7
Ava leanedagainst the counter at Brewed Awakenings and sipped her mocha latte as Viv restocked after the morning rush which had just died down. She’d stopped by because she had a late start at the camp this morning. Normally she started work at eight, but today she was not scheduled until ten.
She was glad she’d stopped by because today was Audrey’s morning off and Viv had been slammed so she’d jumped in. She was so proud of her sisters for what they’d built here. Not just because she was a silent partner and it had been an incredibly lucrative investment, but because they served such an incredible community.
It had been a few days since Ava and her sisters had gone out to JT’s and today was the first day that she felt like herself. The night at the bar was a complete blur. She remembered taking shots and then sitting down with her sisters at the table. The conversation was spotty. She only remembered bits and pieces. The last thing she remembered was seeing tall, dark, and dangerous standing across the bar. And...that’s it. Her conscious mind called a wrap on the day.
In the immortal words of Porky Pig, tha tha that’s all folks.
She had no recollection of getting back to Mountain Ridge, changing into the sweats she woke up in, or going to bed. Her memory cut straight from hallucinating that tall, dark, and dangerous was staring at her to waking to the alarm on her phone blaring. Normally she was a light sleeper and her alarm woke her up instantly, but that morning she’d been so groggy that it had gone off for over fifteen minutes before she’d woken up. She was almost late to her second day of camp. And she’d spent the rest of the week feeling a beat behind.
“I am never drinking hard alcohol again,” Ava declared.
“Oh yeah, about that...” Viv pasted a too-big smile on her face as she refilled the sleeves next to the to-go cups. “I think there is a very good possibility that you were roofied.”
“Ha ha, very funny.” Ava dismissed her sister’s attempt at humor. “I’m serious, though. I’ve never blacked out before and I’m thinking that thirty-two is too old to be doing shots of fireball.”
“I’m not kidding. Apparently, Big City Billy Badass caught a scumbag slipping a roofie into some chick’s cosmo.” Viv mimed dropping something into one of the cups she was holding.
Ava blinked at Viv. There was so much of her sister’s statement to unpack she wasn’t sure where to start. “Big City Billy Badass?”
“Yep.” Viv did a bad southern accent as she mimicked a cowboy walk and pretended to pull two imaginary guns from their imaginary holsters on her hips. “There’s a new sheriff in town.”
Ava blinked, still not following.
“You remember you asked about that guy and his daughter at Sue Ann’s and I told you that he was a cop who was new in town. He’s from New York.”
“Oh, right.” Ava nodded realizing that she was still foggy because she should have put that together. “And he caught someone drugging a woman’s drink?”
Viv cringed and nodded with wide eyes. “Not just any guy, according to the word around town, aka Shelby, it was a guy wearing a green polo shirt and a ball cap.”
Ava’s eyes widened and she pointed at her sister. “What’s-your-sign guy!”
“Yep. He must have plopped a night-night pill in your drink when he put his arm around my shoulder thinking it was my drink.”
Ava suddenly had a memory pop into her brain of the liquid in the glass sloshing.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Viv lifted her hands in mock-surrender. “I just found out last night at book club. You would have found out, too if you would have actually come.”
Ava had been invited to the book club not only by her sisters, but also Amanda. She’d heard about the monthly meeting of women for years. It sounded to her like it was more of a wine and gossip club than it was actually discussing a book.
Which is why Ava had declined, because either way she hadn’t wanted to attend. If it was a serious book club, she hadn’t read the book so she’d be lost. And if it was a wine and gossip club, she had no desire to drink and gossip—wasn’t really her jam.
So she’d spent the night alone, in her pj’s, binging Grey’s Anatomy. Ian used to give her such a hard time about liking the show because he said it was a soap opera that wasn’t medically accurate. She’d tried to explain that she wasn’t watching it for the procedural technical aspects of the show, but he just had a way of making her feel embarrassed about things.
Not just her propensity for trash TV. Everything from how she ate, studied, even intimate times.
She didn’t think he did it on purpose. It was just his way. He was smug. He was arrogant. He had a healthy ego. Those characteristics served him well as a surgeon. You couldn’t cut people open and not be sure of yourself.
But in everyday life, his personality cast a large shadow. Ava was just now feeling the sun again after living in the dark, coldness of it for two decades.
Ian no longer had any say or influence over her life. She never had to worry about his agendas, his schedule, his career, his way of doing things.
The only opinion that mattered was hers. She was footloose and fancy free. And the first night she’d gone out as a single woman to enjoy that freedom, it appeared she’d been roofied.
She hoped that wasn’t an indication of what was in store for her.
