Enemies on Tap (Sweet Salvation Brewery 1)

Chapter One

Miranda Sweet refused to admit she’d made a terrible, horrible, career-sinking mistake.

Even if it was true.

Dressed in her favorite secondhand Ann Taylor suit and shoes from the DSW sale rack, she stood in the shadow of a twelve-foot, dirt-smudged, stainless steel brew kettle at the Sweet Salvation Brewery and rubbed the squirrel-shaped medallion her sisters had given her for good luck. Forcing herself not to gag each time she inhaled the stink of mildew wafting up from the dirty vents, she pointedly ignored the graveyard of cracked bourbon barrels that lay abandoned in the corner and smiled as if she didn’t notice the less-than-welcoming stares of the brewery’s staff.

Too late to go back now, girlie. Let’s prove the haters in this town wrong.

The brewery’s twenty-five employees glared at her as they lounged against the concrete wall or leaned against large stacks of bagged pilsner malt. Wariness narrowed their eyes to slits.

She couldn’t blame them. The only thing she knew about beer was how to drink it. Yet here she was, the only person standing between them and the unemployment line. If it were possible, she’d be giving herself the side-eye, too.

Miranda shoved her clammy hands behind her back, clasped them together to stop the nervous shakes, and attempted her best I-have-an-MBA-and-know-what-I’m-doing smile. “I know you’re all busy, so I’ll keep this as brief as possible.”

No one cracked a smile or made any movement—except for the brewmaster, Carl, who spit chewing tobacco juice into a dented soda can.

Okay then.

“My sisters and I were as surprised as all of you were to find out that Uncle Julian had left the brewery to us in his will. They couldn’t be here today, but they will be coming soon.” Exactly when they’d get here was another question altogether. Miranda inhaled a deep breath and immediately regretted it. The brewery reeked like gym socks heated on the face of the sun until they were too funky for words. “I know it’s been tough lately to make a go of the Sweet Salvation Brewery.”

That garnered a round of dark chuckles.

“But I have a plan to turn the brewery around and make it profitable once again.” They didn’t need to know that as soon as the brewery stopped bleeding cash, her employer, DeBoer Financial, would add it to their vast holdings, and she’d finally get out of the cubicle farm and into the corner office she’d been working ninety-hour weeks to get. At twenty-seven, she’d be the youngest junior vice president in the company’s history. “I give you my word.”

“Yeah, we all know what a Sweet’s promise is worth.” Carl snorted. “Remember the Christmas bonuses we were promised? Or the extra paid days off? Should never have trusted the man who wanted to make beer that smelled like marijuana.”

That sounded like Uncle Julian.

“You may not believe me. I understand that, but my sisters and I are different from the rest of our family.” Her last name might be Sweet, but unlike previous generations of her family, she had a business degree instead of a criminal record. In place of fly-by-night ideas, she had a fully developed business plan. She didn’t simply fight the power. She was determined to be the power. Her spine snapped straight. “I didn’t come back here for the first time in ten years to fail.”

“Why did you come back?” This from Carl, his teeth stained a yellowish brown from his ever-present cheek full of chaw.

These people didn’t trust her. Fine by her. She didn’t trust them, either. But they were her responsibility. Whether they realized it or not, they needed her to turn the brewery around and save their jobs. And despite what they and most of the town thought, she’d do it, and then she’d sell it and get the hell out of this shitty little town for good.

“It doesn’t matter why I’m in Salvation.” She planted her no-longer shaking hands on her hips. “What matters is that I am here and we’re going to be making changes to make Sweet Salvation Brewery a success.”

Miranda didn’t let her backbone wilt until she’d made it safely back to her office, closed the door, and twisted the lock on the knob. She would have slid down the door into a puddle on the floor, but one quick glance around showed that the less-than-stellar cleaning habits of the brewery crew extended into Uncle Julian’s old office.

Picking her way around the boxes stacked thigh-high and towers of paperwork, she crossed the small room and settled into the desk chair. Second thoughts crowded her brain. Making the Sweet Salvation Brewery profitable was supposed to be a sure thing.

She knew there would be challenges, but she’d forgotten just how little the people in this town thought of her family. No one took a Sweet seriously in Salvation. She stared at Uncle Julian’s Live Free, Die High framed poster and sighed.

I can’t imagine why the town thought we were a bunch of weirdos.

Well, she didn’t fit that stereotype, and she’d promised herself a long time ago that she never would. Needing to hold onto tangible proof of that fact, she grabbed the legal pad she’d used to jot notes during the brewery tour. The list of repairs she’d compiled covered two sheets, front and back. She was going to need a significant advance from the DeBoer coffers to implement her turnaround plan. She powered up her laptop, grabbed the phone, and dialed up her office.

“DeBoer Financial. How may I help you?” Her cubicle mate’s calm voice helped to steady Miranda’s barely-keeping-it-together nerves.

“Hey, Barb, it’s me.”

“Thank God you called.” Barb’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He’s on the warpath.”

No question about who he was. Her boss was Patrick

Bason, a guy most of the staff secretly called Patilla the Hun. He was infamous for hoarding work and dumping it off on an underling only days before it was due. If the project fell apart, he made sure the staffer took the fall. If it was a success, he took all of the credit. The man was a menace in a cheap suit and garish tie.

“He’s pissed I went straight to DeBoer on this project, huh?” And for good reason. Patilla the Hun had temporarily lost one of his worker bees. Poor guy must be analyzing financials and outlining acquisition deals for the first time in years.

“That’s putting it mildly. He yelled at me for about fifteen minutes about how you have no respect for the chain of command. He’s itching to find a way to submarine you, so be prepared.”

It sucked having a nemesis at work—especially when it was your boss. Miranda had tried everything short of blow jobs to get on his good side, but she’d finally had to admit that Patilla the Hun didn’t have a good side. He was just an asshole. A big one.

So she’d buckled down and put in more hours than any other acquisitions associate in the firm and finished every extra project—no matter how tight the deadline—in an effort to get out from underneath the boss from hell. Making Sweet Salvation Brewery into a success was the key to getting her name on the door to her own corner office and out from underneath Patilla the Hun’s control.

“Can you get me through to Mr. DeBoer?” Miranda asked.

“Shouldn’t be a problem.” Barb lowered her voice. “I plied his assistant with an extra cherry Danish this morning.”

Miranda chuckled. Thank God the woman used her powers for good. “You are the best cubbie-mate ever.”

“True. Now get this brewery thing out of your system so you can get back to the real world in Harbor City. Hold on, I’ll patch you through to Mr. DeBoer’s office.”