Stalwart Ridge Security: Murray

CHAPTER ONE

– ELODIE –

“I’m moving to the cabin in the mountains. You’re my best and only friend. I’d love it if you could come with me. We could run my business together. Yeah, Jaxie, sounds like fun...famous last words,” I mutter to myself, and huff out a frustrating breath.

Of course, neither of us could have predicted what would happen once I dropped her off at the cabin a few weeks ago.

I huff in frustration and reach out to adjust the lighting. Slightly turning the wooden hand carved robin, I continue to snap a few pictures. Thankfully, the result is better this time. Putting the camera down, I put the carved robin into a tiny box and place it in the crate with the other items.

This has officially become part of my job. I used to help out Jaxie for fun when I first suggested she put her creations up for sale. The collection she had created over time was growing and just sitting in boxes.

It was such a shame because my best friend creates amazing art.

I made her a website a long time ago, and they have been selling pretty damn good.

Good enough that she now insists on paying me for my help.

Especially since I quit my job when I agreed to move with her to the cabin.

She makes a decent living by selling handmade wooden sculptures.

Most she makes for fun, but she also accepts requests in any size.

Jaxie doesn’t like to handle anything, except for creating the wooden sculptures, so I agreed to handle the rest for her. From putting them online, getting them in front of potential buyers, to handling invoices and shipping.

Jaxie and I met through my former job. Up until a few weeks ago I was a ranch hand.

I started there when I was young; cleaning stables, taking care of the horses, and working myself up to training horses which are used for horse therapy.

Jaxie came to the ranch for horse therapy.

She was assaulted when she was nineteen which caused a brain injury.

Due to the trauma, she developed psychogenic stuttering.

After years of horse and speech therapy her stutter still acts up when she’s stressed, agitated, or emotional. Jaxie avoids talking but will talk to me if we’re alone. She’d also used her voice when speaking to her father. In front of anyone else she prefers to stay silent and use ASL.

We’ve been friends for about ten years now.

Dax, her father, died a few weeks ago. That was her main reason behind moving here indefinitely, offering me a chance to become her roommate.

I accepted without a second thought. I’ve seen and endured my share of trauma in life.

The solitude of the mountains, and the living arrangements with my best friend, made the decision easy to make.

I saved up plenty of money because all I did was work, so, I’m also seeing this as early retirement. Though, it’s more like a career shift since I’ll be working for Jaxie a few hours a week.

Except, nothing really goes the way we plan shit in life.

Things went to shit real damn fast after Dax died. I took her to the cabin a few days after the funeral. I didn’t want to leave her alone up here, but I still had two weeks to fulfil my obligations after turning in my resignation.

Thankfully, Seamus assigned himself as her personal bodyguard. I had no clue who he was, but Jaxie knew of him since he lived with his mother in the cabin next to her property. He’s also a former employee of the company Stalwart Ridge Security which her father owned with two other partners.

My two weeks’ notice was cut short when someone killed Goat, my horse, and wrote the words ‘you’re next’ on his stable wall.

When I finally got ahold of Jaxie, I told her I was coming to the cabin earlier than planned. The advice from the sheriff was to stay with friends, but Seamus didn’t think it was a good idea to stay with Jaxie, which earned me the company of Murray, my own personal bodyguard.

Murray took me to his cabin. Since then, there have been some crucial developments, besides Murray and me being forced roommates for the past few weeks.

Jaxie and Seamus discovered that Dax’s death might not have been the unfortunate accident we thought when he broke his neck due to a fall down the stairs.

When they visited Jaxie’s old home, she found her father’s office trashed.

They discovered a file in a hidden safe only Jaxie and her father knew about.

It was filled with details which all point to the fact that her father’s accident was in fact murder.

All arrows point toward Burk Clark, one of Dax’s co-owners of the Stalwart Ridge Security company. Dax was doing some investigating and discovered some crucial information, which was motivation for Burk to kill him.

One of those things was exposing that Burk had a son named Nolan Lowell. Nolan worked briefly for Stalwart Ridge Security but had a list of reprimands and was eventually fired. A few weeks ago, everything went to shit when Burk and Nolan showed up at Jaxie’s cabin.

Guns were fired...by me as well. I didn’t have a choice. Burk was about to shoot Murray. For the second time in my life, I killed someone. This time it wasn’t self-defense, and worst of all? I didn’t even think. I simply squeezed the trigger and killed Burk before he killed Murray.

Murray. My forced roommate for the past few weeks, which caused heated tension between us.

It’s probably why I didn’t think. Murray is under my skin, and it doesn’t make any freaking sense because we go head-to-head ever since he became my personal bodyguard.

Chemistry, attraction, lust, wanting something you can’t have.

..one or all creates the feelings running through me when it comes to this man.

“Everything okay?” the man in questions rumbles, and with it pulls me from the trip down memory lane.

No. Shit will never be okay again because what happened triggered old trauma and now I have to work through it again. Having him close adds new feelings and emotions which isn’t helping either. But, I can hardly tell him that. Ugh.

“Fine,” I snap, and continue to clear out the items I used to take pictures for Jaxie’s website.

Murray snorts. “So, you weren’t zoned out and completely locked inside your own head for a moment?”

His dark eyes are locked on me, as if he can see straight into my very soul. The frown on his face shows his worry, and I hate being seen as a victim. Especially by a man I’m wildly attracted to, but absolutely can’t, and won’t do anything about it.

I give the annoying man a good eyeful of my middle finger. “Go annoy a bear or a mountain lion, they might like your company more than I do.”

He’s about to say something when his phone pings an alert. My heart leaps and my stomach drops. I know exactly what the alert triggered. It’s the alarm system, letting him know something just triggered it.

“Bedroom,” Murray grunts. “Lock yourself inside, and don’t come out for anyone, understood?”

I drop the items I was holding and reach for the gun I keep in the holster on my back. “I can help.”

“Not now, El. I don’t need the fuckin’ distraction. Go.” He ends the discussion by slipping out of the cabin.

El. Ugh.

“The name is Elodie, asshole,” I mutter, and lock myself into the bedroom Murray enhanced with steel plates a few weeks ago.

He basically changed it into a safe room. It makes me feel like a prisoner with a jailer who’s both annoyingly frustrating, while ruggedly handsome. Which makes me want to smother, and fuck him, preferably not in that order.

Shit. My brain is a scrambled mess, and my nerves are all over the place. What if Nolan kills Murray? Burk would have if I hadn’t been there to save him. My back hits the cold steel and I slowly sink down to the floor. My fingers are still wrapped around my handgun and aimed at the door.

I worked hard to crawl out of the trauma I experienced when I was a mere teenager. The first man I killed was my stepfather. He strangled my mother in a blind rage, and as if that wasn’t enough, I watched as he grabbed a knife and stabbed her over and over.

The horror of it made me whimper, causing my stepfather to notice me.

He lunged for me but slipped on my mother’s blood.

The knife he was holding clattered to the floor, making it slide right in front of me.

The split second when his bloodshot eyes hit mine allowed me to see the rage inside him. I knew without a doubt I’d be next.

Swallowing hard, I try to push the vivid memory down.

The gun shakes in my hand and I briefly close my eyes.

They’re just old memories. A dark past buried deep that can’t hurt me anymore.

All while a new kind of danger is hanging above my head.

Nolan wants revenge...he wants me dead because I killed his father.

A loud knock against the door makes me practically jump out of my skin.

Murray’s voice is muffled. “Come on out, everything is fine. The sheriff is here, though.”

The sheriff? That doesn’t make sense. Frowning, I keep the gun in my hand as I get up and walk to the door.

“Are they holding a gun to your head?” I question.

“Hilarious. Open the fuck up, little rebel.” Murray’s voice carries a hard snap, even if he’s using the stupid endearment.

I open the door just so I can glare at the idiot. I hate when he only uses two letters of my name to address me, but when he uses rebel? It just doesn’t make sense. It clearly shows how little this man knows about me, even if we’ve spent weeks together in close proximity.

“Put the gun away,” he whispers.

Moving my hand to my back, I put the gun away and pull my shirt over the holster.

“Ma’am,” the sheriff greets me as I step into the main room of the cabin.

I nod while my mind jumps to the last time I saw him. The images of seeing my twenty-year-old horse lying in his stable with blood everywhere momentarily stuns me. Murray places a hand on my lower back; the warmth of his palm pulls me back to the here and now.

“To what do we owe the visit, Orson?” Murray questions.

Orson pulls out his notebook along with a pen.

“A hiker reported some bones in the woods. The medical examiner will do an autopsy, but due to some belongings found, and the missing person report, along with the ME’s estimate of age and the bones belonging to a male.

..I’m thinking it’s your neighbor, and employer, Burk Clark. Mind telling me when you saw him last?”

My body goes rigid when I think about the last time I saw him alive.

..the day I killed him. How could they have found his bones?

Didn’t Murray and Seamus agree to feed his body to the pigs?

Make sure his body was never found? It’s the whole reason I stayed away from Murray’s pigs.

Shit. Is the sheriff here to arrest me? Am I going to jail for the rest of my life?