Chapter Seventeen
“I left the pieces for the bottom shelves in the trailer,” Nick told his dad, straightening from the floor behind the bar. “I’ll get them after I finish hanging this door.” He was man enough to admit he was still shaken from his run-in with Eve the previous night. After he’d left her, he’d spent a couple of hours driving the back roads of Napier County. Another eight hours of staring at the ceiling above his bed had done little to clear his head. And now here he was, back at Blue Mountain, and barely able to find the right end of his hammer.
“That’s okay,” Raleigh said, in a surprising show of agreeability. “We can get them after lunch. I’m going to work on these posts right now.” He limped over to the toolbox and rooted around for something. He wasn’t moving fast, but he’d announced this morning that he was done being an invalid and was ready to get back to work.
The sound of the nail gun filled the space, and Nick went back to fitting screws into the hardware he was installing.
“Hi.” Eve’s voice was like a cold pitcher of water over his head. She appeared from nowhere, and stood next to him holding her infernal notebook, looking at him expectantly.
Franklin disappeared through the door, following Raleigh out—even the oblivious old man sensed when it was wise to beat a hasty retreat.
“Hey.” He forced a casual smile. He’d been doing everything in his power to avoid thinking about this confrontation, but it finally found him, and it had only taken her…he checked his watch…fifteen minutes from the time he pulled his truck onto the property. Even for Eve, that was efficient.
“How are the cabinets?” She leaned her head over and inspected the door he was working on. “Do you think those knobs and hinges are going to work?”
“Yeah.” Okay. He could be nonchalant and ignore the elephant in the room if she could. Hell, he could work around that fucker until it dried up and blew away if he had to.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were in recovery? Don’t you trust me?”
Aaaand the elephant backed up and dropped a load right on his head.
“What? No. I trust you. I—” What was she asking, exactly? He chose to go with the obvious. “I know you understand anonymity. It’s not like it’s a big secret, it just didn’t seem…”
“Relevant?” Her eyebrows nearly met her hairline. “You’re working at a distillery. The fact that you’re an alcoholic might have factored into your decision to take this job.”
He nodded. “Yep. It did.”
“And you decided to do it anyway.”
“Yep.” It was his word of the day, apparently.
“Weren’t you worried this would be a difficult place for you to be?”
At first it had, but now it was difficult to be here for an entirely different reason, one that was standing right in front of him. What he said was, “There doesn’t seem to be much booze flowing through here right now, and I did owe you a dismantled barn.”
“You replaced the barn pieces three weeks ago.” A little bit of hope snuck into her eyes, and he had to shut it down before it caught him. She met his gaze squarely. “Can I count on you?”
What was she asking? Could she count on him to finish this job? Knowing he was an alcoholic and just as likely to fall off the wagon and bail out on her as his father—and hers—had. Or was she asking for more? Could she count on him to be there for her? Could she count on him? No. Not ever. Not for that.
He took a deep breath and made a promise. “I’m going to make sure your tasting center gets finished.”
“I appreciate that.” She gave a tentative smile, but she was waiting for more.
“And then I’m leaving,” he said. “I promised my mom I’d be home before the start of the school year to help her.”
“Oh. Okay.” Her forehead creased as she tried to figure out what he was really telling her.
He tried to clarify, “I’m going to finish this job because it’s the right thing to do, but I can’t—” He gestured back and forth between them. “Anything else is a bad idea.”
The wind didn’t go out of her sails so much as it was vacuumed away. Her whole body seemed to collapse in on itself. God damn it. He hadn’t promised her that he’d stay. He hadn’t promised her a fucking thing. He never made promises.
Except to his mother. The one person he’d hurt the most with failed promises was his mother, and she was the one person he still made them to. What his mother had suffered because of him was awful. He could never do that to Eve, and years of living with his father warned him he might—he never knew what challenge was around the next corner.
God, he was an asshole.
Which was exactly why he had to leave. Eve’s feelings might be hurt now, but she’d be better off in the long run. Her mother was right. He was no good, and she had no future with him.
Please let her see this and go away before he made a fool of himself.
But he was not so lucky. He deserved to have his face shoved in it a little more. After all, she’d counted on him to help her, and he’d let her believe he was worth her trust. Hell, she’d let him into her house. Into her body.
Her mouth twisted up, and her eyes were shiny when she nodded, and with an honesty that he’d never be capable of, said, “I knew going into it that we weren’t going to be a long-term thing. I guess I got ahead of myself and started imagining…things.”
So had he. That was part of the problem.
“Aw, Eve.” Against his better judgment, he pulled her into his arms. She came, her resistance melting after a second, and she put her arms around his waist, buried her head under his chin. Right where she fucking fit. Right where she couldn’t stay. “This is for the best. Let’s face it. I’m a barely employed carpenter and a drunk who barely finished high school. You—you’re everything I’m not. I bet you had a four point ten G.P.A. in college, and you never go over the legal limit with booze. And you’re heir to a bourbon fortune. I can’t be in your life and my world would extinguish you.”
She released him and stepped back. Her eyes clearly stated that she thought he was full of shit. But she opened the notebook she still held. “I’ll get out of your way then. Let me know if you need anything, and I’ll try to keep my mother from coming down to direct traffic.”
And with that she was gone, pushing past Raleigh as he carried a stack of boards back inside.
“I’m going to use these to start on that carving now. Are these the right ones?” His dad pointed to the lumber outside next to his chair. “They’ve got green sticky notes on ’em.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Just look at the book.” He gestured toward the damned flight plan Eve had made him draw up for every step of the job.
“Great. Make sure you don’t fuck anything up in here while I’m working outside.” And as his dad shuffled away to sit in the shade with Franklin and his carving knives, Nick wondered how the hell he’d gotten to the place where he was in charge of this job. The next couple of weeks were going to be hell.