Almost Just Friends (Wildstone #4)(6)

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.

She didn’t care. She loved it here, always would. It symbolized safety and security, even if she was not-so-secretly terrified of the actual lake itself.

The power was out here too; she could see that right away. The two massive oak trees in the yard were nothing but dark swaying giants, sheltering her as she ran toward her front door. Letting herself in, she tripped over the boots she’d left on the floor—cleaning up the messy foyer was on one of her lists somewhere—and made her way blindly to the kitchen, where she pulled out her storm lanterns.

Dead batteries.

Well, shit. That was also on a list. She was searching through her junk drawer for spare batteries when she heard an odd thunk. Had that been against the side of the house? Freezing in place, cursing herself for marathoning all those horror movies the other night, she listened. Nothing. Drawing a deep breath, she decided the hell with it, if it was a mass murderer, well, at least she’d made it to the ripe old age of thirty. She’d had a good run, and hey, she’d gotten to have a Shirley Temple earlier. What more could she possibly want out of life?

Another thunk, and this time she nearly jumped right out of her skin. “Sweet Cheeks?” she whispered, hoping like hell it was the cranky stray cat Winnie had saddled her with when she’d gone off to college two hours south in Santa Barbara. “That’s you, right?”

Nothing.

When the third thunk hit, Piper forced herself through the house, using her phone as a flashlight. Which is how she found the den window cracked about six inches, the slanted shutters banging in the wind against the wall, screen long gone.

Mystery solved.

She’d opened the window the other day when the sun had been out and unseasonably warm for late January. Somehow, she’d forgotten to close it, and, she had no doubt, Sweet Cheeks had escaped, since it was her mission in life to mess with Piper’s.

Okay, then, so no mass murderer. She’d live another day. But the adventure had made her tired. Or maybe that was just her life. Even so, she still had one more thing to do before she could relax. Well, two if she counted looking for Sweet Cheeks. With a sigh, she once again pulled on her rain jacket and went back outside and across the wide expanse of wild grass between her and the marina.

She’d grabbed her medic bag for the guy who owned and ran the marina. Emmitt Hayes was in his mid-fifties, ate like a twelve-year-old boy, drank like a fish, and had just been diagnosed as diabetic. He’d also recently suffered the loss of his son and wasn’t taking care of himself.

So, since they’d been friends since he first bought the marina around five years ago, she was doing the caretaking.

Between the two houses was a runoff from two small tributaries, combining into one rivulet that fed into the lake. Ninety-nine percent of the time, she could step over the little creek when she needed to. Tonight the flow was heavier than she’d ever seen it, half water, half mud—another problem from the poor fire-scarred land due to last summer’s terrible California wildfires.