Ian flinched, which was all she needed to know that her punch had landed. “That’s not fair. I have people relying on me—family, friends, employees. I can’t just tell them ‘Sorry, I have other priorities.’ I’m not like you.”
“Excuse me?”
Ian clamped his lips shut, then broke a second later under her glare. “I mean you have no right to lecture me about choosing to prioritize work. You lie to everyone, even your friends and family, about what you do. To protect your job. I’m at least trying to protect my friends and family by putting my job first.”
Oh, how dare he. She’d explained to him why she had to lie about what she did. Their situations were not even close. Kelsey’s knuckles whitened around the steering wheel. “I said—get your things and get out, before I drive away with them.”
A wall crashed down over Ian’s face, and he got out of the passenger seat. As soon as he’d unloaded his bag, Kelsey backed out of the driveway. It was time to pick up her dogs. She’d been right all along—they were far superior to any humans.
* * *
* * *
KELSEY FOUND IT hard to be creative when her life was in turmoil, but writing romance specifically, even romance as far-fetched as one involving husky shifters, was like trying to outrun a pack of sled dogs. She couldn’t make it past the starting line.
For that matter, she’d barely made it past her couch for the last two days, but who was counting? Not even her beloved collection of Jane Austen adaptations was helping. Silly Jane had given her characters happy endings.
Kelsey had officially declared a war on happy endings. A feud, if one would.
It was particularly troublesome given that she needed to write them to earn her living. She’d briefly considered switching genres to something more fitting to her state of mind, say, revenge thrillers, but that would not help in the short term when she was under contract for romances. Besides, any type of creativity, even preparing meals, was out of reach.
It didn’t help that Ian’s accusation was stuck in her head. She told herself she did not put her job ahead of her family. That, if anything, she was putting her family ahead of her job. She was protecting them by keeping her secret. Yet at the same time, Kelsey wasn’t so sure she’d be keeping secrets if she did write revenge thrillers. And that made no logical sense. While revenge thriller writers projected an air of don’t-mess-with-me that could be useful in her situation, the fodder any semipublic career provided the Lipins wouldn’t have changed. So what was the difference—why was one lie okay and the other unnecessary? Her only conclusion was that she just didn’t want to deal with the extra baggage that came with the title of romance writer, and in that case, she wasn’t lying to protect her family nearly as much as she was lying to protect herself.
For the first time, she felt a little guilty about all the lying, and that made her angrier at Ian.
Kelsey circled her spoon around the empty container of rocky road ice cream, feeling more forlorn. She was out of ice cream, which meant she needed to put on real pants and get to the grocery store. Her stock of comfort foods was running low.
Maybe she could beg Josh to do the shopping for her.
Then again, that would require responding to the half dozen messages her cousin had left her. Ugh. Human interaction was so overrated.
Kelsey flopped back on the couch, and Romeo let out a tiny yelp of surprise. “Sorry.”
The husky didn’t seem to mind her accidentally smacking him, and he licked her hand. Her entire pack was distressed. The dogs might not know why, but they’d picked up on her mood and had been especially snuggly and affectionate with her since she’d returned on Sunday.
“You’re so much better than people.” Kelsey scratched Romeo’s head, and he nuzzled her shoulder. “Yes, you are. No wonder you don’t trust them. You see where trust gets you?”
As if anticipating a lecture, Juliet and Puck lifted their heads and wandered over. Puck jumped up on the sofa, too, burying her under an additional forty pounds of fur.
“I trusted Ian,” Kelsey said, not about to deny herself a willing audience. “Not only with my secrets, but with my heart. He made me believe that maybe love wasn’t just fiction. That maybe some men could be as deserving of my heart as the three of you are. But it was bullshit. When things got tough, he picked up and ran. He chose his work over me. He didn’t even give me a chance to help, so it must have been an easy decision for him. Obviously, I was an idiot to think I meant as much to him as he did to me.”
Juliet barked her disgust with Ian. Female understanding about these sorts of problems evidently crossed species.
“Exactly. What an asshole to have led me on like he did.”
Although had he ever led her on, or had it all been in her head? Through her misery, it was hard to tell, and Kelsey no longer trusted her judgment. Ian had opened up to her, and he’d made her soup and done her favors, but what if he’d never done more than what he considered to be reciprocating? What if he’d told her about the dogs and his father only because he knew about her career? What if he’d only brought her soup and fixed her table because he thought he owed her for the website work and the car supplies she’d given him? In her head, the exchanges that had started off as an attempt to be even with him had morphed into things she was doing because she cared. But perhaps Ian had always seen these moments as a way to maintain the balance? If she made a move, he had to counter so he didn’t owe her.
Of course, that wouldn’t explain why Ian had indicated he wanted to try again with her in the future. She must have meant something to him if he didn’t want to write off a relationship completely. But Kelsey wouldn’t let herself put too much emphasis on that. The future was nebulous, and Ian might have just been tossing that idea out to make her feel better. Besides, she didn’t even know exactly what he would have said. She’d cut him off because she hadn’t wanted to hear it, and she didn’t regret it.
Kelsey’s stomach rumbled with unhappiness, ungrateful for the steady diet of junk food she’d been feeding it. New question—what if she pulled her head out of her ass and started acting like the warrior she’d been raised to be? Or, barring anything so ridiculously dramatic, just a functional adult again?
She’d allowed herself only two days to mope when she discovered what Anthony had done to her. Then she’d picked herself up and gotten her life back. Or started to. Given how much more pain Ian’s betrayal was causing her, she deserved more time to mourn her crushed heart. But she’d take no more than one additional day—two max—to manage her emotions. She would absolutely not allow Ian more than that.
“It’s a plan,” she told the dogs. Since they didn’t argue with her, Kelsey assumed they thought it was a good one.
Her phone barked with a text, and given the time, Kelsey had a feeling she knew who it was. The same guy had texted her at this time yesterday.
Still, it was best to confirm that it wasn’t Ian admitting he’d screwed up and begging for her forgiveness. Which she wouldn’t give, naturally. He was the one who’d told her it was okay to make people earn it, and that would be an impossible task.
My good opinion once lost is lost forever, so Mr. Darcy proclaims in Pride and Prejudice, and that seemed like an ideal to live up to. Dearest Jane hadn’t intended it to be (probably), and Darcy had been called out on it in the book. But Kelsey was certain Darcy had been onto something. Giving people second chances gave them second chances to hurt you. Only a fool made the same mistake twice.
She’d been fool enough, trusting a new man after the first had hurt her. She would absolutely not let the same man take another swing.
So it would be ridiculous for her to feel disappointment when she checked her text and saw it was from Josh, as she’d expected.
She was not disappointed.
Totally not.
Come walk the dogs with me, Josh wrote. I have Tay’s double chocolat
e brownies to share.
Kelsey groaned. Her cousin knew her weaknesses well.
Josh also knew what had happened with Ian. She’d have avoided telling him if she could have, but Josh had been dog-sitting, and when she’d shown up at his door with tears on her cheeks, he’d demanded answers. Since Kelsey had felt guilty for interrupting his dinner, she’d given him a quick rundown.
She’d also denied any emotions other than a serious case of being pissed off, but surely Josh had seen through her ruse. Ignoring his texts for the last few days hadn’t been the wisest move if she’d been attempting to hide it.
Too bad for Josh, though; she was in no mood to talk. Her dogs, on the other hand, could use a good walk, and they loved spending time with Josh and his huskies. It was a beautiful day out too. Possibly her first step in recovering from Ian ripping her heart out should be to take advantage of the weather. For the dogs if not for herself.
Fine, Kelsey wrote back. But I’m not talking about you-know-who.
Josh’s response was prompt. I have no idea who you’re talking about. I just have chocolate to share.
Slick. Kelsey almost smiled.
“The things I do for you guys,” she said, peeling herself off the couch and out from under Puck. But who else was she going to do anything for? Her dogs might be the only creatures worth her effort.
26
THE TAVERN DOESN’T offer a huge beer selection,” Lydia Lipin said, referring to the restaurant associated with the hotel she managed, “but I think we can add one more of yours to our taps this winter. That’ll make my sister happy.”
Ian sank back into the chair in Lydia’s tiny office at the Bay Song Inn, hoping the relief he felt wasn’t entirely visible on his face. Nor the desperation.
A couple more Lipin-affiliated businesses had canceled their orders since Saturday, adding to the already impressive list of restaurants, bars, and stores in town that had decided they couldn’t do business with Northern Charm Brewing for one reason or another. Micah had been busy over the past several days searching for new opportunities outside of Helen, while Ian had been working on a plan to adjust their production. The stress of it had left him lying awake in bed at night.
Although not all of that stress was brewery-related. Hell, not even half of it was. Every time he closed his eyes, it wasn’t his spreadsheets or the bank statements that he saw. It was Kelsey, her big blue eyes gaping at him as he’d told her he needed to end things between them. It was the red-tinted anger on her face when he’d told her she put her job above her relationships too. And it was her voice he heard, the pain, honed to a razor’s edge in the way she’d said Fine before kicking him out of the car. That Fine had left him bleeding internally.
Ian didn’t believe he’d been wrong about her prioritizing her job the same way he did, but he regretted his words—how he’d snapped. He hadn’t wanted to end things between them at all, and he’d done so in the worst possible way.
Not entirely your fault, a desperate voice in his head reminded him. And it was true—he had tried to leave open a possibility for the future. One day, he hoped, the brewery would be successful enough that Helen and its feud wouldn’t matter as much to the bottom line, and then being with Kelsey wouldn’t be as big of a deal.
But Kelsey had shot down that option before he’d finished getting the words out, and given how upset she’d been, Ian couldn’t blame her. But it still stung. He’d wanted to close the door just for a moment, but Kelsey had slammed it shut, locked it, and boarded it over.
They’d only owned up to the emotions between them for just over a week, but he missed her with all the longing of the entire time he’d known her. More, really. She’d fit into his arms and his life so perfectly it was like they’d kindled their weird non-relationship for years. Breaking up with her was supposed to allow him to focus on work, but so far he was focused at least as much on missing her as he was on the brewery.
Since that part of the plan hadn’t worked out, Ian reminded himself that this was what was best for her. If they were together, Kelsey would be expecting to spend time with him. She’d put demands on his attention that he couldn’t meet, and she’d be hurt because of it. Yet here he was, wishing he had her around to hold at night so he might be able to sleep, dreaming of her kissing him to distraction, and craving her wicked sense of humor, which might have helped him laugh at the things that otherwise made him want to howl with frustration.
Damn it, he even missed her dogs. They were part of the Kelsey experience, and there was nothing about that he’d change. Romeo, in particular, worried him. At some point, the husky had decided Ian’s lap was a good place to rest his head, and Ian recalled Kelsey saying Romeo got anxious if separated from his people. Ian had assumed he’d become one of them.
Still, Ian was not ready to consider the possibility that he’d made a mistake. No, the mistake had been letting himself take his eyes off the prize in the first place. He would succeed. The brewery would not go under before it had truly begun. He would not fail.
In the end, that was what mattered.
So he’d always believed.
So he’d continue to ignore the pain and doubt that crept into his heart.
“Ian?” Lydia was twirling a pen around in her hand, a cool trick that was mildly hypnotic, and Ian realized he’d spaced out.
He’d been doing that a lot since Sunday.
“Sorry. That would be fantastic.” Despite his best efforts, there was no way Lydia could have missed the relief in his voice. The Tavern buying more beer wouldn’t solve all their problems, not even close, but every bit helped.
Perhaps even more helpful than the purchase itself was the meaningfulness of the sale. Lydia wasn’t simply one of the many Lipins in Helen. She was the mayor’s daughter and the granddaughter of the woman behind the Save Helen Society. A series of framed photographs on the wall behind her showed the hotel and her family over the last five decades. The Bay Song and this branch of the Lipin family tree were formidable. Ian hoped Lydia’s continued willingness to do business with him would send a message to the other Lipin businesses that had backed out.
“Not a problem,” Lydia said, setting the pen aside. “Honestly, I felt kind of bad when I heard some Porters were throwing a fit because of the marketing deal we signed. I should have anticipated something like that would happen, and I didn’t, so I didn’t warn you. I was too excited by the idea. Tay has that effect on me. She’s great with ideas, but not always with the gritty details for implementing them.”
The Tay being referred to was obviously Lydia’s sister, Taylor, who was dating Josh. Ian wondered if her sister’s willingness to cross feud lines had influenced Lydia’s willingness to overlook his (former) relationship with Kelsey. He was also afraid to ask.
“The feud is a weird thing to have to take into consideration when doing business,” Ian said, choosing his words carefully.
Lydia laughed as though she’d read his real thoughts. “That’s a kind way to put it. I try to keep my head down and stay out of the fray, but it has its way of finding you. As you’ve discovered.”
“I’d guess staying out of it would be hard when your sister is dating a Porter.”
“Taylor’s relationship with Josh quite literally brought it to my doorstep.” She frowned. “If you don’t mind me asking, how are you holding up?”
Not wanting to take any more of Lydia’s time, Ian had been starting to get up, but her words made him pause. “Holding up?”
“I heard you and Kelsey broke up.” Lydia’s face was sympathetic. “I wouldn’t usually intrude, but I’m afraid to ask—was it because of my family?”
“I . . .” Ian didn’t really want to discuss his breakup with Kelsey with anyone, and he certainly didn’t know Lydia well enough to feel comfortable talking about it with her in particular. But seeing as he had broken up with Kelsey because he needed to get Lip
in businesses back on board with the brewery, knowing the news had spread should have been a positive sign.
While he faltered for a way to exit the conversation without being rude, Lydia plowed ahead. “It was my family, wasn’t it? Damn it. I’m sorry, Ian.”
“It was my fault.” By some miracle he didn’t fall back into the chair, but the hollowness he’d felt since Kelsey had driven off on Saturday was more intense than ever, a growing pit in his gut that could swallow him. “I should have known dating a Porter would be problematic.”
“You shouldn’t have had to worry about it.” Lydia’s pen went accidentally flying across the desk in her agitation.
Her reaction surprised Ian. Yes, Lydia had been the easiest Lipin to work with, and the fact that he was here in her office said a lot. But there was a bitterness in her voice that suggested her anger was personal. Maybe it was simply concern for her sister, but Ian wondered, and curiosity gave him the will to speak more.
“I shouldn’t have; you’re right. But I don’t have a choice. I have to put the brewery first. There are too many people depending on me, and I can’t let down my aunt and uncle, who have invested so much.” Bitterness or not, Lydia ran the Bay Song. As one business owner to another, she should understand his decision.
Ian needed someone to understand his decision. It would go a long way toward validating his choice.
“I get it,” Lydia said, and strangely, the words did not have the effect on Ian that he’d hoped. “I probably would have made the same choice. I admire Taylor and Josh for what they’re willing to do, but I don’t think I could handle that kind of pressure.”
Ian nodded. That kind of pressure, right. But wasn’t Lydia saying that while she’d have made the same decision he did for the business’s sake, she admired the ability to make the other choice? That was absolutely not what he’d wanted to hear.
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