to be at the ranch.
Not on her coffee table with a phone that wasn’t hers.
The phone finally stopped ringing. Madi touched the gun, running her finger over her dad’s initials to make sure it was real.
“I’m coming up,” Jenna said, no longer trying to be discreet.
Madi heard the concern, knew she should say something, but another detail caught her attention.
Her bedroom door was closed.
With steps that felt like wading through water, Madi went to the door and swung it wide.
“Oh my God.”
She saw the pearls around the woman’s neck first. The dark red, tight-fitted dress second. The Louboutin pumps third.
Finally, as though her eyes had been reluctant, Madi saw the woman’s red hair. It flowed around a disfigured face covered in blood.
She was dead.
And if Madi were a betting woman, she’d wager that the gun lying on her coffee table had been used to murder Loraine Wilson.
“And you think this is a good idea?”
Chance Montgomery gave him a look filled with skepticism.
“I never said it was a good idea,” Julian admitted. “I just said it was an idea.”
They were standing on the side of the road, their cars parked in front of the town of Overlook welcome sign. It was as quaint as Julian remembered. Worn but filled with charm. Two small spotlights lit up the hand-painted letters. It sent a warm glow bouncing off the hood of his truck.
It probably would have been better to come back during the day but the pull of seeing the Overlook innkeeper had tugged Julian right off the road to his new life.
Chance took his cowboy hat off. He’d been finishing up a personal matter in North Tennessee and had met up with Julian to caravan on the way back to Alabama. He sucked on the toothpick between his lips. He’d gotten it from the diner where they’d eaten an hour ago. In another hour they were supposed to be stopping at a hotel. The next day, Tuesday, they’d be in Alabama at the security firm. Next Monday would be Julian’s first official day as a private bodyguard.
His first official day in his new life.
Yet there they were.
“Well, I can’t really tell you not to do it,” Chance said. “Just that you might want to think it over a little. I can’t say my track record with women has been outstanding but even I’d be a bit worried about rolling into town unannounced. You haven’t talked since you left. That’s a lot of time between then and now. A lot could have changed.”
Julian knew better than anyone how different life could be from one moment to the next. He knew how just one second could irrevocably change everything. He also knew that dropping in after all this time could be construed as too much.
“Listen, I’m not going to go there and stand outside in the rain with a stereo over my head and hearts in my eyes,” Julian deadpanned. “I’m just going to see if there’s an opening at the inn for the night and, if there is, see if she wants to grab a quick meal to catch up. Last we talked she was worried about the inn doing well and I was on the way to a job interview.” He shrugged. “Nothing more or less than a conversation or two. Then I’m back on the road tomorrow. No harm, no foul.”
“And if she doesn’t want you there?”
Julian shrugged again, though he had to admit he didn’t like the thought.
“Then I’m back on the road tonight.”
Chance nodded, conceding to the logic. Plus, he was right, there wasn’t much he could do to stop Julian from taking the detour.
“Well, here’s to hoping she’s not married and keeping your time together a secret from her husband,” Chance teased. He clapped Julian on the shoulder and went back to his truck. Before he got in he paused and grinned. “And if she’s happy to see you, well, then I guess I’ll see you Monday morning.”
Julian watched his friend take off down the road before he got back into his own truck. There he sat and stared at the sign for a moment. It had been over half a year since Julian had seen Madi Nash. For all he knew she could absolutely be married. She could have sold the inn. She could have moved.
She could be happy to see him.
She could wish he hadn’t shown up at all.
Julian scrubbed a hand down his face and exhaled. He’d been deployed six times in his career, three of those in combat zones. He’d set boots down in the dusty heat of Iraq. He’d navigated the islands of Japan with little more than a partially busted radio. He’d even, to the chagrin of their spec-ops commander, fought his way through a bar brawl in Germany. And yet here he was, in small-town Tennessee, actually nervous that a golden-haired, freckled-skinned bed-and-breakfast owner was going to put him in his place.
How the mighty had fallen.
Not that he’d counted himself as mighty.
Julian finally turned the engine over and got back onto the road. He marveled at the fact that he remembered the town as well as he did. The streetlamps across the main strip cast light on the same businesses he remembered, just as the moonlight shone across the houses and landscapes he’d passed before. Not much had changed. He knew plenty of people, including those he’d served with, who would have been bored by the lack of change. Julian welcomed the familiarity. It was everything he was hoping to have for himself when he finally got settled in his new job. Roots. Ones that grounded him. Ones that centered him.
A life that would start after the detour.
The GPS on his phone remained off as the houses turned to fields, the fields turned to trees, and the trees started to open up to the inn’s property, which he’d recalled countless times in the last half year. Despite all of his resolve, he was starting to feel something like nerves when the drive curved, indicating the inn was almost in sight. In his mind Julian had already pulled into one of the spots, gotten out of the car with calmness and determination and bounded up the stairs with a smile on his face.
However, what really happened when the road straightened and the inn came into view was drastically different.
Blue and red lights were strobing from the tops of two parked deputy cruisers. One had two uniforms standing next to it. They were talking to a man Julian recognized from pictures in Madi’s room as one of her triplet brothers. A truck was pulled up on the grass next to him, and in the far corner of the lot was something that made Julian even more uneasy.
It was a coroner’s van.
Julian coasted to a stop far enough away from the closest cruiser so everyone could still drive around him. By the time he cut his engine, one of the deputies was on his way over. The other seemed to be in deep conversation with Desmond Nash. Neither of them looked his way.
