Page 19 of Jasper

A half-hour went by, and the water people came and went as well as Steve. He checked a few things in the house to make sure everything was working properly then took his leave. Martin was taking longer. He’d been right in that Jarrod didn’t have internet. He had a lot of work to do, and she left him to it. Granted, she stayed in the kitchen where the knife block was.

At least the heat was on. To keep herself busy, she cleaned the fridge and brought in all the groceries they’d stored on the back porch. After she finished putting them away, she made eggs and toast. Unlike Jasper, she rarely worked out, and if she stuffed herself on donuts, it wouldn’t bode well. To be fair, those donuts had been delicious, and she might just decide to become one of those people who worked out so she could eat them all day.

Then again, maybe not. She admitted when it came to certain things, she was lazy, and working out happened to be top of the list.

She checked the clock. Jasper had been gone for around three hours. She hoped he’d be back soon. Tonight, at least they’d eat. She wasn’t that great of a cook, but she did okay with a crockpot.

She’d found it under the sink earlier and decided to cook a roast. It was an easy meal. She just threw it in and set the temperature. She’d add in the vegetables at the halfway mark. Overcooked veggies were awful.

“All done.”

She nearly screamed when Martin spoke. Good Lord, she was going to have a nervous breakdown sooner rather than later.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He flashed her a grin. “If you have your laptop handy, I’ll get you set up with your password.”

“Sure.” She left him in the kitchen and found her laptop bag beside the fireplace. At least she could check news stories to see what was going on in Florida. She knew she’d be fired from her job for being a no-call no-show, but she didn’t care. She could always get another job, but she couldn’t come back from death.

Martin checked her internet status and helped her with the password. When he left, she automatically reset the password and changed it to something weird. So weird she wrote it down so she wouldn’t forget it. Jasper would need it to log on.

She made sure the door was locked then ran back to the kitchen to check her local Miami news channel’s website. She scanned through the articles, and she found one on the witness who’d been murdered.

Getting out of Miami had been the right thing to do. She’d be just as dead as that witness if she hadn’t. Thank God Jarrod lived in the middle of nowhere and that he’d agreed to let her use his house.

She Googled the man on trial and immediately wished she hadn’t. He was accused of trapping children inside a school auditorium and burning them alive. He’d been after one child, but he’d burned them all to get to the boy. The boy’s father had testified against him in a trial previously, and in retaliation, he’d burned his son alive. The man changed his testimony after that to keep his other children safe. Or at least that was what the paper was speculating.

The one witness to the crime was now dead.

Except for her. She had pictures of men dumping the body of the witness. So, technically, there was still one witness…her.

And there lay the problem. They’d seen her. They’d chased her, but she’d ducked back into the wedding and gotten lost in the crowd. But it would be easy to figure out who she was since the couple had hired her as their photographer. Once they had her name, they’d figure everything else out.

Her biggest fear was that they’d find out who her relatives were, and that Jarrod was away on deployment. This would be their first stop.

She’d disabled all her social media profiles before she left Florida for that same fear. She and Jarrod talked and posted on each other’s profiles constantly. At least they couldn’t get to him. He was in some unknown location for a long, long time.

She closed her laptop and went upstairs. Might as well tackle the bedding. She did not want to sleep on sheets that smelled like mothballs. And it would keep her busy until Jasper got back.

Jasper pulled up to the farmhouse, and he heard the familiar hum of the heat pump when he cut the truck off. Small miracle, that, but he wasn’t about to freeze his ass off again. The general store hadn’t had a large generator, so he bought three small ones instead. And enough gas to see them through a two-week blizzard, if necessary. He wasn’t putting anything past the weather conditions this close to Canada.

It was later than he’d hoped to get back, but it couldn’t be helped. There’d been a wreck on the road, and he’d sat behind it for a good hour. There were a few injuries, from what he could see, but nothing life-threatening. Just some kids out joyriding and lost control of the truck. If they’d been in a car, things might not have been so rosy. Both of those boys would be dead.

Grumbling, he started to get out and go inside, but instead, he drove down to the barn. He’d picked up some new feed for the animals. What they’d been eating didn’t look right. It took him a bit to empty everything out and refill it, but at least it was done, and the animals would get a good meal tonight.

When he got back to the house, he unlocked the door with his new key. He’d taken the spare into town and gotten a duplicate made at the general store. They’d both have a key now. Jasper didn’t like the idea of Sloane accidentally locking herself out of the house with the key inside. He always kept his keys in his pocket until he went to bed to make sure that never happened to him. He’d done it once at home and nearly froze to death before his parents got home. It happened when you lived three miles from your nearest neighbor in the country.

“Sloane?” He closed the door and kicked off his boots. Force of habit, really. Jasper looked in the kitchen and saw the crock pot plugged in. It was an old fashioned one with an actual see-through lid and had no digital displays whatsoever. Pot roast. His stomach growled just thinking about it. He’d insisted they get one and had planned on slow cooking it in the oven, but a crock pot worked just as well.

Setting the donuts and other pastries down on the counter, he went upstairs and immediately saw the ladder down that led into the attic. Sloane was probably looking for more bedding. They’d definitely need to wash whatever she found.

He climbed the stairs to help her carry it all down but paused when he didn’t see her. He scanned the long attic that spanned the width of the house. Jarrod could really do a lot up here if he ever got around to renovating. He heard a ruffle of paper and turned toward the back corner.

She was bent over, headfirst into a trunk. What was she doing? Curious, he walked over and saw a maze of Christmas decorations strewn out in the path she’d made through all the junk up here.

Of course, she’d be a Christmas person. Jasper wasn’t. He stopped celebrating the holiday years ago when all he’d seen was senseless death, including the death of his brother. That took all the merry ho-ho-ho out of him. His mom and his sisters all loved the holiday, and he sent them presents and Christmas cards, but you’d not find a speck of holiday decorations in his apartment. It just wasn’t him anymore.

“What are you doing?”

Sloane jumped a mile out of her skin and let out a startled yelp. She fell into the trunk, and he stared, unsure if he should be horrified or amused. She looked damned cute with her ass in the air and string of lights wrapped around the hand she was using to try to right herself.

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