by Nancy Warren
He went back to pretending to work, and his next visitor was the last one he’d have expected, and the least welcome.
His intercom buzzed.
“Councilman Thomson is here to see you,” Lucy said.
“Tell him-” Patrick stopped before he could claim he was too busy. Thomson wanted to gloat about the tape? Fine. Patrick had a few words he’d like to say to that slimeball himself. “Tell him to come in.”
He rose so he was standing at his full height behind his imposing desk when the councilman walked in.
Patrick didn’t even make a pretense of offering to shake hands, and Thomson didn’t, either. Even knowing there was a blood relationship between this man and Briana, Patrick was hard-pressed to see it. They both had green eyes, and that was it for any physical resemblance. But it seemed Cecil Thomson and Briana Bliss’s characters were more similar than their looks, as he’d discovered at his cost.
“What do you want?” Patrick asked coldly.
Thomson looked gray, and his hand shook as he produced a paper from his briefcase and placed it on Patrick’s desk. “It’s my vote for the approval of expenditure of public funds for emergency services.”
“What?” Patrick could barely believe his ears. He’d expected a gloating Thomson had come to blackmail him into resigning, which of course he wouldn’t have countenanced. He’d planned to go down fighting.
Patrick snatched up the document to read it, and found it was indeed an approval for the release of the emergency funding.
“Why are you doing this?”
“I’m not a man for apologies, but it seems I wronged you. I’m trying to make it up.”
Patrick put the paper back on his desk. “You wronged me, all right. You think this is going to make everything fine?” His anger roared back. This was probably some trick, and as soon as the funding was announced, Thomson would leak that damn tape. Patrick wondered if that would be his punishment. He’d get the funding, but it would be Thomson of all people who’d administer it. Well, getting the funding was the right thing to do, and if losing his job was the price he had to pay to get it, he supposed he’d pay.
“No.” The older man sighed heavily and sank into one of Patrick’s visitor chairs, though he hadn’t been invited. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out another document. “My resignation.”
“You’re resigning from council so you’ll have more time to run for mayor?” Patrick asked.
Thomson looked up at him and he saw the older man’s eyes were red-rimmed and baggy. He looked old and defeated.
Thomson shook his head. “I’m done with politics. I’m taking my wife away for a vacation and we’re going to try to heal our marriage. I wronged her, and then made a worse mess of things by trying to cover up. I’ve lost my niece because of it.” He stopped for a moment, and to Patrick’s horror, he realized the man was fighting tears. “I won’t let my wife give up on me.”
“You lost your niece?” Patrick felt like he was missing something important here.
“I never should have asked her to help me take you down. I never would have if I hadn’t believed you and your buddy Max Zirinsky had leaked that old police arrest to the media. My wife was badly hurt by it and I wanted to blame somebody other than myself. Turns out I was wrong. Briana was convinced you hadn’t done it. She told me you were always doing the right thing, and you never laid a hand on her or acted with any impropriety.”
Briana had told him that? She’d lied again, but this time to protect Patrick’s reputation, not destroy it, or so it seemed. But he was so befuddled and confused he wasn’t even sure he was hearing right.
“So my niece started digging to find out who’d planted those lies. I told her and my wife the whole thing was faked. Briana lov-” Thomson’s voice wobbled with emotion and he stopped until he’d regained control. “She believed in me. She was grateful because we’d paid for her schooling and some other things. She gave me her loyalty.”
Patrick was still furious Briana had done what she’d done, but he could almost understand that kind of blind loyalty. There was a lot of it in his family.
“Well, she found out you’d had nothing to do with leaking the story, and she found out the incident really had happened and that I’d lied to her and my wife about it. She came to visit me last night and-” Once more he had to stop and regain control. “Well, she nailed me. Now my wife knows that I strayed badly all those years ago. I hope she can forgive me one day.”
“What did Briana say when she came over?” Patrick didn’t have a lot of pity for Thomson, and he was determined to hear all of it.
“Well, you must know. She said she was going to tell you everything. About what I’d done, and how she’d come here under false pretenses.”
“She didn’t get the opportunity,” Patrick said, wishing now that he’d at least given her a chance. But he’d been so blindsided, so angry. So hurt.
“My only consolation is that my plan failed. You didn’t attempt to compromise Briana in any way, so no harm done. Now I’ve got things in better perspective, I’m hoping to save my marriage and one day repair the rift with Briana. I’m finished with politics.”
Oh, no. Thomson was so wrong about the harm he’d caused. There had been harm. Patrick and Briana had suffered. Although Patrick was having a hard time sustaining his anger when it was clear that Thomson was being well-punished for his misconduct and lies.
“There’s a new gal out front,” Thomson said. “Briana quit her job, I suppose? Probably doesn’t want to work in a place where she’ll have to see me. Tell her I’ve resigned from council, will you? Maybe she’ll reconsider the job.”
“I don’t think she will,” Patrick said. One thing he was determined about. Briana Bliss was never going to be working for him again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THEY WERE PLAYING in the backyard. Briana heard Dylan’s voice, and then Fiona’s laughter. It took everything she had not to start crying again.
“Come on.” Shannon pretty much frog-marched her through the house, where they exchanged a hurried greeting with the housekeeper, and then Briana was hustled out to the backyard.
Fiona was holding a big red and yellow plastic baseball bat, chubby legs half-bent, her concentration focused on her brother, who held a red plastic baseball ready to pitch.
“Hi, Dylan. Hi, Fiona,” she called, forcing herself to sound cheerful.
“Briana!” Fiona cried, and ran over for a hug. Briana squeezed the little girl tight in her arms, loving the healthy child scent of her, the fresh air and peanut-butter sandwich and cherry-scented shampoo smell.
How could she have been so foolish?
Glancing around, she noticed that Shannon had slipped back into the house and she was alone with the kids. “You are so special,” she whispered into Fiona’s ear, loving the way the clustered curls tickled her nose.
“Wanna play catcher?” Dylan asked. He’d come within hugging distance, but he was ten now and not inclined to throw himself into her arms, even though she could tell he wanted to.
She hoped Shannon hadn’t made a mistake, and that saying goodbye was the right thing to do. Briana guessed it probably was, only it was going to hurt. She’d cry for sure, but then that was part of it, she supposed, letting them see she was sad to leave them.
Oh, how she wanted to stay. Now that she’d thrown it away, she knew that Patrick and Dylan and Fiona and even disaster-plagued Courage Bay were the life she’d have chosen.
Blinking swiftly, she said, “Sure.”
She took a turn as catcher, then she pitched for Dylan, who hit the ball into an ornamental fruit tree and proudly climbed up after it.
She had no idea how long they played, but she couldn’t stay much later or she wouldn’t get on the road tonight. Even worse, she knew Patrick had nothing scheduled for this evening. He might come home early, and she couldn’t bear to see him again. Couldn’t bear to see that look of contempt in the same eyes that had glowed with love for her
only two days earlier.
“Listen, you two, come here. I have to go soon, and I need to talk to you.”
They did, and she sat on the grass and pulled them both up against her, one on each side. “How come you’re not at work with my dad?” Dylan asked her, and she blinked rapidly.
“I’m not working for your dad anymore,” she said, her voice catching.
“Why not?” Fiona asked. “Don’t you like my dad?”
“Sure, I like him,” she managed to say.
“Me, too.” Fiona gave her a big smile. “I love my daddy.”
“Oh, sweetie, he’s a good man.”
“Then why aren’t you working for him anymore?” Dylan asked. He had a very logical mind.
“Because I did a bad thing.” She sniffed. “I told a lie, and it was very wrong of me.”
Fiona nodded and patted Briana’s cheek with one hand. “But if you say sorry, Daddy won’t be mad anymore. Will you, Daddy?”
Briana started, and turned to follow Fiona’s gaze, her face already heating. Sure enough, Patrick was standing just inside the open doorway into the kitchen and he was looking at her. Not with contempt, and not with the blazing love she’d seen two days ago, but with an expression that was…tender.
Fiona ran toward him and he automatically scooped her up, but he never broke eye contact with Briana. And she, like a fool, couldn’t look away, even though his image was as blurry as though she were viewing him through old-fashioned glass.
“Hi,” Patrick said, stepping forward with Fiona still in his arms.
Oh, God. How much had he heard? “I…I planned to be gone before you got here. Shannon said it would be wrong not to say goodbye to the children.”
“Very wrong.” He was so close now she could reach forward and use her T-shirt to shine his shoes. Or she could stand up. Dylan scrambled to his feet and she did the same.
Briana couldn’t bear to look up past the third button on Patrick’s shirt, but she nodded, tears falling yet again. “I’m so sorry, Patrick. I know I don’t deserve another chance, but-”
“We told her to tell the truth,” Fiona explained to her dad. “So you won’t be mad.”
“I know that’s too much to ask,” Briana said, “but I’d like a chance to explain.”
He groaned, and she glanced up at him to find the glowing expression she’d believed she’d never see again. “I can’t take another explanation. Cecil Thomson explained everything, then Shannon phoned and I got the whole thing again, along with a few helpful insults about my general intelligence. I really think-”
“ Shannon called?”
“About two minutes after you got here, if I know my sister.”
At that moment, the sister in question, who still hadn’t made it back to the fire station, yelled, “Dylan and Fiona, I’ve got an ice-cream cone with your name on it.”
Patrick put Fiona on the ground, and she and Dylan raced for the house.
“I thought she was going to beat me up,” Briana said.
“I think Shannon has a far worse punishment in mind,” he said, reaching forward and touching her wet cheek. “She wants to stick you with me for life.”
Since Patrick’s shoulder was so close, and so inviting, and so solid, Briana leaned into it and, for about the twentieth time that day, burst into noisy tears.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” he said, putting his arms around her and hugging her hard. “I should have let you explain last night. But I was too angry, too shell-shocked. To think you could say you loved me and-”
“I did-I do,” she managed to choke out. “I wanted to figure out who leaked the story about Uncle Cecil, and then you found the tape, and how could you ever believe I wasn’t the evil, manipulative backstabber I seemed. And then I was going to leave, but Shannon said I was running away and made me come and say goodbye to the kids, which was awful, because I love those kids and-”
She stopped for a breath and Patrick was handing her a clean tissue. “I have lots. Shannon supplied me.”
Briana wiped her eyes and blew her nose, but somehow she couldn’t force herself out of the circle of Patrick’s arms. It felt too good to be there again.
Before she could go back to that comforting spot on his shoulder, he tipped up her chin and kissed her, a long sweet kiss that tasted of forever.
“So, you love us, huh?”
She nodded. “I do. I love you. And I love Dylan and Fiona.”
“Will you marry us?”
She glanced up and saw the love shining back at her. “I will.”
There was a hoot from the open door, and suddenly everyone was hugging everyone else. Briana jumped when something wet and squishy hit her in the back, and she realized Fiona had hugged her with her icing cream cone still in her hand. Oh, well, she figured, if she was going to be their mother, she’d better get used to these things.
Like Dylan kissing her cheek.
And Mrs. Simpson, shaking her hand heartily and telling her about her sister-in-law who was a wonderful caterer and brilliant with weddings.
And Shannon, who snatched back one of the tissues she’d given Patrick to wipe her own streaming eyes, then almost broke every bone in Briana’s body when she hugged her.
And Patrick, who said, “By the way, I already found your replacement at work.”
“You have?”
“Yep. She brings me sandwiches at lunchtime. You never brought me sandwiches.”
Briana laughed. “She sounds perfect.”
“You can still transfer to another part of the civil service.”
“Okay. But I’m not in that much of a hurry.”
“You’re not?”
“No. I have a wedding to plan. Fiona? How would you like to be a flower girl?”
“I get to be a flower!” the little girl shouted, spinning in a circle.
“Ring bearer.” She drilled a forefinger at Dylan.
A snicker from behind had her turning to jab the air in Shannon ’s direction. “Oh, no…” Shannon said.
“Bridesmaid.”
Patrick laughed richly while his sister shrugged and said, “Love to.”
Briana glanced up and caught Patrick’s eye and felt her heart flip over. “I love you,” she said softly.
He pulled her into his arms and she decided she’d stay there for a while.
About the Author
USA TODAY bestselling author Nancy Warren lives in the Pacific Northwest where her hobbies include walking her border collie in the rain, hunting for antiques and mixing martinis. She’s the author of more than thirty novels and novellas for Harlequin Books and has won numerous awards. Visit her at www.nancywarren.net.
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