Page 15 of Break My Fall

“You do that.”

Cal and Maisy left. But Cal’s question lingered. Why Meredith? Why today? And who was behind it?

The town was still reeling from the events of the fall when a prominent member of the community, Steven Pierce, had been arrested for drug dealing and attempted murder.

The Pierce family owned and operated The Haven, an exclusive resort for the uber-wealthy, connected, famous, and reclusive. Bronwyn Pierce had grown up with Cal, Meredith, and Mo andwas now the CEO of The Haven. Steven was her cousin, and he’d tried to have Cassie Quinn, the new chef at The Haven’s fine dining restaurant, killed.

Ironically enough, the drama between the Pierces and Quinns had cooled noticeably in the aftermath. The majority of the Pierce family had been horrified by Steven’s actions. The Pierce/Quinn conflict was long-standing, but it had never been violent.

That had been the only good thing to come from the arrest. It had brought unwanted press to the usually quiet and safe town of Gossamer Falls. The media, always quick to scent blood in the water, had used the events to highlight the ongoing drug issues in the mountains of Western North Carolina specifically and the Appalachian region in general.

While Gray had no problem acknowledging the real problems in their area, the thing that made him see red was that his hands had been tied. While the attacks on Cassie had been in Gossamer Falls, the root of the problem was across the county line in Neeson. And outside his jurisdiction.

But he’d found a possible way around that.

Criminals could be savvy and slick, but they could also be incredibly stupid. And some of the drug traffickers in Neeson had crept across the county line. Gray doubted they knew they’d slipped into his jurisdiction.

He wasn’t about to enlighten them. Not until he had proof and the kind of evidence that would bring in the state investigators who would turn Neeson upside down and inside out.

He hadn’t lied to Meredith this morning. He had gone toward the Neeson County line because he suspected that she’d gone in that direction. What he hadn’t told her was that while he was near the county line, he sometimes parked, got out of his Explorer, and did a little hiking.

If Meredith knew what he’d been up to, she’d lose it.

The first time it had been an in-the-moment idea, but since then, he’d made more jaunts into the forest. Always alone. And he was willing to admit that it hadn’t been a smart decision. He wasn’t a skilled outdoorsman. After the events of today, he was done going solo. But it was what he’d seen on his hikes that had convinced him that some of the drug traffickers had spread a bit too far south. The jurisdictional lines were blurry in the area, but he’d confirmed that at least one house he suspected of being a meth lab was solidly in the town limits of Gossamer Falls.

Gray had friends in Raleigh and in the State Bureau of Investigations. There were people, the kind of people who could do something about it, who didn’t like what was happening in Neeson. The mess with Steven Pierce had given them the ammunition they’d needed to stop gathering information and move toward making arrests. But they weren’t there yet.

The investigation that had been launched was so secret that none of his officers knew anything about it. That was about to change.

He picked up the phone and called his contact at SBI. It was time to spread the net wider.

FIVE

“I hate to say this, but it might be too cold for a firepit night.” Meredith had started the evening in her warmest coat, gloves, toboggan, and lined boots. But even though the fire Mo had built was reaching bonfire proportions, she was twirling around like a rotisserie chicken to stay warm. “I’m going inside to get a quilt.”

“Me too.” Cassie jumped up from where she’d been sitting on her fiancé’s lap and ran to her own house.

“Hurry up!” Donovan called out. “You were keeping me warm.”

Meredith paused at the door to her tiny house and looked back at the firepit where Donovan sat talking to Cal and Mo while Landry, Cal’s wife, roasted a marshmallow for their daughter, Eliza.

Things changed. And this change was good.

Meredith, Mo, and Cal had built their tiny house compound a few years earlier. They all owned adjoining land, gifted to them on their twenty-fifth birthday—a rite of passage for the Quinn grandchildren and now great-grandchildren.

Given that they were all single at the time, it made more sense to build small homes. The hope, though no one had voiced it, was that eventually they would all find spouses and build their forever homes. The tiny houses had been meant to be temporary.

So far, Cal was the only one who’d found the love of his life.He and Landry moved into their home on Cal’s land last July. The house was less than a quarter of a mile from the tiny houses. During the winter, when the trees were bare, you could see their porch from the firepit.

Since Cassie had needed a temporary place to live, Cal had offered his tiny house to her until she and Donovan married. They would eventually build on Cassie’s land, but they weren’t in a hurry.

Cassie’s addition to their little compound had been a good fit for all of them. And this past summer, Mo and Cal had demolished the original firepit and expanded it. Where once there had been three permanent chairs, now there were eight.

The sound of an engine caught her attention, and the sight of Gray’s Explorer sent Meredith running inside her house. She’d had a long day and it wouldn’t hurt to touch up her makeup and run a brush through her hair before she went back out.

Ten minutes later, wrapped in an old quilt and carrying two others, she rejoined the group, which now included Gray and Bronwyn Pierce.

“You came!” She hugged Bronwyn and handed her a quilt, then turned to Gray. “Would you like one? I told Mo it was too cold. His answer was to throw more wood on the fire.”

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