He was wrong. It was the quiet ones who were dangerous as hell, but she couldn’t get the words out to correct him. She couldn’t even move. Truth be told, she didn’t want to put even a millimeter more space between them. The foot between them was too much already.
Wrong. It was so achingly wrong, but it felt so good in the short term that she didn’t care. Which was exactly what had gotten her to the point in her life where she compartmentalized sex so much that fuck buddies had become a way of life. She’d relationship–blocked herself one time too many and she was done with it. But something about Sean was different. He wasn’t like her past boyfriends, the ones she could steamroll right over and remold into her preferred type.
It took everything she had, but she took a step back, far enough that the metal filing cabinet handles jabbed her in the spine. The pain was a physical manifestation of the yowling protest deep in her core.
Sometimes fixing a problem hurt like a bitch.
As if waking from a hypnotic state, Sean shook his head. He took off his hat and ran his hand through his thick, wavy, jaw–length hair, revealing a three–inch jagged scar. At that angle, with the light hitting him just right, a memory struggled to break through the haze. Something familiar and yet unknown tugged at her subconscious.
“What?”
An electric spark danced up her arm, setting off a chain–reaction tingle that put a little loosey–goosey in her step. “You remind me of someone.”
He jerked the hat back on and hunched his shoulders. “Who’s that?”
“I don’t know, but it’ll come to me.”
He shoved the hat back on and pulled the brim low. “Must have one of those faces.”
“No, it’s more than that.” A picture formed in her mind. A man. A porch swing. A bunch of daisies. Damn, it was so clear and yet so fuzzy. “It’s right on the edge of my brain, like when something’s right on the tip of your tongue but you can’t remember it for the life of you.”
He grunted.
She opened her mouth to tease him for his normal noncommittal response—
But the emergency siren blared in the hall and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
Chapter Five
Sean was out the door before his brain had finished processing the blaring alert loud enough to wake the dead three states away. Natalie matched him step for step as he booked it down the narrow hallway toward the swinging brewery doors.
In a brewery, things could get Chewbacca hairy in a heartbeat.
For example, a guy in Maryland had passed out while driving his forklift in the cooler because the area hadn’t been properly ventilated and the carbon monoxide emitted from the forklift got to him. He wasn’t discovered in time and ended up dying from carbon monoxide poisoning. And a man in California had lost several fingers when they got caught in the metal shaft of the conveyor system. Bottling machines across the country had maimed dozens of brewery employees.
They’d already dealt with the fermentation valve malfunctioning this morning. He hated to even imagine what unholy hell awaited him on the other side of the brewery doors.
No one would set the emergency alarm off just for shits and giggles.
He paused, his palm flat against the wood, his protective instincts rushing to the forefront. “Wait in the office.”
Natalie angled her chin up, showing just how ready she was for a fight. “Why?”
Realization, armed with flashy brass knuckles, gave him a quick one–two to the jaw.
Because it matters if she gets hurt. Not that it didn’t with anyone else at the brewery, but…Sean shoved whatever thought came next into a deep hole.
“Just do it.” He pushed the door open and walked straight into the all–encompassing arms of total fucking chaos.
In the middle of the brewery floor, three guys were wrestling an out–of–control hose the size of a fireman’s water hose that was flying around like a python on steroids. The hose twisted and turned, cutting off access to the shutoff valve that controlled it. But water wasn’t spraying out of the nozzle, so what in the hell was making it do that? One of the men, Mike, dove for the hose and flattened it.
“Turn the hose off,” Sean hollered.
“We already did, the valve won’t shut off,” Mike said.
He started to sprint toward the commotion when someone grabbed his T–shirt and yanked him backwards.
“Watch out!” Natalie yelled over the uproar on the brewery floor.