People milled around as the door stayed wide-open for the continual throng of people coming and going.
The minutes turned to hours and Tanya’s happiness bloomed. The Templeton residents appeared genuinely pleased for her and, at some point, the stiffness had left her shoulders. She glanced toward the door just as Cat and Jay Garrett entered. Tanya immediately tensed. What were they doing here? Why would a guy as wealthy as Jay need the Party Place? He could most likely afford the queen’s service if he wanted.
She flitted her gaze to DI Garrett. Which meant they were most likely there for some other reason. Her gut tightened with trepidation. Had Liam run out of patience waiting for her to go to the station on Monday and talk to Cat?
Determined to fight for control, Tanya strode forward. “Jay, Detective Inspector Garrett...thanks for coming.”
DI Garrett smiled, but her green eyes were carefully appraising. “It’s Cat when I’m off duty. Nice to meet you. Jay says you’ve been gone from the Cove for several years. Welcome back.”
“Thank you. I’m slowly finding my feet again.”
“You worked in the bank before, right?” Cat looked around. “This is quite a difference, I imagine.”
Tanya followed the inspector’s gaze, not missing the accusing tone of her observation. “Yes, I wanted to try something completely new. A career in finance took me to the city and...” She sighed. “Let’s just say it was time for me to slow down and get out of the rat race.”
“Forever?”
The speed of the inspector’s question felt inappropriate and far too intense for the situation. Tanya’s defenses rose and she met Cat’s eyes directly. “Hopefully, yes.”
Jay cleared his throat and gently gripped his wife’s elbow. “Let’s grab a glass of something, shall we?” He nodded at Tanya. “Wishing you all the best with your new venture.”
Tanya waved toward the drinks table. “Good idea. Help yourselves.”
As the Garretts walked away, Tanya fought to hold her smile in place. What were the chances Jay hadn’t said anything to his wife about the case, even if Liam had kept his silence? Cat Garrett’s eyes had shone with undisguised interest. She must know something was going on. Tanya moved amongst the crowd as they perused the invitations, place cards and other party paraphernalia, her pulse thumping.
Outside the big picture windows, the day turned to dusk and she nodded to Lucy, indicating she light the eclectic array of pillar, votive and table candles scattered throughout the office.
The next half hour passed quickly as Tanya mingled with residents she recognized and others she didn’t, her gaze constantly drifting to the antique clock on the far wall. No matter how hard she tried not to, she longed for Liam to make an appearance...to show his support.
“So, you’re back then?”
The gruff, nonwelcoming tone of voice spun Tanya around. She stiffened at the face in front of her, glancing around to see how many potential customers watched them. “What are you doing here?”
The years had not been kind to Russ Harwell, a young kid who had grown into a hollow-eyed, gray-skinned young man in his early twenties. He grinned, showing teeth yellowed by nicotine and dark, unhealthy-looking gums. “I came to see what all the fuss was about. Word around town is that Tanya Todd is back and looking a lot worse for wear than when she left thinking she was God’s gift.”
She glanced uneasily past his shoulders. Residents and tourists alike glanced curiously in their direction. “I’ve nothing to say to you and you clearly have no interest in throwing a party, so why don’t you leave?”
“How’s Sasha?”
Tanya glared, protectiveness rising hot in her chest. “She’s great. Living the good life. Now, I’d like to say it was nice to see you, but it’s not. I haven’t got time for your games and trouble, Russ. Just get out of here.”
“You never had time for me or anyone else in this town, so that doesn’t surprise me.”
Despite the stares of the people around her and her rising nerves, Tanya lifted her chin. Always a troublemaker, always looking for a steal or a way to make money for his drugs, Russ Harwell would not be the one to topple her precarious confidence. Everyone in town knew who he was, and what he was made of. She gritted her teeth. “Get out.”
“Word is, you’re seeing the lawyer again.”
Tanya narrowed her eyes. “I’m seeing no one.”
He grinned, his eyes glinting with malice. “Well, I saw him at Funland getting pretty chatty with one of the stallholders. Looked like he belonged there as much as I belong—”
“Listen.” Tanya trembled as adrenaline seeped into her body. No matter how much her heart pounded and her hands turned clammy, she would not let the likes of Russ Harwell or anyone else, for that matter, see how much his hostility frightened her. She tilted her head toward the door. “I want you to leave. Now, get out.”
She gripped his elbow, and his eyes flashed with a glazed fury that could only be caused by him taking some kind of illegal substance. Tanya immediately released him, perspiration breaking icy cold on her back.
As he spoke, the volume of Russ’s voice quieted the entire room. “Tanya freaking Todd, the same as ever. Thinks she’s something else, but we all know she’s a ball-breaking bitch who’s come back thinking she still owns the Cove. Trouble is, we know her family, right? We know they sold the fair down the river to Kyle fucking Jordon, and her mother had more than a passing acquaintance with him. The bitch is back, people, and no doubt she’s hiding her own dirty little secrets.”
Tears burned and Tanya’s cheeks heated as the truth of his words washed over her in an avalanche of shame and humiliation. Her legs trembled. She could not falter. Not now. Not in front of the people she longed would trust and welcome her back in time. “Get out.”
Russ turned, his entire face lit with glee. “Are you shaking?” He laughed. “Jesus, who knew the great Tanya Todd could be scared of little ole me.”
“I’m about as scared of you as I am of a puppy dog.” People everywhere stood around, their faces full of fear or embarrassment. Tanya tried to drag authority into her voice, when all she wanted to do was flee to the back room and down two or three of her pills. “Get. Out.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jay Garrett step forward, but Liam came from behind him and got there first. “You heard her, Russ. You’re out of here.” He gripped Russ by the back of his grubby T-shirt and frog-marched him out the door.
Tanya stared after them, her ego wavering on a wafer-thin line. As relieved as she was for Liam’s intervention, she didn’t want the people in the room to leave believing Russ’s accusation of her harboring secrets. As true as his words were, she was so scared of losing the fragile roots she had begun to lay down in her hometown again.
She forced a wide smile and raised her hands. “Well, sorry about that, everyone. I hope Russ’s little performance hasn’t ruined your evening. It certainly hasn’t mine. It gives me courage to know he’s as bitter now as he was years ago. Clearly, the people of Templeton support people who want to change...rather than those who don’t.” She caught Liam’s stare as he watched her from the sidelines. “Please, help yourselves to drinks and nibbles. I’ll be walking around throughout the evening if you want to ask me any questions. The opening will continue until ten-thirty as planned.”
Slowly, hesitantly, the crowd dispersed. Relief lowered Tanya’s shoulders when no one hotfooted it out the door. With tears threatening, she risked another look at Liam. His somber expression spoke a thousand words.
She might have convinced people Russ Harwell hadn’t scratched the surface of her bravado, but Liam clearly wasn’t fooled.
* * *
WHEN AT LAST the clock struck ten-thirty, Liam’s patience was close to snapping. All he wanted was to be alone with Tanya. True to her word, she’d mingled for the r
emainder of the evening, elegantly poised, her beautiful smile wide...but her eyes lacking the luster he loved. Russ Harwell had turned off Tanya’s inner light as if his words flicked a switch inside her.
He downed the rest of his red wine. Sometimes, it felt as though the entirety of England’s scum languished in the Cove.
With half an eye on Tanya as she ushered the last of the residents and tourists out the door, Liam wandered to one of the many display cabinets, feigning interest in its contents. His ears strained to the grumblings of a vehemently protesting Lucy as Tanya insisted she go and leave Tanya to clean up.
He put his glass on a nearby table and curled his hands into fists inside his pockets. He’d heard, rather than seen, Russ Harwell when he’d entered Tanya’s office. The raised male voice had alerted him to trouble; the people standing around looking at a certain spot in the room, their faces flushed and alert, told him all too clearly that Tanya must be in the middle of it.
It wasn’t until he’d shouldered his way into the eye of the storm that an instantaneous and protective rage had roared through him. Disbelief and disappointment had furled in his gut as he’d spotted Cat and Jay, then Marian and Lucy, standing nearby with varying degrees of concern on their faces, yet none of them intervening. Maybe Jay had thought to act the same moment Liam strode forward and grasped Russ’s shirt, but, as far as Liam was concerned, Jay’s action was too little too late.
For better or worse, his friend should have been there for Tanya when she needed help.
Unease rippled through him. Since when had she needed anyone’s help? Would she tell him off for intervening?
His returning concern for Tanya’s state of mind struck again. He worried she wasn’t over her breakdown, as she wanted him to believe. Asking for his help with finding Davidson was a step in the right direction, but he still needed more from her to fully trust she wouldn’t push him aside once she was done with him.
He watched her as she locked the front door and threw the bolt. Turning, she met his gaze and came toward him, her beautiful face subdued in the half-light, her smile gone and her shoulders low, as if she carried far too heavy a burden. His heart lurched painfully when she drew her stare from his and walked straight past him to a plush couch in the far corner of her office.
She lowered onto it and lay down. Her long, dark hair hung like a blanket of shimmering velvet over the arm, her head resting on her hand and her shapely legs buried beneath her. Liam clenched his jaw. I love you.
He stepped forward, his heart pulsing with the depth of his feelings and the fear he’d end up losing her a second time.
Her wide, dark brown eyes stared blindly ahead and the silver tracks of her tears glinted in the amber light. He didn’t think she’d ever looked so beautiful.
He sat beside her and smoothed his hand over her thigh.
She stirred. “Where were you?”
Her voice was barely above a whisper and guilt edged into Liam’s heart. “Working.”
“It’s Saturday.”
He smiled softly. “I tend to work 24/7 these days. Well, at least I did until you came back.”
“I was worried.”
His guilt wrenched like a clenched fist in his chest. “Sorry. I had two back-to-back cases to prepare and some litigation at the courthouse to sort out.”
She drew in a long breath and sat up, leaning heavily against the couch. She met his eyes. “Thank you for being there for me...again.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome. I half expected you to give me a piece of your mind because I interfered.”
“I needed you. I just hope the rest of Templeton didn’t guess as much.”
Her need of him bolstered his confidence and ego, regardless of what kind of person that made him. He wanted to be there for her, wanted her to rely on him. For better or worse, he couldn’t deny how much he wanted that. He brushed some fallen hair from her face. “You gave a convincing performance. I only knew you were shaken because of how well I know you.”
She sighed. “I hope so. I might want to change my reputation of being hard-faced, but not so much that people think I’m a pushover.”
He frowned, his gaze on hers, willing her to hear him. “One, you’re not hard-faced and never have been. Two, you’ll never be a pushover. Ever.”
Their eyes locked before she looked toward the closed office door. “I think DI Garrett knows we’re up to something.”
He frowned. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, if you haven’t spoken to her...”
“I haven’t.”
“You said yourself it would be hard for Jay to keep our talk from her.” She faced him. “I think he’s told her we went to their house asking questions about Davidson.”
Pushing his irritation away, Liam took one of her ice-cold hands between both of his. She was jumpy and scared rather than mistrustful. He squeezed her fingers. “Listen to me. Cat is one of the best people in the Cove, undoubtedly the best cop. She’s a detective. A bloody good one. I wouldn’t be surprised if she came home that afternoon and dusted our used glasses for prints and, having found evidence we were there, strong-armed Jay into a straitjacket until he told her everything.”
She smiled. “She’s that tough, huh?”
“Cat takes no prisoners, believe me.”
“I like her already.” Tanya’s smile faltered. “How would you feel about us going to Latchford before I speak with her on Monday? I’d feel happier if I had something new to tell her.”
Liam cast his gaze over her stunning face and back to her eyes, full of pleading and fear. How could he refuse her? “Okay.”
“Okay? Wow. That has to be the easiest agreement between us since I came home.”
Home. She said home. He raised her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “Let’s hope it’s the first of many.”
She smiled, her face bright with happiness.
He dragged his gaze from hers before he fell headfirst into her beautiful eyes and had hell’s chance of thinking straight. He looked toward the picture window at the front of the office. “This heat is set to continue, and tomorrow will be a hot, sunny Sunday. Crowds will flock to Latchford’s funfair just as they will to Funland.” He faced her. “Part of me hopes to God we don’t stumble upon Davidson at Latchford fair scouting for young girls. If he’s running his disgusting business from there, too, I’ll kill him myself, I swear.”
The color drained from her face and she closed her eyes. “Don’t say that.”
Revulsion twisted inside him, and Liam tightened his grip on her hand. “We have to face facts. The guy I spoke to knew Davidson, and thought I wanted to do business with him. This is bigger than what might, or might not, be happening at Funland. As far as we know, Davidson could be known throughout the Southwest, at the very least.”
She opened her eyes and they blazed with fury. “Then we have to do whatever is necessary to find him, regardless of the danger involved. We have to do it for Sasha and any other girls Davidson or anyone else might have molested.”
Sensing her building hysteria, but loving the returning fire that flickered in her eyes, Liam released her hand and cupped his hands to her jaw. He ran his gaze over her face, and desire to kiss her, touch her, damn well make love to her swam through him.
When he met her eyes, his sexual need multiplied. Dark and sexy, the yearning in her gaze set his heart pumping. He brushed his thumb over her chin. “There’s something I need to ask you. Something important.”
Panic flashed in her eyes and she stiffened. “What?”
Words danced and bit at his tongue, and his mind whirled with indecision. Fear of what he needed to say pulsed inside his heart, but his need to have her was too strong to fight. She deserved to know the truth of his feelings about this investigation—and her—before they got i
n any deeper with each other or the mission to find Davidson.
He stared into her eyes. “I don’t trust anyone to do what I can easily do myself, but dealing with Davidson is different. Whether you want to or not, we have to involve Cat. No one more than me understands the need to do things alone to prove your worth, but this isn’t something we can afford to mess up. One wrong move and the whole thing could come undone and Davidson would escape conviction.”
She rolled her lips tightly together, her cheeks coloring in the semidarkness. “I’ve said I’ll see Cat on Monday. You do believe me, don’t you?”
“Yes, but...I’m still afraid to trust you. I think...” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I still want you, Tanya.” Slowly, he opened his eyes. “Do you want me? I need to know if any of this time I’m spending with you is about us...or Davidson and Davidson only.”
She blinked and two tears slid down her face to moisten the tips of his fingers. She lifted his hands from her face and pressed featherlight kisses to the knuckles on each of his hands before looking into his eyes with such conviction he thought his heart would burst clean through his chest.
“It’s always been you, Liam.”
“Then tell me everything that happened to you.” He squeezed her fingers. “All of it. More than losing your job, more than the anxiety. What happened to make you look at Russ Harwell as though he was the devil reincarnated, rather than hauling his ass out of here in two seconds flat, like you would’ve before? That wasn’t about him, was it? It was about the threat he represented. Am I right?”
She stared for a long moment before she nodded. “He stood in front of me, with all that hostility raging in his eyes, and all I could think, all I could feel, was that everyone in the room could turn on me, too. Then what? I’m getting stronger, but not strong enough to face an entire town’s rejection. Have I done the right thing?” She shook her head, and a tear ran over her cheek. “Do I belong in Templeton, Liam? Is this really where I should be?”
Her Hometown Redemption Page 18