Love in a Nutshell

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 involunt ^ Matt ary, 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 perfect 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 be cs mt..r.

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.