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Clyde stood and every joint in his body cracked loudly in protestation as he straightened to his full height. Not one to be hurried by man or beer, he pulled a red bandana out of his back pocket and used it to dry his hands before folding it twice and stuffing it back home. “The fermenting beer is coming out of the bottom outlet hole.”
“I see that.” Sean managed, just barely, to keep the no–shit–Sherlock sarcasm out of his voice.
Clyde pointed a long, bony finger at the bottom of the tank. “That there bolt for the tri–clamp connection is shot.”
The seriousness of the situation became crystal clear. “Which means the tri–clamp and the reducer connection are less than useless.”
“Pretty much.” The grizzled veteran of all the things that could go wrong at a brewery rocked back on his heels. “This,” he pointed to the beer flowing down into the floor drainage trench, “is going to look like a drizzle before it’s all said and done.”
Sean followed the beer creek until his gaze hit the reference room. He looked longingly at the place where he had spent every night for the past few months trying to find just the right combination of yeast, hops, barley, and more for a stout beer to win the invitational. He wouldn’t be locked behind that door anytime soon by the looks of the shitstorm in front of him.
He rubbed the back of his neck, hoping he could erase the niggling worry making his short hairs stand on end. They’d replaced the fermentation tanks not that long ago and adhered religiously to the maintenance schedule. “The tank is only a year old, how did this happen?”
“If’n I had to guess, I’d say someone either over–tightened the bolt or whacked it with something good and heavy.”
Shock nailed Sean’s feet to the concrete floor and for a minute all he could do was suck in air. “On purpose?”
Clyde quirked a fat gray eyebrow. “Lots of folks in town hold a grudge against the Sweets.”
As if on cue, Natalie strode through the brewery’s swinging doors. With her turquoise skirt, striped sweater, and the pearl necklace she was never without, she looked completely out of place among the staff with the T–shirts and stained jeans they wore.
If he’d thought his pulse was thumping before, he was a damn fool, because there were jet planes slower than his heart right now.
She pulled a pencil out of the messy bun thingy she’d twisted her light–brown hair into and started scrawling away on her clipboard without ever losing a step. The woman didn’t strut. She didn’t sway her hips. She didn’t need to; he was already about to bust a nut as it was.
Clyde elbowed him in the ribs. “From what I hear, you’re not much of a fan of a particular Sweet yourself.”
“You shouldn’t gossip.” Sean averted his gaze and turned his body so he couldn’t be tempted to peek at Natalie as she closed the distance between them in small, precise steps.
The old mechanic chuckled and clapped his palm against Sean’s shoulder. “And you shouldn’t give everyone so much to gossip about, with the way you avoid that woman like she’s selling flea–infested puppies—but still look at her like she’s a steak dinner and you’re a staving man. When I was your age, a man knew how to make up his mind and act on it.”
Sean wiped his palms on his jeans and focused on the fermentation tank that was leaking like a sieve. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The hint of honeysuckle hit him a second before a clipboard appeared in his peripheral vision.
“Keep what in mind?” Natalie asked.
Sean sent up a quick prayer that, for once, the blunt–talking, take–no–prisoners Clyde wouldn’t say exactly what was on his mind.
Chapter Four
The leak made no sense.
Natalie spritzed the purple orchid on her desk, one of the few splashes of color in her otherwise stark–white office. While Sean refused to review, let alone peruse, her efficiency plan for the brewery, he was borderline OCD on equipment maintenance—something she’d incorrectly assumed meant he’d be open to her reorganization ideas.
She stored the water bottle in the cabinet with a clear silicone liner on the shelf to catch any small drops that may escape and shut the door with a firm click.
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Next up in her daily routine was a quick review of her color–coded calendar. She flicked the mouse to wake her laptop as she continued to turn the problem over in her mind. The fermentation tank had passed visual inspection two days before. She’d seen the documentation signed by Clyde to prove it. The man was territorial and doted on the brewery equipment like rich ladies spoiled their lapdogs. If the tank hadn’t been up to par, he wouldn’t have given it his seal of approval.
She needed data. Making a mental list of all the records she’d need, she pressed the intercom button on her phone to connect to Miranda’s office. “Hey sis.”
“Yeah?” Stress tightened Miranda’s normally smooth voice.
The leak had everyone on edge. In the few months since the county council had voted down an effort to make alcohol manufacturing illegal in the county, the Sweet Salvation Brewery had pulled back from the financial abyss. But that didn’t mean the brewery wouldn’t take a hit from the thirty grand in lost revenue because of the leak. Miranda had the money end of things under control. What Natalie needed to focus on was finding and isolating the problem.
See a problem, fix a problem.
