by Stacy Gail
Miranda’s beleaguered defenses slammed up yet again, an instinctive response that was exhausting her energy reserves. She turned to the person in line behind her, and despite the seven years she’d spent in Dallas, she instantly recognized the woman with toffee-colored hair pulled back in a pert ponytail.
Lucy Crabtree.
Like a file being accessed, everything Miranda knew about her came to the fore. Raised by an alcoholic father in Garden Court, she had been Coe’s neighbor from the time they were in diapers. That made her Coe’s oldest and dearest friend, a surrogate sister and confidante. It had always been a relationship by which Miranda had always felt threatened, as Lucy had never seemed to like her.
That suspicion was now confirmed, if the flat stare the other woman had fixed on her was any indication. This time, though, Miranda couldn’t blame her. Considering how badly the Brookhavens screwed up Coe’s life, animosity in the form of a glare was pretty tame.
“Things change.” She kept her expression carefully neutral while deciding to bring her sharpest manners into the civilized warfare. “How are you, Lucy? I must say, you haven’t changed one little bit.”
Lucy’s mouth tilted enough to acknowledge the double entendre, but there was no humor in it. “Neither have you, Miranda, and I’m genuinely sorry to say that. Coming back into town and acting like you and your father didn’t fuck Coe over nine ways to Sunday shows me you still have that impossible Brookhaven arrogance.”
Well, that didn’t take long for the gloves to come off. “I wouldn’t have come back here at all, had it not been for Coe. Didn’t he tell you why I’m here?”
“I don’t think he cares.”
Oh, how well Miranda knew. “I’m here to correct the mistake that happened seven years ago.”
A hiss escaped Lucy before they moved forward in line and Miranda put her items on the conveyer belt. It wasn’t much, just bread, cheese and a half gallon of milk, thanks to the high-priced allergy meds. “A mistake?” She pitched her voice whisper-low, and Miranda suspected it was to stop herself from screaming her head off. “You’re daring to call your theft of Coe’s fuel valve—a valve he made for his own beat-up car in order to save his pennies—a mistake? I think I need to smack the taste right out of your mouth for that.”
“Before you unleash your haymaker, that’s not the mistake I was referring to.” Because she was well and truly tired of being the bad guy, Miranda had just enough bitch in her to lean her face in confidentially, an outright dare if there ever was one, and offered a sugary smile designed to either get her mauled or burst a blood vessel in the other woman’s head. “I’m talking about my mistake in believing in the integrity of the two men in my life. They were both tested, and they both failed, miserably so. Yet I’m the one who got slammed for it and I’m sick of it.”
Lucy scowled in angry bewilderment. “What the hell are you talking about? Coe didn’t do anything wrong except trust you. You stole his valve—”
“Coe gave it to me. It fell out of his pocket—” when he’d been searching for a condom, but that was something Lucy didn’t need to know, “—and he gave it to me with a casual aside that he’d really appreciate it if I could persuade my dad to take a look at it. I did take Coe’s notes without permission when my father asked for them later on—another mistake,” she added, trying to be fair. “I thought my dad wanted them because he’d seen Coe’s gizmo, and believed it might be of interest to someone in the automotive world. That’s how stupid I was—the only thought in my head was getting dear Daddy to approve of the love of my life. Instead, that bastard destroyed Coe and left me holding the bag, at least as far as Coe was concerned.”
Lucy looked like she doubted either her hearing or Miranda’s sanity. “You expect me to believe that Coe’s been lying to me all these years?”
“Not at all. When all hell broke loose, Coe accused me of stealing from him as if he had no memory of putting that valve in my hand. Obviously he’s a fan of revisionist history, but the truth can be found in that lovely greeting of yours. You were right—I didn’t do my own grocery shopping when I was a girl, or pump my own gas for that matter. Do you really think I would have understood the importance of some valve my gearhead boyfriend made up?”
“Look, Coe is convinced you sold him out.” Lucy looked troubled, and Miranda wondered if Coe knew what a gem he had in a friend who understood the meaning of loyalty. Probably not. “Are you sure your father never sent you to Coe?”
Miranda momentarily closed her eyes as a wave of hopelessness hit her hard. “You do know how to compliment a person, don’t you? First I’m a thief, and now I’m a prostitute with a pimp for a father.”
“I didn’t mean that—”
“I’m sure you’re convinced that’s exactly how things shook out, and in all honesty I don’t even blame you. Really.” All at once she was exhausted, to the point of not even caring what anyone thought of her. If Lucy wanted to believe she was the world’s biggest whore, then so be it. “But the truth is, I wanted to be with Coe because I fell in love with a guy who basically targeted me to see what he could get out of me. Too bad that plan blew up in his face.”
“He wouldn’t—”
“He as much as admitted it.” And it still hurt. That was unacceptable, since hurt meant there was still a modicum of caring involved. “After my dad unveiled ‘his’ valve patent, I was so furious and disappointed that I told him that he had a choice—he could either keep the valve patent, or keep me as his daughter. He chose the valve, and I left that night with the idea that I could move in with Coe. But when I broke the news, Coe said the valve was the only thing of value that he had in his life, and that I had never been anything more than a—how did he put it?—a fuck challenge. Then he threw me out.”
Lucy winced, but said nothing. She had the look of a woman who’d heard those words before.
“You’re his best friend, and I understand you’ll see his side before anything else. That’s fine. It’s even pretty wonderful. I just hope you’re capable of also understanding that Coe wasn’t the only one who lost something precious. That night I lost both my father and Coe. I might be a princess, but I’m the odd sort of princess who values people far more than I do things. I never would have betrayed Coe like he believes I did.”
For her part, Lucy didn’t seem to know what to say. Miranda almost felt sorry for her. “So...why are you here, exactly? How can you make up for this...this mistake?”
“Apparently dear old Dad had a crisis of conscience. Not enough to fix things while he was alive, of course,” she added with a bitter smile and moved forward in line, getting her wallet out as she went. “That would have been too easy. Instead, he made sure he left behind an absurd field of hoops for me to jump through. But if I do it right, Coe will get all that he deserves.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s all in the will that I gave to Coe, which he threw away, incidentally. For the next fifty-odd days, I have a limited conservatorship over the patent—and all the royalties that patent earns, which in a single year is estimated to top out in the tens of millions. Legally I cannot sell this patent, nor give it away to just anyone during the specified timeframe. But with the ruling of a probate judge, I can give the patent and all that goes with it to a person who can show evidence of having invented the valve prior to the date of the patent. Since I know Coe invented it, I won’t give it to anyone but him.”
Lucy’s mouth fell open. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Welcome to my life. But it’s clear my father set it up this way because he understood the only person I’d ever give the valve to is its true inventor—Coe. If Coe can come up with evidence to convince a probate judge that he invented the fuel valve, I’ll happily transfer conservatorship over to him and be on my merry way.”
“Do you have to be physically presen
t for all this to happen?”
What a nice way of asking her to leave Bitterthorn. “If I leave town, the time given to Coe is null and void.” And then she’d be locked in. She’d have no choice but to ruin both their lives. “Coe would know this if he hadn’t thrown his copy of the will away. If he wants to have that only thing of value he once cherished so much returned to him, he’d better start looking.”
The person ahead of her moved along, and she stepped up to check out while Lucy began emptying her handheld basket. “Why did your dad make things so complicated? If he wanted to make amends for what he did, he should have admitted he stole Coe’s invention and made him the inheritor of the patent.”
“I have no idea what was in his head. I assume my father was too proud to admit he was a common thief, even in death.”
“You assume? He didn’t talk to you about this before putting it in his will?”
“I severed all ties with him seven years ago.”
“But...the way I remember it, the Brookhavens left for Dallas together.”
“No, I left for college on a scholarship I earned. My father seemed to follow me, though I can never be certain of that, as I refused to speak so much as a single word to him from the time I left home. I was even forced to go to the extreme measure of getting a restraining order on him when he tried to force me to come to his palatial house in Irving. I didn’t even go to his funeral.”
Lucy’s eyes widened with sudden understanding. “You’re at Garden Court because...”
“It’s what I can afford. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a decent job as a graphics designer for Tarrant County’s digital team. But I have an apartment there, and I live paycheck to paycheck just like everyone else. This screwed-up adventure my father’s will is forcing me to go on is something I can’t afford.”
The checker, a teenaged girl with cat’s-eye glasses and Pippi Longstocking braids cleared her throat and indicated the price on the screen. Belatedly Miranda realized what she needed to do and snapped her wallet open...and froze. Prickly sweat popped out along the length of her spine and the agonizing heat of humiliation inflamed her neck and face when she realized she’d forgotten she’d spent an extra twenty on gas.
She couldn’t pay for this.
Wildly her mind sprinted through what was absolutely necessary. If she didn’t get the allergy meds...but no, in less than twenty-four hours her lungs were already twitching in rebellion and she’d given up the hope of breathing through both nostrils at once. She needed to eat something to keep herself going, and the cheese was the cheapest form of protein. Since she had running water back at the trailer, she wouldn’t die of dehydration...
“Ma’am?”
“I don’t need the milk.” Mortification kept her from glancing Lucy’s way, knowing full well the other woman could hear. Any minute now she’d no doubt start laughing at the arrogant Princess Brookhaven’s shameful fall, or worse—feel sorry for her. Hell, she’d almost prefer the laughter.
The laughter didn’t come. The pity, however...”Uh, I can get that for you—”
“Thank you, no. I no longer want it.” Head held so high it hurt her neck, her face now so hot it was a wonder it didn’t glow, Miranda paid for her things and left without looking back.
Chapter Five
The car’s heater chased away the fog trying to frost the windshield in the chilly morning air. Coe touched the bag settled in the passenger’s footwell to make sure it wasn’t being blasted by hot air before returning his attention to the age-faded pink-and-green trailer up on cinderblocks.
The pastel tin can was a fucking nightmare, no two ways about it. It was obvious it should have been condemned decades ago. It probably would have been if it had been anywhere else, but Bitterthorn had a blind spot when it came to Garden Court. Having grown up there, no one knew better than he did that people didn’t like to look too closely at the toxic dump of a trailer park in their otherwise quaint little town. The fine citizens of Bitterthorn obviously figured if they ignored it, it’d go away. As long as they didn’t have to live there, it wasn’t their problem.
To have a Brookhaven living there, though...no way could he ignore that. It was so wrong, on so many levels.
The thing was, he didn’t know how to make things right.
His fingers drummed against the steering wheel, no longer fighting against the memory of Lucy grabbing him by the shirtfront and hauling him into his tiny office. The story she’d unloaded—liberally peppered with curses tossed his way for being the kind of bastard she’d warn her future daughters about—ate away at his insides.
Goddamn it.
It was just so hard to believe. Picturing Miranda taking care of herself for seven days, much less seven years without the Brookhaven wealth to back her up, was one hell of a tough pill to swallow. There had never been a bigger Daddy’s girl on the planet than Miranda. She’d worshipped her father. And considering how B.B. Brookhaven had doted on his much-adored princess, it had been natural for Coe to assume she’d spent the last seven years living in the lap of luxury.
That was the dagger that had stabbed the deepest, the belief that Miranda had been okay with what her father had done to him. Even now just the thought of B.B. Brookhaven pissed him off—a fat-cat master of the universe, strutting around the racetrack with a superior air that marked him as The Boss. Back then, Coe had been stupid enough to actually want to impress the fucker. He’d even tried getting the old bastard’s attention by bragging about the fuel valve to him and anyone else who’d listen. But nobody at the track had been too interested in his invention because it was an illegal, non-standard part that couldn’t be installed in any of the stock cars. So when he hadn’t impressed The Boss that way, he’d then done his damnedest to prove he was worthy by setting his sights on B.B.’s precious little princess.
Miranda.
Geez. The younger him had been such a douche.
His eyes narrowed as he stared at the trailer, but all he saw was the past. Getting Miranda to go out with him had been surprisingly easy. He’d anticipated she might have some stuck-up problem with where he’d come from or that he’d had more lint than money in his pocket back in the day. But she hadn’t cared about any of that. She’d been so easy to be with, despite coming from a totally different world than his. Things had been doing great until everything blew up in his face. He’d never forget when Miranda had come to him after learning her father had ripped him off. At the time, he’d thought she had put on a great show of being both infuriated with her father and remorseful for the part she’d played in it. But he hadn’t bought it. Caught up in that moment of absolute fury, a show was all he’d believed it was, to get herself off the hook without taking any of the blame for herself.
He hadn’t let her off the hook. Hell, no. He’d made it painfully clear that while he might be from Garden Court, he wasn’t some ignorant asshole that a loaded princess like her could take advantage of and fool him a second time. None of it would have happened if she hadn’t heisted everything he had on his valve design. At that time, it had been the greatest thing he’d ever designed, and suddenly it was gone. Miranda had done that.
But...
Something uncomfortable squirmed in his chest when he remembered Lucy demanding to know if he’d given his prototype valve over to Miranda. It had happened so long ago, and he’d be the first to admit that with the hair-trigger temper of his younger years, the details of what he did or said were often fuzzy. Once Lucy said it, however, he did have a vague recollection of showing Miranda the valve and trying to explain to her that he’d made it up to cut his gasoline bill almost in half. But at the time he’d been focused on impressing the pants off of her—literally. He’d been hot as hell for a girl who seemed so far out of his reach, and in his obsession he would have done anything to have her.
That was the problem with being a kid. L
ike most guys that age, he’d been nothing more than a stiff dick looking for a place to land.
But not just any place would do. It had to be the terrifyingly perfect Miranda Brookhaven. With the much more sober vision of an adult, he could now see every stupid knee-jerk reaction he’d had to the world around him, and he could only shake his head at the cocky brat he’d been. He’d swept Miranda off her dainty feet because he’d wanted to show B.B. Brookhaven—hell, the whole world—that he was good enough for her and her family, despite coming from Garden Court. Miranda hadn’t just been the most beautiful, high-class girl in town that he thought he deserved. She’d been his trophy.
Oh, man. Lucy was right. He really had been the kind of asshole good mothers warned their daughters about.
No more, he decided, pocketing the car keys before he snagged up the bag and pushed the car door open. From this point on he was going to act like the goddamn grownup he was instead of a hotheaded punk with that king-sized chip on his shoulder. Even if it killed him, he’d keep his head when it came to dealing with the one woman who hit every one of his buttons—both good and bad.
When Miranda opened the door to his determined knock, the verbal preemptive strike he’d planned died on his lips. She looked terrible. Her eyelids were puffy and red-rimmed, while the whites of her eyes were a painful pink. Her nose was a similar hue, and her lips were dry and chapped. A blind person could see she was ill.
“Miranda—”
“It’s not even nine in the morning.” She sounded as bad as she looked, far more congested than the day before. A shiver ran through her before she huddled in a thick cable-knit cardigan she wore over a turtleneck and jeans. “What could possibly have you knocking on my door at this time of day?”
Sick or not, she was a Brookhaven. “Lucy made me dig through the garbage until midnight looking for that file you gave me. I wanted to talk to you about your dad’s will.”
Her face closed up at the mention of Lucy. “Did you find it? Does this mean I don’t have to give you my copy of the will?”
