Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Sterling pulled behind Juniper’s Pub a few minutes before ten with Nick in the back seat complaining he'd been replaced and Juniper riding shotgun with her laptop bag pressed against her knees and her hair still damp from the shower.
Sterling put the truck in park, and Nick jumped from the vehicle. He pulled open Juniper's door. "Have a good day."
"You too." Juniper leaned across the cab and cupped Sterling's face. “Be safe out there, okay?”
Nick grinned. “I always am.”
"She's talking to me." Sterling lifted her chin. "You be careful, too."
“I own a bar in Calusa Cove. Careful is a relative term.”
“Call me if anything weird happens. Anyone shows up. Bea calls. Doyle walks through the door. Tara decides to marry him. Anything.”
Juniper narrowed her eyes. “That last one was uncalled for, and last I heard, she was giving him the cold shoulder because he hasn't been calling her regularly, which is strange. She's not usually that possessive.”
“He has a way of making women like him, and I don't appreciate that.”
“He's never lasted long with anyone. I'm sure he's gotten bored," Nick said.
“Doesn't make either of us feel any better,” Sterling added.
Juniper gave him a quick kiss before sliding out. “What time will you be back?”
“Shouldn't be much past two or three,” Sterling said. “Nick and I are going to check out the Pike lead and then check in with Buddy.”
“Call me when you're on your way back to town?"
“You got it.” Sterling hooked his thumb on the wheel. “Maybe we'll come back for lunch. We'll need to eat.”
Juniper rested one hand on the open truck door. “I'll try to save you some of the special.”
“Thanks.”
She shut the door, and Sterling watched her disappear inside through the kitchen door. He always knew leaving the CIA would change his life. But he never expected that a woman would change his ways.
Nick buckled his seat belt. “Are you ready?”
Sterling put the truck in reverse. “I could look at her all day."
“You got it bad."
"For the first time in my life, I won't deny it." Sterling turned to his old friend and smiled. Big. "I fucking love her, and it feels better than any drug I've ever been given."
"I know, right?"
"Who'd ever thought we'd ever be sitting in a truck talking about this shit."
"Not me." Nick laughed. "But I called Sloane this morning and told her all about Juniper, and then realized I hadn't informed her of her previous name, so when I hinted at that one, she went real quiet for a bit and then was completely ecstatic. For both of you. Told me it made sense."
"Not sure it does to me, but I'm not questioning it. I'm just rolling with it." Sterling made the turn onto Main Street and went through the traffic light.
The Saturday morning traffic in Calusa Cove consisted of three golf carts, two pickup trucks, a delivery van parked half in the street, and Mrs. Ludwig walking her tiny demon dog in front of the post office. The dog was a menace.
Sterling followed Main for two more blocks, turned at the bait shop, and headed toward the bridge that led out of town.
He pressed two fingers to his wrist and counted.
Slightly elevated. This was an odd habit he'd gotten into a long time ago when he'd been a young CIA agent.
He'd check his pulse before and after missions.
He just wanted to know. He might have required self-observation because his brain's immense data processing capacity often caused it to miss fear signals, resulting in his body failing to react correctly. At least that's what he told himself.
But he’d never had a partner to go home to. Someone, outside of his parents, who told him to be safe out there. Someone who wanted him to come back without injury. That was new, and it changed his perspective.
Nick pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket.
“You printed directions?” Sterling asked.
“Cell signal drops out here.”
“I know where we’re going," Sterling said. "I've lived here for more than half a year, and I've looked at the map."
“Of course.” Nick put it away.
Sterling checked the rearview mirror. “Gray F-150. Cracked right headlight. Mud on the tailgate.”
“How long?”
“Since the bridge.”
Sterling eased off the gas.
The pickup stayed the same distance.
He took the next right onto County Line Cutoff, a two-lane road that had more patch than pavement and no business pretending it had shoulders. Water sat in both ditches, thick with weeds and sun glare. On the left, a line of cypress trees leaned over the canal like old men eavesdropping.
The pickup turned behind them.
Pop!
"Fuck," Nick muttered.
The shot blew out the passenger-side mirror. Glass shards flew in through the open window and sprayed across Nick’s shoulder.
Sterling hit the gas.
The truck lunged forward, and the engine roared. Nick ducked low and snagged his weapon from under the seat.
Pop!
“Passenger's got a rifle,” Nick said.
The road bent hard left, then back right, quickly. Sterling took it fast. The rear end floated over gravel, and the right side dropped close to the ditch before the tires grabbed again. Water flashed below them.
Once the truck leveled out on the straightaway, Nick leaned out the open passenger window. He fired three rounds.
The pickup jerked left, then corrected.
Sterling kept his foot down and his gaze on the pavement. The road narrowed and dipped through a low spot where muddy water had crept across the pavement. The truck hit it hard. Brown spray exploded over the windshield. For half a second, he saw nothing but water and sun.
A tractor rolled ahead of them in their lane, pulling a flatbed stacked with pallets.
“Hold on while I pass this guy,” Sterling muttered.
Pop!
Another shot hit the rear window. The glass starred white but held.
Sterling swung left. The oncoming lane was empty for maybe two hundred yards. Beyond that, a delivery truck came around the bend, white box flashing in the sun.
Nick braced a hand on the dash.
The truck surged alongside the tractor. The flatbed bounced. One of the pallets shifted and dropped three inches with a crack of wood.
The gray pickup tried to follow, but the tractor drifted half a foot left, crowding it out.
Sterling cut back in front of the tractor with less room than he wanted. The delivery truck blasted past going the other way, horn screaming, wind rocking Sterling’s truck hard enough to shove it toward the ditch.
The gray pickup came around the tractor anyway, tires spitting gravel from the opposite shoulder.
“Persistent asshole,” Nick said.
“Dedicated.”
“That’s worse.”
The road straightened.
But Sterling saw a shell road cut off to the right between two leaning palms and disappearing into scrub. The road they were on would lead toward the fuel stop. The shell road would not.
Sterling turned hard.
The truck hit loose shell and skidded sideways. Nick slammed into the door. “You could warn a person,” Nick said.
“Too busy trying not to get us killed." Sterling had always wanted to return from a mission with all his limbs and his heart still beating.
But now he had someone to return to. He had someone he wanted to wrap his arms around, press his lips to her neck, and tell her how beautiful she looked in the moonlight.
That meant more to him than anything he could've ever imagined.
Branches slapped the windshield. The truck bounced hard enough to make the seat belt bite into Sterling’s collarbone.
Behind them, the pickup made the turn.
Its frontend slid, plowing the vehicle wide, then came back in line.
Pop!
The truck dropped with a violent jerk as the tire exploded.
Sterling fought the steering as shredded rubber slapped the wheel well. The back end tried to swing out. He let it move, then pulled it back before it could take them into the ditch.
Nick shifted in his seat, stuck his arm out and fired again. One shot hit the pickup’s hood. Another took out part of the windshield. The pickup swerved, but the driver stayed with them.
“We got a second vehicle,” Nick said, calmly. He was always calm in these situations.
“Go for the gap.”
Sterling kept the wheel steady until the last second, then cut right. The truck’s good tires dropped off the packed shell and into soft mud along the canal. The whole body tilted. The blown tire dug in and pulled them sideways.
The SUV’s passenger door opened.
A man leaned out with a rifle.
Nick fired first.
The man darted back inside.
Sterling clipped the SUV’s rear bumper with his left fender. The impact shoved the SUV sideways and spun Sterling’s truck toward the canal.
The truck jolted so hard his teeth snapped together. He’d left the CIA because he'd grown tired of getting shot at all the fucking time. Not that his work with the Aegis Network wasn't occasionally dangerous.
Obviously, it was.
But he preferred a few lazy Saturdays. Today wasn't one of them.
The shell road narrowed again. Ahead, a small wooden bridge crossed a drainage canal. Old. Sun-bleached. A bad idea built of lumber.
“You've got to be fucking kidding me," Nick said. “That thing won’t hold.”
“We only need it to hold for us.” The truck hit the bridge.
Boards boomed under the tires. The whole structure shuddered. The canal opened below, dark and full of weeds and whatever else Florida grew to make a man question his life choices.
Sterling kept the wheel straight. The truck bounced once.
Twice.
The rear end slid toward the edge.
"SUV's making its move around the truck." Nick leaned hard the opposite direction, as if his body weight could help. It probably couldn’t, but Sterling appreciated the effort.
They exited on the far side of the canal with a drop that slammed pain up Sterling’s spine. The truck landed crooked, skidded, then the tires caught.
Behind them, the black SUV had entered the bridge, tires barely catching wood.
The pickup was on its side at the mouth of the bridge. It was amazing either vehicle got by.
For two seconds, they had open road.
Sterling pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The truck coughed as steam curled from under the hood.