Blame It on the Bet
Page 19
I’m startled by the vibration in the pocket of my robe. It’s nearly midnight. Who’s texting me now? I pull out my phone and look at the screen to see that it’s Bryan, and he’s only sent me one word.
Pie?
I smile as I type back.
Closed.
After a few seconds, I see the familiar animated dots showing me that he’s writing.
Got one to go.
“Hah!” I laugh out loud into the empty apartment.
Sure, I write. Coffee? And maybe a little dessert with your dessert.
Dot, dot, dot…
On. My. Way. :)
Five minutes later, he’s standing in my hallway, a bag from The Little Slice of Heaven Pie Shop in one hand, snowflakes stuck to his hair and eyelashes. He stomps the snow off his boots on the big rubber mat, and I take the pie from him so he can pull them, and his coat, off.
“Damn! It’s really coming down out there!” I hear him say as I slip the pie out of its box and set it on the table, where I’ve already laid out a couple of small plates and fresh mugs of coffee.
“Yup. Typical for this time of the year. The plows are out already, though.”
“Wow, you look sexy,” he says, leaning in the kitchen doorway.
“Please!” I scoff, looking down at my fluffy pink robe and bunny slippers. “I’m sure Victoria’s Secret would love to do an intervention with me.”
“Oh, now, that I’d love to see,” he murmurs with a naughty grin. He walks toward me, takes the pie cutter out of my hand, and sets it on the table. Before I know what’s happening, his lips are on mine, his hands wrapped around my waist and pulling me closer to him.
“Hi,” I say, looking up at him, when we finally allow a few inches separation between our faces.
“Hi.” He smiles down. “I missed you today. How was the meeting with your sisters?”
“Some good, some bad. We’re getting close… I’m sorry, Bryan, can we please not do this?”
“Do what?” he asks, his dark brows furrowed in confusion.
“This. I can’t pretend that you’re rooting for me to win this. We both know that you’re not and whatever…whatever this is between us right now, we both know that it’s going to come to an end soon enough.”
“It doesn’t have to…”
“Doesn’t it? It’s not looking like we’re going to raise this money. I’m going to have to sell to you. You’re going to knock down this huge piece of my life and turn it into a parking lot.”
“Entertainment complex,” he corrects me.
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get past it, much as I might want to. And if, by some miracle, I do raise the cash to buy out the loan, what then? You’ve got no reason to hang around here. You’ll go back to your life on the West Coast.”
He looks down at me, his dark, penetrating eyes never breaking contact with mine.
“You could come with me, you know,” he offers in a near whisper.
I smile at his sweet face and then extricate myself from his hold, taking a seat at the kitchen table. He joins me.
“I’m not kidding, Hennessy,” Bryan states as he watches me spoon sugar into his coffee.
“No, I know you aren’t,” I agree.
“You’ve already taken a leave from your job. Why not just quit and come out west? There are plenty of law firms there…”
“But that’s just it. I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore. I don’t know what I want long term, but I do know that, right now, I want this.”
“This…what?” he asks cautiously.
“This pub. Running this business. Being here in this town.” I slide the cup over to him and put a hand on his forearm. “And, if I’m honest with myself, I want this to go on for a bit longer. What’s going on with you and me. But I’m not naive. I know that’s not going to happen. So…what do you say we just pretend—for a little while longer—that this is our life. You. Me. The pub. The town.”
He sighs and takes a long look down into his mug before answering. “Yeah. I’d like that,” he says, looking up at last with some cross between sadness and regret and wistfulness.
“What kind of pie did you get?” I ask, looking to get off of the sad stuff.
“Oh, man, it’s this amazing apple-cranberry-walnut pie. I had a slice the other day, and it blew. Me. Away. So, when Janet called to tell me there was a whole pie with my name on it, I ran right over there. Actually, that was less than an hour ago. It’s probably still warm—” Bryan stops suddenly when he looks at the shock that must be plastered all over my face. “What? What is it? We don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it.”
“Like it?” I gasp, my voice unexpectedly thick with emotion. “Bryan, that was my mother’s favorite pie. When she died, Janet retired it. I don’t think she’s made this pie in close to ten years…”
I feel the tears as they slip, unbidden, from the corners of my eyes.
“Holy crap. That’s a little spooky,” he mutters, wide-eyed. “She had me try a piece the other day, and then she asked me what it tasted like.”
Oh. My. God. That is so Janet. She was testing him with the slice…and then she sent him the whole pie, knowing he’d bring it here to me.
“And? What did it taste like?” I ask, letting my voice trail off, a little bit afraid to hear his answer, knowing it’s likely to be something ridiculous.
Bryan considers me for a moment, the soft, amber glow of the light fixture above us reflected in his dark brown eyes. He looks so much softer than he did when he first arrived in Mayhem. And it’s not just the change of wardrobe. He’s lost that big city edge, replacing it with a much more easy-going manner.
“Home,” he says simply. “I told her it tasted like home.”
Oh my God, he got it right. He got the answer right.
I’m in his arms again in a heartbeat, the pie uncut on the table and the coffee growing cold as we stumble down the hallway to my bedroom.
Chapter Thirty
Bryan
Truittism No. 15: A cat out of the bag is worth one sitting duck in the bush.
Barack is cuddled up under my desk with what appears to be a new friend—a giant, orange striped cat that must weigh close to thirty pounds.
“Hey, buddy,” I say, bending down to pet the newest staff member of the Mayhem Gazette. “What’s your name?”
“That’s Donald,” King says from my doorway.
“Oh no. Tell me you didn’t,” I say, shaking my head and grinning. “He’s not…”
“Yes, sir. Donald Trump. He’s a rescue from St. Paul, our capitol. How could I not name him Donald? I’ve already got an order in to the Knitty Kitty for a sweater that has a little tie attached to it,” he tells me proudly.
I throw back my head and laugh. “Well, I’m happy to see he and Barack are hanging together in the name of bipartisan leadership.”
“Nah. They’re just hiding from Michelle. She can be a real ballbuster, that one,” he informs me before walking back out into the main office, where the front door jingles with the entrance of a visitor.
I pull my cell phone out and start a text to Hennessy. I’ve spent every night this week with her. No reason to think tonight will be any different. I hope. But before I can tap an outgoing message, an incoming one flashes on the screen. It’s from Helen.
Services on Saturday morning at Mt. Mourne Baptist Church with interment to follow at Shady Hollow Cemetery. She’s held off on the services in hopes that you’d come. She asked me to tell you she can’t wait any longer. This is your last chance.
I don’t have time to even process this before King sticks his head through my doorway again.
“You don’t pay me enough to be your secretary, you know,” he says in his best curmudgeonly tone.
“No, I don’t,” I agree. “But, then again, I don’t recall asking you to be. Why?”
“Cause there’s some weasely looking little man out here wanting to see you,” he grumbles.<
br />
“Who?”
“You deaf? I told you I’m not your secretary. Come out and ask him yourself.”
I get up and follow King out. Sure enough, there is a weasely-looking guy there. Jonathan Pettit, the trustee. I motion for him to come back and close the door behind him when he enters my office.
“Mr. Pettit,” I say cautiously. “What brings you back up here to Mayhem?”
“I’m just going to cut to the chase here,” he says without an ounce of friendliness. “My job, as the trustee, is to hold the mortgage loan as a neutral third party. But, in the end, I have a fiduciary responsibility to the bank and—I like to think, anyway—a moral duty to the property owners.”
“Okay…”
I have no idea what this guy’s getting at.
“I told you when we met a couple of weeks back that you looked familiar to me.”
“Yeah…”
Oh crap. Maybe I do have an idea.
“I don’t forget faces easily, you see. And I’m a voracious consumer of the financial news…”
Crap.
Crap, crap, crap, crap.
“It took me a bit,” he continues, “but then I realized. I realized who you are and what it is that you’re doing here. In Mayhem. With Hennessy O’Halloran.”
“Mr. Pettit, I don’t know what you think you’ve stumbled on—”
“Oh, but I think you do know. Don’t you, Mr. Broadmore?”
I knew there’d come a time.
Somewhere, someday, at some point, someone was going to put two and two together, and that bit of math was going to add up to a very ugly scene in at least one of my business dealings. But not this one. For God’s sake…not this one. Please.
“I can explain…”
They’re the three most pathetic words you can string together in the English language, and they’re tantamount to “I’m guilty.” I know it. Jonathan Pettit knows it. And he’s sneering at me across my desk.
“No explanation needed, Mr. Broadmore,” he says, putting extra emphasis on my name. My real name. It makes me wince to have someone call me that again.
“What is it that you want?”
He snorts.
“What do I want? You mean, like a bribe? Oh please, Mr. Broadmore. Don’t insult me. I’m not like you. Or your father. You people make me sick. And now you’re here, carrying on the family legacy, I assume. What is it this time? Looking for new investors in your latest ‘can’t lose’ proposition before you skip town with a cool mil or two in your pocket?”
“Stop it,” I say quietly, but he doesn’t listen.
“Did you think the good people of this town would make good patsies for you? Did you research them and jump on the O’Halloran property when it came up? Is that it, Mr. Broadmore?”
“Stop it!”
I didn’t mean to yell, but I did. And I slammed my fist down on the desk. Now this small, small man is looking at me with something like triumph gleaming in his beady little eyes. A great big “I told you so.”
“If that’s true,” I begin, my voice shaking with barely controlled rage, “if you really followed the story, then you know how it ended.”
“I do know how it ended. But that doesn’t mean you’re innocent. All it means is you found a way to save your worthless hide from spending the rest of your life in prison. You’ll never have the property,” he informs me icily. “I’ll see to that.”
I take a deep breath, close my eyes for a few seconds, and force myself back into professional, cool, calm, detached Bryan Truitt mode.
“I really don’t think that’s in your control, Mr. Pettit. Miss O’Halloran and I have an arrangement, and either way it turns out, the deal will be done before it ever reaches your control.”
I’m expecting to see bewilderment or frustration on his face. But what I get is smug. Smug is not good. It means he’s got something. And he does.
“I’ve already been to see Miss O’Halloran. I brought several copies of newspaper clippings, and even a few exposés that aired on television.”
I’m staring at him, jaw hanging open. He didn’t.
His smile broadens, and it’s as if he can hear my thoughts.
“That’s right, Mr. Broadmore. I’m sorry to say it was quite upsetting for the young lady, especially considering the…nature…of your relationship, but it had to be done. She had to know whom she was dealing with. I had to make her see that your only intention was to get close to her, use her, and bilk her and her neighbors out of their life’s savings. Just like last time. Right, Bryan?”
I’m on my feet and headed for the door in an instant.
“You have no idea,” I hiss at him over my shoulder. “You have no goddamn idea, you stupid, stupid little man.”
“Bryan?” King calls after me as I fly through the office and out into the freezing night.
Chapter Thirty-One
Hennessy
“Henny? Henny, what is it?” Walker asks, squatting down next to me as I sob at my father’s desk. Every glance at one of the photos makes me heave and shudder and drip anew.
I can’t talk, I can only shake my head.
“Please, you’re scaring me…”
I hear her pushing buttons on her phone.
“James, I need you at the pub. Right now. It’s Hennessy. Something’s wrong. Something’s really, really wrong.”
No truer words have ever been said.
“Do you want me to call Bryan?” Walker asks once she’s disconnected the call.
This only makes me sob harder. I shake my head.
My cool, prickly, stiff sister throws her arms around me and pulls me to her chest. She runs a hand along the length of my hair while she pats my back.
“Shh,” she whispers soothingly in my ear. “Shh. I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay, Henny. Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay. I swear it.”
If only that could be true.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Bryan
Truittism No. 16: Don’t believe everything in print.
Don’t print everything you believe.
“Where is she?” I demand when I run into the pub and find Walker.
She looks as if she’d like to come over the bar and throttle me with her bare hands.
“It doesn’t matter where she is. You’re never going to see her again,” the tall brunette spits at me.
So she’s heard, too.
“Walker, this is all a big misunderstanding…”
“Oh? Then how come there’s so much proof to the contrary? Doesn’t seem like a misunderstanding to me. In fact, it seems to be all laid out in black and white for the whole world to see—if they happen to know what your real name is.”
“Please, I just need to see her. Just to explain…” I say, making a move to come around the bar.
In the blink of an eye, Walker O’Halloran has a baseball bat in her hand. She must keep it behind the bar in case things get really out of control.
“Step the hell back,” she hisses in a soft but deadly voice.
I hold up my hands and do as I’m told.
“Walker, put the bat down.”
From behind her, Hennessy’s voice is small and defeated. When she steps around, I can see her beautiful face, temporarily disfigured with the bloat and staining of hard crying.
“Hennessy, oh, thank God. I have to explain to you—”
I stop mid-sentence when I catch sight of a familiar, very unflattering picture of myself in her hand. It’s a photocopy from the front page of a newspaper I’d hoped to never see again. And now she’s got it in her hands.
“What’s to explain?” She levels her blue eyes on mine. They’re so arctic that I feel a chill run through my body. “That’s you, isn’t it? Bryan Broadmore?” she asks, wagging the papers in my direction.
“That’s not my name.”
“Oh, but it was, wasn’t it?”
I don’t reply.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Go ahead, read it,”
she suggests.
“I don’t have to. I already know what it says,” I inform her flatly. “Hennessy, I swear to you, this is not what it looks like.”
“No? Cause it looks kinda like you helped to defraud hundreds of innocent people out of millions of dollars. Is that the gist of it?”
Oh hell.
This situation is going down fast, and I don’t think I can get it back on course. She holds the paper up and starts to read the headlines aloud.
“‘Broadmore Scam Leaves Hundreds of Seniors Broke and Broken.’”
She looks at me with sheer disdain. It’s nothing new, of course. I’ve seen it thousands of times in the five years since this article was published. But somehow, it’s never hurt as much as it does right now, coming from Hennessy O’Halloran. “I’d never have known,” she continues. “Nobody would have. I mean, the way you changed your name and all. You could just breeze into town, take what you want and then get out before we were any the wiser.”
Oh Christ. I thought I was finally past this.
“Look,” I object, holding up my hands to slow her accusations, “I haven’t done a damn thing but get to know this town and the people who live here. I tried to buy the pub for above asking price, if you recall. I tried to work out a deal where we’d both come out ahead. So how, exactly, have I swindled you, or anybody else out of anything since I got here?”
“Is that you in the picture?” she asks me instead of answering my question.
I nod.
“Is your name really Bryan Broadmore?”
“It used to be,” I say quietly.
“Were you charged with fraud?”
“Yes, but I was cleared…”
“Did you have anything to do with this, Bryan? Were you in any way connected?”
“Yes, but Hennessy, you have to understand—there’s a lot more to the story,” I protest, the volume of my voice climbing.