by Avery Flynn
“So where are we with the hops?”
A horn blared, and Sean nodded in the direction of the loading dock, which had been refinished and stained. “Should be them.”
Thank God. In between cleaning and renovating, she’d been lining up restaurants, bars, and stores willing to carry a new line of beer. She had a meeting with the Boot Scoot Boogie management soon. It wouldn’t be easy to get them to bring on Sweet Salvation beers, not with the slipshod operation Uncle Julian had run the brewery and handled accounts, but she had to make it happen. And when they did sign, she wasn’t going to blow it by not being able to fill their beer orders due right in time for the holiday season. And if the people of Salvation didn’t need an extra beer or twelve on hand when they were stuck elbow-to-elbow with family arguing about football and the proper way to make stuffing, she didn’t know when they would.
The late October breeze swirled the leaves scattered across the wooden loading dock that stuck out about three feet outside the large rolling door that looked like a garage door on steroids. The driver backed the delivery truck decorated with the green and gold Gulch City Brews logo up to the edge of the planks before getting out and jumping up onto the dock.
The timbers groaned and swayed under his feet.
Miranda reached out to him, but it was a hair’s breadth too late. The wood posts holding up the dock tilted to the right and the whole thing tumbled down like a slinky on a staircase. The driver landed in a heap on top of the pile.
Sean jumped down the three-foot drop and hauled the driver into a standing position.
“Oh, my God, are you okay?” Miranda scrambled into the fray, picking her stepping spots carefully so as to not bite it.
The driver brushed off his pants and jacket. “It’ll definitely leave a mark, but I’ll live.” He had a pair of leaves stuck in his hair, but otherwise didn’t have a scratch on him—at least not one she could see, and she wasn’t about to do a strip search.
Relief slackened the tension pulling her shoulders tight. “Thank goodness. Is there anything you need? Anything we can do?”
“Well, I’d suggest getting that dock fixed.”
Which was exactly what she’d asked Carl to do on Tuesday. “Where’s Carl?”
“Outside.” Sean pulled the driver up onto the landing.
She pulled the assistant brewmaster aside and lowered her voice. “Make sure he’s okay and get folks moving on unloading those hops. For what we had to pay out for those little buds, I won’t be able to breathe until they’re safe in our cooler.”
“Where you going?”
“The OK Corral.” Time for a showdown with her mutinous brewmaster. She’d tried nice. She’d tried all business. She’d tried cajoling. Now, it was time to try bitch with big brass balls.
While the rest of the crew worked their asses off, Carl was exactly where he’d spent most of his time this week —lounging in the outdoor employee picnic area, a dented soda can full of tobacco spit in one hand and a view of the Hamilton River in front of him. There was no way he didn’t hear her cross the gravel parking lot to get to him. Still, he didn’t bother to glance her way, keeping his gaze locked on the slow-moving water.
It was one thing to be a difficult person to work with, but laziness and a bad attitude made a dangerous combination. She marched in front of him, blocking his view and forcing him to look at her. “I asked you to stabilize and refinish the dock on Tuesday so we’d be able to accept delivery of the hops we just spent a huge portion of our budget on. The dock just crumbled underneath a driver from Gulch City Brews here to deliver the hops. We’re lucky as hell that he didn’t get seriously injured.”
Carl rolled his shoulders. “It’s not like he fell into the Grand Canyon. He’ll live.”
“That’s not the point.” She smacked her palm down on the table hard enough to make her skin sting. “If you aren’t with us in turning this place around, then you’re against us, and there’s no place for you here.”
He thunked the can down on the table, splashing a few drops of foul-smelling brown liquid onto her hand. Hate and a little touch of something crazy burned in his narrowed eyes. “You think you can fire me?”
“I know I can. My sisters and I own the brewery.” The hairs on the back of her neck pricked up, but she wasn’t about to back down to Carl. First the grandstanding when he and a few others tried to intimidate her from walking into the brewery, his refusal to help with the renovations this week, and now the dock. He was a bully and a lazy SOB, and she’d put up with enough of his shit. “Clean out your office, Carl. You’re fired.”
Carl unfolded his rangy form from the bench until his shadow covered Miranda from bangs to tennis shoes. Wary, but undaunted, she didn’t flinch. If there was one fringe benefit of being a Sweet in Salvation, it was learning to stick up for yourself and stand your ground before you could even walk. Being a stubborn pain in the ass was an ingrained part of the Sweet DNA.
When she didn’t budge, Carl took a step back and rocked on his heels. “All those hops are going to go to waste if I’m not here for brew day.”
“Sean’ll do fine without you—maybe better.”
“Are you as crazy as the rest of your people? That boy showed up one day without any experience working in a brewery, and your uncle hired him against my advice.” His body tensed, and he curled his hands into fists.
If he’d meant to intimidate her, he’d failed. “Considering a trained chimp with a coke habit would be better than you, I’m sure Sean will blow your record out of the water.”
Sure, Sean was relatively new to the brewery business and had never been a brewmaster, but dealing with a newbie had to be better than dealing with the current brewmaster. Hell, she’d put Uncle Julian’s obnoxious cursing parrot in charge just to get rid of Carl.
“So that’s how it is, huh?” His upper lip curled into an angry-dog snarl. “You not only steal the brewery out from underneath me, you fire me, too.”
That wasn’t how it happened at all, but she was beyond done petting this man’s ego. “Looks like it.”
“There’s a ton of breweries that’ll be lucky to have me.”
Not once they met him. “Glad to hear that. While you pack up your stuff, I’ll cut you a severance check.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” A glint of something ugly and mean shone in his eyes. “I always get what’s coming to me.”
At the end of an unbelievably long day, it took everything Logan had not to peel out of the bank’s parking lot. But once he hit the city limits, all bets were off. He needed to blast down some country roads with the windows down and the fall wind chilling him until he stopped thinking about the woman who’d gotten the better of him, because the thoughts he was having had nothing to do with revenge or winning. The woman with her sassy mouth, sharp mind, and curvy body had taken up residence in his head, and he needed to freeze her out.
Hours later, he parked his truck in the Sweet Salvation Brewery’s nearly deserted parking lot and headed over to the Hamilton River. The irony didn’t escape him. He hadn’t meant to end up here, but the place drew him like a magnet.
Leaves crunched behind him, and he turned. Miranda crossed the grassy space between them, the brewery’s outdoor security lights outlining her mouthwatering hips as she walked. Something released inside him, loosening his limbs. The truth of it was he had spent years wanting the woman before him. She was just so…unexpected.
She stopped beside him, near enough he could feel her without touching. “You’re not here to burn the place down, are you?” Her words were a challenge, the kind he relished.
“According to the rumors around town, that’s supposedly your devious scheme.” He meant it to tease, even though it was true.
A heavy silence fell and embarrassment slapped him on the cheeks. Fuck. You are such an asshole to make a dumb joke. Then she tossed back her hair and la
ughed. Loud. Happy. Relaxed. The transformation from her normally tough-as-nails exterior sucked the wind right out of him. It was like he’d seen the real her, the one he’d first seen years ago in chemistry class, and he liked it. Really liked it.
“It’s still a beautiful view.” He nodded toward the river. The last time he’d been up here at night, it had been farther upstream. He’d been with Miranda then, too. An image of her spread out before him on the thick blanket covering his truck bed flashed in his mind. God, they’d been so young and hopeful. He’d actually believed who they were wouldn’t matter. He’d learned differently, a hard lesson in what happened when he veered from what was expected of a Martin in Salvation.
“So you came up here for the view?”
Logan turned to face her. “Exactly.” Long legs, bountiful curves, and freckles, she was a wonder.
“You are so full of shit.” She laughed again, the sound warm against his skin like a summer rain. “A little Martin flirting won’t get me to give up on the brewery.”
As if their family histories weren’t enough, they still had that between them. God, he was so fucking tired of it. “I suppose that was too much to hope for.”
She nodded, sending her wavy hair shimmying around her shoulders. “Truce for tonight?”
“Why?”
Her shoulders dipped, and she rubbed the back of her neck. “Because I just fired our brewmaster, and I don’t have the energy to fight anyone else tonight.”
Now is when he should seize the chance to hit her while she was down. Sympathy and emotions didn’t have a place in business. How often had his father told him that?
“Truce.” The word slipped out before his brain had a chance to block it.
Miranda sat down backward at the picnic table so she stared out at the river. Logan followed her lead, keeping enough space between them to be decent, but not enough that he couldn’t smell her jasmine perfume or feel the spark of electricity buzzing between them. But it was wasted attraction. He was a Martin. Solid. Dependable. Duty-bound. She was a Sweet. Wild. Unpredictable. Always stirring up trouble. Salvation wasn’t the kind of place where they could get together.
“If one of us doesn’t say something soon, this could get awkward.”
He leaned back and put his elbows on the table, stretching his legs so that the outside of his thigh brushed against hers. “You got out of here. Away from what people expected and your pre-determined role. Why come back?”
She sighed. “That was one of the first things the brewery staff asked me when I got here.”
“So what’s the answer?”
“Maybe I wanted to show people they were wrong about me. About my family.” Her jaw tightened as if she were holding back from telling him more. “Not all of us can be town royalty.”
“I’d abdicate if I could.”
“Why on earth would you do that?”
“I’ve been locked in that role since I was born. After my mother died, there were…problems.” Now there was an understatement. “I thought I’d get to leave after college, but instead I did what was expected and went to work at the bank. My life was planned out from the moment I was born.”
“How does putting the Sweet Salvation Brewery out of business and replacing it with an industrial park fit into that?”
“It would help Salvation attract business. It would help my family. But also because it would be mine. Something I did, not my dad or his dad or his dad before him.” He’d never said it out loud before, not even to himself, but they were the truest words he’d ever spoken. “I can’t believe I just told you that.”
“What happens at the Hamilton Riverbank stays at the Hamilton Riverbank.” She swiveled toward him, the movement drawing her leg more fully against his.
The moon came out from behind a cloud, bathing her in its pale glow. Her wavy hair danced against her full tits, and she sucked on her bottom lip. Lust hit him as hard as a Mack truck, flattening his defenses. For a second, he let himself imagine what it would be like to toss her over one shoulder and carry her down to the river’s edge. He’d peel away her Sweet Salvation Brewery T-shirt and jeans and see her like he had that night. His hand twitched at his side with the need to touch her, but he couldn’t. This wasn’t high school anymore.
“How about you?” He jerked his chin toward the brewery. “Looking to slay some personal demons?”
“You could say that. I need to make the brewery profitable to get a promotion at work. I’ve been putting in crazy hours for years, and it’s my time.”
Their families were enemies—would always be enemies—nothing could change that. Not that night so long ago and not a story so close to his own. That’s how things worked in Salvation.
“So really, you want to help me to succeed. It means finally getting the Sweets out of Salvation, which is the unofficial town motto.”
She laughed, softening the true statement. The sound swirled around them like a newly fallen leaf on the breeze. Their gazes caught, his mouth went dry, and his heart sped up. Want and need and expectation twisted his insides in an effort to pry apart the fibers of what he’d always known to be true: Martins and Sweets were enemies.
“But then I’d lose the bet.” He held on to the last word in his mind, like a glaring neon sign reminding him of what was at stake.
“Oh yes.” Her smile faltered, and she glanced up at the stars lighting up the night sky, weariness lining her beautiful face. “The bet. I’d almost forgotten with our little momentary truce here tonight.”
She angled her body so she was only inches from him, close enough that loose strands of her hair tossed around in the breeze tickled his cheek, and looked up. Slivers of softness showed thrown her usual hardened exterior. He didn’t see weakness in her blue eyes, but isolation and hunger—both of which he understood at a bone-deep level, and part of him hated her at that moment for making him see so much of himself in her.
“Not me.” He couldn’t, no matter what. “Do you know what they charge for ads in that newspaper?”
“I could offer to half it with you.” Her gaze lowered to his mouth, and she licked her bottom lip.
“Nah, that would go against the spirit of the bet.” He forced his gaze away from her pink tongue even as his body responded like a well-trained dog. “We couldn’t have that.”
A car engine purred to life in the parking lot. Miranda started, and a flush pinkened her cheeks. She jumped up from the table, brushing away the dirt from her high, firm ass. “It’s getting late. I should be heading out.”
“Can I walk you to your car?”
“I think I can manage on my own, if you can be trusted not to damage the place when I leave you alone.”
Her smile hit Logan hard, and he realized how long it had been since anyone but Hud had joked with him.
He held up a hand. “Martin’s honor.” Uttering the phrase caused a pang of guilt.
Miranda didn’t seem to notice. “Goodnight then.” She turned and took a step away.
He snagged her hand before she could go any farther. Electricity zipped up his arm. “Thanks.”
Imaginings of what could have been if she was just a woman and he was just a man left a bittersweet taste in his mouth. But as it was, she was a Sweet and he was a Martin. They’d been down that path before, and he’d been left shell shocked when she’d ran not just from Salvation but from him. There was no possibility of anything more now.
She squeezed his hand before releasing it, turning and sauntering toward the parking lot, her tantalizing hips swaying with each step. A few feet from the parking lot she stopped and pivoted to look back at him.
“I guess this means our truce is over.” The parking lot’s lights spotlighted her, showing off every curve and the slight quiver of her bottom lip, but before it could grow into a full-blown tremble, she straightened her shoulders and looked him dead in the eye
. “Swords or dueling pistols in the morning?”
She knew it and he knew it. Their roles in the ongoing Salvation drama were set, and they had no choice but to play the parts assigned.
“Swords, of course.” He could fight her, but not reality.
They were enemies.
Chapter Seven
Miranda slammed the phone down on the receiver. Two days. Ten contractors. Six slightly nervous he’s-or-she’s-not-heres and four straight up nos. At least the last guy had the decency to sound embarrassed, but that didn’t change the fact that not a single contractor in Salvation would rebuild the loading dock.
So much for her and Logan’s little moment of Zen last week. He hadn’t been kidding about dueling at dawn. None of the contractors had come right out and said it, but she knew a Martin family bitch slap when the invisible palm smacked her across the cheekbone.
Their families had history. A long one.
The way her MeMaw had told it, Matthew Sweet and Benjamin Martin founded Salvation together. Then they both fell in love with Elizabeth Hamilton, who, according to MeMaw, had enough intelligence to marry Matthew Sweet. But Benjamin Martin had taken it as the first strike in a war his family had to win. It only got worse after that. Bootlegging. Crooked land deals. Cattle rustling. Drought. The Civil War. Lies. Inconvenient truths. With the end result being two families on opposite sides of the track who grew up hearing tales of the other’s treachery and general worthlessness.
She’d been stupid enough to forget that history when she was young, dumb, and barely seventeen.
Logan had been as hot as any completely-off-limits-and-out-of-her-league boy could be, and she’d known there was something more to him than being the crown prince of Salvation. In her demented teenage mind, he was the Prince to her Cinderella. It was like the beginning of a cheesy song by some overly earnest tween pop star. God, she’d been as dumb as a box of rocks to even think he’d ever seen her as more than an easy conquest.