don’t follow me.”

  I stared at my eggs as he left. A man’s misery was his own business. That was what I’d been trying to tell Lauren for years. She just didn’t get it. She wouldn’t let me suffer alone like I wanted to.

  I shoveled a bit into my mouth and shook my head. It didn’t matter. Lauren was back in Ambrose. She didn’t have to worry about me anymore. I didn’t have to worry about her.

  Chapter 3

  Lauren

  “Where are you?” Vince’s voice was gruff as he barked at me over the phone. “Tell me where you are, right now. You’ve been gone for weeks and this place is a shitshow.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure it’s fine. You can do everything I do there.”

  “Lauren, where are you?”

  “On the road. I’m safe.” I looked around the tiny diner I was in and eyed the waitress who was standing just a bit closer than she had to. I was assuming that it wasn’t every day someone came in and asked to use their phone. I just didn’t want to use my cell phone. I didn’t want to chance the police finding me. “How are things actually going there?”

  “Shit. It’s all shit. We’re too busy and I barely have time to get home to Carolina.”

  “Bring her into work. She can help in the office. She’s got great customer-service skills.”

  Cookie’s voice suddenly came over the line. “Is that a stripper joke?”

  I grinned, finding so much joy in hearing her voice. I hadn’t called any of them in a while and I missed them all. “It might’ve been. How’s my house?”

  “Vince moved in. He won’t leave.”

  “You don’t want me to leave.”

  I faked a gag. “All right. I have to go. I’ve got places to be and people to see.”

  “Wait… Lauren… Maybe you should come back. If Mercer wanted to be found…” Vince groaned. “He left for a reason.”

  I turned my back to the diner and squeezed my eyes shut. “He’s an idiot. So are you for thinking that Mercer being alone out in the middle of nowhere is a good idea. You don’t get it.”

  “Lauren, I—”

  “Bye, Vince. I’ll check in next week.” I hung up the phone, an old corded thing that was tinged yellow and rang out when it connected with its base.

  He didn’t get it, my fear. He didn’t know how bad Mercer had gotten. No one did. He didn’t just want to die. He’d actively tried to find ways. I’d spent every hour of the day watching him to make sure he didn’t take his own life. I’d barely slept, and when I did I had nightmares that I woke up to find him dead. It wasn’t that I thought Mercer was still suicidal. He hadn’t been since he’d gotten past that first time. Not that I knew. It was a fear that I couldn’t help but hold on to, though, while he was out in the middle of nowhere, trying to disappear.

  I left the diner in a hurry, worried that the cops would somehow trace me to the diner and capture me for trying to find a fugitive of the law. Especially since I had no plans on returning him to the law. I didn’t really know what my plans were, but I knew they didn’t entail the police.

  I left one dust-bowl town for another one. Florida had been a bust. Georgia had been a bust. Everywhere I looked, it was a bust. I was running out of places to look. Correction—I’d run out of places to look. I didn’t know where else Mercer could be hiding and I felt like a fool for assuming I could find him. I was questioning everything.

  Something in my gut told me to go back to the hunting cabin. I knew that Mercer wasn’t there, but I had to go back and ease that nagging sensation. It was close enough to home that I could go back if I didn’t come up with some other places to look.

  I didn’t want to quit. I wanted to find him and help him. Maybe I wanted to shake him a bit, too. It’d been a long and stressful time trying to find him. I’d killed a good chunk of my cash and I’d gotten nowhere. Unless you counted the number of the guy serving me drinks at a bar in Florida. I didn’t.

  I wasn’t all that far from Arkansas. Still, I had to stop. I needed a break.

  I found a tiny town in Mississippi that boasted a large bar and I checked myself into a shit motel for the night. I left my stuff locked in the trunk of my car and walked over to the bar.

  The town seemed to be just a few blocks more than the bar. Besides the motel and bar, I’d seen an old pharmacy and a gas station. Houses were the only other thing littering the streets. Yet the bar was full that night.

  An otherwise nondescript black-metal building, it had a neon sign over a side door that advertised a homegrown beer. The door was propped open and a steady beat from an old country song drifted into the street. Leaning against the building, there was a big man dressed all in black with a lit cigarette hanging loose from his fingers.

  When I got closer, he looked me up and down and frowned. “It’s a pretty rough crowd in there, ma’am.”

  I frowned back at him. “Do I look like a ma’am?”

  He cracked a smile. “Just being polite.”

  I looked down at my jeans-and-sweater combo, still feeling slightly self-conscious. Mercer had gone for the stripper, after all. Maybe I was dressing like an old woman.

  “You just don’t look like the type to enjoy this kind of bar.”

  I pushed my shoulders back and shrugged. I wasn’t going to argue for my coolness or my toughness. I’d most definitely been in worse places. Peeking past him, I could see into the bar and felt even more self-conscious as I took in what appeared to be a pretty tame scene. I must’ve looked like some old stick-in-the-mud if he thought I couldn’t handle it.

  He shrugged back at me and motion
ed me in. “Your choice.”

  I headed in, stopping to let my eyes adjust to the dim lighting, and then made my way back to the bar. I didn’t drink, not after getting clean, but I loved a good Shirley Temple.

  The whole place was full, all different types of leather filling it. I suspected it was a biker bar, but that didn’t bother me. I’d known plenty of bikers in my time. My second boyfriend had been a biker. He’d been in a gang in the south of California and had been the sweetest guy ever until we’d been introduced to cocaine. I’d been seventeen at the time and I still remembered him fondly. Well, pre-cocaine him.

  The bar top was full, but I’d never been shy. I leaned forward in my seat and flashed a smile and a twenty at the bartender. He did a double take before moving my way.

  “Shirley Temple. If you give me extra cherries, I’ll give you extra tips.” I grinned at him again and sat back on my stool.

  A smirk highlighted his handsome face. Five o’clock shadow, hair that was just a bit too long, light-blue eyes that lit up. He could’ve been a happy version of the Mercer I’d seen right before he left. Disheveled, but sexy as hell. As always.

  “Skip the tip. Give me your number instead.” His eyes sparkled and he fully smiled, revealing a small gap between his front two teeth. It was something that set him apart from Mercer. That and the scar down the left side of Mercer’s face.

  “Nice try.” I leaned on the bar and felt my body relax. The familiar smells, the sounds, it was all something that felt like home. Dangerous to an addict, but it’d been so many years since I got clean that I felt secure enough to not be scared of the feelings.

  “I thought so. I’ll get your drink.” He walked away, but came back just as fast. “You haven’t been here before.”

  I shook my head. “I’m just passing through.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Arkansas.” I smelled my drink to make sure there was no alcohol and then took a sip. Spearing one of the extra cherries with the tip of my nail, I popped it into my mouth and sighed as the sugary sweetness exploded on my tongue. I felt like I’d been eating crap for weeks, not that sugar-soaked cherries weren’t crap, but that cherry wasn’t a cheeseburger or fries. Thank God.

  I looked up at the TV as the bartender moved down the bar to serve beers to other people. I kept expecting to see Mercer’s face on the news any day, but so far it hadn’t happened. Instead, the TV was playing a football game that a lot of the men around me seemed interested in.

  Not the bartender, though. He came back to me and leaned on the bar top. “Adam.”

  I took a long sip of my drink and met his eyes. They were darker than Mercer’s. “Lauren.”

  “Nice to meet you, Lauren.”

  My mind flashed back to picking Mercer up from that strip club. He’d hooked up with some stripper in the back to appease his human side. I could do the same. It’d been a long few weeks. It’d been a long few years, if I was being honest. I hadn’t had sex in longer than I cared to admit. I hadn’t had an orgasm since all the shit with Mercer started. I was so angry at him for leaving me and hiding from me.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too, Adam.” I smiled at him, my fingers itching to touch his hair, to see if it was as soft as Mercer’s. It was sick, but I felt sick. I felt unhinged with the need to find Mercer and it was almost like life had given me a little bit of Mercer right there, in front of me.

  “What are your plans for the rest of the night?” He slid me a bowl full of cherries.

  I laughed lightly. “Bribing me?”

  “Why would I be bribing you, Miss Lauren?” His southern accent was smoother than Mercer’s, but it still sounded good to me.

  Years in the strip club, and worse, had taught me to say what I wanted and meant. I batted my eyelashes and leaned into him. “You’re looking at me like I’m one of these cherries, Adam. I’m not psychic, but when a man looks at a woman the way you’re looking at me and he asks about her plans for the night, it doesn’t leave much room for question.”

  He ignored someone calling for a beer. “Are you going to be offended if I tell you that I am trying to sweeten you up to the idea of seeing me after I shut down the bar?”

  “Depends.” I popped another cherry into my mouth. “What kind of seeing did you have in mind?”

  “The biblical kind.”

  I laughed, for real, then. A little bit of the stress I’d been feeling leaked out and I relaxed enough to think that Adam was a good idea. I relaxed enough to tell myself that hooking up with a man who filled my head with thoughts of Mercer was a good idea. “What time do you shut down?”

  “I can be out of here by two fifteen, if I leave all the work for tomorrow.”

  “Won’t you get in trouble?” Not that I really cared. I was counting the hours in my head until two rolled around.

  “I’m sure I would, if I didn’t own the place.” He leaned even further across the bar, until his mouth was positioned next to my ear, his breath tickling my skin. “Are you staying at the motel?”

  I nodded.

  “Wait up for me, Lauren.”

  I tipped my drink back and finished it, sending him a wink before sliding off of my stool and strolling out of the place. I felt like I’d gotten what I went there for. Even if I hadn’t known what I was going there for. Meeting my Mercer lookalike had to be some sort of gift from the universe.

  I was halfway across the street when I heard my name being called. Turning back, I watched as Adam easily jogged across to me. He stopped only when he was right up against me.

  “Hey.” He caught my face in his hands and kissed me. His lips were soft and it was a good kiss. His arms wrapped around me and pulled me into his chest. After a few seconds, though, I knew it wasn’t right.

  I lightly pushed at his chest and swore as he pulled away. “I’m sorry.”

  He laughed, just as easily as he’d come out to me. “Nothing?”

  I sighed. “No, there’s something, but it’s fucked up.”

  “Try me.”

  “You look like a close friend of mine.” I shook my head and stepped out of his arms. “I’m really sorry. I thought it was a good idea.”

  “Sounds messy.”

  “Only on my side, apparently. Look, I really am sorry. I’m just going to go to my room and pretend that I didn’t do all of this.”

  He cupped my face and gave me a grin. “If you change your mind, let me know. Here’s my card.”

  I took it from him and slipped it into my back pocket. “If I change my mind, you’ll be the first to know.”

  He went back to his bar and I shuffled across to my hotel, feeling like the loser the bouncer had thought I was.

  Chapter 4

  Lauren

  Fearing a chance meeting with Adam the next morning, I left town before the sun rose and skipped my run and breakfast. I didn’t want to have to face any of my decisions from the night before. I’d berated myself the whole night for not just bringing him back to my room and having hot sex with him. I was worse than a fool for feeling whatever allegiance I felt to Mercer, a man who’d literally fled from me.

  Driving back up I-55, I went through Memphis before heading into Arkansas. I barely looked at the large pyramid-shaped forum as I drove over the bridge. I just wanted to be in my home state and hopefully closer to finding the asshole I was looking for.

  I had to stop near Little Rock to grab lunch. I was starving and I felt all of my energy draining away. All the hope I’d felt for finding Mercer was gone. All the hope I’d felt for saving him and Black Dog Security was gone, too. Personally, and professionally, I felt ruined.

  Later that day, I was barely hanging on to my drive to stay on the road, looking for Mercer, when I checked into a tiny motel outside of Lavern. Luke’s hunting cabin was just about ten miles away, but I needed a break. My mood had dipped lower than I could remember it going since getting clean and I felt like crying.

  The motel smelled of smoke and mold. There were suspicious stain
s on the carpet and definitely a few stray hairs at the bottom of the bathtub. It was bad. Still, I rinsed out the bathtub and took a surprisingly hot shower. After getting dressed, I went to the diner next door and sat down to an okay meal. It was late, the sun had already gone down, but I needed to go to the cabin before I could turn in for the night.

  I drove to the end of the overgrown road leading to the cabin and shut off the car. Resting my forehead against the steering wheel for a minute, I blew out a big breath and rubbed my sweaty palms down my thighs. It was the second time I’d checked out the place. The chances of finding Mercer there were low. Still, my heart raced. I wanted him to be there. I wanted him to come out and meet me with a hug because he’d missed me. Fat chance.

  I shut the car door lightly and started down the road. I’d just been there a couple of weeks before, but already the place looked different. Fall had settled in and everything felt chilled. Leaves broke under my feet and the scent of a bonfire was on the breeze.

  In some stupid part of my brain, I imagined what it would be like to be back at home with Mercer. I could’ve had everyone over for a bonfire and we could’ve all been cozied up around it. Mercer would sit beside me with his arms around me, his lips brushing my ear as he whispered to me.

  Stupid. It was so stupid to wish on a man like Mercer. He was never going to give me what I needed.

  I got closer to the cabin and looked around. I couldn’t tell if anyone had been there or not. If I was any one of the guys, I would’ve been able to tell. Their senses were honed in to everything from years of training, but I was just an ex-stripper turned office manager.

  The place probably needed to be torn down and rebuilt, but I’d never be able to do that. Luke had loved the old place. He would’ve kept it up over the years and the entire property would’ve looked beautiful.

  I sighed as I grabbed the door and pulled it open. Like I was expecting, there was nothing on the other side. No Mercer. Still, I sank into the wide-open room and looked around. Nothing. Unable to help the crushing disappointment I felt, I sank to the floor and rested my chin in my hands. I was exhausted, angry, and over driving all over the south trying to find Mercer.