Chapter 2
Chapter Two
The Southwest Florida sun poured through the open shutters in long, flat sheets that turned the wide-plank floor the color of weak tea and showed every speck of dust Juniper hadn't gotten to on the rum bottles behind the bar. Manny, the cook, told her that the dust made the bar look classic.
Juniper thought it just made the place look dirty.
The ceiling fan turned slowly above her head.
The air smelled of the clean, fishy brine of the grouper Manny had pulled out of the walk-in that morning.
And underneath it, a faint tang of salt and mangrove from the inlet.
She'd hated that undertone when she'd first moved to Calusa Cove.
But today, it settled in her body like her skin soaking in much-needed moisture.
She leaned a hip against the counter and stared out into the pub.
Two booths along the wall held a pair of retirees nursing iced teas and a young mother she didn't recognize with a baby asleep in a sling against her chest. She'd been watching the young mother all morning.
She'd learned early in her career that the person in the room least likely to be carrying a gun was always the one packing.
The rest of the bar was half-full of locals, just like it was every other day of the week.
Outside the kitchen, Manny called out a lunch ticket in that deep voice of his that reminded Juniper of her dad, which was funny because Manny wasn't much older than her.
Her father had been gone for ten years now. Lung cancer that had taken him fast. She'd driven home from Quantico and sat with him for nine days, and then he was gone.
Her mother had followed five years later. That loss had been slower. A stroke had taken her mind two years before it took her body. Juniper had buried her on a gray morning in Maryland and had gone back to work the following Monday because she needed to focus on something.
Tara Pajeski, her day manager, stood at the service end of the bar.
She wore a black tank top, a long apron, and her dark blond hair was pulled back so tight her eyebrows lifted.
According to Tara, that was her own personal at-home facelift.
A pen lived behind her ear. Two more lived in the apron pocket.
On Manny’s recommendation, Juniper had hired her on day one, and Tara had run the lunch shift with the authority of a woman who'd grown up watching her mother do the same job at a roadhouse in the panhandle.
"Walk me through tonight," Juniper said, crossing behind the bar to run her hands under hot water in the small sink by the well.
"Linton's doubled the gumbo. We got that extra case of the IPA in this morning, so we're set on draft. Sully's already here, as you can see. He'll bartend for you, and I told him your standing list of what not to let the regulars get away with."
Juniper laughed. "Hawke's invoice."
"I called Vinnie. He said don't sweat it. Monday."
"You're a saint."
"I'm a saint-adjacent tyrant, and don't you forget it." Tara dropped a lime wheel into a glass of soda water and slid it onto her serving tray. She turned and leaned a hip against the bar. "Speaking of all the sexy saints around town and the gossip that goes with them…"
"Don't."
"I'm gonna."
Juniper rolled her eyes because there was no stopping this freight train. Not in this small town.
"For over five months, Sterling has been parking himself on that corner stool, asking you out so politely it should've worn a hole in the floor, and last night, you finally said yes." Tara picked up her tray and grinned. "It is about freaking time."
"How do you even know?"
Tara's grin widened. "Fletcher, Dane's oldest boy, was in the parking lot with his little brother skipping stones with Marisol's kids and saw your moment with Sterling under the moon and stars.
Marisol told her sister, who told the woman at the post office, who told the entire line waiting to mail packages this morning, including my mother, who called me an hour ago to ask if it was true. "
Juniper picked up a clean towel and started polishing a rocks glass that didn't need polishing. "It wasn't a moment."
"He kissed your cheek." Tara leaned closer. "I don't think I've ever seen Sterling kiss anyone."
"Take your tray and go," Juniper said.
"Crab Shack. Seven o'clock. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a slow night tonight."
"That's not funny."
"You're right, it's hilarious." Tara scurried away before Juniper had the chance to retort.
Not that she had anything good to say, so she went back to cleaning and polishing glasses.
Seven o'clock. A date. The first one in years.
Since Mark had died. He'd been a good man, the kind of good that had surprised her and kept on surprising her.
And one Tuesday morning, he'd gone to make a raid. It was a joint effort with the ATF and DEA, but Mark and four other agents hadn’t made it back that day.
She'd been thirty-four years old and a widow before she'd even figured out how to be a wife.
Six months ago, she'd flown into Fort Myers with a single suitcase and a cover story.
She'd come to a town she'd never heard of, walked into a pub with a colorful history that included a previous owner who'd been running drugs through the Everglades, and signed her name on papers that made her the legal owner of every cracked tile and sticky stool inside it.
All that waited for her back in Maryland was a condo in Bethesda that she barely remembered what it looked like.
Six months later, she couldn't remember the last time she'd thought about it without effort.
The bell above the front door chimed.
She glanced up out of habit, expecting a regular, or maybe hoping it was Sterling there to pick up the Aegis Network lunch order.
But instead, a stranger strolled through the door.
He was tall. Six-three, six-four, broad through the chest and lean through the waist. The kind of build that came from years of being physical rather than working out in a gym. He wore khaki cargo pants, a fitted gray T-shirt, and a pair of brown boots worn soft at the toes.
His hair was dark blond, cut close on the sides and longer on top, the way men cut their hair when they wanted to look civilian without committing to it.
He paused inside the door, glanced around, and then strolled to the bar, taking the fourth seat in from the wall. He had swagger, and a vibe that made Juniper's hackles stand at attention.
Military. Cop. Alphabet agency. Or something else. It was the something else that worried her. That was what she'd been put in this bar to look out for.
Tara, mid-cross to her four-top, swung her head and nearly walked into a chair. She might have done that on purpose, Juniper couldn't be sure, but she'd seen Tara do it once or twice when attractive strangers entered the pub.
"Sweet Jesus on a Tuesday," Tara muttered as she passed. "He's hot."
"He's overstated." Juniper set the rocks glass down, picked up a fresh one and the water pitcher, and went to work. "Afternoon," she said. "I'm Juniper, owner of this fine establishment. What can I get you?"
"Wow. The owner. Impressive." The gentleman smiled wide.
"Not really," she said. "I'm here most days working right alongside everyone else." She poured some water and pushed a menu across the bar.
"I'm Doyle, and this is fine for now." He had a voice that matched the rest of him. Easy, warm, with a faint rasp underneath, like a man who'd had too many late nights and too many cigarettes. "I need a minute with the menu."
"Take your time." She waved her hand. "Specials are on the chalkboard," she said. "Grouper sandwich is the one to beat. Gumbo's good today."
"What's in the grouper sandwich?" He peered over the top of the menu.
"Grouper," she said.
He laughed. "What else?"
"It's on a brioche bun, remoulade, lettuce, tomato, pickled red onion.
Comes fried or blackened. Blackened is better.
Fried is what most people order." She pointed.
"It's all right there and like the board says, we can make it any way you like it.
Sully over there, he likes the cook to pile slaw on top. We can do almost anything."
He laughed. "What would you order?"
"Whatever I felt like that day."
"What do you feel like today?"
"I'm not eating, I'm working."
He pursed his lips and set the menu down. "Blackened. If the owner says it's better, I'm not going to be the man who argues with her."
"Wise decision." She typed it into the register. A minute later it would be in front of her chef. "First time in Calusa Cove?" she asked.
"That obvious?"
"I know my locals, and it's a small town," she said.
"I love these little coastal places."
"How long are you here for?"
"About a week."
Being a bartender she could ask anyone anything and no one would think she was being nosy. It was actually part of the job. "What do you do?"
"I'm in private security out of Charleston.
Been doing that about three years now. Good gig.
And it gives me a fair amount of time off.
And I love the location. Thought I'd hate it, considering I grew up where it snowed nine months out of the year.
But I also spent my summers fishing." He raised his hands.
"So, here I am in a little Florida town, looking forward to dropping a line. "
So, this guy was a bit of an over sharer. That could be something, or it could be he just liked to talk.
"Did you fly or drive?"
"I flew into Fort Myers and rented a Jeep."
"That'll do it."
"What should I do while I'm here?"
She set down the knife, and wiped her hands on her apron as she leaned a hip against the back counter. This part she could do in her sleep. Half her conversations with strangers ended up with her giving recommendations.