Miranda laughed. “Touché.”
Needing to pull her thoughts away from the maudlin edge, Natalie turned the conversation back to what had brought her sister into the office in the first place. “Enough touchy–feely sisterly love, what gossip did you just hear?”
Miranda held up her pointer finger and finished her mouthful of donut. “Well, Logan and Hud were having lunch at The Kitchen Sink today when the sheriff came in for pie.”
“Fascinating.” She polished off her own donut. “Your fiancé and his best friend were eating and saw someone go to The Kitchen Sink for pie? Well, I never.”
“Oh, shut up.” Miranda flung a donut chunk at her. “Well, Ruby Sue put the screws to the sheriff. He told her that Carl tested positive for PCP, which would explain the paranoid delusions and general violent whack–a–do–ness from the other day. We’re lucky he only had a BB gun with him. People go nuts on that stuff.”
Natalie scooped her jaw up off the floor. “Damn.”
“Exactly.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Supposedly there wasn’t very much in his system.”
“And the sheriff just spilled all of that?” Natalie contemplated the few bits of loose tea floating in her cup.
“Do you know of anyone who can withstand Ruby Sue’s interrogations?”
She considered it, trying to recall a single instance of that happening, and came up with nothing. “Nope.”
“That’s where the good news ends.”
With care, she set her cup down on a coaster. She doubted green tea was going to be enough to smooth over whatever was coming next. “That was good news?”
“Pretty much.” Miranda sighed. “I just got off the phone with the sheriff’s investigator assigned to our case,” Miranda continued. “While he admits Carl is the likely suspect if—and he stressed that—anything nefarious happened, there’s no physical proof to tie him to the possible sabotage, and there’s not much more they can do.”
Of course not. Old habits died hard in Salvation, and treating the Sweets like the redheaded stepchildren had become second nature to the people who’d lived there over the past hundred years.
“Great.” She traced the length of her pearl necklace. “So now we just keep our eyes open and move forward with brewery operations?”
Miranda shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“Right back at the beginning.”
“Not completely.” Miranda’s body language was nonchalant, but Natalie knew better than most when her sister was going in for the kill. “After Ruby Sue got done with the sheriff, she turned her laser beam of truth on Logan and Hud.”
“Looking for wedding details?” Please say yes.
“Nope.” Miranda shook her head. “She wanted to know all about you and Sean.”
Her stomach dive–bombed to her knees. “Great.” She traced the length of her pearl necklace. Salvation’s gossip gods giveth and they taketh away. “What did they tell her?”
Miranda shrugged. “Not much they could tell. It’s not like there’s anything going on.”
One pearl. Two pearl. Three pearl. “Exactly.”
“Of course not, because you’d totally tell your big sister if there was,” Miranda said. “From what I hear, you and Sean made quite the team when Carl showed up. Maybe you two should…work together more often.”
Oh no, she wasn’t taking that bait. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing with Sean but it scared her just as much as it thrilled her. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Had someone heard them? Then she remembered how Hailey had burst into the room as soon as their clothes were back on. Had she been outside the whole time, trying to get their attention, but they’d been too focused on each other to hear the outside world? Natalie’s cheeks burned. She was falling back onto old habits. Sex with the unobtainable—in this case an employee—when what she needed was to find someone with relationship potential.
Miranda arched her eyebrows and cocked her head to the side. “Oh, if Olivia could see you now, you’d be in so much trouble.”
Too late for that. Natalie was already neck deep in it.
Natalie paused outside of Sean’s closed office door and took a deep breath. She’d just talk to him. Work only. No mind–melting kisses. No sexual tension. No noticing his amazing ass that you could bounce a quarter off of. Definitely no sex. She wasn’t sure she could take a second time without getting her heart broken—and that was not part of her master plan to have a healthy, non–compartmentalized relationship.
Plan. Brewery. Keep it together, Natalie.