by Lila Monroe
If there’d be a way to sit any farther from me without leaving the cabin, I’m sure he’d have taken it. As it was, I caught him looking out the window at the sheeting rain more than a few times, like he was assessing his chances for an escape. Yep, a raging storm was more appealing to Hunter than being in the same room as me; if I hadn’t known that I’d made some poor life choices before, I definitely knew that now.
I wished I knew what to say to make him look at me. And not just to sneak those lusty glances I kept noticing him shooting in my direction when he thought I wasn’t paying attention; I wanted him to really look at me and cut this hot-and-cold bullshit. Clearly he cared about me, didn’t he? Why couldn’t we just talk?
We sat in awkward silence for what seemed an eternity but was probably only twenty minutes or so. Hunter pulled the stew off the hook before it got hot, probably more to have something to do than because he thought it was ready. Still, it tasted great, beef and carrots and spices all blended together, and just enough chili pepper for the warmth to sink down into your bones without setting your tongue on fire.
It didn’t taste quite like the gourmet meals back at the manor, though. Had he bought this somewhere local? Maybe I could get some, for nights when I was feeling extra pathetic and wanted a sense memory of time spent with him, even if it had been terrible, awkward, silent time.
“Did you get this at a market nearby?” I asked.
He grunted. “It’s homemade.”
“Your cook made this?” I said, surprised. I’d gotten used to fancier fare at Chez Knox.
Hunter shook his head. For a second I thought that was going to be his only response, but then he grunted, “I did.”
I was amazed. “Really?”
“It’s not so hard.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Old family recipe.”
He tried to say it casually, but there was a world of hurt in those last three words.
Of course. I’d gone and done it again. Reminded him of my betrayal. Reminded him of all that he had lost, including rights to another old family recipe.
“Hunter,” I said as gently as I could, trying to infuse my words with all the sincerity I felt. “I really am sorry. And I really do want to help. How…however I can. Don’t you want…don’t you need…anything? Tell me what I can do.”
Hunter looked away, into the dancing flames of the fireplace. They danced in his eyes as well. “I—I can’t. Let you help.”
My frustration bubbled over at his stupid, stubborn, manly-man American individualism. Men always had to do it all on their own, didn’t they? “Why not?”
“Because it’s my fault,” he said softly. “What you did—that shouldn’t have mattered. It wouldn’t have mattered, if I hadn’t let things get as bad as I did, back in the years when I was running from the legacy. But I did. And it feels—I failed everyone. Not just the customers, not just the workers, just—” a quaver came into his voice, and for a second he sounded like nothing more than a lost little boy before he made his voice hard again, his jaw clenched tight, punishing himself. “The Knox name lasted for generations of great bourbon, and I’m the one who let it all crumble. My family name is mud because of me. I failed.”
Emotion swamped me like a tidal wave, sorrow and regret and grief for what he was putting himself through. Before I knew it I was at his side, kneeling on the couch cushion next to him. I put my hands on his shoulders, squeezing tight. “It is not your fault—”
He shrugged off my hand, a wild animal refusing comfort. “Don’t try to tell me it’s not! I know what I did! And I’m not going to put the blame on anybody else.”
He stood so abruptly I was almost jolted off the couch, and stormed off to the bedroom, not meeting my eyes. I jumped up, intending to follow, determined to make him see that he wasn’t to blame—
But then I heard the sound of a key turning in the lock on his bedroom door.
Such a small sound, Hunter locking himself away from me. I was almost surprised I could hear it over the sound of my heart breaking. For the first time, I realized: maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe there was no way to fix this. Maybe our relationship—and any chance at winning back the company—was over.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
But you don’t get me off your case that easily, Hunter Knox.
After a sleepless night tossing and turning on the couch, I’d decided that of all the things I was, a quitter wasn’t one of them. So no matter how hopeless it seemed, I wasn’t giving up on Hunter or the company without one last fight. I’d just have to make it count. This wasn’t a battle anymore—it was a war. And I had a plan.
My strategizing was already paying off. I flipped the eggs sunny side up and grinned, surveying the rest of my morning’s accomplishments. I had done well.
From across the house there was the sound of shuffling, and then a few muffled thuds, followed by what might have been a swear word, and then footsteps. Hunter’s door cracked open slowly, and he emerged bleary-eyed, sniffing at the smoky air like he wasn’t sure it was real. “What the hell?”
“I made you breakfast,” I chirped.
That was understating it. I had fried every damn thing that it was possible to fry.
There was fried bread, okra, beans, tomatoes, banana peppers, eggs, bacon, potatoes, and sausage. I’d also set out a jar of blackberry preserves that looked like they’d been sitting in the pantry since Eisenhower was in office. There was no real coffee, but apparently in some spurt of historical accuracy, fanboying Hunter had bought a bunch of chicory coffee, not realizing or not caring that the entire reason Confederate soldiers drank that shit was because real coffee was hard to come by. That, or, God forbid, he actually liked the taste.
Hunter leaned over the table as if uncertain whether to risk sitting down, picked up a fork, and poked at a piece of sausage like it was a land mine he was afraid would go off. He brought it to his mouth, took a minuscule bite, and chewed carefully.
What, does he think I’m going to poison him or something?
His eyes closed for a moment and he grunted in an appreciatory manner before slumping into the chair and spearing a bit of deep-fried okra.
It wasn’t exactly Shakespeare, but I’d take it.
“I can see that you made breakfast,” he mumbled in a belated response to my earlier statement. “I just can’t see why.”
“Well, if you’re not going to take care of yourself, someone has to. And I didn’t know what you were in the mood for. Hopefully some of this will suit?”
I smiled as innocently as I was able, my butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth face concealing my secret plan. Okay, maybe ‘secret plan’ was a little melodramatic a term for what I was doing, but that’s basically what it was. After all, being conciliatory and upfront about my feelings hadn’t worked. Maybe I needed to be sneaky. Maybe I needed to shock him to get him out of his slump. Maybe I needed to get him really angry.
I nibbled at some fried tomatoes and sipped my chicory coffee—God, but this stuff was terrible, this was probably the real reason we lost the War of Northern Aggression—and kept careful track of the ratio of Hunter’s trepidation-filled food prodding to his blissful food consumption. When the ratio finally started to swing in my favor and it seemed like he’d sufficiently softened up, I struck.
I waited until he was chewing a large mouthful of bacon and potato, incapacitated and incapable of immediately striking back.
“Maybe this is all for the best,” I said philosophically, smiling so brightly at him I was surprised not to see a spotlight on his face. “After all, Chuck has so much more business experience. He probably has a much better handle on what he’s doing anyway, don’t you agree?”
Hunter just stared at me coldly before swallowing. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Doing?” I asked. My smile became slightly strained.
“Oh, please, Ally,” he sighed, pushing his mostly-empty plate away. He shook his head. “You’re good at lying on paper, but in person your face give
s everything away.”
“Excuse me?” I said. But it was all falling apart. I could hear it in the way my voice wavered, that slightly shrill desperate note weaving its way in. Even if he hadn’t had suspicions before, that would have convinced him.
He wiped his face with his napkin and then stood to take his dishes to the sink to wash them, his every movement as slow and careful as if he were dragging a body made of stone, as if he were dragging the accumulated weight of every disappointment and frustration he had experienced in the past two weeks.
“You’re trying to get me all fired up about the company so I’ll ride in and save the day, and you can stop feeling guilty,” he said, his back turned to me, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the running water. “Well, your guilt is not my concern, and my loss isn’t yours. I’ve spent two weeks wrestling with these feelings, and I’m done with them. You can’t get to me. I won’t rise to the bait.”
Was that honestly all he thought of me?
Frustration rose in me like a tidal wave. “Yes, I feel guilty, but that’s not why I’m here!”
“Oh?” he asked, his voice dangerously quiet. “So then why are you here, Ally? What possible other reason could drive you out here to disturb my peace?”
Because I love you, you asshole! I nearly blurted, the grief and the rage loosening the leash I had been keeping on my tongue. I bit it just in time; Hunter needed me to help him out of his funk, not tie him up in more emotional knots. “I came because you have something great here, and I’m not about to watch you throw it all away.”
“What do you care?” Hunter snapped, whirling to face me. His golden-brown eyes were flashing, and his breath came hard and fast, as if he were running a race. “You betrayed me. I trusted you, I thought we were a team, I—I cared.”
I felt as if my heart were being sawed in half. I needed to touch him. I reached out to cup his cheek. “Oh, Hunter—”
But he wrenched away from me. He whirled toward the door, blowing through it like a gust of wind as he stormed off toward the shadows of the surrounding wood.
“Wait!” I called desperately after him.
He didn’t.
I started after him out of reflex, then stopped and looked down at my shoes. They were sensible heels, but only for a certain value of ‘sensible.’ They were definitely not built for chasing through the woods after a man who didn’t want to be followed.
“I cared” and the look on his face when he said it, that shine in his eyes, had that shine been—
But the “why are you here” thrown in my face like a dishrag, like concentrated disdain, as if he were completely done with me—
Fine. New plan. I’d give him some space. I’d give him all the space he could fucking want, and when he was done throwing a temper tantrum, he could come crawling back to this cabin and me, and then maybe we could finally talk.
Yeah, that sentence had sounded really plausible until the last part.
Was it time to accept that we were never going to have those kind of open, honest conversations we’d once had again? Failure had reared its ugly head once again, knocking me off the warpath I’d so recently set off upon. Damn. Double damn.
I slunk back into the cabin in defeat, not sure how I was going to fill the hours until our stalemate heated up again. I paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, then flipped briefly through an adventure novel with a man wrestling with a snake on the front before admitting that there was no way I was going to be able to focus on a plot. I paced over to the bedroom door, but stopped myself before going through; no point in further violating Hunter’s privacy.
Instead, I stomped over to the fridge and flung the door open, more to have something to do than because I thought I’d left anything edible in there after this morning’s fry-up.
Rows and rows of unlabeled brown glass bottles glinted back at me from the top-most shelf.
“Choose your own adventure,” I murmured, eyeing them.
Well, if Hunter was going to avoid all his responsibilities and drink himself into oblivion, why couldn’t I?
Okay, maybe that wasn’t the most mature response. But I was done trying to be mature. I’d matured myself all out, and if Hunter didn’t like me drinking his beer, maybe he could try being the mature one for a change and have an actual conversation with me about it.
I grabbed a whole crate of the bottles and hauled it outside. The sun was shining, the grass was a soft welcoming carpet, and the air was hot and muggy and just begging me to refresh myself with a sweet, cool draught of whatever-the-hell-this-stuff-was.
I kicked off my shoes in the shade of a willow tree, popped the cap off a bottle, and took a swig. Mmm, that was tasty. But what was it? Some kind of beer, I guessed; there was a definite hoppy flavor to it. But a little hint of vanilla and burnt caramel too, like a bourbon aftertaste.
Whatever it was, it was fucking delicious. I took another swallow, larger this time.
After all, Hunter probably had a head start on his day’s drinking, and I fully intended to catch up.
Everything was light and fuzzy and floaty and perfect.
And then Hunter came back.
I felt the tension riding up my spine and shoulders as I watched his tall form hesitantly separate itself from the trees, looking left and right before his gaze settled on me and he began to make his way over. Shit.
I was tipsy, on his booze. This had not been a good plan. This had definitely been in the bottom ten of my plans. He was going to blow his stack, and with all the alcohol in my system I was definitely going to cry.
I almost fled back into the woods myself.
But then I saw his face. It had a hangdog look, remorseful and rueful. His shoulders were hunched, almost as if he were expecting a blow, and his feet dragged slightly along the ground, like a little boy knowing he was about to be punished.
He stopped just in front of me and scuffed his feet along the ground. “I’m sorry.”
Even with the clues of his facial expression and posture, I had been expecting any words but those. “What?”
“I know you didn’t mean to hurt me,” he said, meeting my eyes. “I was using that as an excuse to take this all out on you.” He rubbed the back of his neck, roughly, almost as if he were punishing himself. “I just hate the idea I’m letting all my employees down, all the stockholders. And I hate that I’m ruining the family name.”
Tears started in my eyes and I stood, wavering slightly as the earth did a slow, stately waltz around me.
Hunter caught me, his arms around my waist, his strong hands on the small of my back.
I could feel the heat of his hands through the fabric of the borrowed shirt I was wearing.
I could smell him, bourbon and vanilla and soap and sweet clean sweat. His arm was only inches from my mouth and I wanted to lick along his skin.
Danger, danger, danger!
I leaned away from him, away from all that tempting skin. I didn’t quite break his hold, though. Instead, I struggled through my lust to try to explain myself: “The company, iss—it’s more than jussa—jussa—just a name. It’s the choices you made. The, you know. Ideas. Chuck and all those douches might’ve won control, but you could, you know. Start someshing—something fresh.”
Somehow my hand had found its way onto his arm and was stroking it. Somehow even now that I had noticed, I couldn’t stop doing it.
I sighed softly. “You could build something of your own again.”
He shook his head. “Like what? They have the bourbon recipes and brand.”
I opened my mouth, and realized I didn’t have anything to say. It did seem pretty hopeless.
I took a swig of his drink instead. His eyes followed the neck of the bottle as it pressed against my lips.
“Now that’s a good idea,” Hunter said with a small smile. He settled himself onto the grass, tugging me gently down with him and grabbing a bottle of his own. He removed his arms from around my waist to do so, and I missed them insta
ntly. But to reach the bottle he had to put his arm around my shoulders, his weight pressing against my back for just a second. It was heaven.
He popped the cap and for a few minutes we drank in an oddly companionable silence, our hands not quite touching each other on the grass. I savored his company and this strange new peace that seemed to have fallen over us like the softest of clouds, and I savored the taste of the mystery drink; each bottle seemed to have a slightly different flavor, and this one had strong overtones of burnt sugar and apple.
“What is this stuff, anyway?” I finally asked.
“Bourbon beer,” Hunter said after swallowing. “I’ve been experimenting with it for a few years.”
I frowned, puzzled. “And what exactly is bourbon beer?”
“What it sounds like,” he said. “Beer brewed in bourbon barrels. Doesn’t affect the alcohol content, but gives it a real complex, full-bodied flavor.” He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “Well, it does to me anyway.”
A high-intensity halogen lightbulb went off in my head. I grabbed his hand. “Oh my God! This is it!”
Hunter looked perplexed. “This is what?”
I wanted to leap up and swing him around and around, I was so happy. “This is the new product!”
Hunter had been staring down at where my hand was touching his—and yes, that expression on his face was interesting, I was definitely going to have to come back to that later and what it really meant and if it really meant what I hoped it really meant—but at my words, his gaze jolted back up at me. His eyes widened. “You really think so?”
“Hunter,” I said, my words spilling from my mouth before I had a chance to organize them, “this thing I am drinking right now. It tastes like a beer and bourbon got married and had a beautiful baby, who married an apple and flew a caramel chariot all the way to heaven. It is amazing. It is so amazing that you could sell it with the crappiest ad campaign in the world, but with me doing it, you’re solid gold.”
That last bit made him grin, and I watched, an answering grin on my face, as I saw the excitement slowly win out over the trepidation on his. Then he squeezed my hand back. “All right. Let’s do this!”