by Avery Flynn
“Dude!” Mace hollered across the pub and then bolted up from his seat and marched over.
They did the man-hug thing where there was lots of extra-hard clapping on each other’s backs, but Nick couldn’t deny that it was good to see his buddy from the bad old days again. Since Mason lived in California and traveled with the movies he was tied to, they didn’t get to see each other much. Their chess game before he’d left for England had been a stop in for a few days between locations.
Once they made it back to the bar and each had a pint in their hands, Mason gave him a grin and raised an eyebrow. “So this is the place that kidnapped you.”
“Village-napped,” Daisy corrected, unabashedly following the conversation in the mirror. One sassy wink later, she grabbed three pints and headed down to the other end of the bar.
Nick followed her progress. Of course, that meant he got to scope the premises for another blond Chapman-Powell. His gaze hit on her immediately. Brooke stood on the other side of the massive Riley, who was always near Daisy. As soon as their eyes locked, her fingers went to her mouth, brushing across her lips as if she was haunted by that kiss as much as he was. Red bloomed in her cheeks and she dropped her hand to her pint, gripping the handle with white-knuckled intensity. Someone was definitely hot and bothered by the kiss. Good to know he wasn’t the only one.
“So we drove by the house,” Mace said, seemingly oblivious to the by-play in the mirror. Too bad Nick knew better. The man never missed a damn thing. “According to what I could see from the road, it’ll be perfect. Agnes Groves and Carter McDavies—or McPain in the Ass, as we call him—will be here tomorrow.”
“They’re the leads?” Nick took a drink of his stout, unable to look away from Brooke, who refused to return his gaze again, and somehow ended up setting down an empty pint glass.
“Yeah, it’s a small but well-funded project. The director’s a real up-and-comer. Give her a few years and she’ll be bringing home the golden statues and purple dragons in tutus.”
By the time the ridiculousness of Mace’s statement hit, it was too late. Nick’s ass was roasted and he knew it. He shook his head and looked down at his refilled pint (thank you, Phillip, the best bartender ever).
“So where is she?” Mason asked with a chuckle.
“Over there.” There was no use in denying it. Nick jerked his chin toward her but kept his gaze on his pint.
His friend let out a low whistle. “So what’s the story? Who is she? And what’s with your shy maiden routine here?”
“Fuck you.”
Mace just gave him a shit-eating grin.
He flipped off his oldest friend.
Mace didn’t seem fazed by his reaction. “You know you’re going to tell me all about her anyway, so you might as well get it over with.”
Nick dropped his voice, not that he’d really get overheard; the pub was as loud as ever with all the movie folks squeezed into the space. “That’s Brooke Chapman-Powell and she’s a total ballbuster.”
“I like her already.” Mace clinked his pint glass against Nick’s. “Tell me more.”
So he did, giving only the briefest explanation of what had happened in his room after he’d tried to crack his brain open in the bathroom, the kiss in the stable house, and his plan to get her back in his bed.
And up went Mace’s raised eyebrow of inquisition. “So you’re just going to sit back and let the tension build between you two until she decides that screwing you isn’t such a bad idea?”
It wasn’t exactly how he’d put it, but Nick couldn’t argue with his friend’s summation of his plan. So he didn’t.
After thirty seconds of silence between the men, Mace leaned forward and jabbed a finger in Nick’s face. “Who are you and what did you do with the guy who declared that women were easy come, easy go so why get hung up on a specific one?”
He smacked away his friend’s hand and signaled to Phillip for another round. “I’m not hung up on her.”
Mace snorted. “Good to know.”
The man couldn’t be any more wrong. Nick wasn’t hung up on Brooke. He just couldn’t figure her out, that was all. He was a problem solver, a puzzle figure outer, a riddle answerer, so it wasn’t in him to ignore such a complicated woman as Brooke Chapman-Powell. That’s the only reason why she’d gotten under his skin. Really. It was.
…
Brooke couldn’t stop watching him. The easy confidence that wafted off him as he stood in the middle of a scrum of Americans made her heart speed up. The knowing smile that curled his lips whenever he looked her way and caught her watching had her nipples pebbling and pressing against the confines of her bra. And the sound of his deep voice that somehow she managed to hear over the chatter of everyone else in the pub? There weren’t words to describe it, just a feeling of hot, hungry anticipation. It was the beer. It had to be. The other night had been an aberration.
Daisy’s well-placed elbow to Brooke’s ribs snatched her attention away from the man she most decidedly wasn’t picturing naked. Pressing her hand to her side, she glared at her little sister. Daisy didn’t seem to care.
“What is going on with you and Nick?” her sister asked, keeping her eyes on Brooke to read her lips.
Heat bloomed in Brooke’s cheeks. “Mr. Vane.”
Daisy rolled her eyes and took a sip of her pint. “Try again, sis.”
“Nothing is going on.” Well, not right now. Not since that kiss that had burned in the best very bad way.
Her sister’s eyes went round and she gasped. “You shagged him again, didn’t you?”
Was there a heat level hotter than lava? Because that was her face at the moment. “You’re pissed.”
Her sister closed her mouth—thank you very much—and looked around the pub. Luckily the regulars were more interested in covertly watching the American movie people than her and her sister. Well, all but Riley. He sat at a table with his mates, sneaking peeks at Daisy.
Daisy leaned in close and did her best attempt at a whisper. “How was it?”
“Passable.” And now her pants were on fire along with her face.
Her sister snorted. “Fibber.”
“Okay, it was good.” She glanced over at Nick. “Really good. Great.” He winked and her body went from kinda-into-it to get-me-new-knickers in a heartbeat. That’s not allowed, Brooke. “And it’s not happening again.”
“Why not? It’s not like it’ll go anywhere, with him being the earl’s heir and you being a publican’s daughter.”
“And I don’t want it to.” She didn’t. Her focus needed to be on Bowhaven, not on the man who was driving her mad.
“Good. So enjoy yourself with a fit American.” Daisy held up her pint glass in toast.
Brooke left her own glass on the bar. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
Daisy groaned. “Is this about that wanker Reggie?”
“I really don’t want my private life to again be the gossip talked about at tea.” Once in her lifetime was more than enough for that. It had taken a long time to get the villagers to see her as something other than that foolish Chapman-Powell girl who thought she could pass as posh with a footballer boyfriend and life in the city.
“So don’t let anyone know,” Daisy said.
The possibility of it had her looking over at Nick again, only to find him checking her out. “Like that’s possible in a place like Bowhaven.”
“’Course it is. All you have to do is work a little at it.”
Something in her sister’s voice, a sort of excited happiness that hadn’t been there before, yanked Brooke’s gaze away from Nick and back to her sister—who was looking at the tall forest ranger staring right back at her like she was the best thing ever.
“Are you telling me that you and Riley…?”
Da
isy blinked her large blue eyes and looked over at Brooke, grinning. “Not yet, but I’m considering.”
If the queen had said the line of succession was skipping her son and going straight to William, Brooke couldn’t have been more taken aback. After all this time of watching Riley crush on Daisy with no results, she’d begun to doubt anything would come of it. And judging by the determined look in her sister’s gaze when she peeked at him over the top of her pint, something was definitely going to happen.
“But enough about me,” Daisy said, jerking her chin toward the other end of the bar. “Looks like your man’s leaving.”
Brooke didn’t have to turn to know who her sister meant. “He’s not my ma—”
“Hey, Nick,” Daisy hollered over the din. “Are you on your way to the big house? Because Brooke was just getting ready to leave, too, and doesn’t have a car.”
“You were supposed to take me back,” Brooke said, aware that half the eyes in the pub were now trained right on her.
“It’s no big deal,” Nick said, cutting the distance between them. “Happy to help.”
“Brilliant,” Daisy declared while all Brooke wanted to do was fall into a hole.
Nick and the other American he was with—it had to be his mate from the movie company, judging by the easy camaraderie between the two of them—walked over from the other side of the bar.
“Daisy and Brooke, meet my friend Mason Pell, who’s the reason why the production company is here in town,” Nick said. “Mace, these are the Chapman-Powell sisters. Beware, they’re going to take over the world someday.”
“Well, at least Bowhaven,” Daisy said.
“We’re looking for extras for the big zombie wedding ball scene,” Mason said. “Interested?”
Brooke answered “no” at the same time Daisy said “yes.”
“One out of two ain’t bad,” the other man said with a laugh.
“You guys can talk details.” Nick slid his palm across the small of her back, sending sparks through her. “Ready to go, Lady Lemons?”
There. That was what she needed, a reminder of their places in this world. He’d be running the big house and she’d be working in it. Her chin lifted a little higher as she marched half a step ahead of him out of the pub, reminding herself that no matter how good it felt to have him touching her again, he wasn’t for her and never could be, not even for six months out of the year.
The ride back to the stable house in Dallinger Park’s Land Rover was fast and quiet. Whatever was building between them, Nick didn’t seem any more anxious to talk about it than she was. Still, after they said their good nights and headed to their bedrooms, she couldn’t help but take a last peek at him in the hall before she shut her door. Too bad he was already inside his room. And that little voice in her head asking what if and why not got louder.
Chapter Nineteen
Brooke skipped the fish and chips shop the next day to avoid the line of people spilling out the door. It wasn’t just there, though. People were everywhere in the shops, on the footpaths. The flash of light in the window of the Bits and Bobs bookstore caught her attention next. Taking care to peek in between villagers crowding around the big window, she spotted a man and a woman signing autographs and smiling for photos with locals. The man looked familiar and there was no mistaking the woman. She’d been in a dozen rom-coms that Brooke had curled up with during the past few winters.
She had no idea how the two managed to stand it. All the camera phones and crowds were giving her flashbacks. Of course, unlike her, these two weren’t the center of attention because it was the most humiliating time of their lives. Skin getting itchy from the awful claustrophobic anxiety climbing up every single nerve in her body, she hustled past to the Fox next door.
Per usual, just walking through the door smoothed out her janky breathing and settled her shoulders down a few inches.
“Aye up, Brooke,” her mum and dad said nearly in union from their spots behind the bar.
The others in the pub looked up from their pints and said their hellos—which passed as an overwhelmingly effusive welcome for Yorkshire—as she made her way over to her parents, who were both standing behind the bar beaming at her.
“What’s going on?” she asked as her mum handed her a cuppa.
“You’ve been the talk of the village,” her dad said before heading down to refill Bruce Ackerman’s pint.
“Oh, great.” Being at the center of the teatime chatter was not what she’d been hoping to get out of this. She owed Bowhaven, and all she wanted to do was repay that debt.
Her mum leaned forward, pride gleaming in her eyes. “No one can stop talking about the movie and the fact that Nick said it was you who helped him talk the earl into agreeing to let them film at Dallinger Park.”
There went the butterflies at the mention of his name. “Mr. Vane,” she said automatically.
“Oh, there you go with that. Fine. That’s what Mr. Vane said,” her mum added. “Brian Kaye asked me this morning if you were still interested in running for village council. He said Alma Fistlegate is stepping away.”
The village council? They wanted her to run? She figured she’d be fighting tooth and nail for years before she actually got on the council, and now they weren’t just going to listen to her, they wanted her to run? The news had her speechless.
“Brian,” her mum said, calling out to the man sitting at a table nearby. “I was just telling our Brooke how you’d mentioned an upcoming opening on the council.”
The older man stood up and carried his pint over to the bar, giving Brooke the friendliest look he’d ever shot her in the two years she’d been insistently sharing her ideas with him.
“Aye up, Brooke,” he said. “There’s not much power in the position; the county council is in charge of most things, but you’ll have a voice and help the village. So can I put you down as a yes?”
Would she say yes? In a bloody heartbeat. “Of course.”
It took Brooke a second to put a name on the floaty feeling making her lungs tight. Determined accomplishment. That’s what it was. She’d crossed a line and was going to do whatever it took to make sure she never went back to being the village joke again.
…
The moors looked like a live-action Instagram filter. Even for as much as Nick didn’t want to be standing hunched over in a hunting butt with Gramps waiting for the grouse to come bursting out from the heather-covered hills, he didn’t have a choice. He had dark-green ear protection on his head, but with one ear uncovered until the shooting started.
Gramps turned to him in the small stone-lined space. “We need to talk about Ms. Chapman-Powell.”
Yep. He definitely should have left ear protection over both ears. “Why?”
“Because your dalliance isn’t going unnoticed,” he said. “The villagers are talking.”
Great. That was exactly how to not get Brooke back into his bed. He’d fucked this whole thing up. “How is that any business of yours?”
“I’m your grandfather.” The earl straightened his tweed vest that went with his tweed pants that ended under his knees.
It was like looking at a fancy English rich-guy cosplayer. Really, a group of them, because the others in the hunting party were dressed in similar outfits. Meanwhile, he was in jeans and a dark-green fleece. In August. Thank you, winds off the North Sea.
“The question remains, why do you care?” he asked.
The earl kept his gaze on the horizon, but there was no missing the way he flinched at Nick’s words. “Your father was a complicated man.”
“He was a rich asshole who got what he wanted and left without a second thought.” About Nick’s mama. About him. About anything but himself.
The earl whirled around in the small space, the vein in his temple throbbing. “Is that what you think?”
“It’s what I k
now.” Not that his mama had ever spelled it out that way, but Nick had put the letters together all on his own.
“There’s more to the story than you realize,” the earl said, his voice as hard as the stone lining the hunting butt. “But this isn’t the place for that discussion.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Nick shot back, his own temper flaring. “I know the only reason I’m here is because you didn’t have any other choice. We’re not family. Not really.”
If he didn’t know any better, he’d call the look that crossed the earl’s face hurt, but he did know better. This was the same man who’d arranged for his mama to lose the man she loved for reasons Nick never understood and for him to be a bastard without a father but a title that didn’t mean shit to him. The earl opened his mouth, but before any words could come out, shots blasted through the air as the grouse took flight.
…
Dallinger Park was total chaos. Between the movie crew setting up lights and cameras and a million other things Brooke couldn’t put a name to, the earl giving the whole process a dismissive glare before retreating to the east wing, and the villagers hanging around to see if they’d get chosen to be an extra in the big zombie wedding ball scene, it was a madhouse. Crowds didn’t normally bother her, but the huge crush of people inside the great hall, the noise, and the number wandering outside the doors leading to the formal garden had her twitchy.
Nick was near Queen Victoria’s fireplace talking to his mate Mace. The two had an easy give-and-take between them with lots of laughter and manly shoulder punching for emphasis. Watching the byplay between the two men was like getting to see another side to Nick. For someone who presented himself to the world as if he was all laid-back charm, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to him than he was letting on. Really, if he was as lazy as he tried to appear, would he have fixed Mr. Darcy’s kennel (Megan had told half the village about it once and the other half of the village twice), Paul’s fish fryer, and the flue for the fireplace he stood in front of right now, giving her an amazing view of his muscular arms as he gestured while talking with Mace?