Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
C harlie had hightailed it out of class and away from Luc Woolf of the chiseled jaw, bedroom eyes, and impossibly deep, sexy voice. Did the man have testosterone running through his veins instead of blood? And how freaking crappy was her luck to have literally run into him, verbally smacked him upside the head, only to discover he was her anger management teacher?
Luck has never been my friend. That bitch.
And just last night she’d been hoping to coast through the class, betting on a local taking pity on her and letting her slide. Lana would have let her breeze through the class. Dang grandbabies and their adorable pull.
“Why’d she have to retire this year? Why couldn’t her daughter have waited a few more months to pop a kid out?”
While lamenting her current predicament, she hurried down the street to Jacks. Neither the distillery nor the restaurant was open yet, but she didn’t need the establishment to be open to work. As the accountant for her family’s businesses, she could set her own hours. As long as payroll, bills, and the monthly budget got handled she could show up whenever she damn well pleased. Suited her just fine. She and schedules did not mix well.
Jacks stood a few short blocks down Kismet’s main road, Goldmine Street. She’d parked her car in their back lot earlier before her class. The side door was unlocked which meant one, or all, of her brothers were here. As she made her way into the tasting room—which also served as one of the few bars in Kismet—she saw her second oldest brother BJ standing behind the bar, pressing his girlfriend Penny against the hard oak with his body while they tried to eat each other’s faces off.
Kissing, Charlie. It’s called kissing. You just don’t remember because you haven’t done it in so long.
Oh shit, even her inner voice was being a bitch today.
“Gross, you guys. I’m pretty sure that’s a health code violation.”
Penny quickly pulled away, pale freckled face turning beet red with embarrassment. “Sorry, Charlie. We weren’t doing anything—”
“You don’t have to explain anything to my meddlesome little sister, honey. She knows exactly what we were doing. Besides.” His disgruntled gaze slid to her. “This is a bar. We serve liquor to lonely people looking to hook up most nights. Far worse has been done within these walls.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want to see it.” She shook her head, giving Penny a teasing smile. “Honestly, Penny, I don’t know what you see in this jackass. You’re way too good for him.”
“And don’t I know it.” Her brother smiled as he pulled the red-haired woman close and placed a light kiss on her cheek.
Penny gave a tentative smile. Charlie liked the woman. She was smart as hell, on the spectrum, a bit awkward and shy, but once you got to know her, Penny was a real hoot. And she made BJ happy which was all Charlie needed to give her approval. Something all her brother’s partners needed whether the big lugs admitted it or not. No matter how long a person had been in their lives.
Penny had been a part of their family forever as BJ’s best friend. Only recently had their relationship changed from purely platonic to passionate. She was happy for her brother. It was good to see him smile, really smile, not the fake one he used to give out whenever anyone asked how he was doing. He didn’t think she knew, but sisters were very intuitive. Bonus of the female species. She knew her big brother had been missing something in his life for a long time. Turns out that thing had been a person. Someone right under his nose the whole time.
“All right, enough of the mushy crap. It’s way too early.”
“So how did class go, sis?”
Raising her hand, she flipped her brother the bird.
He chuckled. “That well?”
“I shouldn’t have to go.” Slumping down on one of the bar stools, she grabbed a napkin from the stack on the bar and started to fold it.
“No. What you shouldn’t have done is key your ex’s car.”
“He had it coming.”
“I’m sure he did, but nevertheless, it was a stupid move, Charlie.”
Pausing in her creasing, she glanced up to glare at her brother. “Bite me, BJ. The stupid move was dating the bastard in the first place.”
“No arguments from me on that one.”
She sighed. “Besides, he deserved it for selling Puddles.”
Puddles, just saying his name out loud stung like a smack on a fresh sunburn. It wasn’t the sweet pug’s fault his jerk owner had moved into a no pets building. She’d offered to take the dog. Begged even. But no. Blain was such an asshole he decided to sell his supposedly beloved pet to a puppy farm three states away. Charlie knew what those places were like. She’d seen a documentary on it once. Horrible places where dogs were kept in tiny crates, only allowed out for forced breeding. Dirty, greedy owners who never took the animals to the vet or for grooming. Sure, not all of them were like that, but after Blain sold Puddles, she went online to learn everything she could about Pure Pugs Paradise and what she found had not been good. The place had been cited half a dozen times for various health and safety violations. It was a wonder they were still in operation.
“Can’t you just buy another dog?” Penny asked.
Since Penny was sweet, but tended to say the wrong things at times, she didn’t bite the woman’s head off. But even the thought of just buying another dog to replace Puddles made her want to punch her fist through a wall. You couldn’t replace an animal. They were living, breathing creatures. Not shoes.
“I don’t want another dog. I want Puddles!”
She must not have been as calm and collected as she tried to be, because Penny flinched. BJ glared at her and wrapped an arm around his girlfriend, muttering something no doubt sweet and soothing in the woman’s ear. Crap.
“I’m sorry, Penny. I didn’t mean to yell. I just…miss him.”
“It’s okay. I understand.” Penny offered her a sympathetic smile.
But the sweet woman couldn’t understand. Charlie hadn’t had a dog since Barlow, their family dog, had died when she was a kid. Honestly, losing her first pet hurt so much she’d never been brave enough to get another. Dating Blain and getting Puddles in the mix had been like a gentle easing into pet ownership again. She figured it wouldn’t hurt to lose a pet that had never even really been hers.
She’d been wrong.
“Del’s in the restaurant. He said to come find him when you got in.”
She knew a dismissal when she heard one. Penny may have forgiven her little outburst, but BJ hadn’t. Ooo yay, one of her brother’s was mad at her. What else was new? Too tired and under caffeinated to pick a fight with BJ, she pushed up from the stool.
“Then I’ll go find him.”
BJ nodded before the corner of his lips turned up in a smirk. “Be sure to tell him how great class was.”
She flipped him off again, handing off the napkin origami flower she’d been making to Penny. The woman took the peace offering with a soft smile.
She walked through the swinging side door connecting the tasting room to the restaurant. The place was empty, so she immediately spied her younger brother sitting at a table in the middle of the dining area.
“Hey, Del. BJ said you wanted to see me?”
He looked up from whatever paperwork had snared his attention and smiled. “Oh hey, sis. How was—”
“Don’t even freakin’ start with me, baby brother. I am in no mood.”
“I think that’s the problem. You’re always in a mood.”
She pulled out the chair beside him, smacking him upside the back of his head as she sat down.
“Ow! You see? Anger issues.”
“That wasn’t anger, that was annoyance. Something every woman with three smart-ass brothers deals with on a daily basis. In fact, I think I saw a news story once where a sister killed all of her brothers. They’d teased and tortured her for years. One day she fed them all arsenic pie for dinner.”
Del whistled low. “Good thing the only things you’d ever cook is the books.”
A lie because while she wasn’t a great cook, she did know how to keep herself fed. And she’d never stoop to anything as crooked as cooking the books. Besides with the new restaurant they didn’t need to falsify their cash flow. Cash was flowing in like honey these days.
“Just watch your back, Jackasson. Now what did you want to see me about?”
Del motioned to the papers in front of him. She gave them a quick glance and recognized them immediately as job applications.
“With the restaurant being so busy lately I can’t handle bartender duties anymore.”
Fair enough. When Del first had the idea of opening a restaurant, they all knew he would have to eventually give up running the bar to handle the restaurant full-time.
“I’m promoting Kelley to full-time bartender, but it’s crazy busy in there lately so we’ll need to hire her some help.”
Kelley Raheja had been their part-time bartender for years. The spunky, take-no-shit woman was a hoot. Charlie loved her. Not in the way Kelley loved other women, but if she ever found herself switching sides, she’d make a run for Kelley for sure.
“Okay, what do you need from me?”
“Budgets. How many people can we afford to hire?”
She reached into her satchel and grabbed her notebook and pen. “Are we talking full-time help, part-time help? Weekends only? What?”
Her brothers never gave her enough information when they wanted something—well, except Ace, but that man was so anal his picture stood under over-explainer in the dictionary. It was amazing she got any work done around here with these yahoos.
“Let’s start with part-time weekend work and go from there. If we end up needing more help, we can revisit that at a later date.”
Revisit that at a later date.
Look at her baby brother all grown up and talking like a big important businessman. To see him just a few years ago she never would have thought it. Not her goof-off, playboy of a brother. It made her smile to see him come into his own. She was getting all emotional…no wait, that was the shitty coffee she had earlier burning through her stomach lining.
“I’ll punch the numbers, see what we can do.”
“Thanks, Charlie.”
She shoved her notebook in her bag again and rose. “No problem. I’m sure it won’t be too much of a stretch. We’re doing really well.”
“Yup, the town’s booming.”
Maybe not Kismet itself, but Colorado was experiencing a huge population surge. The fresh air, amazing outdoors, and a certain legal plant made the state a haven for people looking to start fresh. Which brought to mind the one recent addition to their own small little part of the state. Luc Woolf. What was that guy’s story anyway and why did she care?
Because he’s hot.
Whatever, she wasn’t that shallow. He…intrigued her.
Because he’s hot.
No. Well, yes, he was, but that wasn’t why he’d been in the back of her mind all morning. It was because she’d spent an hour with him earlier and knew she’d be doing the same every Sunday morning for the next few months.
And because he’s hot.
Okay fine! It was because he was hot and new and didn’t make a joke about her temper like her brothers did or get in her face like her ex had. No. Luc just stood there silently watching her as she ripped into him. He didn’t scowl, laugh, or even tense up. He’d just calmly let her rant then suggested she pay better attention.
Who the hell acts so calm when someone is screaming in their face? An anger management teacher, apparently.
“Oh, Cassie said to tell you to call her about this Thursday.”
“She’s not backing out, is she?” She loved that her best friend was now her sister, but sometimes it felt like her brother had stolen her friend away. They used to do everything together, but since Del and Cassie got married her BFF’s time had become increasingly limited.
“No. She said to tell you ‘Towanda.’” He shrugged. “Whatever the hell that means.”
She couldn’t stop the grin from tilting her lips. “It means you better put aside some bail money because me and your wife are going to tear up the town. And also, you need to revisit your classic 90’s movies.”
“You better not get arrested. They might give you another three months of anger management.”
Tired of flipping her brothers off, she made a different obscene hand gesture and headed back through the bar and into the back where the offices and distilling equipment were housed. Her mood had lightened slightly at the thought of her girl’s day Thursday. It’d been so long since she and Cassie had gotten together for some girl time. She missed her best friend. Honestly, she missed Del and BJ too. Though she’d deny it to her dying breath, now that two of her brothers were in serious relationships they’d all hung out less as a family. True they saw each other most days since they all co-owned and worked Jacks together, but working and hanging out were two very different things.
Lately she’d been feeling a bit…lonely.
A face popped into her mind. Strong sharp cheek bones, hard, square cut jawline, full delicious looking lips, and eyes as dark as the chocolates she hid from her thieving brothers in the bottom of her desk drawer. Luc. Now there was a man she’d bet could make a woman forget all about being lonely. He’d be the kind of lover who would make a woman forget her own name as he used those large hands to stroke her body until she screamed out his—
What in the holy hell!
She shook her head, realizing she was standing there like a statue right outside her office door fantasizing about a man she didn’t even know. A man who was technically her teacher, sort of, kind of, for the time being anyway.
She could not be having naughty thoughts about Luc Woolf. Besides, she didn’t even like the guy. Was he hot? Hell yeah. Did that mean she wanted to jump his bones? Hell no—okay, maybe yes, but she wasn’t going to. She was through with men. T-H-R-O-U-G-H, through! Luc could take his sexy self and hike over the Rockies for all she cared. She had work to do and none of it involved taking her teacher’s clothes off.
She pushed her way into her office, determined to put her mind on work, but no matter how hard she tried, she spent the rest of the day fighting off images of a sexy, naked Luc Woolf teaching her all manner of naughty things.