Page 38 of Filthy Twisted Devil

“Good. That's one of the tasting notes we were going for. Now, you can sip it.”

She follows my instructions. “Maybe it's because you're in my head now, but I think I taste vanilla. And…almonds?”

“Very good. We'll make a professional whiskey taster of you yet.”

“Is that a real job?”

“No, unfortunately. Technically, our master distiller does a lot of taste testing, but there’s a lot more on his job description. Maybe one day, you can take his job.”

“Nah.” She waves her hand. “I spent way too much time trying to get the job I have. I'm not giving it up to drink whiskey all day.”

“What if the pay was incredibly generous?”

“Still. I like what I do. I’d rather be up until 3:00 a.m. placing party orders than have a normal schedule where I wake up every day and do something I hate.”

“You seriously make yourself work that late?”

“Not on purpose. Sometimes I just get into a flow and then, whoops, it’s way past midnight. I know, it’s not healthy.”

“That’s what happens when you’re addicted to success. I get it. I’m a fellow sufferer.”

She laughs. “I guess I am. What made you fall down the success addiction rabbit hole?”

“Probably playing video games as a kid,” I joke. “Hitting maximum score in games made me want to hit maximum score at life. What about you?”

I expect her to throw back a joke of her own. Instead, her expression turns thoughtful.

“I guess because it was the only way to get out of my brothers’ shadows,” she says after a moment. “After my dad died, they made sure everyone in town knew I was their baby sister. They were protecting me, and no one should mess with me. It was kind of hard to forge an identity of my own, and I guess I thought starting my own business and being wildly successful would make people see me for me.”

Brinley told me that Eden’s father died, but I’d never stopped to think about the reality of it—how young she must have been and how it must have changed her.

“How old were you?” I ask in a low voice.

“I was twelve. It was sudden. A heart attack.” She tells the story with the same flat, practiced tone of someone who’s repeated it too many times.

“Jesus. That must have been awful.”

“It was.” She doesn’t embellish.

“What was he like?”

Her lips curve into a small smile. “Quiet. Solid. The kind of man who talked to the horses more than he talked to anyone else, but he was always there. He didn’t tell stories or ask a lot of questions, but he loved long drives listening to music, and he showed up for every one of my 4-H animal shows. I knew I could count on him for anything.”

“He sounds like a man worth missing,” I say quietly.

Eden’s breath catches, like the words landed somewhere unguarded. “Yeah,” she manages. “He was. Thank you. People usually don’t know what to say, so they say something about heaven and change the subject.”

In the warm lamp light, her hazel eyes take on the gold sheen of whiskey. She takes a sip from her glass, and my eyes drop to the empty hand in her lap. Should I reach for it and give her some kind of comforting squeeze?

No. That feels too personal. We’ve already been blurring the lines too much, kissing when we shouldn’t. I’ve been blurring the lines too much.

Before I can decide, she looks up at me. “What about you? Why do you really care about building something great?”

I could give her some bullshit about loving whiskey. About being proud of creating something great, something I could be remembered by. But if she gave me an honest answer, I owe her the same. With her ranch upbringing, maybe she'll even understand.

“I was a scholarship kid. My high school life was spent around children of multimillionaires, but I was just some middle-class kid. I couldn't afford the things they had, and it made me feel less-than. Maybe that sounds shallow and ridiculous⁠—”

“It doesn’t,” she murmurs. “I get it. When you’re that young, it can feel more important than it is.”