A motor-mouth southern belle tries playing detective only to collide with a dangerously sexy biker.
Ellie Robinson takes it upon herself to secretly vacay to Sunny Valley, Alabama, on her best friend's behalf. There, Ellie uncovers a shocking truth...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Glass crunches underneath my rubber utility boots. Tiny glistening shards most likely squeeze between the skinny lug channels, embedding into the chunky soles for me to pick out later. Flowers are scattered all over the place, mutilated. Some shredded, some with the bulbs ripped off, others crushed under heavy footsteps, wilted and dead.
The counter looks as if a sledgehammer had beaten it. Areas of it if are caved in, chipped off, and segments splintered up in the air, the wood sharp like spears. Expensive vases are smashed and dispersed in fragments all over the counter and floor, mixing in with the glass.
What was once a rainforest of beauty and a working flower shop is now nothing but destroyed remnants of the life that used to breathe in it. Life that Ellie had worked hard at creating and nurturing.
Burning rage festers in me but a sneaking suspicion crawls along my shoulders, cording through me. My posture straightens as a sharp pain shoots between my shoulder blades. I take a deep breath but it makes it worse, as if my muscles are thick ropes being tied up in knots, braiding down my back to the point the pain is cutting off my ability to breathe.
This may be my fault.
If one of the stragglers with the Silencers, just one, saw us leaving, they could've followed us and done this.
Ellie's shop might have been vandalized because I brought this to her doorstep.
I shouldn't have stayed.
Ellie bends down picking up a partially blooming pink flower, the stem snapped, making it dangle. Her fingers touch the bottom of the bulb and she lets out of small breath, her touch running up the velvety butt of the flower until she's at the colorful, velvety leaves. I watch her heart shatter in her eyes as a few of the petals fall off. As my gaze follows one until it lands on the floor, something steels in me.
Whoever did this is a dead man.
I get to work. Not a single one of us saying a thing. Even Nick is quiet and that guy talks until my ears cringe. Addie is sweeping some of the glass up and Ellie is trying to salvage some of the flowers. Shae is darting his eyes around, probably trying to figure out how to redesign and fix the place up. He had already called his work, looking into everything from supplies, cost, to when Ellie can reopen.
I had wanted to hate the guy, cause, yeah, hearing they had dated from that desperate Lauren chick irritated me. I'm human. But Shae is a good guy. A really good guy.
Way better than me, which makes me wonder what the heck Ellie sees in me that he didn't have.
He's quiet, intelligent, and extremely laid back to the point of lazy, but him and I seem to have clicked pretty well these past few days.
Shae sighs and I can tell he's already writing a mental list in his head. Apparently, Ellie's insurance should cover for a good chunk of the costs but the part it doesn't is still a crap ton of money.
