The Distiller's Darling

by Rebecca Norinne

  Attempting to mask the riot of emotions running through him, he pulled his eyes from hers and looked out over the square. “You finished the sculpture, then?”

  “I did. It’s ...” Naomi trailed off and let out a long sigh. “It’s more than I ever thought it could be. It’s also not exactly what I thought it was going to be, either.”

  He turned back toward Naomi and studied her face. She didn’t look unhappy, but he knew her, and while she might not have said the words, her voice had revealed some sort of inner struggle with the finished piece. Almost as if she knew it was good, but she wasn’t sure she actually liked it.

  “I’m sure it’s beautiful,” he told her. Because everything she touched was beautiful. Even if it wasn’t lasting.

  Her eyes turned hazy for a brief second—as if she was suddenly lost in thought—and then she blinked, and the look was gone. “Enough about me, though. Noah wanted me to make sure that I let you know that your dad had left.”

  “Left?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, apparently he’s on his way to the airport now.”

  Iain blew out a breath. “Wow. That’s …” He didn’t know what it was. At any rate, he didn’t think it was a good thing. Not much shot at closure on the family feud, anyway.

  Naomi laid a hand on his knee. “I’m sorry things didn’t go the way you wanted with your family.”

  Iain’s gaze dropped to her hand and then back up. Misinterpreting his look, she pulled it away, and he felt the loss of contact deep in his bones. “Thanks. I can’t say that I’m surprised, but I really hoped we could work something out.”

  Just then his phone buzzed in his hand. He flipped it over to see it was Maeve.

  Naomi stood. “I should really get going. And you should go talk with your sister.” She nodded toward his phone, Maeve’s name glowing in large print over the green ’answer’ button.

  Iain nodded and stood, shoving the device into his pocket. Maeve could wait a few minutes more. As if compelled by some invisible force, he took a step forward. And then another. Naomi was his sun, and he was helpless to fight her gravitational pull. Wherever she was, he wanted to be too. “Yeah, and you should get on the road.” Without conscious thought, he raised his hand and pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, dragging the tip of his finger down her neck until he felt her skin pebble beneath his touch. “Drive safe.”

  “I will.” With her eyes locked on his, she bit her lip … and then looked away. “We’ll talk soon.”

  He nodded, and then realized she might not be able to see him in her peripheral vision. “Yeah, call me and let me know how the show goes.” He took a step back and shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat.

  Naomi gave him a small nod and then turned on her heel and strode quickly out of the gazebo. Iain just stood there, watching her go, wondering if he’d ever get the chance to watch her walking toward him. Toward them.

  He let his shoulders slump as he turned to leave, too. He pulled his phone back out of his pocket and hit the ’call back’ button waiting on the screen. “Hey sis, what’s up?”

  As he walked from the town square back to his apartment, Iain listened with increasing astonishment as his sister explained that after he’d left their mother had laid into their brothers and father. By the time the smoke had cleared, Cathal Brennan was crawling back to Ireland with his tail between his legs to beg for his wife’s forgiveness. The way Maeve told it, he’d be begging for Iain’s next—all from the safety of a different continent.

  After all he’d gone through, Iain no longer had to sell his shares of Brennan Family Distillers if he didn’t want to. No matter what he decided, though, their mother wanted to use the money she’d inherited from her own father to get the Whitman’s distillery up and running. For generations, she’d said, Brennan men had been investing in their sons; it was time an O’Brien invested in her daughter. He and Maeve could either take the money as a loan, or she could stay on as a silent investor—whatever Maeve and Iain wanted was what Colleen Brennan wanted for them.

  By the time Iain had hung up with his sister, his mind was reeling. He’d never expected their mother to defy their father in such spectacular fashion. Then again, he’d never expected his father to betray him so spectacularly either. According to Maeve, an apology would be forthcoming, but at the moment, Iain didn’t know if he was ready to accept. The hurt was still too fresh.

  As he lumbered up the narrow steps to his tiny place, his feet dragging after the emotionally taxing day he’d just had, he thought long and hard about exactly what it was that he wanted.

  He wanted Maeve to have her distillery, and he wanted to be the one to run it.

  But most of all, he wanted a certain recalcitrant artist by his side through it all. Now, he just had to convince her that’s where she belonged.

  23

  “Thanks, Jim,” Naomi called as the gallery owner left her in the space with a wave. He’d let her in, helped her carry the heaviest crates, and showed her where he kept the hanging supplies in the back room. Now he was off to a meeting, or lunch, or whatever it was gallery owners did when they weren’t actively hosting shows. He’d left her here alone to set up, with a key to the front door to lock up when she was finished.

  Alone was the key word, she reflected as she examined the gallery space. Empty blank walls and the sturdy white columns of display tables waiting for her art stared back at her. She ought to be thrilled that she was here. She’d given Iain the message about his father and had managed to escape before either of them had gotten clingy or weird about a relationship that was clearly over.

  So why did it feel like she was running away? She’d been planning this show since the night she met Iain; she’d known she would be driving out to the city today. She’d checked in to a hotel near the gallery, ready to stay for the weeklong duration of her show. Opening night was tomorrow night. She’d be here. Iain would be… well, apparently, he’d be in River Hill, setting up a new distillery. Unless that last conversation had gone differently, and his father had left because Iain was expected to follow him back to Ireland shortly.

  She couldn’t dwell on it. They’d agreed. Three months, then part as friends. They hadn’t managed the parting as friends part as well as she could have hoped, but they were certainly parting. Iain was moving on, working with his sister. She was moving on, too. Z Gallery was a huge win for her—Jim’s clientele were rich, and most of them had both residential and commercial spaces they liked to fill with art like hers. He’d told her when she arrived that he fully expected to sell every single piece she’d brought. When she’d opened the crate that contained her heart sculpture, he’d sucked in a startled breath and then looked up at her with an expression of pure glee on his face.

  “You know how in cartoons, people’s eyes turn into dollar signs?” He’d pointed to his own brown eyes, nearly hidden behind thick-framed black hipster glasses. “Mine are doing that right now.”

  She’d laughed, but it had hurt to breathe. Now, she lifted the piece carefully out of the crate, gently brushing the fragments of packing material away. She set it on the stand waiting on the central pedestal, a basic, squat white column that was set directly in the center of the gallery. Several of the lights that hung on roving tracks throughout the ceiling had been aimed at it, so the column was bathed in plenty of warm light. It was set up exactly as she’d requested, and this piece would shine as the central focus of the show. It was the culmination of months of work. Years, if you considered the journey she’d traveled in life to get to the point where she was capable of producing something so thoroughly emotive.

  And as she stared at it, she felt a gnawing sensation in her stomach and a horribly strong urge to hide it away so that nobody could see it. She didn’t want to sell it. The idea of some random guy in a suit putting her actual heart on display in his condo made her ill. She’d reached for the little stack of cards intended for sale notifications twice now, the urge to write NOT FOR SALE on one of them getting
stronger and stronger.

  She shook her head again. She was getting maudlin. She needed to pull herself together. Taking long, slow breaths, she turned slowly around in a circle, examining her work. She’d taken each of the pieces Jim had requested out of their protective packaging and placed them carefully on their stands. The printed cards that bore her name, logo, and brief artist statements for each piece had already been slipped into the waiting plexiglass holders attached to each display. She was nearly done. All that was left was the final zhuzh, as her mother would say. The last little fidgets and moving of things an inch to the left here, half an inch to the right there that would make the set up truly perfect.

  She pulled out her phone to check the time and bit her lip.

  For the first time in her life, she didn’t want to be here.

  She winced. She’d spent her entire career working toward this moment. But all she could think about was whether Iain was going to be leaving. If he was going back to Ireland or staying in River Hill. If he was going to work full-time on the new whiskey. If he wanted to see her again.

  Because she definitely wanted to see him. It was time to stop fooling herself. She was crazy in love with her Irish whiskey man, and every minute she spent here fiddling with her sculptures was another minute she was losing on the road back to River Hill to ask him if he felt the same. She’d done what she’d needed to do here, and she could easily make it back in time to do even more tomorrow morning if she needed to. She closed the crate that had held her heart piece and carried it back into the storage room that was hidden from view by a whitewashed wall. Emerging back into the gallery, she looked around at her work, glowing dimly in the warmth of the carefully-positioned lights. She let professional satisfaction wash over her once more. She’d done it. She turned her gaze toward the door.

  The entire glass storefront of the gallery had been covered in a vinyl wrap advertising her show; it served the dual purpose of generating advertising buzz and hiding the inside of the gallery until the show was completely set up inside. It was one of Jim’s special tricks that made Z Gallery so popular. She’d long since shaken off most of the imposter syndrome that had plagued her first few years as a professional artist but seeing her own giant face and stylized signature taking up an entire window had definitely given her pause when she’d arrived.

  Now, she hurried to the covered door and wrenched it open, juggling the key Jim had given her with her own car keys. She stepped out into the bright sunlight, shading her eyes against the change from the darkened gallery, and immediately collided with a solid body.

  “What—” She felt arms go around either side of her to catch her, and familiar hands at her waist. “Iain? What? How—”

  “Hi.” It was really him. That low, smooth voice couldn’t be anyone else, not that she’d needed the proof with the warmth of his steadying touch infusing her body with a feeling that only Iain seemed able to bring about. Every time he touched her, she was reminded how much she wanted him.

  Her eyes had finally adjusted to the light, but he still seemed to have a halo shining around his head. Probably her imagination. Or maybe he was just that good. “I’m so glad to see you,” she said.

  He quirked an eyebrow and lifted his lips into a half-smile. “Are you?”

  “Yes! Oh—” She tugged him back through the door. “Come in here, I’m being blinded. I was just coming to see you.” She blurted it out as though it wasn’t something she’d been agonizing over practically since she’d arrived at the gallery. As if it made all the sense in the world. Maybe because it did.

  Iain hadn’t quite let go of her yet, his hands still lingering at her hips. “You were?”

  She nodded. “I shouldn’t have left so quickly.”

  “You had a show to prepare,” he said, shrugging. “Speaking of which—” He looked around, brows going higher as he took in the nearly-finished setup. “This is great, Naomi.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  His gaze returned to her. “This is the real deal for you, isn’t it? The big time?”

  She nodded. “There’s still a lot on my bucket list as an artist, but this is a huge step. It’ll get my foot in a lot of doors. Especially …” she stopped, feeling her heart start to race. He hadn’t seen it yet. Her body was blocking his view of the central space. She stepped aside. “Especially when they see this.”

  She watched his face as he examined the final version of the sculpture she’d been creating the entire time they’d been together. It was practically an artistic record of their relationship. And it said exactly what she’d been trying to figure out how to say for the last several hours. Days, even. She loved him. She loved him, and he’d made her a better person.

  His eyes widened and he moved closer to the sculpture. His hand seemed to move of its own volition, reaching out toward the large clasped hands surrounding the heart, tracing the lines of Irish barley nudging the clay fingers aside. “Naomi…”

  She swallowed. “Do you like it?” Her voice wobbled a little on the last word, and she winced. She was already feeling vulnerable enough. No need to rub it in.

  “It’s incredible,” he whispered. He touched the vein-striated heart emerging from its cage, then turned to her, his eyes full of some unreadable emotion. “Don’t sell it.” His voice was low, and hard. “Please.”

  She swallowed. And nodded. “I was already thinking about telling the gallery owner it’s spoken for.”

  His smile was slow, but it felt like dawn breaking over the Pacific when it washed over her. “Actually, I know the perfect place for it.”

  “You do?”

  He reached out and took her hand, then twined their fingers together just like the barley twined through the fingers of the sculpture. “Our tasting room.”

  “Your what?” The last she’d heard, his father was storming off to Ireland, and he and his sister were about to either go rogue with a distillery of their own or go crawling back to the family, and neither scenario had included enough money to furnish a full tasting room.

  He pulled her closer to him, until their bodies were touching. She rested her head on his shoulder. “As it happens, my mother saved the day.”

  “Mothers are strange that way,” she murmured, remembering her most recent conversation with her own mother. Judith Klein intended to be front and center during the gallery’s opening. And she’d even promised not to tell any of her friends about it. She was just going to be there, to support her daughter without interfering. “What did yours do?”

  “She gave Maeve the money to buy the distillery. All of it.”

  Naomi’s head popped off of Iain’s shoulder and she stared at him. “You’re kidding.”

  He shook his head. “She also did a number on my father and brothers. I got the most astonishing phone call from my dad this morning. He apologized to me.”

  “I need to meet your mother,” Naomi said without thinking.

  “About that…”

  She gulped. “That is … I mean … I didn’t...” She struggled mightily to say what was in her heart. After all, it was the first time she’d ever felt this way, much less told someone else.

  He held up a hand. “I’m going to say it first. I need to, I think.” He took a deep breath. “I love you, Naomi Klein. I love that you’re complicated, and I love that you’re loyal, and I love literally every single thing you do in bed, let’s not forget that part. I also love that you’ve made my life immeasurably better since you came into it, and I don’t want you out of it. Ever.”

  She swallowed. “I love you too.” It came out as a whisper, and he grinned.

  “I’m going to need you to say that a little louder, my darling commitment-phobe.”

  She laughed. “I love you too, Iain Brennan. That sculpture is my heart. You’ve pulled it out from where I was hiding it. I was keeping it caged away because I was so scared of what other people would do if they saw me using it, I think. My family, their friends, even my own friends. But you’ve le
t me live life with love, and friendship, and I never want to go back.”

  “So…” He paused. “What do we do now?”

  She slid her arms around his neck and let her lips linger near his. “I can think of a few things. But you’re going to have to back away from the art.”

  His hands lingered over her ass. “I’m staying in River Hill, you know.”

  “Permanently?”

  He nodded. “We’ve signed the contract for the distillery. I still have my shares of Brennan’s, and I’ll probably do some consulting for them on the marketing side once in a while to keep my face in front of the European movers and shakers, but Maeve and I are all in here.”

  “Do you think you might be looking for a more permanent place to live?”

  The little lines in between his eyebrows crinkled as he frowned. “I… suppose?” He searched her face, as if he were unsure of where she was going.

  But she’d never been surer of anything in her life. “Do you want to move in with me?”

  He dropped his lips to hers in answer as he deftly backed away from the art.

  Thank you for reading THE DISTILLER’S DARLING. If you loved Naomi and Iain as much as we do, please consider leaving a review wherever you purchased this e-book. Reviews are a great way for other readers to discover books they may enjoy too!

  24

  You met Sean Amory in the first two books of the River Hill Series. Keep reading for a sneak peek of his story, THE BAKER’S BEAUTY, coming Autumn 2018.

  THE BAKER’S BEAUTY

  After tragedy struck, Sean Amory left life as a record executive in L.A. to go back to his roots. He’s come home to River Hill to work in his family’s bakery while he decides what to do with his life. Somehow, the warm ovens and fresh dough are soothing to his raw edges—and the gorgeous woman he sees jogging past every morning as he opens up the shop has another effect entirely.