Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
DELANEY
The ride home from Southbourne had been torture.
A small part of me had been relieved because I’d finally cracked the fucking case. But now that I had proof that, yes, Anthony Harmon had been strong-armed by Empire Ridge, it was cold comfort. Because I’d also learned that, in the process of selling his parents’ house, he’d also stolen the one thing Brewer loved most in this world.
His grandfather’s house and the legacy he’d been so proud of.
My heart broke for him. I could finally see all of the pieces, and I had to be honest, it left me reeling. Tam was right. Maybe I did always want to find heroes and villains. I wanted so badly to defend the Davids of the world from the Goliaths that I completely lost sight of the fact some people were just… Anthonys.
Typical greed. Simple manipulation to feed big egos. And in this case, wanting to have your cake and eat it, too.
I let out a long breath and cursed myself for also failing to steal my phone charger back from my sister. Because after all of the navigation, calling, and note-taking today, my phone was deader than dead, and I was unable to reassure Brewer, Tam, or anyone that I was finally on my way home.
Maybe it was for the best.
Brewer was going to be so upset with me when he realized I’d come this close to writing an article spinning his father as a victim when the truth was, his father was neither hero nor villain. He was simply an ass.
Halfway to Southbourne, I’d heard back from Amber, who’d managed to track down the trust beneficiaries for Belles Pivoines Trust.
“There’s only one, Delaney,” she’d said. “Brewer Harmon.”
As soon as she’d said it, my brain had belatedly served up the reason the name of the trust had sounded so familiar. I’d seen it printed in small letters on the underside of every teacup in Brewer’s grandmother’s collection.
Belles Pivoines . A symbol of the family legacy Brewer clung to with both hands and his full heart.
I groaned into the dark night. Today was supposed to be the day I told him how much I cared about him. That I wanted a future with him.
That he was mine and I was his.
But now… would he even listen? Would he want a future with someone who was so incredibly naive that I fell for the lies his father had told me?
Not lies, maybe, but half-truths and spin.
Something a good journalist should have recognized.
When I finally pulled into the driveway and saw my house—every window spilling over with golden light, that big red pickup truck parked in front of the garage—my shoulders hiked up even higher.
I loved him.
I loved him so much I wanted to cry. Because this news was going to crush him, and I wanted to be the one to comfort him when it happened.
Of course, I wouldn’t publish the article now, not if it would cause him any harm. But the mere fact I’d spent the past four months sympathizing with the man who’d seemingly been an innocent victim of big bad Empire Ridge was probably enough to make Brewer second-guess his decision to trust me.
And trust was everything to him.
I didn’t walk up the front path; I slunk.
Despite taking my time unlocking the door, it flew out of my hands the moment I pushed it. Six feet of Brewer, wearing his heavy jacket and a face like a storm cloud, greeted me.
“Oh!” I pushed up my glasses and laughed a little nervously before I dropped my laptop bag to the floor. “You startled me. Hi. I’m sorry I’m— mmmph !”
Brewer’s strong arms came around me, lifting me entirely off my feet. Then his lips met mine with bruising force, and he kissed the living shit out of me.
It took me half a second to react, but once I did, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back. Emotions crashed together in my head and heart, but one thing I knew.
I would take every single fucking thing I could get from him that he was willing to give me.
I noticed every detail. Brewer’s lips were cold, but his mouth was hot and hard and tasted like the gum he chewed when he was nervous. His hands clutched the back of my coat like it had personally offended him. And the breaths punching out of him were ragged and fast, as if he’d run to the door from somewhere far away.
I was back on my feet before I could fully process the change in altitude.
“Where have you been?” he demanded, stepping away.
Disoriented, I stammered, “I texted you. Earlier, I mean. I… I caught a lead, which led to like four other leads, although I only actually followed one?—”
“Christ, Delaney! That was hours ago! It’s almost nine.” Brewer stuffed his hands in his coat pocket. “I had no idea where you were.”
I blinked. It had been a long time since I’d had a curfew or someone who expected me to check in. I felt like I should have been annoyed by this on some level, like I was when my siblings were overprotective. But I wasn’t.
At all.
In fact, it felt pretty fucking amazing.
“My phone,” I blurted stupidly. “It died. I was recording interviews all afternoon. I didn’t realize you’d worry, and—” I bit my lip, then I launched myself back into Brewer’s arms because there everything made sense.
Brewer kissed me back for half a second, like he couldn’t resist, then he broke the kiss.
“I was worried,” he growled. “Fuck.”
“I…” I needed to tell him everything. Now.
But when he dragged a hand through his hair and stepped toward the open door, something stopped me. I noticed his coat and the fact that Teeny was sitting on the entry mat rather than curled up in a warm spot somewhere, like she’d been ready to go out.
Had Brewer been… leaving? Was he so upset he needed to go rebuild his walls again?
Fuck.
“I was in Southbourne,” I blurted. “I’m writing an article about your father!” Why did I sound unhinged? Maybe because I felt unhinged, like a door swinging wildly open and begging this man to walk out of it.
In the sudden silence, I heard the heat kick on and was vaguely aware of Teeny nudging the door closed with her nose.
I stared at Brewer, waiting for his shock, but it never came. His only reaction was the tightening of his magnificent jaw.
“Yeah,” he said at length. “I figured that out.”
Brewer tilted his head toward the open door to my office. The lamp on my desk was lit and the little pad where I took notes had been moved off to one side. “Found a business card with my father’s name on it.”
My palms began to sweat. If only I could have called up some of the anger that had motivated me to stomp across Brewer’s land and accost him just a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, my anger well was dry.
Besides, this was too important to hide behind my anger.
I licked my lips. “Brewer, I swear I had no idea he was your father until this morning. He approached me last fall with his story, and I believed everything he said—that Empire Ridge showed him site plans that included a firehouse, threatened to basically have the town seize his property if he didn’t sell it to them—and…”
I didn’t know how to tell him the next part. I wasn’t sure how much of this story he already knew and how it played into his relationship with his father. “And today I proved it, Brewer. They really did blackmail him into selling the house.”
“Delaney—”
“No, listen, please! I found a man named Walter Beatty, a site planner who did all the fake plans for Empire. He showed me all of them. Your father wasn’t the only victim of this scheme.”
Brewer folded his arms, and his nostrils flared. “Which is exactly why I was worried about you!”
I’d already opened my mouth to keep talking. To tell him that I was handing over all the information about this to Marjorie on Monday and getting myself as far away from the story as possible. But as soon as his words registered, I clacked my teeth together in surprise.
“Worried? About me? I thought you were worried I was on the road late without calling.”
He yanked me back into his arms and held on tightly. “Empire Ridge aren’t good people, Delaney. I was worried you were meeting up with them alone or confronting them about something my father had talked you into.”
Emotion and exhaustion clashed inside of me, making my knees weak. “Are you mad at me?” I asked in a small voice. “Because I didn’t know.”
Brewer pulled back just enough to cup my face in his big hands. His eyes were so damned soft, so… loving, I nearly wept.
“I’m mad at your sister for stealing your phone charger. When I called her asking if she’d heard from you, she admitted she’d taken it and suggested maybe you just had a dead battery. I’m buying ten charging cables and a portable phone battery for your damned car and your damned travel bags. If you’re ever trapped in a damned Peruvian ditch again, I need you to be able to tell me you’re okay, dammit.”
I blinked at him. “That’s a lot of damns.”
He leaned in and kissed me hard, hard enough to bruise my lips and sting my face with his late-night stubble. “I love you, Delaney, Jesus.” His voice was gruff and nearly broken.
I gripped his shirt collar with my fingers so he couldn’t pull another inch away from me. “You do?”
He clenched his jaw. “Fuck. Yes. So fucking much. And if you don’t feel the same way, too fucking bad because I?—”
I lurched up and kissed him before crawling up his huge body and clinging onto him with my arms and legs. “I love you,” I said in a giddy voice before repeating it. “I love you so much. I love you more. More than you could ever love me.”
“’S not a competition, baby,” he said with a laugh against my lips.
“Studies show competition in relationships is healthy,” I murmured, sneaking baby kisses along the jaw I loved so much.
“You’re making that up.”
“I was so afraid I was going to lose you,” I admitted in a whisper.
His arms tightened more around me before he moved us to the living room and dropped onto the sofa. “Delaney, you’d have to do more than write an article about an asshole to lose me. You’d have to do something egregious like…” He mock-glared at me. “Order red metal fucking cabinets for an unplumb wall again.”
I hugged his neck and buried my face in it, inhaling his familiar scent. The scent of home. “Never. I promise. All my cabinets will be handcrafted from now on. By my…” I hesitated.
The deep rumble of his laugh vibrated through both of us. “Say it.”
I shook my head, hiding my grin in his skin.
“Your boyfriend, Delaney. Say it,” he teased again.
“I’m not writing the story,” I said, ruining the mood. It needed to be done. Brewer needed to know everything I’d found out. “It’s a shitty story, first of all. Turns out your father was a selfish ass, just like you said.”
Brewer nodded. “You should have learned that from me, babe. I’m sorry I wasn’t more open with you about my family situation. The stuff with my dad, with the family business… all of it. I finally talked to Hayes about everything, but I never talked to you. I’m sorry.”
I ran my fingers along his neck and jaw before glancing up at him. “Will you tell me now?”
As he spoke, I settled comfortably against him on the sofa. Teeny snuffled softly by the fireplace, and the moon slowly rose through the window. The comforting rumble in Brewer’s voice would have put me to sleep if he hadn’t been telling me such an interesting and enraging story about his father’s greed.
By the time he got to the end of it, I was on the edge of the sofa, fists tight and jaw even tighter.
“I’m taking him down,” I gritted out. “Fuck that motherfucker.”
Somehow, Brewer’s eyes danced, and he seemed completely at ease. “No you’re not. You’re going to write the story, baby. And you’re going to do an incredible job.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Fuck that.”
He gently pulled my arms away and guided me back into his embrace. “If by ‘that,’ you mean ‘me,’ then I say we have a jam cupboard to visit.”
I stared at him, incredulous. How could he not… wait.
“A jam cupboard, you say? Tell me more.”
He stood up and pulled me up next to him before kissing me and yanking me toward the kitchen. “Did you know there’s such a thing as a Temptation Box? Janice Plum told me it used to hold alcohol during the temperance movement, but I think it would make the perfect hiding place for a bottle of lube.”
I snorted. “A historic lube bin for teetotalers? I’m never missing one of Janice Plum’s Historic whatever-the-fuck meetings again.”
He turned to face me and leaned down to throw me over his shoulder with a laugh. “Maybe the wick-dipping wasn’t what we thought it was.”
We were halfway to a glorious jam cupboard rendezvous when a shrill sound split the night.
KAK-WEEE!
“Oh fuck,” Brewer said. “That’s probably Kel bringing me chocolate cake. And before you ask, it’s a long story. Ignore it.”
Easiest decision I ever made.