“That you brought a beautiful woman and looked a little, I don’t know, what was the word she used, Phillip?”
He glanced away from his conversation with the bartender. “Smitten. The word was smitten.”
“Nana’s drunk,” Brock joked. And weirdly perceptive.
“As if that’s even remotely possible.” Ashley slid onto the barstool next to him, flipping back some dark hair and giving him a smile Brock had known since he was a freshman at Harvard and Ashley was the resident advisor in his dorm. To think that girl was now a permanent fixture at his brother’s side might have surprised him fourteen years ago, but now Brock saw they belonged together.
“Anyway, we’ll decide for ourselves when she gets here,” Ashley finished.
Brock shook his head, certain he hadn’t heard her right. Jenna had told him she was staying in for the night, taking the chef’s offer of a light dinner delivered to her room. She promised him they’d get an early start in the morning, when he would bring her over here to tour the Blackthorne Distillery, adjacent to the Vault.
So Brock had come to the Blackthorne-owned pub alone, certain he’d run into people he knew, hoping that would get his mind off this woman who’d blown into his life and turned his schedule—and thoughts—upside down.
“She’s not coming here,” he said.
Ashley gave him a look that was downright pitying. “Honey, I just saw her climb into the back seat of Devlin’s Audi, and their parting shot was, ‘We’ll see you at the Vault.’ We stopped by the estate to check on Nana, and Devlin and Hannah had done the same thing. We met her and invited her along.”
“She doesn’t know I’m here.”
Ashley jabbed his shoulder. “Shouldn’t have let her off-leash, big guy.”
No, he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t exactly keep her prisoner. Well, then, let her be surprised when she walked in, determined to do her backdoor digging for dirt, only to find the very man who had control over her shovel.
Except, right that minute, he felt…empty-handed.
Phillip joined them, handing a glass of wine to Ashley and adding a kiss on her hair. That got him a return smile that could light the room.
“So what’s the deal with this woman?” Phillip asked, leaning on the bar to keep an arm around Ashley. “Is she going to rip the Blackthornes to shreds in this book or what?”
“Not if I have anything to do with it.” Except, she seemed to keep finding workarounds to the brick walls he tried to put between her and anything he didn’t want her to know. Problem was, without knowing Aunt Claire’s “secret,” he didn’t even know what he didn’t want her to know.
“Oooh. Pained expression.” Ashley reached up and patted his cheek. “Haven’t seen that look since Kayla King blew you off for the Harvard second-string quarterback.”
“And now she’s a reporter on ESPN. It was a good move for her.” He glanced to the door, already anticipating Jenna’s expression when she walked in and saw him there. Would she be exasperated? Surprised? Happy?
“Look at him,” Phillip whispered the comment into Ashley’s ear. “Totally watching the door.”
Brock glared at his brother, waiting for the age-old resentment and distrust to rise up. But Phillip had changed so much in the last few weeks that Brock couldn’t conjure up anything like that.
Fact was, Phillip didn’t even seem like the same guy who’d been so messed up right here in this bar not so long ago that Brock literally had had to drag him out on his drunken ass. But it wasn’t Brock who’d finally talked sense into his oldest brother, it was the woman next to him.
“Can you blame him?” Ashley asked. “She’s awesome, Brock. We talked to her for a while.”
Great.
But he leaned a little closer to Phillip to change the subject. “Hey, question for you. Do you remember Dad talking to someone who might be connected to the old Salmon Falls Distillery?”
“No, but…” Phillip frowned and inched back. “Please tell me that crap isn’t coming up again. When the hell will someone put that stupid stolen-recipe trash where it belongs?”
Until someone definitely disproved it? Never. “But why would Dad talk to one of them?”
“Old case, maybe?” Phillip guessed.
That would make sense, since his attorney father had been the head of Blackthorne’s legal department. “Does the name Platt ring a bell?”
Phillip shook his head. “Ask someone in Legal. And if it wasn’t a Blackthorne Enterprises deal, maybe it’s in his private papers. Pretty sure that when we remodeled the fifty-third floor in Boston, they sent boxes of crap to the estate, and they’re probably up in the attic. You should shut the haters up, man.”
Brock couldn’t agree more. The old gossip would rise up periodically, and he’d find ways to shut it down, but the stain was on the brand like spilled whisky on the barrel-and-thistle logo.
“Of course, every year at this time someone brings it up,” Phillip added.
Brock nodded, knowing that the anniversary of King Harbor’s Founder’s Day was always ripe for rumors like that. Someone dug up old tales, and the “Blackthorne Gold was stolen” nonsense always emerged.
Phillip pointed over Brock’s shoulder, a slight warning in his eyes. “Incoming, bro.”
He couldn’t help it, he turned to look just in time to see Jenna share a laugh with Hannah, who strode in, hand in hand, with Brock’s cousin Devlin.
They all sure looked…comfortable. So maybe Jenna hadn’t been yanking open closet doors, looking for hidden skeletons. Or maybe she had, and no one even realized it, because she was that good.
And beautiful.
He felt his eyes shutter closed as he shook his head, resigned to the constant hum of need the minute he saw her. Just then, she spotted him, her lips forming a cute little O in surprise. Or was she? He’d mentioned going to the Vault that night when they were driving into town.
Either way, it didn’t diminish the light in her eyes as she came forward. He slid off his barstool to greet her with a hug that felt as natural as it did good.
“So much for holing up in your room to work,” he teased.
“First of all, it’s not a room, it’s a suite fit for a queen. Second…” She gestured to the others. “How could I resist this invitation?”
Brock reluctantly let her go to greet his cousin Devlin and give a brotherly cheek kiss to Hannah Reid, whom he’d known for years, since her father had been a master craftsman at Blackthorne Boatworks before being unceremoniously let go by Graham a while back. But Devlin had rehired him, and it seemed any bad feelings about the firing had been wiped away by this very serious romance that had come up as fast as a rogue wave for these two seasoned sailors.
They fit next to each other like there’d never been any space or rivalry between them, and Devlin looked even more chill and comfortable in his own skin than ever.
“They saved me,” Jenna told Brock on a laugh. “I’d run into your grandmother again after I brought my dinner tray down, and she suggested an after-dinner drink and, wow.” Jenna laughed. “Does that lady have a hollow leg or what?”
“Two.” Brock laughed and offered her his empty barstool. “How about another?”
“Just water, please.” She settled in and looked up at him, capturing her lower lip between her teeth. “Not mad I slipped out, are you?”
He just held her gaze and gave his head a slow shake. “Mad is not the word I’d use.”
“Surprised?”
“Starting to realize that nothing you do surprises me.”
“Then you’re happy to see me.”
Who could lie in the face of those deep-blue eyes and that irresistible smile? He was ridiculously happy. Like, way too happy to make sense. “The better to keep an eye on my crafty little researcher.”
That made her let out a delicate laugh that somehow drew him closer. “Your family has given me no secrets, you’ll be happy to know, but…”
But? He felt his eyes widen
as he looked at her, bracing for God knows what his grandmother might have said.
She whispered into his ear, “I found a Platt.”
He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and not just because her warm breath tickled. “Excuse me?”
“A guy named Roger Platt, who lives in Buxton, which is not far from Salmon Falls, which is…where I’m going tomorrow.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nana said there’s a Range Rover in the garage with keys in the ignition for guests to use, or Joe the handyman could drive me, or I could Uber if I—”
He held up his hand to stop her. “I’ll take you, Jenna. You don’t know Maine roads. Joe would talk your ear off—”
“I want to hear what Joe has to say.”
“But I want to take you.” Even as he said the words, he knew how much he meant them.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” she said, reaching for the water the bartender had placed in front of her.
“I’m not a babysitter.”
“Or an escort. Or a roadblock. Or a distraction.”
He let out a sigh, not wanting to be any of those things. “How about a…partner?”
Her look was pure skepticism.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I’d very much like to meet this Platt guy.”
“So you can make sure he doesn’t tell me anything that would make for a page-turner?”
He shrugged. “The truth is, I believe right down to my last strand of DNA that this rumor is fake, that this is revisionist history driven by jealous competitors and people who can’t stand how successful the Blackthorne family is. Let’s find out the truth and put that hundred-year-old gossip to bed once and for all.”
She held his gaze for a long time. Long enough for the music and noise to fade. Long enough for Brock to get a little lost in eyes the color of the Atlantic when a storm was brewing. Long enough to know that the only thing he really wanted to put to bed was Jenna Gillespie.
“And if it turns out you’re wrong?” she asked.
“I’m never wrong.”
“Careful, you might choke on that Blackthorne pride, Brock David.”
He gave a slow smile, coming closer. “You know what it does to me when you call me David?”
She reached up and touched her finger to the side of his glasses, pushing them up a tiny bit. “Answer my question. If this rumor is based on fact and that whisky you’re drinking was born from a stolen recipe, what will you do?”
“I don’t have to answer that, because I know it’s not.”
She angled her head, a warning look in her eyes. “I did find some pretty interesting things.”
“A reference to it in an article in Forbes? That reporter had a beef with my uncle.”
She wrinkled her nose, making him guess she’d thought that was an ace in the hole. “There are other things.”
“The documentary on the history of Maine that has exactly thirty-three seconds on the subject, found at the fifty-four-and-a-half-minute mark?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Producer is currently in jail for sexual assault and has zero credibility.”
“But there was also—”
“A blog entry from ten years ago on King Harbor Founder’s Day about the ‘secrets of the harbor’?” he guessed, knowing exactly what it said.
She stared at him.
“Did you get to the part that says there’s a Loch Ness-style monster out there?” He pointed toward the harbor. “Sensationalism put out by a misguided tourism director.”
Her narrow shoulders sank. “Okay, but I still want to meet this Roger Platt.”
“So do I,” he said. “And then I’ll prove to you I’m right.”
“On one condition,” she said, leaning forward.
“Of course I’ll wear my glasses and you can call me David.”
She laughed. “I meant you can’t try and stop me if we find out there’s truth to the rumor. I’m going to track it down. You can’t put up…Brock walls and roadbrocks.”
He laughed. “The woman has a way with words.”
“I mean it, you can’t.”
“If I do…” He slid his arm around her waist. “You’ll have to take those walls down.”
“Brock by Brock,” she teased, inching closer and getting right in line for a kiss he could give her in two seconds flat.
“Darts, you two.” Devlin clapped a hand on Brock’s back. “Loser buys, so I hope you brought your hard-earned cash, little cousin.”
Brock glanced at Jenna, lifting his eyebrows. “You want to know about the Blackthornes? The good, bad, and the ugly?”
Devlin leaned in to add, “I’m good, Phillip’s bad, and once you see Brock throw a dart, you’ll have no doubt who’s ugly.”
She laughed. “I’d love to watch.”
“Watch?” Brock put his arm around her again, loving the feel of her against him as he slid her off the barstool. “You’re my partner, and, God, I hope you have better aim than I do.”
With the music of her easy laugh in his ear, they joined the others in the private game room, where, of course, Brock lost miserably. But he hadn’t had so much fun in years.
Chapter Twelve
The minute they were off the main highway out of King Harbor, heading northeast into the heart of Maine, Jenna understood why Brock had chosen the Ranger Rover instead of his Porsche for the forty-five-minute excursion to find Roger Platt.
The big vehicle bounced along rutted state roads surrounded by thick woods broken by dirt paths through acres of farmland.
“Do you need me to plug an address into the GPS?” she asked.
Brock turned to shoot her a disbelieving look. He’d taken off his sunglasses not long after they’d started driving as thick clouds formed, and with his contacts in, she could see right into his deep, bottomless brown eyes. And hated to look away.
“To Salmon Falls?” he asked. “I could get there and back in my sleep. I have a few times, to be honest.”
“First of all, we’re going to Buxton. Second, in your sleep?”
“Salmon Falls is part of the Saco River and essentially a village on the outskirts of Buxton. And for teenagers anywhere in the fifty-mile vicinity? It’s a mecca in summer. The falls, the cliffs, tons of swimming pools. Did you bring a suit?”
“Uh, no.”
“Then you’ll have to swim naked.” At her reaction to that, he laughed. “Just kidding. Kind of.”
She couldn’t help chuckling. “You’re awfully happy and relaxed for a man about to find out that the cloud over his family might…break into a storm.”
He put his hand on her arm, his fingers warm from the wheel. “It is going to storm, based on this sky, but if I’m going to stick with your weather metaphor, I’m so happy that we are finally going to dispel that cloud once and for all. I should have done this years ago. As far as I’m concerned, this is very important brand-management work, and I’m grateful to you.”
She smiled, knowing some of the things she’d read sounded awfully credible.
“Plus, I’m in Maine. Life is easier here.”
“Then why don’t you move here permanently?”
He shrugged. “It’s a bitch in the winter, for one thing. For another, there’s Blackthorne Enterprises to think about.”
“And you do think about it.”
“Not going to lie, Jenna, I love the company as much as the family. In my mind, they’re one entity, and I told you how I feel about being a Blackthorne. It’s a responsibility, yes, but one I relish. Don’t you relish your job?”
“I…do.” She knew she sounded less than enthusiastic. “I love writing stories about people, weaving in history and emotions, but…it’s not all I want out of life.”
“What do you want?”
At the intimate tone and the way he touched her hand, she could hear a far too honest answer bubbling up. A guy like you.
“I want a family,” she admitted without any shame. “I want what I saw you ha
ve with your brother and cousin in the bar last night. To be surrounded by…” Love. She didn’t have the nerve to say that, though. “To not be lonely.”
“Well, whatever the opposite of lonely is, that’s how I grew up,” he said.
The opposite of lonely. She tucked the phrase away, planning to use it somewhere in her book. “What’s that like?”
“It’s like wondering if you’d ever get an hour that wasn’t interrupted by a sibling or cousin who wanted to do something.”
“I guess the grass is always greener,” she mused, but felt his gaze on her again, so she finally met it. “No one ever wanted to do anything with me. My big thrill was letting my mom rehearse interview questions on me, which is how I learned this job.”
He gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze. “What’s she like?” he asked, turning on yet another almost dirt road, away from a massive cornfield.
“Haven’t you ever seen her on TV?”
“Yeah, when I was younger. And…” He made a face. “I might have watched a few YouTube videos the night we went to dinner.”
“Of my mother? Why?”
“To know you better,” he said without a second’s hesitation. “Hey, you’re not the only one who’s curious.” He threaded their fingers together, a move that was way too personal and romantic, but Jenna had zero desire to pull away. “I want to know what makes you tick.”
“I’m boring,” she said with a sly smile.
“Take a drink.” They said it in unison, the thrill of that little inside joke and the warmth of his hand making her giggle.
“Seriously. You grew up in New York, right? Only child? Tell me about little Jenna May Gillespie.”
She let her head drop back on the headrest, sighing. “I can’t imagine how to explain being an only child to someone who grew up with a house full of brothers and cousins. Two houses,” she corrected. “And so folded into a family basket that even the tragedy of losing your parents made you love that family more. Did you realize that was happening when you were little?”
He eyed her. “Is this how you talk about yourself?”
She gave a guilty laugh. “I don’t like to talk about myself. I was raised to consider it bad manners.”
Brock Page 10
