Hollywood on Tap (Sweet Salvation Brewery 2)

Easing his foot off the break, the SUV rolled into the intersection before making a right turn and heading toward the brewery and Natalie.

Chapter Nine

With four hours to go until most of the brewery staff left, Natalie was officially going stir–crazy waiting for something—anything—to go wrong. If she stayed another minute in her office, she was going to start accessorizing with a straightjacket instead of pearls.

Armed with her clipboard, her red pen, and the anxiety jitters reminiscent of downing ten shots of espresso, she marched out of her office on a mission. She’d find Sean, work out a schedule for the stakeout tonight, and plot a course of action for when they found the son of a bitch messing with her brewery.

Turning the corner, she crossed into Sean’s office. “Hey, about tonight.” She looked up from her clipboard and almost dropped it.

The office was empty.

And clean.

“Holy shit,” she muttered to herself as she walked in slow motion around the space.

The paper towers were gone, as were the coffee mugs that had littered Sean’s desk. The overturned pen holder had been righted and filled. The stack of brochures sat in the inbox with the brewers invitational on top. He’d said last night that he’d found the paperwork in the third pile he searched, but she hadn’t thought…

She shuffled over to the filing cabinets. Only the smallest line of sticky residue remained of the tape holding the drawers shut yesterday. Wondering if it was a dream, she yanked open the top drawer. Perfectly organized files filled it. They weren’t color–coded, but it was a start.

“Not one word.” Sean stood in the doorway, one shoulder propped up against the doorframe and his mouth sealed in a straight line.

Natalie blinked in surprised and opened her mouth.

He held up his hand. “I mean it.”

He had to be kidding. It was a total office makeover. He deserved high praise. “But it’s so—”

“I’ll take all the paper out and scatter it.” It wasn’t an idle threat. The stubborn man would do it.

She preached the gospel of organization and efficiency with the zeal of a born–again devotee. She couldn’t let that happen. So instead of a well–deserved “I told you so”, she pursed her lips and mimicked locking them closed with a pretend key that she tossed over her shoulder.

Shaking his head, he pushed off the doorframe and strutted across the room, stopping a foot from the filing cabinets. Too far away to touch, but too close to ignore the tension winding up her insides like a rubber band airplane. Unable to have what she wanted, Natalie clutched her clipboard close enough that the metal clip scratched her collarbone, a discomfort that registered dimly in the back of her mind.

Sean moved closer, slid the clipboard free from her grasp, and turned it over to read. “What’s on the agenda today?”

Yielding ground to give herself breathing room, the back of her thighs hit Sean’s desk. Pull it together, girl. “A schedule for tonight, a contingency plan for if he shows up, and another one for if he doesn’t.”

He flipped through the pages. “You’re kidding, right?”

Why would she be? She’d never been a girl to leave things to chance and she wasn’t starting now. “No.”

Sean tossed the clipboard over her head. It landed on the desk with a clatter and skidded to the edge, teetering for a second before staying put on the flat surface. “You need to focus on something else.”

“I can’t.” She twisted around to grab her clipboard, feeling as lost without it as an alien in rush–hour traffic.

Before she could grasp it, he took her by the hand and pulled her toward the door. “Come on.”

Heated electricity tingled up her arm, dancing across her skin, danger and a comfort jolted her system. “Where?”

“My office.”

“We’re in your office.” She took one last glance around before crossing into the hallway.

He turned, his face only inches from hers, an icy determination in his eyes. “No. The real one.”

Calling the Sweet Salvation Brewery’s reference library a “room” was being kind. Roughly the same size as Natalie’s walk–in closet, the room had books about everything from the history of hops to the modern brewery operations and everything in between. A worn stool sat in the corner next to a small table crowded with spiral notebooks and handwritten diagrams listing various beer ingredients’ properties.

When she’d first gotten to the brewery, she’d poured over the books to better understand how breweries worked. Then she’d moved on to the internet and interviewing everyone from other brewery owners to the staff at the National Craft Brewers Association.