Read Autumn Lake for Free Online Page A

ask me, it’s time they sent a woman in here. The last thing you need is another asshole like Gaylord or Mark calling all the shots. Another wrong move and both of you could end up in the river.”
    Summer picked at her cheeseburger. “You sound like you’re prepared for that possibility.”
    Sassy glanced at Logan. “If that happens, I’ll drag him out of that nasty water and kill him again.”
    Logan gave her a quick look just to be sure she hadn’t started sobbing. Lately, every time he turned around she was weeping over some little silly matter, not that death was something to be taken lightly but he’d begun to worry about her stability. She lived in constant fear Logan would be made.
    He draped his arm around Sassy’s shoulder and studied Summer. “Something else bothering you?”
    Summer hesitated. She thinned her lips and looked pained to say anything more. Finally, she blurted, “The club’s running dirty again, Logan.”
    “It is.” The old ladies were privy to that much information. As an undercover agent screwing one of the full patch members she had a right to know anyway.
    “And Tigger is smack dab in the middle of it.”
    “That’s his choice, Summer. I told you from the very beginning. I was concerned for your safety and Tigger’s.”
    “We’ve never tried to pry, Summer,” Sassy intervened. “But Logan warned you when this all came down, Tigger would be the first to go. Logan never tried to hide anything from you.”
    “I know,” Summer said, looking off in the distance before focusing on Logan. “He’s your friend. If roles were reversed here, I believe he’d come to you and get you out. I know he would. He loves you like a brother.”
    “I care about him, too, but you’ve gotta look at this thing from an agent’s perspective instead of an old lady’s. Tigger is running guns, Summer. He was a key player in that part of the business before and he’s heading it up now. When this thing wraps up, they won’t just pick and choose which fellas they want and which ones are free to go. You and I both know where Tigger will be in all this when the gavel comes down.”
    “I love him,” she said, tears now slipping from her eyes.
    Sassy squeezed Logan’s bicep. Summer brushed her wet cheek dry. “I would do anything for him. Don’t you see?”
    “I do see,” Logan said. “And I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now. I can’t tell you what I would do because I don’t know what I would do.”
    Sassy cleared her throat and Summer looked up. “Would you run?”
    “For Sassy?” He slowly nodded. “But I can hide. At this point, I’m not sure you can. Tigger won’t go and even if he considered running, you would place yourself in a very dangerous situation if you risked telling him. He could turn on you, Summer.”
    “He won’t.”
    “He might,” Logan said firmly. “Then what? You’ll expose the operation. You’ll lose the man you love and the career you wanted. Then, everything will have been for nothing.”
     
    ****
     
    “You do this often?” Cav Reynolds had been assigned to help her in any capacity, but when her father ordered him to Tennessee, he probably hadn’t quite imagined Nyotaimori as part of his job description. “I’m assuming you’ve practiced this art, if you call it that, since you seem to know so much about it.”
    “Just finish up,” Autumn snapped, glancing at the television and noting the time. “He’ll be here at six o’clock.”
    “I hope for this poor guy’s sake, he isn’t late.” Cav touched her arm with the back of his hand. “You’re freezing, Autumn.”
    “The sushi was ice cold.”
    “I can see that,” Cav said, taking another roll from the tray and popping it in his mouth. Around a mouthful, he said, “If your father knew what I was doing about right now, he’d fire me on the spot.”
    “Then I guess we shouldn’t tell him. You’d lose your job. I’d lose a close friend. And my father would never tire of