Enemies on Tap (7 page)

“If one of us doesn’t say something soon, this could get awkward.”

He leaned back and put his elbows on the table, stretching his legs so that the outside of his thigh brushed against hers. “You got out of here. Away from what people expected and your pre-determined role. Why come back?”

She sighed. “That was one of the first things the brewery staff asked me when I got here.”

“So what’s the answer?”

“Maybe I wanted to show people they were wrong about me. About my family.” Her jaw tightened as if she were holding back from telling him more. “Not all of us can be town royalty.”

“I’d abdicate if I could.”

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“I’ve been locked in that role since I was born. After my mother died, there were…problems.” Now there was an understatement. “I thought I’d get to leave after college, but instead I did what was expected and went to work at the bank. My life was planned out from the moment I was born.”

“How does putting the Sweet Salvation Brewery out of business and replacing it with an industrial park fit into that?”

“It would help Salvation attract business. It would help my family. But also because it would be mine. Something I did, not my dad or his dad or his dad before him.” He’d never said it out loud before, not even to himself, but they were the truest words he’d ever spoken. “I can’t believe I just told you that.”

“What happens at the Hamilton Riverbank stays at the Hamilton Riverbank.” She swiveled toward him, the movement drawing her leg more fully against his.

The moon came out from behind a cloud, bathing her in its pale glow. Her wavy hair danced against her full tits, and she sucked on her bottom lip. Lust hit him as hard as a Mack truck, flattening his defenses. For a second, he let himself imagine what it would be like to toss her over one shoulder and carry her down to the river’s edge. He’d peel away her Sweet Salvation Brewery T-shirt and jeans and see her like he had that night. His hand twitched at his side with the need to touch her, but he couldn’t. This wasn’t high school anymore.

“How about you?” He jerked his chin toward the brewery. “Looking to slay some personal demons?”

“You could say that. I need to make the brewery profitable to get a promotion at work. I’ve been putting in crazy hours for years, and it’s my time.”

Their families were enemies—would always be enemies—nothing could change that. Not that night so long ago and not a story so close to his own. That’s how things worked in Salvation.

“So really, you want to help me to succeed. It means finally getting the Sweets out of Salvation, which is the unofficial town motto.”

She laughed, softening the true statement. The sound swirled around them like a newly fallen leaf on the breeze. Their gazes caught, his mouth went dry, and his heart sped up. Want and need and expectation twisted his insides in an effort to pry apart the fibers of what he’d always known to be true: Martins and Sweets were enemies.

“But then I’d lose the bet.” He held on to the last word in his mind, like a glaring neon sign reminding him of what was at stake.

“Oh yes.” Her smile faltered, and she glanced up at the stars lighting up the night sky, weariness lining her beautiful face. “The bet. I’d almost forgotten with our little momentary truce here tonight.”

She angled her body so she was only inches from him, close enough that loose strands of her hair tossed around in the breeze tickled his cheek, and looked up. Slivers of softness showed thrown her usual hardened exterior. He didn’t see weakness in her blue eyes, but isolation and hunger—both of which he understood at a bone-deep level, and part of him hated her at that moment for making him see so much of himself in her.

“Not me.” He couldn’t, no matter what. “Do you know what they charge for ads in that newspaper?”

“I could offer to half it with you.” Her gaze lowered to his mouth, and she licked her bottom lip.

“Nah, that would go against the spirit of the bet.” He forced his gaze away from her pink tongue even as his body responded like a well-trained dog. “We couldn’t have that.”

A car engine purred to life in the parking lot. Miranda started, and a flush pinkened her cheeks. She jumped up from the table, brushing away the dirt from her high, firm ass. “It’s getting late. I should be heading out.”

“Can I walk you to your car?”

“I think I can manage on my own, if you can be trusted not to damage the place when I leave you alone.”

Her smile hit Logan hard, and he realized how long it had been since anyone but Hud had joked with him.

He held up a hand. “Martin’s honor.” Uttering the phrase caused a pang of guilt.

Miranda didn’t seem to notice. “Goodnight then.” She turned and took a step away.

He snagged her hand before she could go any farther. Electricity zipped up his arm. “Thanks.”

Imaginings of what could have been if she was just a woman and he was just a man left a bittersweet taste in his mouth. But as it was, she was a Sweet and he was a Martin. They’d been down that path before, and he’d been left shell shocked when she’d ran not just from Salvation but from him. There was no possibility of anything more now.

She squeezed his hand before releasing it, turning and sauntering toward the parking lot, her tantalizing hips swaying with each step. A few feet from the parking lot she stopped and pivoted to look back at him.

“I guess this means our truce is over.” The parking lot’s lights spotlighted her, showing off every curve and the slight quiver of her bottom lip, but before it could grow into a full-blown tremble, she straightened her shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. “Swords or dueling pistols in the morning?”

She knew it and he knew it. Their roles in the ongoing Salvation drama were set, and they had no choice but to play the parts assigned.

“Swords, of course.” He could fight her, but not reality.

They were enemies.

Chapter
Seven

Miranda slammed the phone down on the receiver. Two days. Ten contra
ctors. Six slightly nervous
he’s-or-she’s-not-heres
and four straight up
nos
. At least the last guy had the decency to sound embarrassed, but that didn’t change the fact that not a single contractor in Salvation would rebuild the loading dock.

So much for her and Logan’s little moment of Zen last week. He hadn’t been kidding about dueling at dawn. None of the contractors had come right out and said it, but she knew a Martin family bitch slap when the invisible palm smacked her across the cheekbone.

Their families had history. A long one.

The way her MeMaw had told it, Matthew Sweet and Benjamin Martin founded Salvation together. Then they both fell in love with Elizabeth Hamilton, who, according to MeMaw, had enough intelligence to marry Matthew Sweet. But Benjamin Martin had taken it as the first strike in a war his family had to win. It only got worse after that. Bootlegging. Crooked land deals. Cattle rustling. Drought. The Civil War. Lies. Inconvenient truths. With the end result being two families on opposite sides of the track who grew up hearing tales of the other’s treachery and general worthlessness.

She’d been stupid enough to forget that history when she was young, dumb, and barely seventeen.

Logan had been as hot as any completely-off-limits-and-out-of-her-league boy could be, and she’d known there was something more to him than being the crown prince of Salvation. In her demented teenage mind, he was the Prince to her Cinderella. It was like the beginning of a cheesy song by some overly earnest tween pop star. God, she’d been as dumb as a box of rocks to even think he’d ever seen her as more than an easy conquest.

The phone rang, and she grabbed it before the second jangle. “Sweet Salvation Brewery, this is Miranda.”

Please, God, let it be a contractor.

“So how goes it in Podunk, Virginia?”

The sound of Patilla the Hun’s voice tore through her hopeful mood like a hacksaw mutilating a child’s birthday balloon. Hard, vicious, and total overkill. The boss from hell only called when he had last-minute assignments for her or wanted to gloat. She was too far away for his patented dump-and-dash, so he had to be about to rub something awful in her face.

“Everything’s fine, Pat. What can I do for you?” Cool. Calm. Collected. At least on the outside.

“Can’t a boss check in on an underling’s progress on a pipe dream?” Now that sounded more like the weasel she knew and despised. “I hear there was a workplace accident. I hope everyone is okay and that the federal workplace safety folks aren’t on your doorstep.”

Her stomach sank faster than a full keg in wet cement. “Everyone is fine, and the dock is in the process of being repaired.”
If she could line up a damn contractor.
“How did you find out about the incident?”

“That’s what you’re calling a potential injury lawsuit? Cute. You didn’t think I wouldn’t keep an eye out for you, did you?” She could practically see him twisting an imaginary mustache like a villain in a silent movie. “So, it looks like that corner office you’ve been drooling over will be filled by the time you get back.”

He paused for effect while she screamed
NO
in her head.

“Mr. DeBoer opened the position to outside candidates,” Patilla the Hun continued, a light lilt to his voice as if he was relating the cutest story about how his adorable pet snake swallowed the neighbor’s baby whole. “It really is too bad that you’re out of the office for the next few months. You know how important it is in this kind of volatile situation to have the big boss see you every day working to build the company.”

Because reaching through the phone and strangling him wasn’t an option, she closed her eyes and exhaled a deep breath all the way from her toes. “Thanks for the update.”

“Oh, any time. Have a great afternoon.” He hung up before she even had a chance to respond.

Staring at the phone in her hand, heat burning her cheeks, she fought the urge to scream.

“You look like you’re about to pop, big sis.”

Her sister Natalie’s familiar voice zapped the annoyance right out of Miranda, and she ran across the recently de-cluttered office. The middle of the Sweet triplets, her hair pulled back into a tight French braid, stood in the door wearing a goofy grin, her ever-present pearl necklace, the latest in a long line of nondescript pastel pink cardigans, and a tan, mid-calf length skirt from some academic-researchers-gone-wild catalog. Miranda hadn’t seen a more beautiful sight since she’d stepped foot in Salvation.

“Seeing you is better than Christmas morning.” Wrapping her arms around one of her two mirror images, Miranda squeezed. “Thank God you’re here.”

“How could I say no after that last text? I’m just sorry I couldn’t get here earlier.” Her sister rolled her eyes. “I swear, you’re almost as big of a drama queen as Olivia.”

“We both know I’m not that bad. Anyway, I knew threatening to hire another efficiency expert would get you.” She pulled back from the bear hug.

“True.” Natalie gave the office a less-than-approving perusal and pushed her thick framed glasses back into place. “Is it all as bad as this?”

“You should have seen the place before I cleaned it.” She laughed at her sister’s horrified expression. “Come on, let me give you a tour and get you up to speed on our progress.”

After showing off the newly clean and only slightly in-need-of-repair brewery, they ended up back in the front office where, behind closed doors, she paced from one end to the other while catching her sister up on the latest curve ball tossed their way.

“So, I have to get back and claim that promotion before someone else takes it, but that’s not going to happen until we make the brewery profitable. And we can’t do that until they can get enough local bars and restaurants to carry the beer. Of course, we’d have to be able to
deliver
the beer, which is pretty damn hard to load onto the delivery trucks without a proper loading dock that could stand up to scrutiny from code inspectors. And I’d bet Ruby Sue’s pecan pie recipe that Logan Martin is behind our inability to hire a qualified contractor.”

“The bastard.”

And he was, but still…her stomach did a weird fluttery thing. “He’s not all bad.”

“Are we talking about the same Logan Martin? How can you say that after what he did to you?”

“Number one, I was an active participant in that incident. I didn’t accidentally fall buck naked into the back of his truck only to have him trip and land with his dick in me.”

“Why you did, I have no idea.”

“Because I thought…well, I thought he was different from the rest of the people in this town. I was young, dumb, and thought I was in love. “ She rolled her eyes as Natalie clutched her pearls.

“Miranda—”

She cut her sister off. “Number two, it happened almost ten years ago. I lost my virginity, and when the gossips in town found out, they couldn’t let it go. It was like I’d stolen their prince from them.” Natalie opened her mouth to argue, but Miranda cut her off. “Can’t we just let it go? Do we really have to continue the Sweet family tradition of holding onto grudges as tight as if they were winning Lotto tickets?”

Natalie’s hard look softened. “There was more to it than just that, and you know it.”

Miranda flipped off her sister to cover the truth of her sister’s observation. There wasn’t a damn thing she could say to contradict her not about how she felt then…or now.

“Did you talk to Neland yet?” Natalie asked.

She stopped mid-step and slapped her palm to her forehead. “Of course, but he’s off the grid.”

Neland was the best unlicensed, and mostly sober, contractor in Salvation. Best of all, he was a Sweet in everything but name, having married and divorced two Sweet sisters within the span of five years, which had always added an extra layer of awkwardness to family gatherings. After the divorces, the aunts had met and married a set of identical twins and moved to Tennessee. Still, even with the divorces, there was no way he’d be kowtowing to any Martin blackballing.

“I saw his truck in The Kitchen Sink’s parking lot as I was coming in. Go catch him before he heads out to his deer stand for the weekend.”

Miranda gave her sister a quick hug. “You’re okay hanging out here?”

“I do co-own the place.” Natalie straightened her pale pink cardigan, brushing away an imaginary piece of lint. “Anyway, I want to do some poking around so I can start formulating an efficiency plan.”

“You’re the best.” Miranda grabbed her navy blue trench coat and hustled out the door, mentally creating a to-do list of repairs that Neland could do now that he’d popped back up on the Salvation radar. Finally, things were going her way.