Chapter 7 #2
She’s like the mare I have in the pasture. When I first got her, she was skittish, wanting to be included in the world of the other horses, but not trusting it. When approached, she’d hightail it to the far side of the enclosure.
Hunger cramps my stomach, reminding me of breakfast. Emerson might’ve eaten already, but I’m starving.
I hear her emerge, but I don’t turn. If I look too excited to see her, she’ll avoid me even more than she already does. Yet she came to the tasting room last night. There was no reason for that, and we both know it.
I wanted to get her in for a tour. She claimed to have taken one at the Denver facility already, but I want to show her Foster House Gold.
The main site is all Myles’s hard work. The Huckleberry Springs distillery is my baby.
Mine and the other guys I run it with, but Myles stepped back to let me take lead. I have a stake in it too.
“I’m going to work at the kitchen table,” she says from behind me, her rich voice rolling over my skin. My body heats and desire expands, an ever-present nuisance these days. I haven’t been able to shake this need inside me since she first walked into my office.
When I turn, I almost swallow my tongue. Blue jeans mold over muscular thighs, and if she turns, the sight of her ass might give me a coronary. Is it tight and round? A heart shape? Perfect for my palms? Her Ariat shirt clings to her curves and pools at her hips.
She’s fire in her work skirts and blouses, but this is my second time seeing her in jeans. They make her approachable, something she would very much hate hearing.
When she cocks an eyebrow, I start. I’m staring. I’m probably leering. “I have an office.”
Her brows crash together. “Here?”
I almost chuckle, but she might take it the wrong way and assume I’m laughing at her or boasting about the size of my house.
Instead, it’s her resistance—to me and everything to do with me.
It’s her second night under my roof, and she hasn’t been beyond that bedroom of hers.
“The last room on the right. I also have an office in the shop and one at the distillery. Take your pick.”
Her eyes widen with each choice I rattle off. “The barn doesn’t get one?”
“I’d never get any work done with the cats. I’d have one on my lap, another on my keyboard, and probably a third knocking my coffee over.”
Her laughter chimes through my house and my chest constricts. It sounds so damn right, and without her here, the memory is only going to make my place seem emptier. “I’m fine in the kitchen.”
“All right.” Frustrating woman. “Take what you need from the office.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll steal state secrets and sell them to your competitors?”
“Foster House would do it better no matter what.”
Instead of smirking, interest fills her hazel eyes. “Indeed?”
“Indeed,” I confirm. “Our attention to detail and understanding of flavor profiles are what set us apart. We let the materials tell us what kind of spirit to make. That cucumber from your drink last night?” She nods. “Those are from Mae’s garden.”
“Mae Bailey?”
Fondness fills me. “Yes. She said it’d be a good year for cucumbers last year, so she planted a ton. When she joked that she might have to leave them in random cars to get rid of them, I said we’d take them. They make an excellent infusion for our vodka.”
“You’re proud of that.”
“Yes.”
She studies me for a moment before setting her laptop on the table. “Myles is open about fostering with the Baileys. Are you close to her because of him?”
I owe Myles for everything I have. “Yes. Want some eggs?”
Her lips turn down. Is it the subject change? “Do you make them every morning?”
“They’re Ethel’s. Or what I have left of Ethel’s eggs.”
“Is that why you agreed to the marriage? To keep getting Ethel’s eggs? My brother said they’re the best ones he’s had in years.”
I groan, only half-pretending at dismay. “I’m never going to experience her yolks again.”
“I’m afraid not. Hillary doesn’t like a big variety for breakfast, and for some reason, she loves a hard-boiled egg with avocado toast. Brooks jokes that he’s raising a millennial.”
I smile at the open way she shares what she loves about her niece. It’s one of the few times she’s open with me. “As long as the eggs are given the appreciation they deserve.”
“She’ll enjoy them. Why don’t you have chickens?”
I take out the bacon and eggs. I’ll take a chance and make extra.
If I ask again, I might scare her away, but if they’re there, she might join me.
“I’m away too much. Cruz would feed them for me, and he’d get some of the eggs and meat of course, but life is finally slowing down, and I didn’t want to keep adding more.
Now he and Elodie have their own chickens.
Which brings me to your question about Mae. ”
“Oh. Right.”
I bite back my smile when surprise flits through her expression. She thought I was avoiding the topic like her, but I’ll talk about the Baileys all day long.
“Mae took me and Cruz under her wing the first time she met us.” I talk as I prep our breakfast, enjoying the company. “We were grown-ass men too, and I even had a job. But I gave it up quickly once I saw what I could learn from Myles and the Baileys.”
“Doesn’t she have, like, seven kids?”
I nod. “Three boys and four girls.”
“And the girls started as foster kids?”
Myles and Wynter are both pretty open with their histories.
Then there’s Wynter’s sister Junie, who’s a country singer.
Their family history is well known, thanks to them.
“Yes. They were adopted shortly after Myles left. The Hennessys fostered with her too. That’s how Myles found them. He wanted to buy the old mine.”
“And he did?”
“In a roundabout way. The guys sold only the mine and used the profits to reinvest. Cruz and I invested. That place is all of ours.”
“What a great legacy.” Her gaze shifts to the window of the sliding door that faces the trees that line her dad’s place, or rather, Brooks’s place. Technically hers for a little longer.
“I’d be nowhere without connections.”
A divot forms between her brows and vanishes just as fast. She doesn’t like that comment. Because she doesn’t feel like she has a network?
“So Mae put me and Cruz to work. We learned about cattle, equipment, and then distilling. Mostly, we learned about hard work and what it’s like to have townsfolk embrace us instead of looking at us sideways.”
“Why would they do that?”
I look up in time to catch her raking her gaze up and down my body. Another smile I have to hold back. The bacon sizzles, and I whip the eggs, keeping it simple. If I take too long, she might decide that locking herself in my home office is just fine.
“Believe it or not, we weren’t always upstanding citizens. I wasn’t that rebellious, but I didn’t have a lot of fucks to give. I worked and paid bills and assumed it was us against the world. Then I met my brother.”
She lets out a delicate snort and opens her laptop. “Hutch would say you got lucky.”
“I don’t believe in luck.”
“Me either.” She closes her computer before it fires up.
“You know, I’ve always wondered why they called getting laid ‘getting lucky.’ As if women—and guys—don’t peacock.
As if we don’t dress to impress, wear our hair and makeup just so, as if we don’t spend hours figuring out our partner.
At my last job, I landed a cupcake account the firm had been hitting up for a while.
I studied her business, tried all her cupcakes, even the gluten-free ones, and then I asked her what her company meant to her.
No one had asked her that before. I got lucky.
” Her nostrils flare. “It’s a lot of work to get lucky. I’m resourceful. I’m scrappy.”
I study her. She’s taken hits to her personal life, and she keeps her head down and keeps going. But she’ll work her ass off while doing it. “I can see it, Scrappy.”
She makes a choking sound. “You can’t call me that. Scrappy’s an annoying dog in a kid’s cartoon.”
I click my tongue against my teeth. “Wrong again, Scrappy. Adults watch that show.”
“Adults like my brother. He says it’s because Hillary likes Scooby and Shaggy.” She returns my scrutiny. “You’re telling me that you watch cartoons?”
“Depends. I’ll turn the TV on when I’m working in the shop to have some background noise.” I slide the bacon out of the pan and start on the eggs. The hiss of them hitting the pan fills the air. “That’s where I’ll be today.”
“Do you have a third job in the shop?”
I let out a small laugh. “No. That’s for fun.”
Pushing the eggs around, I don’t elaborate. I’m not ready to talk about what’s in the shop yet. I’m not as open as Myles, but I’m not secretive. Still, there’s something in there I’m working on that might make her swoon—or piss her off.