Better Luck Next Time

by Denise Grover Swank

  Which he had, of course, so maybe that death card had signified real death after all.

  They headed out of the coffee shop at a quarter till three, since the first meeting was at the artist’s somewhat out-of-the-way home studio. He didn’t really know much, except that Dottie had said the woman’s farm animals inspired her work. People liked animals, and it sounded like it would be an ideal fit, what with the animal shelter being the charitable cause attached to the first show.

  “Are you okay with taking my car?” he asked as they left the coffee shop. Adalia’s car was parked out front, and it looked like it was even more on the verge of falling apart than it had been the last time he’d seen it.

  She burst into laughter. “Is that a serious question? I may be fond of Bessie, but she’s a workhorse, not a stallion. I won’t pass up a ride in your Wunderbus.”

  More innuendo. She certainly wasn’t making the whole “let’s be friends” thing easy on him, but then again that was one of the things he liked about her. She constantly challenged him, and she was no easier on herself. It made being around Adalia feel like an adventure, like anything could happen and probably would.

  He led the way to his green Range Rover. “All aboard the Wunderbus.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Finn plugged the address into his GPS and pulled out of his parking spot, giving Adalia the opportunity to watch him without being called out for it.

  There was no doubt that Finn was good-looking, and despite his current existential crisis, he had an air of confidence she admired. Still, it was obvious he was floundering. He was trying to figure out who he was without Big Catch, just as she was trying to figure out who she was without art.

  He wasn’t the usual kind of guy she went for. She tended to shy away from business types—suits, she called them—because usually they were far too much like her father, but Finn was fun when he let his guard down. And he was far from unemotional. He’d certainly surprised her with the gift of her new studio, along with the bombshell that they could only be friends.

  That had come out of left field, because if there was one thing Adalia was good at, it was figuring out if a guy was interested in her. Finn definitely was. So why was he holding back?

  Because of Georgie and River? That didn’t seem like him. Maybe he thought he and Adalia were just too different. He was rich—the Range Rover and his clothing would have proven that even if she hadn’t already known—and she was cash poor. Her own car was her Exhibit A. But that didn’t track either. He and River weren’t on equal economic footing, and they were close friends.

  No, he was probably hesitant to cross the friendship line because he thought she was unstable. Heavens knew she’d given him plenty of reasons to think that.

  So why had he asked her to help him with the show? Was it because he felt sorry for her? Because he saw her as a project? Maybe, but she suspected there was more to it than that.

  He put his car into drive and pulled away from the curb. She watched as his gaze flicked to his rearview mirror before returning to the windshield, his focus complete. She liked that about him. He never seemed to do anything by halves.

  Then he took notice of her staring and his cheeks flushed.

  He cleared his throat. “How’s it going living with Jack?”

  “Surprisingly well,” she said. “We had a couple of awkward days, but then a family dinner and karaoke seemed to push us over that hurdle.”

  “Let me guess. You were the one who came up with the karaoke,” he said with a laugh.

  “What better way to take a man’s measure than to make him sing in front of a crowd of strangers? Turns out Jack Durand knows how to wow a crowd. Especially the ladies.” A frown stole across her face. “But he was a little off at dinner on Friday night, and when Georgie brought out a cake for dessert, he announced that he was taking a red-eye to Chicago for some kind of personal emergency. I mean, I think he probably had to drive all the way to Charlotte to catch the flight. This time he says he’ll only be gone for the weekend, but who knows. Last time a few weeks became a few months. Isn’t that weird?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, his tone distant.

  “I mean, if he’d done it after Jezebel leapt on the cake, I’d be more understanding,” she said.

  “I overheard your brother talking on the phone,” he said in a rush, as if the words were chasing each other out of his mouth. “It sounded to me like maybe he has a secret girlfriend or something in Chicago.”

  It seemed like he was holding something back, but he left it at that and she didn’t press. She’d come to the same conclusion anyway. A secret girlfriend or a life of crime or a hidden identity as a superhero. Whatever it was, he didn’t want them to know and she didn’t intend to press. Not yet.

  “Probably,” she said. “From what I’ve heard, you’d know plenty about secret girlfriends.” She said it like she was teasing, but his history bothered her some. After Jack’s weird declaration and Jezebel’s destruction of the cake, Georgie had pulled her outside to caution her about Finn.

  I’m glad you’re making friends, Adalia, I am, but don’t forget what he did to River. And River says he’s dated probably half the women in this town. I’m not saying people can’t change, but they usually don’t. I don’t want you to get hurt again.

  She’d brushed aside Georgie’s words, assuring her that Finn had made his intentions known—the whole “just friends” thing—but the description had nagged at her. Enough so that she’d called Dottie this morning to pump her for information about him. She’d certainly regretted it after Dottie launched into a long speech about how “an experienced lover was a talented lover.”

  Finn was no pompous flake. Nor was he the self-centered, egotistical asshole he’d been portrayed to be in the Gazette and on social media. (Even his bitchy hairdresser had attacked him!) The jerk they’d portrayed wouldn’t have cared so much about a woman he barely knew and claimed he didn’t want to sleep with. He wouldn’t have taken it in stride when he realized she wasn’t going to use the studio he’d gone to such trouble to create for her.

  “I’ve never kept anyone a secret,” he said softly, his eyes focused ahead. “But yeah, I guess you can say I’ve dated a lot. Guilty as charged.”

  He said that last part like he was making a joke, but she couldn’t shake the thought that maybe she’d hurt him. It wasn’t what she’d set out to do, so she changed the subject.

  “How’d you meet River?” she asked. “When I vetted you with Dottie, she said I should be sure to ask you.”

  He laughed, the sound genuine and unstudied. “You vetted me with Dottie? Was that before or after our visit to the psychic?”

  “After I told you I’d help with the art show.” Okay, so it had all kind of happened on the same day. “In any case, she suggested that I ask you about meeting River or, more accurately, how you came up with the idea for Big Catch.”

  It only then occurred to her she’d jumped from one prickly subject to another, but he took it like a champ, his rich laughter filling the super spacious and luxurious interior of the car. “Dottie loves that story. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you herself.” His hand shifted on the steering wheel. “We met at a beer competition.”

  “Like Brewfest?” she asked. That was the competition the Buchanans were supposed to place in next March. If they didn’t make it to the top five, the brewery would forfeit to River.

  “Actually it was Brewfest,” Finn said. “River had been job hopping for a few years, but at the time he was working as a bartender at a local restaurant. He’d been making home brews since he was a teenager. We ended up standing next to each other outside of the tent for a popular brewery. Both of us had a tasting glass of their lemon sour, and as soon as we tried it, we gagged at the same time. We got to talking about the different beers we were tasting, and he was so knowledgeable. The guy’s got a great sniffer.”

  Adalia laughed. “Did you mean for that to sound so dirty?”

  He
chuckled. “Um. No. But there’s no doubt his nose can pick out flavor profiles in a beer that other people wouldn’t even notice. Which means his palate is pretty sharp too. He just has a built-in intuition, or maybe it’s from all that time he spent brewing beer with Beau. I knew within hours of meeting him that he was a genius. The blue ribbon he won for his home brew lager only cinched it.”

  Adalia smiled at how animated he’d gotten while recounting their meeting.

  “We just hit it off. We had this instant connection that felt more like a brotherhood than friendship. Or at least it’s what I imagine having a brother would be like. I don’t have any siblings.”

  There was a hint of loneliness in his tone, and she almost commented that siblings weren’t all they were cracked up to be, but it would have felt too flip.

  “Anyway,” he said, tapping the side of the wheel, “I was living in Charlotte, looking for a project. And after hanging out with River for eight hours I knew, deep in my gut, that this could be something amazing. I wanted to start something from the ground up, to be part of building it, you know?”

  She was surprised by the passion in his eyes, and a spark of recognition lit in her chest.

  He was more like her than she’d realized.

  “I do,” she said softly. “I use paint or discarded items to make art, and you gather talent and make a business.”

  He shook his head. “No. What you do is special.”

  He pulled up in front of a house on what looked like a double lot surrounded by a picket fence covered in peeling white paint.

  She wanted to argue with him, to tell him that they were both builders, creators, in their own ways, but it wasn’t the kind of conversation they should have outside a stranger’s gate.

  “So that’s how you met him,” she prodded. “Dottie said to ask you where the business was born.”

  He put the car in park and turned off the engine, shifting in his seat to face her. “The official version or the real one?”

  “Uh…have we met?” she asked, placing a hand on her chest. “Both.”

  He laughed and his whole body seemed to relax, any residual tension from her secret girlfriends comment draining away. He snuck a glance at the house through her passenger window before turning back to her. “The official version is that we came up with the idea at dinner and hammered out the terms the next day.”

  “And the actual account?”

  He grinned. “I came up with the idea in a porta-potty line. River thought I was pulling his leg at first, because I told him the idea was nothing without him, but I was dead serious, and once he realized it, we just kept bouncing ideas off one another, even when we were in the bathroom stalls, although I admit it was hard to hear each other. We may have been a little drunk. But I knew it was a good idea, and we did officially hammer out the details the next day…while nursing hangovers.”

  “Why, Finn Hamilton,” she said, barely containing her glee. “There’s the answer to how we can find your next project. I need to get you drunk on beer.” Then she opened her car door and got out, leaving him to follow her to the fence gate.

  He caught up, flipping open a nice leather binder, and looked at his notes inside. “This is Stella Price. She’s a painter. Dottie says she’s, quote, ‘extraordinary.’”

  “This should be interesting.” But then she turned to Finn, suddenly nervous. “What do you want me to do here? Tell you if she’s any good?”

  “That,” he said, his expression softening, “and give me your overall impression. I’ve been to more than a few gallery events, but I don’t know what sells.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll have the answer to that, Finn.” The wind blew a few tendrils of hair in her face and she batted them away. “If I did, then I’m not so sure I’d be driving around a car that needs Band-Aids.”

  He smiled at her and tucked the hair behind her ear. “You don’t have to know. Just tell me what your gut says.”

  She nodded, still nervous. She hadn’t given this part much thought when she’d agreed to help him. But contrary to what a lot of people thought, she wasn’t flighty and she took her commitments very seriously. She’d asked River about Maisie’s animal shelter, and it sounded remarkable. It only made Adalia that much more anxious about everything. She could potentially let a lot of people down, and Finn was the first in line. She understood he needed this to be successful to get back into the city’s good graces, and to boost his battered ego.

  “Don’t overthink it, Addy. Okay?”

  She gave him a warm smile. He always seemed to know the right thing to say, like he could see through all of her crap and see her.

  He reached over the gate and unlatched it, then put a hand at the small of her back to guide her through.

  She ignored the warmth that spread from the spot, the way her body seemed more alive when he touched her. Danger lay that way.

  “Who’s out there?” a woman called out from the back of the property.

  “It’s Finn Hamilton,” he said. “I’m with Adalia Buchanan. I have an appointment with you at three.”

  “Oh!” An older woman emerged from a thick clump of trees and walked toward them. She was wearing an oversized white button-down shirt, like Adalia used to wear in grade school art class. It was covered in splotches of paint in various colors. “The art show thingy.”

  “That’s right, ma’am, the Asheville Art Display ,” Finn said congenially as they walked closer. “Dottie Hendrickson suggested you might be a good fit for us.”

  The woman couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but she was tottering on platform shoes with three-inch heels. Purple leggings peeked out from under her shirt. Her hair was as white as snow and piled into a messy bun atop her head and her face was covered in wrinkles, likely from too much sun, but her dark eyes were sharp as she surveyed them.

  Glancing at Finn, she said, “I know you’re public enemy number one in Asheville, bringing the big bad wolf to our door. But you’re cute, so you get a pass.” Her gaze landed on Adalia. “Who are you?”

  Adalia’s eyes widened slightly. Finn had literally just told her. “Adalia Buchanan.”

  The woman waved her hand dismissively with an irritated look. “I know that already. What’s your claim to fame?”

  “Excuse me?” Adalia asked.

  “I’ve heard your name before.”

  “Adalia’s an artist,” Finn said, his brow furrowed. “Perhaps that’s how you’ve heard of her.”

  “Nope. That’s not it,” she grumbled as a bleating sound came from the trees she’d emerged from. “It was something notorious.”

  The color drained from Adalia’s face. Had this woman heard about her arrest? How? And if she knew, did that mean her father knew? And Lee?

  Finn lightly cupped Adalia’s elbow and said, “Maybe you’ve heard of her from Buchanan Brewery. Adalia and her siblings inherited it from Beau.”

  “That’s it,” the woman said, snapping her fingers. “You Northerners came down and took over Beau’s business. Almost worse than Bev Corp.”

  “Ms. Price,” Finn said, his voice a little tighter now. “The show will be at the Buchanan events room.”

  “So?”

  “You don’t have any problems showing your pieces at a business owned by figurative carpetbaggers?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll deal with it as long as you’re there. You’ll be there, right?”

  Whatever was in the trees bleated again, followed by a chorus of answering bleats. Were those goats?

  “Uh, yeah,” Finn said, his hand still on Adalia’s elbow.

  “Good, I’ll need a date,” she said.

  Adalia snorted at the woman’s presumptuousness, then quickly covered it by clearing her throat. This woman was something else. It was hard to imagine Dottie even being friends with her.

  Be the bigger person, Adalia.

  “We would love to see some of your pieces,” she said evenly and quite maturely, proud of herself for not kicking the woman i
n the shins. Like a grown-up.

  “I bet you would,” Stella said, giving her the side-eye.

  “I’m sorry,” Finn said, sounding just as taken aback as Adalia felt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She gave Adalia a cold look. “I know your type.”

  Which still didn’t answer the question.

  A goat emerged from the trees, chewing on what looked to be a tin can.

  Stella spun around and headed back into the trees. “Well, are you coming or not?”

  “Why do I suddenly feel like we’re Hansel and Gretel?” Adalia whispered to Finn.

  “It’s a valid concern. What do you think is in there?”

  “Obviously a black cauldron over a fire, or a giant oven to cook us in. Probably both.”

  Finn grinned, his eyes lighting up. “So why are we following her?”

  Adalia grinned back. “Don’t pretend you’re not as curious as I am, but once we get back there, it’s every man and woman for themselves. Got it?”

  He laughed. “Got it.”

  But she knew he was lying, just as she knew that his eyes were the color of the Caribbean Sea. He wouldn’t leave her to fend for herself.

  When they cleared the trees, they found a worn gazebo with a painting on an easel in the center next to a table covered with paints and a plastic tumbler that read, You have goat to be kidding me. But it was the scene around the gazebo that stopped them in their tracks. There had to be nearly twenty goats scattered around the tree-enclosed space, which included a couple of broken-down cars, a riding lawn mower, a few rusted bikes, and a moped.

  It was then Adalia realized the painting was of a goat standing on top of a car that had a chicken behind the wheel. The car was running over another goat.

  “How could a chicken hold on to a steering wheel?” Finn asked under his breath. “They don’t have opposable thumbs.”

  She shot him a confused look as she whisper-shouted, “You see that painting and that’s what you ask?”