Kale rolled his eyes and flipped me the bird before continuing. “Help me out. Give me something to tell them and….” He trailed off as if recalling something before pointing at Oliver. “Did you saymurder? Fucking hell. I thought it was suicide or a stupid accident or something like that. Murder? Are you serious?”
Oliver pressed his lips in a tight line, clearly frustrated with himself for letting that detail slip. It was a known theory within the Uplift community that he suspected Jasper’s suicide wasstaged, but most of the Anchor Bay community still thought he’d taken his own life.
“Well,” I called out, making the two men look my way, “I’ll let you two handle this drama between yourselves. I have to go if I want to shower before that meeting.”
Mid-stride, I lifted my gym bag off the cracked concrete floor and headed for the front door. Pausing next to Kale, I shoved his shoulder, making him stumble to the side. “So, self-proclaimed best bartender in town, how about next time all of us girls are at Dave’s, please, please,pleasedo not allow us to order duck fart shots. Last time nearly killed me.”
I dodged his return shove. “That had to do with the quantity of alcohol you and your friends consumed, not the type of shot, Juno. Next time, don’t order seven rounds.”
Just remembering that night, and the following morning, made my stomach roll.I was hungover for days following the emergency book club meeting Baylee had called.
Running out of time to get my much-needed shower, I waved goodbye to Oliver and stepped out into the fresh morning air. Inhaling deeply, I allowed my eyelids to close for a few seconds, absorbing the peaceful moment before stepping up to my bike. Gym bag secured in the small front basket, I wheeled it away from the wall where I had parked it earlier and hopped on.
Loose strands of hair fluttered along my neck as I pedaled down the nearly empty street. Smiling wide, I tilted my face upward, appreciating the sun’s warm rays on my skin. Summer in Alaska was stunning but short-lived. Normal days were cloudy, misting and gloomy, which meant I needed to savor every second I could of the gorgeous weather. So today, instead of driving my small SUV to the gym, I opted to bike even though it took twice the time to get there and back home to the Uplift compound.
The termcompoundmade it sound like a cult, but the community was far from anything like that. We were a tight-knit found family who all worked for Uplift in some capacity and also lived within the self-sustaining community. It was its own small town with a main street lined with cabins that Brandon and Carl had built and continued to build as the company and community grew. There was even a small general store that their wife, Amy, ran along with a farm with horses, cows, and recently added goats. Everyone had their part, not only in helping the community run but in their jobs at Uplift.
We had Miles and Aiden, whose adventure specialties were anything ATV or dirt bike related. Liam was our resident cowboy, taking clients out on trail rides that ranged from kid-friendly to advanced riders only. Ethan was our survivalist who took clients off-grid for days, teaching them how to live with only a knife and flint. Langston ran everything that was water-based, while Dax and Finley were our resident pilots for rescue missions and client expeditions.
There were also others who lived outside the community but were one of us, like Oliver, Anchor Bay’s deputy sheriff, and the recent addition, former LA detective Hudson and his family.
After spending the first thirty-two shitty years of my life never feeling like I belonged or was wanted, this place and these people were exactly what I needed to feel alive. But I couldn’t complain too much, because if my early years weren’t so terrible, I wouldn’t have been as reclusive, turning to computers and online gaming as refuge, which led to my career as a programmer and web designer.
Was I a computer geek? Yes, I was. Did I love playing online video games? Again, guilty. But since living in Anchor Bay, I’d not only balanced that isolation side of myself by socializing with my new friends—and liking it—but had come to understand that my geeky side wasn’t bad.
Hell, it could be worse. I could be addicted to drugs or online gambling, right?
Since settling into my new home, I no longer lost hours consumed in an online role-playing game or coding a website for a client.
I was happy and actually living a real life, not a virtual one.
And that terrified me.
Guiding my bike onto the road that ran through the quaint downtown area, I couldn’t help the heavy dread that settled in my stomach despite the colorfully painted buildings I passed. If I could count on one thing in my life, it was that nothing good lasted, which meant this amazing chapter of my life, the first one where I actually smiled more than cried, would end.
And I really,reallydidn’t want that to happen.
But considering how the past usually predicted the future, my luck would run out.
Soon.
2
LANGSTON
That woman was going to get herself killed.
An annoyed grunt rushed past my lips as I leapt over a waterlogged pothole, all while monitoring Juno up ahead. Pieces of her newly colored hair whipped in the wind as she casually pedaled down the street, seeming to have zero cares in the world.
Which was a big fucking illusion.
She was a lie; I just hadn’t figured out the why yet despite my best efforts. Though if I suspected she was here to harm any of my Uplift family and their connected partners—because damnit, that woman Aspen and the new hipster Memphis had wormed their way into my dark heart too—Juno wouldn’t have made it from Anchorage to Anchor Bay still breathing.
I chuckled to myself as I weaved around a parked car, keeping pace with Juno easily despite that I was jogging and she was on two wheels. Hell, was she even pedaling? There was a bit of worry blooming in my chest that the bike was going so damn slow it would just tip over, sending her tumbling into the street, in front of a car, and?—
I sucked in a sharp breath as my heart rate picked up at that visual. No, Juno was fine and would stay that way. I’d make sure of that while I continued my investigation into what the hell she was hiding. At least until I uncovered her past; then I could move on to my next obsession, something to hyper-fixate on until I peeled it apart to understand every micro-detail.
A happy, feminine laugh trilled through the morning air, causing goose bumps to rise along the inked skin of both arms. Jaw clenched tight, I ground my molars as she waved at Ches, the owner of our favorite dive bar, Dave’s, who stared a little too long in her direction after she’d passed the weathered building where he stood along the walkway.
