Paws and Prejudice

by Alanna Martin

“That’s a good point too.” Frank was back at rubbing his chin, and Kelsey was pretty sure she had him.

  “My dad isn’t infallible, and he doesn’t run the family. You should feel free to do what you think is best for the restaurant, and you can do it knowing it sticks a knife into the Lipins’ plans.”

  Okay, that might have been laying it on a bit thick, considering she was tired of the feud, but she wasn’t above doing what had to be done.

  Frank shook his head, a bemused smile on his face, and Kelsey got the sense he was seeing her for possibly the first time. She was no longer Wallace’s cute little girl. She was his goddamn legacy, and if this was what it took to get some semblance of peace around this place, then so be it.

  Especially if that peace was going to benefit Ian.

  * * *

  * * *

  WITH A START, Ian realized he’d been staring at a wall for who knew how long. It had been two days since he’d left the beer and a letter for Kelsey. Two days, and he hadn’t gotten so much as a text acknowledging that she’d received them. Probably she didn’t have his number anymore. But if that was true, then how would he know she’d gotten them? Someone could have stolen the bag off her front step.

  For the hundredth time, Ian debated texting her. Just to ask— Did you get it? If she had, he’d leave it at that. There was his answer.

  For the hundredth time, he dismissed this idea as too needy. And anyway, if she had gotten his letter and wasn’t going to accept his apology, did he want to know? He could live in hope—cruel, agonizing hope—for a couple more days this way. He could tell himself she hadn’t rejected his apology; she simply hadn’t seen it.

  Or what if his apology hadn’t been enough? He was the one who’d told her that no one should be under any obligation to accept an apology, particularly if the person in the wrong had made no effort to correct their mistake. Ian had hoped offering up the brewery to Josh and Taylor would be evidence that he was trying to do the right thing, but Kelsey could have a different opinion.

  He had to get up and move. He was in no state to work.

  Micah found him pacing the brewery’s back room when he returned with lunch. “Hard at work, are you?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “About Kelsey or about beer?”

  Ian shot him a disgruntled glance.

  “About Kelsey, I see.” Micah held up a bag with fish tacos. “Might as well eat, then. You’ve probably paced and sweated away breakfast.”

  Micah wasn’t wrong, but he hadn’t had much of an appetite for a while.

  Ian followed his friend into the tasting room, where they could sit, eat, and presumably talk about something other than his misery. Work would be good. If he couldn’t concentrate on his own, maybe Micah could force him to.

  Micah had no sooner set the bag on the bar, though, before his phone rang. “That’s interesting.”

  Ian didn’t have a chance to ask what it was before Micah answered, so he started going through the food.

  “Yeah, I think we can do that.” Micah turned to Ian and made a hand gesture that Ian couldn’t translate. “I’ll have to double-check, but I can get back to you today. Obviously we started lining up other buyers.”

  Ian sat up straighter. “What was that?” he asked after his friend hung up.

  “That was Frank Porter asking if we could un-cancel his purchase order for the café.” Micah pulled one of the packages of tacos closer. “Says he realized he acted too hastily and hopes we can continue working together.”

  “That’s . . .” Ian faltered, searching for the right word. Odd? Encouraging? He had no idea.

  “My feelings exactly,” Micah said. “But I’ll take it. Speaking of which, we need to make sure we can fulfill the order, and if not, start negotiating a new one.”

  Ian nodded, his thoughts racing. He could look up that information, but his brain was too busy making leaps of logic. Could Kelsey have had something to do with this? That sounded like wishful thinking, and yet there had to be some reason behind the sudden reversal of their biggest Porter family contract.

  In a daze, he unwrapped his fish taco and proceeded to stare at it until someone knocked on the brewery’s main door. Since he couldn’t seem to focus enough to eat, he left Micah at the bar to answer it.

  Kelsey stood on the steps, her ponytail whipping about in the chilly wind. Ian immediately glanced toward her feet, looking for the dogs, but they weren’t there. He wasn’t having a flashback to the day they met. She was actually here, for real.

  His heart skipped a beat as his wishful thinking no longer seemed so wishful. Then again, there was an arrogant tilt in her chin and a challenge in her blue eyes. His heart might be getting ahead of reality. But she was still here, still the same mess of contradictions—hard and soft, sweet and bitter—that he’d come to love.

  “We need to talk.” Kelsey stuck her hands on her hips.

  Talk, yes. That was a positive sign. Only Ian’s tongue felt heavy and useless, and all he wanted to do was drop to his knees and apologize.

  Maybe not in front of Micah though.

  Ian stepped outside, heedless of the cold seeping through his flannel, and shut the door behind him. “Kelsey.”

  “Stop.” She held up a hand. “Did Frank call you?”

  He nodded, and she cut him off a second time.

  “That’s because I can help you. I’m not sure I should help you, but I can. And you never gave me the chance. We never got to try acting like a team.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.” He did collapse to the steps. It wasn’t quite to his knees, but the pressure of standing—or maybe it was the weight of his guilt for hurting her—was too much, and he dropped to an awkward crouch by her feet. “I panicked, and I messed up.”

  “Yes, you did.” Kelsey sighed and bent down to kiss the top of his head. “But as it’s been pointed out to me recently, I wasn’t exactly in a position where I could judge you too harshly for it. I don’t know if I’d have even told you about my job by now if you hadn’t found out yourself. And, well, I know a thing or two about having your head messed with. It’s never as easy to let go as we think it should be. Basically, I’m saying I forgive you.”

  It was a good thing he was already practically kissing the concrete, because the ground was swaying. Ian closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the tide of emotions crashing over him. “I shouldn’t have said what I did about your writing. Our situations aren’t the same, and it wasn’t fair.”

  “No, they’re not, but you weren’t wrong. Turns out people were hurt that I’d been lying to them.” Kelsey sounded mildly surprised by that. “But if you want to grovel a bit more while you’re down there, I won’t say no to it.”

  Some of Ian’s relief escaped him in a laugh. He wrapped his arms around Kelsey’s legs and pressed kisses to her knees.

  She laughed as she wobbled. “Never mind. As amusing as this is, maybe it’s not a great idea.”

  Probably not when it came to stability, but now that he was holding her, Ian didn’t want to let her go to stand up. “I guess we can resume this position later. I’ve read enough of your books to know you appreciate a good grovel, and I can do this better if you’re naked.”

  “I’m holding you to that.”

  As if he’d renege on that sort of promise.

  Ian blinked, trying to ignore the mist in his eyes, and stood. Kelsey looked wobbly all over, smiling but also with some definite wetness clouding her eyes. Damn this Helen weather. It wasn’t even raining today.

  “Kelsey.” He traced his thumb over her cheek, as though his heart was struggling to catch up with the fact that she was truly in front of him.

  “Shut up and kiss me.”

  “You’re so demanding.” But he did as asked, gleefully and greedily, relishing the luck that had brought her to knock on his door. A first time, and this
second time.

  There would never be a third time, because from now on, that door would always be open to her.

  Kelsey’s hands curled around his shirt, driving home how cold the air was, but he couldn’t let go.

  “You like me demanding,” she said at last before kissing his chin.

  “No. I love everything about you.”

  She closed her eyes, her smile actually making her look angelic in that moment. Not that he’d ever tell her that. “I love you, too, but especially your letter writing skills.”

  Ian pulled her closer. “Would your love for me diminish if I told you I typed up a draft so I could plan out what to say?”

  “I’ll overlook it. Does your love of everything about me include my dogs?”

  He laughed and grabbed her mouth with his. “I wasn’t lying when I said I missed them. Are they here?”

  He was a little sorry he’d asked when Kelsey pulled away, but she tugged him over to her SUV, where the dogs were waiting. “I think they missed you too.”

  Romeo started barking his head off before Kelsey could even open the door, and she let the huskies out into the empty parking lot. Immediately, they started jumping all over him, licking his face and hands, vying for his attention. How he’d gotten to the point where their excitement brought a smile to his face, Ian wasn’t sure. It all seemed like it had happened so quickly. From the moment Kelsey had scowled and snarked her way into his life, nothing had been the same. And he couldn’t be happier for it.

  This town might have issues, but it also had some wonder in it, and he no longer worried about his sister possibly joining him up here and being miserable. But he didn’t need her to join him, either, if she chose not to. He was finding his own pack.

  “The dogs are part of our team, right?” Ian asked.

  “Absolutely. You can’t have me without them.” She made an apologetic face. “You also can’t have me without the feud.”

  That much was clear. “You’re worth it. I ran to the other side of the continent to get away from some of my family. It didn’t work out like I’d intended, and I ended up running from you. I’m done running. I’m here for you, regardless of family or work or whatever life throws at us next. Like I told Josh the other day, I’ve picked a side—and it’s not going to be your family or the Lipins. It’s going to be the side of doing things for love, and we’ll deal with the consequences.”

  “Good.” Kelsey grabbed his hands away from the dogs, who were circling the two of them. “I’ve been running, too, in my own way. Running and hiding. But I’m done with that. From now on, we’re fighting together.”

  “Promise.” He yanked her closer and kissed her again. If this was fighting, he could get used to it.

  “You write really nice letters, and you kiss really well,” Kelsey said, burying her face against him. “I’m going to expect lots of both to keep morale up.”

  “Consider it done.” Although the thought of writing more by hand made him wince, he’d do it if it made her happy. “You know what else I do really well?”

  “Actually, why yes. I do.” She slid her hands into his waistband.

  Ian’s body stirred. The rush of blood dulled the chill against his skin. “Well, thank you, but I was actually thinking—brew beer. Did you try the one I gave you?”

  “Nope. I thought I’d save it and try it when you were around.”

  “I like that plan. I like both plans.” He caught her hands as her fingers rubbed his stomach. Hopefully Micah could check whatever supply numbers were needed to give to Frank. He was clearly not going back to work today. “The beer can wait though. As promised, from now on, you will always be my first priority.”

  30

  THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY for Josh and Taylor was, by Helen standards, a raging success. Of course, for that to be true, it only required that no blood was spilled. Still, Kelsey was feeling pretty good about it as she watched members of both families cautiously circle one another and the food like two wolf packs, uncertain about this whole idea of sharing a meal.

  There was a warm, content feeling in her chest that made it easy for her to be on her best behavior. It could be from seeing her cousin happy, or it could be the possibility of peace due to her generation of Porters and Lipins being more levelheaded than their forebears. Most likely, though, it was due to the past month’s freedom. Freedom from worrying about her secret being revealed. Freedom from feeling guilty about what the feud did to innocent outsiders. And freedom to simply be with Ian. To be able to enjoy his company without creating elaborate excuses for their time together or why she got all giddy when he kissed her.

  She didn’t even mind when Josh teased her about losing her edge. She had lost her edge, and she didn’t miss it. Ian calmed her prickly thoughts and occupied her sharp tongue with far more pleasurable activities than trash-talking. At least he did in private, or the relative privacy of someplace like this party where she could afford to let her walls down. She hadn’t spent years perfecting her drop-dead scowl to abandon it after a month of relationship bliss, after all. Life in Helen remained tumultuous, to put it nicely, and Kelsey remained on alert for the occasions when she had to kick some ass. That was just no longer her default state of mind.

  “Happy?” The reason for this unexpected change in her life slipped his arms around her from behind, and Kelsey settled herself against Ian.

  Officially, her stance would remain that she could take or leave tall men since almost everyone was taller than her, but there was definitely pleasure in being held by a guy whose body seemed capable of containing her own.

  “I am.” She wiggled against him, knowing the effect it would have. Predictably, Ian’s grip on her stiffened.

  It was a small group that had gathered, but they were the important ones—Josh and Taylor, naturally, Taylor’s sister Lydia, Kevin and Peter, Micah and Maggie, and a few other friends of the future bride and groom. A couple of the more courageous cousins on both sides had stopped by, too, and although he hadn’t attended, Frank had helped out with the catering. Even Nate had called earlier to offer his congratulations.

  “Are you trying to tempt me?” Ian whispered in her ear.

  “Always. Is it working?”

  “Always.” He kissed the ear he’d been whispering in, causing shivers to run down her neck. “But patience. We shouldn’t be sneaking out to have sex by the brew tanks.”

  Sex by the brew tanks. There was an idea. “It might help me develop more positive associations with beer.”

  She’d tried the one Ian had made for her, and while it was drinkable, her taste buds weren’t excited about quaffing an entire glass’s worth. So for now, she was content to sip small amounts of the various beers he suggested, and they were slowly growing on her.

  Ian smacked her ass, discreetly, but it was enough to make her determined to have revenge later. “I’m winning you over without any underhanded tricks. Admit it.”

  She grinned. He was, but the idea was now set in her head. “Fine. Sex by the brew tanks can wait until after the party.”

  “There are a lot of tanks. Just so you know.”

  Kelsey raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that a problem?”

  “Nope. But when I say tanks, you should know I’m referring to them as individual locations. In fact, I’ll be starting a new beer soon. So once we make it through these batches, we’ll have to start all over again.”

  “This sounds like a plan that could take some time.”

  He kissed her neck, tickling her and pulling her close. “A very long, never-ending time, I hope.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my wonderful agent, Rebecca Strauss, who throughout this process has been part agent, part brainstormer extraordinaire, and occasional therapist. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  Thank you to my fantastic editor and pun-master, Sarah Blumenstock, fo
r getting this story and for the amazing notes that helped me take it to the next level. And also thanks to Natalie Sellers, Stephanie Felty, Martha Cipolla, Farjana Yasmin, Rita Frangie, and the entire Berkley team working behind the scenes who bring these books to life.

  Writing is a solitary endeavor, but publishing is an experience that requires lots of support. Thanks to my online writing friends and to my writing groups—the Purgies, the Y-Nots, and the Berkletes debut crew—for the insights, the laughs, the commiseration, and the occasional poop joke (not naming names, but she knows who she is).

  And last but never least, thank you to my husband and my family for always being there.

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  IT HAD BEEN a long day even before her refrigerator died. Lydia glared at the errant appliance as she refilled her cat’s water dish, and water spilled over the sides. Because of course it did.

  Cursing to herself, Lydia set the dish down and dried her hands on her flannel pajama pants. Luckily, she wasn’t much of a cook, so a dead fridge was more of an inconvenience than a tragedy. The few items she kept in it had been moved to the inn’s kitchen, and that was where they’d stay until a new one was delivered. The rest of the day’s troubles had been far more annoying, culminating in a section of guests’ rooms where the heat had gone out.

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