“Well, shit.”
It looked like he’d go without whiskey or a woman tonight.
Of course, an image of the woman with gorgeous hair and that look of disdain filled his mind, and he held back a sigh. Once again, Dare was a glutton for punishment, even in his thoughts.
The next morning, he cupped his mug of coffee in his hands and prayed his eyes would stay open. He’d stupidly gotten caught up on paperwork the night before and was now running on about three hours of sleep.
Loch sat in one of the booths with Misty, watching as she colored in her coloring book. She was the same age as Nathan, which Dare always appreciated since the cousins could grow up like siblings—on weekends when Dare had Nathan that was. The two kids got along great, and he hoped that continued throughout the cootie phases kids seemed to get sporadically.
Fox sat next to Dare at one of the tables with his laptop open. Since his brother owned the town paper, he was always up-to-date on current events and was even now typing up something.
They had Dare’s phone between them with Tabby on the other line, though she wasn’t saying anything. Her fiancé, Alex, was probably near as well since those two seemed to be attached at the hip. Considering his future brother-in-law adored Tabby, Dare didn’t mind that as much as he probably should have as a big brother.
The elder Collinses stood at the bar, smiles on their faces, yet Dare saw nervousness in their stances. He’d been a cop too long to miss it. They were up to something, and he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like it.
“Just get it over with,” Dare said, keeping his language decent—not only for Misty but also because his mother would still take him by the ear if he cursed in front of her.
But because his tone had bordered on rude, his mother still raised a brow, and he sighed. Yep, he had a really bad feeling about this.
“Good morning to you, too, Dare,” Bob Collins said with a snort and shook his head. “Well, since you’re all here, even our baby girl, Tabby—”
“Not a baby, Dad!” Tabby called out from the phone, and the rest of them laughed, breaking the tension slightly.
“Yeah, we’re not babies,” Misty put in, causing everyone to laugh even harder.
“Anyway,” Barbara Collins said with a twinkle in her eye. “We have an announcement to make.” She rolled her shoulders back, and Dare narrowed his eyes. “As you know, your father and I have been nearing the age of retirement for a while now, but we still wanted to run our inn as innkeepers rather that merely owners.”
“Finally taking a vacation?” Dare asked. His parents worked far too hard and wouldn’t let their kids help them. He’d done what he could by buying the bar from them when he retired from the force and then built the restaurant himself.
“If you’d let me finish, young man, I’d let you know,” his mother said coolly, though there was still warmth in her eyes. That was his mother in a nutshell. She’d reprimand, but soothe the sting, too.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, and Fox coughed to cover up a laugh. If Dare looked behind him, he figured he’d see Loch hiding a smile of his own.
Tabby laughed outright.
Damn little sisters.
“So, as I was saying, we’ve worked hard. But, lately, it seems like we’ve worked too hard.” She looked over at his dad and smiled softly, taking her husband’s hand. “It’s time to make some changes around here.”
Dare sat up straighter.
“We’re retiring. Somewhat. The inn hasn’t been doing as well as it did back when it was with your grandparents, and part of that is on the economy. But part of that is on us. What we want to do is renovate more and update the existing rooms and service. In order to do that and step back as innkeepers, we’ve hired a new person.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Dare asked, frowning. “You can’t just hire someone to take over and work in our building without even talking to us. And it’s not like I have time to help her run it when she doesn’t know how you like things.”
“You won’t be running it,” Bob said calmly. “Not yet, anyway. Your mom and I haven’t fully retired, and you know it. We’ve been running the inn for years, but now we want to step away. Something you’ve told us we should do. So, we hired someone. One who knows how to handle this kind of transition and will work with the construction crew and us. She has a lot of experience from working in Philly and New York and will be an asset.”
Dare fisted his hands by his sides and blew out a breath. They had to be fucking kidding. “It sounds like you’ve done your research and already made your decision. Without asking us. Without asking me.”
His mother gave him a sad look. “We’ve always wanted to do this, Dare, you know that.”
“Yes. But you should have talked to us. And renovating like this? I didn’t know you wanted to. We could have helped.” He didn’t know why he was so angry, but being kept out of the loop was probably most of it.
His father signed. “We’ve been looking into this for years, even before you came back to Whiskey and bought the bar from us. And while it may seem like this is out of the blue, we’ve been doing the research for a while. Yes, we should have told you, but everything came up all at once recently, and we wanted to show you the plans when we had details rather than get your hopes up and end up not doing it.”
Dare just blinked. There was so much in that statement—in all of those statements—that he couldn’t quite process it. And though he could have yelled about any of it just then, his mind fixed on the one thing that annoyed him the most.
“So, you’re going to have some city girl come into my place and order me around? I don’t think so.”
“And why not? Have a problem with listening to women?”
Dare stiffened because that last part hadn’t come from his family. No. He turned toward the voice. It had come from the woman he’d seen the night before in the green dress.
And because fate liked to fuck with him, he had a feeling he knew exactly who this person was.
Their newly hired innkeeper.
And new thorn in his side.
Find out more in Whiskey Secrets.
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Strength Enduring (Talon Pack Book 8) Page 20
