Chapter Seventeen
“God damn you, Hoffman,” Elle growled under her breath, in her snooty Berliner accent.
“Fuck off, bitch,” he said, cheerfully, in his native Bavarian.
After a few days of establishing that while she might be head brewer, he was just as in-charge as she was, he’d continued using their native tongue, figuring she couldn’t pretend not to understand him that way. She glowered down at him from the top of the platform where she was supervising a batch of stout. “You overshot the ingredients,” she insisted, crossing her arms. “I told you that was too much crystal malt. But you’re an asshole male human. I should know better than to tell you anything.”
He held up both hands. “Ach! Don’t shoot!”
She rolled her eyes, and turned away, giving him a pleasant view of her tight little ass in well-worn jeans. Cursing to himself, he headed to the lab to prep the additives before they moved the wort to the kettle.
In a way, settling in at Fitzgerald Brewing hadn’t been as hard as he’d thought. Evelyn was busy with the kid and the export plan. He and Austin had worked side by side the first couple of days, planning the aggressive brewing schedule. And Elle had proven to be one of the most naturally astute brewers he’d ever encountered. She was so small in stature it surprised him, given that she was German. But her attitude more than made up for it. She was equal parts irritating, amusing and alarmingly sexy.
He’d tried to go easy with her—to be funny, friendly, unthreatening. But she either saw him as an interloper for a job she was more than capable of handling alone, or as some kind of lame-ass ‘friend of the boss’ know-it-all determined to make her life a living hell.
Either way, they clashed from the get-go.
“Hey, Hoffman,” she called across the brew house platform. “Get up here and you’ll see what I mean.”
The rest of the staff had fallen into line. The incident with Tim, and Bryan’s subsequent firing, had rattled the tight-knit group. They knew Ross’ reputation and seemed to be grateful for his help—or at least they made a show of acting like it. He didn’t really care. As long as everyone did what they were supposed to do, when they were supposed to do it.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said. He’d admit that dropping back into German was a relief. Even though he spoke flawless English, he still translated in his head. Not having to take that extra mental step made him feel more at home. Even if it was mostly insults woven in around the brewing terms.
He smiled as she muttered, “Trantüte” under her breath as he stalled.
Once he’d satisfied himself with the original gravity calculations, he climbed the metal steps, hip bumped Elle aside and opened the mash tun lid, filling the air around him with the rich, malty odors of a Fitzgerald stout in the early brewing stages. “What?” he said, looking over at her and trying not to pay too much attention to the long, slender line of her neck, or the way her odd, blue-gray eyes flashed.
“Look. There.” She shone her flashlight into the huge vessel of dark liquid and grains. With a grunt of frustration, he grabbed the light from her so he could reach deeper into the tank. “Do you see it? Are you blind, or just stupid?”
He sighed and held out a hand. “Safety glasses?”
Once he had had them on, he stretched farther, gripping the edge of the open door with one hand. “Holy shit,” he said. “Are you serious?”
“I told you,” she said, from somewhere to his left. At that moment, the condensation caused by the steam they were releasing through the open door made his hand slip. For a split second, he pictured himself boiling alive inside the one hundred twenty-some-degree mash. And his thought wasn’t for his safety, but for the ruination of this critical batch. If they could get this one through the process in time, they’d almost be caught up to the export goals. Almost.
“Mother fucker,” he blurted out in English as his fingertips let go and his brain tried to readjust to the sudden shift in his equilibrium.
A strong hand grabbed his forearm. Fingers dug into his muscle, gripping tightly, yanking him free of certain deadly burns. He found himself pressed against Elle’s compact form, her fingers still wrapped around his arm as she leaned back against the railings at the top of the brewing platform. She was so small, he thought, apropos of nothing at that moment.
So small and…so gorgeous.
He allowed himself a few moments to feel her body against his. She was strong as a damn ox. She’d managed to haul his hundred eighty-five pounds of mostly muscle right out of that kettle. But her strength was subtle, and sexier than he’d ever encountered.
“Get the hell off me, you bloody oaf,” she shouted, shoving him away. Which allowed him to squelch the sudden urge to kiss her.
He stumbled, still staring at her, still wearing the safety glasses. She frowned, causing the cutest little crease between her eyes. He itched to touch it, to ease her stress.
Good Lord man, you need to get laid and get over this chick.
“So, before you nearly ruined all that future beer, did you see the problem?”
He blinked, then stood up straighter. “Yeah,” he said, swiping the sweat off his face. “I saw it. Speed up the sparge,” he said, pointing to the keyboard attached to the computer. “That should unstick it.”
“Can this equipment do that?”
“Yeah, it’s top drawer. Just try it. I’ll keep an eye on it.”
She raised a pale eyebrow. “Without falling in, bewegungslegastheniker?”
He grinned. That was the thing about German—the insults were so much more poetic. “I may be bewegungslegastheniker, but I know how to work this machinery. Go on. Do what I asked for. There.” He pointed to the computer again.
She turned from him and started punching in the commands to increase the sparge—the speed at which the water was tossed on top of the concoction of nearly spent grains and almost-beer in hopes that it would filter through faster, and loosen a section of stuck mash that she had, indeed discovered. Once again, Ross found himself fantasizing about her. Her small but firm-looking breasts. Her slim waist and hips. Her nice, rounded ass. Her pert, Cupid’s-bow lips. Her compact, deceivingly strong arms and hands and legs that would wrap very nicely around him.
“Hello? Anyone home up there?” Elle snapped her fingers in front of his face. “I’ve been talking to you for the past ten minutes, but you seem to have checked out.”
Ross startled, and turned away from her so as to hide the clear results of his brief imaginings of her pale skin under his hands and lips.
“Off-limits,” Austin had said, without further explanation. There hadn’t been time.
Evelyn had hinted that there was something bad in her past but she hadn’t gotten around to expanding that, either. And in the meantime, he’d been mostly put out with her bullshit attitude, anyway.
Once he had his half-hard dick back under control, he turned to face her again. Her attention was focused on the computer screen. He fixated on the odd tattoo circling her neck, fully revealed as she had her crazy-ass hair bundled up on top of her head and covered with a hat.
The black ink seemed darker than usual this morning. It was ugly. Like a scar. For the first time since meeting her and being rocked back on his heels by her unique, compelling, beauty—so unlike his usual, more obvious, over-the-top type—he studied all the ink he could see on her.
Ross had his own tatts, of course. He had hop flowers on his right knuckles, too. There was an intricate hop vine snaking up his biceps that wound across his upper back and down the other arm. He’d also recently added one. His daughter’s name, Rose, in a small heart. It was on the left side of his ribcage, hidden and private.
But that thing on Elle’s neck right above the angle of her collarbones seemed somehow evil. As if it were dug deep into the delicate skin there. Meant to be painful upon application and remain that way, as a torture. Without thinking, he reached out, wanting to touch it and see if it felt as hot as it appeared to be. They were only separated by about eight inches up on the tall metal platform between the brewing vessels so it wasn’t a huge gesture. But to Ross it felt mammoth, a life-changing move.
His fingertips grazed the nape of her neck, near the soft curls under her thick blond dreads. Her skin was ice cold. Strange, since there were up here amidst all this steam and she’d just literally dragged his klutzy ass away from potential disaster. She must not have noticed his first touch.
When he let his finger trail along the ugly ink across the back of her neck, she yelped and whirled to face him, her eyes wide with something his brain refused to process. Since it was an expression of abject terror.
He stuck the offending hand into his jeans pocket as his face flushed. “I’m sorry,” he said, lapsing back to English as he turned away from her again. Her breathing was loud and rapid, but not in a sexy way. He worried her heart might explode from fear. Of him?
No. But someone had harmed her badly enough to make her as skittish as a rabbit, pinned and frozen under the shadow of a hawk through an open field. Ross had never considered himself particularly protective of anything. He kept things separated in his mind and heart—at least until he’d met Evelyn, of course. He squeezed his eyes shut, cursing himself and that particular weak period of his life.
A period that had resulted in another human being now breathing air on the planet. He’d surrendered the fatherly duty thing to Austin but thoughts of Rose were all tangled up in memories of his time with Evelyn. And so best left un-thought, in the grand scheme of things.
Austin was in charge of being protective of the baby, and of his wife. Ross had forcibly let go of those urges, purging them first with as much pussy as he could bang for a few months, then later with his monk life. Forcing abstinence down his own throat like his own ugly tattoo of punishment.
But now.
Now.
Now, something new and hot was coursing through his veins. He recognized it, of course. His new-found obsession with the skinny-sexy, German-speaking smart ass woman who was easily as talented a brewer as he was, had blossomed from something distracting, to something massive, all-consuming.
Something he needed to avoid like the fucking plague, as he’d promised he would.
Because on the hot tide of that desire to see her naked, to press his tongue against the deep cleft between her collar bones, to cup one small, pert breast while sucking the other no-doubt sweet pink nipple into his mouth, came something new to him. A raging, boiling fury at whoever had turned a strong, able, strong woman into the quivering prey across from him right now.
He took the few inches of space between them, looming over her in a way that probably didn’t help. His hands hovered over her upper arms. Not quite touching, but close enough to sense the coldness of her skin. She met his eyes once, then dropped her gaze to the floor between them.
Confused, since she’d never done that before—had always met him more than halfway with her left-handed compliments disguised as mild criticism of his methods—he tilted her chin up. The experience of looking down at her, of wanting her so fully, while at the same time wanting to shield her from whatever horrors roamed her backstory, choked him into silence. She blinked fast, then jerked her chin out of his grasp and took a short step back, connecting with the metal railing and gripping it with both of her hands.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” she whisper-yelled in English. “Ever.”
“I… I’m…” It took everything he had in him not to grab her and yank her into his arms. To hold her close, so she could press her face into his chest and feel safe. He shook his head. He must be totally losing it. Her eyes seemed bluer at that moment and he realized they were brimming with unshed tears. “Elle… Elisa…listen.”
“Don’t ever touch me. Do you understand?” In English again. Such an ugly language.
“Yes, but…” His hands were positively burning with the need to touch her. He had the odd urge to lick his index finger and scrub it against that horrible thing circling her neck. To wipe it off her skin and out of her memory. Alarmed to realize he was doing so, he reached for her, in a sort of slow motion. The steam from the mash swirled around them, giving the whole scene a bizarre surreal aura.
She flinched away from him, turned and stomped down the metal steps. He leaned over the railing where she’d been standing and saw her turn. Her hand went to her neck, touched the disgusting ink that must be representative of the ‘something bad’ Evelyn had hinted at a few weeks ago.
“I am not for you, Ross Hoffman. I am not for anyone. Not anymore.” This, said in German, hit his brain and buried deep. Her small hand seemed to tighten around her own throat which brought that roaring, furious, protective monster to the forefront of Ross’ brain.
“You say that now,” he said, matching her in their native tongue. “But you might change your mind. I’m told I have that affect.” He kept his tone neutral but his throat was so tight it hurt. The steam cleared, giving him a view of the single tear sliding down her face before she turned away and disappeared into the stainless-steel jungle of the brewery.
With a loud exhale, Ross slumped back against the mash tun. The increased spray of water that he’d ordered made a comforting, rhythmic whish-whish sound behind him. The sounds of the busy brewery filled his ears again, replacing the noise of his pounding heart. He looked down at his hands, surprised to find them clenched into fists, so he opened them slowly, inspected his palms with their familiar scars and imperfections. He turned them over and studied the hop flowers on his knuckles.
Someone had hurt that woman. Hurt her so badly she thought she would never be happy again. They’d transformed her into something that ran opposed to her natural, strong-willed personality. He’d realized that the moment she’d dropped her gaze to the floor when he’d stood over her, glaring at her like some kind of an asshole.
He yanked his phone from his pocket and tapped out a quick message to Evelyn.
I want Elisa’s whole story. Tonight. I’ll be over and bring pizza for dinner. No excuses.
Her reply came while he was transferring the thousands of gallons of liquid from the mash tun to the boil kettle. As he wiped his face with the towel he kept tied to his belt loop, he felt the phone buzz.
I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone. Sorry.
Cursing under his breath, he shot back—
I don’t care what you told her. I want to know so I can kill the fucking bastard who did whatever he did to her.
It’s a little more complicated than that, she replied.
I can take the complexity.
He took a drink from the water bottle he kept handy, trying to come to terms with the odd sensations racing around his mind. After he hollered for one of the assistants to come babysit the kettle, and gave him strict instructions on when to add which ingredients, he stomped away, heading for the flight of steps up to Evelyn’s office.
It was a space he’d managed to avoid so far. With good reason. The moment he was halfway up he was blindsided by memories—most of them X-rated—of his life here, with her. With them, together. Of all the times they’d shared—working, laughing, and fucking like their lives depended on it.
He stopped, hands gripping the metal rails, head dropped low, willing his mind clear so he could focus.
“Ross.” Evelyn’s voice circled around his brain, clogging it like smog. “Come on up.”
He lifted his head and met her steady, blue-eyed gaze. At that moment, something heavy seemed to lift off his chest. Something he’d been dragging around ever since he’d forced Austin and Evelyn back together and had decided to leave, to give them the space they deserved. It was as if it had been tied around his neck, albatross-style and the string holding it there had broken the minute he looked at her.
He smiled, and walked the rest of the way up the stairs. The hug they shared was easy, friendly, comforting.
“Thank Christ that’s over,” he muttered into her hair.
“What?” she asked letting go of him.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. So, are you gonna spill it or do I have ask her myself?”