The Good Chase (11 page)

“I'll give it a try. I like a good challenge. Although”—she slid him a look—“I might need something in my mouth.”

“
Jesus
, Shea.” He shifted in his seat. “Such a dirty mind on that homeschooled girl.”

“It's years and years of repression coming out. Lucky you.”

There was a long pause before he murmured, “Yes. Lucky me.”

Then they drove in silence for a time, the lovely New Hampshire summer evening passing by on the other side of the windows.

“You know,” she finally said, because she was in an honest mood, “you intrigued me last year. I told Jen I wasn't interested in you and managed to convince myself of the same, but I secretly was.”

He sighed. “I'm kind of glad I didn't know what I've been missing this whole year.”

Out of everything he'd ever said to her, that made her shiver with warmth and also bow her head in a twinge of regret. Because she'd been the one to turn him down last year. Just look at what she could've had.

And it was only the beginning.

Up ahead, Route 6 veered southwest into a little piece of New Hampshire where old trees and quiet evenings made for a beautiful state park campground. A green sign with an arrow even pointed toward it. But another road, a narrower lane without lines, forked off to the right and disappeared around a bend. When she saw it, she caught her breath.

Releasing her foot from the gas, the car slowed to a stop on the shoulder of Route 6.

Byrne turned to her. “Something wrong?”

She stared out the windshield at the right-hand fork and felt the tug on her heart. “No, nothing's wrong.” Hands still on the wheel, she turned to him. “When are you going back to the city?”

“First thing tomorrow. Ass-crack of dawn, most likely.”

“Me, too. Are you up for a little detour? I'd like to show you something.”

She hadn't known she wanted to do this when they'd climbed in her car back at the games. It was a big deal—to her, at least. But the thing was, she
wanted
to share this with him, and she wouldn't get another chance if she drove past it now.

“Now I'm the one who's intrigued,” he said. “I'm yours tonight. Wherever you want to go.”

She smiled, released her foot from the brake, and accelerated off Route 6 and onto the unmarked road.

The countryside was beautiful along the state highway, but the area that opened up along this one particular hidden road was breathtaking. Green hills rolled up on either side, the road skirted gracefully around them, and her car was like a surfer negotiating waves. They drove past little glens, golden with wildflowers, green with new grass, and haphazardly divided by meandering white fences. The lowering light made everything rosy and hazy and lovely.

“Wow,” he breathed next to her. “It's gorgeous.”

“And that's not even the half of it.” She steered with her left hand and held up her right index finger. “Wait for it . . .”

“Wait for what?”

Up ahead, the road narrowed to one lane as a stone bridge arched over a creek and entered a pass sheltered by two silver cliffs. She smiled to herself when she saw the bridge and slowed the car.

“Wait . . .” she whispered.

The car rolled over the stones on the bridge and entered the shadowed pass. When they came out the other side, the cliffs abruptly dropped away, sunlight hit the windshield in a glorious burst, and she turned into the secret valley that she'd been dreaming about for a year.

“
There
,” she said. “Did you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“The portal into another world. Going over that bridge and coming through those rocks, that's what it feels like to me. We're not in the lake valley or anywhere near Gleann. We're . . . here.”

“A portal, huh?” He slowly turned in his seat to face her, a strange smile ticking up one corner of his mouth. When she glanced at him, his eyes were shining. “You don't read science fiction or fantasy by any chance, do you?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Damn. For a second there I was attracted to you.”

Her heart did a somersault.

“Where's this portal lead? Alien world? Human settlement on the moon? Faerie castle?”

She loved how she could hear him smile, even though she couldn't turn to look.

She came around a familiar curve—butterflies of excitement turning in her stomach—then went up a high hill. Once she reached the crest, she slowed the car again and pulled over to the side of the road.

“It leads to here,” she told him. “Get out and I'll show you.”

As she came around the hood, he exited the car. Only ten feet off the road rose a set of rotted, slanting steps leading up to the decrepit front porch of quite possibly the smallest house ever built. The windows were boarded up, the grass overgrown.

Byrne scratched his head. “What is this place?”

“Not the house.” She nodded to the side where a rusted swing set stood. “Follow me.”

And he did. She skirted around the abandoned house and stepped into the sprawling, sloped backyard that opened up into the most gorgeous valley she'd ever seen on any continent.

Layers of gentle hills stretched back toward the sunset. Low stone walls divided the land into trapezoids and lopsided pentagons. In the distance, where two hills dipped down to the valley floor and touched like lovers, rose an immense stone house. Vines crawled all over the facade, five chimneys popped up from the right and left wings, and a porte cochere stretched over a circular gravel drive. The double front door was massive, rounded at the top, and to Shea, it looked like the perfect entrance to a perfect home.

Just beyond the house rose the peaks of an old barn, also made of stone. Several other, smaller buildings were scattered around the grounds, like children milling about a mother's skirt. The driveway that branched off the main road was blocked by a chained, iron gate.

Shea opened her arms, encompassing the whole valley, the entire farm. “The portal leads here.”

Byrne stood next to her on the rise overlooking it all. “It's beautiful. Really, really beautiful.”

She took a deep breath. “It's my Scotland.”

He turned to her. “Your Scotland?”

“Yes. It reminds me so much of over there. The stone walls, the way the mist settles in the early morning. That house is exactly like some of the huge manor homes that are all over the country. I even looked up this one's history. It was built by Gleann's founders, so the place is Scottish to its core. It's like they scoured the whole New Hampshire mountain range to find the one place that reminded them most of home.”

A rusted metal bench sat in the long grass near a dried-up pond, and she went over to sit. When Byrne sat next to her, the thing gave a groan and they both laughed nervously, but it held.

“Isn't the campground the opposite way from here? How'd you find this place?”

“Driving around last year, after the cow destroyed my tent and I served what little whisky was left. I was mad and needed to cool off, so I went exploring. When I came out from between the rocks and saw this view, I almost got in a wreck, almost hit that tree back there. I must've sat on this bench for hours, but it still wasn't long enough, because I came back early the next morning. I saw how the dawn fog made everything even more perfect.”

She pointed to the drive that circled around the back of the house toward the barn. “There's a huge amount of open land that stretches beyond. Old servants' quarters. A pond.”

He nodded at the chained gate. “You bad homeschooled girl, you.”

She rolled angelic eyes toward the sky. “It's been empty for a while now. I didn't hurt anyone.” She sighed contentedly. “This is the best view, though. You can see everything from here.”

Pulling one leg up next to her on the bench, she clasped her hands around her knee. The sun kept dropping, the shadows getting longer and longer, the temperature going down as the wind picked up.

“It's for sale,” she said.

He said nothing for several long moments, then asked, “Do
you
want to buy it?”

That was the question of the century, wasn't it?

She stared at that front door and imagined herself pushing the key into the lock and walking inside. In her mind she saw smoke curling from several of the chimneys and a border collie hopping gleefully over the low rock wall.

“I've been dreaming about buying it for a year now.”

“Really?” It wasn't incredulity, not laughter, that he responded with. As he searched her face, he did so with what she could only describe as a dazed wonder.

She nodded, hugged her knee closer. “Uh-huh.”

“For what? What would you do with it? Start your own Von Trapp clan?”

Could she tell him? The question lingered in her mind for only a breath, because the answer was apparent. Yes, she could tell Byrne.
This
Byrne. The one with the dirt under his fingernails and the quiet understanding.

“I want to start my own distillery. Bourbon, rye, blends, specialty liqueurs, you name it. I've been wanting to do it for years now, I just didn't know I wanted this to be the location until I stumbled upon it last year.”

Faintly, far in the distance, came the rumble of thunder. Erratic clouds over the hills and house made for the beginning of a dramatic sunset.

Shea swept a finger across the landscape. “The barn is perfect for the stills, plenty of room. The outbuildings could hold the barrels for aging, and there's enough room to get trucks in and out. With all this land I could eventually grow my own grains. Wouldn't that be cool, to have a closed loop like that?”

Holding up both hands, framing the house between L's made with her thumbs and forefingers, she said, “I could live in and run my business from the house. And then, when the distillery picked up, I could turn one wing into a B and B or a hotel, like some of the old manor homes in Scotland have done. Help Gleann attract more visitors. There's enough room for a restaurant, too. Something like a farm-to-table place that I could pair with my own whiskeys?” She let her hands drop, let her back sag against the bench.

“Shea, I . . .”

She shouldn't have been scared to find out what he thought, but she was. A little.

He braced one hand on the back of the bench. An excited light danced in his eyes. “What on earth is stopping you?”

She laughed. “Money, first of all. Do you know how much all this land and all these buildings cost?”

“How much?”

She told him. It had a lot of zeroes.

“That's a steal. This valley is wheezing. It's coming back to life, but it's still pretty sickly. Grab it now, while you can.”

She cringed. “Of course it's a ‘steal' for someone like you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Take my job out of this. That doesn't mean anything. I know the price of dreams very, very well, believe me. The meaning of a dollar or a thousand or a couple of million is not lost on me. Not when dreams are on the line.”

She desperately wanted to ask about the passionate way he stabbed a finger into his knee with each word, but he kept going.

“What are you doing to work toward it?”

Grabbing her hair, she twisted it over one shoulder. “Right now, I'm saving like crazy. I guess I'm going to try to get preapproved for a mortgage and then apply for a business loan, but I don't know if I can get what it will cost to buy this place, fix it all up the way I want, and also get the distillery going. In the end, it may be easier to start a boutique distillery back in the city. Something I don't need a mortgage for. Something that doesn't require as much up front. I could hold on to the Amber that way, too.”

“Would you let the Amber go otherwise?”

“For this place? Yes. I'm growing out of it. My dreams are bigger than it. It was a stepping-stone that I'm very grateful to have found, but I want more.”

“You could sell it.”

She answered carefully. Slowly. “I could. I could use the money to start up the distillery, but then I'd lose my only source of guaranteed income.” When he cocked a questioning eyebrow, she added, “After getting everything up and running, which will take a lot of time and serious overhead, and then after distilling and barreling, I couldn't even
begin
to think about selling any whiskey for at least two years while the first batch ages. And that's just for the younger bottles. I'd go at least three.”

“Ah. Right.” He gazed out at the house. “But you're also Shea Montgomery. Judging by my very limited exposure, I'd say a good portion of your customers, and a lot of others in the liquor world, would climb over one another to get at your own brand of whiskey.”

Brand
. That word again.

Pierce Whitten's business card flashed in her mind. Followed by the image of a bikini-clad model holding Shea-brand whiskey bottles by their necks.

“Are you scared?” Byrne asked.

She thought about that. “The last time I felt like this, I was just about to open the Amber.”

“See? There you go. Look how perfect that turned out.”

She pressed her lips together, remembering that time. “Circumstances were . . . different.”

He gave her a look that was clearly a prompt for more, but she couldn't tell him all about that. Not yet, anyway.

“That's fine.” He slowly rose, smiling down at her. “I like a woman with a little mystery.” He breathed on his knuckles, then rubbed them on the front of his shirt. “Got a little mystery going myself.”

What was he doing to her, this man? How did he manage to be so intelligent and charming and ambitious and really fucking hot all at the same time?

She wanted to ask him so much. She wanted to know about his life and his dreams. His mystery. But she also just wanted
him
, and their time here—on this side of the portal, in this quiet little world so far removed from the city—was shrinking by the second.