“It makes a lot of difference, Jen. You know that.”
They sat there quietly, both watching the traffic on the busy road beyond the parking lot, neither of them saying a word. Erin felt a little better for bringing up the subject—she’d wanted to say something earlier, but she also didn’t want to make Jen feel guilty about anything. She was an adult, after all, and could make her own choices.
Erin touched Jen’s hand. “Hey, Jen, I’m sorry. You can do whatever you want. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
Jen met her eyes, frowning, but then she sighed. “It’s okay, Erin. I’ll be careful.”
While she knew that Jen believed what she was saying, Erin didn’t buy it. Jen was clearly falling for Charlie. Still, at least she’d said something. She’d feel worse if she pretended, like Jen, that nothing bad could happen.
Chapter Three
After two busy days of prepping the holiday beer for casking and bottling, Erin was tempted, despite her promise, to back out of going to her father’s for dinner. While they needed the money he could loan them—needed it desperately—as the hour drew closer for the visit, and despite what she’d told Jen, she started to doubt if it would be worth even trying. Jen could forgive anyone basically anything, but Erin had always thought that if you love someone, you should love them unconditionally. Their father did anything but. In fact, he had spent the better part of Erin’s teenage years and young adulthood doing everything he could to change just about everything about her. When he’d failed, their relationship had turned from annoyance to sour antagonism to deep dislike. Every moment Erin spent with the man was torture. Still, she’d promised Jen she would go, and she knew she should. Erin hated breaking a promise, especially to Jen.
Erin was lying on her bed, dressed in a nice, long-sleeved button-up and khakis, taking deep breaths to calm down. Lottie had come over to help her get ready, and she was sitting in Erin’s reading chair idly flipping through an illustrated Jane Austen novel.
Erin sat up and shook her head. “Christ, Lottie. I don’t know if I can do it.”
Lottie laughed. “Of course you can. How long will it be—a couple of hours? Three, tops? You can get through anything for that long.” She laughed. “I once went on a three-hour date with a man that couldn’t stop talking about Mortal Combat—the movie, not the video game. I survived.”
Erin laughed, but her smile soon died. “You weren’t there the last time I talked to Dad, Lottie, and neither was Jen. He said some things that were…” She paused at the memory and shook her head. “Unforgivable.”
Lottie seemed sympathetic. “I don’t doubt it. I’ve heard him speak to you before, Erin, and I saw you after the last time the two of you met. But let’s keep the broader picture in mind. Your father can help you, and you need help. I think you can hold your tongue for three hours if it means staying in business.”
Erin wavered. Part of her still wasn’t sure if staying open was worth talking to him again, but of course that was ridiculous. Their brewery meant everything to her and Jen. Erin had grown up wanting exactly what they had now—had gone to college and gotten apprenticeships to train in exactly what she was doing now. She wasn’t about to give up now, especially when a possible solution like her father was right in front of her.
She grinned. “You’re right again.”
Lottie sniffed. “Of course I am. Am I ever wrong?”
Erin threw one of her pillows at her, and the two of them laughed.
A moment later, Jen came through the door, grinning. “I heard laughter. Does that mean your crisis is over, Erin?”
Erin sighed and launched herself to her feet. “Yes, it’s over. I’m ready.” She straightened her clothes. “How do I look?”
Jen peered at her critically for a long moment and then shrugged. “I mean, at least your clothes are clean.”
Erin glanced down at herself, confused. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
Jen sighed and shook her head. “Nothing. But you know Dad.”
Erin flushed with anger. “You know I won’t wear a dress for that man, Jen. Ever.”
“I know. I just thought…well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s go.” Jen walked over and gave Lottie a long hug. “And thanks for helping today. I couldn’t have gotten her ready on my own.”
Lottie smiled. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Erin slapped her forehead. “Wait—I just thought of something. Do you think we could take Lottie with us? Dad likes you, Lottie, and with you there, he might be less likely to say something nasty.”
Jen seemed surprised, then turned to Lottie. “Well, yes, I guess so. Do you have plans tonight?”
Lottie shook her head. “No—I’ve got some time. And if you think it’ll help, I’d be happy to.” She waved at her casual outfit. “But I’m not really dressed for a dinner party.”
“I can lend you something. Come on, though. We need to hurry if we’re going to be on time.”
A while later they were in Jen’s little car, driving across town to their father’s house. They had grown up in a more modest home in a different part of town, but when their mother died, her father had sold their childhood home and upgraded to a large, McMansion-style house in a brand-new subdivision. Jen and Erin hated the new house, and Erin couldn’t help but feel like he’d betrayed their mother’s memory by selling their old place. It was just another piece of the tension between her and her father—one of dozens. Still, she’d promised Jen she’d be on her best behavior and attempt to ignore such things. Nevertheless, as they pulled into the driveway to a house identical to all of its ugly neighbors, Erin felt a sharp pang of disgust and anger at her father’s choices.
Lydia sat outside on the front stoop of the house, smoking. In her black clothes and heavy makeup, she looked distinctly out of place in this sterile, generic neighborhood. She didn’t bother to get up and greet them and did little more than move over an inch or two when they got closer.
“Where were you this morning?” Erin asked. “You were supposed to help with the dry-hopping.”
Lydia blew out a stream of smoke and shrugged. “I didn’t feel like it.”
Erin felt a bright-hot flare of anger, and Jen, as if sensing this reaction, touched her arm to stop her from yelling. Erin took a deep breath and let it out, making sure her voice was still calm before continuing.
“Well, I had to call Kyle in to help. You could have at least let me know you wouldn’t be there so I didn’t have to call him at four in the morning.”
Lydia didn’t respond, seemingly unimpressed, and Erin again had to fight the urge to yell at her. She might have done it anyway, but the front door opened, and suddenly she was staring at her father. She’d seen him in passing a few times over the last year, but they’d barely spoken more than a couple of words. He’d aged a lot since she’d last seen him up close. His shoulders were a little stooped, his hair wispy and thin compared to the full head he’d managed to keep most of his life. He was staring at her, too, and his eyes seemed to bore into her for a moment. Then they were sliding away, dismissing her, to land on Jen. His entire face transformed, his smile wide and happy, and he and Jen embraced. He spotted Lottie next and gave her a similar hug.
“What a pleasant surprise!” he told her. “I haven’t seen you in ages, Lottie. I’m so glad you came.”
“Nice to see you too, Mr. Bennet,” Lottie said. She threw Erin a guilty glance, as if she were betraying her, but Erin shook her head. It was hard not to be charmed by her father. He was incredibly warm with the people he liked.
He paused in front of Erin, and the two of them seemed to debate for a long moment, waiting for the other to make a move. Erin didn’t, and neither did he, and the moment stretched into awkward silence.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Jen said, her face red. “Can we go inside already? The two of you are ridiculous.”
Erin flushed with shame. She should have given him a hug, even if it was a false one. She’d already fai
led her sister.
Her father didn’t seem embarrassed at all, however, and stepped to the side to make room for them. “Yes, please. I have a special surprise for you all. Come in!”
Erin followed Jen, Lydia, and Lottie inside, closing the door behind her. She paused by the door, closing her eyes and taking another calming breath. You can get through this, dammit! she told herself. Get it together.
When she opened them, she was startled, once again, to see some of her mother’s antique furniture here in this modern monstrosity of a house. Her mother’s ancestors had been some of the first pioneers in what became Colorado, and her mother had inherited a lot of the original furniture and decorations that had traveled first across the ocean from the Netherlands and then via wagon from the East Coast. Erin had long thought that she and her sisters should have inherited all her mother’s things, which was yet another reminder of an argument she and her father had many, many times.
She heard laughter in the dining room, and after squaring her shoulders, she walked toward it. The table had been set with a serious spread of food. While it had been years since he worked in a kitchen, their father had initially trained as a chef before buying out the first restaurant he worked in. He was always an amazing cook, making just about every holiday and Sunday meal for the family when they were growing up.
For a second, Erin felt a sharp stab of nostalgia at the sight of her sisters and father laughing at the dining-room table. It almost felt like old times. While she and her father had never had an easy relationship, they had, at least before she was a teenager, been close—close in the way only two very similar people can be. They’d argued, yes, but many of her childhood arguments with him had been more like friendly debates. Her father would push her buttons in order to motivate her to do something or think more clearly about a topic. She’d enjoyed his ribbing then. Was it possible for them to return to the way it had been when she was little? It was the first time in a long while that she’d even entertained the idea.
A moment later, however, a strange, middle-aged man came into the room from the kitchen, and everyone went silent. Her father was beaming at this man, and he moved closer and put an arm around his shoulders.
“Girls—I want you to meet Will Collins.”
“Hi,” Will said, smiling. Tall, with a heavy build, he appeared as if he might have, at one time, been simply solid, and while he wouldn’t exactly be called overweight now, by almost any standards, his face and stomach were rounded—almost swollen. His eyes were a little sunken and squinty, and his skin was sallow, pale, and blotchy. With his upturned nose and balding head, he resembled a pig.
Erin couldn’t think of any reason for her father to invite this man tonight. Here she was, at his house for the first time in over a year, and he’d brought in some outsider. Lottie didn’t count—she’d more or less been a part of the family since they’d met as children. This man was different. She’d partly agreed to come tonight—despite being incredibly busy at the brewery—for a chance to mend some fences and possibly set up the conversation she and Jen wanted to have with him about the money. They hadn’t planned to literally ask for money tonight, but they had planned to lay the groundwork for that conversation sometime in the next couple of weeks. Now, with this man Will here, even that first step couldn’t happen. Erin was furious. It was typical of her dad to ruin every event.
“Actually,” their dad said, “I’m being a little facetious. All of you have met before, but it was such a long, long time ago, I can’t imagine that you’d remember each other very well. Even you met him, Lottie.”
“I did?”
“Yes. It was over twenty years ago. He stayed with us for a week in the early nineties.”
Erin suddenly flashed to the time her father was talking about. She was about ten or eleven, Jen twelve or thirteen. Her dad’s friend from high school had come to stay with them for a week that summer with his little boy. She remembered Billy, as he’d then been called, as a bitter, nasty little kid that pulled her hair and teased her for being, as he put it, “a weirdo” for being into sports and other “boy things.” Something else had happened between her and Billy that week too, and Erin had never told anyone. She had been terrified. Jen had felt sorry for him then, Erin remembered, because his parents were getting divorced, but that hadn’t been enough for Erin to forgive his nastiness or what he’d done to her, or how he’d made her feel. She’d been incredibly relieved to see the last of him when he and his father moved on.
“Oh!” Jen said, clearly remembering that week as well. “I do remember you now. How nice to see you again, Will. Was that really twenty years ago?” They shook hands.
“A little over, I think.” Smiling did nothing to improve his looks. If anything, it accentuated his piggish features.
“You were with your dad, right?” Lottie said, squinting at him.
He turned his smile to her. “Exactly right. My parents were getting divorced, and my dad and I spent the summer with friends and family before we settled in Denver.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lottie said, her face falling. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
He shook his head. “It’s so long ago now—please don’t worry about it.”
“So why are you in town, Will?”
Lydia broke in. “He’s here to take over Daddy’s businesses.”
Erin and Jen stared at her. Erin was shocked to her very core.
“W-what?” she sputtered. She turned to her father, so incredulous she could hardly breathe. He was grinning at Jen. Erin glanced at her sister and saw that her face had drained of color.
“What?” Jen echoed, her voice barely above a whisper.
Their father’s grin grew, if anything, broader. “Lydia’s right, pumpkin. Will is here to take over my restaurants. I’ve decided to avoid selling almost all of them for as long as I can.”
“But why?” Jen asked, her voice still weak.
“Why not?” He shrugged. “Every restaurant I own is bringing in more and more money every year. Still, I’m man enough to recognize that I’m getting worn out. I can hardly keep up anymore, and I need to stop before I make a fool out of myself. I wanted to sell, but after I mentioned my plan to Will’s dad, he suggested I talk to his son first. So when I contacted Will for advice, he offered to manage them for me for a few years before he buys me out.”
Erin couldn’t help but jump in. “But why him?”
He glanced over at her, clearly annoyed that she’d spoken. “I would have explained that to you if you had even an ounce of patience, Erin, but, as usual, you don’t.”
Hot rage flashed through her. “You didn’t answer my question.”
He sighed, rolling his eyes. “I wanted to bring in Will because he has years and years of investment experience, most of it in restaurants.”
“But you’ve never actually worked in a restaurant?” Erin asked him. She couldn’t help but sound disgusted.
Will shifted uncomfortably, but he shook his head. “No, not exactly. But I have a lot of experience revamping and revitalizing restaurants, making them better, and finding the best staff possible. No matter how great a place is being run, it can always do better. If I start working with your father now, by the time he’s ready to sell, every place he runs will be worth much more than it is today.”
“It’s win-win,” her father said, holding his palms upright. “More money for me, more money for him.”
Erin and Jen shared a look, and Erin saw her own dashed hopes reflected in her sister’s eyes. If her father wasn’t interested in selling anytime soon, their own business would probably be sunk within the year. Jen was better at holding herself together and hiding things, though, as a moment later, she was congratulating Will and chatting with him, seemingly friendly. Erin felt as if the world had just dropped out underneath her. She felt disoriented—dizzy, almost. She hadn’t admitted it to herself, but some small part of her had genuinely believed they would somehow convince their father to loa
n them the money.
She should have known better. Her father was obsessed with his restaurants. When Jen told her a few months ago that he was thinking of retiring, Erin had been stunned. She couldn’t imagine her father relaxing. He’d been in motion every moment of her life. It made perfect sense that he wanted to keep them running into his retirement. Having someone else manage the restaurants meant he could still keep his toe in the water, as it were. This new development was, of course, something she and Jen should have expected, but they hadn’t. Hope had blinded them to one constant they’d known their whole lives: her father’s work defined him. Without it, he was nothing.
Erin decided that if she didn’t leave now, she would explode and say something she couldn’t take back. She pretended to take a phone call and, after excusing herself, talked to no one for a moment in the kitchen, and then walked into the dining room.
“I’m so sorry,” she told everyone. “Kyle—our coworker—just called and said there’s an emergency at the brewery.”
She could tell from their expressions that no one, except perhaps Will, believed her, but at this moment she didn’t care.
“Anyway, I have to run,” she said. “Lydia, can you give Jen and Lottie a ride home later?”
“I’ll be happy to,” Will offered. “I’m staying downtown for now, so it’s no bother at all.”
“Thanks, Will. I appreciate it. Good-bye, everyone.”
She nearly dashed from the house. A moment before she’d left, she’d seen Jen’s hurt expression, but she didn’t care. She needed to get as far away from her father as she could.
She drove the little Beetle hard and fast, much faster than the old engine could take anymore, at least for long. At first she simply drove, not paying attention to where she was going, but eventually she turned west, heading into the mountains. The winding road to Estes Park took a lot of concentration, and for a while all she thought about was the dark road in front of her, basically empty at this time of night. She was being reckless driving so fast. Even without the dangerous, hairpin curves she was flying around, she could hit animals out here. One wrong move could mean plunging into the Big Thompson River or into the canyon wall.
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