Chapter One
Five Months Ago
Kellwood, Missouri
There was a difference between making love and fucking. Both were fun and—hopefully—got you to the same place, but they were as different as sweet and sour. Natalie Sweet had done a lot of the first, but only a little of the second and as she silently slid one leg from between the sheets, she realized she wanted more.
The wood floor’s early morning cold burned her toes as she eased her weight off the king–sized bed, wincing when the man sprawled across it grumbled in his sleep.
She froze.
Natalie held her position and her breath until Max rolled over, revealing the Lincoln State University bulldog mascot tattooed on his left shoulder. Even as she was in the process of sneaking out like a naked thief in the night, she couldn’t help but sigh at the head football coach’s muscular back. Lincoln may be an NCAA Division Two school, but Max had a Division One body and the hunky brain to go with it.
And if she wasn’t a half–nuts Sweet from Salvation, Virginia, she would have taken him up on his post–coital offer. But she hadn’t…couldn’t. Max was a good guy, but he wasn’t ever going to be her guy. The sex was amazing, but that’s all it was for her—sex.
She swept her neatly folded pink cardigan, cream skirt, and taupe underwear up off the chair, scooped her black Mary Janes from the floor, and clutched them to her chest as she tiptoed to the bedroom door.
“Not even a goodbye kiss on the cheek?” Max tsk–tsked. “And you’re usually so particular about protocol.”
Natalie halted mid–step, her nose scrunched up and shoulders hunched. “I didn’t want to wake you,” she managed to squeak out.
He sighed. “I didn’t mean to freak you out last night.”
Yep. They were going to have this conversation. Goodie, goodie gumdrops. “You didn’t.” She turned around and the you–are–totally–full–of–shit expression on his face made her laugh out loud. “Okay. You did. But it’s not you. Really. It’s me.”
“Wow.” Max rubbed the scruff on his chin. “Normally I’m the one saying that line.”
She couldn’t do this naked. It just wasn’t proper. Natalie dressed in thirty–four seconds; she knew because she’d time it repeatedly in high school until she’d eliminated every unnecessary move and shaved every extra second from the action.
Once clothed, she put on her dark–rimmed glasses and ran her fingers across her pearl necklace. Dealing with anxiety had been a daily battle that she’d waged for most of her life. Thanks to Dr. Kenning, a shitload of yoga, and her devotion to creating order from chaos, she hadn’t had a panic attack in years.
Comforted—as always—by her personal talisman, Natalie faced Max. “You are an amazing guy—”
“Ouch.” He slapped his palm over his heart as if he’d been shot. “Friend zoned.”
“You’re such a goof.” Which was one of the things she really liked about Max. He always made her laugh and he was completely direct, which was what led to this conversation in the first place. No one ever said the truth was comfortable. “We’ve been friends with benefits for…what…three months?”
He nodded. “Sounds about right.”
She squared her shoulders. Now to lay it all out in a straightforward manner, just like during a client presentation about an efficiency strategy. She could do this. She had a black belt in compartmentalizing. “And we both came into it with our eyes open. I was totally honest and upfront about my disinterest in a relationship, as were you.”
“Yes. The efficiency expert explained it all very methodically, although I was disappointed in the lack of a PowerPoint.” Max said it with a smile, but there was an underlying hurt in his tone.
Guilt pricked her conscience because she really did care about Max. This was why she had always separated sex from any feeling beyond companionship. It got messy, and messy things were, by definition, illogical and disorderly. Two things that had always given Natalie cold sweats and psychological tremors.
“I didn’t realize something had changed for you,” she said.
“But not for you.”
Her shoulders drooped. “Not for me.” God, she wished she had a different answer.
Max scrubbed at his buzz–cut black hair as if he were washing out the past few months. “Is it not for you just with me or not for you with anyone?”
“I don’t know, but I need to find out.” It was past time, really.
He wrapped the soft blue sheet around his lean hips and strutted over to her, every inch of him looking as though he’d just stepped off the professional gridiron a month ago instead of five years. Damn. He was a walking orgasm and she had just turned down his proposal to date exclusively. Maybe there was something to the idea that all the Sweets were born with a self–destructive crazy gene.
“Change is a bitch.” Max tucked a finger under her chin and tilted her face up so she had no choice but to look into his kind brown eyes. “Don’t ever let her see you sweat.”
“That wouldn’t be very productive.” Her voice wobbled with regret. Max’s only sin was wanting more than her firmly boxed–up heart could give him.
“And everyone knows you won’t put up with that.” He brushed his lips across her forehead in a petal–soft kiss before smacking her ass like a football player about to storm the field. “Now get out of here before I drag you back into bed for goodbye sex.”
Natalie held it together for the two minutes and fourteen seconds it took her to exit Max’s apartment, cross the parking lot, and barricade herself behind her Honda Civic’s locked doors. Only then did she give in to the tremble shaking her bottom lip and rest her forehead against the cold steering wheel.
For once, she didn’t count the seconds as her shoulders shook and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Eventually the wetness dried, exhaustion replaced the shaking, and her composure returned.
“Whining and whimpering never solved anything.” She pulled a tissue from the box kept in the glove compartment and patted it under her eye. She took a steadying breath before hooking her fingers in her pearl necklace and repeating her mantra. “See a problem. Fix a problem. There’s a process for everything.”
But what was the solution when the problem was her?
She glanced down at her phone to reread the text her older sister, Miranda, had sent yesterday. Well, older by all of three minutes. The same amount of time she was older than her little sister, Olivia. She brought up the message.
MIRANDA: THIS PLACE IS A TWENTY–FIVE ON A TEN POINT NIGHTMARE SCALE. I NEED AN EFFICIENCY EXPERT TO HELP GET THE BREWERY ONLINE. ANY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FOLKS IN THE AREA WHO WON’T KILL MY BUDGET?
Her Uncle Julian, who’d left h
er and her sisters a worn–down craft brewery when he died, had sworn all the threes in the triplets’ lives were good luck. If they were, she’d yet to experience it.
Her fingers stilled on her pearl necklace.
Salvation.
Maybe it wasn’t what the solution to her problem was, but where.
If she were researching the source of her aversion to relationships, starting at the beginning made sense. For added value, she’d get to see her older sister and could help put the brewery back on the path to profitability. It was a win–win.
Turning the key in the ignition, Natalie started organizing her schedule in her head. None of the clients at her fledgling consulting firm needed her on location. She could as easily streamline their systems from Salvation, Virginia, as she could from Kellwood, Missouri.
She pulled out onto the street, invigorated by the prospect of a shiny new problem to fix and finally finding a solution to an old one.
Chapter Two