Hollywood on Tap (14 page)

Rage twisted Carl’s face into an almost animalistic expression of pure hatred. “I know all about you,” he bellowed as he managed to get his shoulders up off the ground. “Don’t think I don’t.”

Sean clamped onto Carl’s bony shoulders and shoved him back down. “Shut it, Brennan.”

“From your name to your qualifications, you’re nothing but a fraud.” Spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth because of the force of his words. “You’re as phony as a three dollar bill and you know it.”

Carl had tipped off Rupert. He must have. How Carl had discovered the truth didn’t matter, but the clock was ticking on Sean’s time in Salvation.

Two deputies and the other paramedic appeared in Sean’s periphery vision before they moved in closer and took over holding Carl down.

“You.” The paramedic nodded at Sean. “Mosey on back. We got him now. Anyway, the deputies want to take your statement. Yours too, Ms. Sweet.”

They’d made it about a few yards away when Natalie pulled him to the side. “What in the hell was that about?”

Reaching deep for his rusty acting skills, Sean forced the tension out of his shoulders and let his face relax into a neutral mask. “The guy’s out of his mind.”

“No argument there.” She eyed him suspiciously. “But there’s something to it, isn’t there?”

For half a second the truth balanced on the tip of his tongue, and with it, a redemption he hadn’t realized he’d wanted. He hadn’t trusted anyone with his real identity, not since he’d hot–wired that car and drove until the Hollywood sign was only a vague memory. Not for the millions he’d left in a bank account. Not for the easy fame and even easier women. Not for the family who’d only seen him as a paycheck. But Natalie….

Looking into her crystal–clear blue eyes half hidden behind the black–framed glasses, he couldn’t help but believe she’d understand why he’d done it.

“Howdy folks. Looks like you’ve had some excitement around here.” Gravel crunched under the deputy’s rubber–soled boots as he approached. He stopped beside them and withdrew a notepad from his shirt pocket. “Let’s get started with some names.”

Always quick on her feet, it only took a second for Natalie to refocus on the deputy. “Natalie Sweet.”

“That one I knew. You’re kind of hard to miss around town.” The flirting tone in the deputy’s voice and the way he leaned toward Natalie set Sean’s teeth on edge. “How about you?”

“Sean.” The word came out as half a threat.

The deputy straightened and hardened his jaw. “Gotta last name, Sean?”

More than one. “O’Dell.” He rubbed the back of his neck and realized just how damn sick of lying he’d become.

“Okay then.” The deputy flipped open the small notepad. “Why don’t you start at the beginning and walk me through what just went down.”

Chapter Eleven

The day after paramedics hauled a ranting Carl into the ambulance, a sense of impending doom continued to stalk Natalie like a hunter closing in on a deer. To counteract the uncertainty, she fell into her normal routine at the brewery with a vengeance. She poured one–hundred–and–forty–five–degree water into her cup of loose leaf Gyokuro green tea at exactly five after eight. Next, she powered up her laptop and tuned into an internet ambient–music station. After two minutes of calming music, she removed the tea infuser, set it aside, and inhaled the flowery–green aroma.

Normally, this was all it took to put her back on an even keel, but the ghost of anxiety still skittered across the back of her neck, setting her hair on end. Today she might need a double shot of teatime Zen—or another session with Sean in the reference room. She could blame it on the sex, but the feeling making her stomach do the loop–de–loop whenever she thought of Sean had nothing to do with sex—although that sure as hell wasn’t anything to scoff at.

The memory pulled her lips into a smile. Always tied to propriety, she hadn’t ever done it outside of a bed. Oh, she’d done a hell of a lot
in
that bed, but yesterday was a first in more than one way.

“So did you hear?”

Natalie jumped at her sister’s voice, sending the green tea sloshing around inside her cup and tweaking her apprehension levels up five notches. “Ever hear of knocking?”

“Jumpy, sis?” Miranda strolled in, holding a paper bag in her outstretched hands. “I come baring double–chocolate donuts from the Heaven Sent Bakery.”

Her mouth watered. The donuts were an explosion of chocolate goodness with even more chocolate on top. Eating one was almost as good as a bookshelf organized by genre and alphabetized by the authors’ last names.

“I could use a couple decades of quiet and calm.” Natalie snagged the bag. “But this will do.”

“I’m so sorry.” Miranda sank into the guest chair, her shoulders slumped. “I never thought when I conned you into coming down that it would be like this. I know Olivia and I kid you about the pearls and your lists, but it comes from a place of love. We’re both really proud of how far you’ve come.”

Warmth washed over her, that one–of–a–kind sisterly love of knowing someone was in her corner. After her breakdown during college, her sisters could have treated her like a broken doll that had been carelessly glued back together. But they hadn’t, and for that she’d be eternally grateful. Bald lies in the face of an ugly truth never sat well with her. She’d have shattered under kid gloves, and thanks to their tough love, she’d found the strength she’d thought she’d lost.

“That makes three of us.” She saluted Miranda with a donut. “The fact that I haven’t had a knee–knocking anxiety attack despite all of this crazy is comforting.”

Her sister grinned and grabbed the remaining donut. “You’re a hell of a lot tougher than you look.”

“You know I look just like you.” Mirror reflections, at least on the outside. But on the inside? What she wouldn’t give for Miranda’s bone–deep confidence, or Olivia’s willingness to take chances, instead of being the Nervous Nelly middle sister.

Miranda laughed. “Touché.”

Needing to pull her thoughts away from the maudlin edge, Natalie turned the conversation back to what had brought her sister into the office in the first place. “Enough touchy–feely sisterly love, what gossip did you just hear?”

Miranda held up her pointer finger and finished her mouthful of donut. “Well, Logan and Hud were having lunch at The Kitchen Sink today when the sheriff came in for pie.”

“Fascinating.” She polished off her own donut. “Your fiancé and his best friend were eating and saw someone go to The Kitchen Sink for pie? Well, I never.”

“Oh, shut up.” Miranda flung a donut chunk at her. “Well, Ruby Sue put the screws to the sheriff. He told her that Carl tested positive for PCP, which would explain the paranoid delusions and general violent whack–a–do–ness from the other day. We’re lucky he only had a BB gun with him. People go nuts on that stuff.”

Natalie scooped her jaw up off the floor. “Damn.”

“Exactly.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Supposedly there wasn’t very much in his system.”

“And the sheriff just spilled all of that?” Natalie contemplated the few bits of loose tea floating in her cup.

“Do you know of anyone who can withstand Ruby Sue’s interrogations?”

She considered it, trying to recall a single instance of that happening, and came up with nothing. “Nope.”

“That’s where the good news ends.”

With care, she set her cup down on a coaster. She doubted green tea was going to be enough to smooth over whatever was coming next. “That was good news?”

“Pretty much.” Miranda sighed. “I just got off the phone with the sheriff’s investigator assigned to our case,” Miranda continued. “While he admits Carl is the likely suspect
if
—and he stressed that—anything nefarious happened, there’s no physical proof to tie him to the possible sabotage, and there’s not much more they can do.”

Of course not. Old habits died hard in Salvation, and treating the Sweets like the redheaded stepchildren had become second nature to the people who’d lived there over the past hundred years.

“Great.” She traced the length of her pearl necklace. “So now we just keep our eyes open and move forward with brewery operations?”

Miranda shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“Right back at the beginning.”

“Not completely.” Miranda’s body language was nonchalant, but Natalie knew better than most when her sister was going in for the kill. “After Ruby Sue got done with the sheriff, she turned her laser beam of truth on Logan and Hud.”

“Looking for wedding details?”
Please say yes.

“Nope.” Miranda shook her head. “She wanted to know all about you and Sean.”

Her stomach dive–bombed to her knees. “Great.” She traced the length of her pearl necklace. Salvation’s gossip gods giveth and they taketh away. “What did they tell her?”

Miranda shrugged. “Not much they could tell. It’s not like there’s anything going on.”

One pearl. Two pearl. Three pearl. “Exactly.”

“Of course not, because you’d totally tell your big sister if there was,” Miranda said. “From what I hear, you and Sean made quite the team when Carl showed up. Maybe you two should…work together more often.”

Oh no, she wasn’t taking that bait. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing with Sean but it scared her just as much as it thrilled her. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Had someone heard them? Then she remembered how Hailey had burst into the room as soon as their clothes were back on. Had she been outside the whole time, trying to get their attention, but they’d been too focused on each other to hear the outside world? Natalie’s cheeks burned. She was falling back onto old habits. Sex with the unobtainable—in this case an employee—when what she needed was to find someone with relationship potential.

Miranda arched her eyebrows and cocked her head to the side. “Oh, if Olivia could see you now, you’d be in so much trouble.”

Too late for that. Natalie was already neck deep in it.

Natalie paused outside of Sean’s closed office door and took a deep breath. She’d just talk to him. Work only. No mind–melting kisses. No sexual tension. No noticing his amazing ass that you could bounce a quarter off of. Definitely no sex. She wasn’t sure she could take a second time without getting her heart broken—and that was
not
part of her master plan to have a healthy, non–compartmentalized relationship.

Plan. Brewery. Keep it together, Natalie.

Miranda was right. To implement the changes, she had to get the staff’s buy in, and to do that, she needed Sean. She wouldn’t even notice his broad shoulders or the way he chewed his bottom lip when he rolled a problem around in his head.

She could do this.

She
would
do this.

So why are you standing here with your hand hovering in the air, unable to knock on his door?

Straightening her shoulders and snapping on an imaginary chastity belt, she rapped her knuckles against the wood.

“It’s open.” Sean’s deep voice stirred up nothing but trouble inside her.

Steeling her nerve, she turned the knob and walked in. “Hey, do you have a minute?”

Sean looked up from the notes he was writing in his cramped script. He’d tossed his Sweet Salvation Brewery hat on top of the file cabinet, leaving his chin–length waves loose and wild. Like him. God, that enough should make her control freak self–padlock her knees together. If only her libido worked that way.

She clutched her clipboard closer to her chest.

His gaze zeroed in on it, and his pupils dilated and darkened. “I don’t know.” A slow, deadly smile curled his lips, and he relaxed back against his chair. “You’ve got that clipboard and too many clothes on.”

“Very funny.” Heat blazed against her cheeks. “Look. I’ve been thinking.”

“That’s always trouble.” His flirtatious tone remained, but his body sharpened as he leaned forward, tension thrumming off him.

Her breath caught and she almost stumbled back. Everything about him screamed danger. To her heart. To her sanity. To her ability to control the chaos. Tightening her grip on the clipboard, she squeezed it close to her chest like a shield.

“Yesterday shouldn’t have happened. People are already talking—neither of us wants that. We don’t need to pretend it was anything more than temporary insanity.”

That last bit was harder to get out than she’d expected. Each word slashed against her skin like a whip, leaving a red, raw welt in its wake.

“Who said I was pretending?” The deadly serious look in his brown eyes made her heart stutter. “I sure as hell hope you weren’t.”

“Oh.” For once, it was Natalie who didn’t have a thing to say, because he was right. She hadn’t been pretending at all. She wasn’t falling for her brewmaster—she already had.

He shrugged and rubbed his palm against his head. God, she could still feel the smoothness of his hair as she’d run her fingers through it while he’d licked her nipples. A slow and easy warmth invaded her body.

Remember the plan, Natalie.

Latching on to her logical side before lust could tip its hand, Natalie shot him a dirty look and remained standing to hold on to the height advantage. “Enough procrastinating. We need to get these changes in place.” She whipped a copy of her plan from the clipboard. Back in control of her libido—okay, barely, but it was still control—her hand didn’t even shake.