by Gina Ardito
“You think we left here when you did earlier?”
Of course they didn’t. Bo would drive herself harder, taking everyone else along for the ride. She must have purposely waited until he was gone to keep him from arguing with her. He struggled to keep from rolling his eyes toward the back of his head. “Stubborn woman.”
“That she is. But she’s also stressed to the max with the grand opening Saturday night and obsessing about all the details. She’s gonna worry herself into a hospital stay again, if she doesn’t slow down soon. I’ll be glad when this grand opening is behind us. She needs some real downtime—not just a sunset and a pedicure, or confession swapping over tumblers of scotch.”
“She told you about the scotch?”
“Yeah. She also told me she told you about how she wound up here. I take it you know all the family secrets now.”
He grimaced, recalling the Sheehan family business she’d neglected to mention. “Not all of them.”
Above them, Bo’s office door opened, and Cooper strolled out, in full uniform, with Bo right behind him. Before she noticed him, Drew took advantage of her distraction to study her. She looked brittle, as if one more mishap would fracture her fragile veneer. Dark rings rimmed her eyes, and she moved ploddingly, each step careful and slow, sapping more of her waning energy. She still wore the clothes she’d had on yesterday. For a millisecond, he wondered whose underwear might be under those jeans.
As they reached the bottom step, Cooper told her, “You sure have had a time since you got to the canyon. First, your car and now, your brewing equipment. I am sorry. These kinds of things don’t normally happen here.”
“Don’t worry, Sheriff,” she said, her tone strained by exhaustion, “I don’t hold it against the town.”
“Cooper, how are you?” Drew strode forward. “How’s Abby?”
The sheriff nodded. “Good. Real good. You?”
“Can’t complain.”
“Well, that mood won’t hold when you and I talk again. My office? Say…three o’clock?”
To talk about Wade’s possible involvement in the brewery tampering, no doubt. Drew nodded, saying nothing, and his silence spoke volumes.
As he expected, Bo cracked first. “I hope you and Abby will be coming to the grand opening.”
“We will,” Cooper said, “but Abby won’t be drinking any beer.”
“She didn’t like it?”
“Oh, she loved your Dragon’s Blood, but she’s not supposed to do much drinking for the next several months.”
Bo’s tired eyes lit up. “Ah, got it. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Cooper held up a hand. “But don’t say anything to anybody. We only found out for sure the other day. Abby wants to tell her sisters and close friends the news first. She’d kill me if she knew I told you guys.”
She mimed locking her lips. “No worries. I’ll be sure to wait ‘til she announces it.”
“Thanks,” he repeated. “I’ll be in touch once I’ve got something definitive for you. Meanwhile, get those cameras installed.”
“Trust me,” she said, her jaw tight. “I’m way ahead of you. They’re coming tomorrow morning. No tours and no unauthorized personnel on the brewery floor until those cameras are up and running.”
“Good. Drew, take care.”
“You, too.”
With Cooper gone, Mitch locked his gaze somewhere on the far side of the room and didn’t waver in his focus. “I should get back to…what I was doing.” He practically ran in the direction he’d pinned his stare, leaving Drew and Bo alone.
“Well,” Drew said when Mitch was out of earshot, “that wasn’t too awkward.”
Bo didn’t smile. Instead, she folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. “What are you doing here, Drew?”
“I came back to help out.” In contrast to her stance, he spread his arms wide. “Where do you want me?”
“Gone.”
He kicked invisible dust in an aw-shucks manner, assuming she joked with him. “C’mon now. You don’t mean that.”
Her stern expression never wavered. “Yes. I do. I can’t do this.”
He paused to study the solemnity in her tone and in her eyes. “This?”
“This.” She waved a hand, first at him, then at herself. “Us. This attraction brewing between us. I can’t deal with it. Not after what your brother might have pulled.”
Cold reality splashed his face, and he blinked. “You’re serious.”
“Yeah, I am.” She sighed. “Look, I’m sorry, but whether you knew anything about it or had anything to do with it or not, your brother messed with my livelihood, my future. My last chance to get my life right. I can’t forgive that.”
“I had no idea Wade was going to—”
“Maybe. But even when you did figure out he was involved, you didn’t tell me right away. I practically had to shame you into sharing what you knew. And that got me thinking. If push came to shove, who would you choose? The brother you’ve known all your life, or the woman who blew into town two months ago?”
“That’s not fair. You’re right that I should’ve said something sooner—”
“But you chose your brother over me.” She held up a hand. “It’s okay. I might have done the same thing if the situation was reversed. You know, you may not remember it, but the other day, when you tried to give me a key to your house, you said something that stuck with me. You said you understood my fears because anyone who’d gone through the implosion of a marriage feels like they’ve got no one to count on but themselves and looks for ulterior motives in everyone who crosses their path.”
He curled his hands into fists. “Don’t. Don’t give me the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speech. Bo. We’re beyond that.”
“You’re right.” Her expression turned stony. “Go home, Drew. There’s nothing left between us. Don’t come back. Don’t call. Don’t try to charm me. I can’t afford any more charming men in my life. The last one nearly killed me.”
Her posture stiffer than steel, she strode into the back room, past the large blaring sign, which pronounced the area For Authorized Personnel Only, leaving him to pick up his jaw. How the hell had he managed to choose his lazy, good-for-nothing brother over the best woman to come into his life in…forever?
Chapter 14
“I questioned your brother and his buddies.” Cooper leaned the chair back on its two rear legs and hovered in the space between Drew’s desk and his seat.
Drew waited, patience skating on a razor wire, for the latest news, or for Cooper to fall on his ass, whichever came first. “And…?”
“And they denied knowing anything about the tampering at the brewery.”
Of course they did. A glint of light speared his office, and he glanced out the window behind Cooper’s head as a car drove past in the parking lot, the setting sun splashing off the chrome. He didn’t need the sudden illumination to tell him what Cooper didn’t say. “So, that’s it? The investigation’s dead?”
“For now, yeah.” Cooper shrugged. “Not much else I can do. I mean, hell, we don’t know for sure anything illegal happened. The problem with the heating coils could’ve been due to faulty equipment, a negligent employee, or even a brief power outage. I can’t charge Wade or anyone else when I can’t even confirm there was a crime.” He stated his conclusion with a tone of dismissal, as if he expected Drew to be relieved by this news. As if he thought, like Bo, that Drew would choose his brother over a woman he proclaimed to care about, simply out of some misplaced family loyalty.
“But you believe Wade and his pair of yahoo pals are responsible,” he pointed out.
Cooper evened all four chair legs on the floor again. “Doesn’t matter what I believe. It only matters what I can prove. You know that.”
Yeah, he did. He sighed as the full impact of Wade’s treachery settled on his shoulders. If his brother really had sabotaged the brewery’s equipment—or told his friends to do it for him—Drew had the full responsibili
ty of finding out on his own. He couldn’t stand idly by and let Wade get away with a criminal offense. His career wouldn’t allow it. His upbringing wouldn’t allow it—regardless of what was provable in a court of law. But all he had to go on was Bo’s insistence that someone had intentionally damaged her coils and a nagging suspicion based on Wade’s visit to the brewery that same day. Talk about circumstantial…
Cooper rose to his feet. “I’ll keep you posted if anything changes. I’ll see you at the grand opening later.”
“No, you won’t. Bo…” He shook his head. “Bo doesn’t want me around right now.”
“Because of Wade’s possible involvement.” There was no question in Cooper’s tone, but Drew nodded all the same. “That’s too bad. She’s a nice lady.”
“Yeah, she is.”
“All right, then. Have a good night, Drew,” Cooper said, but Drew was already back to work on the contentious divorce case between the battling Olivers.
He pulled up Mrs. Oliver’s most recent complaint against her soon-to-be-ex-husband.
Last Sunday, he returned the children to my home eight minutes late, filthy and sweaty. He was supposed to bring them home from the mud run on time, clean, and ready for bed since they had school the next day...
He scrubbed his hands over his face and groaned. Eight minutes late. Jee-zus. These two would drive him insane before the ink dried on their divorce decree.
“Ahem!” At the sudden intrusion, he looked up into Rosa’s expression, a novel of concern. “You okay, boss?”
“The Olivers,” he said and pointed at the ever-thickening folder of complaints and responses, of court dates and filings. “This is the divorce that will never end.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “They’re only part of the problem. You’ve been cranky as a rabid grizzly for the last couple of days. And now I hear from Cooper you’re not going to your girlfriend’s grand opening tonight. What’s going on?”
“Bo. Her name is Bo. I doubt she’d appreciate being called my anything.” He offered her a brief rundown of what happened with the heating coils, deliberately omitting any mention of his suspicions regarding Wade. He needn’t have bothered.
“You think your brother had something to do with that, as well as the tax letters to Mr. Carpenter?”
Leave it to Rosa to see right through his subterfuge. Still, he avoided a direct answer. “Do you?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“And what would you say if I told you he and his buddies happened to be at the brewery the night the damage occurred?”
“That your girlf—that Bo—should be calling the sheriff’s office to have Wade picked up for malicious mischief or whatever she can get pinned on him. It’s about time somebody made that man pay for the damage he’s done. God knows, you won’t. But you’re the lawyer. You tell me.”
“She called the sheriff.”
“Good for her.”
“You’d think so. Cooper went over to talk to Wade, but he didn’t arrest him.”
“Why not?”
“No evidence. No proof, no witnesses, no way to make any charges stick—not even malicious mischief.” He didn’t want to have this conversation. He was sick of talking about Wade and the brewery. “It’s pretty quiet here today. Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off?” To spur her in the right direction, he fussed with the papers in the folder. “I’m just going to work on this for another hour or so, then I’ll close up for the day.”
Rosa refused to surrender so easily. “Listen to me, Drew, and listen good. Wade wants only what’s good for Wade. If that means dragging you through the mud, he’s not squeamish about filling the trench with water and luring you in. I know you didn’t want to address his crimes when he was just hurting you, but now he’s gone after strangers—twice. If he’s got his sights set on destroying other people to get what he wants, you can’t let it go on.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You know, but will you do what needs to be done?” She held up a hand. “Don’t answer that. I already know.”
“I swear, Rosa, I’m done with Wade. He’s going to have to sink or swim without me. This was the last straw.”
“Uh-huh. I’d be standing on your desk, shouting, ‘Alleluia’ if I really believed that. But we both know when it comes to your brother, you’ve got blind spots.”
Yeah, well, he seemed to have them when it came to women, too. At least this time around, he and Bo had broken it off before they got too serious about each other. He glanced again at Mrs. Oliver’s recent complaint.
Maybe, by being the more clear-eyed of the two of them, Bo had done them both a favor. Or maybe she’d only seen him as some kind of diversion, an entertainment for a rich heiress playing the part of a struggling businesswoman while stuck doing some kind of penance in a rural Texas town. In which case, she’d done him the favor by cutting him loose before totally emasculating him.
Either way, he was done. With brothers and women.
****
Bo worked through the night, partly to get the brewery ready for the grand opening and partly to keep her mind from thinking about Drew. Shortly before noon, she took a final stroll, surveying her surroundings with a critical eye, seeking any flaw or potential mishap. Nothing and no one seemed out of place. The security cameras had been set up in strategic areas in the tasting room, the brewery floor, and even outside in the parking lots—front and rear. She and Mitch had also instituted new ratios of guests to employees for all tours to make sure no unauthorized personnel could get close to the tuns without being spotted.
To announce tonight’s official grand opening, banners hung from the exposed rafters in the front rooms. An arch of gold and silver balloons framed the entrance where customers would be greeted by Mitch as they came in. Classic rock music played from the hidden speakers. Her taps were full and ready. The sabotage from the other night had done no major damage, except for a smaller amount of canned brew available for sale tonight. They still had plenty of growlers, though, and honestly, tonight wasn’t about can sales anyway. The loss they’d sustained was negligible at worst—except for Drew.
Stop! For the love of God, stop obsessing over Drew. You’re done with men, remember? You were supposed to be done with men before you even met him. Focus on tonight. Keep your mind on the beer.
After several deep breaths and lots of self-chastisement, she fixed a smile on her face and strode with purpose onto the brewery floor where a dozen employees scrambled with last minute preparations.
“Okay, gang!” she shouted and clapped her hands to be heard over the whirr and buzz of machinery. “Huddle up! The boss wants to say a few things about tonight.” When a crowd gathered near her, including Mitch and Ian, she spoke again. “First, before it gets crazy here when the public shows up, I want to say thank you to all of you. Each of you is responsible for our success so far. You’ve all worked hard and put up with my demands, my inconsistencies, my mania…” A round of chuckles and muttered denials rippled through the crowd. She held up a hand to silence them again. “In short, I couldn’t have created Empire without you. Thank you. And to show you my appreciation, lunch today is on me.”
Applause and cheers erupted. She shooed them all back to work, and within seconds, only Ian and Mitch lingered beside her.
She glanced around the premises. “Where’s Quinn?”
“He said he had some errands to run,” Ian replied. “He’ll be here a little later. He figured it was probably best he stayed out of your hair until the very last minute today.”
“Smart man,” Mitch mumbled.
She jabbed an elbow at him good-naturedly. “That’s enough out of you. Let’s get to work. Where are the most recent test results?”
“Over here.” Mitch pulled a clipboard from a hook on the wall. “Just completed an hour ago. Everything is perfect.”
“Good.” She scanned the numbers on the page. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
“It w
ill,” Ian assured her.
She nodded and fisted her hands to keep from crossing her fingers. “Moving on…”
Mitch replaced the clipboard, and the trio headed to the bar area where Bo pulled out her familiar notebook and pen. They reviewed the final plans one last time.
“That reminds me. You want me to order lunch for everyone?” Mitch offered.
Bo chewed on the pen cap. “Yes, please. What do you think we should get?”
“What’s our budget?”
She rattled off the remaining balance in her checking account. May as well go for broke—literally.
“Well, that’ll buy us a few different options. Let me look up the menus of some places, and we’ll make a decision. Any particular cuisine you want?”
“Whatever you think they’ll go for. Something with lots of protein, I think.”
“And carbs, too,” Mitch advised. “These guys love their carbs.”
“Let’s just make sure whatever we get is enough to keep them full all day. I don’t want anyone passing out from hunger—” She stopped in mid-sentence. Crap. Why’d she mention passing out? Now, she’d have her worried babysitters looming over her all day and all night. To ward off any growing concern, she waved a hand. “You know me. I’ll eat just about anything.”
“Did you have breakfast?” Ian asked.
Here we go. Just what she didn’t want. For heaven’s sake, when would they let that whole episode go? “Can we get on with prepping for tonight please?”
“Making sure you don’t pass out from dehydration and starvation is part of my prepping,” Ian said. “Did you forget the deal we made with your dad?”
“No,” she grumbled and nibbled even harder on the pen cap.
He bounced a finger of chastisement at her nose. “Your father would never forgive me if anything like that last incident happened again.”
And she would never live down that one disastrous moment in her otherwise fairly responsible lifetime. “It won’t,” she insisted. “I swear. I’m not the same weak, naïve person anymore.”