The shuffle of gravel indicated she’d moved closer. A small, capable hand skimmed over his shoulders, down his sides, around to his abs and lower. Bypassing his private parts, her hand traveled the length of his legs, patting both all the way to his ankles.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as she balanced her service weapon with her right hand as she frisked him with her left.
Finally, she straightened and stepped back. “Please stand at the rear of your vehicle while I run your plates and license.”
He turned and gave her a twisted grin. “Told you I was unarmed.”
She backed toward her vehicle then slipped into the driver’s seat. Her fingers danced across a computer keyboard as she entered his license and registration data and waited.
Moments later, she got out of her work vehicle, weapon back in the holster on her belt, and strode toward him while writing on an official-looking pad. When she reached him, she ripped off the top sheet and handed it to him. “I’m only giving you a warning this time. Next time, I’ll cite you. Slow it down out there. The life you endanger might not be your own.”
With that parting comment, she spun on her booted heels and marched back to her vehicle.
“Deputy Douglas,” he called out.
As she opened her SUV, she turned to face him, “Yes, Mr. Morgan?”
“You’re the first person I’ve met here. Nice to meet you.” He waved the warning ticket. “And thank you.”
Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head as she climbed into the vehicle. Moments later, she passed his truck and continued toward the little town of Eagle Rock ahead of him.
Drake slipped into the driver’s seat and followed at a more sedate pace. Hell, he was already late. What were a few more minutes? And it wasn’t worth getting a full-fledged ticket. He was lucky she’d only issued a warning. She could’ve hit him hard with a speeding ticket, with the lasting effect of jacking up his insurance rates.
He owed her a coffee or a beer. Since she was the only person from Eagle Rock he knew besides Hank Patterson, he’d kind of like to get to know her better. It paid to have the law on your side in these backwater towns.
Following the GPS map on his dash, he drove through town and out the other end, turning on the road leading to his destination.
Soon, he saw her, perched on the side of a mountain, her broad porches intact, her late eighteen-hundred charm shining through, despite the need for a good paint job and dry-rot repair.
The Lucky Lady Lodge clung to the side of the mountain, welcoming travelers in search of a quiet getaway in the Crazy Mountains of Montana.
From what Hank had told him, this lodge had been a place for the gold rush miners of the late eighteen hundreds to spend their hard-earned gold on booze and women.
After the gold had dried up, the Lucky Lady had become a speakeasy during the prohibition, with secret passages into the old mine where they’d made moonshine and stored the contraband in the mountain.
Drake had done some research on the old lodge. He’d found stories telling of days when mafia kingpins had come to conduct business while hunting in the hills or fishing in the mountain streams.
Fires had consumed hundreds of acres surrounding the lodge, missing it on more than one occasion by less than a mile. Throughout the years, the lodge stood as she had from the beginning, a little worn around the edges. Recently, she’d been damaged by an explosion in the mine. That’s where Drake and his team would come in.
He looked forward to rolling up his sleeves and putting his carpentry skills to work restoring the old girl. He hoped that, like riding a bike, it would all come back to him despite the sixteen years it had been since he’d last lifted a hammer to build or repair anything more than a deck on the house of a friend. The summers he’d spent working on new home construction while in high school gave him skills he wouldn’t have known otherwise and the confidence to try new things he’d never done.
Having joined the Navy straight out of high school, he hadn’t had much need for carpentry skills. He’d focused all his attention on being the best military guy he could be. That had meant working his ass off and applying for the elite Navy SEALs training.
BUD/S had been the most difficult training he’d ever survived. Once he’d made it through, he’d been deployed on a regular basis to all corners of the world, fighting wars he thought were to help people who couldn’t help themselves or protect his own country from the tyranny of others.
Drake snorted. He’d learned all too soon that war wasn’t always for just causes. When he’d tired of putting his life on the line for the benefit of big business, he’d said goodbye to what had been the only career he’d ever wanted.
From there, he’d worked with Stone Jacobs as a mercenary in Afghanistan, leaving just in time before the US pulled out and left Stone and the last five members of his team stranded.
Rumor had it that former SEAL, Hank Patterson, had sent a rescue team to get Jacobs and his people out.
Since Afghanistan, Drake had refused to be another hired mercenary. He’d been drifting from one low-paying job to another. Nothing seemed to fit.
When Hank Patterson had called him out of the blue, he’d been working at a small diner in the backwoods of East Texas, dissatisfied with life, unable to fit into the civilian world and ready for any change that would take him away from the diner, the small-minded residents of the town and the meddling mamas bent on matching their single daughters to the only bachelor in town with all of his original teeth.
No, thank you.
Drake had been ready to leave East Texas.