Sassy Blonde (Three Chicks Brewery 1)

“I’ll take that into consideration.” Then he dropped his mouth and kissed her until they were both breathing deep.

Beckett heaved a long sigh. “I am here with you, you know.”

Hayes leaned away, giving Beckett a shit-eating grin, and reached for him. “Come here, bud. I’ll give you a kiss too.”

Beckett responded with a hard punch to the shoulder, sending the men into laughter.

Maisie shook her head at them and reached into her pocket as her cell rang. She looked the screen. “Hi, Clara,” she answered.

“I need you. Come home.”

Clara never needed anyone or anything, and the tremble in her voice sent a cold blade of ice into Maisie’s gut. “What’s happened?”

“I can’t explain over the phone. Just come home. Alone.”

The line went dead. Maisie stared at the phone, a thousand questions swirling in her mind.

Hayes’s strong hand slid along her back. “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know.”

She looked up at him. “I need to go home. Something’s happened. Clara’s upset.”

Hayes handed Beckett the tack. “I’ll come with you.”

“No,” Maisie countered, pressing a hand against his strong, damp chest. “She wants me alone. I’ll call you soon. Promise.” She pressed a quick kiss to his lips and ran to her MINI.

The drive home should have taken twenty minutes. She got there in eleven. Once she reached the house, she threw the car into park and ran up the porch steps into the house. Mason was nowhere in sight, but she found Amelia and Clara sitting around the kitchen table. Three glasses of scotch already there. Uh-oh. Scotch always meant trouble. “What’s happened?” Maisie asked, scared to move.

Clara finally lifted her head, her skin ashen. “It’s Sullivan.”

Maisie exchanged a long look with Amelia, who shrugged. Sullivan Keene was Clara’s one true love. They’d had a passionate romance during college. Everyone thought they’d get married. Until he moved to New York City to be a professional baseball player, leaving Clara brokenhearted at home. “What about Sullivan?”

Clara visibly swallowed. “Today, as you know, I went to the distributor who showed interest in Foxy Diva.”

“Yes,” Maisie said.

“Sullivan was there,” Clara barely whispered. “He’s stepped back from baseball for a bit, I guess, and his uncle owns the distribution company. He’s been there helping out.”

“Okay,” Maisie said, taking a seat across from Clara. “Got it.”

Clara stared down into her scotch glass, slowly shaking her head. “This is bad. So bad.”

Maisie exchanged a long look with Amelia, who turned to Clara and said, “You’re going to have to fill in the missing pieces. I’m not really getting why this is bad enough to make you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Clara reached for her glass of scotch and downed the entire thing in one gulp. She slammed the glass down and wiped her mouth, very unladylike. Very unlike Clara. “His uncle is sending him to check out the brewery.”

Maisie tried to piece things together. “Which is bad because you’re still hurt, and you don’t want to see him again?”

“No.” Clara shook her head, adamant. When she looked between the sisters, she took a deep, pained breath and closed her eyes. “It’s not that I don’t want to see him. It’s who I don’t want him to see.”

Amelia’s eyes widened.

Maisie now understood. Every suspicion Maisie and Amelia ever had made sense, especially because Mason had a killer arm and seemed to have natural talent at baseball. “Because Sullivan is Mason’s father?”

Clara stole Maisie’s glass and downed that one too. “Yup, and he’s coming here tomorrow to take a look at the brewery, having no idea that he’s about to meet the kid he never knew about.”

Maisie parted her lips and shut them, having no words.