Trouble Brewing (Crossroads Ranch #1)

Chapter 1

ONE

MEREDITH

Grief is hard enough to push through, so why do I have to look like a hot mess while I go through it?

I swipe at my eyes, squinting at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and wishing I could erase the red rims. No amount of splashing water on my face will wash away the fact that my sister is gone. That I lost her husband—the mentor I’ve known most of life—too.

After washing my hands at the sink, I adjust my blue Jules Creek Brewing polo, brush imaginary lint from my jeans, wince at my puffy eyes, and walk out to the hallway leading from the bathroom to main part of the taproom.

I pause and tilt my head back, unprepared to face the world.

So much to do. So much that shouldn’t have to be done.

The brewery’s ceiling soars above me. Built in a renovated barn, the interior pays homage to the family brewery’s humble beginnings.

The walls and the roof have been sanded and stained into a rustic country-chic style that both tourists and locals claim to love, but still, they don’t visit as frequently as the brewery needs to stay afloat.

Sighing, I continue to the sprawling taproom. I’d rather go home. I’ve been called the heart of Jules Creek Brewing, but today, I’m barely beating.

“You look like hell, Meredith,” Molly calls from the long counter that makes up the twenty-five-foot bar. She’s worked here for a few years, and she’s become a good friend. Her comment almost gets me to smile.

“Thanks. Losing your sister is not a beauty regimen I recommend.”

Was the crash that killed my sister and her husband really just days ago? Much as the urge to stay home and cry pulls at me, I can’t give in. Crying isn’t productive, and there’s too much to do.

“At least work keeps my mind off the accident, and off funeral planning.”

“Everything ready?” Molly asks. “I can help if you need me.”

I smile, but inside, I grimace. Molly is one of my favorite people, and a good worker. When she shows up for her shift. “Thanks. I’ll let you know.”

Instead of veering to where the large silver fermentation tanks loom quietly behind the wall of taps, I slide onto a stool across from her. I need to change one of the taps to the new raspberry sour for the summer, Razzy Creek, but I’ll get to that later.

She leans her elbows on the counter, oblivious to all the stocking that still needs to be done behind the bar. “Did he ever get back to you?”

“He did not.” Every time I think about Calder Cross, my blood boils until it might evaporate.

I found his number in my brother-in-law Ransom’s desk and left him a voicemail.

“He said, and I quote, ‘You deal with your family, and I’ll deal with mine,’” I mock in a deep voice.

I have no idea what Calder sounds like now. He only sent the one curt text.

My sister and his dad died, and he acts like that?

Good-looking guys like him are always assholes, and Calder Cross is the worst. Ever since Ransom married my sister, Calder’s hated me by association.

It didn’t matter that I was only thirteen at the time and Holly was my guardian.

Any sympathy I might’ve felt over the way they got together was obliterated when I heard him call Holly “a slut with dollar signs in her eyes.”

Molly shakes her head. “I can’t believe he’d be so callous. I heard he was estranged from Ram, but that seems severe?”

According to Holly, Calder and his whole family were once very close.

It was Ransom—Ram to his friends—his first wife Julia, and their three boys.

Calder’s the eldest. But after Julia died, everything changed irrevocably, mostly because of my much older sister, who was Julia’s best friend.

Holly dragged me across North Dakota to Scandal to care for Julia during her last months with cancer.

It turned into six, and we stayed three more months after the funeral so Holly could help Ransom with the brewery and the ranch.

That was when she and Ransom announced they were getting married, shocking all of us and changing everything. For me, that change was for the better. For Calder and his brothers, it was definitely for the worse.

Not that you’d be able to tell from how successful the three Cross brothers are now.

Calder Cross rules over a boardroom, while I play with yeast. I love my job, but there are no private jets involved.

No magazine covers. No models on my arm.

He gets to make the rules for his company, while, at Jules Creek, I’m only supposed to obey them.

The brewery’s not mine, after all. I’m just the manager.

“I gotta check temps.” It doesn’t help get me out of my head. I don’t move.

I’ve been a zombie since the deputy showed up on my doorstep, his hat in his hands and a hound-dog expression on his face.

I’ve been numb, but I’ve also been stuck in my head, going over and over how the accident that killed my sister and Ransom could have even happened.

How did they roll the car that many times?

The stretch of road they were on isn’t flat, but it’s not a cliff either.

Now Ransom Cross is gone, the two Cross family businesses I’ve been a part of for what feels like my whole life are on unstable ground. Jules Creek Brewing only has me, and Crossroads Ranch is struggling too. At least I have a little more help with the latter, especially since it’s also my home.

Maybe I should take the week off.

The front door opens. Crap. I forgot to lock it behind me when I arrived. I look to Molly, knowing she’ll have no issue telling the new arrival we aren’t open yet, but her mouth is slack and her eyes are wide.

I swivel in my seat, and my heart clambers up my throat. Oh… my…

A man strides in, his dark, sharp gaze sweeping over the place, lips turning down.

He isn’t just wearing a tailored black suit—he’s giving it life, like he was born in the damn thing.

While he’s clean-shaven, a dark shadow grazes his chin, as if his stubble defied the blade to help show off his hard jaw.

He may be in a suit instead of jeans and cowboy boots, with his thick hair tamed into a neat side part, but I’d recognize those hard, deep brown eyes anywhere.

My pulse kicks up, and heat flushes through me. This is surely not the arrogant twenty-two-year-old who called my sister horrible names. He’d be forty-two now.

His gaze cuts toward me and narrows for a millisecond before raking down my body.

His frown deepens, and he lifts his gaze almost reluctantly to meet mine.

Energy snaps in the air between us, thickening each molecule until I feel like I can’t take a full breath.

Flutters ripple through my stomach, a sensation utterly alien to what I’ve been going through the past few days.

He slides his cool gaze away and continues his powerful strides across the taproom.

I spin on the smooth surface of the stool as he marches past me.

I don’t get a second glance—but I don’t want one.

I don’t. Then he takes the stairs two at a time, his broad shoulders retreating until the slam of an office door makes me jump.

Calder Cross has arrived.