His Reason to Stay

by Jennifer Hoopes

  “Well, Mateo it looks like today’s your lucky day.” She clapped him on the back and motioned him through her office door.

  During the brief walk to the select maturation barn, Tabby enlightened her apprentice distiller. He grinned, clapped her on the back in return.

  “Que Dios los bendiga!” he said and made the sign of the cross.

  The grin tripled when Tabby told him he would be the one to taste the Select 32.

  That was where Eli found them whooping and hollering, clinking glasses, hers full of water.

  “A party and I wasn’t invited?” Eli crossed his arms.

  Tabby caught the narrowed gaze in Mateo’s direction, but her apprentice wasn’t fazed. A married man with his second baby on the way, he could have cared less that she was female. Of course, Tabby would be lying if the slightly possessive and jealous glint to Eli’s brown gaze didn’t thrill her. Stupid but honest.

  “Eli, this is my apprentice, Mateo Perez Rivera. Mateo, Elijah Ellis.”

  Mateo gripped Eli’s hand and offered condolences on his family’s loss. His normal confidence faltered, and Tabby gripped the side of the barrel acting as a tasting table. She couldn’t go to him and offer comfort. He wouldn’t want it. As fast as the change came, it vanished, and his usual devil-may-care smile returned.

  “So what are we celebrating?” Eli asked.

  “This.” Tabby handed over a small glass. Eli sniffed it and glanced at it from various angles before swallowing it and swishing it around. His face broke out into a grin.

  “That’s different.”

  Tabby waited. Eli had developed a strong palate over the years. Whenever he was home between assignments, he would haunt the distillery, and on more than one occasion, she’d given him a lesson. His palate wasn’t as good as hers, or even Mateo’s, but he was deft at picking up subtleties in the whiskey. Perhaps it came from being out in nature so much.

  “Apricot and honey?”

  Tabby nodded.

  “With a hint of cinnamon maybe?”

  Mateo wagged his finger. “Cardamom.”

  Eli’s eyebrow flew up. “I take it you’re the inspiration behind this.”

  Tabby’s cheeks warmed. The admiration and pride in Eli’s face, no matter how stupid, how much pain and heartache it would bring down the line, was welcome. She cherished and savored it, hoping to remember it for when her nights and days weren’t filled with him and his appreciation.

  Her father had had the same unwavering confidence in her, the same ability to lift her up. When she’d approached him about the fruit, he’d asked pointed questions, including the hard hitting why. When she’d answered with why not, he’d laughed and given his full backing. How she wished his booming laugh surrounded her now in her triumph.

  Now… How would she even be able to find time to develop and experiment? Mateo had taken over brilliantly due to the pregnancy, but once the babies were born, she’d still have a company to run and more whiskey to make.

  Eli broke into her memories. “Sign me up for ten bottles.”

  Mateo laughed, clapped him on the back, and plugged the barrel back up. He left them staring at each other, the undercurrent in the room heavy and confusing.

  Tabby dropped her gaze. “Were you looking for me for a reason?”

  “Just checking up on you,” Eli answered, gaze firmly planted on the ground. Toffee, one of the rescue cats, made an appearance, weaving in and out of Eli’s wide stance. He squatted and ran a finger along the feline’s back. Toffee arched, purred, and stood up on two legs. Eli answered the plea, scooped the orange cat up, and proceeded to scratch her into submission.

  Stupid to feel jealous of a furball, but Tabby was mesmerized as the feline extracted every ounce of pleasure from Eli that she could. Tabby didn’t blame her. The man’s hands were magic.

  She sighed.

  Eli’s gaze shot to her. “You okay? You need to sit down?” He dropped Toffee to the barn floor and closed the small distance between them. He raked his gaze up and down.

  She smiled. “I’m fine. I’m not sure how many other ways I can say and or prove that.”

  Once again not convinced, he grabbed her hands and tugged her out into the mountain sunshine. “Vitamin D is important.”

  “So is making sure the business doesn’t fail.” She tugged her hand, and he reluctantly let it go.

  He crossed his arms and glared. “If you run yourself ragged, those babies will pay the price.”

  “If this company fails, then all my employees will pay the price. My family legacy will pay the price. It is a final exam, Eli, and I never took the class.”

  “Then let me help you. Stop pushing everyone away and accept that you might need the support.”

  She’d seen that look and heard that tone many times over the years. It was rarely directed at her, but it had always gotten the result he deemed right. She knew better than to argue, and quite frankly, she didn’t have the energy.

  “No.”

  She spun around and headed back to her office. There was a stack of reports, and pages of emails, that needed her attention.

  …

  Tabby walked away—the straight back coupled with swaying hips in time to her determined stride. Eli knew it was stupid to ride the surge of jealousy over her smiling at another man, since the distillery employed a fair number of them. But it was because she hadn’t smiled at him like that since he’d returned that pushed the jealousy into unknown territory.

  She’d smiled at the dessert case that way, even though he’d brought her there. She’d smiled at his family that way and Dr. Kitt, and hell, even when the cat had made an appearance. But for him? For him, it was argumentative words: emphatic “I’m fine” declarations and walking away in frustration. In fact, the only time she’d even been soft with him was the first night in the barn.

  And to top it off, this jealousy was different, heavier, more unsettling, especially since he couldn’t ever recall being jealous with any of his exes.

  And Tabby wasn’t an ex.

  She wasn’t anything. And yet she was everything…but he had no claim on her.

  He snorted. He didn’t know exactly what she was. Not anymore.

  Eli shoved his hands in his pockets and made his way back to the truck. Being on edge around each other certainly wasn’t helping Tabby or the babies. He knew she handled the stress as she always did, full steam ahead. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t lift some of the burden. He was here, planned on being here for a while, and despite his brothers being in an equal dilemma in the broadest sense of not expecting to run the company now, there were more of them to share the load. Tabby was it. With both Malcolm and Norah in school and Lydia with her own company to run, Tabby didn’t have the resources the Ellises did.

  Except she had him. And he knew a surefire way to ensure she wasn’t over-stressing herself that would help her in the process. She wouldn’t like it. She would argue and stomp her feet, but in the end there was little she could do, bar calling the cops. And deep down, he knew she would never sic the Gatlinburg Sheriff Office on him.

  His phone rang, and a quick glance at the screen told him the last thing he needed at the moment was another dead-end conversation with the magazine. He’d told them no several times over the past week, and no amount of guilt was attached to the refusal. In fact, other than a few shots of the baby colt and some on his hike the other day, Eli hadn’t picked up his camera, nor had he missed the excitement of researching his next assignment. His skills could be put to use here with both his family’s business and the Brodies’s. No need to hurry off, nor was the desire there.

  He had no doubt it would rear its head in the future. Maybe only a few weeks from now when the day in, day out monotony of running corporations sucked him into the dreaded vortex of family obligations. Another Ellis in the cog.

  But
for now, he was concentrating on his new role: co-guardian of his nieces or nephews. And that made his new target and passion Tabby.

  He slid into his truck and left the Brodie compound as quickly as possible. His plan, if it worked, required fast execution and maybe a little luck. Luck had been on his side most of his life, barring the deaths in his family, but this seemed like a whole other table game, and if he was being honest, the stakes were high and he really didn’t know what would constitute a jackpot.

  Chapter Eleven

  “What are you doing?”

  “Moving in.”

  Tabby stumbled to a halt, a palm against the log timbers the only thing keeping her from collapsing to the ground.

  “Why?”

  The look he sent her said her connections were a little slow.

  “I’m co-guardian of the babies, and since you have the babies, my job implies sticking to you like glue.”

  He winked, and heat flushed her body.

  Breaking free of his mesmerizing gaze, she shook her head. “That’s nonsense. Plenty of co-guardians, in fact, I feel confident that all co-guardians, unless they’re already married, do not need to live with one another.”

  He crossed his arms. “Then they sound like they’re shirking their duties.”

  She took in his stance. The long, sleek, and tense lines. The jutted chin. Fired-up gaze. He was daring her to argue. Daring her to supersede his authority, because he fully believed he was in the right. She knew the battle, if not a losing one, would leave them both battered and bruised, and for the sake of the little ones tossing around inside her, she chose a strategic retreat.

  “Fine. Make yourself at home.”

  She marched up the steps and down the hall, grinning from ear to ear. The stunned expression on Eli’s face was worth all the trouble he’d brought to their collective doorstep today. Once she was safely inside her bedroom, she allowed the emotions to wrangle themselves free. Fear was dominant, along with anger at his presumption, no matter how much he thought he was in the right. She should have known something like this would happen. Been prepared for it.

  Eli controlled things. He’d taken charge.

  Tabby laughed. Oh, he’d played his hand perfectly. Kept his distance at first, never doing anything overbearing or overt. She’d let her guard down, and then he’d swooped in, wearing his typical protector cape. Everything about this move was why she’d sought to keep the pregnancy a secret from him until he left.

  Although lately it had been more about proving to herself that she could do this without his support. Not the babies so much as the business. Although the two seemed intertwined at the moment.

  Of course, that was before he actually had guardian attached to his name. But regardless, she knew he wore the take-charge-because-I-know-what’s-best attitude like a tailor-made suit.

  The bed beckoned, and she curled up on the handmade quilt, the new body pillow Becky had given her wrapped around her like a comforting friend. Closing her eyes, she tried to remove all the emotion tangled up in the name Eli Ellis and approach this hurdle like any other one she’d jumped over.

  Fact: he was protective and thought the best way to protect her was under her roof. So that meant showing him she was fine until she’d beat it into that thick alpha head of his.

  Fact: he would leave eventually. Even if he said he was sticking around, which he hadn’t, his time in Gatlinburg was finite. He had no house, no permanent residence other than The Lodge, which was probably why moving in here came so easily. He needed to be focused on a project for true happiness. Passion radiated off him about his next shoot, and even if he was on a breather, that passion would drive him to his next assignment. He hadn’t spent the last decade creating a new life separate from Ellis Industries just to give it up now—for her.

  So strategically, letting him stay and proving to him that she was fine, that she was handling everything like she always did, with broad shoulders and a strong back, would hopefully hasten his departure. She could keep the emotions tucked away, allow him this time to be the guardian he apparently wanted to be, and then when he left, things would be okay between them. Nothing lingering. Two friends who happened to have seen each other naked once.

  Yeah right. I think you took that one a little too far.

  Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t feel that way, but he would. And that was what mattered. Her feelings were not the point here. She couldn’t control them, and since they were wasted on a man who could never be hers, she needed to find a way to shred those suckers up and reshape them into something more useful.

  Her phone oinked, and she swiped to see a message from Sam.

  Do I need to come evict my brother?

  Good ole’ Sam. Protective in his own, less overbearing way.

  No. At least not yet. Letting him think he won this round, but the skirmish has just begun.

  That’s a Brodie if I ever heard one.

  A couple duck quacks and Tabby groaned. Her life had become one email chain after another. It was by far the worst part in taking over the reins of the distillery. People wanted Skype meetings or chats or God-knew-what-else, and Maisie had been working on a select contract with boutique hotels to serve only Brodie Whiskey. She’d have to haul her pregnant ass out there, and she still dreaded it and the whole slew of meetings on the plate.

  Adjusting the pillow between her knees, she sighed. “At least I have you, buddy. You’ll keep me sane, won’t you?” The pillow of course didn’t answer, but Tabby could feel the connection growing between them. Soon one might not know where she ended and the pillow began.

  …

  Eli paced around the living room, a whiskey in his hand. That had gone way too easy. No argument. No hands in the air followed by a display of frustration. Just a simple welcome and poof, she disappeared.

  Was she sick? Maybe he should check? She could have low blood sugar or circulation issues. He certainly wasn’t going to broadcast all the research he’d done in the past week, but he was the king of researching a topic ’til he knew it inside and out. That was part of the reason he was so good at his job. Not that Tabby was another job. But he approached her the same way he approached everything in his life: with full knowledge and a strategic plan. Which was why he knew his course was the right one. You couldn’t argue with facts.

  And emotion? Can I argue with that?

  He downed the whiskey, ignoring his conscience and the several text messages he’d received from his brother Sam. Why was everyone concerned that he would hurt Tabby? No one seemed to believe he could help her, that his presence was a good thing, not some lingering black cloud over her. Did no one think he was engaged? That maybe he cared for these babies with the same heart and soul as anyone else?

  Rubbing his hands across his face, Eli sighed. He knew his record, that staying hadn’t been in his playbook. But people could change. Especially if the change came from within and was the result of a new reason. A new goal. Could he change? Could he stay forever? Was Tabby better off with him than without? Was she his new passion? Could he keep his career and just be based in Gatlinburg?

  Setting the tumbler on the mantelpiece, he took the stairs two at a time and came up short at her door. Normally, he would walk right in. They’d never had secrets from one another except maybe their bodies, and even that had changed the night at the wedding. But this was her space, her home, and even if he’d barged into it and declared it his space as well, that didn’t mean he shouldn’t respect boundaries.

  Two short knocks and he swore he heard a sigh.

  “Come in.”

  He opened the door to see Tabby practically making love to a pillow.

  “Should I leave you two alone?”

  She smiled and faced him. “It might be best. Pillsbury here has given me everything I could ever want.”

  “Pillsbury?”

  She rubb
ed her hand down the part between her legs. “He looks a little doughy, don’t ya think?”

  Eli nodded, lost in the stroking movement. Lucky damn doughboy.

  “Did you need something?”

  He shook his head. “Just making sure you’re okay. I mean, you made things pretty easy downstairs. Should I do a blood sugar test or something?”

  Tabby sat up. “I’m not diabetic.”

  He crossed over and sat on the bed, ignoring her scent of lemon and vanilla, which wafted up from the sheets. “I know that but—”

  “I don’t argue with you over everything. I never have.”

  “I know.” He ran his hand through his hair. “But you have since I came back.”

  “So you moved in here to start an argument?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Then I don’t understand the problem.”

  Eli glanced around the room, embarrassment creeping onto his limbs. “I guess there isn’t one.”

  Shifting to sit beside him, her thighs heavy against his, Tabby sighed. “I mean, I really don’t think it’s necessary, but if it gives you peace of mind, what’s mine is yours.”

  She dropped a kiss on his cheek and hopped up, leaving him patronized and aroused. A shitty combination.

  He found her in the kitchen, pulling stuff out of the fridge. She glanced over her shoulder. “You hungry?”

  Eli nodded, still wary of the emotions she flung his way, or rather stirred up inside. He didn’t want to be dismissed. He was here for her much more than himself.

  Am I so sure?

  She treated him like a friend, a brother, and he didn’t like it. When had her friendship been a source of discontent?

  When I decided it wasn’t enough.

  Where the hell had that come from? This wasn’t permanent. He knew that, right?

  Something quacked, and she cursed.

  “A pet you need to introduce me to?”

  She dropped her armful of meats and cheeses on the counter and reached into her back pocket. “No, just another email in an endless chain of emails.” She keyed something in and looked up. “Remember how we used to joke about the meetings to discuss the meetings?” She thrust her phone at him. “Now it’s emails to talk about the emails that we need to discuss the emails.” She dropped her phone into a basket of fruit and spun around.