Forbidden Fling (Wildwood 1)

“Are you going to be able to work with her, Ethan?” Shannon asked. “It’s really a shame your family’s still holding a grudge after so many years.”

“It is a shame,” he said. “And, yes, I’ll be able to work with her.”

“You’re a good man.” She patted his chest. “And she deserves some good after all the bad this place has put her through. Hey, I’m going to steal my husband for a bit.” To Caleb she said, “There’s a rep here from Francis Ford Coppola Winery. He wants to talk to us about carrying their line.”

Caleb leaned back and looked at his wife squarely. “Where’d he come from?”

She smiled and tilted her head. “I invited him.”

Caleb’s face broke into a grin. He wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulled her close. “I hope our kid gets your brains.”

She laughed and led him off through the crowd.

This was a good time to leave. Ethan was more unsettled than ever. Felt more volatile than ever. He knew he should go over and say hello to Shiloh, should go give Hunter a kiss. Would if the situation were different.

But it wasn’t. So he’d just have to make it up to them another time, because getting close to Delaney right now felt dangerous for Ethan. As though he’d be impulsive. As if he wouldn’t be able to control those impulses.

And as he set down his water on the nearest serving tray, he couldn’t help but wonder if that was what had happened for the other guy. The married guy. Too much time around Delaney. Too much of a temptation. Too much of a good thing there for the taking too often. And he hated the idea that she’d slept with a married man. Considering all the guys she’d dated in her youth—the hard-living, weapon-carrying, drug-dealing, motorcycle-riding type—sleeping with a married man shouldn’t be such a stretch for him to imagine.

But somehow . . . it was. Somehow he saw so much more below her surface. A whole different person than the shallow, callous woman people would expect given the speed of her prior life. And he couldn’t keep himself from taking one last look at Delaney before heading for the exit. Nor could he keep himself from wondering if his decades-long infatuation with her had blinded him to a far smoother method of manipulation than he’d experienced with his family.

He found her listening intently to something Shiloh was saying, one hand wrapped loosely around Hunter’s waist, the other curling one of Hunter’s soft ringlets around her index finger. And for the life of him, Ethan didn’t understand the sweet longing that sight created in his gut.

“Lookin’ for you.”

His grandfather’s rough voice cut into Ethan’s unease and pulled his gaze around. “Hey, Pops. Didn’t know you were coming.” He slipped his thumbs into his front belt loops. “I’ve got a triple black Indian pale IPA here I made with your Magic hops. You outta try it before it’s gone.”

“I’ll do that,” he said in a way that was meant to get Ethan off the subject, and Ethan could tell whatever his grandfather had on his mind was serious. “All anyone’s talking about since I got here is Delaney and everything she’s doin’ for the community with the renovation.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“People are split down the middle on whether they’re for or against it, but that don’t matter. All that matters is she’s serious about going ahead with it, and that means our plans for Wildcard have to stop.”

“What? Why?”

“What the hell do you mean why? Why do you think? She’s going to keep that liquor license. We can build and develop and sink as much money as we want into the pub, but without a license, we ain’t opening no doors. We ain’t makin’ no money. You ain’t quittin’ no job, and I ain’t hangin’ up no hoe. I know how bad you want this, boy, but I’m your voice of reason here. Stop. Step back. And you’ll see this ain’t the right time to open Wildcard.”

Shock mingled with bone-deep hurt and wicked frustration. Ethan planted his hands on his hips, blew out a breath, and turned his gaze to the floor. He reeled in tendrils of panic as he tried to get a hold on the situation.

“Look, I know Delaney’s plans threw a wrench into ours, but it’s not over. I don’t care what kind of experience she has—she’s in way over her head with that bar.”

“And I think you’re underestimating her. She reminds me a lot of your grandma, that one.” His focus drifted toward Delaney, then went distant in the hollowed-out way it always did when Pops thought of his late wife. “Isn’t that little Hunter? She sure is growin’ up fast, ain’t she?”

Pops looked back at Ethan with pain lingering in his eyes, a mix of physical and emotional pain. “Stop worrying about the things that don’t matter, Ethan, and start paying attention to the things that do. Like the people you love. Maybe this is a sign that you should stop trying to please everyone else and stop to take the time to take care of yourself for a change.” He gestured toward Delaney and Hunter’s table. “Now go give that girl a kiss, would you?”

He turned and hobbled through the crowd while Ethan was temporarily confused into silence trying to figure out

if he’d meant give Delaney a kiss or Hunter a kiss.

“Pops,” Ethan called after him, but it was too crowded and the determination he’d seen in his grandfather’s eyes had been too deep.

Ethan’s shoulders sagged. As if things couldn’t get worse? Now his partner wanted to put things on hold? The very partner who needed this brewery to go through the most?

“Goddammit.” He leaned his shoulder against the wall and closed his eyes, rubbing at the burn of fatigue. He’d worked so hard for this.

So has Delaney.

Pops needed this so desperately.