We rode together, but I told him he didn’t have to wait for me. I’d call him when I was done. But he didn’t listen, helping me with the brew side of the house before retreating upstairs to tackle the financials. His expression says it wasn’t a good time.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Are we at A Scandalous Affair this year?”
“Yes.” Scandal’s street fair is something I look forward to every year, but now that Jules Creek has a booth, I anticipate it even more.
He shoves a hand in a pocket. “No weddings? Company parties? Any other vendor fairs?”
A thousand conversations with Ransom run through my head. “I pushed for it, but we didn’t have the staffing. He and I enjoyed it. It was like our big game.” Holly used to love hearing us talk logistics back and forth across the dinner table. She said I would light up like never before, and her priority was always taking care of me. Seeing me happy made her happy. “But then I’d have to be here instead of sitting a whole weekend at a vendor fair, or vice versa, and Ransom needed to be around for the ranch. Likewise, he thought it’d take too much manpower to host events versus just having the taproom open so people can come and go.”
“You think it’d be more lucrative?”
“We make bank at the street fair, but we also don’t have to travel and transport products, and Sawyer is around to help. So, yeah, I thought it’d be good for visibility and networking to do more, and with more breweries popping up, I still think so.” New places like the one Duncan is planning. “Same with other events. We could do more in house.”
He folds his arm, listening in a way his dad never did. This conversation would’ve been brushed off by now. “Like what?”
This is the most dangerous side of Calder. He listens. He notices. It’s intoxicating.
“Maybe we charge, I don’t know, a thousand bucks to reserve the taproom for a party of fifty. That’s a guaranteed thousand dollars, and the chance for people to remember Jules Creek’s name. We need to stand out, or our product will sit on the shelves, and we need to keep our name alive, or people aren’t going to drive out of city limits to have a drink.”
The muscles in his jaws flex. “Yet we can’t afford to hire anyone to help with the extra load.”
The brewery now has four owners, but I’m the only actual employee. “Not unless you think Landry wants to use his marketing skills for?—”
“No. He doesn’t.” His brows are drawn together. My fingers itch to smooth them out, take away the darkness that’s crowded into the light since lunchtime. “Bowen won’t be using any of his time on this place, either, once he returns to Vegas.”
“And you?”
He clamps his teeth together again.
“When are you leaving?” I almost choke on the last word. He hasn’t said. He’s staying for the cattle drive, but he hasn’t mentioned what will happen beyond that. My life is a black hole beyond it, and maybe that should tell me something. Maybe it’s saying I should start thinking about me.
His brows draw together. “I don’t know.”
I twist my fingers together. “How is this going to work?”
He blows out a gusty breath. “I guess it depends, Meredith. How much time do you want to make a decision?”
Do I really want to delve into this now? It’s been a good day. I came to work well-rested, and I’m looking forward to going home with Calder to a houseful of cats.
“How about after the cattle drive? You’re all leaving afterward anyway.”
If anything can change their mind, it’s one of the events they loved to do. Something that’ll help all the good memories surface.
He dips head. “Okay. I’ll let them know”
My work is done, and anything else can wait. I start for the door, wishing I drove myself after the end of our discussion. I wouldn’t have to be closed in a cab, surrounded by the smell of him, right next to his big body, witnessing how he leans on the console, his hand loose over the wheel. He’s all masculine energy, and I feel like a little girl waiting to get dropped off athome so he can go do adult things. Important things. I’m just the brewer, not the creator.
He beats me to the door with long strides and slaps a hand on the heavy wood panel. “Meredith, wait.”
“Why?” Does he want to tell me he doesn’t hate Scandal? Is he going to confess that our messing around is affecting him on a visceral level? Or is he going to tell me he can’t get enough of me, and he is in fact not ditching this town—or me—after he fulfills his promise to move the cattle?
Because I can’t keep my distance from him, and it’s messing with my head. He’s there when I go to bed. My sheets smell like him when I wake up. I go to work and he’s there. He hasn’t been in town that long, but I’m tumbling faster and harder than I ever have, and it’s for a guy who wasn’t ever supposed to be mine.
“You’re upset,” he says, blocking me between him and the door. Heat blooms low in my belly. Our position resembles that of the shower, and my body rememberseverythingthat happened there.
“I’m not upset, just…” Disappointed? Confused? Apprehensive? I might as well tell him. He’s not budging. “I hate to be left wondering. About my job. About us. You. Everything’s changed, but nothing has. I’ve been here before, and I don’t like being here again.”
