Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set

by Grover Swank, Denise

  He headed into the kitchen without comment, walking several feet into the room to give her space to enter.

  Jack held out his hand to River, who was closing the first aid box. “We didn’t get formally introduced earlier. I’m Jack Durand.”

  River stood and clasped his hand. “River Reeves. Things got a little crazy this afternoon.” He glanced at Georgie, as though cueing her to take over.

  It took her a second to catch on to what he was doing. Then she broke into a too-big smile. “Jack. Why don’t you sit down?” She gestured to the table. “We’ve been sampling beers.”

  Jack took in the multiple beer bottles and empty glasses. “I can see that.”

  He probably thought she was a lush. “I’m not much of a beer person, and River thought it would be a good idea to introduce me to the world of…”

  “Beer?” he finished, his lips quirking into the hint of a smile.

  “Yeah.”

  “I had a couple at Buchanan,” he said. “I guess you could say I was sampling them myself. Getting a feel for our grandfather’s place.”

  That made her feel a little better as she crossed to the sink and reached for a glass to get some water, but River stood and moved behind her, resting a hand lightly on her hip. An electric buzz shot through her, stealing her breath.

  “I’ll get you some water,” he said in a low tone that didn’t help the buzzing. “Why don’t you sit with Jack and talk?”

  “Yeah…thanks.” She whirled away from him, nearly toppling over again, but River grabbed her elbow and held her steady.

  “You okay?”

  She was fully aware of every pressure point of his fingers and thumb, and also the fact that she was definitely drunker than she’d realized. She’d lost control of herself. And Georgie was always completely in control. This was not acceptable.

  Slowly pulling away from him, she sat in a chair opposite Jack, who was studying her every move.

  Talk about a poor first impression. No, poor second impression.

  “So,” Jack said, taking the lead, “you said you were considering keeping the brewery. Does the fact that you’re sampling all this beer mean that you’re still leaning in that direction?”

  “Yeah,” she said, resting her hand on the table. River set a glass of water in front of her, and she picked it up and took a long sip. When she finished, she said, “I suspect that Grandpa Beau changed his will after I came to see him. I think he asked me here because he was already considering it. He really wanted to keep the brewery in the family, and for whatever reason, he decided not to give it to our father. He probably knew Dad would sell it.”

  That felt strange, saying our father. She couldn’t help wondering if it was weird for him to hear it, but it seemed inappropriate to ask.

  “And I get the impression Beau didn’t like Prescott and vice versa,” Jack said.

  “That’s an understatement,” Georgie said. “I’m not sure why they had a falling-out, but whatever the reason, we didn’t see much of him when we were growing up.”

  “Prescott or Beau?” Jack asked with a snide look.

  That stung. “Both, I guess.”

  Jack picked up a discarded bottle cap and twisted it between his thumb and forefinger, studying it. “So…about the brewery… what changed your mind?”

  “I really liked Grandpa, Jack, and I’m disappointed that I won’t get the chance to know him better. I feel like I wasted so much time. I can’t help but think that keeping the brewery is another way to get to know him.”

  “Just like that?” Jack asked. “You can drop everything in your life and run a brewery?”

  “As you probably heard, I recently sold my business, and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do next. This might as well be it.”

  Jack gave her a deadpan look. “Even though you know nothing about beer?”

  Her back stiffened. “What I lack in beer knowledge, I make up for in business knowledge. I know how to launch a product.”

  “This isn’t the same as starting from scratch,” Jack said. “It’s rebuilding an established brand. One that people see as a relic of the past, judging from what I heard tonight. People loved Beau, but they don’t see Buchanan making it. To succeed in brewing, you’ll need to make it hip. Trendy.”

  “You keep saying you,” Georgie said. “I thought you wanted to keep it too.”

  “I do, but I want to be a partner, Georgie. I want to help run it, not just collect the profits, not that it has any. It’s been running in the red for a couple of years.”

  Georgie flinched. Why hadn’t she thought to look at the books? But did it matter? The business was established. Fully furnished with equipment and employees. They just needed to figure out how to freshen up its image. Make it competitive again.

  “You want to help run it?” Georgie asked. “Last I heard, you live in Chicago.” Yeah, she’d stalked him on social media for a week after learning about his existence, but it would have been stranger if she hadn’t. All she’d found was a little used LinkedIn account with no photo and no job history. She’d only known it was him because there was apparently only one Jack Leopold Durand in the United States, and also because the man with the LinkedIn profile had the same birthdate and year: March 8. “You’d have to quit your job and move here. And if the company’s really in the red, you won’t get a paycheck for some time. I can live off my savings. What about you?”

  A hard look filled his eyes, and Georgie wasn’t sure if he was upset that she’d known where he lived but never attempted to contact him or insulted that she’d questioned his ability to live without a paycheck. “Let me worry about my finances. You’ve never been concerned with them before. Why start now?”

  “Hey,” River said, sitting up in his seat. “That was uncalled for.”

  “No,” Georgie said softly, overcome with shame. “He’s right. I never reached out, but can you imagine how awkward it was for me—and Lee? I didn’t know if you even knew we existed. What if your mother had told you that another man was your father? I didn’t want to destroy your world too.”

  “Too?” he asked with plenty of attitude.

  “Look,” Georgie said, running a hand over her forehead. “My father was far from perfect. He only cared about having a son, so I was a disappointment from the start. That’s why he named me Georgie—not Georgia or Georgina, just Georgie. I never, ever measured up for him, even if he pretended otherwise to the world. But he loved my mother. And I trusted in that. Finding out about you meant the one thing I’d believed my father and I had in common was a lie too.” As she finished the last sentence, she realized she’d said too much, and her face flamed with embarrassment. She’d never even told any of her previous boyfriends any of that, let alone a stranger. No, two strangers. She cast a glance to River, who was giving her a sympathetic look.

  Then she saw the look on Jack’s face—the gleam in his eyes—and realized what she’d said. He only cared about having a son.

  Just not this son.

  She wanted to say something to him, but she doubted he’d want sympathy from her. Not after everything. So she took a deep breath and did what she did best: focus on the task at hand. “All of that is neither here nor there. We’re here to discuss the future of Buchanan Brewery. You say you want to be a full, working partner. How soon can you be here?”

  His eyes widened slightly. “A month. Maybe a week on either side.”

  “Okay. We’ll need to figure out what to do to update the brewery.”

  “I’ve already been talking to Dottie and some of the staff,” he said, his shoulders relaxing. “First, you need to know that Lurch quit tonight.”

  “Lurch?” she asked in confusion.

  “The brewmaster. He told Dottie he had no desire to work for stuck-up pricks—his phrasing, not mine,” he said with a grin.

  She grimaced. “He’s not far off.”

  Jack’s grin spread, and Georgie couldn’t get over how much he resembled Lee in the rare moments
when her older brother actually looked happy. She hadn’t seen it before because of their different coloring, but it was there in his smile. Something she hadn’t seen Lee do in a long, long time.

  “So we’ll need a brewmaster,” she said.

  “Not just any brewmaster. We need a good one,” Jack said. “No, a great one. Our brewmaster will be the key to making Buchanan Brewery great again.”

  “So where do we find a brewmaster?” Georgie asked, then immediately recalled River’s phone conversation with his friend.

  Had he really quit?

  She turned to him, about to say something, but Jack beat her to it. “Dottie happened to mention that the best brewmaster she knows is currently unemployed.” His brow lifted, and he shot a look at River. “Our first executive decision should be offering River a contract to pull us into the twenty-first century.”

  Georgie wholeheartedly agreed, even if her heart sunk a little at the thought that he’d become off-limits.

  Chapter 8

  “Will you do it, River?” Georgie asked, her eyes glowing.

  About a hundred different thoughts ran through his head, but strangely, the one he settled on was disappointment. Turning Buchanan Brewery around would be the achievement of a lifetime—not to mention an homage to Beau—but it would mean he couldn’t date the owner.

  He’d be stupid to even think about it.

  Of course, he’d already reached the conclusion that Georgie Buchanan wouldn’t want to date him anyway. Hadn’t he?

  Sure, but there’d been that moment when he’d almost kissed her…

  Both of the Buchanans were looking at him now, silently pleading with him—hell, even Jezebel was giving him a dirty look from atop her perch on the cabinets—and he couldn’t help but think he’d be dumber than mud to turn them down. Even if Georgie and Jack probably shouldn’t be making a decision like this without discussing it with their other siblings first. Maybe they wouldn’t want to play an active role, but they were still partial owners.

  But hell, maybe the other two were used to Georgie making decisions for them. She wasn’t the type to hesitate—something he liked about her.

  His mind was already spinning as he thought through all the changes he’d want to make—the brews he’d keep and the ones that would go off the roster. Seasonal beers they’d need to get started on now if they wanted to have them ready for fall. Truthfully, it would feel good to innovate again. Success made life slower in some ways—his job had become more about damage control than about creativity, but now he would have a whole new drawing board.

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “I’ll do it,” he said, looking Georgie in the eye, “on one condition.”

  She bit her lip, as if thinking he might ask for a kiss, and God he wanted to, but he just smiled and said, “I didn’t forget the way your stomach was growling earlier. You should eat something. How about you, Jack? Care for any food? My aunt’s a fantastic cook, and she stocked up the fridge.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, “thanks. Don’t mind if I do. She mentioned there was some chocolate cake in there with my name on it.”

  Georgie looked at him then, and when their eyes met, she burst into laughter. The sweet sound of it, and the way it made his stomach flutter—almost like he had butterflies, for God’s sake—told him all he needed to know: he was in trouble.

  * * *

  When River’s phone beeped the next morning, he slapped it like it was a mosquito in his ear, something that hadn’t happened much since he’d done all that camping with his mom when he was a kid. It took a minute for everything to filter back in: in the space of a few hours, he’d quit his job and maybe found a new one.

  But he knew it probably wouldn’t be that easy. Georgie and Jack might want to work with him—they’d spent another hour or two discussing his plans and their ideas—but Georgie was meeting Lee, otherwise known as Junior, and Adalia for breakfast this morning. And Lord knew, Junior was going to push hard to sell. Still, he didn’t figure Georgie or Jack as the type to budge.

  But did he really want to sit in the middle of a sibling feud?

  Yes, he decided—it would be worth it if he could make Buchanan Brewery competitive. It wasn’t the kind of opportunity that was likely to fall into his lap again.

  The question of whether he was ready to keep things professional with Georgie was a whole lot less simple. His mouth twitched into a grin as he remembered the way she’d shouted a warning to Jack when Jezebel leapt down to snatch a piece of sausage he’d dropped in his lap. “Careful, she scratches!” she’d said, and given the cat had landed inches away from his junk, Jack had done the logical thing and tried to shoo her off. Normally, that kind of thing would have thrown her into a rage, but she just batted at his hand as if he was playing, and curled up on his lap.

  Turned out Jezebel had a soft spot for the younger Buchanan brother.

  River checked his phone, saw another three missed texts from Finn, one from Maisie, and another from Georgie. He skipped to that one first: Thanks for being there last night, River. Without you, I’m not sure how it all would have worked out. I hope you really meant you’d work with us, because we’d be lucky to have you.

  He grinned and shook his head a little as he noticed the time stamp: 5:45 a.m. Leave it to Georgie to be awake and writing in full sentences at 5:45 after downing the equivalent of four high-gravity beers. She’d told him her breakfast date with the others was at 8:30, in an hour, so he wouldn’t hear anything else for a while.

  He ignored the messages from Finn, although from the few words he caught, Finn was still deeply in denial. He knew he couldn’t avoid him forever. There’d be some hoops to jump through for the HR employee, Gladys. He’d need to get that settled before firming things up with the Buchanans. Still, he didn’t feel like eating bullshit for breakfast. He’d much rather get Maisie’s opinion on everything that had gone down.

  They’d been friends since he first moved to town—sixteen years, as she’d recently reminded him, and he trusted her more than anyone other than Aunt Dottie. And Beau, but Beau was gone.

  Awake, Maisie’s text said, although I didn’t sleep great wondering WTH happened yesterday. I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING. Come over to the shelter, STAT. I’d meet you somewhere, but we had seven puppies come in last night. Chaos. Bring coffee and danishes. Dustin’s been here since 7, so please show some love for him too.

  He responded with the thumbs-up emoji and added, Seems like a fair price to pay for your advice. And playing with puppies.

  Forty-five minutes later, he knocked on the locked door of Dog is Love. They didn’t open the doors until ten.

  Dustin, one of Maisie’s regular volunteers, peered through the glass before opening the door. A man with a mane of long white hair and a short, trimmed beard, he’d come to Asheville for retirement after spending forty years selling life insurance in Florida. He still talked about the frigid winter weather in Asheville, even though most winters were mild. Any annoyance that might have caused was offset by the fact that he so regularly donated his time to the shelter. He was one of about a dozen regular volunteers who worked for Maisie. She only had one other full-time employee, Beatrice, who worked on fundraising. It was a small shelter, but they’d saved a lot of lives, something Maisie was rightly proud of. She’d inherited the land from her parents, and the rest had evolved from there. River had helped her in the beginning, back when he was lost. They’d fenced up the outdoor enclosures together.

  “Come on back, River,” Dustin said, beaming at him. “She’s in the playroom with the puppies, but I know she’ll be happy to see you.”

  “Thanks, Dustin.” He reached into the paper bag he carried and pulled out a blue cheese Danish. The very idea of it put him off, but Dustin was extremely vocal about his love for them. “Got something for you too.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Dustin said. He grabbed the Danish and headed off to sit at the front desk, leaving River to find his way back. They both knew he didn’t
need directions or a guide. The Danish served a dual purpose, actually—it was a nice gesture that Dustin deserved, and it would keep him busy enough that he wouldn’t linger outside the door to listen to their conversation. Maybe it was retirement-induced boredom, but the older man was a known gossip.

  Reaching the small playroom, he did the secret knock he and Maisie had made up when they were teens.

  The door burst open at once.

  “Thank God,” Maisie said, “I needed that coffee like yesterday.”

  She did look tired, although he was wise enough not to say so. Her curly red hair had been scooped back into a fuzzy ponytail, and her eyes had circles under them.

  “This isn’t just because of my news, is it?” he asked. A little sound—to call it a bark would be an exaggeration—drew his gaze to the bottoms of Maisie’s pants. A tiny little multicolored furball was toeing at her leg. Behind it, there were six more, a few of them chasing each other, one gnawing at a toy, and the final two snoozing in a dog bed.

  “Oh yes, River,” she said dryly, “every moment of my life is dependent on yours. Look at these little monsters. I took them home last night because we couldn’t round up volunteers quickly enough. They’re too young to be around the other dogs. Now, give me that coffee.” He handed her one of the coffees and the paper bag, which she immediately opened.

  “Thank God, you got the right one,” she said, pausing to use the industrial-sized bottle of hand sanitizer anchored next to the door before she pulled out the blueberry muffin. She eyed it as if it were of equal importance to the coffee. Knowing that she regularly forgot to eat on rescue days, he figured it probably was.

  “I only got the banana nut once,” he complained.

  “And you’ll never live it down.”

  He rolled his eyes as he set his coffee down on the table against the wall. The little puppy was still clawing at Maisie, even as she sat down, so on impulse he used the hand sanitizer and bent down to scoop up the little puffball.