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“So,uh...ifthat’sthe barn, then what are those?” I asked, looking around at the surprising number of buildings that fanned out from the main yard. There was one that was most obviously a barn, due to it being made of wood and looking like every barn I’d ever seen on TV, but there were several other buildings in the distance, squat and square, looking more industrial than any farm building had a right to be.
“Those,” Asher said, still tugging Nacho along behind us, “are the distillery buildings. That’s where we prep the barley and make the whiskey. The largest one is the warehouse where the barrels of whiskey are stored.” Reaching the door, Asher pulled it open, the hinges protesting loudly, before he continued. “It’s all shut down for the night, or else I’d give you a tour.”
“Maybe next time,” I said with a wink.
“Oh, there will definitely be a next time.”
The barn itself was cleaner than I would have expected, with a wide concrete aisle down the middle and several stalls on either side. A soft huffing noise came from one of the far stalls, and Asher smiled as he turned that direction, passing me the leash before he walked away.
“Hey, Frannie.” His voice was soft, the tone low and soothing, and I felt a shiver run down my back as his voice danced over my skin. “How’s my favorite girl?” At his words, a horse suddenly appeared, the dark brown head popping out over the stall door and nuzzling Asher affectionately. He laughed lightly and stroked the horse’s nose.
“Should I be worried?” I called, slowly following him with Nacho on my heels. The stubborn goat kept trying to eat everything he came across, including the door to the horse stall.
“About Frannie?” Asher asked. “Not a bit. She’s the best old girl you could ever ask for. Ain’t that right, Frannie?”
Frannie apparently agreed, because she let out a sound that I assumed was an affirmative.
“She’s just lonely right now. We used to keep a few horses, but with Gramps getting up there, and Thane so busy running the distillery, there weren’t enough hands to go around. Gramps sold the others off, but Frannie has been with us for her whole life. She was born right here in this barn; and was my mom’s favorite. We couldn’t just let her go.”
There was emotion in his eyes, a vulnerability that I found both endearing and a bit intimidating. There was depth to Asher Dunn; so much more than I anticipated, and I was finding myself desperate to dig deeper, to find out the things that made him tick and save them for myself.
And feelings like that scared the hell out of me.
“Now,” Asher said, breaking into my mini panic attack with ease. “Let’s get your boy settled. Horses and goats make great company, but we’ll probably move him off to the back pastures in the next day or two. We keep the sheep out that way, and he’d probably have a better time out there, where the food is literally everywhere he looks.”
“You have sheep here, too?”
“Yeah, we rotate them through the barley fields to maintain soil quality and keep it friable.”
He paused, looking at me questioningly, like he expected me to balk at the topic, but I only smiled. “I bet they help maintain the right pH balance for the soil, too.”
A relieved smile stretched across Asher’s face, and I felt an answering clench in my belly; the man was almost too good looking to be real.
“You’re right,” he said enthusiastically. “The soil in rural Pennsylvania tends to be more acidic than is ideal, but barley is pretty hardy. Thane and the guys test the fields regularly, and move the sheep around as needed. It’s a good balance.”
“Wood ash is helpful in balancing pH, too,” I offered, watching as he opened the stall next to Frannie’s and ushered Nacho inside. I followed behind, leaning down to remove the collar and giving my baby a scratch behind his floppy ears. “I smelled smoke outside; do you burn a lot of wood for the distillery? I don’t really know how it works, but wood stoves seem like they’d be a little primitive in this day and age.”
“That’s the peat,” he replied, leading me out and closing the stall door behind us. “One of the steps in the whiskey making process involves smoking the grain, and Gramps uses peat, just like they did traditionally in Scotland.”
I hummed in distracted understanding, watching as Asher leaned over the gate, his jeans stretching across his ass in a devastating way, and filled a trough on the side of Nacho’s stall with water.
“There you go, buddy,” he said, and he either didn’t notice me staring, or pretended not to.
Either way, I was grateful, hoping the dim lighting in the barn was enough to hide the flush I could feel creeping up my cheeks.
“Now, I just have to head up to the loft and get some hay, and he’ll be all set for the night.”
“The loft?” I questioned, suddenly paying attention. “You mean this place has a hayloft?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“An actual, honest to goodness, just like in the movies, hayloft?”
Asher chuckled at my sudden enthusiasm. “Yeah, Ricki. It does.”
“Oh my god! Can I see it?” I bounced on the balls of my feet, my excitement coursing through me like electricity.
“Be my guest,” Asher replied, sweeping one arm out to the side and indicating a set of stairs set against the wall that looked so steep, they might as well have been a ladder.
