Chapter Twenty
Bec studied the gyro plate in front of her. She’d gotten takeout from Selig’s to eat in her own kitchen, but now she’d discovered she wasn’t that hungry. She should have been. She’d been working all day at the Salty Goat. After that, she’d worked at the brewery for another two or three hours.
She’d been following this same schedule all week. Having Liam’s help had meant she could produce a bigger batch of her first new beer. But the two of them still weren’t able to do as much as a full staff would do, even with occasional help from Abe.
Plus, of course, both of them were working around their own full-time jobs, which made for some weird hours. They’d spent most of a night doing the mashing, then another night doing the lautering step where they separated the grain from the liquid and added the hops.
The rest of the process had been fairly straightforward, but it had still taken time. Now the ale was fermenting with the yeast for a while, and she could get a little rest.
She only hoped she hadn’t made any awful decisions about the beer or the rest of her life because of exhaustion.
It shouldn’t have been surprising that the story of the smashed barrel of Zoria had made its way around town. But the reaction most people had did surprise her.
Nobody shook their heads and said she was a screw-up. Nobody told her to give it up. And nobody let her withdraw into her own little blue funk.
Abe and Cooper were both on board with the idea of something other than imperial stout, something that she could produce more quickly. They’d offered advice on the best hops and malt after she used up the supplies from Wyatt, and they’d offered her credit. After a night of soul searching, she’d taken them up on it.
Thanks to Wyatt’s provisions, she was fermenting a wheat beer that should be finished and ready to sell in a couple of months, as opposed to the year the Zoria had to age before she’d be ready to release it. Now she was getting ready to start work on an IPA.
She hadn’t been able to pay in full for either the new hops or the new malt. She made down payments for both with money Liam gave her. She wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it, and she didn’t ask, but she noticed he was getting around on foot these days rather than on his trusty mountain bike. Maybe he needed the exercise. Or maybe the mountain bike had found a new home.
Right now the most important thing was to get more than one beer working. Nobody asked too many questions about what that would mean in the long run, including her.
Angel had called her the day after the Zoria disaster.
“I heard,” she said flatly. “What are you going to do now, and what can I do to help?”
She’d taken a deep breath, pushing away her automatic reaction. Take the damn help, Rebecca. “An IPA. We can do it more quickly. What kind of yeast do you think I should use?”
“There’s a supplier in St. Vrain who has a nice strain of ale yeast. Not too expensive, and I can vouch for you. I’d try them first—it should work well with an IPA.”
Bec’s chest felt tight suddenly. “Thanks. Thanks, Angel. I’ll call them.”
“No problem. I’m still working on the wild strain. When we get down to Zoria again, the next batch will be spectacular.”
Bec closed her eyes as she disconnected. She wasn’t going to blow it this time. The beer might be swill, and the brewery might go toes up, but she wasn’t going to lose her friends again.
And they were back in business. When she wasn’t longing for sleep, she let herself feel elated about that.
Of course, the elation never lasted too long. It would be a couple of months, at least, before they had anything to sell. They were back in business on a very limited scale, doing one beer at a time. They were living from barrel to barrel, which was perilous, given the number of disasters that could happen. But it was better to have a small inventory than to have no inventory at all.
And Antero Brewing existed again. With Rebecca Dempsey, Brewmaster, back in charge.
She hadn’t heard from Wyatt. She hadn’t expected to—she had the note, after all. I’ll be back. Yeah, well, that would be easier to believe if he gave her a call occasionally.
You sent him away, Rebecca.
She had. She definitely had. Idiot girl that she was, she’d sent the man away. Something else to berate herself over when she had the time. Colin had left her on his own. Wyatt hadn’t wanted to leave, but she’d made him go. At the time, it had made sense—she was in disaster mode, and she didn’t want anyone there to watch her sink. Now it made no sense, but she was stuck with it. The next move would have to be Wyatt’s.
She sighed. She didn’t have time for moping, no matter how much she felt like she wanted to every once in a while. She had a brewery business to get up and running and a cheese-making job to hang onto. For now, she needed to hold tight to everything she had.
And maybe a few things she didn’t have.
She heard a door open on the brewery floor. “Liam?”
“Yeah,” he called back. “Just wanted to check on how things are going.”
She stepped through the door to the brewery, leaving her gyro to languish on the kitchen table. “About like they were a couple of hours ago. There’s not much to do except wait for it to ferment. It’ll be around a month before it’s worth tasting.”
Liam nodded, running his hand across the back of his neck. “Yeah, I know. I wanted to see if everything was…okay. You know, make sure nothing had happened.”
To make sure she hadn’t made another catastrophic error that would set them back by several thousand dollars more. “Nothing has happened. Everything is fine. The beer’s fermenting and conditioning. It just needs time.”
She tried to keep her voice neutral, but some vinegar slipped in nonetheless.
He held up his hands. “I know, I know, I didn’t mean to imply…”
She shook her head, then took a deep breath. Water under the bridge. “It’s all right. I know I made a mistake—a big one. I don’t blame you for being concerned.” Although she was still sort of convinced that she’d put the brake on that forklift. Obviously, no matter what she thought, she hadn’t. Cooper had checked the brakes and said they looked okay to him, or as okay as they could be, given how beat up the forklift had gotten in the fall from the loading dock.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Liam said quietly. “I told you that. Repeatedly. The whole thing was…an accident.” He looked away, staring at the far wall of the brew floor, his lips compressing into a thin line. “A real nasty accident.”
“Yeah, okay.” It was an accident that had well nigh broken her heart. But Liam and the others had almost made up for it. She might have lost the Zoria, but she had her friends back.
Which doesn’t entirely make up for it. No, it didn’t. But it was a start. “Anyway, there’s not much more to do around here now except wait.”
Liam took a breath. “Yeah, well, I was thinking last night. We could start on another batch. In fact, we probably should.”
She frowned. “Another batch of wheat beer? I’d rather wait to see how this one turns out first. I may need to make some adjustments in the recipe.” She’d be peddling this batch to the taverns around town. They weren’t ready for wider distribution yet.
He shook his head. “You should start with another batch of Zoria. So it can be aging while we get the other lines up and running.”
She blinked. Liam hadn’t mentioned the Zoria since the forklift had gone over the side. “I’m not sure we should take that much time on something that won’t be drinkable for a year. Right now we should concentrate on the IPA. We need a quick turnaround on brew time and some quick sales to get back on our feet. That should give us enough money to go for a longer-aging brew.”
“We can do both,” he said quickly. “The Zoria can be aging while we put out the wheat beer and maybe get more IPA or a red ale going.”
Bec shook her head. “We don’t have the money for all of that. We’d have to buy more ingredients on credit and maybe even start the bottling line again—we can’t afford all that yet.”
Liam shrugged. “Cooper and Abe will both extend more credit if we need it. I assume Angel will too if you tell her it’s for the Zoria. Let’s go big.” He gave her a slightly lopsided smile. “We’re going to win this time, kid. We’re due.”
They were definitely due for a change of luck, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to go as far as Liam was. “Let me think about it for a little.” She shook her head as his expression soured. “I’m not saying no. Just let me consider it. It’s not a bad idea—I just need to work it out for myself.”
He sighed. “Okay, take some time. But I’m right about this, Bec. If we’re going to be back in business, we need to take it all the way.”
She nodded slowly. After all, she’d been the one pushing for the brewery to re-open. But she’d also been the one who’d made reopening that much more difficult by smashing their best remaining asset. “Maybe we do. Give me a couple of days to work out all the expenses and how much time it will take. Then maybe we can go for it.”
Liam grinned. “That’s my kid sister. You always could take a dare better than anyone I know.”
“And you always were better at issuing dares I couldn’t pass up.” She reached up to give him a quick hug.
Liam’s face flushed slightly as he smiled. “I better get back to the tavern—technically, I’m on dinner break.”
“You want my gyro? I decided I wasn’t that hungry.”
His smile broadened. “I would love your gyro. I won’t even gripe about the extra tzatziki.”
A few minutes later, she watched Liam stride across the line of trees that edged the drive, heading back to his other job. One of the best things about this whole disaster cycle was the fact that they were working together again—she’d missed him. She’d even missed being dared.
All her life, he’d made her stretch, even if she hadn’t always succeeded in what she’d tried to do. Of course, she’d gotten her nose bloodied more often than the more cautious types. But it didn’t hurt to dream a little, even if she finally decided not to risk a new barrel of Zoria right now.
She locked the outer door and headed back to her apartment. Perversely, now that she’d given her dinner away, she actually felt sort of hungry. Fortunately, she had some goat cheese and crackers, although she did get a little tired of the Salty Goat’s product after a while.
She’d just settled down with dinner and a beer when the doorbell rang in the brewery. Given that the doorbell was usually for deliveries, she had no idea who could be ringing it at this time of night. She sighed, putting her dinner aside for the second time, and headed for the brewery again.
She pulled open the door to find Wyatt standing on the other side.
…
Wyatt had entered into that level of exhaustion where he didn’t really remember what it was like not to feel tired. He’d put in a full day at Quaff, making sure he could take off again for the rest of the week. The fifteen thousand in cash from Threadgood had made him so paranoid he’d packed it away in his briefcase, then locked the briefcase in his desk before locking his office.
And then he’d worried that somehow he’d lose the briefcase on the drive to Antero. Maybe it would fall into a chasm somewhere. Maybe it would accidentally catch fire. Maybe he’d forget where he put it. By the time he got to town, he was running on fumes, his mental health hanging by a thread.
But when he saw Bec standing in the darkened doorway of Antero Brewing, everything left his mind except for her. He took a deep breath, expanding his lungs to see if he could slow down the sudden hammering of his heart. “Hi.”
“Hi.” She frowned slightly, one eyebrow raised. Not exactly the way he’d pictured her when he’d thought about this reunion.
He tried for a smile. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
He reached for his briefcase, which he’d kept at his feet, as he’d kept it in the front seat next to him all the way from Denver to Antero.
Her eyebrows arched up.
Now what have I done?
“Staying long?” she asked.
Crap. “No, well, not exactly. I mean, I’d like to stay, but that’s not what I’m thinking about. I’m carrying stuff in here that I need to give you.”
When had he become so spaced? Possibly on the drive from Denver, or possibly during the sleepless previous night, which he’d spent watching his briefcase while expecting one of Threadgood’s goons to show up and steal it away.
Bec stepped back, waving him inside. He thought about reminding her to lock the brewery door, then decided he needed to calm down. But seeing her again didn’t help to calm him.
He followed her through the darkened brewery toward the glowing rectangle of light that was her apartment door. There was also the dim light of an indicator gauge near one of the fermenting tanks that he didn’t remember seeing before. “Are you fermenting something?”
She shrugged. “We’ve got some wheat beer working. Should have it done in another month.”
Wyatt frowned. “Not Zoria?”
Bec paused in the doorway, then shook her head. “Not Zoria. We needed to do something that would be ready faster so that we could generate some income.” She stepped into the apartment, and he followed her.
He carefully placed his briefcase next to the couch. “What about the hops and malt I got you?”
“I used it on the wheat beer and some of it on an IPA that’s brewing now. We’ll do the Zoria when we’ve got a little breathing space.” She dropped onto her couch, rubbing a hand across her eyes. “Assuming we get some breathing space at some point. Assuming we’re still in business a month from now.”
He sat next to her, trying to ignore his body’s reaction to the warmth of her skin. “Who’s we currently? Who’s helping out?”
“Liam. We’re both working around our day jobs. Or in Liam’s case, around his night job.” Her lips moved up in a slight smile.
He wasn’t surprised that Liam was helping. Given that he’d been working with Threadgood at one point, he owed his sister a hell of a lot. “What about Cooper and Abe and Angel?”
“They’re letting me buy stuff on partial credit. Money’s still a little tight.”
“Yeah. About that.” He leaned over and picked up his briefcase, snapping the catches.
Bec watched him, frowning again. “What?”
He reached in to take out several stacks of bills. “This is yours. Maybe it’ll help with the expenses for the first few brewing runs.”
He piled the bills in her lap, then pulled out more.
Bec stared down at the money, open-mouthed. “What…? Where did this come from? How is it mine? What the hell is going on here anyway?” She scowled at him.
“It’s hush money,” he explained, then paused. “No, that’s not exactly right. It’s damages. Christopher Threadgood sabotaged the forklift and smashed the Zoria barrel. I went over to his place last night and blackmailed him into paying you damages for what he did. You can count it. It should be fifteen thousand.”
She stared down at the money again, then back at him. “Huh?”
He managed a smile. “Threadgood took off the brake. While you and Liam were arguing and I was watching you. Nobody saw him except Carol, who couldn’t stop him but did manage to take pictures of the whole thing. Being Carol, she tried to follow him but lost him downtown. Then she tracked me down instead.” He pulled out his phone to show her the pictures.
Bec shook her head, waving the phone away. “No. I can’t look at them yet. I can’t…” She seemed slightly dazed. Then she turned toward him slowly. “You knew. You knew I didn’t screw up. You knew Threadgood did this to me.”
He nodded cautiously. Something about the look in her eye made him uneasy. “Well, yeah. After I saw the pictures.”
“I’ve been beating myself up ever since that barrel smashed. Calling myself every kind of fuck-up. Thinking I might have destroyed any chances for the future. And you knew?” Her voice rose dangerously.
Uneasiness quickly morphed into alarm. “Um, Bec…”
She turned and punched him in the arm. Hard.
“Ouch!” He rubbed his biceps. She had quite a punch for a smallish woman.
She gave him a murderous look. “You knew. You knew and you didn’t tell me. And I’ve been feeling like sh-sh-shit.” Her lower lip began to tremble, and she pressed her fists against her mouth. “Oh, damn it.”
He gathered her into his arms, trying to keep her from leaning on the sore biceps. “Come here. It’s okay.”
Her tears soaked through his shirt, wetting his skin as she sobbed. He began to rock her slowly, stroking a hand down her shoulder, patting her back, pressing his lips against her hair. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault. You did everything right. It’s okay now. I didn’t want to tell you until I’d confronted Threadgood myself. I wanted to be able to make it good before you found out.”
After a couple of minutes, she pulled back again, rubbing the back of her hand across her eyes. “Could you get me a tissue from the bedroom?”
“Sure.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Although you could just use one of the hundred dollar bills.”
Bec glared up at him, her lips still trembling. Then she gave him a sudden, watery grin. “No. I’m not that far gone.”
When he came back a moment later with the box of tissues, she was gathering the money together into neat stacks on the kitchen table. “Fifteen thousand, you say?”
He nodded, handing her a tissue. “Should be. I counted it last night when he gave it to me.”
Bec looked at him for a moment, then shook her head. “Carol didn’t tell me anything about this. And I’ve seen her every day at the Salty Goat.”
“We made a deal. Like I said, I wanted to see if I could pressure Threadgood into paying you some damages. If I couldn’t get him to do it, then she was going to tell you and everybody else. I figured if everybody else knew, I wouldn’t have as much leverage with him.” He picked up a stray twenty from the couch, adding it to the pile on the table.
“Who else knew?”
“Just Carol and me. And Liam—whom I also swore to secrecy. And Ruth. We had a system. I was to call Carol by a particular date and time. If she didn’t hear from me, she’d show the pictures to you and anybody else she thought of. I called her this morning.”
Bec gave him an incredulous look. “A particular date and time? Did you think Threadgood would…do something to you?”
“I didn’t know what he’d do. It was a precaution. In case he was more of an asshole than I expected.” He gave her what he hoped was a confident smile. In fact, Threadgood had turned out to be about as much of an asshole as he’d thought, just a slightly less violent one.
She stared at him wide-eyed. “Did you go to his club?”
He nodded. “He wasn’t likely to come to mine.”
“Oh, Wyatt!” Her lip began to tremble again.
No crying. No more crying. “It was okay. There were a lot of people around. And Threadgood’s not the type to start swinging. I think he’d consider it low class to bump somebody off.”
Her lip still trembled slightly. “But you did it for me.”
“Well…yeah.” Of course he had. Wasn’t that okay?
She leaned back, throwing her arms around his neck. “Thank you.”
And just like that, it was worth it. He remembered why he’d gone after Threadgood in the first place. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against her hair. “You’re welcome.”
She cupped his face in her hands, turning slightly so that their lips met. He’d forgotten her taste, the feel of her mouth, smooth skin beneath his fingertips. He’d forgotten it all but remembered it in an instant. Her mouth opened beneath his, and he slid his tongue inside, tasting, feeling, remembering. “Ah, Bec.”
“I missed you,” she murmured. “All the time you were gone, I missed you. And I felt like shit because I made you go.”
“It’s okay.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “We’re okay.” He paused for a moment, forehead furrowing. “I mean, I think we’re okay. Are we okay?”
She nodded, her lips moving into a smile. “We’re okay. I’m sane again. Sort of.”
He took a breath. “I love you, Bec.”
She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his for the lightest of kisses, her hands grasping his. “I love you, too. And the last week has been the longest in my life.”
“Right.” He pulled her into his arms, rubbing his face against her hair. “But it’s over now.”
“I know it’s not going to be easy. I know you’re in Denver and I’m up here, and we’ll have to find a way to make it work.”
He paused, trying to get his lust-befogged brain to function for a while longer. “About that.”
“About what?”
“About you up here and me down there—I think I’ve got a solution.”
She pulled back slightly, staring up at him. “What?”
“It strikes me that Antero lacks one particular feature that would make it the ideal destination.”
“And that would be?”
He grinned. “A gastropub. The first Antero gastropub.”
“Really?”
“Yep. You’ve got a tavern on every corner and restaurants out the ass. But you’ve got no place where people can go to get great craft beer and great pub food. You need one.”
“You’re going to do this?”
He nodded. “I’m definitely going to do this. I’ve already talked to Gabe Burkhardt about selling him my share of Quaff. He wants to do a reboot of the place with another concept, and I’m more interested in coming up here. It’ll take a while—I’ll have to find a location and some more backers to invest. But yeah, I’m opening a gastropub in Antero, no question.”
She frowned slightly. “You really think it would go here?”
“I’m sure it would. I’ve got a secret weapon.”
“Which is?”
“We’d be the exclusive outlet for Antero Brewing, or at least for your small batch output. I figure stuff like your wheat beer would go for larger distribution.”
She blinked up at him. “So it would be an Antero Brewing brewpub?”
“Yeah. We’ll have to stock some other beers too, but the Antero stock would be our major pull. That and our pub food—freakin’ great pub food.”
She took a breath. “That’s wonderful. But…”
“But?”
“What if I can’t produce enough beer for you? What if the beer’s not good enough? What if…”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “You can. You will. You’re the best, Bec. And now we’ll show everybody else how good the best can be.” She didn’t look entirely convinced, but he touched his lips to hers, stroking a hand along the back of her neck. “Trust me. I’ve given this a lot of thought.” It was, in fact, all he’d been thinking about since he’d picked up the cash from Threadgood. “We can get into the details tomorrow. Right now, I really need some sleep. It’s been a big couple of days.”
He settled back on the couch again, pulling her into his arms. “Get ready, babe. It’s going to be quite a ride.”
…
Bec rested her head on Wyatt’s chest, listening to the steady sound of his breathing as he slept and contemplating the suddenly rosy future. An hour ago she’d been wondering if they’d survive. Now she was wondering if they’d be able to keep up with the demand at Wyatt’s place.
It all seemed sort of dizzy, but dizzy in a good way. New possibilities opening up. New challenges on the horizon. All good. It was all good.
She gazed up at Wyatt, dozing on the couch. They had a future together where yesterday she’d had nothing but worries. And it was a future she looked forward to. It had been a while since she could say that.
She would love him. She would stay with him. She would brew beer for him.
And most of all, she would save his ass by making sure that he never, ever referred to his place as a gastropub within the hearing of the citizens of Antero.
She snuggled closer, resting her cheek against his chest. “I can’t wait,” she murmured.
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