Page 11 of Timid (Lark Cove 2)

Fucking weed. There was a reason I rarely smoked.

Something about the mixture of marijuana and tequila did strange things to my mind. I didn’t get the typical munchies or surfer-dude vibes. Things got hazy, nothing stayed in focus, and my memory took a hit.

Never again, Jackson. Never. Again.

I blamed this on Logan fucking Kendrick. The only reason I’d gotten drunk and smoked that joint was because he’d shown up in Lark Cove.

Why couldn’t he have just stayed a stranger? Logan would be in Charlie’s life, our lives, for good. Not that I didn’t want Charlie to have a father—I wanted whatever was best for her—but change sucked and Logan was bringing a truckload of it to my simple life.

So the night he’d shown up in town, I hadn’t handled it well. I’d poured a shot to take the edge off, followed by two more. When those tourists had come in, the bottle hadn’t lasted long. And when one of the guys had passed me a joint, I hadn’t thought twice before taking a hit.

The rest was a blur.

I remembered fuzzy pieces from that night. I remembered locking up the bar and t

aking a piss outside the back door by the Dumpster. I remembered walking past the playground. And I remembered the dream I had that night.

It was about a girl floating through the air with long, wavy hair the color of spun gold. Then there were flashes of those stairs.

After one last look over my shoulder at the staircase, I turned the corner of the block and headed down First Street toward the highway.

Toward my sanctuary, the Lark Cove Bar.

I’d moved to Lark Cove about nine years ago from New York City. The moment I’d driven through the small, lakeside town, a calm had settled over my soul. Moving here had been the best decision I’d ever made.

There were no blaring horns from taxis and angry drivers. We didn’t have bums sleeping on our street corners. There were no smelly subway tunnels or towering skyscrapers. The only things on the horizon here were mountaintops.

It had only taken a week for me to adjust to the still nights, no traffic to lull me to sleep.

Lark Cove suited me. There were a couple of churches and a motel. A single school for all grades. The town only had one diner, but I didn’t need a slew of restaurants to choose from. Most meals I ate at home or at the bar. If I had the extra cash, I drove the thirty minutes up to Kalispell for something different.

Though I preferred to leave Lark Cove only when absolutely necessary. With a small grocery store and a gas station, I could keep my fridge stocked with the essentials and fishing supplies.

I didn’t need stores or shopping malls when I had the lake. When I was on my fishing boat, floating on the open water with a cup of worms in the cooler and my rod in a pole holder, I didn’t need much else.

Just the lake and my bar.

Lark Cove was one of many small towns located along the highway that ran around Flathead Lake. The bar’s neon sign lured a lot of tourists off the highway as they passed through. Though, we served a loyal local crowd too.

Other than the diner, we were the only establishment in Lark Cove that served food. Thea had come up with the idea to do brick-oven pizzas a while back and they’d been a huge hit. Add to that our cold beer and stiff drinks, and the bar was rarely empty these days.

Especially during the busy summer season.

We’d become a popular hangout spot for all of the nonlocals pretending to be local. This was a beautiful slice of Montana and it attracted rich people from across the country like flies. They’d come in and buy up a chunk of land along the lake, then build a massive vacation home. Those houses sat empty except for a week or two each summer. Some people would stay into the fall, but as soon as the snow flew, they’d be gone.

Most of the local townsfolk didn’t like the influx of out-of-staters each summer, but I didn’t mind.

Paying customers were all the same in my book.

And there were usually a couple of hot women who’d come to town every summer looking for some no-strings-attached sex. They were more than willing to fuck the rugged Montanan for a few weeks before going back home, never to admit they’d slummed it with a bartender on their summer vacation.

That worked for me too. I got sex without having to worry about some girl becoming a stage-four clinger.

I didn’t need drama in my life. I didn’t want drama in my life. So I kept my inner circle small.

I had Hazel, the woman who was more of a mother than the real one had ever been. I had Thea, who was practically my sister. And Charlie, my niece, whether we were related by blood or not.

It was a short list by design, and if Logan took Thea and Charlie away from me, I’d never forgive the rich bastard.