Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Emerson
After Edna leaves, I hover by the edge of the bar.
How did I get roped into returning on Monday?
For a crochet club? I don’t want to ingratiate myself into any part of this town.
But then Edna could always get me to do things I swore I wouldn’t, like returning to class or not knocking out Macy Klein’s front teeth after she teased me about my too-small pants and shirt.
“You’ll hurt your hand and then it’ll get infected, Emerson,” Edna said. “You don’t want a rabies shot, do you?”
I smother a laugh at the memory.
Lane slaps a menu in front of the seat I’m closest to. “Sit.”
He rounds the bar to check on the couple in the corner.
I slide into the seat only because it’s easier to watch Lane out of the corner of my eye.
He’s relaxed when he’s chatting with them, open and friendly.
A perfect business owner. Watching him is like listening to someone in an interview who’s had media training versus someone who hasn’t.
The realization sinks in. He’s got manufactured charm. How much of my interaction with him has been genuine? I want to say all of it, but there’s something I can’t put my finger on. He’s holding back.
Yes. That’s it. Lane Foster is a restrained man.
I’ve known one of those before, and when he left himself go, he drowned himself in a nightly case of beer.
Lane isn’t Hutch, but that night I was in his office, he was just as careful not to share his personal life with me. I sensed it then, but it’s obvious now.
When the couple leaves, he flips the sign on the window.
I checked how late the tasting room was open. It’s not even time for last call. “I didn’t think you closed this early.”
“It’s close enough.” He returns to behind the bar. “What can I make you?”
He closed for me? No one else is in here, and no one’s driving in, but my first instinct is to feel special. I brush it off. No matter how much I want to be, I’m not special.
I purse my lips and spin on the stool to study the menu. I’m met with a variety of descriptive cocktails. “Who comes up with all these?”
“We all do. Cruz and I got a mixology certification years ago, shortly after Myles started teaching us the ropes. His wife, Wynter, taught us a lot too, but we did the course anyway.”
“Then pick one for me.” I push the menu away.
A glint enters his eye. The smallest smile curves his lips. He puts the menu away and opens the vodka he brought out for Edna. “By the way, the guys know about the trust and us. They’ll probably tell their wives. Other than that, the public will think this is real.”
“I guess that’s for the best.”
He nods. In a blender, he adds water, honey, and watermelon. He purees that and adds ice and the cucumber vodka to a shaker. The ice clatters against the metal as he shakes, then he strains it into a martini glass. To that, he adds a sprig of mint and a cucumber slice.
My mouth waters. I love cucumbers. They’re easy to grow. I haven’t had a garden since I was a kid, but I eat them all the time. I chew on them and slap some slices on my eyes after a long day in front of the computer.
I grab the glass and take a drink. His focus is on my mouth. My eyelids flutter when the sweet flavor hits my tongue. “Mmm.”
His pupils dilate. “Christ, Em.”
It’s the same look he got before he kissed me. The slippery glass threatens to drop right through my fingers. I set it down. My pulse goes haywire. “It’s good.”
He glances away for a moment before leaning into his hands on the counter. “How are your legs?”
“Tender, but a day of shopping helped loosen them up.” A massage would’ve done that too, but I was safer riding out the pain.
My nipples are hard just from the way he looks at me.
Need has ignited between my legs. If he flirts—at all—I will not walk out of here with dry underwear.
I’m more than my unruly hormones. They’ve gotten me into enough messes with guys, and once cost me my job. I’m not losing my heart.
I take another drink. More of a gulp, really. “So. You help run two distilleries, you ranch with your brother, and you bartend.”
“I can’t live off the tips I make here.”
“How much have you made tonight?”
He pulls over the tablet he was working on earlier. “Fifteen dollars and ten cents.”
“The ten cents is what puts you over the top. You should donate it.”
“We do.”
Likes dogs. Donates his tips. I haven’t seen him help someone across the street, but he’s probably done it. Unfortunately, not all good men make good partners. “That’s nice.”
He lifts a shoulder and starts cleaning up the dishes he used for my martini. “How was Billings?”
“Bougie.”
He barks out a laugh, and a flash of pride hits my veins like adrenaline. That laugh is honest. No games. I made him do that.
“Bourgeois. Yep, it’s gotten like that,” he says. “Did you go downtown?”
“Drove through it. Talk about a downtown revival.”
“We participate in a street fair there every year. It’s massive and we sell a lot.”
Does he need someone to advertise for that? I could use the work. It brings up another question. “I never understood what the point of Foster House Gold is. Just to do other things?”
“It’s for fun.”
I give him a flat look. “And for profit.”
“Of course. Can’t give back if we’re barely getting by.”
“So who does your marketing?” I didn’t see anyone referenced on their website.
“The team from Foster House, but Iverson and I do a lot. This stuff is mostly word of mouth, vendor booths, a real grassroots movement.”
They’re not after national distribution like Foster House. But it’s lucrative. Myles managed to launch two empires from barely nothing, and I lost a prebiotic soda account to an old coworker who decided to poach my prospects for his own.
I down the rest of my martini. Something’s been gnawing at me, and I have to ask. “You found Hutch?”
He nods, his expression unchanging.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” he says gruffly. “I’m sorry for how I brought it up. It wasn’t right.”
I deserved it. “He wasn’t just your neighbor. He was a friend.”
His smile is small. “I hate to say that it felt inevitable, but I’d been afraid something like that would happen.”
My lungs burn, and tears prod the backs of my eyes. I’m not going to cry. Lane said exactly what I felt. Inevitable. I just never thought about who’d be on the other side. “I’m glad no one else was hurt.”
“I was more worried about you and Brooks. Feelings can get conflicted and magnified when it comes to parents who . . . didn’t parent.”
“They’re complicated but simple at the same time.”
“I get that.” He grabs the empty glass in front of me. “Want another one?”
“Do you have a kink for waiting on me?” I need lighter conversation.
His hands go still. All of him does. Slowly, he raises his gaze to mine. “I don’t know. Want to find out?”
A choking sound escapes. This topic isn’t better. “You can’t do that.”
“Flirt with my wife?”
My exhale gusts out of me. “You might be used to fucking around, but I’m not.”
His jaw clenches once. “I don’t fuck around. At least I haven’t for a long time.”
I desperately need more information. “How long?”
He cleans off the counter. “Probably not since my early twenties. To be fair, I dated women who were as likely to key my car as empty my wallet. One memorized my credit card number and tried to buy herself a thousand dollars’ worth of lingerie.”
“Did you get to enjoy the lingerie?”
“No, it all got rejected. My limit back then wasn’t that high.”
My unexpected laughter fills the tasting room, and his smile softens.
“Well, I prefer to get to know a guy, have him lie to me for several months, and then fail to meet my expectations regardless. Oh, and it’s a bonus if he’s an old coworker, and he launches his own solo career by stealing my clients. ”
Fury fills his eyes. “Who the fuck did that?”
“He’s not worth your time. Or mine.”
“A lot of guys aren’t worth your time.”
“And a lot of girls aren’t worth your time.” To cover my surprise at what came out of my mouth, I take another drink. Why’d I say that? I don’t know him.
Only, he helped my dad and there couldn’t have been a lot in it for him.
Hutch had nothing worth stealing but land, and he left it to me and Brooks.
Even with the whole marriage mess, Lane’s getting nothing but a stranger in his house and more work.
So either the guy is a masochist, or he’s a decent person. A nice guy with a big heart.
Those types of guys are so far out of my league.
“There’s only one girl whose time I’m interested in.” He grabs a clean highball glass. “What do you want to try next?”
My head spins at the turn. Does he mean me?
How interested? I want to try him next. Take a nice big gulp of Lane Foster.
I clear my throat before I can surf over the bar, grab his collar, and stick my tongue down his throat.
He’s said some of the nicest shit, and I’m in no place to hear it.
No, I refuse to hear it. I’m in Huckleberry Springs, in a marriage I didn’t plan or want, and this guy is telling me things that blur the line between fake and real.
“I have to pass or I won’t be able to drive.” I slide off the stool. A remaining twinge of pain fires in each calf.
His eyes narrow at my wince. “I might have a heating pad in one of the closets.”
“You want me to rummage through your stuff while you’re not there?”
“I’ve got nothing to hide.”
I bark out a cynical laugh. “I’ve heard that before.”
Lane
The next morning, when I return from chores, the smell of toast hangs in the air and the bathroom door in the hallway is closed.
I force myself to walk past it before I do something stupid like inhale the lily vanilla scent escaping the confines.
I had that smell on me before. After I kissed her that night.
It was just one reason of many why I couldn’t get her off my mind.
How upset is she going to be when she learns I’m off today?
I usually stop in at the distillery anyway, but the lure to stick close to Emerson won’t leave me.