A Place with Briar. Amber Leigh Williams

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ table on the sand outside. There was a live band playing and the atmosphere was almost serene.

      If he’d been able to relax, he would have really enjoyed it. All night long, though, he felt that he’d had to step carefully around Adrian. She was sharp. He had a good sense the cunning wisdom he saw in her eyes had been gained from experience. Their conversation hadn’t ventured that far into the past, and he was thankful for it. It had been a long time since he’d had dinner with anyone new, but he did know that if she opened up about her past, he would be forced to open up about his.

      And that was a whole can of worms he wasn’t ready to open.

      “I can see you in Narcotics,” she said with a nod. “You’ve got this determined look about you.”

      He took a bite from his shrimp po’boy to cover the fact that his mouth had fallen open at the observation. He’d been so careful. Had she been reading him the whole time? Swallowing, he raised a brow and said, “Which means?”

      “I don’t know,” she said, tilting her head as she studied his face. It was akin to being under the lens of a high-powered microscope. “It’s just this vibe I’ve been getting. Like a ‘wary hunter’ sort of thing.”

      “Weary hunter is more like it,” he muttered, picking up the last of the po’boy and washing it down with the beer in front of him. “How’d you get into the flower business?”

      She pursed her lips, knowing he was evading. She took a moment to wipe her hands on her napkin before deciding to answer the inquiry. “My parents own a plant nursery. Since I was little, they made me work there. Taught me how to grow, nurture, care for plants of all varieties. When I got older, I was in charge of the greenhouses with the annual flowers. I grudgingly started to like it. Eventually, I realized I wanted to branch out and make arranging flowers my business. About five years back, I finally saved enough for a start-up. Briar’s mother gave me a good deal on the shop space, and the floral business has been keeping me busy ever since. Mom and Dad deliver peace lilies and ferns for me to display and sell.”

      “So it’s a family enterprise?” he ventured to guess.

      Her eyes narrowed. “I like to think of the shop as a solitary effort, but they knew all the best suppliers. I probably would’ve never gotten Flora off the ground if it hadn’t been for them. I admit, it helps having parents who know people who know people in the industry.”

      She didn’t like the implication that Flora’s success was due to anyone but her, though, Cole noted. “Well, congratulations. You seem to be doing very well.”

      “Thanks,” she said, dipping her head. “Now you again.”

      “Oh, boy,” he said and took another sip of beer.

      “Why’d you get out of Narcotics?”

      The frown came instantly. He couldn’t fight it or the dread that sank into him. He hated to remember how everything had gone downhill. From the divorce to his profession... It was all one big messy blur. But he knew the exact moment things in Narcotics had gone sour. Rarely did he let himself dwell on it.

      He took a deep breath, spinning the beer bottle on the tabletop. “You’re better off not knowing.”

      “Did something go wrong?” she asked.

      He scanned her face and saw what she was waiting for. “They didn’t take my badge, if that’s what you’re asking.”

      She nodded and a small relieved light flashed in her eyes. “That’s a relief.”

      “I left for personal reasons,” he said. “When you’re around cops long enough, you hear a lot about something called ‘burnout.’”

      “You burned out,” she surmised.

      “Not completely,” he told her. “I could’ve kept going. But things were unraveling around me. There’s a numbness that you have when you’re exposed to enough bloodshed. It doesn’t completely protect you, but it’s usually enough to get you through.”

      “You stopped feeling numb?”

      He paused for a long moment. Was he really going to relive this again? “Something broke through.” Clearing his throat, he shifted on the hard picnic table seat. “My partner and I had been tracking a meth lab into the woods outside the city. We secured a warrant, but we were a day too late. There was an explosion, and everyone in the house was killed.”

      He stopped but couldn’t quite bring himself to look at her. His mind was back in the woods outside Huntsville, a place he rarely allowed himself to go. “It wasn’t the first time I’d investigated a meth lab after an explosion and seen the dead bodies. But this time there was a family living in the house, too, with small children.”

      She nodded. “I can see how that would affect someone.”

      The part he didn’t reveal to her was that one of the children had been the same age as his own son and that the meth lab investigation had happened around the same time that he realized Gavin could be taken away from him. For weeks, he couldn’t sleep. When he’d finally gone back to work, he hadn’t been able to focus on anything but the crime scene photos...and the face of that little boy.

      With a court battle approaching, it had been the worst time to lose his job. But without focus, he could see himself slipping up in the field just long enough for his partner to be unprotected. One mistake was all it took. And the long hours he’d spent on the job over the past decade hadn’t boded well for him in the fight for custody, either. Tiffany had used that very fact as one of her main striking points.

      It was a lose-lose situation, whatever he did. He’d given up the job he’d dedicated his life to, and he’d lost his son. All in one horrible year.

      “How long ago was that?” Adrian asked, breaking the heavy silence that had fallen over the table.

      “A little over a year.”

      “And you’re still drifting.”

      He lifted a shoulder. “I lost my family and my job. It’s hard to start over when there’s no center.”

      “Do you think you’ll ever be able to move on?” she asked.

      Wasn’t that why he was doing this wicked errand for Tiffany, for the promise of a new life? “Maybe. But it won’t come without...work.”

      “Speaking as someone who has hit rock bottom—” she lifted her bottle in toast “—it’s not easy, but it can happen.”

      There was the source of that shrewd judgment he’d seen under the surface. She was a single mother who had obviously been through hell with her ex and had come out on top—and all the better for it. Lifting his own beer bottle, he tapped it against the neck of hers. “Thanks.”

      “Be careful, though,” she added. “Make sure the ends justify the means and you don’t end up hurting someone you love in the process.”

      Someone you love. She was speaking of his son. But he couldn’t help thinking of Briar back at the tavern. When had he gone from thinking of her as the pretty innkeeper to someone you love?

      Gavin was that someone. Gavin was his only chance СКАЧАТЬ