The door opened and Harper grunted as her cousin Tinsley and their family friend Edie walked in. Tinsley was the complete opposite of Harper. She was an artist; petite, soft-spoken, and kind-hearted. Harper was tall, athletic, and liked men who were borderline assholes. If she dated jerks, she knew the relationship wouldn’t go anywhere and that was the only way to never get hurt again. Tinsley liked to drink wine and laugh. Harper’s favorite parts of owning her bar was breaking up, okay, joining the bar fights and tossing back shots.
Then there was Edie. Edie’s brother, Walker, had married into the Davies family. Harper’s older brother, Gavin, had turned to Layne Davies for help saving Walker after he was double-crossed on a mission and injured. Walker’s whole DEVGRU team, formerly known as Seal Team Six, had been killed by the double-crosser. Sadly, that included Edie’s husband. Walker married Layne and they relocated to Kentucky, but Edie had moved back to her old family home in Shadows Landing. With Edie, Harper could be herself. She could still see the shadows of pain and longing in Edie’s eyes, and that was something Harper knew all too well and never wanted to risk feeling that way again.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your date?” Tinsley asked as she and Edie took a seat on the bar stools.
“Can’t go,” Harper said nonchalantly as she got ready to answer twenty questions from Tinsley.
“Why not? You can’t let that ‘young boy’ sit there all alone,” Tinsley protested.
“If you haven’t noticed, my bartender ran off to Kentucky with Jackson and now I don’t have anyone to cover for me. And I sure as hell won’t be closing my bar on a Friday night for a pity date,” Harper explained as she rubbed an imaginary spot from her bar.
“At least try to find his number and call him,” Edie said, taking the middle road.
“I tried.” Harper tossed down her cleaning rag. “He has no phone number, address, or social media pages. He’s not online, anywhere. That’s not normal. He’s probably a serial killer and I’m saving my own life by not going tonight.”
Tinsley shook her head disappointedly at Harper. “Great-Aunt Marcy wouldn’t set you up with a serial killer.”
“I agree. Didn’t she find this boy at the Keeneston Military and Law Enforcement Training Center?” Edie asked.
“Yeah, so?” Harper asked even though she knew what Edie was hinting at.
“You know your uncle Miles Davies is my brother’s father-in-law. Do you really see him admitting a serial killer to his training center?”
Ugh, no. Uncle Miles was not one to let anything slip by him. Layne regularly bemoaned her father hacking into her phone to make sure she was okay. Harper wasn’t entirely sure if Miles and her other uncles hadn’t hacked into her and Tinsley’s phones the last time they were here visiting. She’d been getting some very pointed text messages from her uncles about things they should have no way of knowing.
Harper rolled her eyes at her cousin and friend. “It’s not like he would admit to being a serial killer.”
Edie smiled in amusement. Well, payback was a bitch. Harper would text Great-Aunt Marcy that Edie had been a widow long enough and it was time for her to find love again. Then Edie would see how amusing this was. “I don’t have anything to do tonight. I’ll take care of the bar for you.”
“Yes!” Tinsley said, practically bouncing on her stool. “I’ll help, too! But, you’re not going to wear that, are you?”
“What’s wrong with it?” Harper asked, looking down at her torn jeans and biker boots.
“I’m going to your house, getting you some clothes, and you are wearing them,” Tinsley said with a little force behind her words.
Harper wanted to argue, but Tinsley was already walking out the door. “Nothing pink!”
“As if you own anything pink,” Tinsley shouted back.
Edie was laughing and Harper made up her mind to text Great-Aunt Marcy that very night about the young widow. “It won’t be that bad,” Edie tried to say encouragingly.
“Yeah, right.” It would be worse. Harper didn’t want a pity date. She didn’t want to show some fresh-out-of-college boy around town. She just wanted her life to stay the same, even if it meant pushing down the slight tinge of jealousy she experienced when she saw her cousins happily married. Marriage wasn’t in the cards for Harper. She was already married to her work and she wouldn’t change that for anything. Not after all she’d been through to get to that point.
“This is all of them?” Dare Reigns asked as he opened the first of six files Special Agent in Charge Castle handed him.
Dare had been called in from his home state of Texas where he’d been working with a team of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents investigating illicit alcohol made in Mexico and being smuggled into Texas. SAC Castle had called the Charleston ATF Field Office’s resident Agent in Charge for help, who then called the Area Supervisor in Colombia for assistance after reviewing the cases. A couple of phone calls notified Dare, who had been undergoing specialized training in Kentucky, that he was going to Charleston as an undercover agent. He was to investigate the possible use of illegal alcohol at the Palm Meadows Island Resort.
“That’s all. Although my source thinks that there could be more that’s gone unreported, especially during spring break. I pulled the records and there were seventeen calls to the police reporting items from rooms stolen during the spring and another twenty-nine during the course of the summer.”
Agent Castle set down a thick file and Dare flipped through it. “They don’t mention drinking,” Dare said as he scanned the complaints.
“No, but I pulled them anyway.”
“I’ll look into them as well. It’s not uncommon for people to think they just passed out because they’d been drinking heavily and shrug it off,” Dare told Agent Castle. “How did the local PD take it when you took the case?”
“This is confidential, but it was actually a request from the detective for help. His boss blustered over it, but your boss and I promised to give the PD credit if we found anything. For what it’s worth, the detective is a good one,” Castle explained.
“I was just at this training center in Kentucky where we weren’t allowed to say who we worked for. I have to say it was eye opening how well different agencies could work together without a territorial pissing match going on. I’ll give the detective a call.”
Dare looked up from the file to see Castle chuckling. “What?”
“You were in Keeneston?”
“Yeah, you know it?” Dare asked surprised. The private training facility hadn’t been open very long and so far, most people who went were hand-picked by government higher-ups. The owners and instructors were some pretty well-connected men and women. Dare was one of only three ATF agents who’d been sent there so far. At the farewell meeting after training, the owners, Miles Davies and his brothers, announced everyone by name and agency. There was a high number of elite military units represented, and Dare wouldn’t be surprised if some of the names read were covers and not real.
“Yeah, my friend who is the SAC of the Lexington office is the nephew of the owners,” Castle told him.
“Really? That’s a very interesting family to belong to. Do you know Marcy Davies then?” Dare asked, thinking of the grandmotherly old woman who played him like a fiddle over dessert at the Blossom Café.
“Yeah, she’s my friend’s grandmother. Makes a really good apple pie.”
“Well, she’s good at manipulation too. I didn’t even realize it. I thought we were just doing some small talk over dessert and the next thing I know, I’ve agreed to some pity date with her great-niece who lives in Shadows Landing. I guess it’s close to here?”
Dare thought it wasn’t a good sign that Agent Castle doubled over laughing about him being played by a grandmother. “That’s priceless. I bet that took you down a peg or two after thinking you were a badass by taking classes there.”
“Ha-ha. I’ll see if you’re laughing after meeting her.”
�
�Don’t worry. I’ve met others in the family, and I will be the first to admit they scare the shit out of me so you should count yourself lucky that their grandmother is only setting you up on a blind date. I’m pretty sure that family has overthrown governments before.” Dare looked at Castle. He wasn’t joking. “I’ve met a lot of the family in Shadows Landing. Good people and not a single law enforcement member among them. The closest they have is a Coast Guard rescue swimmer and he’s a real good guy.”
Dare reached into his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper Marcy had given him. “Her name is Harper Faulkner. I’m meeting her soon at Palm Meadows.”
“Oh, it’s Harper and not Tinsley.” Dare could tell Castle was trying not to laugh. Great, this pity date was going to an epic disaster. Harper sounded like some small-town Southern debutante and Dare didn’t do high maintenance. He was about control and order. Debs tended to be the opposite. “All I’ll say is good luck, man.”
“Marcy gave me her phone number. I’ll just cancel,” Dare said, pulling out his phone.
Castle shook his head. “You don’t want to do that. It’ll upset Grandma Marcy and that’ll upset her kids and grandkids. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to get on their bad side.”
“Ugh,” Dare groaned as he put his phone away. “At least it’s at the resort. It’ll be a good way to start my cover.”
“Is that why you picked it?”
“Nope. I didn’t. Marcy did.”
Castle looked like he was about to make the sign of the cross and stopped himself halfway through. “I told you that family is connected. She probably knew you were going undercover there before you did.”
Dare scoffed at him and stood up. He packed the copies of the files in his backpack and shook his head. “Right. And I’m a unicorn prince off to meet my princess. Some old lady in Kentucky doesn’t have more insight than the head of the ATF. Thanks for all this. I’ll stay in touch and let you know what I find. But for now, I have this pity date to live through.”
“A bit of advice,” Castle called out as Dare opened the door to his office to leave. “I wouldn’t call it a pity date. I’d hate to file a missing person’s report on you when I just got to know you.”
Dare closed the door on Castle’s laughter. He didn’t care about this date, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to dress up or do anything to ruin his cover. Instead, he climbed onto his motorcycle, headed to his apartment, dropped the files in his secure safe, and didn’t bother to change. He shoved the black helmet on his head and headed for the island with a feeling of dread sitting heavy in his gut.
2
Harper drove off the island ferry more slowly than she’d ever driven before. It was if her whole body knew that only pain and suffering awaited her. She wondered how long she would have to stay. At least it was just drinks and not dinner. She could down a shot of bourbon and be out of there in less than ten seconds.
Harper drove down a road lined with palm trees with the beach on the right and rental villas out on the left. Too soon she was pulling up to the main building of the resort. The resort was new, shiny, and everything Harper hated. There were gold accents, polished stone floors, and perfectly dressed staff walking around with big fake smiles. She was sure others loved it, but give her worn wood floors, a bartender who served stiff drinks, and greasy bar food that soaked through five napkins any day. She just wasn’t a resort type person. Now, give her a private island with no one else on it, a hammock, and a cooler of beer and she’d be in heaven.
Harper stepped into the lobby and heard the sound of her black leather knee-high boots clicking on the stone floor. Tinsley had dressed her in a white tank top, a short jean skirt, and her “do me” boots. They were her good pair and the only heels she owned. In her hands, she carried her leather jacket and a small purse.
“Excuse me,” Harper said, stopping a staffer with the nametag reading Becky.
“Hi! Welcome to Palm Meadows Resort. How can I help you this evening?”
Shoot her now. “I’m looking for the bar.”
“The restaurant bar or pool bar?”
“I don’t know,” Harper admitted in surprise. “I’m meeting someone for drinks and they didn’t say."
“Dinner?” Becky asked.
“No, just drinks.”
Becky nodded, sending her ponytail swinging. “It’s probably the pool if you aren’t eating dinner. You can enjoy drinks now and then at nine it turns into a nightclub.” Becky turned and pointed out the path for Harper to follow to reach the pool and then told her to have fun. Fun was not on the menu tonight.
Harper sighed as she walked along the tree-lined path. She heard screams and splashing and figured she was heading in the right direction. She rounded a bend and there was the pool. It was huge and had a swim-up bar. A second bar with stools and a television showing sports sat on the large patio surrounding the pool.
Harper pulled out a stool as she looked around. Not a single desperate young man around. Well, except the bartender who was eyeing her appreciatively.
“Anything I can get you to make you smile?”
Harper tried not to roll her eyes. She looked at his nametag and smiled up at him. “Bourbon on the rocks, Brody.”
“We could do some body shots later. I know that would make me smile and maybe get you to smile too,” Brody said with a wink.
“Oh, Brody. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you shouldn’t tell a woman to smile? Thanks, but no thanks. Tonight I just want the bourbon.”
Brody shrugged but kept the smiling. She knew he wasn’t done flirting and that made her tired. Talk about a young boy. He couldn’t be more than twenty-two. However, age didn’t matter when it came to appreciating his body. Too bad she wasn’t in the mood and too bad he was the opposite of the men she liked. He was cocky, sure, but not in the understated way that turned her on. She liked men who didn’t feel the need to prove themselves because they thought they knew how to please a woman. Brody seemed like the kind who didn’t bother to know if his partner was satisfied as long as he was.
Brody set her drink down and was about to say something when two girls in swimsuits came up to order drinks. The pool was obviously heated since it wasn’t exactly bikini weather outside. Harper took a drink and left Brody to his flirting.
Looking around the pool area, Harper saw couples sitting on lounge chairs reading, young kids playing with their parents in the water, and singles mixing it up with each other in the hot tub. That had been her in college. She would have been one of the girls hitting on a guy like Brody then, but not anymore.
She’d always been fiercely independent, but then she’d fallen hard for a guy just like Brody—a boy who had played with her emotions. He’d strung her along and Harper had been so eager to please him, she lost herself and her independence. Then she’d found out he was using her to pass a history class and had told his friends how pathetic she was. He could tell her to do anything, like his homework, and she would. The sad thing was, it had been true. Harper had buried her own personality to make him happy.
Everything changed overnight for her. Harper’s heart hardened and she swore she would never be used like that again. Instead, she’d be the one using men for what she needed and then say goodbye to them. She didn’t want attachment. She didn’t want to feel she had to pretend to be someone else to please a man. Never again would she be anyone other than who she was, and never again would she let a man close enough to her heart to hurt her.
Harper glanced at her phone. Her date had stood her up. She’d finish her drink and then she was out of here. She wasn’t mad. It was more of a relief since she could tell Great-Aunt Marcy she went to the date. It was a win-win.
Harper looked around as she took a sip of her drink and saw a man who was definitely her type. Tight black T-shirt, short black hair, just a little scruff that said he normally shaved but didn’t have time to today, and jeans that hugged muscular legs. He carried himself with that quiet confidence she loved
. His jaw was tight and angular. Maybe tonight hadn’t been a total loss. This man exuded that he knew how to handle a strong woman and not be intimidated.
A scream drew Harper’s attention away from the man and back to the pool. The two bikini-clad girls who had been at the bar were face down in the water, clearly unconscious. A young mother was screaming as she ran from the pool with a toddler in her arms.
Harper didn’t think twice. She ran and dove into the pool before the mother had taken a breath to scream again. As she plunged into the water, she noticed Mr. Sexy had leapt in too. Harper opened her eyes under the water and kicked hard to swim to the lifeless bodies. Her heeled leather boots slowed her down so she used her arms to propel her through the water as the need for urgency raced through her.
Dare was late, but it was hard to care. He didn’t want to go on this pity date. He’d much rather be looking over the files and talking to the detective who had ruffled feathers by asking for federal help in solving his cases.
Dare scanned the pool area, wondering if this was the bar where he was supposed to meet Harper Faulkner. He’d already gone to the restaurant and didn’t see anyone sitting alone. Marcy had described her great-niece as a young, pretty girl, and as Dare looked around, he saw two girls in bikinis that fit the bill. If Harper were smart, she would have brought a friend. Young women should never show up on a blind date without some backup. After all, he could be a serial killer.
Dare sighed as he watched the girls enter the pool with the drinks a waiter had just brought them. Both of them looked exhausted. Now, the woman sitting at the bar drinking bourbon looked exhilarating. She sat with a quiet confidence that told him she knew what she wanted and went after it.
A scream ripped through the air and Dare turned to see the two young girls now floating face down in the pool. They weren’t moving. Training and instinct kicked in and Dare ran toward the pool before he even thought about it. As he leapt in, he noticed he wasn’t the first in. The woman at the bar had beaten him to the water and was now swimming like an Olympian to get to the unconscious girls.
Fierce Shadows: Shadows Landing #4 Page 2