style="font-size:15px;"> “It was awful. And behind me now, as this will soon be behind you. You can get a fresh start. Um, Conner? You’re not a bad-looking guy, but this wouldn’t be a good time to hook up, if you get my drift.”
“Not a problem,” he said. “Not looking to hook up.”
“Good. I guess,” she said, standing. “Hug me like an old friend.”
He opened his arms. “Thanks,” he said roughly.
Conner followed the directions to Virgin River. Conner Danson had formerly been Danson Conner, owner of Conner’s Hardware, so the name change had been merely a reversal, which was a little easier to get used to than an entirely new one. Danson was an old family name—some ancient great-grandfather. His parents, sister, nephews and ex-wife had always called him Danny. But at work he had been called Conner or sometimes Con or even Connie by quite a few. It wasn’t difficult to remember to respond to the new name. He was tall, had brown hair, blue eyes, a small scar over his right eye, one slightly crooked tooth and a dimple on his left cheek.
The past five years had been a challenge and the past year, a nightmare.
Conner and his sister, Katie, had inherited their father’s business—Conner’s Custom Carpentry and Hardware. Construction work and running a hardware store was no walk in the park, it was very physical. His muscles had been hard-earned. They’d outsourced custom kitchen and bathroom jobs to builders and sold commercial hardware, cabinetry, fixtures, accessories and lumber used by contractors. Conner had managed it full-time with about ten employees and Katie had done the books, mostly from home so she could take care of her twin boys. Their merchandise had been high-end; the business had done well.
When Conner had been thirty, Katie’s army husband had been killed in action in Afghanistan—she had been twenty-seven, pregnant and ready to give birth. At that point, Conner had had to take over their support. They couldn’t sell the family business—their source of income would have dissipated in no time. And Katie couldn’t contribute enough time to the family business to draw an adequate salary for herself and her sons. So—Conner had worked a little more than full-time, Katie had worked part-time and Conner had picked up the slack so Katie and the boys could live in their own home, independent.
Those days had been long, the work demanding. Many days had ended with Conner feeling as if he’d been married to a store, and while he loved his family, he hadn’t had a life. Still, hard work never bothered him, and he’d remained good-natured and quick-witted. His customers and employees had enjoyed his laugh, his positive attitude. But he had needed something more.
And then he’d found the perfect woman—Samantha. Beautiful, funny and sexy Sam with the long, black hair and hypnotizing smile. And God, going to bed with her had just wound his clock! She was a whiz of an interior decorator who had helped Katie slap her little three bedroom into a showplace in nothing flat. She’d wanted him constantly. Loved sex.
Little had he known.
One year of marriage later and he’d found out she was cheating—and not with a guy, but with every guy she met.
“She’s sick,” Katie had said. “It’s not even like she’s unfaithful, she’s a sex addict.”
“I don’t believe in sex addicts,” Conner had said.
“She needs help,” Katie had said.
“I wish her luck with that,” he had replied.
Of course they divorced. He ended up paying for an expensive treatment program, but escaped alimony. He hadn’t recovered from that before things got worse.
All he’d been doing was taking trash out to the Dumpster in the alley behind the store. A man in a black town car had gotten out, walked around to the passenger side, opened the door and put a bullet in the head of his passenger. Conner had crouched behind the Dumpster while the man, whom he’d unfortunately gotten a very good look at, had pulled out the victim’s body and used Conner’s Dumpster as the coffin. Then he’d calmly gotten back in his fancy car and driven out of the dark alley.
This was the point at which Conner would have done a few things differently, because he had seen the man and the license plate and the dead body. It would have probably been a lot easier all around if he’d pretended he hadn’t seen a thing, but calling the police was an automatic response for him. Unfortunately, Conner’s name had appeared on the warrant—it was how the police had been able to get it signed by a judge. Within a couple of days someone had burned the hardware store to the ground.
The ground.
At that point, even the decision not to testify would have come too late. Mr. Regis Mathis was a very important man in Sacramento. He endowed Catholic charities and supported high-profile politicians. Of course, he’d been investigated a few times by the feds for tax evasion and had a reputation for professional gambling—very successful legal gambling—but he was also a successful developer who sold golf course condo lots. He had never been indicted.
His victim, who had been found with his hands and ankles bound by duct tape, a strip across his mouth as well, had been his opposite—Dickie Randolph had been a low-class thug who’d owned a number of questionable establishments like massage parlors, strip clubs and adult clubs, all with the reputation of illegal drug use, prostitution and sex play. The two men had had nothing in common but there’d been hints of association—silent partner association that would be difficult to impossible to prove.
Immediately following the phone threat, Conner and the D.A., Max, had packed Katie and the boys off to Burlington, Vermont. Max knew of a friend of a friend’s small rental house there and the same friend had hooked them up with a pediatric dentist who’d been looking for an accountant. Katie would be comfortable, independent and far, far away.
As much as Conner had wanted to accommodate his hostess, Brie Valenzuela, it had been hard to be cheery. He’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time—right on his own property—and now he’d lost too much. He missed Katie and the boys. He was going to work construction for a while before he had to testify and then get permanently relocated before Mathis could exact his revenge.
The guy who’d been upbeat in spite of everything was no more.
But as he made his way to the cabins on the river, sunlight broke through the clouds, sending a shaft of gold through the majestic redwoods. The early-March weather was wet and cold, but the beam of sunlight was promising. The green was so dense and bright with the sparkling wet of a recent rain, he was taken aback by the natural beauty of the place. Maybe, he thought… Maybe this isn’t the worst place to be exiled. Time would tell.
He pulled up to the house and cabins—it was a serene little complex, lush and green, a river rushing by. A man came out of the house at the sound of Conner’s truck. By the time he was getting out of the truck, the man had his hand out. “You must be Conner.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
He laughed. “You start sirring me and I’ll forget I’m civilian now. I’m Luke Riordan. My wife, Shelby, and I take care of these cabins. Number four is unlocked, but the key hangs on a hook by the door. We don’t do meals, but we have a phone you can use if you need to. There’s satellite internet hookup in case you brought a laptop. And there’s a kitchenette and coffeepot, but your best bet for tonight is Jack’s Bar, just ten minutes farther up 36 in Virgin River. The food is amazing and the company isn’t bad.”
