Chapter 11 #2
“If you hadn’t noticed, I actually feel like I can contribute—and not just with the website. I’m good with details, planning, and vision. If you let me, I could be an asset. Then you’re freed up to focus on brewing, which seems to be your passion.”
I swallow. Winnie has once again read me a little too well. But rather than admit that, showing my full hand, I just listen.
Winnie takes another sip of coffee, then narrows her eyes. “One more thing.”
Why am I certain this is the thing I’m going to want to say no to more than anything else?
“I get to ask you one question a day.” As though she can see the way I’ll work around this, she continues. “And you have to answer honestly.”
“A question about business?”
“Maybe. But not limited to business.”
“Why?”
Winnie tucks her legs up under her, and I try to keep my eyes on her face as the thin strap of her tank top falls off her shoulder again.
Absently, she pulls it back into place. It’s a casual move, but its impact on me is closer to catastrophic.
I force my eyes to stay on her face as she squints at me.
“Because I’m a curious person. And this whole bank vault persona you wear has me all …” She gestures with the hand holding her mug. It must be nearing empty because none sloshes over the top. “Verklempt.”
“ Verklempt ?” I don’t know this word. It sounds like a German sneeze.
“Frustrated. Agitated. Irritated.”
Right back at you.
“I’m sorry my tendency not to voice every thought in my head like some people do is annoying.”
“I didn’t say annoying .”
“Is there a difference?”
“Absolutely.”
We sit in a silence that’s neither awkward nor companionable.
It feels like a necessary pause, a retreat where we both regroup.
I could run Dark Horse alone. That’s always been the plan.
My family knew going in they’d have little say in the business unless I asked, though Collin keeps butting in, and Tank did buy the town partially because he thought it would be a great location for the brewery.
I planned to hire contract labor as necessary, much further down the road. I’ll be pulling twelve-hour-plus days once we get the brewing equipment delivered. Installation and brewing will be on me. Once we get closer to opening, I’ll need more help with the serving side of things.
What I don’t need is whatever role Winnie wants to fill. I don’t need a voice in my ear, making me doubt, making me question, overwhelming me when I’m already walking a thin line. I don’t need an assistant or adviser.
But I can still picture Winnie’s site mock-up, the real one, and how intuitive it was, how it exactly aligned with my vision for Dark Horse.
There were only minimal tweaks to things like the About page, where it was clear Winnie guessed and filled in some blanks.
She also was incredibly helpful when the contractor arrived, pointing out some space issues and giving suggestions for seating and even bathroom setup.
Despite not giving her anything to work with, Winnie seems to have a way of sneaking past my walls and seeing straight into what I want.
She could be an asset.
She could be dangerous.
She could be more .
“Those are your conditions?” I ask, finally able to find my focus. “More money, opinions I’ll listen to and consider, and answering a daily question?”
Winnie bites her lip, her eyes moving around the room like she’s trying to find one more thing to tack on to the list. “Those are my demands,” she says finally, lips quirking at the word demands .
I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms again. “I get a pass.”
Her head tilts, and she squints at me again. “What?”
“On the questions. Some things I may not want to answer, and I can pass, but you can ask another question in its place.”
“Acceptable. One pass per day. I’m not going to ask super uncomfortable questions.”
What she doesn’t realize is ALL questions are uncomfortable to someone like me who has barbed wire fence and KEEP OUT signs posted with guard dogs patrolling the property.
“You can ask me questions too if you’d like,” she says with a shrug.
When I only stare in response, I can see her embarrassment as a flush creeps up her creamy skin. It’s a good look on her, but I feel guilty for causing discomfort. I hate a lot of things, but being embarrassed is right up on top.
“Thank you.”
If she realizes I’m not agreeing to ask her questions, she doesn’t show it. Instead, the flush deepens in her cheeks as she smiles.
“Then it’s settled. I accept your offer if you accept my terms.”
I pause, somehow needing the tension to stretch between us before I answer. “I accept.”
Winnie nods, but then the smile slides from her face, and she taps her mug with one fingernail. “Also,” she says, and the way she won’t meet my eyes makes my nerves fire up. “I wanted to say I’m sorry for messing with you.”
She glances up at me, her eyes so clear, so blue in the morning light. For just a moment, I’m lost in them.
My mom used to keep a wooden puzzle box on her bedside table.
When she got sick, I would sit in bed with her, sliding the pieces in just the right way to reveal the hidden compartment.
Mom placed a smooth blue stone in the hidden compartment, a prize for solving the puzzle.
The stone was the exact color of Winnie’s eyes.
A thread of some emotion I can’t name pulses once, then twice, through me.
“You’re sorry for making the fake sites?”
Winnie tilts her head, a small smile playing on her lips.
“No. I still think they were hilarious.” She sobers, and the sincerity in her eyes makes my breath hitch.
“I’m sorry for showing your family first and for showing you last night.
I could tell you were tired and edgy, maybe tired of people?
I knew it wasn’t the right moment to joke with you. I should have waited.”
Her perceptiveness, once again, slices right through me. I have to wonder if there’s anything about me Winnie doesn’t see. But because I don’t exactly want to confirm just how right she is, I simply nod. “Collin and I practically forced you.”
“Still. I could have said no. I should have waited until the next day and caught you at a different moment. Maybe then you would have found it funny.”
Maybe. Not at first, but once I realized they were fake sites, which I probably would have at a different time. One where my brain didn’t feel so full and my thoughts so overrun after a night with other people.
“You assume I have a sense of humor.”
Winnie smirks. “I think there’s one buried under there somewhere.”
“Don’t think you can try to excavate it. Or try to find some soft and gooey center. It doesn’t exist.”
“Or maybe it’s buried so deep you don’t even know it’s still there.”
“I’m not burying anything.”
“Oh, James,” Winnie says, her voice deceptively soft. “We’re all hiding something.”
What are you hiding? I almost demand. But I don’t want to know. Because asking the question would be like admitting I’m hiding things too. I am—of course, I am, who isn’t?—but we aren’t going there. Not today. Not ever.
Winnie is my employee . Nothing more. Never more.
Setting down her mug, Winnie gets to her feet, holding out her hand. I don’t move, and she rolls her eyes.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I’m happy to call my lawyer and have her draft this in writing. You can call your lawyer and we’ll be all official. Or we can just shake and trust each other.”
The idea of bringing Thayden, our family lawyer and somewhat friend, into this makes me shudder.
The man finds endless amusement in our family’s business.
From my dad buying a town to Pat entering a marriage of convenience turned real thing, he’d be all over this kind of contract.
He’d zero right in on the part about the questions, and I’d never hear the end of it.
I stand. In her bare feet, Winnie is dwarfed by me. A zip of satisfaction shoots through me, likely some vestige of early man and the drive to protect, to be big and strong.
That’s all it is. Biology. Survival of the fittest. Nothing more.
I clasp Winnie’s hand, wishing I didn’t feel her touch move through my body the way the blush crept up her neck moments ago. Only our hands touch, but I feel Winnie everywhere .
This is a terrible idea .
I know it, and yet I shake on it anyway. I try not to focus on the way her hand, small but strong, disappears into mine, how it feels to stand so close, to have our palms brushing. If I don’t acknowledge the zip and hum of awareness buzzing through me, it does not exist.
“We have a deal,” I say, telling myself it’s professional, just professional, knowing as my lower back begins to sweat that my lies aren’t even convincing to myself.
It’s not until I’m driving home, skin still buzzing and mind a hot haze, that I realize I never actually apologized.