A Place with Briar (Harlequin Superromance) (18 page)

“Ah...” He cleared his throat.
Tread carefully here, Savitt.
“I’m staying there. For the time being.”

“Uh-huh. Did you say Hanna had a daughter?”

“I don’t know. Did I?”

“She’d be about eight years younger than you, right?”

Tad was too smart. Cole combed a hand through his hair as his lips twitched. “It’s complicated.”

“It always is. I take it Tiffany’s taking up Douglas’s mantle.”

“Seems so.”

“You want my advice?”

“I know—I’m gonna need a good lawyer? I believe I already have one.”

“That didn’t work too well for you the last time.”

“You weren’t the reason we lost. And that was family law—you’re a real-estate lawyer and a damn good one.”

“You only have to ask and I’m there for you, brother.”

Cole sighed. When it came to Tad and Maddie, he’d never had to explain himself. They were the only ones who hadn’t believed Tiffany’s lies from the start. Their support had never wavered. It had been difficult leaving them behind in Huntsville. But he’d known if he had any chance of starting over, it would have to be far from where he began. “Thanks, Tad. I mean it. I’m sorry I won’t make it for dinner today. Tell Maddie I love her.”

“Will do. And Cole? Be careful.”

* * *

H
OURS
AFTER
HE
left the inn, Cole finally nailed down a meeting with Tiffany. She claimed to still be staying at the house on Ono Island. After he threatened to drive out to Orange Beach and drop in uninvited, she finally agreed to his terms. A public place, somewhere they could converse privately.

The place was located outside of Fairhope. Probably wise, since she had a history in the small town and obviously didn’t want to be recognized.

And Cole knew now just how dark that history was.

It had been hours since the initial fury had set in, and he was still fuming over the break-in. Remembering how Briar had looked when she’d realized what had happened, he felt everything he’d felt that morning—the fury, bitterness and clarity—swamp him again.

They would be playing by his rules from now on.

Tiffany sat down, frowning at him behind designer shades. Today’s immaculate outfit was crafted from a pressed white silk suit. The pleat in the pants was razor-sharp. All businesswoman with a bit of an edge.

The edge of a woman who was so desperate to get what she wanted, she was willing to go to criminal lengths.

“I don’t appreciate being ordered around,” she said as she raised her hand to a waiter. “Glass of water,” she snapped when the young man approached. As he walked away, she turned her frown to the window beside their back booth. “It’s hot as hell outside.”

“I thought that’d make you more comfortable,” Cole told her. “Being the devil that you are.”

“Did you bring me here just to insult me? That’s not going to make me look too kindly on your charity case.”

“You crossed the line,” he growled.

She sniffed. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“No, you know damn well what I’m talking about.” He trailed off when the young man set Tiffany’s ice water on the table. “We’re not ready to order just yet.”

“Whenever you are, just let me know,” the waiter said. Sensing tension, he shot one cautious look between them before making a quick escape.

Cole waited until the man was out of earshot before beginning again. “The break-in at Hanna’s last night. It’s got your fingerprints all over it.”

“I’m sure the police will disagree. You, in fact, wouldn’t find my fingerprints anywhere near it. And I believe I have an alibi for the time in question.”

“Fine, you got one of your boy toys to do the work for you. Maybe this guy Gavin tells me you’ve been seeing—what’s his name? Chad?”

Her frown deepened. “He’s in Huntsville. Where he belongs.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, when I came to say goodbye to Gavin the other day, who’s four-by-four was that next to yours in the driveway?”

She pursed her lips. “You think this gives you the upper hand?”

“I think it gives me enough right to tell you to go straight to hell. I’m done cooperating with this scheme of yours.”

She leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest and looking a shade too smug. “Is that right? Well, well. Look who’s grown a pair.” She reached up to remove her sunglasses. “So you’ve decided that Gavin isn’t what you want anymore.”

“No. The arrangement is simply changing,” Cole told her. “I’m out, Tiff.”

She let out a scathing laugh. “If you’re out, Cole, then what are you still doing booked at Hanna’s Inn?”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, I think that has everything to do with it. I know for a fact that you’re involved with Briar Browning. And knowing you, Cole—knowing how you lose all focus when there’s a bleeding-heart, innocent woman thrown into the mix—that’s why I took matters into my own hands with the break-in. So I’ll ask you one more time—are you ready to lose Gavin over her?”

“I get visitation,” Cole said through clenched teeth.

“Oh, really. Or what?”

“I go to the police, tell them who exactly was the one to break in last night. Only I think I’ll leave your boy toy out of it and tell them it was you. I doubt seriously your alibi is
that
tight.”

“And my motive would be...?”

Here he had her. Leaning forward, he braced his hands on the table’s edge. “I did my digging. You want to finish what your old man started. An A-list resort on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay would be a lucrative venture.” As her expression froze in blank surprise, Cole grinned in satisfaction. Yes, he had her. “That sounds like motive enough for me. Just one question, though. Do you want it for profit alone or is it the thrill of the hunt, the kill? Because that would truly make you your father’s daughter.”

She stared at him, formulating her response carefully behind her cool composure. “If you tell the police about my involvement, you realize that means revealing everything to your doe-eyed innkeeper?”

His jaw tightened. “I’m prepared for that.”

The motion of her mouth was as sharp as a blade as she found a smile once more. “I’ll make you a deal.”

“I’m done taking your deals.”

“If you refrain from telling the cops I’m involved, I’ll loosen your visitation restrictions.” When his face fell, her smile strengthened. “What do you say to that?”

“You’ll just...let me see him? Regularly. After everything that’s happened. All the threats, all the lies. All the effort you took to make sure I never saw him again?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll even have my lawyers draw up a new settlement and sign it myself.”

He scowled. “Assuming that’s true...you’ll also agree to leave Briar Browning and Hanna’s Inn alone?”

“No, I can’t promise that,” she told him. “You know that. But there will be no more break-ins. Now that I have the inn’s financials, I won’t need to.”

He couldn’t take her word for it. He knew that all too well. But he had leverage now, and he knew that police involvement was the last thing she wanted or needed. She was offering him a trade, an even one. One he would be stupid to resist. He shook his head, looking down at the menu closed under his hands. “One more question.”

“What’s that?”

“You hated your old man,” he reminded her. “Why are you so determined to be like him?”

“Not
like
him,” she snapped, eyes firing at the suggestion. “Better than him! I never wanted anything to do with my father. He tainted the Howard name. I’ll never forgive him for that. And I’ll never have closure until I rebuild it. One brick at a time, if that’s what it takes.”

“Or, in your case, one resort at a time.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Sure, if you will.”

“If you’re so unlike him, why were you so determined to hurt me a year ago?”

“That has nothing to do with this.”

“Oh, yeah? How so? Tiff, it’s hard for me to distinguish you then and the you I’m facing now.”

“You still don’t see it, do you, Cole?” She sighed. “I wanted Gavin. But with a name like Douglas Howard casting a pall over me, the only way I was going to win against you and your law-abiding brother was to ruin you.”

Cole scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration. “But if you’d just come to me we could have worked something out. I would have done anything to keep Gavin from having to go through what he did when we battled it out in court. No, it was about more than just getting Gavin—you hated me.”

The grin melted from Tiffany’s face slowly but surely. “You don’t get it—”

“What could I have possibly done to make you hate me that much?” Cole demanded to know.

“I hated who
I
was,” she snapped back. The rare show of temper cracked the exterior polish Tiffany had donned since her father’s fortune had passed to her. “I hated who I became after I married you. While you were out in the world solving crime and doing what you thought was worthwhile, all I did was wait for you to come home and act like everything was picture-perfect whenever the other wives in the neighborhood came over for tea. Do you know why I married you, Cole? It was to get away from Douglas Howard, the Howard name in general. I wanted to get as far out from under his shadow as I could.”

He gaped at her. “Ten years. We were together ten years, Tiff. I thought we were happy.”

“Yeah, well, you thought wrong. And why? Because you were happy. You were perfectly content. You worked long hours. Even when you were a beat cop on traffic duty, you were consumed by work, by other people’s problems. And when you came home, you didn’t take the time to look. If you would’ve looked, you would have seen that I was miserable.”

“Gavin...”

“I thought I could change. I thought I could be someone else so I had a baby. I thought he would change me, but you know what, Cole? I guess the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree after all. I still hated my life, and that’s when I started to hate you.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. All that time, he’d thought it was him she was discontent with, angry at. But she’d been angry at herself above everyone else. And she’d taken it out on him. “You couldn’t have just told me all this? You couldn’t have gone to therapy? You had to drag it out in court, ruin my life and a good part of our child’s so that you could gain some sense of self again?”

She lifted a shoulder. “It was the only way I knew how.” Seeming to pull herself back together, Tiffany brushed a strand of perfectly straight blond hair behind her ear. With steady fingers, she unrolled her utensils from the linen napkin. “So what will it be, love? Does visitation sound like a good enough reward for keeping quiet, or do we need to go another round? I’m just dying to know.” She unfolded her menu and began to read it with cool eyes. “And where’s that waiter? I’m famished.”

* * *

T
HE
THOUGHT
OF
squeezing herself into something as wicked and tiny as the lingerie prototype Roxie had given her was distracting enough. Olivia, however, knew her a bit better.

“You’re trying to make me tipsy,” Briar surmised as Olivia laid another round of drinks in front of them both at the tavern that evening.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Olivia admitted. “Only this time it’s going to work. You’re going to drink everything I pour you and you’re going to like it.”

“Sadly, you really do seem to think so.” When Olivia turned her back, Briar fingered the salt on the rim of the margarita glass. She did love Olivia’s margaritas. “I’ve decided to hire an accountant.”

Olivia spun around and eyed her balefully.

Briar raised her hands. “This has nothing to do with the break-in. This is me focused completely on something else.”

Frowning, Olivia exchanged a drink for singles with a paying customer on the other side of the bar. “Are you still thinking happy thoughts?”

“The happiest,” Briar lied.

Unconvinced but out of ammo, Olivia sat down next to Briar, knocked back another shot then sighed. “Tell me more.”

“I think it’s the best way to line up investors,” she said. “People in accounting generally know people who want to invest, especially locally, right?”

“As long as you use someone locally, you might be right on the money,” Olivia agreed. “Good thinking, cuz.”

“I’m ready to get this tax business off my back,” Briar said, taking a sip of her margarita. She had to squint as the salt mingled with the lethal Lewis mix. “Along with everything else. Even if it means putting someone else’s name on the inn.”

“Someone else’s money,” Olivia corrected her. “Investors invest. They don’t run the place. That’s your job.”

“They run the books.” Briar sighed. “I think that’s why I’ve been hesitant to take the final step toward the investor route. We’ve always run the books at Hanna’s—it’s a family business. The thought of bringing people in who aren’t family and might not understand it scares me.”

“Anyone who’ll want to invest in Hanna’s for the right reasons, will understand what family is,” Olivia assured her. “The inn all but breathes it.”

“Even if it’s just me now?”

“Yes.” She nudged the glass toward Briar. “Finish that. I’ll make you another.”

“You’re going to have to cart me home.”

“I have full-grown men to do that for me.”

Briar looked around at the near-empty bar. “Yeah, I see they’re just lining up to do your handiwork.”

Brow arched, Olivia braced a hand on the bar. “Hey, that’s sarcasm.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So for twenty-seven years, you’ve been the pretty one, I’ve been the smartass. Do I get to be the pretty one now?”

Briar shook her head, passing a jigger into a tavern customer’s hand. While she was here, she might as well put herself to work. “I can make petty jokes. I learned from the best.”

“Whoa.” Olivia backed up a step. “Briar Browning just made a dig at me.” Her hands clasped over her heart and she tilted her head, eyeing her cousin whimsically. “I think this is the happiest day of my life.”

Briar let out a laugh, despite herself. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”