Miranda eased her way down the wide staircase at Uncle Julian’s old house, her thighs protesting each downward step. Despite the image her lingerie drawer projected, it had been a while since anyone besides her had seen her lacy underthings. Muscles she’d forgotten she even had were making three condoms and six knee-jellifying orgasms worth of complaints.
After a night of naked fun and long talks, Logan had dropped her off just before dawn, and she’d snuck inside the isolated country house like a teenager who’d broken curfew. She’d navigated the large sitting room in the dark, avoided the squeaky stair right before the second floor landing, and tiptoed past Natalie’s room. Once in her own room, she’d spent a fitful night ping-ponging between hope and self-recriminations.
Now, four hours later, she was heading back down the stairs for a cup of coffee big enough that she wouldn’t need toothpicks to hold open her eyelids.
The cell phone camera flash stopped her mid-stride as she was coming off the bottom step. She jerked to a stop and blinked away the bright balls of white light dancing across her vision. “What was that for?”
Natalie stood in the kitchen doorway, cell phone in hand, clicking away with her thumbs. “I figured Olivia needed to see what happened when someone follows her advice. You look like hell.”
Oh, the joys of sisterhood. “I love you, too, darling sister.”
Natalie grinned and pushed up her glasses. “So spill.”
“Let’s see.” She flicked up her pointer finger. “Tyrell Hawson did not take kindly to our proposal and threw a total fit in the middle of the country club.” A second finger went up. “Someone slashed all four of my tires.” A third finger stood up. “Oh yeah, and I had mind-blowing sex with Logan Martin.”
Natalie blinked her large, blue eyes several times before spinning on her heel and striding into the kitchen. “Coffee and marshmallow crunchy cereal. Now.”
Miranda mowed through a bowl and a half of cereal and sucked down a ginormous cup of coffee while explaining the events of last night to her silent sister. The caffeine and sugar had kicked her pulse into high speed by the time she finished. Natalie, meanwhile, still drank her first cup of certified organic green tea and took dainty bites of a toasted whole wheat bagel.
“So what did the police say about your car?”
She shrugged, ignoring the spike in her blood pressure at the damage done to her baby. “Not much. I told them that I’d recently let an employee go under less than ideal circumstances. The officer said he’d go talk to Carl, but unless he confesses, there’s not much evidence to tie him or anyone else to the slashing.”
“That’s comforting.” Her cup clanged against her saucer. For Natalie, that equated to a scream of protest.
“No kidding, but right now I’m more pissed than scared. Carl’s a slimy little malcontent, but he’s not a psycho. Still, it’s a good idea to keep the house locked up.”
Uncle Julian’s house—which belonged to her and her sisters now—was an old two-story farmhouse that had been home to the Sweets for more than half a century. Solid oak doors, double-paned windows, and old-school craftsmanship made the place as safe as a Cold War bunker.
“Will do.” Natalie took a sip of tea. “Nothing we can do about Carl, but what about our good mayor?”
A hammering at the back of her skull added to the angry flush from her pounding heart. “Another goose egg. We can’t force him to accept our offer of help. Logan hasn’t given up, but I’m not holding my breath.”
“Speaking of Logan…”
She slid down in her seat. The last thing she wanted was to dissect what had happened last night. “Do we have to?”
“Does he know your plans for the brewery? That it’s just a stepping stone and you’ll be out of here in a few months?”
Hearing the words out loud stung.
“No, and he doesn’t need to know. This…” Miranda searched for the right word to describe what she was doing with Logan.
“Idiotic folly?”
She rolled her eyes so hard at her sister that they nearly fell out of her head. “Look, Judgey McJudgeypants, he’s a nice guy.”
“What about the bet? Did he call it off?”
Miranda bristled. It wasn’t like Natalie was asking anything she hadn’t wondered about while tossing and turning last night, but still. “We didn’t talk about the bet.”
“Could it all be a ploy to screw us over figuratively as well as literally?” Natalie pushed up her glasses and pierced Miranda with an inquisitive stare.
“You know you’re a real Pollyanna. I’m telling you, he’s different.” An image of him naked in the captain’s chair flashed in her mind. “He’s nice.”
“I bet he’ll seem real nice when he’s stabbing you in the back. You know what those Martins are like.”
“Listen to you, you’re just as bad as the assholes in town who never gave us a chance because of our last name.”