Love on Tap (Brewing Love)

by Meg Benjamin

  She shrugged. “We’ve got some wheat beer working. Should have it done in another month.”

  Wyatt frowned. “Not Zoria?”

  Bec paused in the doorway, then shook her head. “Not Zoria. We needed to do something that would be ready faster so that we could generate some income.” She stepped into the apartment, and he followed her.

  He carefully placed his briefcase next to the couch. “What about the hops and malt I got you?”

  “I used it on the wheat beer and some of it on an IPA that’s brewing now. We’ll do the Zoria when we’ve got a little breathing space.” She dropped onto her couch, rubbing a hand across her eyes. “Assuming we get some breathing space at some point. Assuming we’re still in business a month from now.”

  He sat next to her, trying to ignore his body’s reaction to the warmth of her skin. “Who’s we currently? Who’s helping out?”

  “Liam. We’re both working around our day jobs. Or in Liam’s case, around his night job.” Her lips moved up in a slight smile.

  He wasn’t surprised that Liam was helping. Given that he’d been working with Threadgood at one point, he owed his sister a hell of a lot. “What about Cooper and Abe and Angel?”

  “They’re letting me buy stuff on partial credit. Money’s still a little tight.”

  “Yeah. About that.” He leaned over and picked up his briefcase, snapping the catches.

  Bec watched him, frowning again. “What?”

  He reached in to take out several stacks of bills. “This is yours. Maybe it’ll help with the expenses for the first few brewing runs.”

  He piled the bills in her lap, then pulled out more.

  Bec stared down at the money, open-mouthed. “What…? Where did this come from? How is it mine? What the hell is going on here anyway?” She scowled at him.

  “It’s hush money,” he explained, then paused. “No, that’s not exactly right. It’s damages. Christopher Threadgood sabotaged the forklift and smashed the Zoria barrel. I went over to his place last night and blackmailed him into paying you damages for what he did. You can count it. It should be fifteen thousand.”

  She stared down at the money again, then back at him. “Huh?”

  He managed a smile. “Threadgood took off the brake. While you and Liam were arguing and I was watching you. Nobody saw him except Carol, who couldn’t stop him but did manage to take pictures of the whole thing. Being Carol, she tried to follow him but lost him downtown. Then she tracked me down instead.” He pulled out his phone to show her the pictures.

  Bec shook her head, waving the phone away. “No. I can’t look at them yet. I can’t…” She seemed slightly dazed. Then she turned toward him slowly. “You knew. You knew I didn’t screw up. You knew Threadgood did this to me.”

  He nodded cautiously. Something about the look in her eye made him uneasy. “Well, yeah. After I saw the pictures.”

  “I’ve been beating myself up ever since that barrel smashed. Calling myself every kind of fuck-up. Thinking I might have destroyed any chances for the future. And you knew?” Her voice rose dangerously.

  Uneasiness quickly morphed into alarm. “Um, Bec…”

  She turned and punched him in the arm. Hard.

  “Ouch!” He rubbed his biceps. She had quite a punch for a smallish woman.

  She gave him a murderous look. “You knew. You knew and you didn’t tell me. And I’ve been feeling like sh-sh-shit.” Her lower lip began to tremble, and she pressed her fists against her mouth. “Oh, damn it.”

  He gathered her into his arms, trying to keep her from leaning on the sore biceps. “Come here. It’s okay.”

  Her tears soaked through his shirt, wetting his skin as she sobbed. He began to rock her slowly, stroking a hand down her shoulder, patting her back, pressing his lips against her hair. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault. You did everything right. It’s okay now. I didn’t want to tell you until I’d confronted Threadgood myself. I wanted to be able to make it good before you found out.”

  After a couple of minutes, she pulled back again, rubbing the back of her hand across her eyes. “Could you get me a tissue from the bedroom?”

  “Sure.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Although you could just use one of the hundred dollar bills.”

  Bec glared up at him, her lips still trembling. Then she gave him a sudden, watery grin. “No. I’m not that far gone.”

  When he came back a moment later with the box of tissues, she was gathering the money together into neat stacks on the kitchen table. “Fifteen thousand, you say?”

  He nodded, handing her a tissue. “Should be. I counted it last night when he gave it to me.”

  Bec looked at him for a moment, then shook her head. “Carol didn’t tell me anything about this. And I’ve seen her every day at the Salty Goat.”

  “We made a deal. Like I said, I wanted to see if I could pressure Threadgood into paying you some damages. If I couldn’t get him to do it, then she was going to tell you and everybody else. I figured if everybody else knew, I wouldn’t have as much leverage with him.” He picked up a stray twenty from the couch, adding it to the pile on the table.

  “Who else knew?”

  “Just Carol and me. And Liam—whom I also swore to secrecy. And Ruth. We had a system. I was to call Carol by a particular date and time. If she didn’t hear from me, she’d show the pictures to you and anybody else she thought of. I called her this morning.”

  Bec gave him an incredulous look. “A particular date and time? Did you think Threadgood would…do something to you?”

  “I didn’t know what he’d do. It was a precaution. In case he was more of an asshole than I expected.” He gave her what he hoped was a confident smile. In fact, Threadgood had turned out to be about as much of an asshole as he’d thought, just a slightly less violent one.

  She stared at him wide-eyed. “Did you go to his club?”

  He nodded. “He wasn’t likely to come to mine.”

  “Oh, Wyatt!” Her lip began to tremble again.

  No crying. No more crying. “It was okay. There were a lot of people around. And Threadgood’s not the type to start swinging. I think he’d consider it low class to bump somebody off.”

  Her lip still trembled slightly. “But you did it for me.”

  “Well…yeah.” Of course he had. Wasn’t that okay?

  She leaned back, throwing her arms around his neck. “Thank you.”

  And just like that, it was worth it. He remembered why he’d gone after Threadgood in the first place. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against her hair. “You’re welcome.”

  She cupped his face in her hands, turning slightly so that their lips met. He’d forgotten her taste, the feel of her mouth, smooth skin beneath his fingertips. He’d forgotten it all but remembered it in an instant. Her mouth opened beneath his, and he slid his tongue inside, tasting, feeling, remembering. “Ah, Bec.”

  “I missed you,” she murmured. “All the time you were gone, I missed you. And I felt like shit because I made you go.”

  “It’s okay.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “We’re okay.” He paused for a moment, forehead furrowing. “I mean, I think we’re okay. Are we okay?”

  She nodded, her lips moving into a smile. “We’re okay. I’m sane again. Sort of.”

  He took a breath. “I love you, Bec.”

  She leaned forward, pressing her lips to his for the lightest of kisses, her hands grasping his. “I love you, too. And the last week has been the longest in my life.”

  “Right.” He pulled her into his arms, rubbing his face against her hair. “But it’s over now.”

  “I know it’s not going to be easy. I know you’re in Denver and I’m up here, and we’ll have to find a way to make it work.”

  He paused, trying to get his lust-befogged brain to function for a while longer. “About that.”

  “About what?”

  “About you up here and me down there—I think I’ve got a solution
.”

  She pulled back slightly, staring up at him. “What?”

  “It strikes me that Antero lacks one particular feature that would make it the ideal destination.”

  “And that would be?”

  He grinned. “A gastropub. The first Antero gastropub.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. You’ve got a tavern on every corner and restaurants out the ass. But you’ve got no place where people can go to get great craft beer and great pub food. You need one.”

  “You’re going to do this?”

  He nodded. “I’m definitely going to do this. I’ve already talked to Gabe Burkhardt about selling him my share of Quaff. He wants to do a reboot of the place with another concept, and I’m more interested in coming up here. It’ll take a while—I’ll have to find a location and some more backers to invest. But yeah, I’m opening a gastropub in Antero, no question.”

  She frowned slightly. “You really think it would go here?”

  “I’m sure it would. I’ve got a secret weapon.”

  “Which is?”

  “We’d be the exclusive outlet for Antero Brewing, or at least for your small batch output. I figure stuff like your wheat beer would go for larger distribution.”

  She blinked up at him. “So it would be an Antero Brewing brewpub?”

  “Yeah. We’ll have to stock some other beers too, but the Antero stock would be our major pull. That and our pub food—freakin’ great pub food.”

  She took a breath. “That’s wonderful. But…”

  “But?”

  “What if I can’t produce enough beer for you? What if the beer’s not good enough? What if…”

  He pressed a finger to her lips. “You can. You will. You’re the best, Bec. And now we’ll show everybody else how good the best can be.” She didn’t look entirely convinced, but he touched his lips to hers, stroking a hand along the back of her neck. “Trust me. I’ve given this a lot of thought.” It was, in fact, all he’d been thinking about since he’d picked up the cash from Threadgood. “We can get into the details tomorrow. Right now, I really need some sleep. It’s been a big couple of days.”

  He settled back on the couch again, pulling her into his arms. “Get ready, babe. It’s going to be quite a ride.”

  …

  Bec rested her head on Wyatt’s chest, listening to the steady sound of his breathing as he slept and contemplating the suddenly rosy future. An hour ago she’d been wondering if they’d survive. Now she was wondering if they’d be able to keep up with the demand at Wyatt’s place.

  It all seemed sort of dizzy, but dizzy in a good way. New possibilities opening up. New challenges on the horizon. All good. It was all good.

  She gazed up at Wyatt, dozing on the couch. They had a future together where yesterday she’d had nothing but worries. And it was a future she looked forward to. It had been a while since she could say that.

  She would love him. She would stay with him. She would brew beer for him.

  And most of all, she would save his ass by making sure that he never, ever referred to his place as a gastropub within the hearing of the citizens of Antero.

  She snuggled closer, resting her cheek against his chest. “I can’t wait,” she murmured.

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  Author’s Note

  I live in Colorado, where craft brewing is a way of life (there are over sixty-five breweries in the Denver area alone), so it seemed natural to me to write a series about a craft brewer. But what is craft brewing exactly? The Brewers Association specifies three things that craft brewers share: they’re small, independent, and traditional. Of those three things, traditional may be the hardest to define. Craft brewers work with traditional beer varieties (like imperial stout) but frequently use innovative techniques and experimental flavors to produce unique artisan brews. Every state in the union now has craft brewers. After you read the Brewing Love Trilogy, I hope you’ll be inspired to give them a try.

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to my wonderful editor, Tera Cuskaden, as well as my agent, Latoya Smith. Also my loyal critique partner, Teri Wilson, who helped me work my way through early drafts. And I thank all the great Colorado craft brewers in Denver, Boulder, Arvada, and points west—your beer and your generous supply of information were both much appreciated.

  About the Author

  Meg Benjamin is an author of contemporary romance. Her small town comedies are set in her former home state of Texas and her current home, Colorado. Meg’s books have won numerous awards, including an EPIC Award, a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Holt Medallion from Virginia Romance Writers, the Beanpot Award from the New England Romance Writers, and the Award of Excellence from Colorado Romance Writers. Meg’s Web site is http://www.MegBenjamin.com. You can follow her on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/meg.benjamin1), Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/megbenjamin/), and Twitter (http://twitter.com/megbenj1). Meg loves to hear from readers—contact her at meg@megbenjamin.com.

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