Chapter 19
19
Ethan watched Delaney carry his angelic little goddaughter to a table where a boisterous group of women greeted Delaney like a celebrity. She wore a sheathlike dress that was both simple and sexy. The way it draped over her curves made a familiar ache stir low in Ethan’s stomach.
“Triple black Indian pale...” Todd’s voice brought Ethan’s attention back just as his friend lifted his glass and gazed at the dark, clear liquid. “Man, you went all out. This has to take a shitload of work to get right.”
“I didn’t want to bring a triple.” Ethan’s attention returned to Delaney, his fingers tingling to comb through her soft waves. “But Drew insisted.”
“It was worth it,” Caleb said.
Caleb and Todd continued talking, but Ethan was lost in Delaney’s smile, her laughter, her easy, animated conversation. She looked so happy. So comfortable. So at home.
“Would you stop staring at her?” Caleb’s hushed rasp prickled down Ethan’s spine and drew his gaze. Todd had peeled off and was now talking with other friends in another group. “You’re infatuation isn’t going to stay much of a secret if you drool every time she walks in the room.”
“I’m drooling?” Ethan ran the back of his hand over his mouth with a smart-ass grin. “Thanks for telling me, bro.”
When he returned his gaze to Delaney, Caleb tried pulling it back with, “This is amazing beer.”
“Pops’s new crop.” Ethan answered without looking at Caleb. He was proud of the new brew, but now his mind was barely half-interested. “Named it Magic. It’s got a real punch. This triple measured eighteen percent alcohol.”
“No way.”
Ethan lifted his brow and nodded. “Way.”
“Holy shit.”
Ethan smiled.
Delaney settled Hunter on her lap at the table and pulled a piece of paper and a plastic cup of crayons in front of her. And once she had Hunter entertained, Delaney lifted her head and pushed her hair off her face with a casual glance around.
Like a magnet, her eyes found his and held. Excitement. Affection. Lust. He felt every flash of emotion in her eyes click deep in his chest. A smile flashed on her lips a moment before realization hit—the realization that she couldn’t...shouldn’t...want him—and her expression dimmed. Then she looked away.
“I knew some people would like the idea of having the bar renovated,” Ethan said, trying to smother the tangle of loss. “But I didn’t expect everyone to treat her like royalty.”
“She’s been quite the topic of conversation,” Caleb said. “No one can stop talking about how she’s using local businesses to fuel the renovation. She’s pumping money all over town, and winning a lot of friends for it. She’s either providing business to someone here tonight or to someone who loves or depends on someone here tonight. She’s also offering labor jobs to people in town and paying above minimum wage.
“After everything she’s been through, she doesn’t owe this town anything, and she could have gotten lower prices from the big guys half an hour away. But she’s keeping it all local. If she’s trying to change her image or people’s minds, I’d say she’s succeeding.”
“I don’t think she’s trying to do anything,” Ethan said. “I’m pretty sure that’s just who she is, just how she does business.”
Ethan didn’t want to be impressed. Didn’t want to be touched. He wanted to be able to find something to dislike about her, because evidently the way she’d stepped in and cut the throat on his dreams wasn’t enough to quench his attraction.
“Would you stop?” Caleb muttered, moving in front of Ethan. “There. Now at least it will look like you’re talking to me while you’re ogling her.”
“I’m not ogling.”
“The hell you aren’t. When you can have any woman you want, why go after the one woman who will cause you the most headaches? Sleeping with her is professional and personal suicide.”
Ethan frowned at him. “You’re not usually so melodramatic.”
“Before you go thinking a casual fling with her is no big deal,” he said, glancing around and lowering his voice, “you should know I’ve also heard a little about why she left Pacific Coast. Jeff Miller’s oldest brother manages one of their bottling plants in Los Angeles.”
Ethan’s mind darted back to that night at The Bad Seed when he’d asked her why she’d quit and she’d pointedly avoided answering.
“You know how it’s owned by seven brothers?” Caleb went on. “Well the seventh brother has been living in Europe for about ten years. France. Got in some kind of trouble over there. Jeff said the company scuttle was drugs and embezzling. In any case, the story is that he came here to let the heat die down.”
“People usually leave the United States to avoid trouble.”
“I don’t know about that. But his wife is French and stayed in France with their two kids to tie up loose ends, sell property, that sort of thing, before she came here. He has a degree in architectural engineering, so the family put him to work in the construction arm of the company, which made him Delaney’s boss.”
Ethan didn’t like the direction this was taking. And he didn’t like the fact that the information was so diluted from the original source either. He looked past Caleb to Delaney; she was laughing with Hunter, and the knot inside him pulled tighter.
“Jeff’s brother said there were a lot of late nights between the two at construction sites and long trips searching out acquisition locations, and that it was a foregone conclusion within the company that he and Delaney were having an affair.”
The knot lifted to Ethan’s throat. But he didn’t know why. Even if it was true, it happened before he and Delaney hooked up.
Key words: hooked up.
Why did he have to keep reminding himself of that?
“And when the wife finally came to the States with the kids, and the husband tried to break it off with Delaney, she got pissed and used their relationship to blackmail him into a promotion and a raise. And when he wouldn’t leave his wife for her in the end, and the shit hit the fan, she was offered the option of getting fired or resigning.”
Whoa. Ethan frowned. Caleb might have had Ethan up to the end, but...he shook his head. “That’s not her style. She broke it off with me when she turned in the final application because our involvement was a conflict of interest for me.”
“At least one of you has some common sense.” Caleb shrugged. “I’m just telling you what I heard. And if you weren’t such a sucker for manipulation, I wouldn’t even bring it up. But you are blind to half of your family’s attempts to manipulate you, and you shrug off the rest. You’ve slept with Delaney, and she knows that will be a problem for your family, a family that includes three public servants—the mayor, a deputy, and the town building inspector and planner.
“And she’s now renovating a property that’s going to be worth millions of dollars. You do the math. What better recipe would there be to getting what she wanted, the way she wanted it in this situation than blackmail? You’ve got to admit, you are the easiest target in the family.”
Ethan wasn’t going to admit anything—at least not out loud. But inside, his confidence and self-worth were taking some pretty hard hits.
“With that said,” Caleb went on, “I agree with you. I don’t think that’s Delaney’s MO. I don’t think she’s out to hurt or manipulate anyone. But nor would it be the first time I misread a woman. And you’ve got too much riding on this to risk it all on a guess. As your friend, I feel the need to stick toothpicks in your eyelids to keep them open where Delaney’s concerned.”
“Hey, guys.” Shannon stepped up to them and slipped her arm through her husband’s, snuggling as close as her six-months-pregnant belly would allow. “What about Delaney? Her name seems to be on everyone’s lips tonight. Doesn’t she look cute with Hunter? I see a date-night babysitter in our future if we can get her to stay in town.”
Caleb covered Shannon’s hand and leaned in to kiss her temple. “Good plan.”
“Are you going to be able to work with her, Ethan?” Shannon asked. “It’s really a shame your family’s still holding a grudge after so many years.”
“It is a shame,” he said. “And, yes, I’ll be able to work with her.”
“You’re a good man.” She patted his chest. “And she deserves some good after all the bad this place has put her through. Hey, I’m going to steal my husband for a bit.” To Caleb she said, “There’s a rep here from Francis Ford Coppola Winery. He wants to talk to us about carrying their line.”
Caleb leaned back and looked at his wife squarely. “Where’d he come from?”
She smiled and tilted her head. “I invited him.”
Caleb’s face broke into a grin. He wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulled her close. “I hope our kid gets your brains.”
She laughed and led him off through the crowd.
This was a good time to leave. Ethan was more unsettled than ever. Felt more volatile than ever. He knew he should go over and say hello to Shiloh, should go give Hunter a kiss. Would if the situation were different.
But it wasn’t. So he’d just have to make it up to them another time, because getting close to Delaney right now felt dangerous for Ethan. As though he’d be impulsive. As if he wouldn’t be able to control those impulses.
And as he set down his water on the nearest serving tray, he couldn’t help but wonder if that was what had happened for the other guy. The married guy. Too much time around Delaney. Too much of a temptation. Too much of a good thing there for the taking too often.
And he hated the idea that she’d slept with a married man. Considering all the guys she’d dated in her youth—the hard-living, weapon-carrying, drug-dealing, motorcycle-riding type—sleeping with a married man shouldn’t be such a stretch for him to imagine.
But somehow...it was. Somehow, he saw so much more below her surface. A whole different person than the shallow, callous woman people would expect given the speed of her prior life.
And he couldn’t keep himself from taking one last look at Delaney before heading for the exit. Nor could he keep himself from wondering if his decades-long infatuation with her had blinded him to a far smoother method of manipulation than he’d experienced with his family.
He found her listening intently to something Shiloh was saying, one hand wrapped loosely around Hunter’s waist, the other curling one of Hunter’s soft ringlets around her index finger. And for the life of him, Ethan didn’t understand the sweet longing that sight created inside him.
“Lookin’ for you.”
His grandfather’s rough voice cut into Ethan’s unease and pulled his gaze around. “Hey, Pops. Didn’t know you were coming.” He slipped his thumbs into his front belt loops. “I’ve got a triple black Indian pale IPA here I made with your Magic hops. You ought to try it before it’s gone.”
“I’ll do that,” he said in a way that was meant to get Ethan off the subject, and Ethan could tell whatever his grandfather had on his mind was serious. “All anyone’s talking about since I got here is Delaney and everything she’s doin’ for the community with the renovation.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“People are split down the middle on whether they’re for or against it, but that don’t matter. All that matters is she’s serious about going ahead with it, and that means our plans for Wildcard have to stop.”
“What? Why?”
“What the hell do you mean why? Why do you think? She’s going to keep that liquor license. We can build and develop and sink as much money as we want into the pub, but without a license, we ain’t opening no doors. We ain’t makin’ no money. You ain’t quittin’ no job, and I ain’t hangin’ up no hoe. I know how bad you want this, boy, but I’m your voice of reason here. Stop. Step back. And you’ll see this ain’t the right time to open Wildcard.”
Shock mingled with bone-deep hurt and wicked frustration. Ethan planted his hands on his hips, blew out a breath, and turned his gaze to the floor. He reeled in tendrils of panic as he tried to get a hold on the situation.
“Look, I know Delaney’s plans threw a wrench into ours, but it’s not over. I don’t care what kind of experience she has—she’s in way over her head with that bar.”
“And I think you’re underestimating her. She reminds me a lot of your grandma, that one.” His focus drifted toward Delaney, then went distant in the hollowed-out way it always did when Pops thought of his late wife. “Isn’t that little Hunter? She sure is growin’ up fast, ain’t she?”
Pops looked back at Ethan with pain lingering in his eyes, a mix of physical and emotional pain. “Stop worrying about the things that don’t matter, Ethan, and start paying attention to the things that do. Like the people you love. Maybe this is a sign that you should stop trying to please everyone else and stop to take the time to take care of yourself for a change.”
He gestured toward Delaney and Hunter’s table. “Now go give that girl a kiss, would you?”
He turned and hobbled through the crowd while Ethan was temporarily confused into silence trying to figure out if he’d meant give Delaney a kiss or Hunter a kiss.
“Pops,” Ethan called after him, but it was too crowded and the determination he’d seen in his grandfather’s eyes had been too deep.
Ethan’s shoulders sagged. As if things couldn’t get worse? Now his partner wanted to put things on hold? The very partner who needed this brewery to go through the most?
“Goddammit.” He leaned his shoulder against the wall and closed his eyes, rubbing at the burn of fatigue. He’d worked so hard for this.
So has Delaney.
Pops needed this so desperately.
So does Delaney.
“Shit.” He dropped his hand and looked her way again, suddenly as exhausted as if all last year’s work had hit him all at once.
And he found Trace Hutton standing behind her, his hands braced on the back of her chair in what looked to Ethan like a possessive stance as he talked with the group.
A completely foreign and maddening jealousy erupted inside him like flash fire. His chest constricted, hands fisted. A protective instinct piggybacked onto that jealousy.
Trace’s problems had the potential to sink Delaney. So many things could go wrong by taking on Trace as her contractor—from him screwing up the job and costing her money to him doing or selling drugs on-site and implicating Delaney in criminal activity.
And he couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.
But even if he could, he wouldn’t know what to do, because he didn’t understand jealousy. Didn’t know how to handle it or what to do with it. Maybe this wasn’t as much jealousy as it was suspicion. Caleb’s comments burned in Ethan’s head. Tales of Delaney’s affair, of her manipulation of power, led him to wonder if that was exactly why she’d jumped into bed with him, and why she might hook up with Trace now.
And in the next second, he couldn’t believe he was thinking such ridiculous, immature, weak thoughts. Yet he had to admit, all the information considered together pried his mind open to a possibility he didn’t want to believe, one that pointed to his relationship with Delaney as just one piece in her big manipulative game. A game that could net her millions.
And cost Ethan his dreams.
But that was insane. His heart kept insisting it couldn’t be true. That she didn’t have it in her. Yet how well did he really know her?
He should just let it go. He should just turn around and walk out. Let Delaney make her own mistakes. Bide his time and be ready to swoop when Trace screwed up Delaney’s renovation and she found herself in dire straits. By then he could probably scrape together enough to buy the liquor license. By then she’d probably be desperate to sell it.
Business sense told him to get his feet moving toward the door. But his heart told him to stay. And just like it always did where Delaney was concerned, his heart won out.
He started toward her, glad he’d stuck with water tonight instead of drinking his own brew, leaving him clearheaded enough to tuck under all his ragged corners. To remember that she didn’t belong to him. To remember that she didn’t owe him anything. And that he wanted it that way.
As he neared, he heard Shiloh say, “I’m thinking of going with laminate floors so I can afford a Carrera marble vanity.”
“Carrera,” Trace said with a lift of his brows. “You have always had champagne taste.”
“True,” Shiloh said, then leaned close and whispered something in Delaney’s ear that made her laugh in that low, sexy way she had just before she’d done something naughty to Ethan in bed. The memory shot sparks along his spine and jealousy through his stomach, sure Shiloh had just made a comment about Trace.
“What’s Carrera marble?” Hunter’s voice dragged Ethan from the dark, jagged thoughts.
“It’s a very beautiful, very expensive type of stone,” Delaney told her.
Ethan pushed himself forward as Hunter turned to her mother. “Princesses have expensive things, Mommy. Can Delaney use Carrera marble for my princess bed?”
“Look at that.” Trace barked a laugh. “She’s a mini version of you.”
Shiloh smoothed her thumb over Hunter’s round cheek. “Sweetie, there are certain things queens always get before princesses, like platinum, diamonds, Carrera marble...”
Ethan stepped up to the table. “That doesn’t sound very fair.”
Everyone at the table looked up, but Ethan held Delaney’s gaze for a long moment before returning greetings from others and satisfying Hunter’s demand to be picked up. He lifted her from Delaney’s lap and swung the little girl to his shoulders.
She squealed with glee, and her little hands gripped the sides of his face as she grinned down at him. “Uncle Ethan, Delaney’s gonna build me a princess bed. Look, look!”
Delaney smirked and lifted the crayon drawing showing crisp architectural strokes around crude five-year-old scribble. Ethan pushed the edge of his mouth into a smile, but shadows of doubt swam in his head.
Still, he told Hunter, “Wow. That’s pretty special.”
“And she’s gonna build my mommy a bathroom with Carrera marble.”
Delaney’s throaty laugh spilled desire through Ethan’s groin. “I don’t know about that.”
Ethan settled his gaze on Trace and released one of Hunter’s legs to offer his hand. “Hey, Trace.”
“Ethan.” His gaze was open and sincere. “You and I have had a good relationship in the past. I hope we’ll be able to work together on Delaney’s project without any problems.”
“As long as you build to code,” he said, turning his gaze on Delaney, “we’ll work together just fine.”
Her gaze jumped left, and her expression shifted. Ethan caught sight of movement in that direction, but before he could look to see who or what had caught her attention, Trace spoke to Delaney.
“We should go over the plans before I fall asleep on my feet.” He pulled out Delaney’s chair, and she stood.
Ethan glanced toward the opening that fed the back room and found Austin strolling in. He was in street clothes, but his sharp eyes were on Delaney—and his expression exposed a very familiar internal fury that Ethan had seen too often in his father’s eyes.
He shot Ethan a look of accusation and lifted his chin in a silent “What the hell?”
“I’m pretty beat after all that demolition,” Trace said, then tilted his head, his gaze on Delaney’s arm. “Hey, when did you get those?”
Ethan looked at her bicep and the fading bruises his father had imprinted on Delaney’s skin just before she rubbed her other hand over them. His stomach squeezed with guilt, with sickness. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to get as far away from him and his family as possible. In fact, he should be pushing her away instead of trying to hold on.
Her dark-blue eyes touched on Ethan for the flicker of a second before sweeping past to rest on Trace. “Pulling down the ceiling yesterday. I took a few good hits. I’m tired, too. Let’s look at the plans and call it a day.”
“They’re in the truck.”
“That’s fine. There are way too many eyes in here.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Delaney,” Ethan said before she walked off. She turned, guarded, her body tense. It was the demeanor she’d used to face his father and brother, and that both hurt and angered Ethan. He swung Hunter off his shoulders and returned her to her drawing. “Can I have a minute?”
Before she could answer, Trace said, “Take your time. I’ve got to dig the plans out from beneath a pile of tools. It will take me a few.”
“I’ll be right there,” she told Trace. To Ethan, she said, “Outside.” Then she followed Trace out the front door.
When Trace turned left, Delaney stepped off to the right. Ethan curled her hand in his and pulled her farther from the entrance.
“Ethan . . .”
He stepped into an alley between buildings and held on to her hand as he faced her. All he wanted to do was pull her close and kiss her. Was dying to feel her pressed against him, her hands pulling at his clothes, her mouth open, her tongue hungry. He wanted to feel her wanting him, not pushing away like she was now.
“There’s too many people here,” she said, her gaze darting over her shoulder.
Ethan put a hand against her cheek and pulled her back to him. “Why did you quit your job?”
“What?” She frowned hard. Leaned back as if the question offended her. “Where did that come from?”
“Were you having an affair with your boss?”
A combination of anger and hurt washed out the confusion in her expression. “What difference does that make?”
“It makes a difference if you used the affair to get benefits in the job.”
Her lips parted. Surprise flashed in her eyes, but it almost instantly turned to anger. “Really? Is this a question you really need me to answer? Because I think I’ve already answered what you really want to know half a dozen times over the past two weeks.”
She pulled her hand away, crossed her arms, and stepped back. “If you can’t see that, then you’re not looking. And the fact that you even asked tells me nothing I say would satisfy you.”
Delaney turned and strode out of the alley.
And Ethan found himself as trapped as he’d always been—by his family, by the town, but mostly by his own limitations, his own fears, and his own shortcomings.
He dropped back against the brick wall of Black Jack’s, squeezed his eyes shut, and pressed one fist to his forehead. He searched his mind for some resolution to this conflict, but what was he going to do? Put himself between Delaney and his family, ruin what lousy ties he had left with them and his chance at his dreams while knowing Delaney would breeze out of town the second her responsibilities here were satisfied, leaving him with nothing?
He pushed his hands into his hair and fisted them with a growl of frustration.
He’d never been so damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.