She stretched her neck as if he’d victimized her. “It was … inappropriate and with you trying to bring people up here to be in their swimsuits??—”
Heat charged down his neck at her insinuation. “Fine.” He heard the bark and realized Brooke had a point. He was turning into a bully. “Forget the athletic center. But I we’ll never get anywhere until you rid yourself of the idea that I’m a predator."
“I never said—”
“Let’s skip the games, Inspector. All I want is for this lodge to be viable and bring business to the area.” He had no patience for her or her accusations. Knew that, in her mind, nothing would clear his name. “So. Moving on to the café.” Anger churned through him. “It’s built, inspected, and now?—”
“Perhaps”??—condescension oozed through her tone??—“if you had actually waited for me to sign off on it before opening it, I could’ve handed you the approval right here, but since you didn’t?—”
“It’s not open.” Stone fought the urge to laugh at the absurdity of her claim. “I haven’t even found someone to work or manage it.”
She nodded out the door. “Then what do you call that?”
Fed up with this woman and the mountains he had to scale to get her approval on the stupidest things, he glanced over his shoulder. What he saw wouldn’t process, and yet it yanked an oath from his lips. His sister sat at the café counter being served a steaming latte by none other than Brighton.
“What the …?”
“I suppose you thought to hide that from me.” Mrs. Pellet gathered her papers and briefcase from the table.
“I had no such intention. But I do have an intention to let everyone who passes through know that Mrs. Pay-lay would rather make assumptions and infer intent rather than follow the law. After all, the café passed fire and food inspections, but she wants to hurt the people visiting her county rather than allow them to enjoy it.” An idea hit him, one he told himself to ignore. Not to speak. “Or is this about something else? I mean??—are you failing me so you have more opportunity to come and talk to me?”
Pellet went white. And Stone regretted his words but couldn’t take them back. She snatched a paper from her folder and slapped it against his chest. “Just try to get any of your other permits approved!” With a harrumph, she clipped her way out of the lodge.
Stone wanted to ball up the permit and throw it at her vanishing form. But there was someone else he needed to deal with first. Permit in hand, he stormed toward the coffee bar.
Chapter
Ten
Bexar-Wolfe Lodge, Northern Virginia
“Well, that looks like a Category Five.”
Brighton looked up from rinsing the frothing cup. “What?”
“A Category Five—hurricane.” Brooke bobbed her head toward the restaurant, then sipped her quad-shot with hazelnut.
Brighton followed her gaze and slammed right into Stone’s. “Oh no.” Jerking back to the counter, she didn’t even have to guess why he was angry. “You said he went to town!”
Brooke flicked a hand and slipped from her stool. “I’ll handle him.”
“Please, don’t?—”
A wall of chest slammed up against her periphery. “Haven’t you done enough damage to me already?” Stone’s razor-sharp words minced nothing.
“I needed espresso.” Brooke inserted herself between them, cutting off his glower. “So when I found out Brighton used to be a barista, I begged her to make me one.”
Uncertainty flashed through his blue eyes as he again looked to Brighton. “I didn’t have a permit for this café to be operational, and the inspector?—who just left?—threatened to reject it because, when she saw you in here, she thought I’d opened it.”
A swarm of nervous jellies struck. She saw the inspector getting into her white Lexus and swallowed hard. “I–I’m sorry.”
“What, are you trying to ruin everything in my life? Destroying my gubernatorial career wasn’t enough, you have to go after this one, too?”
Had he thrown acid on her, it wouldn’t have burned so deeply or painfully. She hadn’t? … Never … Brighton hurried out of the coffee bar.
He gestured with his hands. “Why are you even out here? You’re supposed to stay in your room. How is that hard to understand?”
“Stone!” Brooke’s tone sliced right back at her brother. “You buffoon. Only caged animals stay locked up.”
