All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel) (28 page)

“Yeah.” The feeling of dread that had made a home in the pit of Brennan’s gut resurfaced. “Well, Westin isn’t the only one with access to those files, and
someone leaked them to the press. This story’s about to get a whole lot more public than any of us would like.”

“Does this have anything to do with your reporter girlfriend?” Alex asked.

Ah, hell.
Brennan was going to have to face this tomorrow anyway. He might as well give it a practice run.

“She’s not my girlfriend. But yes. She’s running a story in tomorrow’s paper in Riverside.” Brennan
recounted the events that had gone down at Joe’s, and how he and Ava had reconnected, then
dis
connected over the story she’d written and the one she was about to let loose.

“Hold up.” Alex lifted a hand. “Writing a story about you without letting you in on the deal is uncool, I’ll give you that. But I’m not sure I buy that she bribed someone downtown to sell you out. This is a woman who totally
went to bat on your behalf, dude. Not to mention, she’s tremendously fucking hot.”

Cole shook his head, looking a little bit shocked and a whole lot amused. “Don’t be a dick, Teflon.”

“Why not? I’m great at being a dick. And come
on
, Everett. You saw the woman in question. I’m just asking what we’re both wondering. Are you sure there isn’t something else to Ava’s article that you’re not seeing?”

“Uh, no. I mean, yes. I don’t know how else she’d get a copy of that report,” Brennan finally managed, the words crowding past his shock. “What do you mean she totally went to bat for me?”

Alex opened his mouth to answer, but Cole cut him off with glee. “Donovan got a little uppity with her about being there as your date, and she called him an arrogant, life-sized Ken doll.”

The laugh that
popped past Brennan’s lips was completely against his will. “She said that?” Damn, she really was a spitfire.

“Didn’t even skip a beat. In fact, as much as I hate to admit it, I’ve got to agree with Alex,” Cole said. “Ava seemed pretty convinced you’re a quality guy. She wasn’t shy about airing it out, either.”

Alex snorted, his feelings stitched to his sleeve just like always. “The woman
is a total cherry bomb.” The affirmation was tied up tight with approval. “You really sure it’s not going to work out? She was in your corner just forty-eight hours ago.”

Admiration and want collided in Brennan’s gut for just a breath before he tamped them back into the past, where they belonged. “Well, she’s not now. She’s going to run the story to prove it tomorrow.”

“My bad,” Alex said,
lifting both hands in genuine apology. “You know we’ve got your back if there’s any local fallout from the article.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it, man.” Brennan gestured toward the door, shooting straight for a change in subject. “So does the oven in the kitchen still only have two temperatures, or did you lame-asses finally sell enough T-shirts to replace the thing?”

“Why don’t you come find
out, Fryboy? Word on the street is that you can cook circles around all of us now.”

But even as Cole slapped him on the shoulder and welcomed him back into Station Eight with open arms, a part of Brennan’s heart still sat empty in his chest.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Brennan backhanded the sleep out of his eyes as he trudged through the fresh layer of snow in the Double Shot’s parking lot. After round-tripping it to Fairview with only a twenty-four-hour turnaround time, he was bordering on total exhaustion. But he’d been away from the bar for too long lately, and even though yesterday’s trip to Fairview had ended with the promise that
it would be the first of many, Brennan owed Teagan and Adrian no less than six double shifts to make up for his time away from work.

Starting with today’s.

Brennan palmed the building keys from his back pocket, letting himself into the empty restaurant. He did a quick visual, checking over the receipts from the night before and updating the numbers in the computer system before turning to
take the bar stools off the counter.

The one on the end slipped out of his hand with a clatter.

“God damn it,” Brennan hissed, righting the leather-backed stool with a decisive flip. It was just a stool. They had twenty of them. He was going to have to get over the fact that this one would be empty from now on.

Even if someone else sat in it every single night for the rest of time.

He
forced his feet back to the bar, shrinking down lower in his canvas jacket to ward off the chill still permeating the air. Another fifteen minutes’ worth of tasks didn’t warm him, and oh, what the hell—at least doing freezer inventory would keep him awake.

“Whoa.” Adrian’s gravelly voice hit Brennan point-blank in the holy-shit region of his chest, and the big guy didn’t pull any punches from
his spot at the pass-through. “You look like shit in a shredder.”

“Thanks, Gigantor. You’re a peach.” No point denying the truth, and anyway, how he looked was a step up from how he felt. Not that Brennan would admit that out loud.

“You seen today’s
Daily
?” Adrian asked, kicking a thin layer of snow from his boots. He tossed the paper to the stainless steel counter behind the bar, just within
Brennan’s reach.

“No.” No need to lay eyes on a train wreck to know it was going to be bad. “Look, I’ll do a better job handling the publicity this time, even if it’s negative. But really, I—”

“What publicity?”

Seriously? “From Ava’s article.”

Adrian snapped the paper wide, raising a brow over the top edge. “There’s no article, Slick.”

“But she’s a reporter. Why wouldn’t she run the
story?”

Brennan racked his brain, turning over every possible scenario until . . .

What if she really
hadn’t
had a choice about writing the story? Knowing her boss, it would mean her job, but what
if Ava’s version of proving what she believed meant she’d chosen to do nothing at all.

What if she loved him enough to pull the story, even after he’d told her in no uncertain terms to get out of his life.

“Can you cover me?” Brennan dug through his pocket in a frantic search for his keys, yanking them from his jacket in a rush.

Adrian’s brows rose. “Sure. Where are you going?”

“I need
to find Ava before she leaves Riverside,” he said, rushing toward the door. “I can’t let her get away twice.”

 

 

Ava tossed the last of her personal items into a cardboard box and closed her desk drawer with a
snick
. She handed the box off to Layla, scooping up its twin from the chair in her cubicle.

Make that her
former
cubicle.

“I can’t believe how different it’s going to be around
here without you,” Layla said, a mournful pout shaping her mouth. The
Daily
’s newsroom was caught in all the usual midmorning rush, although the place sure had seen its fair share of extra buzz over the last twenty-four hours.

God. Ava was going to miss it here.

“You’ll have plenty to keep you busy,” she told Layla, her chest thudding with a heavy ache despite her ironclad efforts to stay
tough. “Anyway, I can’t stay.”

Layla nodded, dropping her gaze to the box in her arms. “I know.”

“Come on. It’s time to go.”

Ava turned, casting a long, last look over the newsroom where she was about to leave five grueling years and one hard-fought career.

Her eyes landed on a very disheveled, extremely wild-eyed, and utterly breathtaking Nick Brennan.

“Ava!” Brennan strode down the
stretch of carpet in the newsroom’s main corridor, and she blinked, certain the emotions of the last few days and the four cups of coffee she’d thrown back this morning had just sent her over the edge of reason.

Nope. He was still right in front of her. And he looked
furious
.

“Where’s your boss?” Brennan’s eyes moved over the box in her grasp, his expression dropping briefly into something
she couldn’t label before hardening back into anger. “Where is he
right now?
”

Ava opened her mouth three times before she could coax anything intelligent past her vocal cords. “Technically, in his office, I guess, but he’s really not—”

“He’s not firing you, that’s what.”

Brennan charted a course for the glass-walled office at the front of the newsroom, and Ava jostled her box to the floor
as she renewed her protest.

“Brennan, wait.”

Nope. No go. Holy crap, he was going to burn a path in the carpet.

“Brennan . . .”

She rushed after him to no avail, and okay, now it was time to get serious.

“Nick
.
”

He screeched to a stop just shy of the office door.

“A lot of changes have gone down here at the paper since Monday night, and yes, I am leaving the
Daily
. But before you
go barging into that office, you should know that nobody fired me.”

“But your stuff is in boxes,” he argued, gesturing to the spot where she’d plunked down her belongings.

“I know. I put it there when I resigned.”

“You
quit?
”

Ava nodded, certainty welling in her chest.

She knew Nick Brennan’s story. It was time he learned hers.

“I should have told you from the beginning that I was
working on an article about firefighters, and that I wanted to use your story as part of the piece. I only meant to show you that you’re worthy of recognition, but just because I think your story is worth telling doesn’t mean it’s mine to tell. I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

“Ava, wait.”

“No, you deserve to hear the rest. I wrote my article as a personal interest piece, but Gary wanted more.
He’d been pressuring me to write something splashier, to increase the bottom line. I don’t know how, but he got his hands on the investigation report from the night you were hurt. He said if I didn’t use it in my story, he’d write the piece himself.”

Brennan’s hands curled to fists at his sides, and she rushed to continue before he went all commando again. “But you were right. I had choices.
I knew printing those details wasn’t right, so I called the owner of the paper to file a formal complaint against my boss. My fellow reporter Ian backed up my claims, but I couldn’t risk the article being run the way Gary wanted it run, no matter what.”

“Ava . . .”

She shook her head, adamant. If she didn’t get this out now, she wouldn’t have another chance. “So I quit. The research that was
on my laptop stayed here, unfortunately, but I knew Gary couldn’t piece anything together without my extensive personal notes.”

Her mind flashed quickly over the tattered blue notebook she’d tossed into Big Gap Lake yesterday morning. “And because I no longer work for the paper, he couldn’t make me share them. I know it’ll never make up for what I did—”

“Ava—”

Ava’s throat threatened to
tighten, but she stood firm. “No. I needed to be strong enough to stand up for what was right. Not for me, but for you. You deserve your integrity no matter what the story is, and it’s my job to give it to you regardless of cost. Not just because I’m a reporter, but because I love you. I know it’s crazy, and I know you’re still furious, but I love you. And—”

The rest of her words
crashed to a halt on her lips, and the edges of Brennan’s mouth ticked slowly, beautifully upward.

“It is crazy, and I was furious. But you were right. The story is worth telling. It just took me a while to figure that out.”

Ava’s heart sped up. “It did?”

“It did.” Brennan bridged the distance between them in three brisk strides. “But I think I’ve got it now, thanks to you.”

“But it’s
not my story,” she said, confused.

“You’re right. It’s my story. But I’m trusting it to you. You had my back when I thought no one else did, and you believed in what you knew. I want to give you exclusive rights to write the story your way, but only if Gary gives you your job back. It’s what
you
deserve.”

“Gary can’t give me my job back.”

“Oh yes, he can.” Brennan renewed his efforts to
reach the front of the newsroom, but Ava placed a hand directly over his heart.

“He can’t, because Mr. Royce fired him. Gary doesn’t work here anymore.”

Brennan shook his head. “But neither do you.”

Ava smiled, the irony playing on her lips. “Mr. Royce asked me if I’d reconsider. And with Ian as the new managing editor, I thought about it. But in the end, I decided to try freelancing for
a while. It’s past time for me to take hold of my career, my way.”

“So you could still write the story. From anywhere,” he said, dropping his gaze to the hand Ava still had across the center of his chest.

Oh . . . God. “Only if you want me to.”

In less than a breath, Brennan’s hands cupped her face, drawing her close. “I want you for more than a story, Ava. I love you. I want you forever.”

He captured her mouth in a kiss she felt all the way to her toes, and Ava kissed him back with equal measure.

“Well, good. Because you just professed your love for me in front of a room full of reporters. I’m pretty sure there’s no way you’ll stay out of the news.”

Brennan flicked a glance at the twenty or so faces staring at them from the utterly quiet newsroom, but the spotlight didn’t
rock him one bit.

“Let ’em talk,” he said, and then he kissed her again.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

 

Brennan held the envelope stamped with the official seal of the Fairview Fire Department between shaky fingers, inwardly cursing himself for not having the balls to just open the damn thing and get it over with.

“Is that what I think it is?” Ava’s bright green eyes sparkled above her mischievous smile, and she leaned over the bar from her perch
in the very last seat.

He leaned back to steal a quick kiss despite his nerves. Damn, he loved this woman. “Yeah.”

“Adrian! Teagan! He got the letter,” Ava called over Brennan’s shoulder, and he coughed out a laugh in her direction.

“Traitor.” Within seconds, everyone on the Double Shot’s staff gathered behind the bar, with Lily and Pete keeping Ava company on the customer side of the wood.

“What are you waiting for, Slick?” Adrian tilted his stubble-covered chin at the envelope. “Do the honors.”

Brennan looked around the bar, his heart taking up residence in his windpipe as he stuck his finger into the seam of the envelope with a big, fat
here goes nothing
.

Holy.
Shit.

After three trips to Fairview, two interviews, and one hard-as-hell exam, he’d done it.

Brennan was going home.

“Well?” The look on Ava’s face suggested she already knew the answer, and God, not even a fully loaded tanker truck would crush her belief in him.

“I, uh. I got the job.”

The room exploded into excited cheers and raucous applause, and Ava flung her arms around him from
her side of the bar.

“I knew it! I’m so happy for you.”

He let her kiss him for a minute—after all, he wasn’t an idiot—before pulling back to give her a questioning look.

“You’re sure?” he asked, turning to add Pete and Lily to the conversation.

Ava didn’t even blink. “We’ve talked about this. The editor at the
Fairview Sentinel
has already agreed to run the rescue squad piece, and I’ve
got a line on a few other stories for them too. Fairview’s not up the street from Pine Mountain,” she said, pausing to let her brother squeeze her arm. “But places aren’t as important as people, and the person I belong with is you. If you’re going back to Fairview, I’m going with you.”

“I’m really going to miss you guys,” Brennan said, reclaiming the attention of everyone at the bar. The place
might not be a firehouse, but the people in it had accepted him, no questions asked, for the last two years.

“You’re a tough act to replace, hero.” Adrian tipped a beer in his direction. He slung an arm around Teagan’s shoulders, his smile as natural as breathing, and hell if Brennan didn’t get the emotion behind it, once and for all. “Make sure you don’t forget us little people.”

Brennan
laughed, reaching for Ava’s hand and knowing that second chances really did exist.

“I’ve got your back. You can count on it.”