Forever My Home (The Aster Lake Series Book 1) Read online

  “This is sooooooo gonna happen,” Madi announced, and then she turned to Jill. “I’ve been trying to think of ways to move this thing along for them. Archer overheard a conversation and Adalyn is still embarrassed about it.”

  I’m going to die. But not before I kill Madi. I can’t believe she’s telling them. Everyone at the table heard everything Madi said. Thank God she didn’t go into details about the sex stuff, but she did tell them all about my gawking while he was cutting wood.

  “I told Adalyn this once already,” she continued to talk and embarrass me, “it’s fate. Both times that Archer came over to my house she was here. And they practically live together. I can feel it. This is going to happen.” She turned her attention back to me where I was still trying to blend into my chair. “You better brace for it, honey.”

  “I think Madi’s right,” Jill said. “He’s all alone. Has been forever.” She looked at Jack. “You know anything?”

  “Baby, why would I know something?” he asked rolling his eyes.

  “You’re a man.”

  “I own a flower shop woman. Besides, men don’t gossip.”

  “What about guy’s night? He ever go out with you guys?”

  He laughed. “You know if he ever did that, you’d know. You’d probably know before I was even home.”

  “That’s true.” She nodded her head and Jack leaned into her and whispered on her lips, “You want more wine, baby?” She smiled and nodded yes.

  I’ve never crushed on anyone and I wasn’t sure if I had a crush or was just curious. There was something different about him, that’s for sure. Maybe I felt bad because he didn’t have his parents. Maybe he was lonely like me and just needed a friend. I had no idea what to do next, so I just tried to stop thinking about him. After that, I wasn’t in the mood anymore and Madi picked up on that. She didn’t immediately kick everyone out, but I left shortly after that.

  ***

  “Buckles Hardware-”

  “It’s just me.”

  “Hey, Madi.”

  “How’s work? I’m bored,” she said.

  “It’s slow today.”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “I can’t have personal calls at work, Madi”

  “I’m the boss, it’s a work emergency.”

  Madi makes the schedule and there are some days we don’t work together. Today is one of those days.

  “What are you doing?” I asked her while leaning against the cash register.

  ‘Thinking.”

  “Thinking? That’s it. It’s nice outside, why aren’t you doing something.”

  “Got it all done early.” She paused for a few seconds. “We’re going shopping tomorrow.”

  I don’t feel like shopping. I don’t feel like doing much because I wasn’t feeling well. I woke up with a headache. The headache’s gotten worse and now it feels like my whole body has a headache. One more hour and I’m going home and climbing into bed. I’d miss the sunset, but I wouldn’t enjoy it anyway.

  “I’m not sure I’ll want to go.”

  “Why not? We need to get you some more clothes. Dresses. Skirts. Maybe some new shoes.”

  “I’m not feeling well. I might be in bed all day tomorrow.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I just did.”

  “Could be the flu.”

  “Really?”

  I’ve never had the flu. Guess that’s a benefit of being sheltered.

  “Heard it was going around.”

  “I’m glad I have the day off then so I can rest if it doesn’t go away.”

  “Grab some Sprite and make sure you have water to drink. A bottle of Aleve. Leave the door unlocked, I’ll come over and check on you.”

  “You don’t have to do that. I’m going to bed anyway.”

  “I heard the flu that’s going around is bad. As in bad. So, I’m coming over to check on you. Leave the door unlocked.”

  The phone clicked. She hung up on me.

  The last hour of work dragged on, as my head throbbed with every slight movement. I was shivering, even though it was warm out, and I felt as if my eyes were on fine. I dragged my hand across my forehead, definitely noticing the higher temperature. The ride home was going to suck as I counted my drawer and then packed up stuff. I’m not sure exactly how I got home, but I barely shut the door before I collapsed in my bed, shoes and all.

  ***

  “Pills.” I put my hand out and watched Rudd drop two blue pills in my hand, then said, “Water.” He handed me a bottle of water next. I swallowed the pills and handed the water back to him. He’s done this a few times now. Giving me medicine and water. The pills made no difference. Every single muscle still ached and I knew my temperature hadn’t broke yet. It got worse when my nose plugged up and I started coughing. I actually feel worse than I did when I crawled into bed.

  “Thanks,” I whispered because my throat hurt too much to do anything else.

  “I’ll be back in another four hours,” he said standing up from my bed.

  “You’re welcome,” I mumbled under my breath. I must have been louder than I thought, because he stopped at my door.

  Good job Adalyn…way to poke the bear.

  “I’ve got some shit to do.”

  “So, you could still say, you’re welcome.”

  “Like I said…”

  “I’ve got some shit to do,” I mocked his voice while finishing his sentence, then sat up and looked at him. He turned around. “Don’t you know how to say anything else?” My voice cracked and I started coughing. I took another drink of water and lay back down.

  I can’t believe I just said that out loud.

  “I work. I’m sure by now Madi’s filled you in, but I’m a detective. I handle a lot of shit within a hundred miles of Aster Lake. I investigate people, track them down, and arrest them. I get a lot of calls, so yeah, I’m busy.” He crossed his arms on his chest and leaned against my doorframe. “I’ve got a lot of … shit to take care of, Adalyn.”

  He said my name, and I didn’t like the way he said it. Like I was in trouble or something.

  I snapped, “Despite what I’ve heard about you, I didn’t know all of that. So don’t get pissy with me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to bed. Not only because I feel like shit on shit, but then you can go do all that shit you got to do.” Then I proceeded to fluff my pillow. I don’t know why, but it felt good smacking it around. I grabbed the covers next and pulled them over my head.

  “I’ll be back in four hours to give you more medicine. You can thank Madi for my visits.” Then he was gone.

  I guess he was being nice. Driving out here to give me medicine every four hours and checking on me all while trying to work. He wouldn’t consider it sweet though. It was more of a pain in his ass than anything. I needed to have another talk with Madi. I know what she’s trying to do, and I wasn’t sure it was working or that I wanted it to work.

  But until then, I’m sleeping.

  ***

  “Wake up,” Madi said as she continued to shake me.

  “Stop shaking me. It hurts,” I whined.

  “Archer called. He got held up so I’m here. Obviously.” She laughed at herself.

  “Come on. Take the pills and update me.” She thrust a few pills in my hand and plopped on my bed. The slight jostle she made on my bed reverberated all the way down to my toes. I shut my eyes briefly to quell the wave of nausea that was a new threat and breathed deeply until it went away.

  I sat up. “Update you?”

  “Yes silly. How’s it going with Superman?”

  I swallowed the pills, which were orange this time, and drank the rest of the water. “Stop calling him Superman. And what kind of pills are you giving me now? The last ones were blue.”

  “Switching between cold pills and Aleve. That’s what I do and I think it works better.”

  I gave her the empty water bottle and fell back on my pillow. “I snapped at him and said some mean t
hings. At least, I thought it was mean, it all feels like a dream to me.”

  I rolled my head and looked at her. “I’m tired Madi. I want to sleep for days. Can the two of you just leave me alone, please?”

  “Ok crabass, I’ll come by tomorrow and bother you.”

  I tried to laugh but it hurt too much. “I’m sure you will.”

  She sighed. “I really do hope you feel better.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Because you need to work on Wednesday.” She flashed me a grin and ruffled my hair gently.

  I kicked her off my bed while laughing. “Get out.”

  “You still love me,” she said leaving the room and shutting the door before I could say anything else. I didn’t have the energy anyway.

  I slept all night. I didn’t see Rudd for three days. No truck, no shower running, and no cutting wood.

  Chapter 4

  Rudd Archer sat down at his desk, the same one that all the officers had. They were standard metal gray and didn’t have much legroom. However, Archer wasn’t in his office that much so he didn’t have to deal with it. His cell phone started ringing before he could do anything productive. He answered it without looking, “Archer.”

  “Hey man.”

  He knew that voice.

  Ian became his best friend at the Academy when he helped him get his shitty life back together. Ian was loyal, honest, and damn good at his job. He went into private security shortly after the academy– that’s what he calls it – and hasn’t looked back. He also helps Archer out time to time with cases. When you needed information, you went to Ian. Ian was the best.

  However, Ian was just as confused as Archer was.

  Archer didn’t like that.

  Ian liked it less.

  “You’re alive?” Archer said stating the obvious. Ian told him the last time they talked, he was going out on a mission and he wasn’t sure when he’d get back to Archer. He never really knew what Ian meant when he said shit like that, and he never asked. It could be a number of things.

  “Barely.” Ian chuckled.

  “You good?”

  “I’m alive,” he confirmed.

  “Good. Now what’d you find out about her.” Archer was growing impatient.

  Her as in, Adalyn Rose Anderson, the mystery woman who showed up in town and is now living in the apartment he put above his house. The moment he saw her background check was the moment he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  She had no past, no history, not even a fucking credit card. It bothered him. It more than bothered him. He knew everything about everyone in town, and now he didn’t. He found himself staring at her a lot, not only because of her beauty but because she was a mystery. A mystery he needed to solve. He was damn good at his job, but this woman piqued his interest, and he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Things didn’t make sense and he wanted to know everything about her.

  “This shit is tying me up in knots. Sorry buddy, but I think it was something to do with WITSEC.”

  WITSEC was another name for the Witness Protection Program. Archer wondered why he hadn’t thought of that before. “Shit.”

  “Shit is right my friend. The person who belongs to those fingerprints doesn’t exist. Never has from what I’ve found. It’s got to be WITSEC.” Archer kicked his desk and Ian continued, “Now I went above and beyond for you, so listen to this shit. I tracked that car of hers back to a small unknown dealership that sits alongside the road in Wyoming. Looked into that also. She traded a vehicle in, so I tracked that one as well.”

  “How do find this information?” Archer asked and like always, Ian didn’t tell him. Instead, he went on, “Ok, I’ll skip the boring stuff. I think she’s from New York. I found an Adalyn Nielson that died in a car crash with her parents, the same folks that owned the car she originally traded. I think she’s running.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “Like I said, WITSEC. There the only fuckers who could make it look like a clean break. The father worked at a small computer company, the mom stayed at home with her. From what I can tell, their past only goes back to when Adalyn was around five-years-old. Prior to that, nothing. They appeared out of thin air.”

  “Fuck,” he grunted out and tore his hat off, tossing it on his desk.

  “Can I say something?”

  “Yep,” Archer answered a bit sarcastically and even more confused. He wasn’t going to come out and ask her what her deal was. He needed to figure it out though, make sure nothing happened to her or his town.

  “The Nielson chick is twenty-four, not twenty-one like her ID says. Now, I’ve seen pictures of her, she’s-”

  He cut him off because he knew what was coming next, “I know man. “ And he did. She was stunning, innocent, and didn’t see how other people looked at her. She was the quiet type. Hardly making eye contact and seemed weary of people and situations. Especially around him. He wasn’t sure if she was just nervous or she was being cautious. She seemed curious about him, and he figured that maybe he needed to change his approach. He could try to be friendlier and not scare her away. The best thing that could have happened to her was Madi. He noticed she took Adalyn under her wing and they were inseparable.

  “Just saying.”

  “I know what she looks like,” he bit out, and there was no way he’d ever forget. Her bright blue eyes complimented her dark hair. She had a light tan, beautiful long legs, and kissable lips.

  There was a tap on his office door, pulling his attention away from Ian. The sheriff stood in the doorway, pointed in the direction of his office, and said, “Five minutes.”

  He nodded and sat up in his chair and watched him leave.

  “I gotta go.”

  “Alright, I’ll keep looking, make some calls.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Yep.” He hung up on him and Archer tossed his phone on his desk, grabbed his police hat, and headed out. They were made last year when they started a softball team, and Archer preferred it to his own.

  Sheriff Scott Renrick was like an uncle to him. He grew up with Archer’s parents and like Archer, his father was a cop, and then made detective. His father wasn’t interested when the sheriff position opened up, so Scott was promoted and luckily, it didn’t change their relationship. It didn’t with Archer either. After his parents died, Scott shifted into a natural father figure, which was surprising since he didn’t have any kids of his own. Since his wife passed a few years ago, Archer is all he had.

  Archer shut the door and sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. Scott was losing his hair and had a bald spot on top, so that’s all Archer saw as he was looking over some files, which was nothing out of the norm for him.

  “I’ve cleared your schedule for a few days,” he said tossing the folder to the side. He sat back in his chair making eye contact with Archer.

  “A new case?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind?” Archer wasn’t a fan of a dead body, no one was, and those ones really bothered him. But he always did his job.

  Scott thought for a few minutes before picking up an envelope and tossing towards Archer. “You know a woman named Shawna Davis?”

  Of course Archer did. It was the last woman he dated. If you could call it that.

  Archer stared at the envelope. “Yep.”

  “She close?”

  “Nope,” Archer said, no longer looking at the envelope.

  “She passed away a few weeks ago.”

  Shit.

  Archer leaned back in the chair, hooking his hands behind his head. He met Shawna shortly after he started the police academy. He was in a rough place, his parents had just passed away, and he was miserable. He met Shawna, knew she was just as miserable as he was, and fucked her. Thought it might help him, but it didn’t. It only passed the time until he met Ian. For the most part, Ian pissed him off, but after a few persistent weeks, Archer realized he needed to get his shit together before it affected his dreams of being a police off
icer. Once he started thinking clearly, he ended it with Shawna. She didn’t seem to care and stopped hanging around the bar they met at. Archer thought of her from time to time, but never cared enough to see how she was. Even though she wasn’t the best girlfriend, she didn’t deserve to die.

  “How?”

  “Suicide.”

  He wasn’t expecting that. Shawna wasn’t the happy, outgoing kind of person, but he didn’t think she’d ever take her own life.

  “There’s more.” He watched the man who was now the only family he had left, turn his head and look at the floor. He rubbed his hands together, stalling. Archer wasn’t in the mood, and Scott knew Archer didn’t play games. Upfront and total honestly was what Archer wanted from everyone, and it was another reason why he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  “Just tell me so I can get to work,” Archer said standing up.

  “She has a daughter.”

  “What’s that have to do with-”

  “She’s your daughter,” he informed him, making eye contact again. He stood from his chair while grabbing the envelope and shoving it towards Archer. “Two weeks ago I had James collect a piece of your hair from your office. We sent it up to Bason Ridge where Shawna lived so they could test it. You have a daughter, Archer.”

  “What the fuck do you mean you took DNA from my office?”

  “I had to be sure,” he said sitting back down. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up. I know how much you want a family. How badly you want children.”

  Archer tore into the envelope but didn’t understand any of the weird numbers or charts on the them.

  “Archer!”

  He snapped his head up while folding the papers up and shoving them into his back pocket. “Where is she?”

  “Group home in Bason Ridge. I pulled some strings and they agreed to hold her there until they hear back from us.”

  Archer took his hat off and ran his hand through his hair then pulled it back on. He was growing impatient and irritated at the same time. He had a daughter. Shawna never told him, never tried to contact him.

  “They couldn’t get a hold of Shawna’s family, so they had no choice to place her in the home. I guess Shawna left a note with your name on it and said you were the father.”