Forbidden Fling (Wildwood Book 1) (24 page)

Ethan leaned into Steve French’s drafting table in his office at his Santa Rosa architecture firm, forty minutes south of Wildwood, looking down at the plans for Ethan’s lifelong dream and Pops’s only retirement—Wildcard Brews pub and brewery.

And for the first time since he and Pops had hashed out this idea, Ethan’s gut knotted with mixed emotions over the plan. While Steve talked about the changes he’d made in the design, Ethan was counting down the hours until that damn bar wasn’t standing between him and Delaney anymore.

Yeah? Then what are you gonna do, smart guy?

The nagging little voice in Ethan’s head piped up, and he crossed his arms and rested his forehead against the fingers of one hand, trying like hell to look as if he were paying attention when his mind was a mess.

What
was
he going to do?

“By making your malt room just three feet smaller”—Steve moved his hand to point out that section of the floor plan, and Ethan forced his mind to the present—“I was able to increase your cold storage on the west side. Then I nudged your reverse osmosis this way, tucked your chemical containment in here, and that made room for one more fermenter in your pilot brew house, leaving all this space for expansion.”

That was pretty damned brilliant. Almost as brilliant as Delaney’s offhand suggestion for Ethan to move his keg washer and chemical containment at the warehouse. It had been saving him twice as much time as she’d estimated.

And now he had an almost uncontrollable urge to show these plans to Delaney to get her opinion, her ideas, her suggestions on how they could be better. Watching his dream come to life on paper was thrillingly surreal, and Ethan couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be able to share that dream with someone he . . . someone he what? Liked? Lusted? Was that even a term?

“Anything rattling around up there?” Pops asked, prodding Ethan out of his uncomfortable thoughts with the harsh tone his grandfather had adopted as of late.

Ethan cut a look at Pops and found that same pain-etched aggravation he’d been seeing more and more over the last several months. Then he smiled at Steve. “I love the changes.”

The architect nodded in acknowledgment, then glanced at Pops. “You haven’t said what you think, Harlan.”

“They look real good. Real good.” His watery blue eyes lifted to Steve, then slid to Ethan. “Look even better in brick and mortar, if they ever get that far. If we’re done here, I gotta get back to the farm. Hops don’t grow themselves.”

“You two should be about ready to break ground.” Steve straightened all the pages, lined them up, and rolled them into a tube. “Are you excited?”

A grunt rolled from Pops, and Ethan’s stress ratcheted up to an almost unbearable level.

Steve lifted a brow at Ethan. “What am I missing?”

“There’s a slight possibility we’ll run into a problem getting the liquor license.”

Although, somehow, that wasn’t bothering Ethan as much as the status of his relationship with Delaney, which was asinine. Their relationship was great sex. Period. She’d made that plenty clear.

At least with words. And, yeah, actions, too, judging by the way she avoided him like a rampant outbreak of herpes.

But Ethan still felt a discord between her words and her emotions, or her desires, or . . . something.
Something
was telling him there was more between them, that she felt it, that she wanted it. Yet . . .

“What kind of problem?” Steve asked.

“Like we can’t get one,” Harlan said.

“What?” Steve looked at Ethan, eyes widening. “I thought you were condemning a bar and grabbing the license.”

Wow,
that
was a slanted way to phrase it.

“No, no, no.” Ethan took the time to reword the circumstances of coming by the license in a legal context, if for no other reason than to ease his conscience. “I can’t grab anything until it’s available. Until the owner fails to pay the renewal fee or the company goes bankrupt or closes. I have an approved application on file with Alcohol Beverage Control and my contact there”—the guy he delivered free beer to every week—“promised to call me the minute this one becomes available.”

Steve leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms. “So what’s the problem?”

“One of the daughters who inherited the bar is back in town, trying to decide what to do with it.”

A troubled hum rolled from Steve’s throat.

Harlan pointed at Steve. “Exactly.” He looked at Ethan. “He gets it.”

“She’s only got a day left to file the papers,” he reminded Pops. “And there is no way in hell she could pull everything she needs together in that time. No way she could have gotten an architect or an engineer or a designer or a contractor on board that fast. She’s not on my schedule, and my calendar’s booked. It’s not going to happen.

“She’s smart enough to realize just how big a job it is and the risk she’d be taking. But she’s also proud and stubborn. She’s just taking her sweet time to make peace with the hard decision.”

And Ethan was both ticked and disheartened by the fact that she wasn’t allowing him in on that process. While at the same time growing sick over the fact that he needed her to suffer that loss so he could find his success.

Harlan pointed at Ethan but spoke to Steve. “That right there is the face of denial.”

Ethan heaved an exasperated sigh, took the plans from Steve, and thanked him.

They were at the door when Steve said, “Have you offered to buy it from her?”

Ethan turned. “In our county, that license would go for at least a hundred grand. We don’t have that kind of money.”

“There are a lot of people out there who do. One of my clients, for instance. He’s got a dozen projects going at any one time. Dabbles in a lot of different venues as a silent investor, always looking for a place to sink some cash for tax benefits, but doesn’t want to get involved in the business. Doesn’t want to be tied down. He also happens to be a craft beer lover.” Steve lifted his shoulders. “Just an option. I can talk to him for you if you want. See if he’s interested.”

The information hooked a desperate corner of Ethan’s brain. The one he was trying to fight off. “Thanks, Steve. We’ll keep it in mind.”

On the way to the truck, Pops’s hobble slowed him more than usual. And he was grouchier than usual, too.

“We’re not taking on another investor,” Harlan said, trailing behind Ethan. “I don’t trust no silent nothin’. Anyone who ain’t interested in working to earn their money don’t deserve any.”

“I don’t have a plan B here. If we lose this license, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

“Huh. Could swear I just heard you sayin’ that wouldn’t happen.”

Ethan would have opened the passenger’s door for Pops and helped him in, but the man would probably chew Ethan’s arm off. So he climbed in the driver’s side, tossed the plans behind the seat, and turned the engine over, thinking about everything he’d spent months and months researching before seriously considering starting this business. And his frustration boiled over in a rant.

“Securing a location is always the first step. That’s what everyone said. Every book I read, everyone I talked to, the first piece of advice from every expert: location, location, location. First things first. You can’t do anything until you’ve got your location nailed down.

“So what did I do? I waited and I watched.” As soon as Harlan closed the passenger’s door, Ethan backed out and kept talking as he headed toward the highway and took the ramp north to Wildwood. “I’m patient. I’m a good boy. I go to work every day and help everyone else build their dreams. Then one day, it happens. That perfect place hits my radar. Right on the corner of Main and Vine with room to expand back and up. It doesn’t get any better.

“So I sink every penny I have
and
every penny you have into buying the damn thing. Jump through every hoop in existence to do it quietly so I can keep the whole thing under wraps until I’m ready to go at this full force, because I’m not a millionaire like some people. I can’t just buy the property outright, then buy a nonexistent liquor license, quit my job, and break ground.

“So I brew my beer on the side, build my customer base, and save and save and save, waiting for the day the Harts let their renewal lapse, knowing,
knowing
, not one of them plans on coming back to town.

“And then,
this
shit happens.”

He was yelling now, and he didn’t care. He was angry. Angry that his family wasn’t the kind of family who would support him. Angry his father was such an ass. Angry Austin was such a prick. Angry he’d taken his grandfather’s money for that land. Angry he’d believed in this damned idea in the first place. Angry Delaney was avoiding him. Angry he gave a damn.

And angry that he couldn’t think of a way to make this right even after Delaney demolished the bar.

“Of all the times for her to come back and take an interest in that shithole after ten goddamned years, she chooses
now
.” He huffed out a caustic laugh and shook his head. “And you know the worst of it? I can’t even be angry with her. She’s doing everything right. And she’s doing it all for the right reasons. It’s
my family
that’s the problem. It’s
my family
that’s held me back. It’s
my family
that created this issue in the first place.

“
I’m
the one that’s been trying to live so far inside the box for so long, I’ve trapped myself there.”

And now Pops was trapped there with him.

Ethan propped his elbow on the window ledge and rested his forehead in his hand. “Just perfect.”

The thought unintentionally came out as words, making Ethan realize he hadn’t heard a word from Pops since they’d gotten in the truck.

He glanced over and found his grandfather asleep. Arms crossed, head angled against the headrest, lips parted in a soft snore. The man was dead on his feet. Barely able to walk. And he planned on getting back on that damn tractor today.

A boulder of guilt slammed the bottom of Ethan’s stomach. Harlan was alone on that farm with no help, because when it came down to choosing sides over where to place blame over Ian’s death, Pops had ditched the party line and told his daughters exactly where the blame belonged—on Ian, not Ethan.

Taking Ethan’s side had cost Pops his entire family—everyone but Ethan. His daughters, his sons-in-law, and his two remaining grandsons, Austin and Adam, all but deserted him.

Now Pops’s retirement was threatened, because Ethan had gone and invested it in a stupid dream—a dream of letting Pops hang up that goddamned hoe and put his backbreaking lifestyle behind him. A dream of supporting the only man who’d ever supported Ethan in his life.

Time to face reality. Outside the bedroom, Delaney wasn’t into him. The bottom line now was that Ethan had to do whatever he had to do to make sure Pops was secure when that knee finally went out. Ethan had to put Pops first now, the way Pops always put Ethan first when he’d needed it most.

And while the forty-minute drive back to town had given Ethan time to accept the disappointing situation with Delaney, he still hadn’t come to terms with his discomfort over her loss leading to his gain. By the time he’d gotten Pops settled at home and convinced him to leave the unfinished work for tomorrow, Ethan barely made it back to the office in time for his four o’clock appointment.

He pushed through the door to his office, expecting to see a woman sitting in the reception area across from Jodi’s desk, but the waiting area was empty.

Jodi looked up from her computer screen. “Hey. I was starting to think you weren’t going to make it.”

“Me, too.” He reached up and unbuttoned the top button of his dress shirt on the way into his office. “I have to look over the Peterson application again. I don’t—”

“Ethan?” Jodi called standing from her desk. “About Mrs. Peterson—”

“Give me a minute,” he said passing through his doorway, focused on his desk, where Jodi always laid the file of his next appointment for him. “I just want to—”

He stopped at the sight of someone looking out the window in his office. In split-second intervals, he took in her height, her build, her long auburn hair spiraling down her back.

And he broke into a sweat.

“Delaney?”

When she turned, settled those big blue eyes on him, and smiled, he swore he felt a breeze sweep through his body and drag some of the tension away.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Jodi said behind him. He glanced back at his secretary, who wore a wry grin. “Delaney is your four o’clock. She scheduled the appointment under a different name.”

All his tension rushed back. Along with dread. And fear. And guilt.

Fuck.

Me.

Any glimmer of hope for the future drained out his feet. “I see.” He swallowed the disappointment and pulled on his big-boy armor. “Thanks, Jodi. You can go early if you want.”

“Really?” Her face brightened. “Thanks. Have a good night. Good to see you, Delaney. Are you going to be at Black Jack’s opening? I’d love to catch up.”

“Absolutely.” Delaney’s smile was warm and genuine. “Would love to hear what you’ve been up to.”

“Great,” Jodi said, her grin bright. “See you tomorrow.”

Jodi closed the door, and the office fell silent.

ELEVEN

Delaney braced herself before she returned her gaze to Ethan, but she already knew this was going to be worse than she’d expected, and the stress over this decision that had been eating away at her for two weeks ratcheted up.

I don’t have anything to feel bad about.

I don’t have anything to feel bad about.

I don’t have anything to feel bad about.

But when she finally worked up the nerve to face Ethan after Jodi left, she knew, without a doubt, she had
a lot
to feel bad about.

The bizarre thing was she still wasn’t sure what that was.

But whatever it was had affected Ethan deeply. That was clear in the sober expression on his face, and the very real, very raw hurt in his eyes.

His gaze skimmed down her body slowly, as if he were seeing her the way he’d seen her the last time they’d been together. The vivid memories of his passion made her throat tighten. And the realization that had been their last night together made her gut ache with loss.

He cleared his throat, turned toward his desk, and slid into his chair. With his elbows propped on the arms, he threaded his fingers over his lap. His eyes were guarded now, almost vacant in the nearly complete coverage of any unique sign of the man she’d known, making her realize just how well she’d known him. Which in turn made her feel the loss that much deeper.

She pressed her hands to the pain at the center of her body under the guise of smoothing her tank top, letting her gaze blur over the abstract pattern of colorful poppies there. But her heart was lodged in her throat, and none of the practiced speeches she’d planned out ahead of time would come to her now. In fact, her brain had gone eerily blank, and she rubbed her palm down her thigh, distinctly aware of the contrast between her pale hand and the ink-blue shade of her jeans.

“You’ve had this appointment for two weeks.”

His voice was soft, but it jarred her out of her hazy state. When she looked up, he had one hand pressed against his jaw, his index finger rubbing an absent pattern over his lower lip. And a new shadow had filled his eyes. One she couldn’t read.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the bar when I came.” She hated her apologetic tone. Would have never shown this kind of weakness to an industry professional in the field. “Didn’t know how I’d be received in town. Didn’t know where the Ryan or the Hayes family had ties to pull.”

She crossed her arms, taking a moment to look away and find some strength. Studying his beige Berber carpet she added, “But I do know how political a planning position can be, and I wanted to secure a place on your calendar without bias.”

Another long, thick silence filled the room, and Delaney frantically searched for at least one version of all those speeches she’d been practicing this afternoon.

“That’s . . . savvy.” His tone sharpened her mind. The skin along her shoulders prickled, and she cut her gaze back to his to gauge his meaning. But again, the Ethan she knew, the Ethan she could read was so well hidden inside the man sitting in front of her now, she couldn’t tell if the accusatory slant to that comment was real or imagined.

“All right then.” He sat forward, rolling his chair to his desk, his manner suddenly brisk and businesslike. “Your deadline is five p.m. tomorrow, so you’re either here to put in your application for a building permit so you can bring the building up to code and into line with the new ordinance or you’re here to discuss demolition. And since you’re consulting Trace, I assume he’ll be handling that for you. Good decision. He’s had his share of problems over the last few years, and I wouldn’t recommend him for actual construction work, but for demolition he’d be great.”

She crossed her arms, pushed from the sill, and wandered toward the guest chairs in front of his desk. One held her bag, and she sat on the edge of the other.

She could see this wasn’t going to end well. That had obviously been too much to hope for. She couldn’t blame him. But it still hurt. She certainly wouldn’t ask him to choose between her and his family or his duty to his job. And when she thought about it like that, she didn’t even know what, exactly, she’d hoped for when she’d come.

A flash of how absurd this professional, distant conversation felt derailed her civility for a moment. “So, in your book people who aren’t perfectly straight arrows can’t do quality work?”

“What? No. That’s not what I . . .” He stopped himself from sliding into the real Ethan and collected his professional veneer. “Honestly, I don’t know if Trace even has his contractor’s license anymore. I’m sure you know he went to prison for a few years on drug charges. But you don’t need a licensed contractor to take the bar down, and I think he’d give you the best deal you could find on demolition.”

His cool attitude created a ball of anger in her gut. But she had no right. He was acting like an adult, handling business like business, whereas she’d ducked him for a full day because she didn’t know what to say or how to act.

He
had every right to be angry.

She. Did. Not.

But apparently, her psyche had been hanging out with some gangbanging druggie in purgatory the day God handed out adult behavior.

Delaney clenched her teeth and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, chanting,
Stop, stop, stop
, in her head to disrupt the negative thought pattern, while Ethan opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out several forms.

“Read these over, fill them out, and drop them back off tomorrow.” He laid the papers in front of her, and Delaney blew out a slow breath as she returned her gaze to the desk. The anger had dissipated into pain, and now her eyes stung.

This is so damn stupid. Get over it.

“Even if the demolition doesn’t start right away, you won’t incur any additional fees. We can firm up all the details then.”

By the time Delaney focused on the forms, she’d passed anger, skated through sadness, and was rounding numbness. Amazing how those old survival patterns kicked in whether you wanted them or not.

“It’s telling that you’d jump to the assumption I’m going to demolish.”

“Telling?” he asked.

“Or wishful, or denial, or whatever.” She met his gaze. “I’m going to renovate, Ethan.”

She was grateful for the detachment when he sat back in his chair as if he’d been pushed, with a mixture of disbelief and anger flashing over his face.

“You’re not going to renovate,” he told her in a flash of anger. “You’re going to throw all your hard-earned money—”

He cut himself off, pressed his lips together, and got that look of determination that sharpened all his features and turned him from simply hot to five-alarm-panty-melting.

“You can’t,” he ordered with absolute authority. “You don’t have time. We talked about this almost two weeks ago. You have to have—”

“The building plan application with all supporting documentation and the application fee,” she finished, dragging an inch-thick sheaf of paper from her bag and dropping it in front of him. “There you go.”

His mouth remained open as he stared down at the neat bundle with a check attached to the first page—a completed application.

His holy-shit expression pissed her off. Despite his past compliments on her accomplishments, he still hadn’t expected her to succeed or perform in this situation. And that both hurt and angered her.

“I can’t justify throwing away tens of thousands of dollars—really, everything I have in the world—when I have the knowledge and experience to renovate that place for a profit. I know this is going to be a problem for your family. And I know that is going to make your life uncomfortable, and I really wish there was another way I could do what I need to do without causing—”

“There might be.” He looked as surprised by his own words as she was.

“What?”

He licked his lips and sat forward, and just like that she was looking into Ethan’s eyes again. The Ethan she knew. The Ethan she craved. His eyes were warm, his expression open and real and vulnerable.

“I might know someone who’d be interested in buying your liquor license.”

“Where did that . . . ?” She shook her head, confused.
“What?”

“I’m not sure how much you know about liquor licenses, but California only gives out so many, a certain number to each county based on their population. So, while yours is currently inactive, since you’ve been renewing it every year, you still own it, and you have the right to sell it to another qualified individual or company.”

Her brain stalled. Backtracked. Yes, she knew about the liquor license. Yes, she’d known about the limited supply. But after searching her mind, she realized that someone else at Pacific Coast’s Finest had dealt with procuring them for their restaurants, which was why she didn’t know anything about the ability to buy and sell them.

“I’d have to check into it some more,” he went on, “but I’m betting the license would sell for enough to cover demolition at Trace’s rate. They’re difficult to come by around here.”

Seventy-five grand? The license was worth at least
seventy-five grand
? Why hadn’t anyone told her this two weeks ago?

“And I’d be interested in buying your dad’s old stills out back. I could convert them into brewing kettles.” The more he talked, the more animated he became and the deeper Delaney got sucked back into those old feelings. “You could end up coming out of this in the short term with some cash in your pocket until the land sells, at which point you’ll be well in the black.”

He sat back, his face alight with the excitement. He was freaking adorable. And she was—dammit—she was crazy about him. Nothing was going to protect her from that.

Ethan laughed, his eyes shining. “You could actually see something good come of that place after all.”

That statement T-boned her thoughts.

See something good come of that place?
That sounded exactly like Jack.

The warm spot inside her went cold. “Let me guess who you know offhand with a cool seventy, eighty grand in cash at their disposal to toss away on a liquor license. Specifically, the liquor license to The Bad Seed. Your uncle.”

Ethan looked as if he’d been hit with a bat. “What?”

As soon as that first puzzle piece had been placed, the rest fit together instantly. “And let me guess who suggested your uncle put up the money to buy the license. Your father.”

Anger flashed over his face. “No.” He drew a breath and continued in a more controlled tone. “No, someone I’m doing business with mentioned it to me a few hours ago. It didn’t occur to me as a viable option until just now. One that would allow you to cut ties to the place with a few bucks in your pocket.”

Anger turned to fury and surged from deep in her belly and spiked her body. She was so damned
sick
of being discounted and underestimated.

“My experience and my knowledge are worth more than a
few bucks
. In fact, it’s looking like they’re worth close to
a million bucks
in this situation.” She found that steely place inside her, the one that had gotten her through all her lowest points in life, and rooted herself. “Whether you believe that or not makes absolutely no difference in this situation, because I’ll prove it when I turn that dump into a million-dollar property. And you can tell Jack and Wayne the same thing I told you two weeks ago—this time I’ll leave Wildwood when
I decide
it’s time to leave Wildwood. No one is going to push me, force me, or
buy me
out of here.”

She surged to her feet and hiked her purse up on her shoulder, grateful for the anger that would get her out of there before she fell apart.

“Hold on—that’s not . . .” He stood as she turned for the door. “Come on, Delaney. Let’s talk about this. Where are you going to come up with the kind of money you need to renovate that place? Where are you going to find the labor force required to take on this size job? You’re not at Pacific Coast anymore. You don’t have unlimited resources.”

Perfect.
This was just perfect. Having
a man
assume she couldn’t handle a renovation similar to those she’d performed successfully more than two dozen times, while being reminded of the job she’d loved and lost because
a man
had abused those very abilities . . .

God, irony
sucked
.

Delaney met his gaze directly. “The other night you called me the renovation guru of the West Coast. Now you don’t think I can handle one project?”

He got that well-shit look on his face. “I didn’t mean—”

“There are three yellow stickies denoting locations in the plans we should just talk about now.” She decided to get all the preliminary talking points out of the way to limit the need for future meetings. “They’re the only areas open to interpretation that could cause conflict, and I’d like to get that out of the way. I really want this to go smoothly. This is going to be hard enough on both of us as it is. I don’t want to cause any undue stress or conflict.”

He heaved a breath that seemed to come from the bottom of his lungs, closed his eyes, and rubbed his face with both hands. After scraping all ten fingers through his hair, he bent, slapped his palms to his desk, and read over the first noted item.

While he listened to her requested modifications, Ethan’s jaw muscles flexed. The sight reminded Delaney of his restraint in bed and the lengths to which he’d gone to please her. The hole in her gut burned hotter, and she had to look away.

After some back-and-forth, he ultimately agreed to all her requests, flipped the packet closed, and dropped into his chair.

Delaney relaxed a little. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” he muttered without looking up.

Delaney rolled her eyes.

When he met her gaze again, his walls were down. He looked as exhausted and miserable as she felt. She couldn’t bring herself to leave, but she knew anything she said would end up in an argument. He must have felt the same way, because he didn’t speak either.