Back To Us (Shore Secrets 3)

by Christi Barth

  Her mind blanked out, aware only of sensation. Of Ward. Of the deep groan rumbling out of his throat. The muscles, straining with passion, that held her so firmly. The weird connection between past and present. Knowing they’d done this before, in this very room, and yet never done anything quite like this before.

  “Piper.” Her name feathered in a warm gasp against the side of her neck. Ward followed it with a long, slow swipe of his tongue up to her ear. Heaven.

  “Mmm-hmm?”

  Another swipe, followed by a nip at her lobe that sent chills cascading through her body. “We should stop.”

  “Huh-uh.”

  “Do you really want me to take off your shirt in here? When some pimply, self-important shoe sprayer might come in looking for a fresh can?”

  Her lids jerked open. “Not when you put it like that, I don’t.” How would it look? Two grown, more-than-old-enough-to-know-better adults caught making out like kids? That news would rip through town like a tornado. Piper would be mocked. Derided. Judged.

  Ward released her wrists. “If I keep kissing you, if you keep making that purring noise and rubbing against me, I’m going to rip off your shirt with my teeth. Cause and effect, just like you said.”

  Usually Piper enjoyed being right. This was not one of those times. She shook off the sensual lethargy that had rooted her to the spot and yanked her sweater back into place. This current state of frustration was all her fault. She’d chosen the wrong time and place. Well, Piper hadn’t chosen at all. Merely taken advantage of a moment. Which she’d do again in a heartbeat, given another chance.

  Her smile felt forced. About as convincing as a lion going vegetarian. “Dawn and Joel are waiting for us.”

  “Yup. The oblivious lovebirds.” Taking her hand with an ease that said it belonged to him, Ward grinned and shook his head. “Whose dumb-ass idea was this double date?”

  Piper understood the sentiment behind his words. But all things being equal? She thought their date was going great.

  Chapter Seven

  As a businessman, Ward both loved and loathed Mondays. The first reason was obvious. Alarm clock. Work. Responsibility. No matter how much you loved your job—and Ward did, most days—Monday landed like a slimy spitball on his doorstep every week. Especially compared to how his Sunday went.

  One date with Piper, in the bag, and they were already making progress. In every way possible. Ward pushed out of his crouch from restocking the bottom shelf of cherry liqueur in the tasting room. Beating Joel didn’t suck either. Well, he and Piper beating the team of Joel and the shockingly horrible Dawn. A win was a win, though. That was what all his coaches had drilled into him, no matter how dirty and sad the process.

  But he kind of also loved Mondays, because it still thrilled him every damn time someone walked across the threshold of Lakeside Distillery. Especially compared to how the building looked when he’d inherited it. The last thing his dad had used it for was growing sprouts. The glass tower and wall of windows provided plenty of light. Too much.

  Things, as they always did with his dad, had gone balls-up. Bacterial contamination. By the time Ward finished dealing with the funeral, he was tempted to torch the rank-smelling building. But, oddly enough, the smell reminded him, just a little, of the fermentation process he knew so well from working with Skip at his bourbon palace. So in the end, the most worthwhile part of his dubious and debt-ridden inheritance was an idea.

  The mildewy, saggy-beamed building had been transformed. He’d shed more than planned in both blood and sweat. No tears, but his three best friends had cried a river when they helped Ward cut the ribbon on opening day. And even three years later, on a random Monday in September, it was just as great to see his distillery full of tourists. Ward didn’t keep a tote board on the wall or anything official like that, but he watched closely enough to know that almost everyone who tasted his grape-based vodkas and whiskeys walked out with at least one bottle under their arms. Usually more than one. So a busy tasting room meant money in the bank.

  On the other hand, a busy tasting room also meant being slammed sometimes. Slammed enough that he couldn’t stay downstairs with his barrels and vats, but had to come up and slap on a salesman’s grin and help pour. Having to not just sell, but sell his products was a necessary evil. One that Ward hated. He loved talking about the fermentation process, the aging, the balancing of flavors, and even the distillery’s commitment to sustainability.

  Restocking finished, he headed back to the wide tasting bar and nodded at the tall slick-looking man drumming his fingers against the polished maple. It wasn’t odd to see a guy flying solo. Often a couple would split up once the guy had enough of the region’s famously sweet wine and take refuge at Lakeside.

  “Glad you stopped by this morning.” He gave his volunteer of the day, Sandy, an elbow nudge of thanks. Why the hell people chose to spend their retirement working...for free for him, he’d never understand. But he was beyond grateful to his brigade of empty-nesters and seniors who got a kick out of chatting with tourists and shilling his booze. Sandy raised her bottle in a silent toast back at him before pouring for the trio of golfers clearly getting warmed up, inside and out, before their round.

  “Are you Ward Cantrell?” Slick asked.

  Being recognized wasn’t good. In the early days it’d been bill collectors. Maybe it was just someone getting off on the thrill of having the owner personally tend to him. “Yeah.”

  “I’d like to talk to you, if I may.”

  “You can drink while you talk.” He pulled out a glass and thunked it in front of Slick. “What can I pour for you? Straight-up vodka, or flavored?”

  “No, thank you.”

  As much as Ward was happy to push his booze on customers, he didn’t understand how anyone could taste the stuff at ten in the morning. And yet they sucked it down from the moment he unlocked the doors. “I can cut it with some of our private label Bloody Mary mix.” He leaned over the wide bar and stage-whispered, “Secret’s in the horseradish ratio.”

  “I’m not a drinker. I really do just want to talk with you.”

  Ward pulled the plug on his attempt at charm. The lack of any potential profit made it not worth his effort. “Folks around here will be quick to tell you I’m not chatty. If you want to shoot the breeze, you can hit the barbershops on the main drag. The father runs one and will tell you exactly which rifle and crossbow to use to bring down a deer. Next door, the son will talk your ear off about...well, anything.”

  This time the stranger leaned across the bar. In a low voice, he said, “I have business to discuss. Business that could be very lucrative for you. Is there somewhere we could be more private?”

  Ward straightened. The man in the plain white shirt and neatly pressed khaki pants suddenly had his whole attention. “Follow me.”

  His office was out of the question. Messy didn’t begin to describe it. A clusterfuck of clutter was what Gray called it. Ward called it having every paper he might possibly ever need spread out in arm’s reach. There was a second chair in there, but he was pretty sure it was buried under the bids from four maple syrup suppliers, along with samples.

  Instead, Ward took him down to the bottling room. Four folding chairs were lined up against the back wall for breaks from the tedious work. He gestured at one, turned another around backward and straddled it. “You going to tell me your name, or are you going to cut right to making me rich?”

  “I can tell you my name. I can’t tell you who I represent. Not until you’ve agreed to the deal and signed a confidentiality agreement.”

  “Back up. What deal, and why’s it so secret?”

  “My name is Earl Hickock. I’m a broker.” He passed Ward a plain white card with nothing more than his name, email address and phone number on it. Was “broker” really code for a spy from another distillery, tryin
g to shut down the competition? Not putting a company name on the card looked sketchy. Wasted marketing opportunity too.

  And then, for a tenth of a second—thanks to the latest murder-for-hire true crime story Casey had filled his ears with over dinner last week—Ward dipped into a darker possibility. What if Earl was an assassin? All of his land bordered Seneca Lake. It was the perfect place to bury bodies. It’d explain the lack of branding on the card too.

  No. God, Casey and her damn morbid streak were in for a tongue-lashing for putting the crazy thought into his head. The guy with greased-back car-salesman hair and penny loafers had to be all about business, not blood.

  “Broker for what?”

  “For people who need a go-between to negotiate delicate transactions.”

  Ward had patience for few things in life. He could wait for his rye whiskey to age ten months. He could even wait ten years for the chance to get Piper back. But he didn’t have the patience for a man with too much product in his hair and too few plainspoken words.

  “I’m a simple guy. I don’t do delicate.”

  “Fine.” Hickock folded his hands in his lap. “The interests I represent would like to buy your land.”

  Whoa. Talk about a ball coming from left field. A money ball. “All of it?”

  “No. We’d like just a few acres. Three in particular, that we happen to know you are not currently using.”

  That narrowed down the option straight to what Ward already thought of as Piper’s port land. Which meant this discussion was over. “There’s no For Sale sign on my property, Earl. I don’t know where you got the idea, but I’m not interested.”

  “You haven’t heard my offer yet.”

  And Hickock wasn’t hearing his outright shutdown. “Land’s not for sale.”

  “Everything is for sale, Mr. Cantrell. My interested parties would also be amenable, although less financially generous thereunto, to a lease arrangement.”

  That made them possibly desperate. What the hell was so special about those three acres? Since it was his land, Ward wanted to know. He’d string Hickock along a little longer. “What are they going to do with it?”

  “That is not your concern. Neither is the topic up for discussion.”

  Ward knew what Zane would say about the confidentiality—that his dad had obviously buried something out there. Stolen gems, or stacks of cash swindled from the mob. His friends had much more vivid imaginations than Ward. There was only one concrete reason he could think of that anyone would want secret farmland. He sat straighter, planting his hands on his thighs. “Look, I can’t have you growing pot on my land.”

  That got a laugh out of the mysterious stranger. “No need for concern. I can guarantee that our plans are wholly legal.”

  “Would you put that in writing?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Ward racked his brain. Tried to cycle through any more possibilities. Fracking? That was a mastodon-sized bone of contention right now. But last he’d heard, Dawn and the town council had gotten a temporary restraining order to keep anyone from drilling until they talked it all to death another ninety times. Must not be weed, if they were willing to sign a legal document.

  Odd how stuff shook out. Two weeks ago, he would’ve been thrilled at the prospect of someone handing him a stack of cash for those empty acres. Two weeks...Ward shoved out of his chair and strode to the mini-fridge to buy time while he thought this through. In a month, Piper would start leasing his land. If she was even still talking to him by then. Given their history, there was still a huge chance something big and bad would go down and make her never want to see him or his land again. Bottom line, though, was that with or without Piper, he still needed the extra money in order to expand the distillery business. Pretty damn bad. Ward was at a standstill, growth-wise, without an infusion of cash. So why not keep this guy in his back pocket?

  Abruptly, he turned back around. “I’ll need thirty days to decide.” By then he’d either have Piper back or it’d be over. It was only smart to have a cushion. His father, with his string of failures, had driven that lesson into Ward’s brain like a splinter—deep, painful and impossible to get out.

  “Are you sure you can’t let us know any sooner?”

  “Are you sure you can’t tell me who the hell wants my property? And why?”

  Hickock stood, with a bit of a smirk. “Let’s just say I blew in on the winds of change.” He pulled a tri-folded blue-backed set of documents out of the inside of his jacket. “Our offer’s in here, along with all the legal agreements. Call me as soon as you make a decision.” Without waiting for a response, he walked out.

  As the thud of his shoes up the steps got fainter, Ward didn’t move. “Winds of change?” A project they wanted kept confidential until it was too late to stop it? The papers in his hand had to be for a windmill. Not the pretty kind, with tulips and wooden shoes. The energy-generating metal two-blader with zero curb appeal.

  He’d heard rumors about people being approached up and down the lake. So far, everyone had turned down the wind consortium. Said a wind farm would ruin the pristine views the tourists who fueled their economy flocked to see. Ward figured there was enough to see on a thirty-six-mile-long lake that a couple of windmills wouldn’t drive away the tourist trade.

  Shit. If he got in bed with these people, the entire town would hate him. Not just the portion that still hadn’t forgiven him for his past. No, this would be everyone. Question was, did he really care what people thought? People who already thought he’d given the town a black eye once?

  Three years ago, he would’ve said hell, no! Six days ago, after the bank turned him down for a loan, he still would’ve said no. But Piper...Piper would care. Piper always cared what people thought of her. By extension, if they were together, that included him too.

  Ward stood. Folded the chairs back up to lean against the wall. Didn’t matter. He’d only sell to the maybe wind farm if this thing between him and Piper went belly-up. If it did, she wouldn’t care about anything he did anymore. Because he knew, deep down, that if this long shot didn’t pay out, their friendship was definitely over. They’d clawed back from a breakup once. No way would that happen again. So he’d keep this whole thing under his hat. If he was lucky, nobody would ever find out.

  * * *

  Ward had spent the rest of the day deep in his head, running around the possibilities of the unexpected offer. He couldn’t renege on giving that land to Piper. But what if this dating thing went south and she didn’t want anything to do with him—including taking his land? It was smart to keep his options open. Maybe. Either way, spending tonight with the guys would force him to stop thinking about it for a few hours.

  Zane ran a hand down the rough blocks of sandstone that made up the walls of his office. “I can’t believe you used to waste this space as just a pig barn.”

  “I can’t believe you waste your money paying me rent on it.” Ward slapped the thick, dark wood frame of the narrow window. And only four narrow windows, total. They’d whitewashed not just the walls, but also the floorboards to try to make it brighter.

  He, Ella, Piper and Casey had spent last spring scrubbing, sanding and painting until it was habitable. Ward intended to squeeze out profit from every damn inch of the farm he’d been saddled with. His grand scheme had been to turn the rectangular stone building into an apartment and hose some stranger for too much rent. It was more satisfying, although slightly less profitable, since he’d never put the squeeze on a friend, to rent to Zane. “And to be clear, I never kept pigs. That was all Dad. They were long gone by the time I took over.”

  Gray made a big production out of sniffing the air. “Probably why the place doesn’t still stink. Lots of years to air out.”

  “The way Zane keeps his stuff, it’s already halfway back to a pigsty.” Ward hefted a stack of books off th
e corner of the coffee table, repurposed from a stall door in the stable. “I can see why you needed to rent office space now that you’ve moved in with Casey. She’d never let you clutter her house with all of this.”

  “Clutter helps me think.”

  “Right now I don’t care what million-dollar idea you might be hatching. We need room for food. And beer.” Weird day. Not that he could tell his friends about the visit from Hickock. But he’d sure try to wash away the faint guilt at leaving them in the dark with a couple of rounds of lager. Whiskey, that was the stuff for forgetting. Beer was good for pushing aside problems for another day.

  “I’ve got a ton of stuff in the car.” Gray dug his keys out of his pants pockets. “Joel sent along a big spread to make up for bailing on us. Seven layer dip, all the makings for fajitas, and Mexican chocolate cookies.”

  Ward hefted a stack of file folders. They’d need more room to spread out everything Gray listed. “His guilt is our gain.”

  Zane opened a cabinet. Scratched his head at the double line of basic wineglasses Ward had stocked it with. He’d only furnished the small apartment with the basics, but in the Finger Lakes, wineglasses were the basics. Guess the absentminded professor was still learning his way around the place after only being moved in for a few weeks. Zane opened another, and grunted when he found plates. “Are you making Joel work tonight? I thought he had Mondays off?”

  “He does.” Gray smirked, hand on the doorknob. “He’s off—with Dawn.”

  Zane juggled a stack of plates in one hand and three frosted beer mugs in the other on his way back into the living room. “But didn’t they just go out last night? With you and Piper?”

  Ward nodded.

  “Did you ruin their first date?”

  With a flash, Ward was back in the room behind the pins. Remembering the taste of Piper on his lips, the feel of her beneath his hands. They’d been in there for a while. A long while. But Dawn and Joel hadn’t even seemed to notice their absence. Heck, those two had been so wrapped up in each other they wouldn’t have noticed if he’d thrown a potbellied pig down the lane instead of a bowling ball. “No. Why’s this automatically my fault?”