Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Cruz
The crafters fair in Billings is set up over two downtown blocks. Local businesses remain open, using the sidewalk as an extension for their booths, and tents line the middle of the street so people can mill down both sides and shop.
It’s packed in the best way. Lane will swing by and help during the busy midday hours, but Haven and I will tackle the whole fair. That way, Lane can work on Elodie’s car.
As for Elodie, she’s in her element. Her dark hair in a messy bun, wearing a big yellow Dee’s Sweets shirt with two cupcakes on the front, she’s all business but in a competent baker way that appeals to people.
When she smiles and pushes her glasses up her nose, she charms anyone who’s talking to her even more.
I’ve only spied on her twice since the fair started. Once, when I grabbed a bite from a taco food truck, and again when I ran to meet Lane for a case of gin we’d left behind.
Our booth is a block away from Dee’s Sweets, but we have plenty of customers stopping by, telling us they have to try our stuff after the sample they had at Elodie’s booth. They make it sound like she talked us up more than she did her own products. We’re doing the same for her.
Haven pours a sip of juneberry vodka for one of the many people who’ve been by the booth. This has been one of the best fairs we’ve sold at to date, and Lane is already planning another run of vodka and gin. Those are a hot commodity in the summer.
“Tell me how that is on the palate.” I hand two ladies each a sample of our cask-strength wheat whiskey.
One of the women smiles at me, and I know everything she’s inviting in that grin. Her dark hair is in two braids, one over each shoulder, and she has on an itty-bitty camisole top and shorts that show off amazing, bronzed legs. Once upon a time, I’d have taken that invite.
Now, all I care about is figuring out how to get to know a prickly baker who’s the most bizarre mix of lukewarm and frigid, yet my brain is hanging on those tepid signs for all they’re worth.
The second woman sputters, and the first laughs at her and looks at me, but my attention is yanked away. Behind them, Clem and Elodie are wandering, each with a plate of food.
“Hey, Palmers,” I call. Elodie slides her gaze toward mine, keeping her fork poised over the last chunk of her nachos.
Clem waves her plastic fork in the air. “Hey, boss.”
“Wanna have a tasting?” I ask, aware I’m ignoring two possible customers in front of me. Damn. I still gotta work. “Haven, you mind taking over for me? Excuse me,” I say to them.
Without missing a beat, Haven switches places with me and starts chatting with the women so seamlessly they don’t have time to get irritated that I ditched them.
Clem comes over. “What goes with nachos?”
Elodie hovers behind her and glances over our selection, her eyes narrowed like she’s studying and designing recipes that would go with each spirit.
“I’ve got a few that could be considered desserts,” I say.
Clem gestures to the lineup with her fork. “I’ve gotten to taste everything. I’ll go back and see how Kinley’s doing, El. You stay.”
Elodie’s eyes go wide. “Oh, I shouldn’t.”
Clem rolls her eyes. “Of course you should. This is your first break all weekend and only because I made you.” She bumps her sister’s arm with her elbow. “I don’t have to be at the library booth until one. Take your time. It’s fun. Let me take that.”
She grabs for Elodie’s plate, and Elodie scrambles to save her last bite. I fight back a grin. Clem doesn’t manipulate. She bulldozes. She has the power only a sibling possesses to get Elodie to do what she wants.
“Byeee.” Clem rushes off.
Elodie brushes off her fingers and finishes chewing. “So,” she says, crinkling her nose like she’s trying to shift her glasses up her nose. She wipes at the corners of her mouth. “What should I try?”
“Of the spirits we gave you, which was your favorite?”
“The huckleberry vodka.”
I take out a juneberry vodka, a ninety-proof whiskey with strong notes of cherry and vanilla, and a rhubarb-infused gin. “We’ve got our own patch of rhubarb growing behind the distillery.”
Her soft smile is the biggest one I’ve seen yet, other than when I made her laugh earlier. “My parents raise rhubarb for me. I saved the patch from weeds when I was over there.”
“One time, I thought I killed Mae’s fifty-year-old rhubarb plant when I replanted it. I kept trying to snap off a part to plant, hoping she wouldn’t notice. Turned out I accidentally grew three more.”
Her laughter is another win, but I restrain the force of my smile. I haven’t shared this with anyone. I’ve never talked about my time with Mae with other women, and I don’t want Elodie thinking I’m being anything more than real.
Her smile falters, and she chooses the juneberry vodka.
After she drinks the small amount, her eyes go distant.
She smacks her lips together. “I can tell the difference between that and the huckleberry. Huckleberry tastes sugary-er, not just sweeter.” Her cheeks flush. “That probably doesn’t make sense.”
“To a guy who peddles fermented and distilled carbs, it absolutely does.” I slide a bigger plastic cup of water toward her. She takes a drink and then samples the rhubarb gin.
“Oh.” She puts her finger to her lips. “I never thought I was a gin girl.”
“It can be like Windex, or it can be a really smooth spirit to relax with, depending on who makes it. Fosters and Hennessys don’t make window cleaner. But you can scrub your glass with it too.”
She laughs again, catches my gaze, and looks away.
Damn, did I sound like I was coming on to her again?
I’m trying really hard to . . . not be me.
That should be a red flag, but if I’m the type of guy someone jaded like Elodie can trust .
. . I’ll call that a win. After all, there was a time no one could trust me.
She takes another gulp of water and then downs the scant amount of whiskey we serve for tastings. She smacks her lips together. “That’s not bad.”
“You don’t like it.”
“No, it’s good.” She’s aloof again. I’m not getting the real Elodie, and we’ve come too damn far to backpedal over a tasting.
“You don’t want me to lie to you,” I say, only loud enough for her to hear, “so don’t lie to me. It’s an oatmeal raisin cookie for you?”
She nods shyly.
“That’s the fun of the tasting. You never know what you’re gonna like or dislike.”
“You picked it for me to try.”
And she was afraid to hurt my feelings? I shrug to make it seem like I’m nonchalant when I’m actually touched. “I help a lot of people with their selections. It’s part of the job.”
Her expression falls, and she tosses her sample cups in the garbage bin we keep handy for them. “Whiskey isn’t usually my thing. Thank you though. Thank you for this.”
She’s sincere, but she’s also rushing off. Was it something I said? All I know is that it’s me.
Haven crosses to me just as she’s stepping away. “Hey, Elodie. You mind riding home with Cruz tomorrow? Lane and I need to take the trailer to grab an order from the warehouse while we’re in town. Your stuff should fit in Cruz’s pickup.”
“You mind?” she asks almost cautiously.
Do I mind spending more than an hour in the car with her?
Fuck yes. It’ll either be an hour of complete, stony silence and I’ll lose the urge to continue my dogged pursuit.
Or she’ll crack and tell me that I’m her dream man, everything she wants, and she can’t stay away anymore.
It’s a good thing I’m not a betting man. “It’s fine with me.”
“Thanks,” she says, and I still can’t get a read on her. “Any of my treats left over go with you guys though. It’s the least I can do.”
Haven snorts. “I’m not going to argue.”
The corner of her mouth twitches up before she walks away. Her long, sunny skirt swishes with each step.
Haven’s stare bores into me. “Do you want to go with Lane tomorrow instead?”
“No,” I say quickly. “Why?”
“You don’t seem to like Elodie.”
“I like her just fine, but she seems to think I’m some sort of player or something. I’m trying to act trustworthy, and I fuck up every time.”
He cocks up a dark brow. “She’s been like that for as long as I’ve known her. She came home to open the bakery, but she’s never even told Clem what she did in the years she was away.” He rolls a shoulder. “The baker’s got a story.”
I nod. My story isn’t a secret, but not many people know it.
Even fewer know about what I was like before I was nineteen.
To everyone in Huckleberry Springs, I’m part owner of Foster House Gold and I ranch with my brother.
When I lived in Bourbon Canyon, I was one of the two Foster brothers working for Mae.
We were too old to be foster kids, but she brought us in like family.
No one in Huckleberry Springs knows I wasn’t born and raised to do chores in the morning and evening, calve in the spring, and work cattle in the fall.
I owe both my brothers and the Baileys for not being a giant fuckup anymore. No way Elodie went through the type of shit I experienced growing up, not with her folks, but I can understand not bringing up the past. I also get being cynical because of it.
Whatever Elodie’s baggage is, it’s heavy. It’s a good thing I’m a strong guy.
Elodie
If I had a Cruz every time I broke down my booth after an event, I would do more of them.
He hauled everything and was careful not to bang tables or scratch display cases.
All my boxes and equipment are safely stashed in the bed of his pickup, and he even nestled the boxes of extra cupcakes and cake pops in his back seat so they wouldn’t get jostled around.
Now we’re driving back to Huckleberry Springs.
“It was a good weekend,” he says.
My weekend is when I’m closed on Mondays, and even then, I’m in the bakery or doing admin work.
“Yeah, it was great.” I almost wince at my wooden tone.