Page 8 of Defenseless
“You didn’t actually mention anything other than suggest I ask her a personal question.”
Chad grinned. “Think of this as your first HICC test. See if you can figure out what I was talking about.”
“She’s your friend,” Ethan said as he buckled his seat belt. “She is, isn’t she? I mean, I know I said I sensed more, but you at least consider her a friend, right?”
Chad half nodded, half shook his head. “I consider her someone whose welfare I care about. Probably more than I should. And I trust her with my life. In fact, Ihavetrusted her with my life on more than a few occasions. And we’re friendly. But, well, if you can get her out tonight maybe you’ll see why I hesitate to call her afriend.”
“You’re weird, dude,” Ethan said with a shake of his head.
“It runs in the family,dude,” he shot back before climbing into his own car. A few minutes later, he was trailing his cousin through the gates of the property and onto the road that would take them north and into town.
CHAPTERFIVE
“The middle of the country,”Sabina answered Ethan’s question about where she’d grown up. She also flashed him a smile that let him—a native West Coaster—know she anticipated some reaction. In her experience, those from the left or right coast couldn’t help but make some sort of comment about the fly-over states.
“Oh yeah? Where? I went to college in Ohio. I love it out there. Big sky country, wide-open spaces, and all that,” he answered.
Well shit, that wasn’t the response she usually got. “Just a small town in Tennessee,” she answered. Not the truth, but as close as she was going to get. “What was it like growing up here?” she asked, hoping he’d jump on the topic as she made a mental note never to turn her phone to silent again. If she hadn’t, she would have seen Ethan’s message and she would have known that the Warwick boys were in house at the Dirty Boom. And if she’d known, she would have called and placed a to-go order, instead. An order that she could have picked up from the serving window at the back of the kitchen. Or maybe chosen a different place for dinner altogether.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like them, because she did—more than she should. The Warwick boys were all easygoing, enjoyed one another’s company, and were close in a way that she’d read about in books but never experienced. They were also easy on the eyes. Very easy. She hadn’t met the youngest of the cousins yet, but she’d bet Joey and Charley were every bit as good-looking as their two brothers and six cousins.
But she couldn’t let herself get close to them. The last time she’d allowed herself that luxury, bad things had happened. She wasn’t willing to risk that again. Not that the Warwick cousins were in the same league as her ex-college boyfriend. Nate had been gentle and just about the sweetest person she’d ever known. The Warwicks were a bit more rough-and-tumble. Several even had extensive combat experience. But it wasn’t that experience that made them different from Nate. They’d all grown up hiking, climbing, riding, hunting, skiing, camping, and generally running herd over this part of California. They might be kind and theycouldbe gentle, but no one would mistake them for an easy target.
Yet no one was invincible. Not even the Warwicks. And while Sabina acknowledged that everyone was mortal, she didn’t want to be the one that brought death to their door.
As she had with Nate.
Once was enough, thank you very much.
“It was good,” Ethan answered her question. “There are eight of us boys only eight years apart, so we had a pretty good time growing up.” Of William and Genevieve Warwick’s three sons, the two eldest also had three sons each. The third and youngest had two sons, and fourteen years after Ethan’s birth, the twin girls. Sabina couldn’t imagine growing up in a family the size of the Warwicks. Even harder was imagining having a family of that size and liking all of them in the way the Warwicks liked one another.
“What’s the story with the name of the town?” she asked. She’d done more research than she’d admit to into her new home, but she’d yet to discover why the town was named Mystery Lake.
Ethan shrugged in much the same way his cousin had when she’d asked Chad. “I don’t know why the founding fathers and mothers chose to name it that.”
“So there’s no actual mystery lake?” Sabina pressed.
Again, Ethan shrugged. “I don’t even know what a mystery lake is. Does it hold a mystery? Did it do something mysterious back in the day? Is it, itself, a mystery? Although it’s hard to see how a lake itself could be a mystery.”
“Maybe there’s a secret lake and they just liked the sound of ‘mystery’ better than ‘secret’?”
“Seems to me that if you have a lake that’s secret, you either keep it a secret—in which case, you don’t name a town after it. Or you don’t keep it a secret—in which case, it makes no sense to call it a secret. Or ‘mystery’ as the case may be.”
Sabina frowned and took a sip of her beer. His logic was sound, but she’d grasped on to the mystery of the town’s name when she made the decision to move. And no, it did not escape her notice that her interest was bordering on unhealthy. But it gave her something to obsess about when she was alone in her apartment every night. The three seconds it took to water Roger each day didn’t exactly occupy her time.
“Any Halloween plans?” Ethan asked. A cheer went up from the corner of the room where Josh and Chad were in a heated game of pool. Sabina looked over to see a woman, about Chad’s age, give him a high five.
She frowned. Was Chad seeing someone? The way her stomach churned at the thought didn’t come as a surprise. Although if he was dating, that shouldn’t come as a surprise either. Chad was a catch.
Her gaze lingered on him as he smiled and said something to the woman that made her laugh. Whoever she was, she was tall and lean, and her dark hair was the kind of wavy that looked amazing all the time. She wore black motorcycle boots, fitted jeans, a white shirt, and a red cardigan that fell to her knees. Sabina wanted to dislike her, but she wasn’t really the kind of person to dislike someone on sight. And to be fair, the woman looked like someone Sabina would want to know.
Chad glanced up and caught her eye. Their gazes held for a moment that felt an eternity, then Josh said something, and Chad broke away.
“That’s Jen Fisher,” Ethan said. Sabina returned her attention to the man sitting across the table from her. “She and Chad dated in high school. She moved to LA after school, became some big-time lawyer.”
“She back for a visit then?” Mystery Lake wasn’t close enough to LA for a day trip, but it was close enough for a long weekend.
Ethan shook his head. “Her dad’s health went downhill about a year ago. Right when her divorce finalized. She picked up the kids—she has two boys—and moved back. Now she and her brother run a small firm together here in town.”
