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Chapter One
Lincoln
Exhaustion didn’t even begin to explain the weariness behind my gaze.
I stumbled into the town coffee shop.
The bell jingled on the door as I entered, and the aroma of coffee beans gave me my first fix of the morning like a drug.
I needed more.
“Next,” the girl behind the counter snapped.
Without my morning cup of coffee yet, I hadn’t had the jolt to wake me. I stammered forward up to the counter. “Hey, Skylar.”
Since when did she work here? Last I heard, she came to visit her older brother in town.
Apparently, she wasn’t leaving anytime soon.
“What can I get for you?” she asked.
She stood behind the counter wearing a brown apron and matching hat.
While I felt fatigued, her eyes softened, and the corners of her lips quirked up when she seemed to recognize me.
“Hey, Lincoln, right?”
“Yes,” I said as my gaze glanced over the chalkboard behind her with the list of available drinks and specials.
The owner always liked to change it up, and there was never a plain black coffee on the menu.
“What do you recommend?” Making a decision took too much effort at this hour.
“Brewing your coffee at home,” Skylar said. “The coffee here is way overpriced but don’t tell my boss I said that, or I’ll get fired.”
I snorted under my breath. “Noted. I’ll have whatever’s strong and make it black.”
I couldn’t deal with sugar at this early hour.
The sun hadn’t even come up yet, and while I should have been in bed, I still had another hour until I usually woke up.
I hadn’t been able to sleep, and with the recent shooting at the restaurant, my coffee maker had been toast.
Sleep had eluded me, even on a Sunday morning when I should have been able to relax and take the day off.
Stress didn’t typically bother me, but after two mobsters had gunned down the restaurant, I was on high alert, ready on a whim. It resulted from my time in the military that forced me to be up at a moment’s notice.
Skylar tapped away at the register before I shoved my credit card into the chip reader to pay.
A blonde stepped forward with giant sunglasses on, the kind a woman wears to either hide a black eye or to try to conceal her identity. Both of those seemed plausible.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I ordered a coffee ten minutes ago.”
“It’s been five,” Skylar said, “and your drink is on the counter waiting for you to pick it up.”
“You didn’t call my name,” the woman wearing sunglasses said.
“Heather.”