Bargaining with the Billionaire (Billionaire Bachelor Mountain Cove)

by Maria Hoagland

“Funny boy.” The sarcasm was soft.

  “Not as funny as the guy who decided to name his son Kian.”

  “I figured—the kid of Ian . . .”

  Kian laughed despite having heard it all before. “You started the dad jokes as soon as I was born.” Truthfully, he appreciated the uniqueness of his name and the story behind it.

  His dad interrupted the thought. “But seriously, why this picture—why now?”

  Should Kian just admit he missed him? “You were a really good father.”

  Thumbing through the stack of photos, he paused on one he didn’t remember. From the clothing, it appeared to have been sometime in the 1920s or ’30s. The young couple looked so completely in love, Kian couldn’t help but smile, and he didn’t consider himself even remotely sentimental or romantic.

  “What do you mean, I was a good father? What have I done wrong now?”

  “Ah, you know I’m kidding.” Kian studied the faces in the photograph. It looked like the man had just cracked a joke and the woman was unsuccessfully trying to hold in a laugh. “Hey, I’m going to send a pic of this photo I found.” He snapped the photo and clicked to send it. “Are these your parents? Grandparents?” Kian flipped over the yellowed black-and-white and only found a year scribbled in barely legible ink script. “A year on the back says 1928.”

  Almost immediately, Ian answered. “Yep. Your great-grandparents, Niles and Irene. The ones who left that home for you.”

  “The building downtown, then, too.” A wave of guilt washed over Kian. The building he was hanging on to by a thread. To keep from thinking about that, he focused on the photo. Irene’s hand rested on Niles’s thigh—there wasn’t a clearer indication they were a couple in the 1920s without being completely scandalous, right?

  His thoughts went to the night before under a star-studded sky. His arm tingled with the memory of the woman who’d trailed her hand down his. He’d grabbed on to her like a lifeline he hadn’t known he needed. She’d felt so right next to him—even if only for a few minutes. He didn’t want to be jealous of his great-grandparents, but why did a relationship like theirs always end up just out of Kian’s reach?

  He shook his head. It wouldn’t do to think about what-ifs. She was gone, and he hadn’t even gotten her name. He already had one mystery in front of him.

  “Wait. 1928,” he said, his mind scrambling for the relevant details. “When was Al Capone supposedly in Eureka Springs? Doesn’t this prove Niles and Irene were a couple and not—” Kian stopped short. He didn’t have to say it out loud for his father to know what he was talking about.

  “What I’ve been saying my whole life, son. Eureka Springs’s legend that my grandmother was Al Capone’s—” He left off the word mistress as well. “It’s bunk. Your grandmother was a friend of Al Capone’s sister. She became his cook, met his chauffeur, and fell in love . . .”

  “. . . and the rest is history,” Kian finished for him. “Sure would be nice if we could prove it.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir, kid.” His father chuckled. “I’m guessing you still haven’t found the secret garage.”

  Nope. Kian checked every shack, ruin, or stack of rocks he stumbled upon while on his many mountain bike excursions. What had started out as a way for the two Gould men to spend time together when Kian was growing up had somehow become Kian’s full-time job running bike tours for mountain bike and nature enthusiasts.

  Kian shook his head. It made no sense. “Was your father sure his dad said the garage was hidden in the woods?” Who did that? “How in the world could Capone expect to make a quick escape from Eureka Springs, if he had to go traipsing through poison ivy to find his car?”

  “Do you see that ring?” Kian’s father said, changing the subject. “The only time she ever took that thing off was to make pasta or wash the dishes.” Now who was getting nostalgic? “It should be in your mother’s jewelry box.”

  Kian studied the photo. Although not close enough to see the specifics of the design, it had an interesting shape. The only other bit of jewelry in the photo was a chain across Grandpa Niles’s chest. “Is that a pocket watch he’s wearing?”

  “You know, I remember looking at that watch when I was little. Grandpa said it was the most important thing he owned.” Dad’s voice trailed off, but it sounded like he had more to say, so Kian waited. “He said that watch held a lot of answers, but the only one I could ever figure out was the time.”

  “Do you still have it?” Kian set the photo aside and put everything else away.

  “Grandpa’s pocket watch? No. I wish.”

  Just hearing the wistfulness in a nearly sixty-year-old man’s voice was enough to renew Kian’s resolve to crack this case. He would find the proof and clear his family name if it was the last thing he would do.

  “Thanks for calling,” Kian’s father said.

  “Yeah, Happy Father’s Day, Dad.”

  They hung up, but the memory of their conversation didn’t fade. Kian went to the closet and rummaged around until he found a small carved wooden box. He lifted the lid; a few pieces lay on the deep-blue velvet. His mother had only worn her simple wedding ring set and, occasionally, a charm bracelet. Both lay in the box Kian hoped to pass on to his own daughter someday.

  Light reflected off the only other ring. Set in white gold, a feather shape started in the band and curved gracefully over a marquise-cut gray diamond. It was truly one of a kind, and Kian didn’t think he’d ever seen anything like it. He set it and the photo on his dresser. Maybe later he’d do an online search and see if he could find anything out about the ring. It was a long shot, but it was the only one he had.

  Monday morning had Kian on the bike trail with a renewed determination to check out a new path he’d seen on his Saturday tour. It didn’t take long to realize what had looked like an old car path was where two deer trails met. With the girth of the tree trunks, there was no way Al Capone or his chauffeur had driven through this way, even if it was eighty or ninety years ago.

  Thwarted but not altogether surprised, he biked toward town, intent on going through some financials at the office for a few hours before grocery shopping and dinner in front of his DVR. He only made it as far as the first gas station where he stopped to top off a slow leak in his front tire. He pulled up at the air pump just as his buddy Finn walked past, fountain drink in hand.

  Kian gave Finn an upward nod as he stepped off his mountain bike. “How’s it going?”

  “Good.” Finn did that thing where he frowned and nodded a few times, like he was seventy or something. “A lot of meetings now that the old superintendent has retired. There’s a lot to do before the next school year starts.”

  Ah, no wonder he acted like a seventy-year-old. He was taking over for one. Everyone in town said he was a little young for the position overseeing the school district, but it was a small town. Kian could give him the benefit of the doubt. “And Jaden?”

  Finn didn’t hide the grin that told Kian all he needed to know. There was the thirty-year-old.

  “What about you?” Finn gave him a significant look. “Who was that woman I saw you talking to Saturday night? Another tourist, huh? Nice and safe.”

  Finn was fairly new to town—only a few months—and that comment right there proved he didn’t know Kian as well as he thought he did. Typically, Kian didn’t pay one bit of attention to tourists. They came and went so fast. What was the point in one or two nights of flirting, putting himself out there, only to follow each other on Instagram and never see them again? He wanted followers, but not that way. But this woman, the one Finn referred to, had stuck in his mind like mud on a golf ball—impossible to get off and throwing his game all out of whack.

  “I don’t know. She wasn’t really my type.” It was a knee-jerk response, but not exactly true. She had gorgeous dark brown eyes that looked almost black in the evening dusk, an air of mystery, and a playful dimple that kept him guessing. She was exactly the kind of girl he could fall for, given the chanc
e, but giving away his heart wasn’t worth it, not when she was in town for a festival and then on her way again. Which was why he hadn’t even asked her name. Just like with a stray pet, he couldn’t allow himself to get attached.

  “Not your type?” Finn scoffed. “Could have fooled me.” He folded his arms. “Did, in fact.”

  Kian shook his head and scoured the memory for some fault or flaw. “She’s too fussy for me—too much jewelry, perfect hair and makeup.” He was currently caked in mud. “She wouldn’t go for a guy like me.”

  “If you say so.” Finn shrugged. “I think you missed an opportunity.”

  Kian wasn’t like that. He’d never be one for a fling, especially not when he’d grown up with the rumors that followed his family like shadows. “Too bad she wasn’t local.”

  The two said their goodbyes, and Kian put his earbuds in before he biked to Main Street on a quickly deflating tire. Fixing the leak would be the perfect excuse to skip the spreadsheet. That could wait another day. He jumped off his bike and walked it the rest of the way. At the shop, he leaned his bike against the brick wall.

  A woman, eyes pinched together and mouth open like she’d been yelling, stood in front of Kian, waving her arms. “Excuse me!” He read her lips and yanked out an earbud.

  She quickly crossed the street to face him, and in a moment, they recognized each other. “Oh!” Her eyes flew open and her mouth closed. Those deep brown eyes were even more gorgeous in the daylight. “It’s you.” She blinked, dark lashes alternated brushing her cheeks and touching her eyebrows. “I thought you were ignoring me.” She pointed to her earlobes adorned with metal, though she referred to his earbuds. “I’m a little lost and was hoping you could help?”

  He couldn’t resist having some fun with it. “Again?”

  Her olive skin flushed slightly, but her wide smile made him realize he hadn’t embarrassed her too much. “Again?” She didn’t seem to catch his meaning.

  “I seem to remember you already owe me, and now you want to add to the tab?” He was teasing. Mostly. Not that she would ever be in the position for him to collect. How would she be able to help him?

  She smirked at him, silently taking his measure before speaking again. “The GPS insists I’m in the right spot, but all I’m seeing is this bike shop, Spokes.”

  She’d completely ignored his comment. Though he was tempted to make some crack about this bike shop, he held back, not wanting to show all his cards. “And you are looking for . . .” He waited for her to fill in the blank.

  “The Looking Glass. It’s a stained-glass shop. The weirdest part? The address is on Spring Street, but clearly—” She pointed to the street sign half a block away. Although they couldn’t read it, obviously they both knew what it said. “—we’re on Main Street.”

  He’d guessed her problem as soon as she’d mentioned GPS, but now that he knew the shop she was looking for, he was certain. “Something you’ll learn about Eureka Springs—it’s haunted. I think messing with the GPS is the ghosts’ way of keeping the tourists and billionaires coming back.”

  Her face hardened. Of course, she wouldn’t know what he meant by billionaires—not too many locals even knew about the exclusive lake neighborhood that billionaires were moving into—but she’d probably taken offense at the tourist comment.

  He raised both hands, palms out. “Just kidding. We wouldn’t survive without them.”

  Maybe she didn’t appreciate how heavily the town relied on tourism, but he did.

  3

  Which category was he pigeonholing her in? Either way, it didn’t sound like the guy standing in front of Autumn thought highly of either one. Billionaires and tourists were just a means to an end for him.

  So much for “Tyler” being a nice guy. And to think she’d actually hoped to run into him again. As soon as she’d recognized him, she’d imagined him saying how glad he was to see her, that he’d wanted to get her real name and phone number—yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. If only that chance magical encounter had stayed on Saturday night, where it hadn’t been tainted by reality.

  “Your GPS is correct.” His crystal-blue eyes matched the sky behind him. “The Looking Glass is in the same building as Spokes. Just go up the stairs.” He pointed to the side of the brick building and up a set of concrete steps that scaled the steep hill between it and another four-story building. “The road at the top is Spring Street, where the entrance to the stained-glass shop is.”

  She wasn’t sure she could picture it, but it kind of made sense. “Thanks.” She couldn’t get out of there quick enough.

  She started up the stairs at full speed, but slowed down about halfway up. A small landing like a pause in the staircase held an old door, but no business sign indicated what this middle level held. Pretending to inspect the door, she took a moment to look over her left shoulder, half hoping to see the guy with the bike watching her, half afraid he would be and notice her looking.

  He wasn’t in sight, and she pushed him from her mind, leaving him behind as she continued her climb up the steps to her dad’s new shop. He’d moved from Dallas after the new year, and she hadn’t had a chance to visit until now. She was looking forward to seeing the store he talked about nonstop.

  As promised, the store’s entrance was street-level and just one door in a whole line of adorable shops. Another level rose above the stained-glass shop, so it appeared to be two stories total from Spring Street, whereas on Main Street, where she’d started, it soared like the four-story building it actually was—like every other building on the hill wedged between these two streets. This really was a cool town.

  The door hadn’t even closed behind her before her father called her name across the shop. He strode over with arms stretched out to claim his usual bear hug—as if they hadn’t seen each other in years instead of the Father’s Day brunch at her new house the day before.

  Autumn settled in against his shoulder for a moment, soaking in the peaceful reassurance only her papa could offer, and then caught sight of his new wife gingerly hanging back.

  “Angie!” Autumn stepped out of her father’s embrace and offered another, only slightly less exuberant one to her new stepmother. Angie’s hug was less awkward every time.

  Autumn stepped back and surveyed the shop. “So this is it.” She raised her arms around her. “It’s charming!”

  And it was. There’d always been something magical about being with her father in his stained-glass workshops. In Dallas, his shop was industrial; his projects doors and windows commissioned for new construction—exactly what she’d hired him to do for her new house out at The Cove. But this shop, designed to invite customers to browse and create, was even better. Several stained-glass pieces hung in the plate-glass windows, fracturing the sunlight into colorful beams that spilled across the old wooden floors. Bins of various sizes housed tiny handheld trinkets and souvenirs—suncatchers and figurines in flower and animal shapes. Racks behind the counter held a rainbow of glass, ready and waiting for classes and personalized creations. It was an artist’s refuge.

  “You approve?” her dad asked like an insecure teenager.

  “Of course!” It was better than she’d imagined. Autumn turned to Angie. “Did you help him with the layout?”

  Angie started to nod.

  At the same time, Dad interrupted. “Hey! I’m a craftsman. I create all kinds of beautiful things, and you don’t think I can organize a little shop?”

  Autumn’s eyes snapped back to Angie, suspecting now, more than ever, that she’d had a lot to do with it. Angie winked and nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “What do you think of the location? The building?” Autumn pressed. The space looked just about right to her and foot traffic was picking up as the morning progressed, but what did she know?

  “It’s great. No problems at all.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Especially since she’d sent out feelers to purchase the building. Mostly, she wanted to make it so he didn’t have to worry
about the lease, but if the location worked out and she got bored working solely online, maybe she’d open a brick-and-mortar boutique. Though she doubted it. Why kick out the bicycle shop when she could build a good workroom in her property at The Cove?

  Besides, how much time would she really spend in Eureka Springs? It was a nice diversion—a retreat from her newly busy life—but if she wanted to keep her name going as the premiere jewelry designer for the rich and famous, she needed to be seen. Besides, if Bicycle Guy was any indication, apparently the locals didn’t think much of the billionaires in town. That was fine. She didn’t have much need for the town either. She’d only built this home here because her father had chosen the area.

  Dad reached under the counter, took out a small hand broom, and swept some glass shards into a pile. “Leaving Dallas and coming here has been a long time coming. The journey’s been difficult—” A momentary expression of wistfulness melted into a smile as he looked at his new bride with love. “—but the destination has been worth the effort.” Losing Autumn’s mother five years before had knocked the wind out of him for a long time, and it did Autumn good to see him so happy again.

  Dad motioned for Autumn and Angie to take the stools behind the counter and then leaned against it on the opposite side.

  “Either way, it looks amazing,” Autumn said. “Now let’s just hope I can keep it alive while you’re gone.”

  “You could do that in your sleep.” Her father waved her off. “I have no qualms whatsoever. You know the basics of working with stained glass, taught my beginner classes through high school, and have run your own shop. You’ll be fine.” His smile warmed her, but he ran a hand over his cheek, a sure sign he was concerned. “Everything else, though?” His jaw tightened to a grimace. “You’re doing too much: getting me set up here, paying for our three-month honeymoon to Angie’s ancestral home in Italy, and now babysitting the shop all summer—”

  “Is completely my pleasure,” Autumn cut in, “and the least I could do. After all the sacrifices you’ve made for me over the years—” She couldn’t list them; there were too many. Yes, most of them were what a good dad was expected to do for his child, but when she realized how much her parents had scrimped to put her through college, she cringed to think about it.