Page 1 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

1

JENNA

The U-Haul's air conditioning quits somewhere around the Nebraska line, and by the time I cross into Colorado the whole cab smells like sunscreen, goldfish crackers, and the particular sourness of eight-year-old socks. I crack the window another inch and tell myself the mountain air will fix everything once we get there. It always looks that way in the pictures. I've never actually seen Pinewood Ridge except in pictures.

"Mom." Eli's voice comes from the back seat, flat and urgent in the way that means business. "I need to pee."

"You said that twenty minutes ago."

"I need to pee again."

Josie doesn't look up from the coloring book balanced on her knees. "He drank the whole thermos."

"I was thirsty."

"You're always thirsty. That's not an excuse. That's a personality."

I laugh before I can stop myself, and something in my chest loosens for the first time since Ohio. Eight years old and already sharper than half the adults I left behind.

The dashboard clock says quarter past three. My interview is at four, and I still don't know where the brewery is, only that Main Street is supposed to be impossible to miss in a town this size. I pull off at the first gas station I see, a squat building with a hand-painted sign that says PINEWOOD RIDGE FUEL & FEED, and Eli is out the door and sprinting before I've fully stopped the truck.

"Walk," I call after him. "Please, for the love of God, just once, walk."

He does not walk.

Josie climbs out slower, dragging her backpack by one strap, and stands next to me squinting at the mountains like she's deciding whether to trust them. They're bigger than anything either of the twins has grown up with, dark green going to blue at the top, and for a moment I understand the squint completely. It's a lot of mountain to trust all at once.

"Is this it?" she asks. "Is this where we live now?"

"This is close to where we live now."

"Is it far from the ocean?"

We have never lived anywhere near an ocean. I don't correct her. "Pretty far, yeah."

"Good," she says, with the total conviction of a kid who has decided something and doesn't need reasons. "I didn't like the ocean anyway."

I know exactly what she means, and I don't ask her to explain it, because some things are easier left unsaid between two people who already understand each other.

By the time Eli reappears, looking smug and significantly lighter, we've lost ten minutes I don't have. I buckle them both back in, merge onto Main Street, and start scanning storefronts for anything that says brewery. What I find instead is a barn, a big one with red paint faded to the color of an old brick, two enormous doors thrown open at the front, and a hand-carved sign hanging crooked above them that reads RIDGELINE BREWING CO. There's no parking lot to speak of, just a gravel apron wide enough for a few trucks, and I ease the U-Haul into the space furthest from the door like that'll make it less obvious I'm driving a twenty-six-foot rental into a job interview.

"We're here," I say, mostly to myself.

"Can we come in?" Eli's already got his seatbelt off.

"No. You're staying in the truck with a book and a very serious face while I go in and be a professional adult."

"I don't have a book."

"Then you're staying in the truck with a very serious face and nothing else."

I should have known better. I've known these two for eight years, and I should have known exactly how long that plan would last: about ninety seconds, roughly how long it takes me to grab my folder of resumes off the passenger seat and walk around to check the U-Haul's lock. When I turn back around, both car doors are hanging open and two small figures are sprinting straight for the barn.

"Eli. Josie."

They don't stop. Of course they don't stop. I take off after them at a dead run in flats that were not built for gravel, through the open doors, past a wall of stacked grain sacks that smell like warm bread, and into a cavern of a room full of steel tanks taller than I am, all of it lit by high dusty windows in gold afternoon light. It's beautiful, actually, in the single heartbeat I have to notice. Then I see where the twins have stopped dead in the middle of the floor, and I see why, and I stop noticing the room at all.

He's enormous. That's the first thing my brain manages to process, before it gets to any of the finer details. He's six foot something, broad enough that he could probably block the doorway just standing there, arms crossed over his chest. There's a pale line of scar tissue disappearing under the rolled sleeve of his flannel, and his face has the stillness of a man doing math he doesn't like the answer to. He is looking down at my children like they might detonate.