The truck landed on its side with a final groan.
Sterling blinked.
His ribs hurt.
His wrist hurt.
His right knee had wedged under the dash at an angle he didn’t appreciate.
Nick groaned.
Boots crunched through shell and broken glass.
Two sets.
The truck lay on the driver’s side. He was pinned against the lower door with Nick half-suspended above him by his seat belt. Bad angles all around.
A man crouched outside the shattered windshield.
Sterling knew the face.
Logan Pike.
“Well,” Pike said. “That was more exciting than it needed to be.”
Two hours after Sterling and Nick dropped her off, Juniper stood behind the bar with one hand wrapped around a glass of iced tea and the other pressed against the edge of the counter like it might keep her from checking her phone for the seventeenth time.
Sterling hadn’t called. They hadn't been dating long enough to know if that was unusual or not. Not to mention, he and Nick were checking out a lead, not taking a scenic ride through the Everglades with a picnic basket and a tour guide.
Still, something crawled under her skin.
"Are you listening to me?" Harley sat on the customer side of the bar with a basket of fries in front of her, a bottle of water sweating beside it, and her hair twisted up in a knot that looked like it had lost a fight with humidity. That was a normal thing in Florida.
“I'm sorry. Sterling said he'd call, and he hasn't." Undercover work meant being as close to the truth as possible. And that was about as close to the truth as she could possibly get.
“How are you two doing?”
"Great. Which is why I'm weirded out that I'm weirded out. I shouldn't be. He's just out with an old buddy. Maybe it's because that old friend used to also be a friend of my late husband's."
"Yeah, that could be strange," Harley said.
"But Sterling's basically in love with you. Has been for months."
Juniper's stomach did that schoolgirl flip-flop. "I feel the same way."
"Now, that's juicy gossip." Harley waved a fry. "You two went from zero to sixty pretty quick."
"And I'm not going to apologize for it, either," Juniper said. "Now, what were you talking about?"
The lunch rush had softened into the lazy stretch between meals. Three tables in the dining room. Two regulars at the far end of the bar arguing about boat motors. Liam was in the kitchen with Manny, and Tara had taken over the hostess stand even though no one had asked her to. She liked to be in the center of every possible entrance.
Harley dipped her fry into ranch and gave her a look. “That was a nice transition to a different topic.”
“I was just trying to be a good friend.”
“I appreciate that, and I was telling you that Cullen has basically pushed me right out of the friend zone.”
“Wait. Like no dating? And no hanging out as friends?”
