Her Hometown Redemption

by Rachel Brimble

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  Tanya closed her eyes. “You know why. The fairground is where Matt Davidson hurt you, Sash. It makes sense that Funland is the best place to start trying to track him down.”

  “I’ve told you John and I have done all we can think of—”

  “I know you have, but isn’t it worth me trying again? I’m here, Sash. I’m in Templeton, and as far as we know, Davidson could be, too.”

  “Of course he won’t be in Templeton. The police combed the area. They followed up leads and came back to us time and time again with a dead end.”

  Tanya glared toward the ocean, her fingers curled tightly around the phone. “Well, that was then, this is now. I want to at least try to find him.” She exhaled a shaky breath. “Please. Let me do this. Let me try to make up for not being there for you when...”

  “It’s in the past, Tanya.”

  “You have done so much for me over the last few months. You’ve helped me with therapy, what you said to me in the hospital persuaded me to come home and start over. I couldn’t have gotten as far as I have without you. Please. Let me at least try to be the big sister I should’ve always been.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wouldn’t you do anything to see Davidson behind bars?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then let me try to find him. Please.” Tears burned Tanya’s eyes. If only she had done something years before... “Sash?”

  “Fine. Do what you can, but promise me you won’t put yourself in danger. If...and it’s a big if...you find anything that might lead you to where he is, you tell the police.”

  Tanya exhaled, relief she had her sister’s permission to pursue Davidson relaxing the tension in her shoulders. “We’ll face that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Okay. Look, John’s calling me. I’ll speak to you soon. Look after yourself.”

  “I will. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.” Tanya cut the connection and swapped the phone for her wallet.

  Tomorrow would be the first day of her new life. Today was just the warm-up. Whether Templeton was ready for her or not, she was back for good, and her reasons went a lot deeper than just a need to start anew. Matt Davidson needed to be brought to justice, and over her dead body would she rest until he had his day in court.

  * * *

  EVERY BITE OF the sea bass was like sandpaper, every sip of the wine like vinegar. Liam scowled and stared through the restaurant doors once more. He’d lost count how many times he’d looked up from his food to catch Caroline, Marian or someone else looking in his direction. The curiosity in their gazes made him want to punch a damn wall.

  He refused to leave a morsel of food on his plate or a drop of wine in his glass before he left the Seascape. His insides might be a mess and his mind even more so, but he would not give anyone in town the ammunition to shoot the breeze over Tanya’s unexpected appearance. Everyone knew he liked his food. If he left the restaurant with anything remaining on his plate, it would be enough to start the tongues wagging.

  The aftershocks of his astonishment at seeing her again still pulsed at his temples.

  Stabbing his fork into an untouched pile of beetroot salad, Liam concentrated on chewing and swallowing rather than debating how he would deal with seeing Tanya next time. Her weight loss and the dark smudges under her eyes had twisted at his emotions so much more than if she’d looked the picture of health. Her long, dark hair, usually so lusciously thick and shiny, had been wound into a haphazard ponytail, her shirt slightly crumpled. Before, it was as though her clothes had been ironed with her inside them.

  Yet her looks and clothes did nothing to lessen the sexuality that oozed from her every pore. His pull to her was as intense as it had always been. Nothing had changed on that score. At all.

  When she looked at him, her usual obstinate “don’t mess with me” attitude lingered, but he sensed a whisper of uncertainty as though one accusation would make her crumble. The subtle change in her had knocked him off-kilter, made him abandon his previous decision to show Tanya the no-nonsense man he was today. Instead, he’d let her walk away.

  He picked up his glass and drank. The hit of alcohol fueled an impatience to leave and go find her, insist she tell him why she was back. More important, for how long. Questions and demands became a maelstrom of frustration and hunger. His reaction to her ill advised and dangerous. It screamed confirmation of something he had feared for years. That Tanya was The One.

  Whispering a curse, he shook his head and speared some fish onto his fork, shoving it into his mouth and washing it down with the last of his wine.

  “Nice table manners, my friend.”

  Liam lifted his head and closed his eyes. “Not now, George. I’m not in the mood.”

  “And you think that’s reason enough to satisfy my lovely wife? Not a chance. I’m not going to risk Marian lopping off my manhood when I tell her I walked away from you none the wiser.”

  Liam opened his eyes and looked past George toward Marian. The damn woman sat eagerly forward at their table, nursing a glass of wine, her eyes gleaming with satisfaction. Liam faced George. “Why should I care about your manhood when mine has just been yanked on?”

  George pulled out the chair on the opposite side of the table and sat. “So why’s she back?”

  Liam sighed as defeat washed over him. He put down his fork. “No idea. We didn’t get that far.”

  “I see.” George lifted his eyebrows. “So, what happens next?”

  Liam wiped his hand over his face. “I don’t know. I can’t tell her to go back to wherever the hell she came from, can I? Templeton’s as much her home as it is mine. If Tanya’s back, it’s my problem to deal with, not hers.”

  George stared, his wizened gaze running over Liam’s face before he leaned back and crossed his arms. “She looks lost.”

  Liam huffed out a laugh, pushing his agreement to the back of his mind where it was safer. “Lost? Tanya wouldn’t lose her way in the Amazon rain forest. She might have lost a little weight—”

  “A little?” George snorted. “My Marian nearly had a seizure when she saw her. Wanted to know who Tanya was and why everyone was looking at her. You’re going to have to speak to Tanya, son. Find out what’s going on. She looks like she’s in some sort of trouble.”

  Concern for the woman he’d once loved more than life itself squeezed Liam’s heart like a clenched fist around a piece of overripe fruit. “I’m not the right person to look after her. Not anymore.”

  “Who says?”

  “I say.” Impatience threatened and Liam fought to keep it in check.

  He wasn’t the teenager who lost control anymore. That person was gone and a new man stood in his place. A man he liked. He refused to allow Tanya’s unexpected appearance to ruin the decent, law-abiding, law-enforcing person he’d become. He could control this situation the same as he did everything else in his life. With slow, sensible, levelheaded conviction.

  Tanya would not topple him from his steady—albeit lonely—perch.

  He looked to the open restaurant doors. “Look, we all know Tanya and what she’s capable of. Why she’s come back is none of my business...” He met George’s gaze and glared. “Or anyone else’s. I’m sure we’ll know what’s going on with her soon enough. After all, this is Templeton, and one person’s business is always everyone else’s, too.”

  He stood, snatched his jacket from the back of the chair and his briefcase from the floor. “Look after yourself, George.”

  Leaving his older friend staring after him, Liam strode toward the bar and pulled his wallet from his jacket pocket. He tossed a twenty and a ten onto the bar. “Keep the change, Caroline. I’m out of here before George brings over his backup...or should I say front woman?”

  She frow
ned and slipped the cash from the bar. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He tilted his head toward George and Marian’s table. “I’ve got my surrogate mum and dad over there watching out for me.”

  She managed a small smile. “They care about everyone in the Cove. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I do, and that’s why I’m leaving.”

  “Can I ask what Tanya said? You could’ve cut the tension between you with a knife.”

  Liam scowled. “Do you think anyone in here wasn’t watching us?”

  Caroline smiled. “I doubt it.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Okay, just keep your head...and anything else, intact. If what Tanya said is true...”

  He stiffened, every inch of his body on high alert. “What did she say?”

  Color stained Caroline’s cheeks and she smoothed her hand over her cap of short, dark hair. “Not much.”

  “Caroline...”

  “All she said was she’s back for good. That she has a new business in town.”

  “A new business?” Liam’s heart picked up speed. Money. Business. So she hadn’t changed much beneath the surface, after all. “What sort of business?”

  “She didn’t say. Look—”

  “The last I knew, she worked in some big bank in the city.” He frowned. “She said it was her own business?”

  Caroline nodded.

  “Financial?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Liam took a step away from the bar. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Frustrated that he hadn’t asked Tanya a single damn question, Liam stormed from the restaurant and out into the fading sun.

  He inhaled the air, letting it cleanse his mind of the unwanted curiosity about Tanya from seeping in. It didn’t matter what he’d said to George or anyone else, the moment Liam laid eyes on Tanya, he’d wanted to talk to her. Something initiated her return to Templeton and the unease in her eyes made him think she had nowhere else to go.

  Yet she was opening a new business, which meant she hadn’t lost the ferocious ambition that had always burned inside her. But she could start a new business anywhere. Why the Cove? Was whatever had called her here something emotional, maybe? He clenched his jaw as the things he knew about her family and personal life ricocheted inside his head and heart.

  If someone had hurt her, or frightened her into returning to the place she once fled, the place where her family had owned a fairground that reminded her too much of her Romany roots, how was he supposed to pretend it didn’t matter to him? This was a woman he’d once loved...had wanted to marry. He’d no more turn his back on her today than he would have then. But what if she wanted nothing to do with him, the same as she did when she left?

  There was only one way to find out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  TANYA WRAPPED HER half-eaten burger in a paper towel and tossed it into the trash before snatching up her can of Diet Coke from the counter. Walking to the patio doors leading from her sister’s living room, she stepped out onto the balcony. Night had fallen and Templeton was lit in all its undeniable and beautiful glory.

  The lights from Funland, the beach and the shops at the waterfront flashed yellow, green and red in the distance. Tanya leaned her forearms on the railing and stared toward the fairground. The screams and music drifted on the light summer breeze, sending icicles into her blood. She tightened her fingers around her Diet Coke can. What happened to Sasha there was only part of the reason Tanya had come back, but finding Matt Davidson was her top priority right now.

  No matter how much the doctor told Tanya to concentrate on her happiness from here on in, Davidson was still out there and stood like a boulder between Tanya and a new future. A phantom preventing her from getting over what he’d done to Sasha.

  Her sister had come when Tanya needed her most, yet when Sasha was dealing with the most traumatic, ugly experience any child could, Tanya had seen her sister as nothing more than a nuisance. Tanya’s heart twisted with shame, and tears burned. Instead of seeing Sasha as her best friend, her optimism and chatter about Funland and their grandfather had annoyed Tanya at every turn. She now realized her animosity toward her sister came from jealousy and resentment. The admission was especially shameful since Sasha was so effortlessly positive and friendly to everyone around her.

  Tanya closed her eyes. Little did she know just how well Sasha wore her mask over a life ruined by the criminal who’d dared to touch her.

  Opening her eyes, Tanya glared at Funland. What happened to Sasha wasn’t over, no matter how much she might wish it so. The piece of crap who hurt her was still out there and Tanya suspected Sasha thought of him daily. Sooner or later, Davidson would be found. She shivered against the icy chill that ran up her spine. Templeton wasn’t the picture-perfect place it liked to convey. Things were never what they seemed here, but at least now Tanya knew life was something to be shaped. People were hurt, disappointed and judged, and it was something she had slowly learned to accept through therapy.

  Her biggest mistake had been allowing her mother’s fears to taint her own views of the Cove. Her mother had convinced her that love didn’t exist. Feeling afraid and uncertain, Tanya changed.

  From being a young woman not unlike Sasha, Tanya turned into a fiercely driven, single-minded worker. Her mother’s words ringing in her head, Tanya left Liam behind and pursued money, assets and position. The only things that could really protect a girl. Working 24/7 had been a way to protect herself against the onslaught of disappointment she would face if she failed in her chosen career or relied on a man for her happiness.

  It had been the risk of that dependency that had ultimately led to her breakdown...and why she had been arrested. Mental anguish had seeped into her mind when she wasn’t looking.

  Tanya swallowed the tears clogging her throat. Little did she and Sasha know that her mother’s warnings were entirely based on trying to protect her daughters after finding out, years later, what had happened to Sasha.

  Turning from the bright lights, Tanya sank into one of the two chairs around a small bistro table. She shut her eyes and Liam’s face appeared. What would he say to her when they next met?

  People changed. She’d changed.

  She’d be arrogant to think the same wouldn’t be true for Liam. Sasha described him as a tough lawyer with a soft center. A man the whole town held in high esteem. Yet Jay had said Liam was still single and living alone. Throughout the time she and Liam had been together, his adolescent anger toward his father had mellowed. Instead, it became his motivation to succeed and do good in this too-often-bad world. He was strong and powerful in court, and some of his cases had made the news all over the UK. He was a force to be reckoned with, but also a man of gentle and caring honor.

  The combination was lethal. In and out of court.

  The shrill and alien ring of the apartment buzzer shot Tanya’s heart into her throat. She stood and stared through the patio doors into the apartment. Only one person knew where she was staying. Drawing in a breath, she put her Diet Coke on the table and walked inside. She approached the front door and looked through the peephole. Liam stared along the corridor and Tanya roamed her gaze over his profile and upper body, before pulling abruptly back.

  There was no mistaking his mood. His set face, hardened jaw and tense arm muscles straining against the confines of his dress shirt screamed of impatience. The tie he’d been wearing at the restaurant had been discarded, leaving the open V of the shirt showing a sexy smattering of dark hair. Dark hair she remembered running her hands over more times than strictly necessary...

  Tanya silently counted to five. He’d loved her once and even though he never would again, he would surely hear her out, wouldn’t he? If she explained she left as abruptly as she did b
ecause she felt suffocated by Templeton, didn’t want to become reliant on him? Most of all, would he accept people made mistakes?

  Taking a deep breath, she threw back the lock and opened the door, plastering on a smile. “Hi. This is a surprise.”

  His gaze wandered over her face, his expression unreadable. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” She stood back and he brushed past her into the apartment.

  Tanya slowly shut the door, taking a moment with her back turned to gather her senses and obliterate his scent from her nostrils. He smelled exactly the same. It was as though she’d never been away. But she had. She’d been away for a very long time...

  She turned.

  He stood across the room, in the center of Sasha’s living space, his broad chest rising and falling. Tanya swallowed against the dryness in her throat and forced her feet forward. “Do you want to sit down?”

  “No.”

  “Liam, I—”

  “What happened to bring you back?”

  She flinched. “What?”

  “I said, what happened to bring you back?”

  “I...” Words danced and bit at her tongue. “It was time.”

  His eyes widened. “Time? You could have knocked me over when you walked into the Seascape earlier. It’s been years, and with Sasha leaving...” He shook his head. “I didn’t think you would ever come back to Templeton. Not ever. You hated it here. What was it you said to me? ‘Oh, sorry, Liam, I don’t belong here, Sasha does. I want more than a fairground as a legacy, let Sasha have it. Let her wallow in our sad Romany roots.’”

  Her heart beat like a freight train. “Those were my mother’s words, not mine. She frightened me, brainwashed me into believing Templeton, you, Funland, everything would cause me nothing but pain if I didn’t get away from here.”

  “And you couldn’t have told me that? We couldn’t have discussed it?”

  She didn’t want to lie, but she couldn’t possibly tell him the whole truth. Telling him why she hadn’t come back before now would be too much, too soon.