Love in a Nutshell

  They reached the third floor and Matt opened the door to a suite marked only with its number and ushered her in. Behind a desk in the moderately sized reception area sat a movie star–looking, twenty-something redhead. She wore a red wrap dress with a plunging neckline, red lipstick that matched the dress, and just the right amount of mascara to show off thick black eyelashes over her green eyes.

  “Kate, this is Ginger Monroe,” Matt said. “And Ginger, this is Kate Appleton.”

  Ginger gave Kate a blatantly inquisitive look. “Hi.”

  Kate returned the greeting, but tried to keep her curiosity under control.

  “Is Chet here?” Matt asked Ginger.

  “I sent him into your office. You might want to consider a bulletproof vest before you go in.”

  “That bad?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Matt shot a dubious look at the closed door. “Then he knows why he’s here. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.” He paused. “Or maybe even sooner.”

  Kate settled into a guest chair and Ginger pulled open a desk drawer and brought out a semi-full bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips. “Want some? They’ve got a good bite.”

  “I love them, too, but I’m all about coffee at this hour,” Kate said.

  Ginger nodded. “Okay.” Without pausing a beat, she added, “So, are you Matt’s new girlfriend?”

  “No, I just started working for him last week.”

  Kate suddenly realized how much longer it felt, and not in a bad way. No, this was more a What did I do with myself before all this craziness? feeling.

  “Interesting,” Ginger said.

  The conversation was starting to feel a little interesting to Kate, too. “So, Ginger, have you two ever dated?”

  Ginger raised her eyebrows. “No! My dad would kill him. Dad was Matt’s high school football coach down in Keene’s Harbor. Matt was a big star, but that was ages ago. I was just a kid. And then Dad changed jobs and we moved up here.”

  “Matt was a football star? Figures.”

  Ginger grinned. “Doesn’t it? He was hot stuff. I guess he had a full ride to Michigan State, but then messed up his knee during baseball season his senior year of high school. He lost the scholarship and ended up working around town before he took off for a couple of years. Everything turned out fine, though.”

  Just then the younger woman’s eyes widened, giving Kate an instant of forewarning before Matt’s office door slammed into the wall, and a short, heavy man whose skin color had risen to a shiny puce marched out of the office.

  The purple man was sputtering so much he could barely choke out his words. “You’ll pay, Culhane,” he said.

  Matt followed him out and remained admirably impassive. Kate wanted to learn how to do that, though she suspected she lacked the talent.

  “I agree this is tough, Chet, but you know I’ve been more than fair,” Matt said.

  The older man’s breathing was ragged, and he opened and closed his hands into fists. “Another six months wouldn’t have killed you. Instead, you’re killing me.”

  “You have four weeks before I’ll be filing anything. Just work on those other possibilities, okay?”

  Chet told Matt in graphic detail what he could work on, then stormed out.

  * * *

  DOING THE right thing and doing the easy thing didn’t seem to be lining up too well for Matt these days.

  “I would have given Chet more time if I could have,” he said to Kate, who sat next to him in the truck as they headed to his next appointment. “But I need to think about my cash reserves and my business. The slow season is coming on. It’s going to hurt to take any more financial hits. I hate to be a survivalist, but it’s better it’s Chet’s business than mine, especially when he’s been in default for over a year.”

  “There’s nothing else you could have done,” she said.

  “But there is. I should have pulled the plug on his financing last year. I built up expectations that I’d just keep letting this slide.” He shook his head. “Big mistake.”

  Kate eyes narrowed. “Does that mean you’re thinking of pulling the plug on our deal? You gave me until Thanksgiving to come up with the money, and if you try to back out, I’ll make Chet look like Gandhi.”

  Matt laughed. “You caught him at an off moment. He’s not usually so purple.”

  “Good news there, or he’ll be among the spirits pretty soon. One little vein in the brain goes ping, and it’s all over.”

  Matt knew the feeling, even if he hadn’t yet achieved Chet’s color of purple. All the same, bringing a measure of calm and sanity into his life was now part of his game plan.

  “True,” Matt said. “And the good news is that no one is purple at our next stop, though Travis is pretty tatted up.”

  “And tatted Travis is…”

  “The owner of Horned Owl Brewing and my newest project. Great concepts, but bad business decisions. Bart is spending today and tomorrow with him to go over his beer recipes and maybe tweak ’em where they need tweaking. Nothing too big.”

  He wasn’t about to clue her into the other activity about to take place at Horned Owl. One that had occurred to him early this morning. Matt wasn’t totally up to speed on it, but he knew that surprise was crucial.…

  NINE

  Kate felt as though her fillings were going to fall out as Matt’s truck slammed and rattled down a pitted gravel road in the middle of nowhere. “Are you sure this is really the road to the microbrewery?”

  “Positive,” Matt said. “It’s also the first of three issues that have been tanking Travis’s business.”

  Kate couldn’t wait to see the other two.

  “Do you think maybe you should slow down a little?”

  “No way. Then we’d feel every rut in the road.”

  Being airborne didn’t seem much better, but Kate also knew not to mess with a man on a mission.

  “Hang on,” Matt said, skittering around a hairpin turn. “It gets a little rough right here.”

  Kate’s gasp was involuntary, and she wasn’t real thrilled about the grin that appeared on Matt’s face in response as she fought the urge to brace her feet against the dashboard. “Very Indiana Jones of you,” she said. “I should have brought my bullwhip.”

  Matt’s eyebrows raised a half inch. “Do you have a bullwhip?”

  Kate smiled sweetly. Ms. Mysterious.

  “Kinky,” Matt said, “but I can deal.”

  He swerved around an unusually deep rut, barely missing a tree. They made a hard right turn onto a narrow ribbon of a drive. All that marked it as more than a trail was a huge, sour-faced plastic owl on a post.

  “Horned Owl issue number two,” Matt said. “If you’ve got a customer ambitious enough to come back here, get a sign. Don’t scare them off with a weird fake owl.”

  Now that they were traveling at normal speed, Kate took a look around. She imagined that the woods were lush and green in the summer. On this crisp autumn day, though, the maples were turning crimson and yellow, with the oaks not far behind. Only the scrubby jack pines still held much green.

  “The scenery’s a good prize for making it back this far,” she said. “It’s gorgeous.”

  The woods had thinned, and a meadow lay ahead. At the far end sat an unassuming double-wide home. To the right of that by a hundred yards was the most amazing barn Kate had ever seen. It might have been painted a traditional red, but the structure’s hexagonal shape and the white cupola topping it were showstoppers. Someone had also added expanses of windows and a pergola-shaded terrace that angled off one of the back sides.

  Kate blew out a whistle. “Definitely not issue number three.”

  “Except for the location, it’s perfect.” He parked next to a silver car that Kate had seen almost every day in Depot Brewing’s lot. “Ready to go in?”

  Kate climbed out of the truck. “First, let me play tourist.”

  She dug her phone from her purse and backed up until she found the perfec
t spot to take a picture of the barn. She liked that Matt was in the shot, too.

  “Smile,” she said. And even though he was laughing, she kept the picture. “This is turning into a pretty nice day.”

  “Hold that thought.”

  They walked up a stepping stone path to the microbrewery’s entrance.

  Inside, a taproom of sorts had been partitioned from the work area by low walls made of silvery barn wood. Above the dividers, Kate spotted a couple of tall stainless-steel tanks back in a corner, much like the ones she’d seen at Depot Brewing. The beer-making end of the business remained a mystery to Kate. Bart Fenner, Depot’s brewmaster, was notoriously protective of his portion of the domain. For all that Kate knew, fairies and elves made the beer.

  Matt scanned the room. “Travis? You guys back there?”

  “Yeah, hang on.”

  Travis emerged, and Horned Owl’s issue number three was obvious. Kate doubted that Travis meant to be scary, but the nose and eyebrow piercings and a squinty-eyed stare did the job. The full-sleeve tattoo on his right arm actually served as a happy distraction. He appeared to be younger than Matt, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t old enough to have done some hard time.

  “Travis, this is Kate, my newest employee. Kate, this is Travis Holby, owner of Horned Owl Brewing.”

  Travis fixed his stare on Kate. “What’s Culhane got on you that you ended up working for him?”

  Kate laughed. “It’s more what I have on him.”

  Travis smiled, and the tough guy aura disappeared. Kate noticed for the first time that once you looked past the piercings, he had a true baby face, complete with pudgy cheeks.

  “This is a beautiful place you have here,” she said.

  “Thanks. I’ve busted my a—, uh, back, putting it together. Why don’t you have a seat?” Travis gestured to one of the three rustic-looking tables with low stools that served as seating in the taproom. “Hungry? Thirsty? Can I get you anything?”

  Kate took the offered seat, but turned down food and drink.

  “Hey, Bart,” Matt called. “Why don’t you come out here for a minute, too?”

  Bart entered the taproom, and Kate thought there was no way she’d ever seen him at Depot Brewing. He wasn’t the sort of guy a woman forgot. In fact, he nearly gave Culhane a run for the money in the looks department. But where Culhane was a rugged kind of hot, Bart had the exotic thing going. Looking at him was like taking a sexy trip to the South Pacific. He was tall and seriously muscled, with dark skin, soulful brown eyes, and black hair.

  “I heard you sing last night,” Bart said. “You’re really good.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “It had been a long time since I sang in public like that.”

  Matt smiled at her and her heart skipped a beat. The smile was intimate, as though they were the only ones in the room. She couldn’t help fantasizing just a little about what she might do to enhance the moment if it wasn’t for Bart and Travis’s presence.

  Bart sat down next to Travis but turned his body toward Kate. “I hear you have some issues with beer.”

  “It’s more like beer has issues with me.”

  “When was the last time you tried it?”

  “When I was in college.”

  Bart smiled, showing even white teeth. “So it’s safe to say that it’s been a couple of years?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What kind of beer?”

  Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. What kind do they typically serve in fraternity basements out of red plastic cups?” Why was this beginning to feel like she was being set up? “I try not to think of that night. But even though the details are fuzzy, the lasting impression is that it wasn’t good.”

  Travis shook his head. “You know, you seem like the open-minded type. You put up with Culhane, you’ve stopped staring at my piercings, and yet you’re judging all beer based on one bad, unfortunate game of beer pong.”

  “Believe me, I’d do the same with a rattlesnake, too.”

  Bart laughed. “It can’t have been that bad.”

  “Okay, no, because I’m still alive.” Kate glanced at each of them. “This is some sort of non-beer-drinker intervention, isn’t it?”

  Nobody answered, but the light of hope continued to shine in their eyes.

  “Come on, Kate, what you drank was goat pi—, uh, urine, compared to what we make,” Travis said. “This is craft beer, the nectar of the gods.”

  “Nectar?”

  “Try my peach beer,” he said.

  The hair on her arms rose. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “No peach, then, but at least try something while you’re here.”

  She was, to some degree, a captive audience. And not wholly unwilling, either. It had been a lot of years, and there remained the remote possibility that the whole beer incident had grown in her mind. Maybe it hadn’t been that truly awful.

  “And consider this,” Matt said. “I can’t move you to the front of the house until you’ve learned to speak beer. So unless you and Hobart really do want to establish an exclusive relationship, you should give this a shot.”

  Kate had come to see the downside to dishwashing. Running Hobart meant standing at Hobart. To be a good secret spy, she needed more mobility.

  “Okay. Let’s do this thing.” She looked across the table at Matt’s co-conspirators. “I’m assuming you already have this arranged.”

  “It’s going to be an experience to be savored,” Bart said as Travis left the table.

  Kate looked doubtful. “On my planet, that would be lounging in a Jacuzzzi with a glass of wine and a good book.” She could feel Culhane go still next to her, and she thought she should probably stop mentioning anything even remotely involving nakedness. Her imagination had already tossed the book and substituted her boss stripping down and making the tub blissfully crowded.

  Matt gently touched Kate’s hand. “All beer is made of four basic ingredients.”

  She drew on her last memory of beer. “Is skunk spray one of them, because that would explain the smell.”

  “Not even close. We’re talking water, barley, hops, and yeast.”

  Travis returned to the table with a cooler bearing the Depot Brewing steam locomotive logo and a plastic cup. He set the cup in front of Kate and then got busy in the cooler.

  “Those are hops,” Bart said.

  She squinted into the cup. “It looks like rabbit food.”

  “Check out the scent.”

  Kate took a whiff and immediately regretted it. The hops smelled like a mix of cheap perfume, soggy dog, and grass blades. She wanted to sneeze, and possibly gag, but could do neither with any measure of diplomacy. Instead, she rubbed the tip of her nose and tried to blink back the extra moisture in her eyes.

  Matt fought back a grin. “I get the feeling you’re not fond of hops.”

  Travis lined up three smaller cups. Each was filled with the same grain, but of varying shades. “This is all barley,” he said.

  “Barley is good. My grandmother made soup from barley.”

  Matt smiled at her, and she began to relax again.

  “Note the lighter and darker colors,” Bart said. “Different degrees of roasting will add varying aspects to the beer. When we boil up the wort—”

  “The what?” she asked.

  “The wort.”

  “That sounds a little creepy,” Kate said. “Like something on a witch’s nose.”

  Culhane laughed. “That’s what the boiled mix of barley, hops, and water is called. Brewers make wort. After that’s done, the yeast will make the beer.”

  That, too, brought images to Kate’s mind she would have been happy to skip. “Before I get too much scary input, how about if we move along to the tasting?”

  Bart reached into the cooler, brought out a bottle of beer, and set a small glass in front of Kate. It was taller and bigger than a shot glass, but not by much. If this was all she had to drink, she just might survive.

  Bart han
ded her the bottle. “This is Dog Day Afternoon. It was one of Matt’s first beers and is still one of the brewery’s most popular.”

  Kate smiled at the label’s black pen-and-ink drawing of a goofy hound who was trying to look fierce. “That’s the same dog in the mosaic out front of the brewery.”

  “Chuck’s our mascot, even though Matt doesn’t bring him around much. He’s also Matt’s longest lasting relationship … so far.”

  Both Bart and Travis were giving Kate suggestive grins as Travis took the bottle from her and poured for her. Kate focused on the tabletop.

  “This is a summer brew,” Matt said. “Technically, it’s a Kölsch style beer, which you’ll need to know when you’re on the floor. But really, just think about a beach day when you’re ready for some shade and a cool drink.”

  Kate lifted the glass and tentatively sniffed its contents. She steeled herself. One sip from a Barbie-sized glass couldn’t do all that much damage, could it?

  “Come on, you can do it,” Travis said.

  She took a sip, expecting to hate it, but she didn’t. In fact, she went for a slightly bolder sip.

  “Not half bad,” she said. “It’s bubbly like soda but not icky sweet.”

  Matt grinned, obviously proud but trying to keep it under wraps. “It’s a good starting point. Low in hops and lower in alcohol than some of the others you’ll be trying. Ready to move on?”

  “Almost.” Kate drained the sample glass. “An unpretentious beer, lightly floral, and of earthy peasant stock.”

  “You joke, but beer tastings are a big part of how our business has grown,” Matt said. “A little less attitude than some wine events, but we have food pairings and tasting notes, too.”

  “Really?”

  “It makes sense if you think about it,” Matt said. “What was your first impulse when Travis poured you that sample?”

  “To smell it.”

  “Exactly,” Bart said. “Let’s try an IPA on her for bouquet.”

  “IPA?” Kate echoed.

  Bart handed her another bottle. This one’s label was nearly psychedelic and read Goa for the Gusto.