Undeniable

by Harlow, Melanie

  He set my suitcase down and tucked the bottle into a side pocket. “Perfect fit.”

  I turned around to face him and held out my arms. “Well? How do I look?”

  “Perfect,” he said with a smile. “Ready to go?”

  “Ready to go.”

  I had to admit I actually felt sort of excited and exhilarated tossing my backpack into the back of Oliver’s SUV and hopping into the front seat. I didn’t know exactly where we were headed, but it was a gorgeous summer day, I wasn’t at work, and I really did love an adventure. I sometimes hiked with April or with friends, but it had been a long time since I’d done an overnight. I felt free and spontaneous and—yes, I’ll confess—even a little bit grateful to Oliver for making me do this.

  It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? He still knew how to push my buttons, but he seemed more mature. More focused on his goals and not just on having a good time. Maybe he was right, and this partnership was going to be a good thing for both of us.

  If I could learn to trust him.

  As we drove west out of town on Highway 72, windows down, my arm out, warm air rushing over my skin, I tipped my head back and sang along with Stevie Wonder on satellite radio.

  Oliver laughed. “I forgot how terrible your singing voice is.”

  I reached over and poked his shoulder. “As I recall, yours isn’t any better.”

  “Nope, it is not.” He glanced at me. “Know where we’re going yet?”

  “I have an idea.” I bit my lip. “But only because you said island.”

  “What’s your idea?”

  “North or South Manitou?”

  He grinned but kept his eyes on the road. “South. Have you been?”

  “Not in years,” I said, sitting up straighter in the passenger seat. “I remember once going with Sylvia and my dad because she was into photography and wanted to take pictures of the lighthouse. I must have been about thirteen then. We hiked the island, but Sylvia’s not really a camper, so we didn’t stay the night. We caught the last ferry home.” I found myself even more excited. “I’ve always wanted to go back, and I never have. Seems silly, when you think about how close it is. I’ve hiked all over the map but haven’t really explored my own state.”

  “Well, if all goes as planned today, we’re going to explore the whole island, top to bottom and everything in between.”

  “Cool!” I clapped my hands. “I can’t wait! But I have to ask what this trip has to do with business. I can’t imagine what South Manitou Island has to do with distilling.”

  His grin grew wider. “That’s where the story comes in.”

  “So tell me,” I said.

  “All in due time. For now, let’s just relax and enjoy the ride.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him, but a minute later I was perfectly happy again—eyes closed, wind in my hair, Motown on the radio, anticipation in my belly.

  I was glad I’d come.

  * * *

  After grabbing a quick lunch in Leland, we purchased sandwiches to have for dinner and tucked them into our packs before heading to the Fishtown dock, where Oliver purchased park passes and a camping permit. Then we bought our tickets and boarded the Manitou Island Transit ferry.

  I couldn’t stop smiling.

  Oliver and I sat up top, and it was so sunny I needed my hat to protect my face. I grabbed my sky blue Cloverleigh cap from my pack, stuck it on my head, and pulled my ponytail through the back. Oliver wore a cap too—it was navy and said CSYC on it, which I assumed was a yacht club he belonged to.

  I also rubbed sunscreen onto my arms, legs, chest and face, but Oliver said he’d do it later. He was already tanned at this point in the summer.

  “You sailing a lot?” I asked him.

  “A fair amount. I’m a volunteer instructor at a sailing school.” He pushed his tortoise Ray Bans up his nose.

  “You volunteer?”

  He shrugged. “It’s part of a summer program for underprivileged kids. My mom roped me into doing it years ago, but I ended up enjoying it.”

  “Oh yeah, I vaguely remember you telling me about that. Do you still have your own boat?”

  He shook his head. “I did for a while, but I sold it to a friend in Chicago a few years back. I sometimes sail to Mackinac with him.”

  The mention of Chicago jarred me a little, and I looked across the deep blue water of Lake Michigan for a minute, away from Oliver. Were we ever going to talk about what had happened there? Did I want to? Would there be any point? For years, I’d convinced myself I didn’t need any closure where he was concerned. But maybe I was wrong.

  The ferry captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker, welcoming us on board, letting us know someone would be coming around to collect our tickets, and telling us the ride would take about an hour and a half.

  “An hour and a half,” I said, poking Oliver in the leg. “Plenty of time for you to tell me a story.”

  He exhaled as if I was a big pain in the ass. “Okay, fine. But you shouldn’t be so impatient. That’s not going to serve you well in the whiskey business, you know. Aging takes time. You can’t rush things.”

  “Thank you, I know. I’ve done my research, too. Now tell me a story, and it better explain what I’m doing on this boat, headed for an island in the middle of Lake Michigan where I will be forced to share a tent with you tonight.”

  “It will.”

  “Good.” I stretched out a little, crossing my legs at the ankles and my arms over my chest, tilting my face toward the sun. “Okay, start.”

  “The story starts one hundred years ago with a brave and determined young Russian named Jacob Feldmann. He’d grown up on his family’s farm, but times were tough. Facing widespread poverty, religious persecution, and starvation, he decided to take his chances in a faraway land—America.”

  I smiled at his dramatic delivery. “Go on.”

  “Like so many of his countryman, Jacob sets out on foot, bound for a port city in the east so he can sail across the ocean and make a better life for himself. And tucked inside one of his pockets is the key to his version of the American dream.”

  “Magic beans?” I guessed.

  “Something better. Magic seeds.”

  “What kind of seeds?”

  “Rye,” Oliver said emphatically. “But not just any rye—this was an unknown variety that had only been grown on his family’s land in Russia for generations. It had a big, earthy flavor that brought bread—and whiskey—to life. ”

  I sat up a little taller in my seat.

  “Now, he only has a handful of seeds—less than a handful, actually—but Jacob is confident. He makes his way west from New York City to Michigan and plants it. He chooses the state because he believes the climate and soil are similar to Russia’s.”

  “Fucking cold nine months of the year?”

  Oliver pointed at me. “Right. And it works—Jacob’s rye spreads beautifully to nearly a million acres. People start growing it in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and as promised, it makes a delicious, flavorful whiskey. Jacob prospers.”

  “I feel like something is about to go wrong.”

  He tapped my nose. “Bingo. Two things go wrong, actually. First, it turns out that Jacob Feldmann’s Russian rye is a finicky little princess. It can’t stand mixing. The moment foreign pollen is introduced, the rye starts to lose all its distinctive flavor characteristics.”

  I gasped. “No.”

  “Within ten years, only five percent of the crop was fit for sale. But Jacob didn’t give up—he knew all he needed was to find a place where it would be possible to grow only pure Feldmann rye without any intruders. But while he’s searching for the right spot, the Eighteenth Amendment passes, and the whiskey industry dies.”

  “Damn you, Prohibition.” I shook my fist.

  “This means lower demand, and lower demand means farmers need to find other crops to grow. Rye falls out of favor. Jacob can’t find anyone in a suitably isolated environment willing to take a chance on growing his s
eed.”

  “There’s a joke in there somewhere,” I snicker.

  Oliver nudged my leg with his. “Keep your mind out of the gutter, Sawyer.”

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  “Now right about this time, something fortuitous happens.”

  “What?”

  “Jacob …” Oliver paused dramatically. “Falls in love.”

  “Oooooh!” I clapped my hands and wiggled in my seat. “Who is she?”

  “Her name is Rebecca Hofstadt, and she’s the daughter of a South Manitou island woodsman, a German immigrant named George. She grew up on the island, but left after the eighth grade so she could attend high school on the mainland. Later, she becomes a schoolteacher and returns to the island to take charge of the one-room schoolhouse there.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “So how do they meet?”

  “One summer afternoon, Jacob sees Rebecca walking along the Fishtown docks in Leland. She came often during the warmer months to stock up on supplies you couldn’t get on the island during the winter when the boats aren’t running. Well, the story goes Jacob takes one look at the beautiful Rebecca and falls to his knees in the street. He’s never seen such a heavenly creature in all his life. As he watches her make her way along the boards, he hears the voice of God in his head saying, Marry that girl, Jacob Feldmann. She is your destiny.”

  “So does he propose right there on the docks?”

  “Of course he did. He’d just heard the voice of God. Wouldn’t you?”

  I laughed. “What did she say?”

  “She said no, of course, but in the ensuing conversation, he did learn her name and where she lived. Now he’s even more ecstatic because he’s at the Fishtown docks that very day waiting for a boat to ferry him over to South Manitou Island, which is a self-contained, self-sustaining agricultural society. He thinks his rye would have a chance to grow purely there. All he needs is a farmer to try it, and he finds one.”

  “Let me guess—Rebecca’s dear old dad.”

  “Exactly. Undeterred by her refusal of his offer of marriage, Jacob asks permission to accompany her back to the island and meet her father. She agrees.”

  Looking out over the water toward the island, I imagine Jacob and Rebecca on a ferry much like this one, heading for their future together. “So how does he convince George to grow the rye?”

  “Well, George wasn’t really a farmer. He’d been a sailor, which was how he wound up on South Manitou—steamer ships used to put in there to fuel up with wood for their boilers. Back in those days, the Manitou Passage was a critical spot in the journey for ships traveling on the Great Lakes. South Manitou had an important lifesaving station and lighthouse to help prevent the shipwrecks that were all too common in those days due to high traffic, unpredictable weather, and the underwater landscape.”

  I nodded, remembering some of this from being on the island with Sylvia and my dad. “I think there’s still a shipwreck visible from the beach. Like sticking out of the water.”

  “There is. We’ll see it today on our hike. So George decided lumbering sounded better than being a sailor, and he decided to stay on South Manitou and settle down on the booming little island. But when the ships started to burn coal, the lumber business there died. He turned to farming, mostly to keep his family fed.”

  “He had kids?”

  Oliver nodded. “Rebecca was the oldest of five. Well, Jacob must have been a good salesman, because he convinces George to turn over twenty acres to Feldmann rye, and he persuades Rebecca to marry him. He moves onto the island, builds a cabin, and helps George with the planting.”

  “And does it grow?”

  “It does. Turns out the island’s light, sandy soil is perfect for rye. They’re so successful, in fact, that they persuade the other six farmers on the island to grow nothing but Feldmann rye, as it came to be called. And to this very day, it’s the only place in the country where it grows.”

  “Really?” I glanced at him in surprise.

  “Mmhm.” Oliver looked smug. “And no one has made whiskey from it in almost a century.”

  My insides were jumping. I saw where Oliver was going with this. “But we will,” I said before I even stopped to think.

  He nodded. “We will.”

  Overcome with excitement, my creative brain kicking into high gear, I grabbed his hand. “Oliver, this could be incredible! Do you realize what we have? I mean, not only the potential to make a really good whiskey, but something even better—something that would help us stand out in a crowded market. We have a heritage rye, made from seeds brought here a hundred years ago by a Russian immigrant! We have the American Dream in a bottle! We have marketing gold!”

  He squeezed my hand. “We have a story.”

  I met his eyes. “We have a story.”

  10

  Oliver

  THEN

  Normally, I tried to get out of going to the Cloverleigh Christmas party with my parents, but this year I gladly jumped in the car for the two-hour drive down from Harbor Springs.

  It was the craziest thing—I couldn’t think of another time I’d been this excited to see anybody, let alone Chloe Sawyer. We hadn’t spoken in more than two months … since that unbelievable night in my dorm room.

  Sometimes, when I thought about it—usually right before I jerked off—I wondered if the whole thing had been a dream. But then I’d remember watching her strip off her sweater. Then her shirt. I’d hear her explaining to me why she wanted me to fuck her but not call her. I’d remember the taste of her skin and the smell of her hair and the sound of her voice telling me to take her pants off.

  I’d recall how good it felt to get inside her and know that I was her first, that she wanted me to be the first. Somehow it had felt like my first time too, even though it wasn’t.

  I remembered that feeling afterward, foreign and familiar at the same time, because it was Chloe I couldn’t get enough of. I wanted more.

  But she’d been fucking silent afterward. Had she enjoyed it? She’d had an orgasm, hadn’t she? It was too hard to tell with girls sometimes. I got distracted and lost control so easily.

  But I’d tried not to go too fast. I’d wanted her to enjoy it, even if she was only doing it to cross “lose virginity” off her list. In all honesty, I’d thought her plan was pretty fucking stupid and figured she was eventually going to regret it and blame me for everything, but I still hadn’t been able to stop myself from doing it. Not only because I was eighteen and obsessed with sex, but because it was her. Chloe wasn’t just hot, she did something to me. I had no idea why or what. But ever since she’d walked away from me on prom night, I’d been thinking about her. It drove me crazy that she didn’t want me.

  Every girl wanted me! Why didn’t she?

  So I’d done what she asked that night, and it had been fucking fantastic. So good I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks afterward. Other girls would approach me and sometimes I messed around with them, but somehow they never compared to her. They were pretty but boring. They never challenged me. They never made me feel anything.

  A hundred times I thought about calling her, but then I’d remember I had promised not to. I’d recall how distant she’d seemed on the walk back to town.

  And I was a fucking gentleman—I’d asked if she was okay. She’d said she was fine, but I knew her—something was off. She was never that quiet. Maybe she regretted it already.

  I hoped not. I didn’t regret it. In fact, I was sort of hoping she might want to do it again. And maybe she’d let me fucking text her afterward. Maybe we could visit each other or something. Purdue wasn’t that far from Miami Ohio.

  The first thing I did after saying hello to Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer was seek her out. I saw her across the wide expanse of the lobby, standing near the tree. My stomach did something weird and jumpy as I started across the room. I raked a hand through my hair, hoping my shirt hadn’t gotten too wrinkled in the car. I’d ironed it myself.

  She was with a gr
oup of people I didn’t recognize, and she looked hot as hell in a black dress and tall boots with heels. Her lips were bright red. Approaching her, my heart began to pound.

  She caught sight of me, and for a moment, she looked nervous. Then she smiled. “Hey, Oliver.”

  “Hey.” I gave her a hug, even though we normally didn’t greet each other that way, holding her a little longer than necessary just so I could breathe in her perfume. “How are you?”

  “Good.” She released me and put a hand on the guy standing next to her, a beefy-looking blond guy with a thick neck and a shitty haircut. “This is my friend Dean. He came up from Purdue with me for a few days.”

  Fighting off a queasy feeling, I held out my hand. “Oliver Pemberton. Nice to meet you.”

  “Same.” Dean shook my hand, although he didn’t look too pleased about making my acquaintance.

  Chloe introduced me to the rest of the group, but I forgot all names immediately. All I could focus on was the way she kept touching Dean’s arm and smiling at him with those red lips, and how he put his hand at the small of her back. It was clear they were a couple.

  I wanted to fucking punch him.

  As soon as I could politely excuse myself, I did, going right over to the bar and asking for some Woodford Reserve, neat. The bartender asked me for my I.D., of course, and I brandished one of Hughie’s old licenses. It was expired, but the guy either didn’t notice or didn’t care. I took my whiskey and grabbed a seat at the end of the bar, away from the crowd. After tossing it back in less than two minutes, I ordered another.

  I was halfway through that one, enjoying a decent buzz, when Chloe walked into the bar and spotted me. “There you are,” she said, coming to stand at my side. “You disappeared so fast, I thought something was wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong.” I barely looked at her.

  She paused. “Okaaaaay. Well, why are you in here by yourself? Why don’t you come hang out with us?”

  “I’m fine.”