I blinked. It had been a long time since I’d had a curfew or someone who expected me to check in. I felt like I should have been annoyed by this on some level, like I was when my siblings were overprotective. But I wasn’t.
At all.
In fact, it felt pretty fucking amazing.
“My phone,” I blurted stupidly. “It died. I was recording interviews all afternoon. I didn’t realize you’d worry, and—” I bit my lip, then I launched myself back into Brewer’s arms because there everything made sense.
Brewer kissed me back for half a second, like he couldn’t resist, then he broke the kiss.
“Iwasworried,” he growled. “Fuck.”
“I…” I needed to tell him everything. Now.
But when he dragged a hand through his hair and stepped toward the open door, something stopped me. I noticed his coat and the fact that Teeny was sitting on the entry mat rather than curled up in a warm spot somewhere, like she’d been ready to go out.
Had Brewer been… leaving? Was he so upset he needed to go rebuild his walls again?
Fuck.
“I was in Southbourne,” I blurted. “I’m writing an article about your father!” Why did I sound unhinged? Maybe because I felt unhinged, like a door swinging wildly open and begging this man to walk out of it.
In the sudden silence, I heard the heat kick on and was vaguely aware of Teeny nudging the door closed with her nose.
I stared at Brewer, waiting for his shock, but it never came. His only reaction was the tightening of his magnificent jaw.
“Yeah,” he said at length. “I figured that out.”
Brewer tilted his head toward the open door to my office. The lamp on my desk was lit and the little pad where I took notes had been moved off to one side. “Found a business card with my father’s name on it.”
My palms began to sweat. If only I could have called up some of the anger that had motivated me to stomp across Brewer’s land and accost him just a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, my anger well was dry.
Besides, this was too important to hide behind my anger.
I licked my lips. “Brewer, I swear I had no idea he was your father until this morning. He approached me last fall with his story, and I believed everything he said—that Empire Ridge showed him site plans that included a firehouse, threatened to basically have the town seize his property if he didn’t sell it to them—and…”
I didn’t know how to tell him the next part. I wasn’t sure how much of this story he already knew and how it played into his relationship with his father. “And today I proved it, Brewer. They really did blackmail him into selling the house.”
“Delaney—”
“No, listen, please! I found a man named Walter Beatty, a site planner who did all the fake plans for Empire. He showed me all of them. Your father wasn’t the only victim of this scheme.”
Brewer folded his arms, and his nostrils flared. “Which is exactly why I was worried about you!”
I’d already opened my mouth to keep talking. To tell him that I was handing over all the information about this to Marjorie on Monday and getting myself as far away from the story as possible. But as soon as his words registered, I clacked my teeth together in surprise.
“Worried? About me? I thought you were worried I was on the road late without calling.”
He yanked me back into his arms and held on tightly. “Empire Ridge aren’t good people, Delaney. I was worried you were meeting up with them alone or confronting them about something my father had talked you into.”
Emotion and exhaustion clashed inside of me, making my knees weak. “Are you mad at me?” I asked in a small voice. “Because I didn’t know.”
Brewer pulled back just enough to cup my face in his big hands. His eyes were so damned soft, so… loving, I nearly wept.
“I’m mad at your sister for stealing your phone charger. When I called her asking if she’d heard from you, she admitted she’d taken it and suggested maybe you just had a dead battery. I’m buying ten charging cables and a portable phone battery for your damned car and your damned travel bags. If you’re ever trapped in a damned Peruvian ditch again, I need you to be able to tell me you’re okay, dammit.”
I blinked at him. “That’s a lot of damns.”
He leaned in and kissed me hard, hard enough to bruise my lips and sting my face with his late-night stubble. “I love you, Delaney, Jesus.” His voice was gruff and nearly broken.
