Real Men Will (Donovan Brothers Brewery 3)

She met his gaze and felt the quiet spark that arced between them. Roland Kendall had called while she was naked in Eric’s hotel room. Eric had still been on the phone when she’d quickly scrambled into her clothes and made her escape.

“The meeting went well,” Eric said. “Really well. As a matter of fact, we came to an agreement. A month later, we were waiting for Kendall to sign the contract, when the brewery was robbed. All that was taken was one keg and the computers. It was similar to a series of robberies in the area. At first, it seemed like we were a random victim.”

She nodded. “But then?”

“Then the detective on the case managed to find a fingerprint, and it belonged to Graham Kendall. It all unraveled from there. Apparently he’d been pulling the same thing in Denver the year before. We just ended up being hit because we were on his radar, I think.”

“So that’s it?” she asked, folding her arms tighter.

“Basically.” Eric’s eyes dipped down her body. “You’re cold. Here.” He pulled his keys from his pocket, and the SUV next to her beeped. The flash of the lights reminded Beth that it was starting to get dark. As she looked around, the lot lights of the restaurant across the street blinked to life.

Eric slipped a coat over her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she murmured. The cold leather creaked as she pulled it tighter, but her body heat soon warmed it up. As she grew warmer, his scent drifted up from the coat. She actually had to close her eyes at the smell of his body, his soap. It surrounded her and stole inside on every breath.

“So why did you want to know?” he asked.

Beth opened her eyes and it seemed to have grown darker in those few seconds. She could still see Eric clearl

y, but he was dimmer now. As if this weren’t real. Yearning pushed against her breastbone as if there were no space for it inside her chest. “So Monica had nothing to do with this?”

All the easiness left his body as he stiffened. “Monica Kendall? Why?”

That wasn’t the reaction she’d been looking for. Beth sighed and pulled his coat tighter around her. “Did she have something to do with it?”

Eric looked away. “If she’s a friend of yours, I don’t want to say anything.”

“She’s not. We just happened to be roommates our freshman year at the U. That’s it.”

“Then why are you asking about her now?”

Beth hesitated. She wanted to hear his side of the story first, but he was obviously suspicious. “Because she called me today. And I want to hear the truth.” She knew that what Monica had said wasn’t the truth, because Monica wouldn’t bother with it if there was a lie that painted her in a better light.

“I’m not sure if I should tell you this.” He looked away again, staring at the lights of the restaurant.

“I won’t tell anyone. And I think I deserve a little truth.”

That brought his face back around, his eyes flashing silver as the distant lights caught them. “You do,” he said, and those quiet words made her feel a hundred times better than all his apologies and explanations. “All right. Monica was there the night the brewery was robbed.”

“She helped break in?” She was frowning at the ridiculousness of that, but Eric was already shaking his head.

“No. She was in the front room. She had some beer and then told Jamie she needed a ride home. While he was in the back, she unlocked the front door. They left through the back. That’s where he set the alarm.”

“And she watched?”

“She was right there.”

Beth nodded. “And she asked him to take her home?”

“She did.”

Beth could tell from the edge in his voice that there was something he wasn’t saying, and she figured it had to do with what had happened when they got to Monica’s house. “When Monica called me today, she said that Jamie had given her name to the police because she refused to see him again after that night.”

“That’s complete bullshit, excuse my language. She came in a few weeks later and started a fight in the barroom. I heard the argument myself. What she said…it didn’t have anything to do with him wanting more. Just the opposite.”

Beth made her decision then. This story sounded like the truth. It fit what Beth knew about Monica and her creepy brother. “Eric, the reason I called you is… Monica asked me to lie to the police.”

“She what?”