Enemies on Tap (14 page)

“Let him go.” Miranda placed her hand on his shoulder and whispered into his ear. “He’s not worth it.”

The instinct to shrug off her hand warred with the knowledge that she was right. Tyrell Hawson was a slimy bastard, but he wasn’t worth an assault charge. Slowly, he released the pressure on the mayor’s throat, and the other man slumped against the wall.

Tyrell sucked in a raspy breath and glared defiantly at them both. “At the next county council meeting, they’re going to pass an ordinance outlawing alcohol manufacturing within the Hamilton County lines. Then they’re going to use imminent domain to claim your property—just like your knight in shining armor here suggested a month ago—and build a connector road between the interstate and the proposed site for the industrial park. You might as well start packing up your bags now.” He raised a slightly shaky hand and pointed at Logan. “As for you, I won’t forget this. You’ll get yours.”

Hands fisted at his side, Logan wanted nothing more than to finish what he’d started, but the click of Miranda’s heels caught his attention. She was out the door and halfway across the lobby before he processed what was going on and took off after her.

She was already in the parking lot and had her car door open by the time he caught up with her. Relief loosened the knots holding his shoulders tight. “Miranda, wait.”

Her fingers gripped the door so tight her knuckles had turned white. “Look, what happened last night was us scratching an itch.” She kept her gaze locked on the multi-hued leaves tumbling down the sidewalk. “It’s been scratched, and now we can move on.”

He jerked to a stop, every instinct he possessed screaming a warning not to let her go. “That’s not fair.”

“Take it from a Sweet. Life isn’t fair.” She leveled a hard gaze at him. Gone was any trace of the passionate woman who’d melted in his arms last night. In her place was someone weighed down by a chip on her shoulder the size of Alaska. “You don’t owe me any allegiance just because you got in my pants.”

A six-ton brick of agony formed in his stomach. “We could work together.”

Miranda shook her head, the late afternoon sunlight turning her wavy curls golden. “No, we can’t. You heard Tyrell. Even if we wanted to, the old guard would never accept it. Instead of pulling me up, I’d just drag you down into the mud. It’s what we Sweets excel at.” She slid into the driver’s seat. “Game over. Looks like you won the bet after all.”

She shut the door with a slam and drove off before he could get a word out. And for the first time in his life, he had no plan for what to do next.

Chapter
Fourteen

Even though it was forty degrees outside, Miranda blasted the air conditioner in her car as she drove down Main Street. The icy breeze did little to cool the heat burning her from the inside out. She’d been right to leave Salvation right after high
school graduation. Each time she’d returned, all she’d gotten was a soul-crushing reminder of her family name’s twisted roots.

She’d been stupid to think that this time would be any different. Her degree. Her career. Her life beyond Salvation. None of it mattered in this town. Here she was, just another half-crazed Sweet. And who could blame them? Her family was a collection of rabble-rousing misfits. She didn’t even have to try hard to dredge up examples of how the Sweets had cornered the market on weirdness.

Aunt Laurell had buried Civil War-era pistols in the woods and, at sunset, had set Miranda and her sisters loose to dig them up with only a map, a flashlight, and hand shovel. Miranda shook her head in disbelief. What kind of adult did that with ten-year-old girls?

Then there was the time that her dad had meditated for forty-eight hours in silent protest in the middle of the football field when the school had canceled the drama program Olivia had loved. The police had to cart him off the field so they could play the Homecoming game. She still cringed at the memory of being jeered as she walked past the cheerleaders decorating the gym for the post-game dance.

A few months before he’d died, Uncle Julian had hot-wired his assisted-living facility’s van and driven to Harbor City where he’d talked her into driving with him down to the Eastern Shore. He’d eaten so many crabs he got kicked out of an all-you-can-eat buffet. Her heart had nearly exploded when the cop told her she was driving a stolen vehicle. That had been a long night of explanations and lukewarm coffee, but luckily no orange jumpsuit.

The Sweets were all mentally disturbed. Stealing cars barely made mention in retellings of the family’s criminal history. Still, she could taste the melted butter she’d dunked those crabs in. Uncle Julian was almost all sunken cheeks by then, but God he’d made her laugh like she hadn’t done in years.

She blinked away the sentimentality brought on by the memory. The Sweets were unhinged. Passionate and devoted, sure, but still looney as jaybirds. Still…her dad’s stunt had worked. The school board had reinstated funding for art class and drama classes the next year.

Miranda chuckled despite herself. She bit the inside of her cheek, bringing herself back to reality.

The Sweets were wild and without any sense of propriety. Letting kids roam the woods all night long and then feeding them homemade waffles and center-cut bacon when they brought their bedraggled butts home in the morning. She’d been so tired that she’d barely been able to finish breakfast. But her aunt had kept asking about all the details of how she and her sisters had found every last one of the pistols, keeping her awake long enough to finish every last bite. Then she and her sisters had fallen asleep in a big pile of lanky little girl limbs on the floor in the living room while cartoons played on the TV.

The resentment that she’d held on to for so long and that bubbled in her stomach whenever she thought of family popped like a balloon thrown against a cactus. That night was one of the best adventures of her life.

The Sweets were dysfunctional, slightly delusional, and more than a little deranged at times, but they were family. Her family, and she loved every one of those demented people.

Realization hit her smack in the forehead. Everything wasn’t lost. The Sweet Salvation Brewery could still be saved. Instead of running away from the Sweet family legacy, she needed to embrace it—but she couldn’t do it alone.

While paused at a stop sign, she switched on her speakerphone and punched in Natalie’s cell phone number.

Her sister picked up halfway through the first ring. “So, how did it go?”

“Hold on, let me get Olivia on, too.” Miranda entered the number.

Olivia being Olivia took four rings to finally pick up. “Please tell me this is good news, because I can’t take any more of the other kind today.”

The static of the three-way call couldn’t disguise the bone-deep weariness in the youngest sister’s tone. Miranda’s triplet early-warning system blared in her head. “What happened?”

“My slug of an ex-boyfriend posted some pictures I sent him on the web.”

“So?” Natalie’s voice zinged through the speakers. “There are pictures from your modeling days online already. Your Google image search is about a billion pages long.”

“I’m naked in these, and the lighting is awful.”

Natalie sputtered something incomprehensible.

Shock stunted Miranda’s reaction speed so much that she nearly missed the turn onto the highway to get to Uncle Julian’s house.

“Can’t you make him take them down?” If she hadn’t been driving, Miranda would have crossed her fingers in hope.

“Wish I could, but since I sent them to him, my lawyer tells me the law considers the pictures a gift, and the tiny-dick douche bag can do whatever he wants with them.”

The muttered statement proved once again that Olivia’s taste in men was so bad she could pick the one jerk hidden among a million angels. Seriously, the girl needed to consider switching teams. But Miranda couldn’t say that out loud. Not while the wound was still raw. But she had to speak before Natalie recovered and started spouting one of her patented will-you-ever-learn speeches.

Grasping for something to say, Miranda uttered the first non-I-told-you-you-should-never-send-naked-selfies she could think of. “That…sucks.”

“Pretty much.” Damn, she hated hearing Olivia sound so defeated.

“I hate to add to the crap heap, but Tyrell is pushing the county council to make it illegal to manufacture alcohol in Hamilton County.” Miranda turned off the highway and onto the two-mile-long dirt driveway leading to Uncle Julian’s old house. “If he succeeds, Sweet Salvation Brewery is no more. People will lose their jobs, and I’ll be standing right behind them in the unemployment line.”

Natalie found her voice. “We can’t let that happen.”

“Agreed.” She eased off the gas as she approached the one-lane covered bridge over Lazy Creek. When no other cars appeared on the opposite side, she continued onto the bridge. “We need a plan of attack.”

“What if we…”

A camouflage-painted monster truck peeled around the bend in the driveway and barreled onto the narrow bridge, coming straight at her. A stark white fear pushed the rest of Natalie’s words into the background.

“Oh, my God!” Miranda’s scream sounded so far away to her own ears.

Her gaze flew to the wooden beams that spanned the side of the bridge. There wasn’t enough room for the two vehicles to pass. Instead of slowing down, the truck sped up. Her heart clogged her throat, and panic drowned out the frantic questions her sisters yelled out from the car speakers.

She slammed on her breaks. Her Lexus’s tires squealed and the scent of burnt rubber filled the car. Acting on instinct, she shifted into reverse and stomped the gas pedal to the floor. Her car flew backwards, but like a monster in a horror movie, the truck kept coming, its engine roaring.

The truck’s dirt-caked grill filled the view out of the front windshield. She put everything she had into pushing the gas pedal. Her thigh strained with effort. Her car shimmied when the tires crossed from the wooden bridge back to the dirt road, and her hands slid against the steering wheel. The truck’s bumper collided with the Lexus, jarring her foot from the pedal. It didn’t matter. The car continued its backwards trajectory as the truck pushed it at speeds that turned everything into a blur.

Squeezing her eyes shut against the terror, she gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

Slammed both feet against the brake pedal.

Jerked the wheel to the right.

Swung around by centripetal force, her shoulder slammed into the driver’s side door and her head cracked against the window as the Lexus spun out of the truck’s path. By the time she opened her eyes, all she could see of the monster truck from hell was the cloud of dirt kicked up by its tires as it headed toward the highway.

Her lungs ached from the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. It whooshed out of her lungs, and she immediately sucked in fresh air to fill her burning lungs. A haze softened the edges of her vision, and the world tilted sharply to the left, taking her stomach with it. Determined not to puke in her car, she tried to reach for the door handle but couldn’t release her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

“Miranda! Miranda! Are you all right?” Natalie’s and Oliva’s high-pitched voices overlapped as they filtered out from the car speakers.

Snapped out of her daze, her hands fell from the steering wheel. She clamped her teeth together and swallowed, forcing the acidic bile back down her throat.

“I’m okay.” Miranda clasped her trembling hands together tight enough to make her bones crack. “I’m okay.”

The trio of county sheriff’s office cruisers formed a semicircle around her Lexus, which stuck out onto the dirt road at a forty-five degree angle. The front bumper had crumpled under the attack. One headlight had shattered. And when she’d spun out of the truck’s oncoming path, she’d smacked the Lexu
s’s back quarter panel against an Eastern Hemlock tree.

It had taken the deputies about fifteen minutes after Miranda’s call to 911 to arrive with Hud in his tow truck following behind. The oldest deputy spent the next twenty minutes pulling every detail she could remember about the truck out of her muddled brain. An almost cotton-like fuzziness slowed her normally whip-quick thinking, making the whole process arduous for everyone involved.

“I know this is difficult, Ms. Sweet, but if you can remember anything else…”

Damn, she wished she could, but all she could see was the truck’s grill taking up almost the entire view from her windshield. She scrubbed her palm across her face, rubbing against the bridge of her nose. “Everything just happened really fast.”

He took a step closer and leveled a critical gaze at her. “Are you sure you don’t want an ambulance?”

“I’m good.” She shook her head, setting off an army of ice pick jabbing minions who delighted in piercing her brain.

“Well, at least take a load off.” He jerked his chin toward the wooded area behind her.

Miranda sank back down onto a tree stump and watched Hud hook her car up to his tow truck.

“First the slashed tires. Now this.” The deputy flipped his notebook closed. “It seems someone has taken a pretty strong dislike toward you. Any ideas?”

“In Salvation? Take your pick.” She rolled her neck, stretching out the tightness there. “My sisters and I inherited the Sweet Salvation Brewery—”

The words died in her throat as an image of the brewery parking lot flashed in her mind. The line of trucks with one overshadowing them all. A custom-camouflaged paint job. Huge tires. An empty can of chew laying on the front dash. A shiver of fear worked its way up from her toes, spilling ice through her veins.

It was the same truck, she’d swear to it.

And it hadn’t been in the Sweet Salvation Brewery parking lot since—

She shot up from the stump. “It was Carl.”

“Does Carl have a last name?”

“Brennan.” Her body went from arctic to Sahara in half a heartbeat. The last bits of confusion fled. It made perfect sense. The asshole didn’t have the nerve to confront her face-to-face so he pulled this crap instead. Slashing her tires. Trying to ram her off the road, safe and snug in his hulking truck’s cab. A coward’s attack. “He used to be the brewmaster.”

“Used to be?”

“I fired him.”

“Imagine he wasn’t so happy about that.” He flipped open his notebook again and started scratching notes in some sort of cop shorthand.

“Not in the least.” Her initial angry bravado abandoned her, and a platoon of icy-cold ants marched up her spine. “He told me he’d get what was coming to him.”

The deputy’s pen halted in mid loop. “Did you actually see him in the truck?”

“No. The only thing I could focus on was the truck’s front grill taking up my whole windshield.” Anxiety pinched her shoulders tight. Slashing her tires was one thing. Trying to flatten her car while she was still in it was another. “But you can still arrest him, can’t you? I know it was his truck.”

“I can talk to him. Maybe the lab can find paint scrapes on your car from the perp’s truck. We can compare those with Mr. Brennan’s vehicle.” He shrugged, the movement as blasé as his tone.

She tightened her arms across her belly. “You don’t sound hopeful.”

The deputy opened his mouth to say something but shut it before a sound had a chance to escape.

“Sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to move.” Hud dipped the brim of his cap at her as he strode over to where she stood with the deputy. “Got ’er all locked and loaded. You want me to drop ’er off at the impound lot?”

“Yep. Thanks.” The deputy ushered her away from the bridge and out of Hud’s way.

The tow truck’s engine roared to life, and she flinched. It would probably be a good long while before the deep rumble of an oversized engine didn’t have that effect on her.

“Do you know where I can find Mr. Brennan?”

“I’m sure we’ve got a home address and contact information in his personnel file.” She pulled her phone out of her purse. “Let me call my sister, she’ll be able to access it.” Turning, she saw Natalie a second before she sprinted underneath the police tape crossing the road.

“I’m right here.” Natalie practically shoved the deputy over in her rush to Miranda’s side. “Oh, my God! Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Miranda wheezed out. She would have answered more forcefully, but her sister’s vise-like grip around her chest was squeezing out every ounce of oxygen from her lungs.

Natalie released her and spun around to face the deputy. Her face took on a mama bear ferociousness as she crossed her arms. “Do you have this whackado in custody?”

The deputy held up his hands. “Ma’am—”

“Don’t you ma’am me. I want to know—”

“It was Carl,” Miranda said.