by Gwyn Cready
While either she or Axel could easily serve as his guide, Ellery supposed the latter part of the request was directed toward her, as she felt certain the “people” in question were to be of the female persuasion.
Axel, who clearly had understood Duncan’s request, looked at Ellery.
“I’d be happy to show you around,” she said, and immediately began to run through an inventory of single friends in her head. The harder job would be limiting the list to a manageable number. Who, after all, wouldn’t be interested in a Scottish bond trader who doubled as a romance hero?
Duncan nodded his thanks and followed Dr. Albrecht through the swinging door into the kitchen.
Reggie snagged the pot of jam. “Axel, have you talked to the lass yet?”
“Um, no,” he said significantly and fell into a deep observation of his toast.
Since flustered was an unusual state for Axel, Ellery turned her full attention to him.
“Oh, dear,” Reggie said. “Sorry, lad.”
“It’s all right.” Axel put his napkin on the table and said to her, “Let’s go for a walk, okay?”
Ellery’s stomach began to churn. “What? What is it?”
He led her from the table and out the front door, stopping to grab his coat from the rack in the hall. “It’s good. I promise. Don’t worry.”
Good? Good for Axel could mean anything from a chance to ride with the Hell’s Angels to a Pulitzer nomination. But the news Ellery most feared was the offer of a position in a distillery in Scotland.
He led her into a small garden behind the garage. The annuals were mostly gone, but there were still dried blue mopheads on the hydrangeas and a patch of small sunflowers upon whose dark florets several orange-breasted birds stood to feed. A large black cat slumbered peacefully at one end of a weathered bench, warming in the sun, and rather than tip him out, Axel sat at the other end and pulled Ellery onto his lap.
“Oh, I don’t like this,” she said, burying her head against his neck, waiting.
“Even with the kilt? Well, that certainly doesn’t do much for the old ego.” He threw the jacket over her shoulders and hugged her close. The cat opened a green eye, observed the disturbers of his peace, then shut it again, burying his nose deeper into his tail.
“I mean the news,” she said.
“I told you it was good—well, at least not bad. I ran into Reggie on my run this morning; he was quite an athlete in his day, it seems. He’s offered me a job.”
“Oh, I knew it.”
“Hang on.” He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “I haven’t said yes.”
“At his distillery, right? I knew you’d like that place.”
“Actually, the job is partner. In Brendan’s brewery.”
She threw her arms around him. “Oh, Axel! That’s wonderful! But how?”
“Reggie’s an investor. And he loves beer. He’s willing to take a share and let me run it. He’s authorized me to call Brendan today and offer him more money.”
“Oh my God! That’s fantastic!”
“And he wants to invest—I mean, really invest. And not to go national but to give me the resources I need to do things right, to make a name for the beer. He said he wants a winner.”
“Oh, Axel.” She hugged him again, then stopped. “But why haven’t you said yes?”
Axel took her hands in his. “I’m not sure it would make me as happy as I think.”
“But your dream is to brew beer.”
“Look, I’m old enough to know what will make me happy and what won’t. That’s part of what comes from having done all the stuff I’ve done. And while owning my own brewery would make me happy, I don’t think I want to do it if it means leaving you.”
“But—”
He held up a hand. “I can be happy anywhere, Pittsburgh. I don’t need much. You’re younger and ambitious. And, God, you’re so smart. I’d die if I stood in the way of that.”
She had thought the task would be insurmountable, like counting the grains of sand in a beach, and that it would literally destroy her to even try; but she was stunned to discover that imagining doing nothing more than living a life shared with Axel, Jill and a child filled her with a boundless joy.
Tears welled in her eyes.
“Now, come on, eh? I told you it’s no big deal.” He lifted the hem of his kilt to her cheek to dry it, and Ellery laughed while she was crying.
“Oh, Axel, it is a big deal. For me, at least.” She started to cry harder. Could she even say it? She had to. It was the brass ring.
“Axel, I want us to be together—you and Jill and I. As a family. At Christmas, for my birthday, sitting around the breakfast table.”
“I know I can afford a table.”
She laughed again and cried even harder. “And I would love, love, love to think of you running Brendan’s brewery.” She clung to his sweater like a child and daubed at her nose with her wrist.
“So, what are we saying here?” He leaned forward infinitesimally, buoyed, she thought, by a hope as overpowering as hers.
“I’m saying we could be a family in Pittsburgh.”
He looked at her, eyes a clear green. “Really?”
“It’s like you said. Sometimes you just have to let your heart write the epilogue.”
“Yes!” he cried, jumping to his feet with her in his arms. “Yes!”
He swung her in a happy circle and sat back down. The cat, evidently tiring of the interruption, slipped off the bench and ambled away.
“Wait a second.” Axel gave her a steely look. “What about a job?”
“You think I need to work?”
“I think I need to eat.”
She laughed. “Well, we’ll see what Carlton says about the new article I wrote.”
“Do you think he’ll let you live in Pittsburgh?”
“Nope. Not for the publisher’s job. But maybe he’ll have something else for me. Or maybe someone else will. And, if not, there’s always freelancing.”
“Yeah, maybe Barry Steinberg could toss something your way.”
She whooped. “Yeah, like a bomb.”
“Well, well, well,” he said after a long moment, smiling happily, “Ellery Sharpe as my brew maid. Who knew what a change twenty-four hours could bring?”
“Hang on there,” she said. “That wasn’t part of the plan.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Was part of mine. Low-cut top. Dirndl skirt. Mugs of beer. Just like the girl on the St. Pauli Girl label.”
“Hm. Isn’t she a blonde?”
“I’m flexible.”
Indeed, you are, she thought, recalling a few of his moves from the night before.
Axel grinned, reading her mind as always, and slipped a hand between her knees.
“What I don’t get,” she said, “though I’m happy for, is why Reggie would want to invest in you. I mean, nothing personal, but he’s only just met you, right?”
“Oh, that.” Axel waved away the oddness. “I may have had a small hand in bringing him and Dr. Albrecht together.”
Ellery shook her head, confused. “Do you mean to say last night was their first night together?”
“That’s about the sum of it, yes.”
She blinked. Axel as Cupid? What other surprises did he have up his kilt?
“What’s that smile for?” he demanded.
“I, uh, didn’t know you had matchmaker tendencies.”
“Well, I don’t, usually. But the way he was making cow eyes at her…” He shook his head. “It was worse than you at the Warhol that night.”
She gasped and poked him while he tried to defend himself. “You were the one who couldn’t stop looking.”
“Uncle! Uncle!”
“Admit it!”
“Yes. I wanted you, Pittsburgh. Wanted you bad.”
She settled back against him and made a happy sigh. “I always wanted a nickname, you know. They’re the coolest things.”
“Not always,” he said. “Which
reminds me. I texted my sister last night to tell her about us. Here’s what she said.” He reached into his sweater and pulled his phone out of his T-shirt pocket. “‘ YOU’RE THE LUCKIEST MAN ON EARTH,’” he read.
“Let me see.” She grabbed the phone excitedly from his hand.
“No!” “
‘YOU’RE THE LUCKIEST MAN ON EARTH, BONER’?” She squawked with delight.
Axel buried his face in his hand. “I had an unhappy childhood.”
“I’ll bet.” Ellery’s eyes caught the message from his sister that followed: “Don’t screw it up a second time.”
“Axel,” she said softly, “you didn’t screw it up.”
“I helped,” he said, retrieving the phone. “And let’s have that be the end of looking backward, eh?”
She curled against him, and for a long moment neither said anything. She sighed. “Everything’s perfect—except for Jill.”
“She’ll be okay. No matter what.”
“They say a third of pregnancies this early just end with your period.”
He squeezed her gently. “She’ll be okay. We’ll be there for her.”
Ellery’s phone buzzed with an incoming e-mail and she opened her in-box in case it was from Jill. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“Black sent me a note.” She brushed at the screen. “And so did Carlton Purdy!” She laughed.
“About?”
“I sent them each the revised draft.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, last night. I think I just wanted to knock the wind out of both of their sails.”
“And?”
“Well, Black wants to publish it.”
“Damn. Maybe I’ll actually get paid.”
“And,” she said with a happy gleam in her eye, thumbing the keys with determination, “I am telling him to fuck off.”
“Or maybe not.”
“He did fire me, you know.”
Axel gave her a look. “Okay, fine.” She backspaced over what she’d typed. “I’ll tell him I’ll consider it.”
“There you go. And Carlton Purdy?”
“He does not want to publish it. No surprise there. But he’s still willing to present me to the board. He likes my chutzpah.”
Axel hesitated. His eyes were greener than Dr. Albrecht’s pea soup. “It’s a hell of a place, Lark & Ives. You’d be fabulous.”
“Are you withdrawing your proposal?”
“Proposal!” His brows shot up. “I remember a table.”
“Table, ring, it’s all the same thing. No, I am not taking Purdy’s offer. I want the flexibility to be in Pittsburgh.”
“Tell him that.”
“I’m almost tempted to say ‘Fuck you’ to him too.”
“You know, there’s another way to get that message across. It’s called a killer negotiation.”
She laughed. “Fine.” She began typing again. “How about ‘Let’s talk. I’m not really sure I belong at L&I.’ ”
“Bingo.”
She hit SEND and leaned in closer. They kissed long and slow, and every instant made her want to drag Axel right back to Cairnpapple. Who knew what the vibes might be like in the first morning light?
He reached under her shirt and cupped her breasts.
“Axel.”
“What?” he said innocently, and Ellery, mindful of the neighbors, brought the coat over her head as a shield.
“Yes, I believe I like your arms up like that.” He slipped his hands over her breasts.
“You know, Dr. Albrecht said one of the first things you learn in sociology is that the only conclusions you can draw must be based on observable, measurable data.”
“And?”
“And I’m feeling something pretty measurable at this point.” She shifted on his lap.
He turned her so she was straddling him. “But it’s the observable part I wonder about. Perhaps if you…” He brought his mouth to her ear and vividly described the scientific method he had in mind.
“Axel!” But the thought of that sun-drenched hill stuck in her head. “Say, do you know what you’ve never photographed?”
“Yes,” he said definitively, and lifted the shirt up.
The sound of the garden gate squeaking jerked them apart. Axel pulled down her shirt and said, “Don’t you dare get off my lap.”
“Oh, Jesus!” Duncan said as he popped into view. “Sorry. I didn’t—” He turned on his heel.
“It’s all right,” Ellery said.
“Don’t get up,” Axel repeated.
“We were just, um, talking.”
“Kissing,” Axel said honestly. “But we were done.”
She poked him.
A red-faced Duncan said, “Dr. A. says your breakfasts are ready. God, sorry.” He shook his head. “I always seem to be stepping in it. Two weeks ago I barged in on a captain and a grieving widow at the Battle of Neville’s Cross. Let me tell you, she went from grieving to pissed off in a bloody damned hurry.”
Axel looked at Ellery.
“‘The Battle of Neville’s Cross’?”
“Oh, aye. I’m a war reenactor. My second love—after bonds, of course. That’s how I came to have the kit. Made the Jemmie thing a piece of cake.”
Axel’s look turned to astonishment, and Ellery’s mouth fell open. “Well,” she said, “have I got a guide for you when you get to New York.”
“Och, I like the sound of that,” he said. “But let me leave you to your… Oh, Christ, let me just leave, period. I’ll tell Dr. A. you’re coming. Ack! On your way.” With that, he disappeared, the gate squeaking in his wake.
“That’ll teach us,” Axel said.
“Speak for yourself. I rather liked it.”
He shook his head. “Women scare me.”
“Really? After what you just whispered in my ear? It was as if Jemmie Forster himself had brought me out here.”
“I don’t need Jemmie Forster’s inspiration.” He gave her a blistering kiss.
“Wow.”
“I hope we’re done with Jemmie Forster now.”
“Leaving him where he belongs, eh? Between the covers. Of a book! Of a book!” she added when he lunged at her.
“Hm. Well, at least I have the name of my first ale,” he said, helping her to her feet.
“What?”
“Well, I was considering ‘Musket Ball’ in a series of beers commemorating the French and Indian War. But I think I prefer ‘Ruby Muses.’ ”
“Really?” She gave him a long look.
“Oh, yeah. Perfect on the tongue.”
“Axel.”
“C’mon. Let’s get into breakfast. I’m eager to get Cairnpapple and shoot that thing I’ve never shot before. God, what a beer label it would make.”
She laughed and put her arm around him. “I’ll never get tired of you.”
“We’ll see about that. Never is a long time.”
She stretched on her toes and kissed him. “The longest, I hope.”
Fantasy.
Temptation.
Adventure.
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