Chase put the hat back on her. “Keep it. Makes my head look like the broad side of a barn.”
He was fresh out of honesty. Truth was, it would never look as good on anyone but her. Ever. And it would only serve as a reminder of this evening—an evening he’d best forget.
8
Chase drove into town, headed to the property on Main. He planned to spend most of the day meeting with potential designers. Though he was unable to give them an idea when the distillery would award the project, collecting proposals to jump on construction the first minute after the city council vote seemed like the most efficient use of time.
One week had passed since Gretchen had driven him out of his mind, and nearly his clothes, in the far north pasture. Largely, Mayor de Havilland laid low, put on her polite, bipartisan expression, and stayed inside the brick and mortar fortress of city hall. Never was he surer that she was purposely avoiding him than when she cut out her jelly donut routine.
To distract himself, he advanced the Gretchen-and-Chase-approved events for the town celebration. He had a few surprises up his chambray sleeve guaranteed to drive even the most devout women of Close Call stampeding the main stage and tossing their underwear in a moment of euphoria—though the only woman he wanted to see reach that level of horny was Gretchen, as long as it was somewhere private. And because Mona and January knew a creepy amount of detail about Close Call, he put them in charge of organizing a scavenger hunt around town—a little like the reality television show but without the exotic locales and sexy tourists. His idea to draw a younger crowd and teamwork called for a celebration of the alcohol variety. Gretchen agreed because it was an activity that families could do together, and it highlighted the town’s rich history. Chase also dropped calls and pulled favors all over town for a classic car show out near Wes’s garage, and—to draw people in the night before—a celebrity softball game that inclu
ded a PGA player, a few NFL cheerleaders, a couple of bull rider friends, a Formula One driver who happened to be in Houston that week, and of course, the mayor.
She just didn’t know it yet.
Overall, he had nailed his distillery’s demographic enough to justify the hundred-grand investment and calm the investors. The movement on social media was tremendous. He hoped his sleepy hometown could handle such an influx of people. Not his problem.
One thing that was still his problem was the family-friendly angle to the distillery. Once he got past the absurdity—which made about as much sense to him as kegger parties at the nursing home—he put the best minds he knew to work. Pizza and cold beer on the ranch’s back deck produced ideas from a beer-garden-like outdoor space to a ride-share framework tailor-made for rural living. The best idea, however, came from Wes’s wife Livie, who had spent her childhood among the wealthiest classes in Europe. They were the kind of people who thought nothing of dropping a premium to drink herb-infused water.
“Who wants water that tastes like a plant?” Chase had asked.
“People predisposed to fads,” said Livie. “People with too much money. Parents who want their kids to drink healthy.”
Chase’s heart skipped a beat. His brain rewound the conversation, but the notion hadn’t yet wormed into his thoughts. “Wait…say that last part again?”
“Parents who want their kids to drink healthy.”
Family-friendly. “That’s it. Distilled flavored water.” At which point, Chase launched from his deck chair, gave Livie a peck on the cheek, and excused himself from his own party to retreat to his room and laptop to do research.
That had been four days ago.
In town, Chase took a detour to the post office to pick up a package: a case of six bottles, one of every flavor, made by a distillery in Holland and overnighted from a specialty store in New York. He was fully prepared for it to taste like coffin dirt—which is exactly how far underground their company would be if they embraced this direction and it backfired. Part of him genuinely wanted to offer something unique to the domestic market; part of him simply wanted to pay it lip service—for now. He was in the sixth second of an eight-second run. No one watched the cowboy after the buzzer, anyway.
Get the vote. Then worry about what came next.
Box of bottles riding shotgun, Chase turned onto Main, headed for the old welding warehouse. His attention snagged on a crowd gathered outside the fire house. Nothing but dark jump suits and dudes but for one exception: fire-engine red spiked heels, flawlessly toned calves, and a classy trim skirt cut to the knee. Gretchen stood in the middle of a tight cluster of dressed-down firefighters like one delicious red licorice whip inside a cluster of foul-tasting black ones.
She laughed, open-mouthed, lipstick bold against her white teeth, as if the fire chief had told her the funniest, family-friendly joke in the history of the world.
Chase’s stomach turned rancid.
He wanted nothing more than to floor it, put the scene behind him before Gretchen rocked red inside the day’s every moment of downtime and he blistered himself trying to suppose what might have been so fucking funny. But Miss Bess Scandy picked that exact moment to cross the road, grinding traffic to a halt.
Miss Bess waved at him as she passed his truck grill. Chase peeled his fingers away from the top of the steering wheel long enough to flash her the customary small-town greeting. Likely, Miss Bess had caught the rather potent overload of testosterone in the air and followed her ambitious instincts mid-town. At a complete stop, he tried not to look over at Gretchen.
In vain.
Gretchen picked that moment to glance up at the stopped traffic. Immediately, her gaze zeroed in on his truck. Almost as immediately, her joyous expression sobered.
His chest burned.
Road clear, Chase was again tempted to floor it. His modified, illegal-decibel muffler would rumble out enough horsepower to turn every head of the assembled Close Call Fire Department and cause grannies in the vicinity to turn sour-faced and cup their ears. A satisfying, dick-measuring thing to do, for sure.
But Chase didn’t do it.
Satisfying or not, playing by the rules—Gretchen’s rules—was the only way to ensure a city council vote in his favor. He needed this distillery, this new life, to keep him from the shallow numbness of his old life.
Chase nursed the gas pedal and continued down Main as if her loaded stare hadn’t just hog-tied his heart and his balls together, rope burn and all.