His feet had gone numb somewhere in the last hour. His muscles ached. His body finally registered the cold. But his mind replayed every detail of the mission from start to finish. Then hewent backward, eight long months. All of it. The corridor. The players. The corrupt governments. The companies. He stored it all permanently in a file that he could retrieve and review in great detail, ensuring he’d never forget it.
Most people thought his memory was a skill to be cherished.
On a good day, it wasn't the worst thing in the world.
But on days like this, it was an absolute fucking curse.
Restrepo sat across from him with a blanket someone had given him around his shoulders.
The helicopter shook and shimmied as it lifted off the ground.
Below them, Bogotá rolled away in a grid of yellow and orange. The Cordillera Oriental rose dark behind it. Letting his head fall back against the bulkhead, Sterling closed his eyes.
Chapter One
Sterling Fox leaned back in the stool at the corner of the bar. This had become his seat at Juniper's Pub. He came in every Friday night for the fish fry, unless there was a special at the Crab Shack. However, Saturday nights were kept for drinking beer and eating crab, followed by a last drink at Juniper's.
Hell, who was he kidding? This was his usual haunt almost every night.
"Can I get you another?" Juniper Solstice, the owner of the pub. asked as she pulled a bottle of Buffalo Trace from the shelf.
"Not yet." He watched her pour two fingers into a rocks glass and tried not to count the freckles on her right cheek.
He counted six. Same as always.
She'd pulled her hair all the way on top of her head, but large chunks had fallen out of her wild bun an hour ago. Four curly tendrils fell on the side of her face, and he wanted to reach out and tuck them back into her ponytail holder.
It was a weird thought. But whenever he was around her, dozens of thoughts went through his mind that he wouldn't normally have.
If he looked up perfection in the dictionary, Juniper Solstice would be the definition. It wasn't just her good looks—with her bronzed complexion, eyes the color of the ocean, and a fit figure—but she could carry a conversation with style and wit. Her ability to make him laugh was unfailing.
"You were invited to this shindig," he said. "Why don't you sit down and let the people who work for you do the heavy lifting."
"Gigi had to go home ten minutes ago," she said. "Her little one got a stomach bug."
Juniper had closed the restaurant at eight so Buddy and Fallon could have the place for a reception. Fallon had no family left, except everyone in Calusa Cove. Buddy didn't have blood either, but he had people, and the town had shown up.
She slid the whiskey across to Silas Monroe, a local fisherman, born and raised in Calusa Cove, at the far curve of the bar. "Here you go."
"Thank you, ma'am." Silas tipped his head. "We sure do love how you gave this place new life."
Sterling took a slow pull off his beer. The bottom half of the bottle had gone warm. In Florida, no matter the season, if you didn't drink it fast enough, it went warm quick.
The bar around him smelled like fried grouper and the sweet vegetable rot of the inlet at low tide. Behind the bottles, Thomas Rhett was singing about being a happy man.
It was a great song, especially for the happy couple.
And Sterling was happy, too. He didn't need a woman in his life to be fulfilled. He never had. But now that he was a year out of the CIA and not running ops on foreign soil, his world had become quiet.
Five months in Calusa Cove, and calm still hadn't settled in his bones quite as deeply as it had for Buddy or Dovelynn. Sterling kept reaching for it, and he'd found pieces of it, but parts of his soul still missed the shock of adrenaline when theunexpected bullet whizzed by his head. It had happened once or twice in this job with the Aegis Network, but it was rare.
However, for the first time in his life, he found himself questioning the core of who he thought he was and what that meant.
In Langley, happiness had been a transaction. A cleared op, a closed file, a problem solved that wouldn’t come back. Down here, it had become a sunset he hadn't earned. A bar stool that had become his with no one telling him it wasn't. A boss he respected and a job that didn't ask him to lie to people for a living.
He took another pull and let the warm beer move down his throat.
"Are you sure I can't get you another?" Juniper asked. "Because I need to bring shots over to them."
