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The door to the cheese room swung open behind her with a whoosh. She turned to see Carol leaning in the doorway.
“Barbara Jean says she’s done for the day. She said to tell you she doesn’t know whether she’ll be in tomorrow. Depends on how she feels. She said she’s not feeling too good right now.” Carol stepped back again, letting the door swing closed.
Ruth closed her eyes. Okay, Karma, okay. I get the message. No afternoons off. No easing of crises.
No sex with Liam.
It had been an unrealistic idea anyway. She had way too much on her plate to take on anything else, even if that something else had great hazel eyes and the hint of a dimple when he grinned. Best not to rock the boat. Best to just keep things the way they are.
She set the last cheese mold on the shelf, then pulled off her apron as she headed for the door.
Time to soothe Barbara Jean again. At least until she could find somebody else.
Chapter Three
Liam tried his best not to think about Ruth. After all, he was supposed to be concentrating on the IPA Bec was getting ready to put together. She was obsessing over the varieties of ingredients she wanted to use. He was trying to pay attention, but it was a losing battle. Bec was the brewmaster who made all the important decisions. He was just her assistant.
And he couldn’t get Ruth out of his head.
The brewery floor was dark in the evening except for a few indicator lights. A wheat beer was working in the fermenting tun, as well as more red ale in the aging tank.
Bec flipped open her notebook on the table, running her finger down the page where she’d been scribbling notes for her IPA recipe. “I’m thinking maybe some northwest hops, but they have that sort of grapefruity taste. Which I like, but the real hopheads might not go for it. I could add some European hops for bittering, but then you lose a lot of that fruity flavor.”
He wasn’t sure why Ruth was turning him away. He was sort of a ladies’ man—he liked women, always had. And he’d never had any trouble catching their interest in the past. True, he’d never had a serious relationship. He’d had too many things going on in his life for one thing. And he’d never met anyone he wanted to be serious about.
Have you now?
Had he? That wasn’t a question he wanted to answer. Or maybe he didn’t like the answer. Getting seriously involved with anybody wasn’t in the cards anyway. He had Park City on the horizon.
And from what he could tell, Ruth didn’t seem to be interested, although he couldn’t figure out why. They’d been good together. Shouldn’t she at least want to explore a few possibilities?
He glanced up. Bec was staring at him expectantly. Apparently, she’d asked him a question. Hops. You’re talking about hops.
“I don’t have any preference on fruity hops. I’m not big on bittering, but the IPA lovers seem to get into it. Why don’t you make a test batch with each? Then you can decide which one you like better.” He picked up some spare glassware, lining it up on the shelves behind her. With any luck, she hadn’t asked him about anything else.
Bec watched him for a moment, then shrugged. “I could do that. I’d let Wyatt have a taste, too. If either of them is any good, he might want to buy it, assuming he’s still buying for Quaff at that point. Or we could sell some of it around here. I had a call from a tavern over in Barrington yesterday. They heard about the red ale—they want an exclusive, though, and I’m not sure about that.”
Thus far, Bec had resisted giving anybody except Wyatt exclusive rights to Antero Brewing’s beers. But then, nobody had been asking for them. She sold the brewery’s output to Wyatt’s gastropub. He seemed able to absorb just about anything she produced.
Antero needed to branch out, though, to expand its reach to a broader set of customers. Wyatt would be pulling out of Quaff in the near future. The more taverns they could get into, the farther the word would spread that Antero Brewing was back in business.
Of course, current production was so limited that Bec could only handle a few customers anyway, no matter how many sales she’d like to make. Liam returned to studying her notes, trying to drag his unruly thoughts back to the IPA.
