A Place with Briar. Amber Leigh Williams
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Preferably ahead of time.”
“I will. You can be sure of it.” Anything to prevent losing Hanna’s. “Goodbye, Mr. Fields.”
“Have a good day, Ms. Browning.”
She stood to hang the phone back in the cradle. For a long moment, she leaned her head against the wall and concentrated on steadying herself. Her knees quaked, and she ordered them to stop. She wiped her eyes before turning to walk back into the kitchen.
A gasp launched from her throat when she found Cole standing in the hallway just beyond. She clapped a hand over her heart. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Mr. Savitt. I didn’t see you there.”
He said nothing, just scanned her face with a frown.
Oh, dear God, her troubles were no doubt written all over her. How much had he heard?
He stepped forward, into the light. The haunted look had vanished from his face, replaced with concern. “Are you all right?”
She swallowed, her insides squirming in embarrassment and cheeks heating all over again. “Is there...anything I can get you?”
He closed the distance between them in three quick strides. Startled, she pressed her back against the podium. Her breath caught as he hovered close, gaze intense now as he searched her eyes, seeing too much. “Are you all right?” he asked again.
She sucked in a long, steadying breath. “I’m fine.” When he didn’t look convinced, she sighed. “Mr. Savitt, you’re my guest. It’s my job to see to it that you’re all right. Not the other way around.”
“And who sees to it that you are?” he blurted.
Her lips parted. No guest had ever asked her such a question. Certainly not one she had ever met before.
Lips firming, he lowered his penetrating stare. “I...apologize, Ms. Browning.”
With a short shake of her head, she fought for words. “It’s forgotten.”
Hesitant, his gaze latched on to her face once more, spanning her features. “You look exhausted, is all.”
Lifting a hand to her hair, she realized she must look a fright. “I—”
“If you need a break, I’ll be happy to—”
“No,” she refused, finding strength buried beneath the shame. “No, that’s out of the question. I thank you, Mr. Savitt, but the last thing I need right now is a break.”
Silence loomed over them both. Then he slid his hands slowly into his pockets in a gesture of acquiescence. “All right.”
Her eyes avoided his as disbelief again crossed his face. “Really, if there’s anything I can do to make your stay more enjoyable...”
His face hardened and for an instant, she thought she saw the muscles in his jaw quake formidably. Finally, he pulled in a long inhale and said, “I told you. Just call me Cole.” Turning away, he walked out, the bells jangling over the door in his wake.
She watched him through the windows until he disappeared from view. Then she shook her head.
The man was unbelievable.
And he’d smelled so good up close—like soap, her cinnamon rolls and that very base note she suspected belonged to him alone.
Setting the pen she still held tightly in her hand on the podium, she dragged her fingers through her hair and made her way back to the kitchen.
She stopped short just inside the door.
The table had been cleared. Three clean plates and forks dried in the sink-side drainer.
Did he...?
Something inside her awakened, unfurling, tingling to life. Something that’d been dead for too long to measure.
If she wasn’t careful, she could start feeling things for this man she barely knew. Things she couldn’t afford to feel for anyone again—least of all a complete and total stranger.
* * *
COLE NEEDED TIME alone to think. Room enough to pace, to burn off the edge from the confrontation with Briar.
He’d seen women in pain. He’d been a member of the Huntsville police department for ten years. That was more than enough regular calls of domestic violence and trauma vics. Yes, he’d seen too many wounded women to count.
But Briar... She was different. Kind to a fault and yet undeniably capable with what he strongly sensed was an unexpected streak of perseverance. She downright intrigued him.
After the past three hellish years... Well, she was like a breath of fresh air. A fine, cool kiss of morning mist.
A ride around town wouldn’t cool the burn in his blood. Wrestling with it, he walked away from the inn. Away from her. He couldn’t keep encountering her on the verge of tears. Finding her that way, close to shattering, had made him forget completely why he was here. Tiffany’s wicked errand and all that came with it.
Damn it, for a moment, Gavin’s face had been completely wiped away by Briar’s frightened features, and he’d wanted nothing more than to enfold her in his arms and...
Nope, don’t go there. Don’t you dare go there, Savitt. Dangerous. Under the circumstances, it was just too damned dangerous. For the both of them.
How he could even think about being with another woman again after all the grief Tiffany had put him through was beyond him.
As he roamed around the side of the building, the tidiness of the well-loved garden left him little doubt Briar landscaped it herself. The scent of the confederate jasmine clinging to lattices tickled his nostrils. Bright salmon petunia faces popped out of the soil in cheery abundance. At his approach, a hummingbird flitted away from a butterfly bush. Off the gravel path, a vegetable garden flourished. Squash and tomatoes looked seasoned, a bright slash of color against the lush green landscape.
More of her work there. He saw it, too, in the clumps of daffodils trumpeting up from the mulch between sweet olive bushes. Climbing roses laced their way around porch columns. He smelled the gardenia before he spotted it. The soothing fragrance of the open, palm-sized blooms cleared the way for cool thoughts.
Briar didn’t need a man with a past as black as his underlying intentions cozying up to her.
“You son of a bitch!”
Frowning toward the voice that had read his thoughts exactly, he pivoted on his heel to face the long, glass-walled greenhouse between the inn and its neighboring twin structure. Something crashed against the floor and he took several steps toward the paned doors that had been thrown wide-open. More expletives reached his ears as he peered around the jamb.
First he spotted the glass splintered on the damp concrete slab and the long-stemmed crimson roses scattered like blood spatter.
Great. He was likening flowers to something he’d seen at a crime scene. The world-weary detective he’d wanted to bury deeply, forever, was taking over again, little by little.
“Hello?” he called.
Instantly, a brilliant streak of red hair peered over a worktable. “Shop’s next door, mister!”
“I heard a commotion,” he called back, taking a step farther over the entrance. “Are you okay?”
She emitted a snort before disappearing from view. Something scraped across the floor, followed by the tinkling protest of glass. Dustpan. “What are you, my knight in shining armor?”
He grimaced. “More like a concerned neighbor. Temporarily, at least.”
The auburn crop appeared again. On second look, her face was round and pixielike with a button of a nose and unpainted lips, which softened the impact of her pronounced bone structure. The eyes that stared back at him were dark and sharp as a whip.
This was