by Jill Sanders
Carter chuckled and pulled back. “We have one.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “But this will have to do for now.” He kissed her again. “Later,” he promised his wife.
“Gross,” Lilly said with a smile.
“Speaking of the devils.” Riley nodded towards the door. “Both of them.”
Suzie glanced over just as Aiden walked in, helping his dad through the front door. They sat down at a table by the door.
She watched Aiden and noticed the moment he realized she was watching him. He straightened from talking to his dad and glanced around as if he knew someone, or three someones, was watching him.
Riley and Lilly quickly looked away, while Suzie continued to watch him.
He smiled and her breath caught as he started walking towards her.
“Hey,” he said to her and then said the same to her cousins.
“Your dad is up and about?” Riley asked. Suzie could hear the tone in her voice.
“Not really. I still have to help him a little. He wanted pizza after a long day working,” Aiden answered.
“He’s back at work?” Lilly asked, sounding a little worried as the three of them glanced back at his dad.
“Not really. He was behind a desk.” Aiden shrugged.
“Still,” Riley said before biting into the pizza.
“Does Amelia know?” Suzie asked, worried instantly that Robert had pushed himself too much.
“She does… sort of.” He shrugged. “I may have kept some details from her. But Dad and I think we might have made a breakthrough on the case.”
“Oh?” she asked.
“Let me order our pie, we’re starving. Then I’ll tell you everything.”
“Sure.” She figured she could wrap up her dinner with her cousins and then head over to his table to hear all the details. “I’ll be over after.” She nodded to their own pizza.
He started to walk away but stopped and bent down and shocked her as he kissed her in front of her cousins and everyone else in Baked. Without saying a word, he smiled as he walked away.
“Well damn. That settles that,” Riley said with a smile.
“What?” she asked with a frown.
“Oh, something tells me Aiden’s not going anywhere,” Riley said between bites.
Suzie’s eyes moved to Aiden’s back, and she felt her body vibrate as she dreamed.
Conversation with her cousins was always fun and mind boggling at the same time. They bounced from topic to topic. She tried to keep up, but Riley and Lilly were more like twins than cousins and often finished each other’s thoughts. Still, she always enjoyed both of them.
“Well, that’s it for us.” Riley yawned. “We’ll let you get to your man.” Riley wiggled her eyebrows. “Keep us posted.”
“Thanks, I needed this.” She sighed.
“What? Crazy time with your cousins?” Lilly laughed.
“Yes.” She hugged both of them and then walked over to sit across from Aiden. “So?” she asked him and then looked over to Robert. “What did the two of you find out?”
For the next hour, she listened to them talk about finding the developer’s offers and Henry Carson, the owner of C&C Investment.
“They just made an offer on both of these,” Aiden said, showing her two listings for land just outside of Pride. “A very low offer shortly after this article was published.” He pushed a copy of the local paper from a few weeks ago towards her. The headline read, “Drug Busts.” “We looked into the article and found out that someone had called in to request the headline. They even donated to have the article on the front page. Not that it wasn’t going to be anyway, but…” Aiden shrugged.
“You think C&C is trying to drive down prices around Pride?” she asked with a frown. “Why?”
“We don’t know, but those aren’t the only offers they’ve made recently. We found more than a dozen more offers. These here for homes and others for businesses on the outskirts of town.”
She frowned. “Which side of town?”
“The east side,” Robert answered.
Suzie pulled out her phone and dialed her dad.
“Hey, Suzie-Q. What’s up?” her dad answered cheerfully.
“Dad, you were telling Mom the other night that someone had made an offer on your place and Iian and Allison’s place. Can you tell me who it was?”
“Sure can. They’ve also made an offer on the Golden Oar. Course, nothing will make us sell.” Her dad chuckled. “I told the man myself that there was no way in hell—”
“Dad, who was it?” she broke in.
“C&C Investments. A…” She heard her father rummaging around. “Henry Carson stopped by last week and tried to make another offer.”
She glanced over at Robert and Aiden and nodded.
“Dad, can we come over?” she asked suddenly.
“We?”
“Robert, Aiden, and I.”
“Sure, we just finished up dinner but…”
“We just ate pizza. We’ll be over in ten minutes.” She hung up. “They’ve made offers on all my family’s properties, including the Oar.” She felt a shiver race through her. “You don’t think they’re going to do something bad, do you?”
“No.” Aiden reached for her hand. “It won’t come to that. I promise.”
Just as they were getting ready to leave, Aiden’s mother walked in. Her eyes moved around and quickly landed on them.
“Shit,” Robert said and shrank back down.
“There you are.” Amelia placed her hands on her hips and glared at her husband.
“Better go ahead, son. I’m going to sit this one out.” Robert nudged Aiden towards the door and whispered. “Run while you can.”
Aiden chuckled and then walked over and kissed his mother’s cheek. “Go easy on him. His help was invaluable today. Really.”
He turned to Suzie, who took his hand and walked out with him.
“Will your dad be okay?” she asked, causing him to laugh even harder.
“Mom may be pissed that he overextended himself a little, but she can’t be pissed at the results. Besides, he didn’t do anything he wouldn’t have done at home. He even sat all day long.”
“I’ll meet you there.” She started to walk to her own car, but he stopped her. “No, I’ll drive. I’ll bring you back in town after.”
She shrugged. “If you’re sure.”
“I am.” He nodded as he took her hand. “This way I can prolong my time with you.”
She giggled and enjoyed feeling him next to her. It seemed that every time he was around, she turned back into a blushing high schooler.
They drove to her parents’ house and met with her father. When Aiden told him what he suspected was going on, her father grew angry and then silent.
“We have to stop this man from taking over our town,” he said after being silent for a while.
“How?” she asked.
Then her father smiled. “By beating him at the game.”
For the next hour, the three of them plotted. When her mother showed up with fresh baked cookies, she joined in the plotting.
By the time she and Aiden walked out of her parents’ house, her head was spinning slightly, and her heart was jumping with joy.
She’d gotten her wish. Something pretty amazing had happened that might just keep Aiden in Pride.
“What do you say to me grabbing a change of clothes and crashing at your place tonight?” he asked as they approached his car.
She wrapped her arms around him and nodded. “I’d like that. Very much.”
They walked back to his cabin hand in hand. She was so busy watching how sexy he looked in the moonlight that when he tensed and stepped in front of her, she was confused. At least until she noticed the door of the cabin. The bright blue door that she helped her mother paint every few years lay on the front porch in splinters. They could see inside the cabin, where the furniture was also destroyed.
“Shit.” He glanced around as he drew his gun. “Stay
here,” he warned her. “Better yet, run back to your parents’ house and call this in.” He nudged her towards the pathway.
“Aiden,” she started to argue.
“Go.” He motioned and started moving towards the cabin.
The moment he disappeared inside; her body froze. The breath in her lungs seized up. She counted her heartbeats. One. Two. Then on the third one, she jumped into action and rushed towards the door.
“Aiden,” she cried out.
He was standing in the middle of the cabin, his gun still drawn.
“I told you to go for help.” His eyes focused on the back of the cabin.
“I…”
“Then stay, but don’t move.” He motioned to the kitchen.
She watched him disappear into the back rooms. He came back to her in less than a minute. His gun back in its holster.
“It’s okay. Whoever did this is gone.” He wrapped his arms around her.
She held onto him and cried for the destruction and at the possibility of losing the man that she loved.
Chapter 20
Aiden didn’t know when he had lost the upper hand. But shortly after Todd and Megan arrived at the cabin, his things had been gathered up by Suzie and her mother and it had been decided that he would be staying at Suzie’s place.
Not that he had any complaints about the prospects of falling asleep next to Suzie. Or to waking up next to her, for that matter.
After helping them clean up as much of the mess as they could, he wrote up the report and finished packing up his stuff. He was surprised that his clothes and items hadn’t taken the brunt of the destruction.
“You look a little stunned,” Suzie said as they pulled up at her place.
He glanced over at her. “I guess I am. I mean, your father was the one who suggested I stay with you.”
“And?” she asked with a slight chuckle.
“I always imagined he’d threaten me if I looked at you wrong.” He shrugged and shut off the car.
“You wanted to look at me wrong?” she asked with a smile.
He shrugged again and realized he’d fooled himself into thinking that this was the first time he’d desired her. If he was being honest with himself, he’d always had a thing for her. But it was Suzie. In his mind, he’d tried to put her in the sister role.
Her smile grew when he didn’t respond right away.
“If it helps, I think my parents believe that I’ll be a lot safer with you staying at my place.” Her frown slipped. “After the attack, they’ve been trying to figure out a way for me to move back home.” She shrugged and glanced out the car window. “Now I have my very own live-in cop.” She turned back to him. “They trust you.”
He reached over and took her hand. “Trust me when I say this is no hardship for me. Staying with you while I’m here.”
He noticed her frown the moment he mentioned the possibility of him not being around for long.
“Come on, I’m beat.” He got out of the car and grabbed his bag of clothes.
Following her up the stairs, he replayed the conversation he’d had with her father.
“Got any idea who has it out for you?” Todd had asked while they worked on tossing out the broken furniture.
“A few.” He thought of Brad, then of Herold Jenkins or Joe Coffman, the fighter who had quickly paid his bail and gotten his sports car out of impound.
“Think it might be that developer? If he’s the one pulling the strings and trying to tear down the town, I could see why he’d have it out for the cop who took away part of his income,” Todd suggested.
“It’s worth a look into, I suppose,” he agreed.
Then Todd had glanced towards the back where Suzie and Megan were. “Let’s not mention that last bit to either of them. You have enough going on. You don’t need to worry about them worrying about you. Trust me when I say, when the two of them start worrying”—he rolled his eyes— “you won’t have any peace and quiet or time to yourself.”
“Okay,” Suzie said after he set his bag down just inside her bedroom door. “Spill.” She put her hands on her hips and looked at him.
“What?” he asked her.
“I know my father well enough to understand that he would have gone over a list of prospects.”
“Prospects?” he asked, trying to act innocent.
She rolled her eyes. “Of whom broke in and did that.” Her eyes grew large. “You don’t think it was Lizzy, do you? I mean, I ran into her earlier at the grocery store, but…”
He held up his hands. “Lizzy?” He shook his head.
“Stark. Lizzy Stark. Your ex.” She waved her hands as if frustrated that he didn’t know what she was talking about.
He shook his head. “Okay, last I heard, she does live just outside of Pride.”
“She warned me away from you.” She frowned. “I think her exact words were to stay out of her way,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve never been approached by a crazed ex before.”
“When did this happen?”
“Does it matter?” she asked as she walked over and sat on the edge of her bed. “Who else could it have been?”
He thought to the list he and Todd had made and shrugged. “I’ve upset a lot of people lately.”
She thought about it. “Do you think it has something to do with your case?”
“That or Brad. I mean, I’ve locked him up and taken his truck away. He has a court date set for next week in Edgeview. He might spend some time behind bars.”
“Okay.” She jumped up suddenly and walked over to a small desk and pulled out a notepad and pen. Then she sat back down.
“Brad, Lizzy.” She glanced up at him. “Who else?”
He thought about Todd’s warning but then sat down beside her and did his job. He knew that if he wanted to get to the bottom of who was causing the town’s problems, he needed someone to bounce ideas off of.
It had helped so much having his dad there that day. They’d gotten more detective work done than he would have if he’d been by himself.
He’d never seen his father work on that side of the job before. Sure, he’d been there when he’d arrested or pulled someone over before. But the way he weaved out details of the whys and hows of a case was amazing to watch.
He realized he still had a lot to learn about the job and about his dad.
They leaned back in bed and went over the list a few more times before he pulled her into his arms. He kissed her until they fell asleep sometime past one in the morning.
When his alarm woke him a few hours later, he felt Suzie shift against him and mentally told himself to move his alarm up half an hour so he could enjoy her each morning.
When he moved to get out of bed, she held him still. “Do you have to?” she asked.
“Yeah, I need to file this report and start looking into our list.” He placed a soft kiss on her forehead.
“Let me know what you find?” she asked with a yawn.
“Sure.” He kissed her again before hitting the shower and changing.
The last thing he expected when he walked into the office was to see a thin balding man in what looked like a very expensive suit sitting at his desk.
“Can I help you?” he asked. The man turned his gaze towards him and pasted on one of the fakest smiles Aiden had ever seen.
“I hope so. I’m Henry Carson, C&C Investments.” The man stood up and extended his hand. “Are you Aiden Brogan?”
“I am.” Aiden ignored the outstretched hand and took his time removing his jacket and sitting behind his desk. “What can I do for you, Mr. Carson?”
The man’s smile turned and became more of a sneer. “I’m hoping you can tell me why you’re investigating my business dealings in town.”
Aiden’s eyebrows shot up. “I would think that’s perfectly clear to you,” he said, not wanting to give the man too much. Leaning back in his chair, he folded his arms over his chest and waited to see what the man was up to.
“I understan
d the local law might be curious as to why I’m making offers on some of the… run-down properties around town.”
“Run down?” He shifted. “The Jordan’s property is hardly… run down.”
Aiden could clearly see the man’s temper growing.
“Sure, now, but B&Bs are a thing of the past.” He shrugged.
“And the Golden Oar?” he asked.
Henry laughed; a move that only made him seem even more sinister.
“The building is practically falling in on itself.” Aiden held in his retort, since the restaurant had recently been renovated and was much nicer than most places along the coast. “I’m hoping to bring a top-notch resort to the area. There won’t be any need for backwoods ma-and-pop restaurants that barely make the grade.”
“So, that’s your plan?” He leaned forward. “A resort?”
Aiden thought of his small hometown overrun with wealthy socialites or vacationing families. The small town flooded with strangers trashing their beaches, ruining the seclusion that the locals loved.
Henry’s smile was back. “If you must know. It’s why I’ve put an offer on the land around town. A resort of the magnitude I’m proposing will bring this small town a lot of money and jobs.” He leaned closer to Aiden. “Just think of the possibilities.” His eyebrows shot up. “I’d be happy to make a donation to the local—”
“No.” Aiden stopped the guy before he went too far. “Pride isn’t the town for you. The townspeople don’t want a resort. We’re a fishing town full of locals and hometown small businesses.”
Henry chuckled and leaned back. “I hear you’re just temporarily filling in and that you are dying to get back out of town to the city. I’m not even sure why I bothered talking to you.” He started to get up. “It’s obvious I’m talking to the wrong man.”
Aiden watched the man slide on his coat.
“I’m in charge and when I’m not, my father is, and I can tell you, we both hold the same opinions. This is the last time I’ll warn you to look elsewhere.” He stood up and was pleased when the man shrank back a step at Aiden’s size. “Pride isn’t the town you’re looking for.”