Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Sterling drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the console, close enough to hers that his fingers kept finding hers.
Juvenile, or maybe youthful, and frankly, a whole lot of fun.
But that didn't help his inability to form words.
He had thoughts. Lots of them, but he couldn't express them.
"Look at that moon," Juniper said. "It's nearly full and so bright. The stars are dancing around it like they’re in a ballroom."
"It's incredible."
"Even when it's cloudy, or stormy, Calusa Cove always has the best sky."
"I won't argue that." He turned off the main stretch onto the gravel that led back to her place, the headlights swinging across saw palmetto and the pale trunks of cabbage palms. He'd never been a city boy.
Hated the noise. Hated the traffic. But he hadn't been a country boy, either.
He went where the government sent him. Lived where it made sense.
And he didn't complain about it. Nor did he give it much thought. He’d never owned a home before.
Just a place to hang his hat and rest his head.
Working for the Aegis Network had taught him the value of balance, and Calusa Cove reminded him what family meant.
"Do you think Cullen's going to be okay? I worry about him, and I didn't like what Royce said tonight about you letting him go. What did he mean by other options?"
"Lots of questions. Should I start anywhere in particular?
" Sterling glanced in her direction. For as long as he'd known her, she'd always asked questions.
But they were more generic. More like how was your day?
Anything interesting happen at the office?
Any new wild cases come your way? Things that a lot of people in Calusa Cove asked him.
These were specific. He was officially dating her now, so not abnormal. He shouldn't be surprised by her new interest in his opinions. He was simply out of practice with dating, if he'd ever been in practice to begin with.
"Start with Cullen, and work your way forward." She lowered her chin. "It's a natural progression."
"Right." He chuckled. "He'll be fine. He has Harley and Silas to watch out for him.
As far as what Royce said, well, our clients don't dictate who we hire or fire.
And if Royce doesn't like it, he can go to our competition.
We don't care. His threat means nothing to us, even if he thinks it does. Cullen matters more than a paycheck."
"Do you think he'd take his business to Doyle?"
"Are you trying to make me jealous?"
"Are you the jealous type?" She angled toward him in the seat and smiled.
"When it comes to you, I think I might be." That was about as honest an answer as he could muster. "Can I say something and have it not come out sideways?"
"That's a terrible way to start a sentence."
"I know."
The dashboard light caught the side of her face, showing off her rosy cheekbones, plump lips, and lush lashes. He forced himself to look back at the road. If he kept looking at her, he'd drive into the inlet. "I like you. I've liked you for as long as I've known you. It borders on stalking."
"If that were the case, I have a town full of stalkers."
He shook his head. "You know what I mean, and I'm trying to be serious here."
"You're always serious, but now you're being serious about us, and I'm… I have no idea. Continue."
"I just want to be real clear that tonight, whatever happens or doesn't happen, I'm not in this for one night. That's what I'm trying to say. And now that I've said it, I realize that it sounds awkward, but I wanted it out there."
"I wouldn't say it was the worst. I'd just say it was extremely… dorky."
"I've regressed to my fourteen-year-old self.
" Actually, he'd turned into an agent again, fishing for information.
So far, he hadn't reeled in what he was looking for.
But maybe, he'd find a hint of it. He wanted to believe she was dating him for one reason—she liked him.
And if that was it, nothing else would matter.
At least, that's what he told himself.
"I've liked you too for about as long. I've wanted to say yes every time and kicked myself for saying no.
I came here to start over, but when the opportunity to do so knocked, I got scared.
I don't want to hide from what I feel anymore.
" She reached over and laced her fingers through his. "Would you like to come in?"
"I would." Sterling trusted his instincts, and he believed every word.
"Good."
He pulled into her drive, killed the engine, and for a second, they just sat there listening to the tick of the cooling motor and the racket of the cicadas—two grown adults pretending they didn't know exactly where this was going.
He lifted their entwined hands, kissed her skin, then reached for the glove box. "I'm sorry, but this has to come with me wherever I go." He removed his handgun and secured it to his ankle. "I'll put it in a closet or cabinet once we’re inside."
"It's fine," she said. "I understand."
He slipped from the driver's side and raced around the hood of the truck like he was on roller-skates. His heart hammered in his chest with a combination of excitement and trepidation.
Everyone had a past. Whatever she was holding back, she had her reasons, and he needed to respect them.
It wasn't like he didn't have one of his own. Or maybe it was lack of a past. No real relationships to speak of. No lost love. No one who’d broken his heart. That alone was kind of pathetic.
He wished he hadn't mentioned his feelings for Juniper to his mom because she hadn't stopped asking about when she might get to meet Juniper, and that might get awkward at Dove and Trent's wedding since his parents would be attending.
Sterling yanked open her door.
"What's wrong?" she asked as he took her hand.
"Nothing. Why?"
"Your face." She waved a finger over her own. "It's all contorted like you ate an entire bag of sour candy."
"Oh. Now this is going to sound really strange, but I was thinking about my parents, which made me think about asking you to officially attend Dove and Trent's wedding with me."
"Later, you're going to have to explain how you got from one thought to the next, but I'd love to."
"Great." He looped his arm around her waist. "Now, how about we go inside and have a drink."
They went up the crushed-shell path toward the dark shape of the bungalow on its cinder blocks, the porch a deeper black against the night.
"I wasn't planning on a night-cap." She turned, fisted his shirt, and kissed him. It wasn't tentative. It was hard. So hard, she might have bruised his lips. But he didn't care. Not at all.
He walked her backward up the steps, one at a time, mouth on hers, his hand spread across the small of her back.
She tasted like the wine from dinner—sweet with a hint of pear.
Her fingers found the buttons of his shirt and unfastened two of them.
He helped her with the rest, shrugging his shirt down his shoulders, off his arms, letting it drop to the ground.
The warm night air hit his skin, and he didn't care about anything that wasn't her.
A sound from the dark of the porch hit his ears. A low hiss like a long exhale that didn't come from any throat he knew, and then a heavy, dragging thump against the boards that he felt through his boots.
He turned his head, and there, at the edge of his vision, against the deeper black by the porch rail he saw a shadow.
A shape too long and too low to be anything that belonged on a person's porch, swung toward them, and the dark resolved into the flat wedge of a head and a pale flash of an open mouth with way too many teeth.
Sterling wrapped his hand in her shirt and hauled every pound of her against his arm, throwing them both sideways into the porch rail as jaws came through the space where her leg had been.
The alligator's mouth closed on air with a crack like a slammed car door, an inch—less—from her shin, as the whole animal slammed past them into the rail. The old wood shuddered and held.
"Shit," she said, half out of his arms, twisting, her right hand dropping to her hip, slapping flat against denim where there was nothing. "That's a fucking alligator."
"It sure is." He didn't have time to deal with how quickly Juniper had moved her hand.
Just because it slapped her hip where a sidearm might not mean anything.
"We have to get inside." He scanned the porch, making a digital map in his brain, which included an alligator who decided to block their passageway to the front door.
"Don't you have a gun strapped to your ankle? Can't you just shoot it?"
"That's a big gator. A body shot will only piss it off even more," he said.
"Our best bet is to get inside the house and then have Trent deal with it.
" He pulled out his cell and quickly sent Trent a text.
Trent immediately sent a response with an ETA.
Thank God. Hopefully they wouldn't be gator feed in the next ten to fifteen minutes.
"And how do you propose we do that?" she whispered as she clutched his shoulders.
The door was dead center, eight, ten feet down the porch, and the angry gator was between them and it.
Sterling had been in some dangerous situations. He'd even been in a few that included alligators. But Trent had been around. Or Cullen. Or both. They were the experts. They actually liked the damn prehistoric beasts. Sterling barely tolerated them.
"I assume the door's locked?" Sterling kept his body between her and the animal, one hand flat against her sternum, walking her back toward the end wall.
"Of course." Her voice had gone flat and even, the panic drained right out of it. "Key's in my bag."
Her bag was on the boards down by the steps. Other side of the gator.
It had recoiled after it hit the rail and now sat low against the floor, body cocked in a long S, mouth open on that pale gullet, hissing in a way that vibrated in Sterling's muscles.
"How big is he, do you think?" Juniper asked.
"Eight, ten feet? But I'm thinking it's injured."
"Why?" Juniper asked. "And more importantly, why do we care?"
"Because hurt animals are more dangerous," Sterling said. "It moved like its hindquarters were off. One back leg… I need something to ward it off."
"There's a chair behind you," she said.
He reached behind him without taking his eyes off the gator. He dragged the chair around in front of them.
The gator opened its mouth wider and hissed louder.
"That can't be good," Juniper said.
"Probably not." Sterling pushed the chair toward the gator—legs first, the way you'd fend off a dog.
"There's a broom by the table," she added.
He curled his fingers around a wooden handle, and he brought that up too. Now he had four wooden legs and a stick between them and the open mouth.
Fucking gator threw itself at the chair and got a leg in its jaws and the whole chair bucked in his hand, wrenched sideways with a strength that ran up his arm and into his shoulder. He planted his feet and shoved. The gator let go and slammed down onto the boards, jaws cracking shut on nothing.
"Up," he said. "On the rail. Now."
"It can climb—"
"It can't balance. Go."
She got a knee on the porch rail and crawled onto the wide top board one hand clutching the corner post. He hopped up beside her, boots on the rail, the broom still in his hand, both of them four feet up the channel-facing edge of the porch with the gator turning in slow furious circles below.
The gator hit the base of the rail and reared up off the boards, chest heaving, jaws wide. Juniper's hand closed hard on Sterling’s arm. The gator’s front claws hooked the bottom board. It hauled itself forward, the whole front of it rising as its pale mouth came up level with their boots.
Thankfully, its back end didn't follow.
Its bad leg slid out from under it, claws raking down the wood with a sound that echoed like an owl through the night, and the animal dropped, heavy onto the porch. It thrashed once then went still, banked against the bottom of the rail, breath sawing.
Beside him, Juniper exhaled forcefully. "I didn't sign up for this when I moved here," she mumbled.
Juniper had her back against the corner post, balanced like she'd done worse things in darker places.
Or, at least, that's how Sterling read it because he was seeing a whole new side of Juniper, the always smiling pub owner.
"I'm being held hostage by a gator."
"You're handling it well."
"I'm screaming on the inside."
He wasn't so sure about that. While he couldn't say he was calm, he'd been in bleaker situations. Based on her reactions, he had to wonder if she had too. Same with the burglary.
He couldn't let it go. He glanced up toward the sky.
Toward the roof line of the bungalow. He wasn't looking at anything particular.
Just taking in the structure, and his training kicked in like it always did.
Maybe they could fling themselves up on the roof.
He might be able to find something to grip and then…
He squinted and let his gaze follow the roofline.
Cameras. Not unheard of. Many people had security systems. But there were three on her roof.
They were well hidden. He might not have seen them if he hadn't been looking for a way up.
Not to mention these weren't just any cameras.
They were military grade. He knew that because he had the same ones.
Fuck.
He followed the angle of one of them right to his house.
Double fuck.
"This gator's looking awful hungry," Juniper said. "Any idea how long before Trent gets here?"
He pulled out his phone, thumbing it one-handed, broom braced under his other arm. "Maybe five minutes."
"A lot can happen in that short time."
"We're fine right here."
Below them, the gator stopped circling and banked itself against the bottom of the rail with its mouth open, waiting them out.
Juniper shifted her body, her warm hands still on his bare shoulders. "How does an injured alligator climb a flight of stairs and just happen to be waiting on us—or me?"
"The question isn't so much how," Sterling said. "Because gators, as I've learned, can climb stairs if they’re motivated."
"Okay, but what motivated this fella to climb mine? I don't keep chicken quarters on my porch, and I know that's what Trent feeds them. I've been to his gator farm and to Mallor's Landing."
"Let's take care of the gator and then figure out how he got here." Sterling's next call would be to Dawson, but while they waited for him to show up, he'd be having a little chat with Juniper.