Far Cry: A Talbott’s Cove Novel

by Canterbary, Kate

  "Oh, well, since you asked," she shouted back, "I'm going to get some work done. I'd planned on enjoying the post-orgasmic haze, but someone ruined that for me with a bullshit conversation that's none of his fucking business. I'm awake and I'm aggravated, so I might as well make some money."

  "You could turn around and come home with me. You won't be aggravated when I'm done."

  "One cannot be the source and the solution," she said. "I'm finished with you."

  "For tonight," I added.

  "Forever. I'm done with you forever. There are no circumstances in which you will ever see me naked again."

  "You say that, sweetheart, and I know you think you mean it. But I also know you'll be back."

  She stopped near the village, pivoted, and stared at me for a solid minute. Then, "Jed, I'd rather trip and fall into hot garbage in Midtown during a heat wave than get on your dick again."

  Butterscotch galloped to Brooke's side and nuzzled her thigh. She murmured something to the dog and scratched her head, and they continued into the village side by side. They stayed together all the way up the hill to the Markham estate, Butterscotch's head brushing Brooke's hand every few steps.

  I shoved my hands into my pockets and trailed behind them, content to follow—and wait.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Brooke

  Marketable Securities: financial instruments that can be readily converted into cash.

  Annette: Were you walking a dog last night?

  Brooke: Good morning to you too.

  Annette: Were you walking a dog in the middle of the night? Because one of Jackson's deputies swears he witnessed that exact thing and I…have so many questions.

  Brooke: Can you describe the dog?

  Annette: I didn't ask for details. All I heard was dog.

  Brooke: Sounds unlikely.

  Annette: And yet it wouldn't shock me if it was true.

  Brooke: That says more about you than it does me.

  Annette: Are you sure about that?

  * * *

  Annette: Did you walk any dogs last night?

  Brooke: I did not, no.

  Annette: Will you be walking any tonight?

  Brooke: Can't see why I would…

  Annette: I wasn't sure whether it's something new you're doing, like goat yoga.

  Brooke: I'm not doing goat yoga. That sounds horrible. I don't want a goat in my face while I'm in downward dog, thank you.

  Annette: But middle of the night dog walking? That's an option?

  Brooke: Probably not.

  * * *

  Brooke: You know what's hard?

  Annette: It feels like you're walking me into a dick joke.

  Brooke: Ha. I wouldn't have this issue if I had some good dick available.

  Annette: Go back to the Galley. That worked out well the last time.

  Brooke: You don't fish in the same pond twice. It's a well-known proverb.

  Annette: You just made that up.

  Brooke: Maybe but I'm having real problems.

  Annette: All right. Tell me what's hard.

  Brooke: Trying to have some alone time with my new vibrator when Dad is taking a bath across the hall and having a loud conversation with his health aide about the town council being a pack of fools.

  Annette: Yeah, that's rough.

  Brooke: I'm almost certain he's referencing a council from the 1970s, but he's talking like it's today and it's messing with my orgasm.

  Annette: Wait. Is the problem that you can hear him while you're visiting your amusement park or is it that he's talking like it's the 1970s?

  Brooke: Honestly, a bit of both.

  Annette: I'm sure you could leave the house, go to the Galley, meet someone, and fix that situation.

  Brooke: Nah. I don't feel like putting pants on.

  Annette: Also valid, but try some noise-canceling headphones.

  Brooke: I've tried those and discovered dead silence is not an improvement over rants about lousy small town politicians.

  Annette: Then put your damn pants on!

  Brooke: You know what's funny? The idea of putting pants on in order to find someone to take them off.

  Annette: You're stalling. Do not make me come to your house and dress you myself. I will. I'll also drag you down the street and force you to flirt with people at the Galley.

  Brooke: omfg Annette, when did you get so militant?

  Annette: Everything I know, I've learned from you.

  Chapter Sixteen

  JJ

  Fixed Costs: a cost that will remain constant regardless of the amount of goods or services produced.

  Brooke was in one hell of a rotten mood.

  I knew it the minute she blew into the tavern, all thunder and lightning. I saw it in the scowl permanently twisted across her lips, the stiff line of her shoulders, the joyless chill in her eyes. It was the same way she'd blown out of my house four nights ago.

  I cataloged her every movement as she swept across the tavern toward her usual seat at the bar. She worked hard at dodging my gaze, but that wouldn't last long. Once could be forgiven, twice was a mistake, three times was a pattern—and she was here for her third.

  Turning away from the territory she'd claimed as her own, I sidled up to Nate. He was running the bar tonight and having a tough go of it. It was barely ten o'clock and we'd wasted more beer on foamy pours than I wanted to price out in my head. My pet project had also forgotten the ingredients to the most basic drinks—gin and tonic, anyone?—and looked damn close to melting down on several occasions, including this one. "How goes it, kid?"

  Nate shook his hands at the taps. "Not great," he whispered, mostly to himself. "It's not great."

  I glanced between him and the handles. "What's the problem?"

  "That's a question I'd really like to answer, but I have no clue why I can't pour more than one beer at a time."

  "Then don't pour more than one at a time." I clapped him on the back. "You run the ship, kid. It sails as fast or slow as you want, and these people"—I tipped my head toward the regular crew—"are just happy you're pouring them."

  He closed his eyes, pressed the palms of his hands there. "I'm sorry."

  "For what?" I asked. "For making some suds? That's nothing."

  "For—it's just everything. You gave me a chance and I'm just fucking it up," he replied, still hidden behind his hands.

  I turned in a half circle, scanning the bar and tavern. "That isn't reality, Nate. Look around. You have this under control." I elbowed him toward Brooke. "I'll handle these pours. Go get Miss Markham's order."

  He dropped his hands to his hips. "Is it still on the house?"

  I responded with a quick nod and pushed him in her direction. I didn't want to elaborate on that piece of legislation. It made sense to me in a convoluted way: any woman who shared my bed and consumed my waking thoughts drank for free. But more than that, I didn't want Brooke's money. She had a whole fucking lot of it, more than most people would see in ten lifetimes, and I wasn't prepared to mix that with sex. I didn't even like thinking about it. She didn't like anyone thinking about it either, but she came from old money and found a fuckton of new money for herself in Manhattan. No doubt about that.

  Forcing myself to keep my focus away from Brooke, I went to work filling pint glasses. It gave me a moment to sweep a gaze over the corner of the bar closest to the television and gauge Bobbie Lincoln's degree of inebriation. As far as I could tell from beer-wet splotches on his shirt and his inability to simultaneously focus both eyes, he was far beyond his usual state. He seemed to be the only one getting more than foam from Nate's pours.

  Lincoln was drunk every night of every week, but it tended toward pleasant, mild drunkenness rather than this evening's version of morose and increasingly hostile. He'd started bitching about sports to anyone who would listen, but the urge to instigate got the best of him and he'd transitioned to divisive political topics. No one was engaging—hell, I wasn't sure they were listenin
g—but that didn't stop him from ramping up the rhetoric.

  If I was smart, I'd ring the sheriff or one of his deputies to escort Lincoln home. But my bar hand spooked easily, and calling in the sheriff's deputies was certain to jangle his nerves even more. I didn't want to wash another keg down the drain. Add to those issues the fact I was short-staffed in the kitchen and playing phone tag with both Barry and the marketing coordinator he wanted to hire for the distillery's branding, and every aspect of the project was taking five times longer than planned.

  And Brooke was in a ranty, pouty, jerky shoulders, rolling eyes mood. God, I wanted to fuck it right out of her. I would. But not yet. Not until I contained a few issues.

  Once I'd cleared the pending beverage orders, I headed into the back room without glancing in Brooke's direction. Ignoring her served two purposes. First, it annoyed the hell out of her and I enjoyed nothing more than turning her screws. And second, I didn't trust myself to get a mouthful of her salty mood and not drag her out of that seat.

  Free from the oppressive heat of Brooke's gaze, I fired off text messages to the Cove's innkeeper Rhys Neville, gently begging him to take Lincoln off my hands. When he agreed, I ducked into the kitchen to assess the situation there. The dinner rush was behind us, thank god, but running a kitchen without enough hands on deck was a nightmare. I checked the walk-in fridge for prepped goods, sent messages to suppliers to adjust tomorrow's deliveries, and returned to the back room. I took my time inspecting the kegs, bottled beer, and liquor stored in there.

  When I emerged, I made a point of looking out across the dining room—and avoiding the devastatingly irresistible woman seated in her usual spot. I scanned the occupied tables, the patrons seated at the bar, the orders waiting to be fulfilled. I checked on Nate and found him managing a bit better now that he was out of the weeds.

  Grabbing the day's inventory list from beside the point of sale system, I headed toward Brooke. I stopped two seats away from her, braced my forearms on the bar while I thumbed through the pages. It was enough distance to make it clear this mood didn't earn her my undivided attention. From the corner of my eye, I saw her fingertips tapping the walls of her glass in a quick, erratic rhythm.

  "Here's what you're going to do," I said, flipping to another page. "Go to my house. There's a key under the mat at the back door. Get undressed and wait for me in bed."

  "And how long will I be waiting, good sir?"

  I lifted a shoulder, let it fall. Continued staring at the pages without seeing. "Until I get there."

  "That's not going to happen," she replied. "I'm not going to wait around in your bed—naked—until you're content I've learned some kind of lesson."

  "And why would I be teaching you a lesson, Brooke?"

  The electricity behind her stare dragged my focus up, away from the inventory. I wished I hadn't surrendered to that pull because even with her forehead creased and a snarl on her lips, she was unreasonably beautiful. It was unfair for one woman to be granted so many gifts and advantages.

  "I'm certain you have a reason or twenty-nine." She tossed her platinum hair over her shoulder and I had to draw a breath because the memory of those strands on my skin twisted my gut. "You've never lacked for reasons to resent me, Jed."

  "We're not having this conversation," I replied.

  She clasped her hands under her chin. "It seems that we are."

  I leaned forward, lowered my voice. "And yet conversation is the reason you stomped out of my house in the middle of the night, swearing up and down you'd never be back."

  "Hmm." She arched an eyebrow up as if granting me a point in this match. "Perhaps I should go to your house, lube up my preferred vibrator, and take matters into my own hands. I'm sure I'd learn a lesson from that." Another arched eyebrow. "Or perhaps the lesson would be yours."

  I gathered the inventory, pushed away from the bar. "You're welcome to do that, Brooke, but you should think of it as tonight's appetizer. You'll get the main course when it's good and ready for you."

  * * *

  I held out for ninety-three minutes.

  It would've been longer if Nate hadn't spilled a full tray of whiskey shots on my jeans and boots, but I could live with ninety-three minutes. It was enough time for Brooke to simmer down or boil over, and I was prepared for either version of her.

  I wasn't prepared to find her curled up on my bed with Butterscotch tucked in beside her, fully dressed and fast asleep. Her hair was everywhere, mouth open, arms tucked inside the body of her sweater, one shoe on, one off. For an unreasonably beautiful woman, she slept like a blacked-out teenager.

  Leaning against the doorframe, I watched her longer than I should have. My clothes were wet and reeked of whiskey—and everything else at the tavern. My body was exhausted from sixteen solid hours of work and my head ached from the hours I needed to catch up on distillery business. But I went on watching while she slept with my dog until watching wasn't enough. Until I had to touch her.

  I pushed away from the door and stood by the bed. "Are you tired from being angry all the time? Or angry because you're so damn tired? Which one is it, Bam?" I tucked her hair over her ear, dragged the strands between my fingers. "And how can I make it better?"

  Even as the words passed my lips, I knew I didn't mean them. I didn't want to help. Truly, I didn't want that trouble in my life. Helping people wasn't my thing. This town was packed to the gills with nosy neighbors who lived to help each other, one pot roast and diaper drive at a time. That wasn't me. It wasn't my place.

  But Brooke was asleep in my bed. She came to me in that storm of a mood and she let it drop long enough to curl up with my dog, put her head down, and close her eyes. She came to me. She asked for me, albeit in her supremely fucked-up way. She needed me.

  I stayed there longer than I should have, rubbing her hair between my fingers and studying this open, unpracticed version of her. Eventually, I stepped away to discard my liquor- and grease-scented clothes. I thought about showering the day away, but more than anything, I wanted to know how it felt to sleep beside Brooke. I pulled on a pair of flannel pajama pants and a t-shirt and slipped into the bed behind her. It took a bit of finagling with the blankets to get her underneath them without waking her and Butterscotch, but I managed. She must've been absolutely exhausted.

  "Sleep well, Bam." I kissed her shoulder over her shirt and retreated to my side of the bed. A soft canine snore huffed out. "You too, Scotchie."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Brooke

  Drawdown: the percentage loss from a fund’s highest value to its lowest over a given timeframe.

  I woke up to a tongue on my face.

  I wasn't opposed to oral wake-up calls, but face licking wasn't my preferred form of oral. Call me particular, but I also preferred that tongue to belong to a human being rather than a dog.

  "Good morning to you too," I said to Butterscotch. "What the hell am I doing here?"

  "Scotchie," JJ whisper-yelled from the other room. "Leave her alone."

  "It's fine, she's awake," I called back. I sat up and crossed my legs, and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Blinking, I ran my hands through my hair and spotted the hazy outline of JJ in the doorway. "What happened? Why is it"—I glanced at the clock—"oh my god, why am I here at six in the morning?"

  "You fell asleep." He wagged a spatula at me. "I let you stay asleep."

  "Why the hell would you do that?" I cried. "I came here for a dick appointment, not a sleepover."

  He crossed his arms over his chest. "You were out cold. Sorry, but I'm not fucking you while you're unconscious."

  "It sounds like you want me to congratulate you for that. I'm not going to." I drove my fingers through my hair again, groaning. "Did it not occur to you that I needed to get home? That people might be looking for me?"

  He pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. Stared at me. Waiting a long damn time to say, "Your phone is plugged in on the other side of the bed. If anyone was looking for you, they
would've called. No?"

  "Maybe I had to work," I continued.

  "In the middle of the night, Brooke?"

  I held out my hands. "The beauty of international markets is that one is always open."

  JJ rolled his eyes and glanced over his shoulder. "Come get some scrambled eggs."

  I followed him into the kitchen, calling, "I didn't come here for the breakfast buffet."

  He held his hand over a cast iron skillet on the stove, nodded, and poured the contents of a glass measuring cup into the pan. Over the sizzle of the eggs, JJ said, "We've established that, sweetheart, but it seemed like you needed some rest." He jerked a shoulder up. "A good breakfast wouldn't kill you either."

  Hipshot and arms crossed, I said, "It's not your place to tell me when I need to sleep or eat. Having sex with me a handful of times doesn't entitle you to make my decisions."

  "How do you feel about marble rye?"

  I blinked at him. "What are you asking me?"

  He stepped away from the stove to retrieve two wax paper-wrapped loaves of bread. He lifted one of them. "I have a fresh loaf of marble rye from a husband and wife bakery over in Charlotte, Vermont." Lifting the other, he said, "They also sent a whole grain raisin walnut with my order, but I don't get the impression you're a fan of raisin bread."

  I took the raisin bread from him and unwrapped the paper. "What? Just because I want you to wake me up and fuck me into a mild concussion, I can't like raisins?" I sniffed the bread. "That seems ruder and more judgmental than your usual."

  He snatched the loaf out of my hands and set it on the countertop beside the stove. "I'm sorry that, rather than leaving you to stumble home with a sex-induced brain injury, I allowed you to sleep. It's terrible, I know. Can I make it worse by feeding you breakfast, Brooke?"