Whiskey Bargain (Foster House #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Durban

This night went to hell long before a tornado with sun-kissed skin walked into Bootleg Tavern. But babysitting the woman with chestnut hair so long a guy could wrap it around his fist isn’t cheering me up.

Behind where I’m sitting at the bar counter, Campbell Hawthorne whoops with some women who must be tourists. “Rack ’em up!”

Her sultry rasp goes straight to my dick.

Dammit, I came to drown my sorrows, dump a little alcohol on my pride, before I get back to business as usual. Not listen to vocal cords formed straight from every man’s wet dreams.

She’s not mine, she’s not for me, and I don’t want her to be, but as inconvenient as it is, she’s a beautiful woman with a voice meant for sin. That’s probably how she sounds when she recites her grocery list.

Before, I could ignore it. I was taken. I had a girlfriend, and it didn’t matter that she was two thousand miles away. But now, my brand-new single-guy status makes me aware of it—and irritated. I pinch the bridge of my nose as snippets of my recent phone conversation run through my head.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk to each other anymore. I think we need to break up.”

“I’m sorry. The jokes are cute, but they’re distracting, and I can’t have that.”

“I know you don’t get what it’s like. College. Graduate school. Research. This program is the most important thing I’m doing, and I’ve got so much invested.”

“I knew you’d understand. You have that laid-back lifestyle. Easy breezy.”

Easy fucking breezy. And my jokes could not have been that bad of a distraction. I’d waited for Natalie for almost four years. She’d assured me she was ready for a long-distance relationship and we’d figure out the rest when it was closer to her graduation.

With her graduation imminent, I’d been asking about where she planned to find a job, if she’d like me at her graduation, and I’d reassured her that I’d give her transition time.

Assuming her vague answers were from the stress of planning her thesis defense, I’d quit asking questions and started sending her jokes. Simple science ones to lighten her day.

Too simple. Too easy breezy.

Her words have been on constant replay since I hung up. Mostly, I can’t shake the sound of a guy laughing in the background. She might’ve been around friends. Is that better or worse? To get dumped in private like it was a long, agonizing decision? Or to get dropped while out for a good time?

Is he her study partner?

Why do I care?

Because I waited like an optimistic, proud-as-hell dumbass for four years so she could pursue her second PhD. I was just happy to be in her orbit. Now I’m not.

“Silas, another round,” Campbell calls.

I ignore the heat the sound of her voice sends curling through my veins. It’s frustration and heartbreak. Nothing more.

Campbell laughs and shimmies, the skirt of her loose dress swinging around her hips and tickling the tops of her cowboy boots.

That woman does not need another shot. She’s had four since she arrived.

I might want to go home and let her fuck around and find out, but my ass stays planted on my stool.

Someone has to be responsible, and as soon as I saw her tonight, I knew it wasn’t going to be her.

Silas steps in front of me to line up three shot glasses with scratched images of a cowboy boot on them. His weathered expression is impassive as he selects the tequila bottle Campbell’s group has been drinking from all night.

“You should water them down,” I say. “At least hers.” One of the women Campbell linked up with only sipped her last shot, then gave it to Campbell to down the rest.

Silas doesn’t have to ask who I mean. “She can hold her liquor.”

Another whoop in her dulcet tones rings out. I cock a brow at Silas, and he shrugs. As long as the cops aren’t called, he doesn’t care. He also isn’t worried about cutting customers off or taking keys from them. He wouldn’t twitch unless they drove drunk right into the bar.

Silas slides the little glasses toward the open spot next to me. “Got yer order, Campbell.”

I hunch over my whiskey on the rocks. The half-melted ice gives it the mellow flavor I prefer, bringing out the vanilla and smoothing over the bite, but I don’t take a drink. A cloud of tequila and the sweet floral scent of huckleberry blossoms surround me.

“Thanks, Silas.” Campbell tries to gather them all at once and fumbles, almost tipping one.

“Jesus,” I mutter.

She thumps against the counter, draping a little too far across it. “Got a problem, Durban?”

“I’m trying not to have one.”

Usually, she rolls her eyes when I call out her antics.

Ever since I’ve known the youngest Hawthorne sister, she’s been carefree, flitting through life on her daddy’s money and her sexy looks.

A smile and a giggle, and she got her way.

My oldest brother married her oldest sister five years ago, and they’re the reason I’m here.

Iverson and Jamison don’t need Campbell breezing into town and getting herself into trouble when Jamison is having some health concerns with her second pregnancy.

But there’s no eye roll. She’d probably get too dizzy. Defensiveness puffs her lips out. Is she trying to look tough? Or like a trout asking me to put it back in the water? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that maybe you should skip this round.”

“Durban knows best,” she mocks.

“Do I have to keep proving it over and over?” I should stop. This is only going to get her riled up, but I can’t help myself. I hold a finger up. “The day trip on the river after the wedding?” She was late, and our party of six lost their booking.

Guilt flashes in her eyes. “I told Jamison to go without me.”

I tick up another finger. “At the opening of the distillery, I told you to take a small sip, and you gulped it.” We practiced our tasting presentations on friends and family. She spewed a mouthful all over me and my youngest brother, Haven.

“I did take a small sip. It was, like, a hundred and forty proof!”

It was a cask-strength whiskey, but it was one of the last lines we served for tasting. The strongest was saved for the end when her palate should’ve been conditioned, had she listened. I add a third finger. “And then there’s Kacey’s dog.”

She glares at my offending digits. “I was told Coal would be a midsized dog.”

The rescue mutt puppy grew bigger than our niece by the time he was six months old. Coal ended up being a Labrador-and-Pyrenees mix. She’s a gorgeous, well-tempered dog, and also huge. “I’d hate to see what you think is large.”

“And I hate to be blamed when others lie to me.” Her glassy eyes flare, and she hiccups. She puts the back of her wrist against her mouth.

“Maybe skip that shot.”

She narrows her eyes and brings the little glass to her lips. She doesn’t throw it back. Instead, she slowly tips her head. Those lush lips of hers open, and the golden liquid flows into her mouth. She swallows without wincing, but the fight of her life is happening in her eyes.

“How’s that burn?” I ask smugly.

She inhales sharply, but it’s to cover a gasp. “Smooth,” she rasps. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to have a good time, and you’re a bit of a downer.”

I’ve heard I’m a distraction. “Sure.”

I riled her up, and I shouldn’t have. She’s going to retaliate and drink more.

She’s like that. Jamison tells her to slow down on horseback, and Campbell gallops faster.

Her daddy tells her to find a stable job, and she goes into event planning.

I tell her to sit down, and she dances around me—after she picks a song she thinks I won’t like.

She did that at her parents’ anniversary party a couple of years ago and asked the band to play “Barbie Girl.” Too bad for her, I know all the words.

I have a good memory, and the guys would play it during poker nights when I lived in the bunkhouse on Hawthorne Ranch, back in the days when I was nothing but a hired cowboy.

Now I’m a businessman and a distiller.

I take a sip of my whiskey, rolling the rich Foster House Gold over my tongue. This is one of my batches. I used locally grown corn and wheat, and we sell it as a special barrel line. One of the first made in Foster House’s new location, right here in Huckleberry Springs, Montana.

I understand a whole lot, Natalie. And I didn’t need school to do it. I didn’t have a chance to get one degree, much less the third or whatever she was on.

An hour ticks by. I scroll through my phone, making notes for new recipes and shoring up details for a meeting we have at Hawthorne Ranch tomorrow.

Campbell doesn’t return to the counter. Silas leaves me alone to nurse my whiskey.

People come and go. The ones I know toss me a wave and a few come over to chat—about the weather, the distillery, and my brother’s soon-to-be new arrival.

People I don’t recognize come and go. Tourist season is gearing up now that spring has officially hit Montana.

A few guys enter. I tense as they look for a seat and eye Campbell’s group. Seasonal workers. They could be in town to work at the Hawthorne Ranch, in which case, Campbell is very off-limits. Iverson learned that the hard way when he hooked up with Jamison, not knowing she was our boss’s daughter.

Campbell can do what she wants as far as I’m concerned, but she’s drunk. So those guys cannot do what their overly interested gazes say they want to do.

The cloud of huckleberry blossoms returns. “Silas,” she says in a singsong voice and kicks a hip out.

All I have to do is lean back, just a few inches, and I can see the way her ass pushes against her dress material. She’s got a purse strung across her body, and the strap only clamps the dress closer to her lush, round butt cheeks. Heat punches low, and my long-neglected dick wakes up.

Down, boy. I’m not interested. I’m just deprived.