A Place with Briar (Harlequin Superromance) (22 page)

“When was she here?” he asked, setting his helmet carefully on the table.

“Don’t sit,” she demanded. “I don’t want you to sit.”

“All right,” he said, holding up his hands. He had to fight not to reach for her again. “Briar...when was she here?”

“Why should it matter when she was here or that she was here at all?” she asked. “The only thing that matters is that you lied to me.”

He lowered his head. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

She let out a shaky breath and looked away, but not before he saw the tears crest into her eyes. “I want the truth. Why did you do it? I need to hear it from you. And, please, no more lies.”

“Truth,” he agreed. “It was for Gavin.” At her discerning nod, he should have felt relieved. Still, the space between them felt like a thousand empty miles he hadn’t the first clue how to cross. “Whatever I did, I did it for Gavin. I had nothing. So I let her blackmail me into doing what she wanted just so I could be a part of his life again.”

“And what did you do, exactly?” she asked. When he hesitated, those grave eyes veered back to his face. “Tell me. Everything.”

He gripped the edge of the counter. That hollow stare cleaved him like an ax. The worst part of it wasn’t the accusing gleam behind it; instead, it was the hurt he saw lurking there. He had hurt her, and
that
he could not stand. “All she wanted was for me to gather information. She needed to know who your investors were. If you didn’t have any, she wanted me to find out what you were planning to do to save the inn.”

“And you did these things?”

“I tapped your phone lines. Looked into your files.”

Her face fell completely, hand coming halfway up to shield her mouth before it fell away in shock. “The break-in...”

“No,” he argued, dropping into the chair next to hers, unable to stop himself from reaching out and taking her cool hand. “No, Briar. That had
nothing
to do with me.”

“How am I supposed to trust you?”

“I was with you,” he assured her. “Remember? We were together.”

“Oh, God.” She pressed her free hand to her brow. “Was that part of it? Does what’s between us now have anything to do with this?”

“Briar, please believe me, it wasn’t long after I got here and met you that I started questioning everything,” he explained. “That I started wondering if hurting you was worth it. And it wasn’t. I couldn’t do it.”

“That day...on the pier...you said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

He sighed, remembering the words well. “I said I didn’t want to. And I didn’t, Briar, but at that point I didn’t think I had a choice.”

She blinked, breathed out a sob and turned away from him even as he reached for her again. Tearing her arm from his grasp, she paced to the screen door and back, fingers raking the hair from her brow. With the room between them, she faced him again. “It was all based on lies.”

“No. Not all of it,” he told her. Above all, he had to make her understand that.

“You let me invite you into my bed.”

“At that point, it wasn’t about anything other than you and me. I had already gone to Tiffany. I told her I wasn’t going to do her dirty work anymore.”

“You’ve already lied to me,” she pointed out. “What could you possibly have to say for yourself to make me believe you aren’t lying now?”

He fell silent, unable to see a way through the fact that she’d lost faith in him.

Briar lifted a hand to her head again. “Oh, God, my father was right.”

“Your father’s a jackass.”

“It’s funny. He said the same thing about you,” she said on a sobbing laugh. “Only now I’m inclined to believe him. He said I would end up alone. And what do you know? As it turns out, I’m better off that way, aren’t I? I’m better off moving on, just like he did.”

Cole rose, walked to her in two long, swift strides. “Briar, whatever has happened here, whatever he or Tiffany have ever said to you, you cannot give up on the inn.”

“What’s the point?”
she shrieked, her voice rising for the first time. “I wanted to keep it in the family. But there’s no family here anymore, Cole, and there never will be again. Not as long as I’m around.”

“You can’t think like that, Briar. I won’t let you!”

“I don’t have a choice.” Dropping her face into both of her hands, she shook with repressed sobs. “I don’t. Just like I have no choice but to ask you to leave.”

No, not like this.
He wanted to beg the words. Plead with her. “I can’t leave you here like this.”

“Everybody leaves,” she said, eyes dead, glassy now as they rose back to his. “Why should you be any different?”

“I love you.”

She released a breath, closed her eyes against him. “The sad thing is, Cole, a few hours ago I could have taken you at your word. You’ll understand now why I can’t.”

“Briar...don’t,” he said, the hopelessness he saw in her and felt sinking into his bones tearing him apart. “Please don’t.”

“Get out,” she said again. “If you ever had any regard for me whatsoever...you’ll leave. Now. Without another word.”

He’d lost her. He’d known it from the moment he stepped foot in her kitchen. Tiffany had won, and they had both lost.

He stood gazing at her, drinking her in. He began to raise his hand to touch her once more but curled his fingers into his fist and made himself turn away.

Gripping the strap of the helmet, Cole lifted it from the table. Without another word, he moved away from her. Though it wrenched him in two, he picked up the backpack he had dropped in the entryway, took one last look toward the kitchen and felt his heart reach for her with every ounce of its strength.

Again, he made himself turn away. The bells over the door chimed and he left Hanna’s Inn and its innkeeper, empty-handed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T
HE
DAY
AFTER
Cole left, Briar told herself she was strong enough to rid herself of him completely. She stalled most of the morning, going about her regular duties, though there was no one to tend to. His absence echoed around her as she threw herself into mopping floors that weren’t dirty, scrubbing surfaces that were already clean.

Finally, she braced herself and carried a laundry basket to the door of the bay-view suite.

It was closed. She fumbled in her pocket for the key he had left on the podium. It might have been her imagination, but when she’d touched it that morning, it had still felt warm from his hand.

It was a key—cold metal. It meant nothing more than access into a room that had never really belonged to him. Not that it would belong to her for much longer, either.

She pushed that dismal thought away. With her heart hurting like it was, it would be a while before she could contemplate the inn’s uncertain future again. One heartache at a time—that was all she could handle. Unlocking the door, Briar tucked the key back in her pocket and stepped across the threshold.

Her breath shuddered. She leaned into the laundry basket at her hip. The room was perfectly ordered, empty, but she could smell him. Just that barest trace of him on the air. Her eyes filled and she bent at the hips, unable to hold back the sobs for another moment.

It was some time later when she heard a voice calling up the stairs. She heard it again, closer this time, but couldn’t bring herself to answer. Knuckles rapped against the door of the suite. “Briar, you in here?”

It was Olivia’s voice. Footsteps came around the bed and stopped.

Briar didn’t make a move to get up from the floor or lift her head from her knees. She didn’t quite know how she’d gotten this way, curled up on the far side of the bed. She remembered abandoning the laundry basket by the door and then walking around, tracing her hands over the edge of the furniture, the quilt. When it had come to stripping the bed and removing any trace of him that was left in the room, she’d curled up and wept.

Olivia’s next words echoed the ones Briar had felt when the dam broke and the pain in all its towering glory came gushing through in full force.

“Oh, hell.”

Olivia crouched next to her, placing a hand on Briar’s head. There was no asking if he was gone. Some things were just intuitive.

And, because they’d been through so much, both having lost people they loved whether to death or departure, Olivia seemed to inherently know that sometimes there were no words of comfort. There was just presence, steadfastness. Being there.

As Briar’s shoulders shook with more sobs, Olivia pulled her into her arms and rocked.

* * *

T
HE
F
OURTH
OF
July blazed in with its characteristic lurid heat and scores of tourists. The inn came alive again with people and Briar had no choice but to put the events of the past week behind her as she went about her duties. She ignored the fact that she didn’t put near as much heart into the routine and activities around Hanna’s Inn leading up to the city’s grand holiday finale as she usually did.

The fireworks show thundered and flashed, lighting the faces of people in chairs on the inn lawn and those who had poured out of the tavern. Hundreds of them gathered on the Eastern Shore to watch in awed silence.

Briar watched them from behind the windows of the sun porch, far apart from the noise and companionship.

She spotted Adrian, Kyle, Roxie and Richard Levy grouped together near the greenhouse and hoped they wouldn’t come looking for her. The only reason Olivia hadn’t already was because she was busy manning the tavern.

It had been only days before last year’s Fourth of July when the doctors confirmed her worst fears: that her mother’s cancer had taken a turn for the worst. The night of the Fourth, she and her mother and father had huddled together here in this spot, apart from the patriotic revelers. Then, too, she’d felt disconnected from the jubilation.

The disconnect had terrified her. For a while, particularly after her mother’s death, she’d feared that she would go on feeling detached for the rest of her life.

Now she faced that same fear again. This time she didn’t have the energy to push it away. Her guests were outside with the tavern crowd—she didn’t have to paste on an artificial smile. She felt bone tired, worn thin. Yesterday she had marginally been able to assure herself that this feeling of helplessness would pass with time and she would move on. Tonight she wasn’t so sure.

Cole’s departure was no longer her sole reason for feeling so helpless. Her taxes were overdue again. The deadline had come and gone. Foreclosure was imminent. She was so tired of struggling, fighting. Byron Strong hadn’t found any new leads on investors. Her world was truly crumbling and she didn’t have the heart or, she feared, the will to fight it.

Though there was no chill in the air, she crossed her arms over her middle and rubbed her hands over them. The movement did nothing to assuage the perilous track of her thoughts. She turned toward the light of the kitchen. Keeping busy. That was the way to stop dwelling on how far she’d let herself fall.

She reached up to switch on the radio mounted to the underside of the cabinets and turned the dial until Ray Charles drowned out the reverberating bang of fireworks. The counters were clean. The dishes had all been done and put away. She pulled open the silver drawer, eyeing the patterned handles of her mother’s favorite set of flatware. They could use a polish....

The knock came at the screen door. Frowning, she turned to see who it was. She stopped short when she saw Byron Strong. The man was dressed in shorts and a red polo shirt. He was wearing brown leather flip-flops and he hadn’t strung his long dark hair up at the base of his neck as he usually did during working hours.

She was struck both by his casual appearance and the fact that he was grinning from ear to ear. It was fortunate he hadn’t run into Olivia yet. Briar’s cousin would have been all over him in two seconds tops.

Walking over, she opened the screen door and ushered him in. “Byron,” she greeted, “I wasn’t expecting to see you around here today.”

“Hanna’s does have one of the best views,” he said as he stepped into her kitchen and seemed to fill it with his long, tall frame. “We wanted to see the fireworks from here.”

“We?” she asked, glancing over his shoulder. The stoop was empty.

“Me and my parents,” he said, pointing out to the people sitting on blankets along the shoreline. “They’re new to the area, moved down just in time for the big holiday show.”

“You should invite them in,” she said. “I’ve got plenty of barbecue and watermelon left over from this afternoon’s feast.”

“I’m sure they would love that. But I wanted to run a couple of things by you first.”

“Oh?” She shrank into a chair. Whenever Byron visited, memories of the day he had told her of her father’s betrayal came lurking back. Though his face still beamed light, she couldn’t help but brace herself. “What about?”

“It’s business,” he admitted and, true to form, took the seat beside her.

“Oh, boy,” she breathed, laying her hands carefully on her lap.

He grinned. “It’s good news. First of all, I wanted you to be the first to know that I quit my job at your father’s firm.”

She blinked in surprise. “You did?”

“I’ve decided to open my own accounting business,” he explained. “It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time, but I didn’t know how to do it. That is until I walked into the inn that day with your father and saw you stand up for your dreams. You inspired me, Briar. And now I’m striking out on my own.”

“Byron.” Placing a hand over his, she smiled a real smile for the first time in days. “That’s wonderful news.”

He chuckled. “I was hoping you’d say that. As it stands, you’re my only client.”

“I’d be happy to recommend your services any day.”

“That’s good to know.” He paused for effect. Then the words spilled out as if he’d been waiting for the right moment to say them and had finally found it. “I think I’ve found a pair of investors who would be happy to do business with Hanna’s.”

Her heart did a small leap. Pressing the heel of her hand to the center of her chest, she fought hope. There would be no hoping this time. Not until the deal was done. “Really? Would I know who they are?”

“Not personally,” he said, the grin becoming almost boyish as it spread farther across his cheeks. “But they’re here. Tonight.”

“Where?” she asked, glancing out the window again as her pulse picked up pace.

“They’re with me,” he added for emphasis.

Looking back at that pensive grin, she narrowed her eyes. “You don’t mean your parents.”

His face fell slightly at her tone. “As a matter of fact...”

She sighed, brushed the hair back from her brow and shook her head. “I’m sorry, but that’s not an option.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked. “They love what they’ve seen of the inn so far. I told them about its history—they
love
a good history. They have the money. They want to invest in local business. And I can’t vouch for anyone’s investment portfolio more than I can vouch for theirs. I practically built it, for Christ’s sake. It’s the perfect arrangement.”

“It’s too convenient,” she argued. “Did you really think I wouldn’t see straight through it? My family has never taken charity, Byron, and I’m not about to start now.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold it,” he said, stopping her with raised hands. “Who said anything about charity? Both of them are retired, they have extra cash lying around. They want to invest in real estate. Hell, my father made his living in real estate for forty years. And my mother ran her own bakery in northern Georgia, so they love small business. Trust me. You’re not going to find two people more perfect for this.” He stopped her again, reading her thoroughly. “And I didn’t give them a nudge. They came to me about investing. The first person I thought about, of course, was you. But if you can’t see this as a win-win all the way around, I’m at a loss.”

She scrutinized his face for a moment. Several moments. When she found no crack in the exterior and couldn’t bring herself not to trust what she saw beaming through his eyes, she found a smile curving slowly, warmly across her lips. “This is too good to be true. You realize that, right?”

He shrugged, leaning back in his chair with that boyish grin again and reaching for one of the nectarines in the bowl at the center of the table. “I’d say it was meant to be.”

“Meant to be,” she repeated as she watched him bite into a perfectly round red nectarine. She threw her hands up in surrender. “Well, what are you waiting for? Bring them in. I’ll make coffee. We’ll talk business.”