by Flynn, Avery
Trying to maintain his facade of disinterest, he forced his fist to open and dropped the broken chunks of Styrofoam into the garbage. “And he asked for me?”
“Well, I thought it was a telemarketer, because it sure sounded like he’d said Sean Duvin or Darvin or Dugin instead of O’Dell, but I must have misheard because he got all chatty about how he hadn’t seen you in years.”
Almost ten, to be exact. Sean had walked off the stage, away from the cameras, and handed his bastard of a father his Oscar, saying he had to take a piss and promising he’d be right back. Instead, he’d stolen the first car he could hotwire and driven it as far as the gas in the tank would take him, shaved his head, traded in his tux for some Wrangler jeans, and hopped a Greyhound.
“Number?”
Billy dumped about a pound of sugar into his coffee cup. “Didn’t leave one, but I wrote down the caller ID number.” He pulled a crumbled piece of paper from the pocket of his worn jeans.
Sean held out his hand, and Billy slapped the torn corner of a fast food sandwich wrapper into his palm. One glance confirmed it was the number to the Hollywood and Vine Reports offices in Malibu. He’d seen the number enough in his formative years to know it by heart. If Rupert had stumbled onto his trail that meant his father wouldn’t be far off, and if he never saw that bastard again in his life it would be too soon.
The blood in his veins turned to frozen sludge. “Message?”
“Nope.”
That didn’t mean Rupert didn’t want anything. The sleazebag had spent most of the past decade writing about the “bright young talent who had disappeared off the face of the Earth.” He wasn’t about to stop now.
Sean yanked the brim of his Sweet Salvation Brewery baseball cap down with more force than was necessary. He needed space to figure out what—or more accurately, where—his next move was.
“And on less–happy news, the fermentation tank is leaking, but the fact that Natalie has spent the morning shut up in her office balances out that bit of bad news.” Billy smirked at what he no doubt thought was a funny swipe at the boss. “You know, so she’s not running around getting into everyone’s business.”
“Not funny.” Sean glared at the skinny little twerp until he bounced nervously on his toes. “How bad’s the leak?”
Billy shrugged. “Clyde’s fussing with it, but it’s gushing at a good clip.”
The fermentation tank held more than twelve hundred gallons of not–yet–drinkable beer. If they couldn’t fix the leak they’d lose nearly seven thousand bottles of beer. That would be the equivalent of using a flamethrower to light a cigarette in terms of damage to the brewery’s bottom line. “Shit. Why didn’t you tell me this first?”
Not bothering to stick around for the explanation, Sean marched out of the break room, took the first left and pushed through the swinging door leading from the offices to the brewery floor, where all the action took place.
Sean made a beeline toward the small crowd gathered around the stainless–steel tank with the cone–shaped bottom, the pointed end of which stopped a few feet off the brewery’s cement floor. Clyde, the chief maintenance man, had folded himself nearly in two as he twisted his body to get a better look at the damage while avoiding the amber–colored geyser rushing out of the tank.
The whole mess got worse with each step Sean took. By the time the crowd parted for him, there was a river of beer surging out of the bottom of the fermentation tank. “Oh, fuck.”
“You said it.” Billy agreed.
Sean crouched down beside Clyde. The older man had enough lines on his forehead to double as a highway map, each one made even deeper with worry. That meant it was so bad it couldn’t even be registered on a Richter scale.
“What’s the verdict?” As if he needed to hear the words to know.
Clyde stood and every joint in his body cracked loudly in protestation as he straightened to his full height. Not one to be hurried by man or beer, he pulled a red bandana out of his back pocket and used it to dry his hands before folding it twice and stuffing it back home. “The fermenting beer is coming out of the bottom outlet hole.”
“I see that.” Sean managed, just barely, to keep the no–shit–Sherlock sarcasm out of his voice.
Clyde pointed a long, bony finger at the bottom of the tank. “That there bolt for the tri–clamp connection is shot.”
The seriousness of the situation became crystal clear. “Which means the tri–clamp and the reducer connection are less than useless.”
“Pretty much.” The grizzled veteran of all the things that could go wrong at a brewery rocked back on his heels. “This,” he pointed to the beer flowing down into the floor drainage trench, “is going to look like a drizzle before it’s all said and done.”
Sean followed the beer creek until his gaze hit the reference room. He looked longingly at the place where he had spent every night for the past few months trying to find just the right combination of yeast, hops, barley, and more for a stout beer to win the invitational. He wouldn’t be locked behind that door anytime soon by the looks of the shitstorm in front of him.
He rubbed the back of his neck, hoping he could erase the niggling worry making his short hairs stand on end. They’d replaced the fermentation tanks not that long ago and adhered religiously to the maintenance schedule. “The tank is only a year old, how did this happen?”
“If’n I had to guess, I’d say someone either over–tightened the bolt or whacked it with something good and heavy.”
Shock nailed Sean’s feet to the concrete floor and for a minute all he could do was suck in air. “On purpose?”
Clyde quirked a fat gray eyebrow. “Lots of folks in town hold a grudge against the Sweets.”
As if on cue, Natalie strode through the brewery’s swinging doors. With her turquoise skirt, striped sweater, and the pearl necklace she was never without, she looked completely out of place among the staff with the T–shirts and stained jeans they wore.
If he’d thought his pulse was thumping before, he was a damn fool, because there were jet planes slower than his heart right now.
She pulled a pencil out of the messy bun thingy she’d twisted her light–brown hair into and started scrawling away on her clipboard without ever losing a step. The woman didn’t strut. She didn’t sway her hips. She didn’t need to; he was already about to bust a nut as it was.
Clyde elbowed him in the ribs. “From what I hear, you’re not much of a fan of a particular Sweet yourself.”
“You shouldn’t gossip.” Sean averted his gaze and turned his body so he couldn’t be tempted to peek at Natalie as she closed the distance between them in small, precise steps.
The old mechanic chuckled and clapped his palm against Sean’s shoulder. “And you shouldn’t give everyone so much to gossip about, with the way you avoid that woman like she’s selling flea–infested puppies—but still look at her like she’s a steak dinner and you’re a staving man. When I was your age, a man knew how to make up his mind and act on it.”
Sean wiped his palms on his jeans and focused on the fermentation tank that was leaking like a sieve. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The hint of honeysuckle hit him a second before a clipboard appeared in his peripheral vision.
“Keep what in mind?” Natalie asked.
Sean sent up a quick prayer that, for once, the blunt–talking, take–no–prisoners Clyde wouldn’t say exactly what was on his mind.
Chapter Four
The leak made no sense.
Natalie spritzed the purple orchid on her desk, one of the few splashes of color in her otherwise stark–white office. While Sean refused to review, let alone peruse, her efficiency plan for the brewery, he was borderline OCD on equipment maintenance—something she’d incorrectly assumed meant he’d be open to her reorganization ideas.
She stored the water bottle in the cabinet with a clear silicone liner on the shelf to catch any small drops that may escape and shut the door with a firm click.
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Next up in her daily routine was a quick review of her color–coded calendar. She flicked the mouse to wake her laptop as she continued to turn the problem over in her mind. The fermentation tank had passed visual inspection two days before. She’d seen the documentation signed by Clyde to prove it. The man was territorial and doted on the brewery equipment like rich ladies spoiled their lapdogs. If the tank hadn’t been up to par, he wouldn’t have given it his seal of approval.
She needed data. Making a mental list of all the records she’d need, she pressed the intercom button on her phone to connect to Miranda’s office. “Hey sis.”
“Yeah?” Stress tightened Miranda’s normally smooth voice.
The leak had everyone on edge. In the few months since the county council had voted down an effort to make alcohol manufacturing illegal in the county, the Sweet Salvation Brewery had pulled back from the financial abyss. But that didn’t mean the brewery wouldn’t take a hit from the thirty grand in lost revenue because of the leak. Miranda had the money end of things under control. What Natalie needed to focus on was finding and isolating the problem.
See a problem, fix a problem.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Natalie smoothed back her hair that had started to fly away in her rush to get to the brewery floor earlier. “I need to get the maintenance, quality assurance, and accident documentation for the past three years.”
“That sounds exciting. I take it you’re on the case of the cursed fermentation tank?”
Ignoring her sister’s sarcasm, Natalie nodded. “Exactly.”
“Great. That means I can deal with the bars whose orders are being delayed.” Miranda exhaled a frustrated sigh. “The folks at the Boot Scoot Boogie are pissed, and I need to go smooth some ruffled feathers.”
The local country bar was their best client. They couldn’t afford to lose the business. Not unless they wanted to part ways with a significant portion of staff.
“Let me grab those files from you before you head out.” Natalie stood and took a step toward the door.
“I don’t keep that stuff.”
Please don’t let them be in a file cabinet in the brewery’s attic, AKA Spider World. “Who does?”
“Your favorite brewmaster.”
Her feet froze to the oatmeal–colored area rug covering the pale gray cement floor. Enough goose bumps popped up on her arms to make them look like a topographical map of the Rocky Mountains.
Foreboding? Anticipation?
Not a question she felt like answering—even to herself.
The school of hard knocks had given Sean two important lessons before he’d graduated with honors. Number one: Something always goes wrong sooner than you expect. Number two: Bad news breeds faster than rabbits.
First a tabloid reporter on the phone and now the fermentation tank. Trouble had beaten a path to Salvation, and he had a sinking suspicion it wasn’t about to leave anytime soon.
He scratched the scruff of his beard and contemplated the stacks of paperwork scattered across his desk before riffling through the closest tower. The maintenance reports were here somewhere. He let the crew have a lot of leeway on other parts of the brewery operations, but he didn’t fuck around with people’s safety. He’d learned a long time ago just how much being vulnerable and hurt messed with your head. He sure as hell wasn’t going to put anyone else in that position.
He made it halfway through the pile before he wanted to kick his own ass for not using the damn filing cabinet that still had the price tag stuck to the top drawer. “Controlled chaos,” he mumbled.
“Well, part of that’s right.” Natalie stood in his doorway.
Every strand of her light–brown hair was back in place, making him want to do nothing in the world so much as unclip it so he could watch it tumble down around her shoulders. Or was it longer? Would the ends curl around her nipples or brush her narrow waist? He’d been living like a damn monk for too long if the idea of seeing a woman’s unbound hair made his mouth dry and his dick half hard.
Annoyed with his lack of control, he dropped a sheaf of papers onto his empty chair. “I don’t have time for your billion–point plan right now.”
“It’s a twenty–five–point plan.” Her chin shot up an inch. “And I’m not here for that. I’m looking for the maintenance, quality assurance, and accident reports.”
He glanced around at his kamikaze, open–air filing system. “Welcome to the club.”
“You don’t have them?”
A hint of shame tinged his earlier self–recriminations, making his pulse pick up speed. Nothing like having to admit to your nemesis, even if it wasn’t out loud, that you sucked. “They’re here somewhere.”
Her blue eyes went wide and her fingers twisted around the pearl necklace. “You don’t have a filing system?”
Sean shrugged. “You’re looking at it.”
Her long fingers sailed over each round white pearl. Damn, he really wanted to know the story behind that necklace. He’d never seen her without it. The woman probably showered in it.
In half a breath, he had a fully realized vision of her soft, creamy, naked skin covered in suds. The mental image sucked all the air out of the room and turned his half chubby into a full–blown hard–on.
Natalie looked around at the paper explosion in his office. “How do you live like this?”
He kept one of the taller stacks of paper between them to block her view of the growing bulge behind his zipper. “Cleanliness is over rated.”
“You’re hilarious.” She didn’t even bother to look his way as she surveyed the damage. “Okay, if we divide the room up into equal portions, we should each be able to take a quadrant to search. Divide and conquer for the win.”
He shifted from one leg to another. Spending time in close quarters with Natalie, watching her skirt swirl around her ass, wasn’t going to help him lose this boner anytime soon. “Let me look. I’ll let you know when I find them.”
She tossed her clipboard onto his guest chair—the one spot in the whole office unencumbered by piles of paper. “We can get through this whole mess faster if we work together. I can even devise an organizational structure for the records based on your work habits.”
Excitement turned her cheeks pink as she chewed her bottom lip and bounced from foot to foot. If she ever looked at him with the same amount of giddy anticipation, he’d be in even worse trouble than he was already.
“Trust me.” She locked gazes with him, hitting him with the full force of her blue eyes. “People pay me big bucks to do that for them.”
“Any other option?” He already knew the answer to that one.
She grinned. “You could toss me over your shoulder again and throw me in the cooler.”
The idea of touching her held more appeal than it should. He took a half step forward.
Natalie jumped back, but not before he noticed her quick intake of breath and how her eyes darkened with what looked at lot like lust.
He winked, loving the fact that he’d knocked her by–the–book self off kilter. “Gotcha.”
He couldn’t wait to do it again.
The filing cabinet was empty. Not just empty, but the drawers were still taped shut and the receipt—dated three years ago—sat inside one of the drawers. There was at least an inch of undisturbed dust on the handle. Natalie glanced around Sean’s paper–filled office. The man made less sense than wearing a ball gown to yoga class.
“Are you allergic to metal?”
He looked up from the stack of papers he was going though and peeked at her from beneath the brim of the hat he always wore. “Why?”
Spinning around to face him, she put her hands on her hips. “I’m trying to figure out why you’d leave a perfectly good four–drawer filing cabinet complete with hanging folders and color–coded tabs empty, and instead leave everything stacked a mile high on every flat surface.”
He did that one–sided grin thing that made her stomach do the loop–de–loop. “I have a sys
tem.”
“How’s that working for you so far?”
Sean looked around as if seeing his office for the first time, taking in the towers that had given up the ghost and fallen long ago and the ones wobbling with any significant exhale of breath. “Pretty shitty.”
Natalie chuckled at his assessment. Blunt. Honest. To the point. If he wasn’t such a giant pain in her ass, she’d be in danger of falling for him. Lucky for her, she’d already created a list of attributes she wanted in a man, and Sean didn’t qualify. Even if he had, he was her employee.
A heavy sigh escaped from her lips. Nothing to do but move on, so she took stock of the situation. They needed to make quick work of organizing the pounds of paperwork so she could take a look at the records and determine if there was any kind of a pattern to the things going wrong at the brewery. First the canceled bottle delivery that everyone at the brewery—including Sean— and now the suspicious leak. Then she’d be able to create a solution to avoid making the same errors in the future. Easy–peasy.
“Okay. Here’s the plan. I’ll start with the credenza. You tackle the desk. Make stacks for different types of paperwork. All quality assurance reports go in one stack, for example. Once you have your new piles, we’ll transfer them to the filing cabinet. Pull out anything you see from the last three months and put those files on the guest chair.”
He looked as though she’d just asked him to give a speech on national television while buck naked and doing one–armed pushups—an image that flashed into her mind and put her nether regions on full alert. Needing to do something with her suddenly jittery hands, she trailed her fingers across her cool, round pearls.
“I know it seems like a lot…” Her words came out in a breathy half whisper. “But I promise we’ll be done before you know it.”
She’d seen that pursed–lips look on Sean’s face before. Her clients always doubted before they became true believers. “I won’t even say the word flowchart while we’re doing it.”
“You just did.” He crossed his arms, pulling his Sweet Salvation Brewery T–shirt tight across his broad shoulders and making the short sleeves hike up, showing off plenty of sinewy muscle, from his thick forearm to his bulging biceps.