* * *
THE THOUGHT OF squeezing herself into something as wicked and tiny as the lingerie prototype Roxie had given her was distracting enough. Olivia, however, knew her a bit better.
“You’re trying to make me tipsy,” Briar surmised as Olivia laid another round of drinks in front of them both at the tavern that evening.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Olivia admitted. “Only this time it’s going to work. You’re going to drink everything I pour you and you’re going to like it.”
“Sadly, you really do seem to think so.” When Olivia turned her back, Briar fingered the salt on the rim of the margarita glass. She did love Olivia’s margaritas. “I’ve decided to hire an accountant.”
Olivia spun around and eyed her balefully.
Briar raised her hands. “This has nothing to do with the break-in. This is me focused completely on something else.”
Frowning, Olivia exchanged a drink for singles with a paying customer on the other side of the bar. “Are you still thinking happy thoughts?”
“The happiest,” Briar lied.
Unconvinced but out of ammo, Olivia sat down next to Briar, knocked back another shot then sighed. “Tell me more.”
“I think it’s the best way to line up investors,” she said. “People in accounting generally know people who want to invest, especially locally, right?”
“As long as you use someone locally, you might be right on the money,” Olivia agreed. “Good thinking, cuz.”
“I’m ready to get this tax business off my back,” Briar said, taking a sip of her margarita. She had to squint as the salt mingled with the lethal Lewis mix. “Along with everything else. Even if it means putting someone else’s name on the inn.”
“Someone else’s money,” Olivia corrected her. “Investors invest. They don’t run the place. That’s your job.”
“They run the books.” Briar sighed. “I think that’s why I’ve been hesitant to take the final step toward the investor route. We’ve always run the books at Hanna’s—it’s a family business. The thought of bringing people in who aren’t family and might not understand it scares me.”
“Anyone who’ll want to invest in Hanna’s for the right reasons, will understand what family is,” Olivia assured her. “The inn all but breathes it.”
“Even if it’s just me now?”
“Yes.” She nudged the glass toward Briar. “Finish that. I’ll make you another.”
“You’re going to have to cart me home.”
“I have full-grown men to do that for me.”
Briar looked around at the near-empty bar. “Yeah, I see they’re just lining up to do your handiwork.”
Brow arched, Olivia braced a hand on the bar. “Hey, that’s sarcasm.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So for twenty-seven years, you’ve been the pretty one, I’ve been the smartass. Do I get to be the pretty one now?”
Briar shook her head, passing a jigger into a tavern customer’s hand. While she was here, she might as well put herself to work. “I can make petty jokes. I learned from the best.”
“Whoa.” Olivia backed up a step. “Briar Browning just made a dig at me.” Her hands clasped over her heart and she tilted her head, eyeing her cousin whimsically. “I think this is the happiest day of my life.”
Briar let out a laugh, despite herself. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
“Don’t apologize. Never apologize. And I know exactly what’s gotten into you.”
“Oh, geez,” Briar said with a shake of her head, depositing a damp dollar bill from a customer into Olivia’s tip jar. “You’re not going to be crude, are you?”
“Honestly, I wasn’t even going to go there. But the fact that you did just proves this day should be marked.”
“As what, exactly?”
Olivia spread her hands and looked dreamily into the distance. “As Briar’s Independence Day.”
“For heaven’s sake,” Briar groaned. “I’ve been independent for as long as I can remember.”
“Briar’s Independence From Inhibition Day.”
“In other words, it should be lauded by all who enter here as the day I slept with Cole Savitt.”
“Not just that,” Olivia pointed out, talking over the blender as she mixed another margarita. “Though I celebrate the date I first slept with a sexy, scruffy man every year in bed with a bottle of wine and, if I’m lucky, more sexy, scruffy man candy.” As the jukebox segued smoothly from The Rolling Stones to The Who, Olivia wet and then dipped an upended cocktail glass into a widemouthed container of crystallized salt. “For you, it’s so much more. It’s like you’ve finally molted.”
Briar spared her a bland look. “Yes, the day one transitions from crab to woman is remarkable, indeed.”
Olivia clapped her hands and hopped gleefully up and down. “It’s playful banter. She’s making playful banter.”
Briar raised one hand and pressed the other to her temples. “Wait a minute. I’m trying to figure out how you moved this conversation from taxes to playful banter.”
“The next step is dirty talk. But you need to save that for your man candy.” Olivia reached for a bottle and held it up. “Tequila. Straight tequila goes great with dirty talk.”
“I don’t think so,” Briar said, pushing the bottle away. “I’ll have one more margarita. Then I’ll be stumbling off to bed like the lush you apparently think I am.”
“Off to bed...where something sexy and scruffy will be waiting.”
Briar shook her head and realized that Olivia and her margaritas had done the impossible and had managed to distract her from her worries. She raised her glass. “To you, Liv.”
“Why’s that?” Olivia asked, raising the tequila bottle.
“Because with you, life is never dull.”
Olivia tipped her bottle to Briar’s glass and smiled. “I live to serve. Now drink that down so you can go get some and I can get back to my envy.”
“Deal,” Briar agreed and tipped the margarita back.
* * *
COLE FROWNED AS he entered Hanna’s. The lights were off. The whistling noise from the broken pane was gone. He’d noticed that the window had been covered until repairs could be made.
It was late. Much later than he’d anticipated returning. He’d needed time to get his thoughts together. She deserved that. As much as she deserved the truth.
He had to tell her the truth. If any of this was going to work out like he hoped it might, he had to be honest with Briar. He had to tell her why he’d come here. And what had led him to stop doing Tiffany’s dirty work.
It wasn’t just the break-in. True, that had given him the edge he’d needed to get Gavin back in his life. But as mixed up as he’d been all morning, he’d known that his heart would lead him back here—to Hanna’s. Back home. To his innkeeper.
Walking toward the den, he called her name. Nothing stirred. No noise from above. When the instinct at the back of his neck didn’t prickle in alarm, he reached over to turn on one of the lamps next to the sofa. “Briar?” he called again, peering into the kitchen. Silence.
He was about to go upstairs to check her rooms when he saw toes. Veering toward the sun porch, he rounded the corner and saw her laid out in one of the chaise longues, fast asleep. There was a glass in her hand. He crouched, laying his hand over hers, and bent his head to sniff the substance.
His head sailed back at the sharp tang of Olivia’s margarita mix. Smiling, he gauged Briar’s face. She was deep in her cups and looked so peaceful there amidst the bright yellow cushions, he hesitated to wake her.
Sitting on the edge of the longue, he leaned forward and touched his lips to her brow. “Hey. Sleeping Beauty.”
“Mmm.” Her eyelids flickered but didn’t quite open.
He chuckled, brushing the hair back from her face. “Hey. If you sleep here, you’re gonna wake up with a crick in your neck.”
She sighed, nestling farther into the cushions by turning onto her side and curling into a ball.
He didn’t have the heart to move her. Not when she looked so cozy. Reaching for one of the blankets she’d folded carefully for guests, he covered her with it up to her chin. Taking the glass, he set it aside. “Sweet dreams.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She reached for him in the dark, her hand coming to rest on his thigh. “Stay with me,” she murmured in a sleep-drenched voice.
How could he resist her? It didn’t take much urging for him to remove his shoes and crawl onto the chaise. She curled into him, laying her head in the crook of his arm. He pulled her close, burying his face in her hair. Breathing her in until she became a part of him. Smoothing a hand over her back, he listened as her breaths deepened and she drifted off to sleep again.
He’d stay with her. If she asked him to, if she forgave him, he would stay with her forever.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE FIRST THING Briar saw when she opened her eyes the following morning was an inordinate amount of sunshine. Bolting upright, she winced at the headache gnawing at her temples and pressed a hand to her head. Blinking, she frowned. Why was she sleeping on the sun porch? And what time was it?
She hadn’t slept past 6:00 a.m. in years. With the sun beaming high and bright over the water’s surface, it had to be near midmorning.
“Morning.”
Tilting her head, she got her first dose of embarrassment when she found Cole leaning against the archway that led into the den. He was smiling at her in a way that told her he knew very well she had slept on the sun porch...and why. She ran a hand over her hair and hoped she didn’t look as disheveled—or hungover—as she felt. “Um...hi?”
“I made breakfast,” he told her, jerking a thumb back toward the kitchen. “You up for a bite?”
“You...” She shook her head to clear away the fuzziness. It did little but give her a case of the dizzies. Gripping the edge of the chaise longue, she shifted her feet to the floor. “You made breakfast.”
He lifted a shoulder in a modest shrug. “It’s not much. I just heated up some of the things you had in the refrigerator.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
One corner of his mouth lifted into another half smile. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t be up to it.”
She cleared her throat and stared at her bare toes, not quite ready to wobble to her feet just yet. “Thank you, Cole. That was very nice of you.”
“It’s my pleasure, Ms. Browning.” He pushed off the jamb and offered her a hand. “Olivia’s a bad influence.”
She felt her cheeks color. Yep, he knew very well she was hungover. With a sigh, she placed her hand in his. “Yes. She is. But I love her.”
Lifting Briar from the chaise, Cole tucked an arm around her waist and paused in order for her to gain her balance. “Head clear?”
“Mmm-hmm.” It was only a small lie. She placed one foot in front of the other, directing them on the path to the kitchen she knew all too well. Thank goodness they were cooperating, even if her whirling head wasn’t.
As soon as she sat down at the table, he handed her a mug of steaming black coffee. She could’ve wept with gratitude. “Thank you,” she said, looking up at him reverently before tipping the mug to her lips. On the table there was a plate filled with sausages and another piled with toast. Though her stomach began to protest, she took a breath and prepared herself a plate. “I can’t remember the last time someone made me breakfast,” she mused as she spread a light layer of strawberry jam on a piece of toast. “It must have been before my mother passed away.”
He forked a few pieces of sausage onto her plate then his. “Tell me more about her.”
“My mother?”
“Do you mind?”
She smiled. “Not at all. She was a hard worker, but you would never have known it. She loved innkeeping so much, I don’t think she thought of it as work. Not until she began to slow down, which wasn’t long before she died. I think there were other signs, but she ignored them...until one day I saw her give out. From then on, it was a slew of doctor’s visits and tests, all of which only brought more and more bad news. She went quickly, once she decided she wanted to come home and stay. She wanted to be here, facing the windows and watching the bay.”
“I don’t blame her,” he said in a quiet voice. “And when you were younger, you knew you wanted to do what she did.”
Briar nodded as she finished off the toast and washed it down with another sip of coffee. “For a long time, I thought we would work side by side, until she got sick....” Picking a crumb from the tablecloth and depositing it on her napkin, Briar frowned. “Life never asks you what the order of things should be, though, does it? You have to take it as it comes, figure out what’s right—for you and those around you. And sometimes you have to do it alone.”
As her eyes rose back to his face, Cole’s smile was gentle and his gaze was warm. “You’re not alone,” he told her.
She grinned. “I know. I have Liv. And Adrian. And Roxie, too, apparently.”
“You have me,” he added, reaching for the hand she’d laid on her knee.
Her lips parted in surprise. His expression was so earnest, how could she not believe him? Somewhere beneath her ribs, her heart swelled. She looked away quickly, denying herself the certainty she saw there in his eyes. “Cole...I’m sure if you could have asked life for what you wanted, it wouldn’t be to share the kind of burdens that I have.”
“Briar,” he said just as firmly as she had spoken. His fingers tightened around hers and his thumb caressed her palm. “For the first time in a long time, I know exactly what it is that I want.”
Her breath hitched, and she tried to look away from his sincere face. She couldn’t quite manage it. “There are things that you don’t know about the inn, Cole. I could lose it. There’s no guarantee in a month that I’ll still have it.”
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I...” She blinked at tears. “You don’t know what you’re giving me.”
“Yes, I do. I intend to stay here, in Fairhope, with you—if you want me.”
She let out a quavering laugh. “You’re serious,” she realized.
“Of course I’m serious,” he said with a beaming smile. “I’m here. Whatever you ask of me, that’s what I’ll do—what I’ll be for you. I don’t have much to offer you other than what I feel....”
“What do you feel?” The question came out on a rush, and she caught herself. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s a fair question,” he admitted. “One that I’m eager to get to the bottom of myself. Know this, though, Briar. I haven’t felt this way about anyone. And I’m determined to do right by you.”
It wasn’t a proposal. Neither was it a declaration of love. What it was, however, was a pledge of loyalty and devotion. Her heart pounded at the thought of where such things could lead to down the road. “This is the first time in a long time I’ve been excited for what’s to come.”
He leaned forward and touched his mouth to hers. “Me, too.”
Taking a breath, she brought herself off the high, fine, silver-edged cloud his words had left her floating on. “Oh, look at me. I’m a mess all over again.”
“You’re beautiful,” he said, reaching up and brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“As much as I’d love to believe you, I have to get washed up. My appointment with my new accountant is in an hour or so, and I can’t go looking like this.”
“Okay, then. You go get ready and I’ll do the washing up.”
“Oh, no. I can’t ask you to do that
—”
He rose, picking up plates. “You didn’t.”
As he transferred dishes to the sink, she raised her hands in defeat. “If my cousin caught me arguing with that, she’d slap me silly.” Rising, Briar wiped her hands on her napkin. She touched a hand to his shoulder then rested her head against his back for one long, stolen moment, breathing him in. “Thank you for this. For everything.”
“This is just the beginning,” he promised. “Do you have a mower?”
She blinked, surprised. “Yes. In the shed where I keep the generator. Why?”
“All that rain made the grass spring up fast,” he said, jerking his chin toward the window overlooking the lawn that sloped down to the bay. “You don’t mind if I tackle the lawn today, do you?”
“Do I mind?” She let out a laugh. “I’d pay for somebody else to do it if I could.”
“By the time you get back, it’ll be done.”
She sighed, pressing her lips to his cheek. “You might be the best thing that ever happened to me.” As she turned and walked toward the stairs, she couldn’t help but smile.
Scratch that. She knew Cole Savitt was the best thing that had ever happened to her.
* * *
LAWN MOWING IN late June was dirty work. By the time he’d finished half the yard down to the sandy strip of shore in front of Hanna’s, Cole’s shirt was soaked clean through. The humidity felt akin to molasses and made ordinary things like breathing difficult. Still, the work was rewarding. It felt good to get a full-body workout the way he used to when he mowed his own yard during summers in Huntsville, or every other day in his home gym.
It felt good, too, doing something productive—something besides snooping into innocent people’s lives and business.
He hadn’t been able to bring up his work for Tiffany over breakfast with Briar. He’d seen the headache nibbling under the surface of her temple, the shadows under her eyes, and he could focus on nothing other than caring for her, making sure she ate a full meal before she busied herself as she always did with something concerning the inn or running errands in town.
Her business in Mobile today meant he would have a while to think, to string his thoughts together. Find the best possible way to tell her about his reasons for coming to Fairhope.
A Place with Briar (Harlequin Superromance) Page 21