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CHAPTER 1
Bennett
GRUMBLING, I CLIMBEDout of my truck and slammed the door. Mack, the waiting delivery man, grinned at me, just as he did at least once a month when his unwelcome phone call ripped me from sleep.
Mack rolled up the rear door on his truck. “You should fire that guy.”
“I wish,” I muttered. My brother was supposed to handle the early-morning deliveries, but he was a slacker and could barely handle the most menial of tasks. The only reason I kept him on was so I didn’t break my mom’s heart.
I helped Mack unload the boxes of liquor then reviewed the paperwork. It was just as well Declan hadn’t showed up. Two weeks earlier, he’d fucked up the inventory, and I was still trying to sort out that mess. Trust me when I say you donotwant to run out of Malibu rum when a bachelorette party comes in.
“Does everything look good?” Mack was itching to get on with his run—Banks Brew Co. was his first stop, and he had many more to go.
“Yeah.” I signed on the dotted line and handed him his copy. “Oh, wait. I almost forgot. I have a new batch.”
Mack clapped his hands together and rubbed them gleefully. “Awesome.” He might make a living delivering the hard stuff, but he was an IPA man.
“Let me know what you think. I tweaked a few things.”
His eyebrow rose. “Does Charlie know?”
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” I paused. “But do me a favor and don’t mention it.”
Mack laughed as I retrieved the six-pack I’d stashed in the storeroom. Grandpa Charlie had taken over Banks Brew Co. from his father forty years before. Back then, it had just been a bar and grill, but a little over ten years ago, we’d begun serving our own brew. Though I’d only been seventeen at the time, Grandpa Charlie had let me help perfect our first recipe. To say I was hooked would be putting it mildly. I had the best job in the world. Well, aside from the unexpected early-morning wake-up calls.
I sent Mack on his way with a smile on his face and a six-pack in his hand. Then despite my exhaustion, I restocked the bar and arranged the rest of the bottles in the storeroom, cursing Declan all the while. When I was satisfied that everything was as it should be, I locked up behind me. I was due back at four and would keep the place open as long as we had customers. Last night, it was two in the morning before I closed up, which was unusual for the off-season in the Carolina Banks. The shorter hours were one of the reasons this was my favorite time of year. Don’t get me wrong—I loved my job, but it was grueling during tourist season.
I got in my truck and drove around to the front of the building, but instead of turning out of the parking lot to head home, I took a space in the back row. Four years back, my family had put an addition on the building, creating another side of Banks Brew Co., only this one served coffee. Since I kept night-owl hours on my side, and my sister, Carmen, kept early-bird ones on hers, we rarely saw one another, even though our businesses shared a staff room.
Wearing a pink ruffled apron and looking way more chipper than anyone should be at this hour, Carmen arranged pastries in the glass case on the counter. She blinked when I walked in, then she groaned. “Don’t tell me.”
I took a seat at the counter. “You guessed it.”
“Guessed what?” Another brother of mine, Hudson, came out of the back room, licking his fingers. He wore a plaid flannel shirt that obscured the T-shirt underneath, which I knew read Croft Contracting, Inc. He had one for every day of the week and then some.
Carmen’s eyes narrowed, and she pointed an accusing finger at Hudson. “I left you alone for five seconds, and you just couldn’t keep your fingers out of the pastries, could you?”
Hudson’s eyes widened, and he donned an innocent expression. “Only yesterday’s. You don’t sell those, anyway.”
“They’re for the police department!”
“Are you sure you want to fatten up our boys in blue?” Hudson couldn’t keep the smirk off his face. “They won’t be able to protect and serve if they’re waddling down the street.”
She poked him in the belly. “You’re halfway to waddling, yourself.”
Looking wounded, Hudson rubbed his midsection. “Hey.”
When Carmen was no longer looking at him, he pressed on his abs, which showed no sign of being prone to waddling. He nodded in relief. I rolled my eyes. He might swing a hammer for a living, but he was a pretty boy deep down.
Carmen flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Anyway, where were we before we were rudely interrupted by the resident sugar thief? Oh, yeah. Declan didn’t show, huh?”
I scowled. “I’m going to fire his ass.”
“No, you aren’t,” Hudson quipped. “Think of the look on Mama Annette’s face.”
Mama Annette was my mother and Hudson’s stepmother, which made him my stepbrother instead of a true brother, but none of the eight kids thought of one another as steps. And even if we had, our parents would have set us straight really quickly. We were a modern Brady Bunch.
I sighed. “They babied him too much.”
