Some kind of emotion flickered across her face so quickly he couldn’t identify it. Anger? Fear? Or something else?

“Did you see the man who drove that car?” he asked again.

A low rumble sounded from the direction of the bushes where Faye had emerged a few moments earlier.

Jake yanked out his gun and shoved Faye behind his back as he whirled around. Was the panther still out here, stalking them? Or was that more of a curse than a growl?

A full minute passed in silence. No more growls or curses. No rustling of leaves to indicate anything, or anyone, was there. He cautiously straightened and turned back to Faye.

She was gone.

So were her knife and her rifle.

Missing in the Glades

Lena Diaz

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LENA DIAZ was born in Kentucky and has also lived in California, Louisiana and Florida, where she now resides with her husband and two children. Before becoming a romantic suspense author, she was a computer programmer. A former Romance Writers of America Golden Heart award finalist, she has won a prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence in mystery and suspense. To get the latest news about Lena, please visit her website, www.lenadiaz.com.

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Thank you, Allison Lyons and Nalini Akolekar.

Thank you to my mom, Letha McAlister, who got such a kick out of this story. This book is dedicated to my friend and fellow suspense author Sarah Andre.

Thank you for self lessly giving me your time, ideas and encouragement. This book would not have been written without you.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Jake aimed his pistol and flashlight through the chain-link wildlife fencing that marked where civilization ended and the Florida Everglades began. Behind him, his black Dodge Charger sat on the shoulder of a remote section of Interstate 75 that Floridians affectionately called Alligator Alley. With good reason. Alligators infested the swampy areas along this east-west corridor connecting Naples to Hialeah.

He swept his flashlight up and down the ditch behind him. Did alligator eyes reflect in the light? He sure hoped so. That might be the only way he’d see the hungry reptiles creeping up on him, looking for a late-night Jake-snack.

Not for the first time, he questioned his sanity in searching this dangerous area at night. But when a rare black panther had darted across the road in front of him and he’d skidded sideways to avoid it, he’d noticed a reflection in the beam of his headlights through the wildlife fence—a reflection that just might be the car Calvin Gillette was driving when he went missing three days ago.

In theory, if Gillette had crashed, the cable barrier system should have kept his car from sliding under the fence into the woods. And hitting one of the cables would have triggered strobe lights and an automatic notification to the Department of Transportation. But the system wasn’t foolproof. A few months earlier a minivan hit a pole and went airborne, flipping over the cable without touching it and sliding under the fence into a canal. Jake figured if it happened once, it could happen again. And the few clues he had about Gillette’s disappearance all led him to this same area.

A few minutes later, his search paid off. He found deep tire tracks in the wet grass. He hopped the ditch and pressed against the chain links—loose and floppy as they’d be if a car had hit the fence. Excitement sizzled through him. He stepped over the cable and slid through to the other side.

Grateful he’d worn boots for this search, he trudged across the damp ground to a thick stand of pine trees and palmetto bushes. Not anxious to go much farther in the dark, he braced his shoulder on one of the trees and used his flashlight to search for that elusive reflection of metal he thought he’d seen from the road. And suddenly, there it was, behind some bushes, too big and shiny to not be man-made. But without knowing for sure that it was a car, he didn’t want to raise an alarm. Which meant he would have to go into the swamp.

It was times like this when he seriously wondered if he should move forward with his planned career change from police officer to private investigator. He was on leave from his police job to give the private sector a try, which was why he’d recently moved south to this unpredictable, dangerous, land-that-time-forgot section of his home state.

Tightening his hold on his pistol, he stepped past the line of pine and oak trees and—for the first time in his life—officially entered the Everglades. The difference in temperature struck him first. It was much cooler here, the musty, woodsy scent a welcome change from the thick humid air by the road. He’d expected the ground to be wet, slippery like the ditch by the fence. Instead, it was dry and springy beneath his boots, not all that different from the woods behind the house in Saint Augustine where he’d grown up, just a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. But where he’d come from he’d hear waves breaking against the sand, seagulls crying overhead. Here, the night was filled with the deep-throated bass of frogs, and a hissing noise that could have been either insects or cranky reptiles warning him to get out of their territory.

Keeping an eye out for panthers and gators and whatever else thrived in this foreign but starkly beautiful section of Collier County, he continued forward. When he rounded the clump of bushes where he’d seen the reflection, he discovered what he’d both expected and dreaded to find—a car, its dented roof, crumpled hood and crushed front bumper broadcasting the wild ride its driver had endured before the car slammed against an unforgiving tree.

The paint was scratched all to hell, but there was no mistaking the color or the make and model—a maroon Ford Taurus. A glance at the license plate confirmed it was Gillette’s. The day he’d gone missing, it had been raining off and on for hours, which explained the dried mud caked on the half-buried tires. The ground must have been like wet cement when he’d crashed his car in here.

Fully expecting to see a body slumped over the wheel, Jake moved to the driver’s door. But when he shined his light inside, he didn’t see Calvin Gillette or anyone else. The car was empty. The now-deflated air bags must have saved the driver’s life. If there’d been any footprints on the ground beside the car, they’d been scrubbed away by the rain and encroaching swamp before the heat of the past few days had wrestled the water back to its normal boundaries. So where was the driver? Had he gone looking for help and got lost?

He shoved his pistol into the holster on his belt to free his hands. In lieu of the gloves he’d have had if he were on active duty as a police officer, he yanked his shirt out of the waistband of his jeans. Keeping the cloth over his fingers, he opened the driver’s door and grabbed the keys from the ignition. A moment later he popped the trunk. Except for a useless flat tire and some crumpled beer cans, it was empty.

Time to get the local police out here. He pulled out his cell phone as he peered through the driver’s-side window, hoping to see some receipts or a map, anything to indicate where Gillette was headed before the crash.

Bam! The window exploded in a tinkling rain of glass. Jake dropped to the ground. A second bullet slammed into the door.

He cursed and scrambled around the front of the car, taking cover behind the wheel. He drew his gun again, aiming at the dark scrub brush and live oak trees where he’d seen the muzzle flash from the second shot. The moonlight cast deep shadows across the clearing, but he didn’t try to grab his flashlight that had fallen on the ground. He wanted to draw the shooter out, but not by giving him a well-lit target.

“Police!” he yelled. “I can see you hiding behind that bush. Come out, hands up, or I’ll shoot.” He waited, crouched down, both hands gripping the gun. No sound. No movement. Half a minute went by.

Time to give his prey some incentive.

He aimed his pistol well above where the gunman had to be hiding and squeezed off a shot. It boomed through the clearing, hitting a small tree branch, sending a shower of leaves down to the forest floor.

“The next shot will be lower. And there are sixteen more rounds where that one came from.”

Silence. Even the croaking frogs and hissing insects had gone quiet.

“Threatening to shoot me is a lousy way of thanking me,” a voice called out, a distinctly feminine voice with a velvety Southern accent that had Jake raising his brows in surprise.

Had he stumbled across a beauty pageant queen in these woods? Or a debutante? He could easily picture the owner of that silky voice wearing a floor-length gown, sitting on a wraparound porch in the Carolinas, sipping a mint julep.

When the woman stepped out from behind the bushes, reality sucked the air from Jake’s lungs. If there was such a thing as an anti-Southern belle, this astonishing creature was the physical embodiment of it.

Her curve-hugging blouse was Pepto-Bismol pink and was tucked into an equally pink collection of veils, or scarves, forming a semblance of a skirt that hung past her knees. Below the skirt was the only part of her outfit that wasn’t pink—a pair of green camouflage combat boots. She was probably somewhere in her mid-twenties, and at least a foot shorter than Jake. Her waterfall of blond curls hung to her hips, sparkling like burnished gold in the moonlight filtering through the trees. A stray warm breeze lifted one of the gold locks and fluttered it against the muzzle of her rifle, which was pointed up at the dark sky overhead.

Jake pocketed his cell phone that had fallen by the tire before grabbing his flashlight and shining it on her. If she hadn’t just tried to shoot him, he’d have been hard-pressed not to smile at the utterly adorable picture she presented.

He forced himself to focus on the fact that she’d just shot at him. Twice. She was dangerous, at least while she was holding that rifle.

“Toss the weapon,” he ordered.

“That’s not a good idea. There are all kinds of dangers in these woods, especially at night.”

“Now.”

She let out a dramatic sigh and pitched the rifle onto the ground.

“Kick it away from you.”

“Seriously? Do you know how expensive that gun is?”

He didn’t bother to respond to that ridiculous statement.

She pursed her lips, not at all happy about his dictate. But she must have realized she didn’t have a choice because she gave the gun a healthy kick. It slid across the pine needle-strewn forest floor and slammed against the car’s rear tire.

Jake hopped to his feet and quickly closed the distance between them. “Who are you? Why did you shoot at me?”

She squinted and waved toward his flashlight. “Mind pointing that thing somewhere else?”

He relented and turned it just enough so it wasn’t directly on her face.

She cocked her head, studying him. Her emerald green eyes were startlingly similar to the panther’s eyes he’d seen reflected in his car’s headlights earlier. Her outfit reminded him of the carnival gypsies he’d seen at local fairs, except for all the pink. Anyone else might have looked ridiculous in the flamboyant clothes. But, somehow, on her they looked...enchanting. If he’d seen her in a bar he’d be begging for her number and hoping to wind up sharing breakfast with her the next morning.

“Who are you?” he repeated, lowering his weapon. The little sprite certainly wasn’t a threat to a man his size.

She braced her hands on her hips and tilted her head back to meet his gaze. “A local, which you obviously are not.”

“That syrupy accent of yours doesn’t make you sound like a local, either.” He cocked his head, mirroring the same look she’d just given him. “But what makes you think I’m not a local?”

She snorted in a completely unladylike manner. It was hard for Jake not to grin and to maintain his serious look.

“Oh, please,” she said. “You’re oblivious to the dangers around here. You might as well wear a neon sign that says ‘city slicker.’”

Her delightful accent was as intoxicating as her curvy figure. His fingers itched to slide around her tiny waist and pull her against him just to see how the two of them would fit. He gave himself a mental shake. Now was not the time to let his attention wander. He needed to focus. Finding this woman near Gillette’s car couldn’t be a coincidence. She must know something about what had happened. Maybe she’d even been a passenger in his car. That thought had Jake glancing around the clearing, his shoulders tensing. Was Gillette hiding in the trees, watching?

“Were you in that car when it crashed?” he asked. “Do you know the driver?”

She smiled as if she had a secret. “You said you were a cop. Show me your badge.”

“My name is Jake Young. I don’t have a badge because I’m not—”

She whirled around, kicking his feet out from under him so fast that he didn’t have time to react. He landed on his backside, blinking up at the dark sky in shock. His flashlight rolled a few feet away, shining its light in a crazy arc. Before he could move, the little firebrand was on top of him holding the tip of a very large knife to his throat.

The last time anyone had gotten the drop on him had been...well, never. When the knife pricked his skin, his earlier amusement and distraction vanished in a flood of adrenaline and anger.

The hell with this.

He knocked the knife to the ground and rolled over in one swift movement, trapping her beneath him. Shackling both her wrists in one of his hands, he forced her arms above her head, using his body to pin her to the ground. But as soon as he felt her soft curves pressed to his and breathed in the flowery, feminine scent of her, he knew he’d made a tactical mistake. Especially when the breeze blew one of her silky curls against his face. She wasn’t the one who was trapped. He was, trapped in a sensual hell of his own making. He silently cursed himself a dozen ways to Sunday.

She just tried to shoot you. She’s not your potential next girlfriend. Get a grip.

“Let’s start the introductions over,” he growled, more angry with himself than her. “I’m Jake Young, from Lassiter and Young Private Investigations. And what I was trying to say earlier is that I don’t have a badge with me because I’m on leave from my police detective job in Saint Augustine. I don’t have jurisdiction around here. But that doesn’t change who you are—the woman who’s about to be arrested for attempted murder when I call the Collier County Sheriff’s Office.”

Her soft pink lips curved in an amused smile. “Oh, you think so, huh?”

“I know so.”

In answer, she wiggled beneath him and tugged her arms, trying to free them.

A cold sweat broke out on his brow at his body’s instant, unwelcome response to her sensual movements. He swore and shifted his weight, hoping she wouldn’t notice her effect on him.

“Who are you?” he repeated between clenched teeth.

“Let me go and I’ll tell you.”

“So you can shoot at me again, or kick my feet out from under me, or stab me? I don’t think so.”

She huffed out a breath. “You’re looking at this all wrong. I didn’t shoot at you. And the only reason I knocked you down and pulled my knife was because I thought that you’d tricked me when you yelled ‘police’ and then said you didn’t have a badge. What’s a girl to think? I’m vulnerable, in a secluded area, with a stranger I believed was pretending to be a police officer. I have a right, a duty, to do whatever I can to protect myself.”

He laughed without humor. “It’s a little late to pull the helpless female act. Now that’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.”

She beamed up at him as if he’d given her a compliment.

“Your name,” he demanded.

“Like it really matters. My name is Faye Star.”

Faye Star? He let the name sink in as he studied her more closely. “Miss or Mrs.?”

Her sinfully luscious lips curved in a suggestive smile. But her eyes were like a road sign flashing a warning, danger ahead.

“For you, it’s definitely Miss,” she purred.

He ruthlessly tamped down the inappropriate tingle of awareness that shot straight to his groin.

“Miss Star, for the last time, why did you try to shoot me?”

Her brows drew down as if he’d insulted her. “If I was trying to shoot you, you’d be dead right now. Like I said, I wasn’t aiming at you.”

“Right. How stupid of me to think you were aiming at me since you shot out the window and hit the side of the car where I was standing just seconds before.”

“I shot exactly what I wanted to shoot.”

“The car?” He didn’t bother to mask the sarcasm in his tone.

“No, silly. The snake.” She rolled her head to the side, angling her chin in an effort to point. “Over there.”

He followed the direction she’d indicated. Lying under the driver’s door of the car was the longest, fattest snake Jake had ever seen. Its head had been blown clean off. And its enormous body was sliced in half.

The breath hitched in his throat. He blinked in shock, again.

“That’s a boa constrictor,” she said, “in case you don’t recognize it. It’s not native to these parts but there are plenty of the buggers around. People dump them in the swamp after their harmless pets grow too big and eat the family dog. It was hanging on a branch above the car and dropped down when you were looking through the window. I saved your life. This is the part where you’re supposed to apologize. And let go of my wrists. And get off me.”

He shook his head, grudgingly admiring her skill with a gun. He’d have been hard-pressed to make those two shots himself if the snake really had been falling as she’d said. He climbed to his feet, pulling her up with him.

“You could have shouted a warning instead of almost shooting me.”

“I told you, I always—”

“Hit what you aim at, yeah, got it. You still could have missed.”

Her eyes flashed green fire.

“I’m going to release you,” he said. “But be warned. If you go for your knife it won’t end well.”

She glanced longingly at the thick, six-inch blade lying on the ground a few feet away. Where she’d hidden the thing he didn’t even want to know.

She shrugged. “I’ll get it later.”

“Don’t count on it.” He let go of her wrists.

She frowned and tossed her long mane of hair out of her way, before crossing her arms beneath her generous breasts. “What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“Investigating the disappearance of the man who owns that car. And I’m the one asking questions. What are you doing out here? Since I don’t see any cuts or bruises, I’m going to assume you weren’t in that car when it crashed. But I didn’t notice any other vehicles parked beside the highway, either.”

“I live around here.”

“For some reason that doesn’t even surprise me. Where? In a tree house?”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “As a matter of fact, no.” She fluttered her fingers over her shoulder, the moonlight glinting on the half-dozen rings she wore. “A few miles that way.”

“Uh-huh. And you just happened to be wandering through the Everglades at ten o’clock at night.”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk.”

At his skeptical look she added, “A long walk.”

“Of course you did.” He retrieved his gun from where it had fallen when she’d kicked his legs out from under him and pulled his cell phone out again.

“What are you doing?” Her voice sharpened as if in alarm.

He gave her a curious glance. “Calling the police. Is that a problem?” He shoved his gun in the holster at his waist.

“It is if you’re trying to have me arrested. I told you I wasn’t shooting at you.”

“Call me an idiot, but I believe you about that. I’m calling to report that I found Calvin Gillette’s car. They’ll need to process the scene and get some men out here to search for the driver.”

Some kind of emotion flickered across her face, so quickly he couldn’t identify it. Anger? Fear? Or something else?

“Did you see the man who drove that car?” he asked again.

A low rumble sounded from the direction of the bushes where Faye had emerged a few moments earlier.

Jake yanked out his gun and shoved Faye behind his back as he whirled around. Was the panther still out here, stalking them? Or was that more of a curse than a growl? Was Gillette hiding in the trees, armed, ready to make sure Jake didn’t make that call?

A full minute passed in silence. No more growls or curses. No rustling of leaves to indicate anything, or anyone, was there. He cautiously straightened and turned back to Faye.

She was gone.

So were her knife and her rifle.

Damn it.

He clenched his hand around his pistol. The one potential witness to whatever had happened to Calvin Gillette had just disappeared. She’d probably orchestrated that growl to distract him. Maybe she was a ventriloquist and a gypsy fairy all rolled into one.

The growl sounded again, closer, vibrating with malevolence.

Jake sprinted to the car, yanked the door open and jumped inside.

Chapter Two

After notifying the Collier County Sheriff’s Office about finding Gillette’s car, Jake was told there weren’t any available units to respond yet and that he should sit tight and guard the scene. He waited, sitting in Gillette’s car, watching the woods in case the anticipated panther showed up. But the cat never appeared. Neither did the police. Had he known it would have taken all night, he would have gone home and gotten a much better night’s rest than he had in the car—panther or no panther.

While waiting for the police, Jake had given in to the urge to search the car, carefully using his shirt as a glove. But he’d found nothing. He’d also called his client to update him on his progress.

By the time the police arrived and managed to cut through the chain link and get their teams into the clearing, the sun had been up for over three hours.

Jake shifted his weight against the pine tree behind him. The police wouldn’t let him accompany them as they searched the woods for Gillette, so he was stuck here waiting, and watching the crime scene techs process the scene. But the hurried manner in which they were working had him clenching his jaw so tightly his teeth ached.

“Something bothering you, Mr. Young?” Scott Holder, the Collier County deputy in charge of the scene, said as he stopped beside him.

“It just seems as if your men are in an awful hurry.”

Holder crossed his arms. “You’re not from around here are you?”

Really? This again? Jake was tempted to check whether he was wearing a sign around his neck that said “Outsider.” He shook his head. “No, I’m not from around here, not originally. I just moved from Saint Augustine a couple of months ago. Why?”

“If you knew this area, you’d understand how to interpret the signs.”

So they were back to signs again. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, if you look at the branches that were broken along the path the car took to get in here, you’d see they’re turning brown. They aren’t freshly broken. This crash happened several days ago, probably the same day the driver went missing.”

He seemed to be waiting for Jake to say something. “I understand what you’re saying, but what’s that got to do with processing the scene?”

Holder smiled the kind of tolerant smile one would give a toddler. “Any clues outside the car that could have helped us figure out where the driver went have been washed away in the heavy rains we’ve had. So there isn’t much point in spending hours and hours scouring the mud. As for the car’s interior, we’ll process that back at the station. But I haven’t seen anything that will help with the investigation. Where Gillette disappeared to is just as much a mystery now as it was when his friend reported him missing.”

Jake still didn’t agree with going so fast when processing a scene. But he bit back any further comments. He couldn’t afford to make enemies of local law enforcement. His long-distance business partner, Dex Lassiter, wouldn’t appreciate it if Jake’s first big case in their joint venture damaged their chances of cooperation from the police on future cases.

Holder crossed his arms and braced his legs apart as he watched his men combing the ground beside the car for clues. “We looked for Gillette that first day and couldn’t find head nor tail of him. And I certainly never expected he could have crashed out here without triggering the cable warning system. What led you to this location?”

“Incentive.”

Holder raised a brow in question.

Jake smiled reluctantly. “I need to pay my rent, on both my apartment and my new business. The man who hired me to find Gillette is my first well-paying client. So, I’ve been busting my hump to figure out what happened. I interviewed dozens of people in Naples near his home and figured out that he’d driven down Alligator Alley the morning he disappeared. I became a pest at the rest areas asking commuters if they’d seen a maroon Ford Taurus the day he went missing. A handful of them thought they may have seen his car. I was able to narrow it down to a five-mile section of highway.”

Holder had the grace to flush a light red. “Reckon we could have done the same, but our resources are limited with a heavy caseload. And it never occurred to me that he could have crashed his car out here without triggering the cable system.”

Jake didn’t bother to remind him that it had happened once before. He sympathized with Holder’s position. He knew all about budgets and manpower and prioritizing cases.

“I don’t remember you telling me the name of the client who hired you,” Holder said.

“That’s because I didn’t.” And he didn’t intend to. Quinn had been very specific about that. He didn’t want to risk a leak that could spook Gillette if he somehow heard that the FBI was actively looking for him.

Holder’s mouth tightened but he didn’t press the issue.

Half an hour later, the CSI team finished its work, and the tow truck driver began the laborious job of winching the car out of the woods using the long cable attached to his truck parked on the shoulder of the highway.

Jake accompanied Deputy Holder to firmer ground and they both watched from beside Jake’s Charger as the Taurus was hauled up the slope. Less than an hour later, the deputies who’d been searching the woods for Gillette emerged from the trees and climbed up on the shoulder to confer with Holder. Jake figured they’d found something, or were requesting more equipment. Instead, Holder clapped a few of them on the back and signaled to the DOT crew waiting by the fence. The workers immediately rolled the chain link into place and began refastening it to the poles.

“What’s going on?” Jake asked.

Holder turned to him. “The search is over. They didn’t find a trail, nothing to indicate where Gillette might have gone. They went all the way back to the marsh. We’ll do some flyovers in a helicopter, put out the word on the news, but there’s nothing else we can do here.”

Frustration had Jake’s hands tightening into fists at his sides. Gillette was a seedy character who lived under the radar, taking odd jobs for cash. And he was rumored to be a petty thief in addition to the background Quinn had supplied. But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t get the same attention a more affluent or socially prominent person would receive in the same situation.

“I don’t understand,” Jake said, trying again. “You know he has to be around here somewhere. He couldn’t have just vanished.”

“If I thought there was any chance he was still alive, or that we could locate his body, I’d throw everything I had at him. But I don’t, and none of my men do either.”

Jake tamped down his anger. He didn’t know this area, its dangers. Maybe Holder was right, even though everything about this felt wrong.

“Then what do you think happened to him?” Jake asked.

“The same thing that happens to anyone lost out here this long—gators, snakes, other wild animals. More than likely his remains will never be found. We had a DC-9 crash into the Everglades just west of Miami years ago. Barely left a trace to show it had ever existed. You have to respect the environment around here and understand how it all works if you’re going to thrive or survive.”

There was no mistaking the hard glint in Holder’s eyes, or his harsh undertone. The double meaning behind his words was clear. Jake needed to respect the Collier County Sheriff’s Office if his business was going to thrive. Jake gave the deputy a curt nod, letting him know he got the message.

The remaining emergency vehicles and DOT truck headed out, leaving Jake and Holder alone on the shoulder beside their cars. What little traffic had backed up at this noonday hour was quickly getting back to normal.

“Did your team find anything useful that would at least explain why Gillette was driving east down Alligator Alley?” Jake asked.

“Not yet. My guys will process the evidence back in Naples, search his apartment again and interview a few more people. I’ll also have some officers canvass the rest stops and recreational areas on I-75 for potential witnesses. If we find anything, I’ll give you a call.”

“What about the potential witness I already told you about, Faye Star? Are you going to interview her?” At Holder’s exasperated look, Jake said, “I know you think Gillette’s dead, but until I know for sure, I have to keep investigating. I think she might know something, or she saw something.”

Holder let out a deep sigh. “Faye Star? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of her. Did she give you an address?”

“Only a vague direction. She wasn’t exactly cooperative. She waved her hand southwest and said she lived a few miles ‘that way,’” Jake said. “Without a car she can’t live far from here. She certainly didn’t walk all the way from Naples. Are there any towns nearby?”

“Not really.” He rubbed his jaw, looking hesitant. “I suppose you could try Mystic Glades.”

Jake pulled out his cell phone and opened up a map on his screen. He typed in the name of the town, but nothing came up. “I’m not finding it. Mystic Glades you said?”

“You won’t find it on any map. It’s unincorporated, not even a real town. It’s more like a collection of houses and a few businesses that just kind of popped up in the middle of the swamp. It was created using leftover buildings that housed construction workers when Alligator Alley was being built decades ago.”

“Is it back toward Naples or the other way?”

“Other way. About ten miles east, around mile marker eighty-four.”

“Ten miles? I don’t think Miss Star would have hoofed it back that far at night in an area this dangerous.”

Holder shrugged. “There’s nothing else around here that I know of, although I suppose it’s possible. You said she was uncooperative, didn’t want to talk to you. Well, maybe she had an ATV. She could have pushed it until she was far enough away that you wouldn’t hear the engine when she turned it on.”

“Maybe so. But I’m still not sure where this Mystic Glades is located. I’ve been up and down this highway since yesterday morning. I don’t remember a town close by, even an unincorporated one.”

“It’s a bit back from the road, sheltered in one of those tree islands in the saw grass marsh, right where it starts to get really wet and the cypress trees begin. There’s a road, of sorts, leading off Alligator Alley to the town. Or so I hear.” He fished his keys out of his pocket, seeming anxious to leave.

“What do you mean, ‘so I hear’? You’ve never been there?”

“Nope. Got no reason to. I’ll call you if we find anything on Gillette.” He hurried to his car before Jake could ask him any more questions. If Jake didn’t know better, he’d think the idea of going to Mystic Glades had Holder...scared. But that didn’t make sense.

The deputy’s tires kicked up dirt on the side of the road as he took off. He headed down the highway to make the turn toward Naples, leaving Jake alone, just like last night—minus Gillette’s car. And minus the mysterious woman calling herself Faye Star.

He shook his head, thoroughly confused and aggravated over Holder’s lack of interest in helping him. But searching the woods where Gillette’s car was found, when the experts deemed it too dangerous, wasn’t an option Jake wanted to pursue on his own. However, finding Faye Star was like a godsend, a bonus. He’d bet money that she knew more about the crash than she’d told him. And she just might be able to lead him to Gillette, assuming Gillette was still alive. Jake sure hoped so. He was acting as a pseudo-bounty hunter on this case. And if he couldn’t produce Gillette, his fee would be cut in half.

A few minutes later he was driving toward mile marker eighty-four, searching for a road to a town that wasn’t even a real town.

The traffic was light, but Jake still kept an eye out for other cars and trucks. Alligator Alley was notorious for accidents. The eastern portion in Broward County was hemmed in by acres of saw grass that lured drivers into boredom and inattention. This western portion was just as monotonous, with its endless miles of pines bordering the highway, hiding the beauty of the marsh, canals and tree islands behind them.

But the deadliest ingredient to the crashes was the high speeds. Jake didn’t want to become a statistic because some driver hitting the hundred-mile-per-hour mark didn’t realize how slow Jake was going until they were on his bumper. For that reason, he pulled to the shoulder whenever he saw a fast-moving car coming up from the rear.

It took two passes and a full hour before he found the entrance to the nearly hidden road. It was where Holder had said, but so hidden he’d never have found it without specifically looking for it. And even though he was heading east, he had to make a sharp 180-degree turn right after a guardrail and drive parallel to the highway on a steep incline beside the wildlife fence to follow the road. It would have been the perfect spot for a speed trap, because no one up on the highway could see it down here.

When he reached a canal that ran beneath I-75, the dirt road turned the opposite way, directly toward the wildlife fence. As he neared the fence, it slid open to allow his car through. It must have had an electric sensor. But since it was right by the area where wildlife was funneled beneath the highway, it was unlikely any of the critters would have a reason to go near this section of the fence. The design of this little road seemed genius—almost completely hidden but still maintaining the integrity of the protective fences to keep drivers on the highway safe from wild animals running across the road.

About eight miles later he’d driven through several groves of oaks and pines, through a small raised section of road surrounded by saw grass, and then back into a thick tree island with bogs and marsh on both sides of the road. But he still hadn’t located the illusive town. And for some reason the GPS map in his car was going nuts, its directional arrows blinking off and on. One moment it appeared he was traveling south, the next moment the GPS said he was going north. The crazy thing was completely useless. He tried punching up a map on his cell phone but there were no bars, no connection. He cursed and shoved it back in his pocket.

He was debating performing a three-point turn to head back to the highway when a black blur ran across the road in front of him. He skidded sideways, narrowly missing a panther—just like last night—and barely managing to keep his car from sliding into the marsh.

The wild cat bounded into the woods on the south side of the road, or at least, the direction Jake thought was south. Apparently the endangered panthers weren’t quite as rare as they were alleged to be in this area. Either that, or the same animal was stalking him.

He shook his head at that fanciful thought and straightened his car out. He decided to give it a few more minutes before giving up and turning around, so he started forward again. He rounded a curve and slammed his brakes. The Charger shuddered to a stop. Ahead of him, a small, faded wooden sign shaped like an alligator declared the scattering of wooden buildings barely visible through the trees behind it as Mystic Glades.

But he didn’t need the sign to tell him he’d arrived at his destination. Just like last night, a little pixie was standing there staring at him. She was in the middle of the road, in a breast-hugging lavender top, her lavender skirts flirting with the tops of her mud-caked combat boots.

And just like last night, she was pointing a rifle at him.

Chapter Three

Faye couldn’t believe her dumb luck and incredibly bad timing as she aimed the rifle at the grille of the black Dodge Charger. With the sun peeking through the trees behind her, she couldn’t see the driver through the glare on the windshield. But she didn’t need to. She’d seen that same car parked on the highway last night as she’d pushed Buddy’s ATV along the edge of the trees. She knew exactly who it belonged to—the incredibly hot, but potentially dangerous cop playing at private investigator, Jake Young.

Pointing a gun at him wasn’t the smartest decision she could have made. But as soon as she’d seen him rounding the curve she’d panicked. She’d tossed her purple backpack behind a tree and brought her rifle up. Now she had no choice but to “bravado” her way through this second meeting, and hope it was their last.

The engine cut off and the driver’s door opened.

“You might as well crank that engine and go back where you came from.” She tightened her fingers around the gun’s stock. “This is private property.”

“You own the whole town?” he quipped as he stood.

It took her several seconds to remember what they were talking about after she saw those broad shoulders again and those yummy muscular arms, that rock-hard-looking chest tapering to his narrow, powerful hips. Yum. Everything about him, from his dark, wavy hair to the boots he was sensible enough to wear out here, had her fighting not to drool. But now wasn’t the right time for those kinds of thoughts. And without knowing why he was trying to find Calvin, it was too dangerous for her to even consider being his friend, much less anything more intimate.

What a shame.

She cleared her throat and hoped she hadn’t stared long enough for him to realize what she’d been thinking.

“We’re all family here in town, more or less,” she said. “I speak for everyone when I tell you that you’re not welcome.” Unfortunately.

“I just want to talk. I need to ask you about Calvin Gillette.” He stepped out from behind the open door.

Faye almost whimpered. In the daylight, he looked even better than he had last night. Too bad she had to make him leave.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she said, trying to think of how to make him want to go. She debated shooting the car’s radiator. But that would just disable it and give him an excuse to continue into town. And she really couldn’t stomach shooting such a fine car. It was exactly the kind of car she’d have chosen if she could afford one, and if she had a driver’s license. All shiny, glossy black with an engine that rumbled and purred like a well-fed cat.

“Now, why don’t I believe you?” he said.

“Not my problem.”

His boots crunched on the dirt-and-gravel road. She swung her rifle, following his progress.

“Stop right there,” she ordered.

He continued as if he didn’t think she’d really shoot.

Would she? Not normally. But desperate times...

She brought the rifle up to her shoulder and centered a bead on his chest.

He stopped about ten feet away, his eyes narrowing. “How about pointing that thing somewhere else before one of us gets hurt.”

“It’s pointed right where I want it. I’m going to start counting. If you don’t turn around and get back in your car by the time I reach five—”

He charged forward.

She was so surprised, she froze. He was almost on top of her before she swung the rifle a bit to the left and pulled the trigger, hoping to scare him into stopping.

Bam! The rifle cracked, barely missing him, just as she’d planned. But instead of stopping, he lunged forward and wrenched the gun out of her hands. He tossed it away and glared down at her, his dark eyes smoldering with fury.

“Give me one reason not to call the police to arrest you for shooting at me. Again,” he demanded.

She craned her neck back to meet his gaze. “Because your cell phone probably won’t work out here anyway?”

His eyes narrowed to a dangerous slit.

“Okay, okay.” She held her hands up in a placating gesture. “Don’t get so worked up. I wasn’t shooting at you. I missed on purpose.”

The skin across his jaw whitened beneath his tan. Obviously the man had no sense of humor and took things far too seriously.

“You’re one of those ill-tempered Aries, aren’t you?” she accused.

“Sagittarius,” he snapped. “And just how is that relevant to you shooting at me?”

His declaration that he was a Sagittarius surprised some of the sting out of his insult that she’d ever miss something she aimed at. She automatically reached for the chain around her neck, but stopped before pulling it out. “No reason. None at all.” She smoothed her hands down her skirts and tried to gauge his mood.

He took another step toward her, bringing them so close she could feel the delicious heat from his body. But her attraction to him was dwarfed by the formidable anger evident in every line in his body. He was as tense as a wound-up spring, ready to snap. And she was, unfortunately, the object of that anger.

If he were anyone else, she’d sweep his legs out from under him and go for her knife hidden in one of the many secret pockets in her skirt. But she realized two things at once. First, he didn’t seem like the kind of man to fall for the same trick twice. And second, if she didn’t hightail it out of here, right now, she might be in real trouble.

As if sensing she was about to flee, he grabbed for her. She ducked beneath his arms, taking advantage of their difference in height. She ran as if a whole nest of hungry gators was after her.

He shouted some impressively colorful phrases and took off in pursuit, his boots pounding against the hard ground, his long strides rapidly eating up the distance between them. But she figured she had the advantage. He might be spitting mad, but she firmly believed her very survival was at stake, which made her feet fairly fly.

There was only one place of refuge with him so close: his car. She skidded around the open driver’s door and jumped inside. She slammed it shut and punched the electric lock just as he reached her and yanked on the handle.

He leaned down, silently promising retribution as he glared at her through the window.

“Open. The. Door.” His deep voice vibrated with anger, pounding through her skin like a hammer against a nail.

She shook her head, her long hair flying around her face. “Not a good idea.”

“Now.”

Did he think making his voice sound as if he wanted to tear her apart with his bare hands would make her more inclined to remove the only barrier between them? That was the problem with a Sagittarius—too unwilling and impatient to slow down and look beneath the surface to all the subtleties of a situation before jumping into action. Then again, sex with a Sagittarius lover, especially with a Libra—like her—could be explosive and make that overbearing nature superhot.

Counting on the fated attraction between their astrological signs to help her out, she aimed her most seductive smile at him.

If anything, his glare got worse. Oh, dear.

“Open the door, Miss Star.”

“Not until you calm down.” She added a contrite smile this time. But since being contrite wasn’t in her nature, she wasn’t sure she’d succeeded.

He stared at her for a good long while, as if he was considering all the different ways he could torture her before he killed her. Then he shoved his right hand into his jeans pocket. When he pulled his hand out, he dangled something in the air for her to see.

Keys.

Shoot. She hadn’t even thought about starting the car or she’d have realized the keys weren’t in the ignition. She tightened her fingers on the steering wheel, desperately considering her options. Jake Young didn’t know her connection to Calvin or he’d have used her legal name instead of “Star.” Which meant, he probably wasn’t the man Calvin had called her about when he’d taken that disastrous, ill-fated trip down Alligator Alley on his way to Mystic Glades.

But if Jake wasn’t someone from her and Calvin’s past trying to find them, who was he working for? Had Calvin gotten into “new” trouble in Naples? Was that why someone was after him this time? It certainly was preferable to the alternative, and might mean that Jake wasn’t a threat to her. Well, except for the part where he wanted to find Calvin, and she wasn’t about to help him do that. And the part where she’d shot a gun around him several times now, and the stubborn man refused to understand she wasn’t shooting at him.

Sunlight flashed off the keys in Jake’s hand as he shook them out, making them jangle as if he were a prison guard about to take an inmate out for his last walk before his execution. Or hers. His lips curved in a feral smile. He pointed to the small black rectangle on his key chain—an electronic key fob.

Faye’s breath hitched in her chest.

Jake poised his thumb over the unlock button.

She poised her finger over the lock button on the inside of the door.

They faced off like two duelers at dawn, trigger fingers cocked and loaded, each waiting for the other to flinch.

Click. The door unlocked.

Click. Faye locked it again just as he grabbed the door handle.

Click.

Click.

Click, click, click, click.

His eyes narrowed.

She licked her lips, focusing on that damn thumb of his on the key fob.

Click, thump. He managed to unlock the door and lift the handle a split second before she pressed her button again.

Game over.

She scrambled over the middle console, cursing when her left knee slammed against the gearshift, sending a sharp jolt of pain down her leg. She fell on the slippery leather of the passenger seat, fumbling for the opposite door handle. She pulled it and shoved the door open.

“Oh no, you don’t,” he growled.

She felt, rather than saw, him lean inside to grab her from the driver’s side. She pulled herself toward the opening and dived like a world champion. There was a tug against her waist, a ripping sound, and then she was free! She rolled out of the way a split second before he landed on the ground where she’d just been.

She was already splashing through the marsh, sprinting for the cover of trees, when she heard his bellow of rage behind her. It wasn’t until she’d entered the much cooler air beneath the pines and knotty cypress, and felt the rush of air against her thighs, that she realized what her narrow escape had cost.

Her skirt.

* * *

JAKE STARED AT the surprisingly heavy handful of soft purple fabric in his hand. He supposed he should feel guilty. But once he’d recovered from his anger that Faye was getting away, he’d been too busy enjoying the view of her toned, gorgeous backside adorned in a lacy purple thong to do more than sag against his car and enjoy the show.

He shook his head in disgust. How had everything gotten so out of hand? He retrieved the rifle the half-naked pixie had pointed at him earlier, unloaded it and pitched the shells in the back floorboard of his car. Then he carried both the gun and the fluff of material to the tree line where she’d disappeared.

Taking devilish delight in knowing she’d have to spend hours cleaning it to make the gun usable again, he shoved the barrel of the rifle into the muck beside the road. With the butt of the gun standing up in the air, he was about to drape the skirt over the top when something heavy banged against the rifle. He felt along the fabric and found a hidden pocket, a deep pocket that contained the wicked-looking knife she’d threatened him with last night.

The evil-looking blade winked in the sunlight as if it were laughing at him. He carefully ran the rest of the fabric through his hands. But although he found more hidden pockets, they were empty. He draped the ruined skirt over the end of the rifle and added the knife to the rifle rounds in his floorboard.

He got back in his car and headed toward Mystic Glades again. He was just passing the alligator-shaped sign when he spotted something purple off to his left beside a tree. He braked and got out, drawing his pistol in case Faye had somehow managed to get past him to the other side of the road and had another gun hidden...somewhere.

When he reached the tree he discovered it wasn’t Faye hiding there. It was a purple backpack that so perfectly matched the color of her outfit it had to be hers. He crouched down and rummaged inside, cataloging the contents: bottles of water, power bars, a towel, a first aid kit. Not the kind of supplies someone generally carried for a “walk.” It was exactly the kind of supplies she might have if she were trying to find someone who’d gotten lost in the wilderness after a car wreck.

* * *

FAYE HAD RUN a good long way before she’d reached firm, dry ground. After finding a relatively clean-looking log, she perched on it to wait. She didn’t know how long she sat there. But from watching the way the shadows moved, she figured it was at least an hour, long enough that Jake would have given up by now and gone back to Naples.

To be certain that he was gone, she’d have preferred to wait longer. But time was a luxury she didn’t have. She couldn’t afford to waste any daylight. Searching at night had proved far too dangerous, in more ways than one. So she wasn’t going to do that again. But how could she search for Calvin if Jake Young was hanging around?

The battery on Calvin’s phone had died yesterday while he was talking to her and he was hopelessly lost. He couldn’t even give her any landmarks to help her find him. After surviving that horrendous crash, he’d foolishly headed into the woods instead of to the highway. His excuse was that he was afraid he was being followed, and he didn’t want to risk being seen. But Faye wished he’d at least have waited until she got there. She could have found him that first night and she wouldn’t have backtracked last night to restart her search and run into Jake Young.

Her only comfort was that Calvin had packed supplies as she’d instructed—something she always encouraged anyone to do before venturing into the Everglades—and he had the basics he needed to survive. Well, assuming he didn’t step on an alligator, of course. Or get bitten by a snake. Hopefully he’d heard enough of her own ventures in the ’Glades to know what to look out for. But no amount of book smarts could trump experience.

The sun was high in the sky now, about midday. She couldn’t wait any longer, especially since she didn’t have any weapons to protect herself out here. She was breaking all her own rules by being in the marsh without survival gear.

After a careful look around for predators, she jogged back toward the road. When she finally reached the archway over the entrance to Mystic Glades, she was relieved that the black Charger was gone. But discovering her ruined skirt fluttering in the breeze on top of her upside-down rifle, its nose shoved deep in the bog, had her cursing long and hard. If Jake were here right now she’d lob her knife, end over end, to bury itself in the dirt at his feet just for the pleasure of making him jump.

Wait, her knife. It had been in the skirt. She grabbed the fabric and groaned. It was far too light, which meant Jake had found—and taken—her knife. That was one more sin she could add to her growing list of grievances against the man, Sagittarius or not.

She tied the ragged edges of her skirt around her waist. It was a disaster, but at least it covered her bottom. It took three tugs of the rifle before the mud released it with a big sucking sound, making Faye stumble backward and reigniting her anger.

A car rumbled up the road. Was Jake returning already? She rushed behind the nearest tree. The car came around the last curve and she relaxed. Not Jake. It was Freddie, probably with cases of moonshine in her trunk to stock up before Callahan’s Watering Hole opened for business later tonight. Four more cars passed to and from Mystic Glades. Practically a rush hour for the amount of traffic that normally went up and down this road.

Most of the locals relied on swamp buggies for transportation and headed through the saw grass marsh behind town to barter and trade goods with others who lived the nomadic lifestyle. But it was occasionally necessary to make the long drive down Alligator Alley to bring back more substantial supplies, to exchange mail or even to go to a traditional job. Some of the town’s inhabitants worked on the Gulf Coast in Naples. Others worked for the DOT, keeping the wildlife fencing and roads in good repair. Still others worked at the rest stops along I-75.

Faye did none of those things. She lived above the little shop she ran, The Moon and Star. Thankfully, with the orders she received from her catalog, she made enough money to pay Amy to help her part-time. Amy was at the shop right now. Faye didn’t want to open herself up to questions about her state of undress. But she didn’t have a choice.

She hadn’t had a reason to bring her keys with her this morning, which meant she couldn’t go in through the back door. She’d just have to keep to the trees so no one would see her until she reached the store. Then she could duck inside, make up some kind of story to placate Amy, and go upstairs to shower and change. After that, she could start another search. But first she needed to retrieve the backpack she’d hidden before Jake Young drove up.

After making sure no more cars were coming in or out of town, she raced to the other side of the road. She reached for her backpack. It wasn’t there. She frowned. This was where she’d tossed it, wasn’t it? She turned in a slow circle but didn’t see the flash of purple anywhere. Instead, she saw muddy boot prints. She hadn’t misplaced her backpack.

Jake Young took it.

Cold dread snaked up her spine. Did he understand the significance of what she’d had in that pack? He might be a greenhorn but he didn’t strike her as dumb. After finding her at the crash site last night, and seeing the supplies she had in her pack, he had to have connected the dots. He had to know she’d lied and that she was trying to find Calvin.

She pressed a shaky hand to her stomach. Okay, no reason to panic. Not yet. Think this through. All she knew for sure was that a private investigator was trying to find Calvin. But he hadn’t mentioned anything about finding her. If someone from Tuscaloosa had hired him, they’d have wanted both her and Calvin, wouldn’t they? But Jake hadn’t tried to grab her...or kill her. Which meant he didn’t know about her connection with Calvin, and he wasn’t sent by any of Genovese’s associates.

So far, so good. That had to mean that whoever had hired Jake was from Naples. The worst that could mean, unless Calvin had done something really bad he hadn’t admitted to since moving to this area, was that he’d skipped out on some debts. Maybe a finance company had hired Jake to deliver a summons to take him to court.

Okay, that would be bad, too. That would put Calvin in the public eye again, which would make it easy for their enemies to find him, and her. Shoot. No matter how she looked at this it was bad. There was only one thing left to do.

She looked at the archway over the entrance to Mystic Glades, sorrow heavy in her heart. This was her home, the only place that had ever felt like home. But from the moment she’d met Jake Young, this was no longer her sanctuary. It was no longer safe to stay, either for her or the people she loved. It was time to leave. Time to find a new place to hide.

Chapter Four

Jake balanced his ladder-back chair against the wall behind him in the office of The Moon and Star, listening to his slightly inebriated new friend, Freddie, regale him with stories about a certain little golden-haired pixie. Since his latest run-in with Faye, when she’d nearly shot him—again—Jake didn’t feel even a little guilty about the lies he’d told her friends. Both Freddie and Amy, the young girl taking care of customers out in the main part of the store, now believed Jake and Faye had dated in the past and that he was here to surprise her.

She’d be surprised all right, especially since his car was hidden behind the shop so she wouldn’t know he was here until it was too late for her to avoid him.

Freddie—which Jake assumed was short for Fredericka—licked a drop of whiskey off her shockingly red lips and held the bottle up to top off Jake’s already half-full shot glass.

He hurried to cover the glass with his hand. It was still too early for him to indulge in more than the few sips he’d taken to keep Freddie talking. And he needed to keep his wits about him for the inevitable confrontation coming up with Faye.

“Thanks, but I’ve had plenty.”

Freddie shook her gray-streaked, faded orange hair in bewilderment and topped off her glass with more of the amber liquid. “No such thing as plenty when it comes to quality refreshment.” She tossed the whiskey back in one swallow, her throat working and her eyes closing as she obviously enjoyed the burn. “Ain’t nothing like Hennessey, my friend,” she said when she opened her eyes. “I was saving that bottle for a special occasion. And this is definitely a special occasion, meetin’ Faye’s beau.”

That formerly nonexistent guilt started niggling at Jake’s conscience. He didn’t want to go overboard with his fabrications and disappoint Freddie once she found out the truth. Apparently, in the thirteen months that Faye had rented this store and upstairs apartment from Freddie, she’d never once dated. Which seemed to make Freddie all the more eager to bring the two of them “back together.”

“Now, Freddie,” Jake said, “I didn’t exactly say I was her beau. I just said we used to be special friends back in high school.”

For perhaps the dozenth time since she’d started tossing back shots, Freddie giggled. Jake didn’t think he could ever get used to hearing that particular sound coming from a husky, bear of a woman who looked as if she could arm-wrestle just about any man and win—including Jake.

“I know what ‘special friends’ means,” Freddie said, punctuating her statement with air quotes. “I had a few special friends back in my day. Why, when I wasn’t much younger than you must be now, I had a very special friend, Johnny Green.” She shook her head and finger-combed a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail. Her faded blue eyes took on a faraway look as she began to describe, in lurid detail, exactly what she and Johnny used to do that was so special.

After a decade as a cop and being in all kinds of crazy situations, there wasn’t much that could embarrass Jake. But he could feel his cheeks growing warm, listening to the graphic descriptions Freddie was using to describe things Jake really didn’t want to hear about. Especially from a woman old enough to be his grandmother. He was about to beg her to stop when the bell over the front door rang.

Saved by the bell. Thank God.

The low hum of feminine voices told Jake that Amy and Faye were talking to each other. Amy was supposed to tell Faye that Freddie was in the back and needed to see her. That little twinge of guilt reared its ugly head again. Amy couldn’t be a day more than eighteen and had been incredibly easy to fool with his lies. And here he was, corrupting her and getting her to lie, too.

There was probably a special place in hell waiting for him right now.

“Freddie, what are you doing back there?” Faye called out. “Is there a problem at the bar?”

“Nope, I’m just testing out my newest whiskey before I open tonight,” she yelled back. As if to prove her point, she tipped her glass and drained it.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.” Faye’s boots clomped on the hardwood floor as she approached the back room. “You wouldn’t believe the morning I’ve had so far. I tore my skirt, lost my knife, and my rifle is ruined. I had a run-in with a mean-tempered city slicker who doesn’t know his ass from an alligator. It took a lot longer than I expected to get rid of—”

When she reached the doorway, her feet stopped faster than the rest of her. She had to grab the door frame to keep from pitching forward. She was still dressed in her lavender top. And her torn skirts were hanging provocatively low on her hips, held in place by two veils tied together. Her ever-present rifle was in her right hand, pointing up at the ceiling. The fact that she wasn’t pointing it at Jake was probably only because she was too stunned to react. Or, more likely, she was worried it would backfire with all that dirt and mud crammed into the barrel, assuming she’d even managed to find more ammo after he’d unloaded it.

Not eager to test his theories around a trigger-happy woman like Faye, Jake dropped the front legs of his chair to the floor and grabbed the rifle out of her hand.

She blinked as if coming out of a daze and aimed a wounded look at her friend. “What is he doing here?”

“I think what you meant to ask,” Jake teased as he set the muddy rifle in the corner, well out of her reach, “is why is Freddie drinking with a mean-tempered city slicker?”

Faye flushed a light red.

Freddie slammed her shot glass down and twisted around in her chair, looking behind her. “What city slicker? I don’t cotton to none of them.”

Jake grinned. Winning Freddie to his side had been easy. Faye was proving to be a lot more challenging.

“I was just telling Freddie that I’m an old friend of yours,” he said.

Faye’s eyebrows shot up. “You are? I mean, you were? Telling Freddie that?”

He nodded. “I told her some of those old stories about our high school days in Mobile.”

She went a little green. She had no way of knowing that Freddie was the one who’d told him where she’d gone to high school and that Jake still knew precious little about her.

“I also told Freddie how we planned on going to the University of Florida together but you ended up going to Florida State University instead. Funny thing is, I guess I got that wrong. Freddie said you didn’t go to FSU.”

Her face went from green to sickly pale. She glanced at Freddie, obviously wondering exactly how much she’d told Jake. “Um, no, no, I didn’t. Freddie, can you give us a—”

“University of Alabama, wasn’t that it?” Freddie wiped a trickle of whiskey from her chin, smearing her makeup like a brown streak of mud. “That’s where you went to school, right? ’Cause that’s where you and Amber met.” Freddie smiled up at Jake. “Amber Callahan was my niece. She and Faye used to come here every summer between semesters. Seems like the whole town watched Faye growing up into the fine woman she’s become. She and Amber both graduated from UA.”

“Explains the accent.” Jake lifted his glass in salute. “Roll Tide, roll.” He downed his shot of whiskey in one quick swallow. The urge to cough and wheeze was overwhelming, making his eyes water. But he managed to cling to his dignity, just barely, and make it through the storm. Good grief the stuff was strong. He suspected the name on the bottle had nothing to do with the contents and prayed he wouldn’t go blind drinking what had to be a homemade brew. It certainly wasn’t Hennessey.

He cleared his throat and met Faye’s look of impending doom with a smug smile.

“Faye, Faye,” Amy yelled from the other room. “Sammie’s in trouble out front. CeeCee has him wrapped up tight and it doesn’t look like he has his alcohol with him.”

Faye whirled around and ran down the hallway toward the front of the store.

Jake cursed and ran after her. CeeCee? Alcohol? He couldn’t begin to imagine what he was about to see.

He caught a mind-numbing, lust-inducing view of Faye’s gorgeous derriere as she raced out the door, her short, ruined skirt lifting up behind her before the door shut in his face. He yanked it open in time to see her pulling on the silver chain that hung around her neck. She lifted it out of her shirt and there were three small pouches hanging from it. She unsnapped the red one and dropped to her knees.

Right beside a man with an enormous snake wrapped around his neck and chest.

Ah, hell. Jake grabbed his gun and dropped to his knees beside her and a small group of people who’d gathered around the man being squeezed to death by the snake.

“Someone find the snake’s head so I can shoot it without shooting this guy,” Jake ordered.

“No,” the man writhing in the street choked out. “No one kills CeeCee.”

Everyone looked at Jake as if he’d just threatened to shoot a baby, or kick a dog.

Faye spilled the powdery contents of the red pouch into her hand. “Bubba, there’s his head, against Sammie’s throat. Grab it, hold it.”

Two older men, probably both in their fifties, reached for the snake’s head at the same time.

“Not you,” Faye said, motioning to one of them. “The other Bubba.”

The stronger-looking of the two grabbed the snake’s head and forced it back away from Sammie.

“Hurry,” Sammie whispered.

Faye leaned toward the snake.

Jake grabbed her around the waist, holding her back.

“I’m not letting you near that thing,” he bit out. “It could kill you.”

She gave him a surprised look. “I know what I’m doing. Let me go before CeeCee squeezes so hard Sammie has a heart attack.”

He hesitated.

“Trust me,” she said. “At least with this.”

Since everyone was staring at him as if he were the devil, he reluctantly let her go.

She immediately slathered the red powder on the snake’s nostrils and head. “Okay, everybody jump back. Bubba, release CeeCee.”

Jake swung Faye up in his arms and backed away from the now violently twisting snake. Faye blinked up at him, confusion warring with some other emotion on her face.

“Catch him, Bubba,” Sammie yelled. “I need to wash him off or he’ll hurt himself.”

Faye and Jake looked back at the street, but everyone had scattered. They were all running toward the trees between two of the buildings, including the man who’d had the constrictor wrapped around him just seconds earlier.

“I guess Sammie is okay.” Faye laughed.

“This happens a lot around here?”

She grinned. “Often enough for me to always carry a pouch of snake repellant. I’ve told Sammie to keep some rubbing alcohol in his back pocket to use if CeeCee ever confuses him with food. It works almost as well as my repellant. But Sammie tends to forget.”

Jake carried her into the store. “Sounds to me like he needs to let his pet go before it kills him.”

“That pet is the only reason he gets up every day. It’s what he lives for now that his wife is gone. He’s all alone except for CeeCee.”

He grunted noncommittally and headed down the hall.

Faye stiffened as he neared the staircase that led to her apartment. “You can put me down now. I’m not in any danger, not that I needed you to rescue me in the first place.”

“You’re welcome,” he grumbled.

She rolled her eyes.

He started up the stairs.

Her eyes widened in panic. “Wait. What are you doing? Put me down.”

He tightened his hold. “Not a chance. We need to talk. No guns. No knives. And no man-eating snakes. Just you, me and the truth.”

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