“I’m so sorry,” Holly said when Glenda sashayed away. “I really didn’t think about anybody recognizing you when I picked Muriel’s.”
“It happens.” He shrugged. “I don’t mind. It comes with the territory.”
Glenda returned with their drinks, gushed some more, then took their orders. Holly ordered the meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans. Ross ordered chicken-fried steak with white gravy, biscuits, and collard greens. Not because he seemed to want collards, but because Glenda assured him they were the best greens anywhere.
Once she was gone again, Ross turned his attention back to Holly. She had to admire how he did it. How he seemed to give whoever was talking to him his full attention, though he had to be trying to figure out how to escape sometimes.
“So how did you end up in Kentucky?” she asked. “I thought most NASCAR teams were based in North Carolina.”
He nodded. “They are. But Martin Temple is a Kentuckian, and he’s who I wanted to build my cars and run my team. He’d retired from the sport until I talked him into returning. The only way I could do that was come to Kentucky.”
“How do you like it here?”
“I like it a lot, actually. My family lives in Maine and Boston. It’s colder up there. I kind of like being somewhere that snow isn’t really a factor.”
“It snows here. You just wait.”
“Yeah, but not often. And not several feet at a time.”
Holly sipped her iced tea. “No, definitely not several feet. Brr,” she said, shuddering. “I don’t think I’d like that either.”
Ross ran his finger up and down the side of his water glass. She didn’t know if he was aware he was doing it or not, but she found that the smooth motion distracted her. She wanted to reach out and make him stop. Instead, she looked away. There was a crowd gathering around his car. Naturally.
He followed her gaze. “Can’t blame them,” he said.
“Nope. You drive around in something like that, you’re going to get attention.”
“You think I want the attention?”
She swung her gaze to his. “Don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Classic middle child syndrome. I have two older brothers and one younger one. But I also have three cousins who came to live with us when we were all kids. So, yeah, definitely a middle child. Maybe I’m compensating for it now.”
“Compensating for something,” she said with a smile.
He laughed. “You’re hilarious, Holly Brooks. I like you. Even if you don’t like me.”
He was flirting with her. She kind of liked it. “You’re growing on me. Buying me dinner is going a long way to making you seem like a nice guy.”
“So you can be bought with food?”
“Sometimes. Like tonight when I was contemplating going home and eating toast for dinner because I really need to get to the store.”
“I said I’d take you shopping.”
“I know. But that car…” She turned to look at it again. The crowd had moved on but there was a boy, probably a young teenager, standing near the car, trying to see inside without touching it.
“Hang on,” Ross said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She watched him walk out the door, thinking he was probably going to go over and tell the kid to get away from the car. No doubt there was an alarm or something that was about to go off if the boy got any closer.
Ross walked over and spoke to him. The boy stuck his hand out and they shook. A moment later, Ross was opening doors and letting the teen get inside. Then he stood back to take pictures with the kid’s phone.
Holly didn’t want to melt. Not at something Ross Blackthorne was doing. But she didn’t have any choice in the matter. She watched him let a kid sit in his car and take pictures—second one so far—and she knew she couldn’t dislike him. Not really.
He was a good guy. Okay, so he was still a player and all that, but he was decent enough. More than decent enough in some ways.
“That sure is nice of him,” Glenda said as she arrived with a tray and started setting food on the table. “That’s Billy Truesville. His daddy’s been in prison for meth dealing for a year now. Billy washes dishes to help his mama pay the bills.”
“He doesn’t look old enough to work.”
“He’ll be sixteen in a month. He can wash dishes after school, which he does three nights a week. It’s not a lot, but it helps. Harry pays him under the table.” Glenda set the last dish down. “He might or might not know who Ross Blackthorne is, but I guarantee you he won’t ever forget him after tonight.”
No, he wouldn’t.
Holly didn’t think she would either.
Chapter Five
ROSS SPENT MORE time than he’d intended outside, but Billy was so excited about the car and he didn’t have the heart to rush the kid. But then Billy announced he had to get to work and headed for the side entrance to the restaurant. Ross sauntered back inside and discovered that Holly hadn’t eaten yet. She was sitting with her phone out, scrolling, her food untouched on the table in front of her.
“Sorry,” he said as he slid into the booth. “You should have eaten.”
She put the phone away and smiled. He liked it when she smiled. He’d rarely been the target of those this week, so it took some getting used to.
“Glenda just brought it a couple of minutes ago. Besides, everything is always served so hot that letting it cool a little is no big deal.”
“Still, I’m sorry I took so long. Billy had a lot of questions.”
Holly opened a paper napkin and put it on her lap. “It was nice of you to do that.”
He unfolded his own napkin. The food smelled delicious. “When I was a kid, I loved cars. I wanted Hot Wheels all the time. Then I wanted models and remote controlled cars when I got a little older. More than that, I wanted a Corvette. That was my dream car for the longest time. Whenever I’d see one somewhere, I wanted to look at it. Most of the people who had them let me. There were some who didn’t. Some who were rude or irritated. I never forgot what that felt like. I won’t do that to a kid.”
Holly was watching him with a frown on her face. “How old were you?”
“The first time? Twelve or thirteen, I think. An old guy with a red C3—that’s the model. They run C1 through C8. But he had a C3 and I wanted to talk to him about it. He told me to get lost.”
“That wasn’t nice.”
Ross shrugged. “No, but I was a kid. Who knows if he was busy or had somewhere to be—I was upset about it back then, but I kinda get it now. Anyway, whenever a kid wants to see my car, I let him. Or her. It’s not always boys.”
She dropped her gaze to her plate and pushed her food around. He wondered if he’d said something wrong. “How’s your food?” she asked when she looked up again.
“It’s great.” He took a bite of the biscuit he’d buttered. “Damn I love biscuits. I mean we have biscuits in Maine, but they don’t taste the same.”
“It’s the flour,” she announced. “Southern cooks use White Lily flour. It’s softer.”
“Whatever it is, it works.” He polished off the biscuit and took another bite of the chicken-fried steak with white gravy. Another Southern dish he’d learned to love when Martin had introduced him to it at a Cracker Barrel in Louisville one night. “What did you love as a kid, Holly?”
She seemed surprised. “Love?”
“I loved cars. What did you love?”
“Oh, well.” She grinned. “Horses. I was a typical horse-crazy girl. Lexington is amazing horse country. I took lessons for a while, showed a little bit. I had a horse but I had to sell him when I went to college.”
“Do you still ride?”
“No time these days, unfortunately.”
“Maybe you should make time. If you love it.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not? You don’t work every hour of the day.”
She sighed. “Horses take a lot of time. And they cost a lot�
�board, feed, vet bills, shoeing. I can’t justify the expense.”
That wasn’t something he could argue with. Not everyone could afford to spend money on hobbies. Especially not expensive ones. He took a sip of his drink. “Glenda mentioned you have a brother and a sister.”
He thought her jaw tightened for a moment. But then she smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes.”
“Older? Younger?”
“Ricky is the oldest. Emily is the youngest.”
“So you’re a middle child too.”
“I am.”
Ross sighed. “I’m making conversation here, Holly. If you don’t want to talk about your family, give me something else to go on.”
She closed her eyes for a second. Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s just that my family went through a lot when the barrelhouses burned. Ricky and Emily worked in the distillery. But Ricky left after, and Emily…”
He’d heard Glenda ask about her sister, and she’d said her sister was fine. But there was clearly something that upset her. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”
“No, I know. But maybe you should hear it. You’re going to hear it anyway, and I’d rather it was from me than someone else in the distillery. I’m kinda surprised you haven’t by now.”
“I haven’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But he could tell it was hard for her to say it.
She huffed in a breath. Blew it out. “Emily suffered brain damage during the fire. She was running—we all were—to help. Not that we could have done anything, but we were going to try. There was whisky and water everywhere and it was slippery. She fell and a barrel slammed into her, knocking her unconscious. We didn’t think it was so serious—but she was in a coma for a month—and when she came out again we learned she’d suffered irreparable brain damage.”
HOLLY’S CHEST WAS TIGHT. Her stomach roiled. Her food was no longer appealing. She put her fork down and crossed her arms. Why was she even telling him this? And how was she going to stop herself from crying right here in front of Ross Blackthorne and everyone?
He set his fork down. His face contained so much sympathy. In that moment, she was suddenly terrified of him. When Ross Blackthorne was just a playboy and a daredevil, she could compartmentalize him. Keep him firmly in the category of Go there, Don’t.
When he let kids sit in his outrageously expensive sports car and then showed sympathy over her sister’s accident, he became too human. He was nice, kind, and so handsome it hurt to look at him. She didn’t want to like him, or think well of him. She wanted him to stay in his box, the one where he tried to get into as many panties as he could and didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.
“I’m sorry, Holly. That had to be so hard for your family.”
She sucked in a breath. Bit the inside of her lip. She would not cry. Not now. “It was,” she breathed.
“How is she now?”
“She’s good. Really. She can’t live alone, so she lives in a group home for people who can’t live alone, but she’s learned to do many of the things she once could. It’s just…” Holly squeezed her arms against her body. It hurt so much to think of all Emily had lost. “She’ll probably never get married, you know? Never have a relationship with a man. No kids or, hell, just going out for a girls’ night with friends.”
“Everything changed for you—your whole family—when the whisky burned.”
“Yes.”
“How did you end up selling to my father?”
Holly’s heart hurt. “We were pretty much wiped out. We tried to get enough whisky from other distilleries to see us through. That happens sometimes—have a loss, buy whisky and label it as your own until you can recover. But nobody had enough, and customers started to cancel. It was a perfect storm of events, really. My dad had a heart attack and died, my sister was in the hospital learning how to feed herself again, and we were all just tired and desperate, I think. Your father offered to buy. It was a really good deal for us, especially since Uncle Evan and I got to stay. Ricky could have stayed, but he chose not to.”
Like Ross, Ricky had never cared for the whisky business. It wasn’t in his blood the way it was in hers. To him, it’d just been another job. She even thought, though she’d never said it aloud, that he was relieved the distillery had to be sold. It gave him an out.
“I hope that moving under the Blackthorne label hasn’t been too difficult.”
For her personally, yes, because of everything she’d lost. Professionally? No.
“Blackthorne has been good to us. We’ve expanded quickly, hired more workers, and our product line is growing. Well, your product line. I still think of the distillery as my family legacy, though it’s not anymore.”
And that was the hard part, really. She’d always known she was going to grow up to be a whisky maker. Then she was going to inherit the distillery with her brother and sister someday. Uncle Evan and Aunt Brenda were childless, but Holly and her siblings would carry on the traditions.
Only now they wouldn’t. Ricky was in Connecticut, Emily would never work in the distillery again, and Holly wasn’t going to inherit a thing. She could make whisky for the Blackthornes, but it would never be hers. She wouldn’t pass it down to her future children—or probably even teach them to make whisky. No, she’d insist they do something else for a living.
“My family is very proud of their legacy, too,” Ross said. “I think my dad would be happy to know how much you still care for the distillery, though it’s not your family’s anymore. And I’m sorry for that, Holly. For everything that happened to your family with the fire and the aftermath.”
Holly pushed away the gloom and pasted on a smile. “That’s life, right? And you didn’t come to dinner to listen to me complain.”
“I didn’t think you were complaining. And besides, I asked.”
She nodded toward his plate. “You’ve still got some chicken-fried steak left.”
“You’ve got meatloaf.”
Her stomach refused to accept another bite. “I’m going to get a go-box from Glenda. Take this to work for lunch tomorrow.”
Ross frowned. “You were eating fine until I asked about your family.”
She waved a hand, dismissing his concerns. “Nah, I was getting full anyway.”
He finished his food, she got a box for hers, and then he paid. She tried to offer him money, but he refused to take it. “I told you I was buying. Don’t argue.”
“Then I’ll get the next one.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Deal.”
“What? That fast?”
He grinned at her as he held the door open so she could exit the restaurant. “Yep, that fast. Because you just agreed to go out with me again.”
Holly stopped on the steps and blinked up at him. “Oh hell, I did, didn’t I?”
“Yep.” He put his hand against the small of her back and escorted her to the car. “And don’t think I’m letting you out of it, either.”
IT WAS an hour’s drive back to Louisville. Ross put the LaFerrari in the garage and went inside. He’d thought about Holly on the drive back, about the sadness in her eyes when she’d spoken of her sister and the loss of the distillery.
It brought home to him the difference between them. To him, the whisky was just one facet of his family’s business—and not one he wanted to participate in. To Holly, the whisky was personal. Her family had been in the same position his was in when his great-grandfather came to this country and started making whisky. The Brookses had been building, growing, looking forward to the day when they sat atop an empire—but the day never came because they lost it all.
Ross couldn’t get Holly’s face out of his head. The despair in her eyes when she’d talked about her sister. When he’d met her again earlier this week, he’d thought she was pretty. The fact she hadn’t liked him made her even more interesting. He wasn’t accustomed to that.
But then he spent time with her, saw her care and professionalism first han
d, and then learned about the accident that ruined her family—and something deep inside began to gnaw at him. Some unsettled feeling that hadn’t dissipated yet.
Ross went over to the bar set against one wall in the kitchen and poured two fingers of Blackthorne Gold, neat. He didn’t actually drink much whisky, but when he wanted it, there was only one kind. He thought of his grandmother, Fiona Blackthorne. She was eighty-six, feisty as hell, and she could drink him under the table any day of the week. That thought always made him smile. Which was a good thing right now.
Ross took out his phone and dialed Martin Temple. He needed to stay grounded in the world he knew because he didn’t intend to stay at the distillery any longer than he had to. Not even for pretty eyes in a pretty face.
Temple answered on the first ring. “Hello, Ross.”
“Hey, Martin.” He took a sip of the whisky. It went down smooth, burning on the finish. There were hints of smoke, vanilla, and caramel. “How’s it going?”
“Practices have been great. Eric’s doing a hell of a job. New engine purrs like a kitten.”
A very loud, growly kitten, he imagined. “He’s ready for Joliet?”
“He’s ready.”
“The Quaker State 400 is almost here. I really want to be the one behind the wheel.”
“Unless you get your father to tell me otherwise, it’ll be Eric.”
Ross took another sip. If he didn’t drive again soon, he could probably kiss the Cup goodbye. Not that his father cared about that. But it was something Ross had wanted since he was a kid watching NASCAR on television. It’d been the Winston Cup back then. These days it was the Monster Energy Cup. In a few years, maybe it’d be the Blackthorne Cup. “I’ll work on him.”
“You do that.”
They talked about a few other things and then Ross ended the call. He’d finished the whisky by then. He did not get another. He wasn’t Fiona and he wasn’t about to try.
He thought about calling his brother, Trey. Trey was the eldest and worked closely with their father at Blackthorne Enterprises. If anyone might know what Dad was thinking, it’d be Trey. But sometimes Ross felt like his brother was a carbon copy of Dad, with his seriousness and his dedication to the family business.
Ross: 7 Brides for 7 Blackthornes (Book 3) Page 5
