Page 56 of Best Kind of Trouble
I like Liam more than I should, way more than I planned to.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BRIAR
After Nora, Dottie, and Otis leave, I expect Liam to retreat into himself again. I have calls to make, and the brewery is big enough that we don’t need to be in each other’s company. But he follows our guests to the door and stands beside me as they walk away. I feel him next to me, looming.
“Sit with me a minute,” he says.
“That didn’t sound like a question.”
“Wasn’t.” He studies me before adding, “I’m going to pour you a drink before we talk.”
Tension grips me. “So it’sthatkind of talk.”
The grim line of his mouth confirms he’s about to unleash bad news. “Let me get you that drink.”
I grab his wrist before he can walk away. “I don’t want to be that person,” I explain, releasing him. “I don’t need something to prop me up for bad news. I want to be able to handle it. Icanhandle it.”
This time he gives me the same look he gave Nora earlier.
God, his respect feels good. I want to drink it down.
“Okay,” he says, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Let’s sit.”
We settle across from each other at one of the tasting room tables, and as he gets settled, his leg glances against mine again. I know he didn’t do it on purpose—he’s a big man with long, thick legs—but it lends to the feeling of intimacy.
Outside, people keep bustling past the brewery, peering in through the window and pausing to read Liam’s handwritten sign, but inside it’s cozy and warm and still smells of sage. We’re in a world all our own, tucked in together.
But I don’t have long to savor the feeling.
He brushes a hand over his short beard. “I’m just going to come out and say it.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
He smiles so briefly I could have imagined it, then gets to the point. “The brewery’s not organic. Based on what I’ve seen in the stockroom, it hasn’t been for a long while.”
His words ripple over me before stabbing in. I swear and then press my face into my hands, which is as close to burying it in the sand as I can manage right now.
“Yeah, pretty much,” he says.
I don’t even know where to begin. Neither does he, apparently. We settle into a stark silence, during which I don’t see anything except the orangish glow between my fingers. Then his chair screeches back, and his big, warm hand cups one of my shoulders.
He doesn’t speak. He just keeps his hand there, his fingers rotating slightly, caressing me. His heat seeps into me, becoming my own.
“My father,” I finally say. “He…do you think he knew?”
I certainly wouldn’t put it past Bubba to cut corners and maybe pocket the difference between organic and regular supplies.
“I don’t know. But I guess we’ll have plenty to talk about at dinner with your parents next week.”
I lift my face from my hands and peer up at him.
He slides his hand off my shoulder and caresses it down my upper arm, sending pulses of sensation through my sweater. His gaze holds me captive. His mouth, of course, lifts into a mischievous smile.
“You’re trouble,” I say softly, the word crackling between us. But the moment of levity vanishes as I’m hit with the weight of what that dinner with my father would actually be like. “He won’t appreciate being ambushed in his own home.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “If he’s done nothing wrong, it won’t be an ambush. Maybe he’ll want to take legal action against Bubba or kick his ass.”
