Page 15 of Mountain Hero

Questions I have no real right to have answered keep spinning through my head.

Is she okay? Was it a concussion, as I suspected, or something more serious? Have the police spoken to her yet? Do they believe her story? Is the man she was so scared of in custody, too?

Is she alone? Frightened?

Is anyone holding her hand?

Shit. I’m not going to get anything done until I find out some more information.

I head back into the house and snag my phone off the coffee table, then make my way into the kitchen. As I debate who to call first, I pop a coffee pod into the Keurig, definitely needing the extra jolt of caffeine after only getting a few hours of sleep last night. Back in my twenties, it wouldn’t have fazed me. But as I close in on forty, my body can’t recover from the lack of sleep like it used to.

If I’m honest with myself, even if Uncle Caleb hadn’t given me the store, my time with the Green Berets was running out. Another couple of years and I’d have to transition to training or manning a desk instead.

That wasn’t why I joined the Army. I wanted to be out there, defending my country, protecting the innocent, relying on a team to have my back and doing everything in my power to have theirs.

So it was probably time I left. But I still miss all those things. Maybe that’s partially why I’m so intent on finding out if Winter is okay—that innate need to protect those I perceive to be in danger.

Yes. That’s all it is.

It has nothing to do with her emerald-green eyes and those cute freckles and the way she smiled at me when we were talking about hiking the last time she came into the store. It has nothing to do with her enthusiasm for exploring the Green Mountains and how close I came to asking if she wanted me to take her out on the Long Trail one day.

I’d be this worried if it was anyone.

Anyway. I’m just trying to get some information about the investigation, like any concerned business owner would.

My coffee finishes brewing with a little sputter, and I grab the mug and take a seat at the long butcher block counter. I take a sip of the steaming hot liquid—the hotter the better, in my mind, none of that creamer to cool it down—and scroll through the contact list on my phone until I find the person I think will give me the most information.

Patrick, or Quill, as we called him in high school, isn’t just an officer with the Bliss Police Department, but he was one of the responding officers last night. And I’ve known him since high school—we played baseball together all four years. While we didn’t talk regularly after graduation, when I’d come back to visit my uncle, we’d try to meet up for a beer at Blissful Brews if he wasn’t working.

Not that I’m going to push him on it, but I think he may be more open to sharing the details of the investigation than if I just go into the station and talk to whoever’s on duty. Hopefully.

His phone rings once before he picks up, not sounding at all surprised to hear from me. “Enzo. How’s it going? Got everything at the store settled?”

“Sort of. Alec Rivers has his crew doing a full install and they should be done by the end of the day. So that should deter anyone from trying to break in again.”

“That’s good.” Voices rise and fall in the background, quickly diminishing as a door clicks shut. “Sorry. Just needed to get somewhere quiet.”

“No worries. Is this a bad time?” I take another sip of my coffee as I wait for him to reply.

“Nah, it’s fine.” There’s a faint sound of leather creaking. “I was headed to my office anyway; Margo caught me at the coffeemaker, trying to get me to join some kind of potluck lunch thing. You remember Margo, three years below us—” He stops and lets out a short laugh. “Nevermind. That’s not why you’re calling, obviously.”

“Well.” I have to chuckle. “I’m not sure what a potluck is. But no. I was hoping you might have some new information. I thought about coming in to the station, but?—”

“But you figured I’d be more forthcoming.”

Busted. “Not exactly…”

“Enzo, it’s fine. I get it. If I were in your situation, I’d want to talk to someone I know, too.”

“Yeah.” Suddenly feeling restless, I get up and head back toward the front porch. “I just have a lot of questions right now.”

“Absolutely.” Patrick’s voice shifts to a more serious tone. “I was planning on stopping by to see you later, but anything I can answer, I will.”

Still antsy, I pace the length of the porch, distractedly noticing a wobbly plank I need to fix. “The guy she was talking about. Thomas? Is he in custody?”

There’s a brief pause, then a heavy sigh. “His name is Thomas Lowe, and unfortunately not. By the time we got to his house last night, it was empty and his truck was sitting in the driveway. We followed up with some of the guys he works with—he runs a small home repair business and apparently hires some of his buddies for part-time help—but they’re all claiming they haven’t seen him in days.”

My jaw clenches. “And do you believe them?”

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