Love in a Nutshell

NINE

Kate felt as though her fillings were going to fall out as Matt’s truck slammed and rattled down a pitted gravel road in the middle of nowhere. “Are you sure this is really the road to the microbrewery?”

“Positive,” Matt said. “It’s also the first of three issues that have been tanking Travis’s business.”

Kate couldn’t wait to see the other two.

“Do you think maybe you should slow down a little?”

“No way. Then we’d feel every rut in the road.”

Being airborne didn’t seem much better, but Kate also knew not to mess with a man on a mission.

“Hang on,” Matt said, skittering around a hairpin turn. “It gets a little rough right here.”

Kate’s gasp was involunt ^ Matt ary, and she wasn’t real thrilled about the grin that appeared on Matt’s face in response as she fought the urge to brace her feet against the dashboard. “Very Indiana Jones of you,” she said. “I should have brought my bullwhip.”

Matt’s eyebrows raised a half inch. “Do you have a bullwhip?”

Kate smiled sweetly. Ms. Mysterious.

“Kinky,” Matt said, “but I can deal.”

He swerved around an unusually deep rut, barely missing a tree. They made a hard right turn onto a narrow ribbon of a drive. All that marked it as more than a trail was a huge, sour-faced plastic owl on a post.

“Horned Owl issue number two,” Matt said. “If you’ve got a customer ambitious enough to come back here, get a sign. Don’t scare them off with a weird fake owl.”

Now that they were traveling at normal speed, Kate took a look around. She imagined that the woods were lush and green in the summer. On this crisp autumn day, though, the maples were turning crimson and yellow, with the oaks not far behind. Only the scrubby jack pines still held much green.

“The scenery’s a good prize for making it back this far,” she said. “It’s gorgeous.”

The woods had thinned, and a meadow lay ahead. At the far end sat an unassuming double-wide home. To the right of that by a hundred yards was the most amazing barn Kate had ever seen. It might have been painted a traditional red, but the structure’s hexagonal shape and the white cupola topping it were showstoppers. Someone had also added expanses of windows and a pergola-shaded terrace that angled off one of the back sides.

Kate blew out a whistle. “Definitely not issue number three.”

“Except for the location, it’s perfect.” He parked next to a silver car that Kate had seen almost every day in Depot Brewing’s lot. “Ready to go in?”

Kate climbed out of the truck. “First, let me play tourist.”

She dug her phone from her purse and backed up until she found the perfect spot to take a picture of the barn. She liked that Matt was in the shot, too.

“Smile,” she said. And even though he was laughing, she kept the picture. “This is turning into a pretty nice day.”

“Hold that thought.”

They walked up a stepping stone path to the microbrewery’s entrance.

Inside, a taproom of sorts had been partitioned from the work area by low walls made of silvery barn wood. Above the dividers, Kate spotted a couple of tall stainless-steel tanks back in a corner, much like the ones she’d seen at Depot Brewing. The beer-making end of the business remained a mystery to Kate. Bart Fenner, Depot’s brewmaster, was notoriously protective of his portion of the domain. For all that Kate knew, fairies and elves made the be cs mt..r.

Matt scanned the room. “Travis? You guys back there?”

“Yeah, hang on.”

Travis emerged, and Horned Owl’s issue number three was obvious. Kate doubted that Travis meant to be scary, but the nose and eyebrow piercings and a squinty-eyed stare did the job. The full-sleeve tattoo on his right arm actually served as a happy distraction. He appeared to be younger than Matt, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t old enough to have done some hard time.

“Travis, this is Kate, my newest employee. Kate, this is Travis Holby, owner of Horned Owl Brewing.”

Travis fixed his stare on Kate. “What’s Culhane got on you that you ended up working for him?”

Kate laughed. “It’s more what I have on him.”

Travis smiled, and the tough guy aura disappeared. Kate noticed for the first time that once you looked past the piercings, he had a true baby face, complete with pudgy cheeks.

“This is a beautiful place you have here,” she said.

“Thanks. I’ve busted my a-, uh, back, putting it together. Why don’t you have a seat?” Travis gestured to one of the three rustic-looking tables with low stools that served as seating in the taproom. “Hungry? Thirsty? Can I get you anything?”

Kate took the offered seat, but turned down food and drink.

“Hey, Bart,” Matt called. “Why don’t you come out here for a minute, too?”

Bart entered the taproom, and Kate thought there was no way she’d ever seen him at Depot Brewing. He wasn’t the sort of guy a woman forgot. In fact, he nearly gave Culhane a run for the money in the looks department. But where Culhane was a rugged kind of hot, Bart had the exotic thing going. Looking at him was like taking a sexy trip to the South Pacific. He was tall and seriously muscled, with dark skin, soulful brown eyes, and black hair.

“I heard you sing last night,” Bart said. “You’re really good.”

“Thanks,” she said. “It had been a long time since I sang in public like that.”

Matt smiled at her and her heart skipped a beat. The smile was intimate, as though they were the only ones in the room. She couldn’t help fantasizing just a little about what she might do to enhance the moment if it wasn’t for Bart and Travis’s presence.

Bart sat down next to Travis but turned his body toward Kate. “I hear you have some issues with beer.”

“It’s more like beer has issues with me.”

“When was the last time you tried it?”

“When I was in college.”

Bart smiled, showing even white teeth. “So it’s safe to say that it’s been a couple of years?”

“Absolutely.”

“What kind of beer?”

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. What kind do they typically serve in fraternity basements out of red plastic cups?” Why was this beginning to feel like she was being set up? “I try not to think of that night. But even though the details are fuzzy, the lasting impression is that it wasn’t good.”

Travis shook his head. “You know, you seem like the open-minded type. You put up with Culhane, you’ve stopped staring at my piercings, and yet you’re judging all beer based on one bad, unfortunate game of beer pong.”

“Believe me, I’d do the same with a rattlesnake, too.”

Bart laughed. “It can’t have been that bad.”

“Okay, no, because I’m still alive.” Kate glanced at each of them. “This is some sort of non-beer-drinker intervention, isn’t it?”

Nobody answered, but the light of hope continued to shine in their eyes.

“Come on, Kate, what you drank was goat pi-, uh, urine, compared to what we make,” Travis said. “This is craft beer, the nectar of the gods.”

“Nectar?”

“Try my peach beer,” he said.

The hair on her arms rose. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“No peach, then, but at least try something while you’re here.”

She was, to some degree, a captive audience. And not wholly unwilling, either. It had been a lot of years, and there remained the remote possibility that the whole beer incident had grown in her mind. Maybe it hadn’t been that truly awful.

“And consider this,” Matt said. “I can’t move you to the front of the house until you’ve learned to speak beer. So unless you and Hobart really do want to establish an exclusive relationship, you should give this a shot.”

Kate had come to see the downside to dishwashing. Running Hobart meant standing at Hobart. To be a good secret spy, she needed more mobility.

“Okay. Let’s do this thing.” She looked across the table at Matt’s co-conspirators. “I’m assuming you already have this arranged.”

“It’s going to be an experience to be savored,” Bart said as Travis left the table.

Kate looked doubtful. “On my planet, that would be lounging in a Jacuzzzi with a glass of wine and a good book.” She c.d t could feel Culhane go still next to her, and she thought she should probably stop mentioning anything even remotely involving nakedness. Her imagination had already tossed the book and substituted her boss stripping down and making the tub blissfully crowded.

Matt gently touched Kate’s hand. “All beer is made of four basic ingredients.”

She drew on her last memory of beer. “Is skunk spray one of them, because that would explain the smell.”

“Not even close. We’re talking water, barley, hops, and yeast.”

Travis returned to the table with a cooler bearing the Depot Brewing steam locomotive logo and a plastic cup. He set the cup in front of Kate and then got busy in the cooler.

“Those are hops,” Bart said.

She squinted into the cup. “It looks like rabbit food.”

“Check out the scent.”

Kate took a whiff and immediately regretted it. The hops smelled like a mix of cheap perfume, soggy dog, and grass blades. She wanted to sneeze, and possibly gag, but could do neither with any measure of diplomacy. Instead, she rubbed the tip of her nose and tried to blink back the extra moisture in her eyes.

Matt fought back a grin. “I get the feeling you’re not fond of hops.”

Travis lined up three smaller cups. Each was filled with the same grain, but of varying shades. “This is all barley,” he said.

“Barley is good. My grandmother made soup from barley.”

Matt smiled at her, and she began to relax again.

“Note the lighter and darker colors,” Bart said. “Different degrees of roasting will add varying aspects to the beer. When we boil up the wort-”

“The what?” she asked.

“The wort.”

“That sounds a little creepy,” Kate said. “Like something on a witch’s nose.”

Culhane laughed. “That’s what the boiled mix of barley, hops, and water is called. Brewers make wort. After that’s done, the yeast will make the beer.”

That, too, brought images to Kate’s mind she would have been happy to skip. “Before I get too much scary input, how about if we move along to the tasting?”

Bart reached into the cooler, brought out a bottle of beer, and set a small glass in front of Kate. It was taller and bigger than a shot glass, but not by much. If this was all she had to drink, she just might survive.

Bart handed her the bottle. “This is Dog Day Afternoon. It was one of Matt’s first beers and is still one of the brewery’s most popular.”

Kate smiled at the label’s black pen-and-ink drawing of a goofy hound who was trying to look fierce. “That’s the same dog in the mosaic out front of the brewery.”

“Chuck’s our mascot, even though Matt doesn’t bring him around much. He’s also Matt’s longest lasting relationship… so far.”

Both Bart and Travis were giving Kate suggestive grins as Travis took the bottle from her and poured for her. Kate focused on the tabletop.

“This is a summer brew,” Matt said. “Technically, it’s a Kölsch style beer, which you’ll need to know when you’re on the floor. But really, just think about a beach day when you’re ready for some shade and a cool drink.”

Kate lifted the glass and tentatively sniffed its contents. She steeled herself. One sip from a Barbie-sized glass couldn’t do all that much damage, could it?

“Come on, you can do it,” Travis said.

She took a sip, expecting to hate it, but she didn’t. In fact, she went for a slightly bolder sip.

“Not half bad,” she said. “It’s bubbly like soda but not icky sweet.”

Matt grinned, obviously proud but trying to keep it under wraps. “It’s a good starting point. Low in hops and lower in alcohol than some of the others you’ll be trying. Ready to move on?”

“Almost.” Kate drained the sample glass. “An unpretentious beer, lightly floral, and of earthy peasant stock.”

“You joke, but beer tastings are a big part of how our business has grown,” Matt said. “A little less attitude than some wine events, but we have food pairings and tasting notes, too.”

“Really?”

“It makes sense if you think about it,” Matt said. “What was your first impulse when Travis poured you that sample?”

“To smell it.”

“Exactly,” Bart said. “Let’s try an IPA on her for bouquet.”

“IPA?” Kate echoed.

Bart handed her another bottle. This one’s label was nearly psychedelic and read Goa for the Gusto.

“India Pale Ale,” Bart said. “So called because when the British Empire was at its peak, British ale had to travel a long way to get to Britons. Lots of hops were added to each barrel as a preservative, and the product ended up way different than it started out. It became part of beer history.”

Kate handed the bottle back to Travis, who poured her a sample. She lifted her mini-glass and smelled the ale.

“Wow! It smells almost like a sauvignon blanc… all citrus.” She drew in deeper. “Like grapefruit, and maybe a little lemon?”

Matt nodded his approval. “Exactly. Like all IPAs.”

Emboldened by the so-not-beer aroma, Kate downed half the sample in one swallow, then had to fight not to gag it back up.

“Issues?” Travis asked.

Kate took several deep breaths. “Totally not my style. It tastes nothing like it smells.”

She really could have used a food pairing. Something smothered in hot sauce to wipe out the flavors lingering in her mouth would have been dandy.

“For a lot of people, an IPA is an acquired taste,” Matt said.

Travis rose and grabbed an empty pitcher from behind his pouring counter.

“Dump,” he said.

Kate tipped out the last bit of beer in her glass. “Thank you.”

“Technically, hops add both dryness and bitterness,” Matt said.

“The bitterness I got. How about a little Dog Day to cleanse my palate?”

Travis gave her a refill. She downed it, then shuddered as the last memory of the Goa left her body.

Matt grabbed another sampling glass and set another bottle on the table. “Dragonfly Amber Ale. Time to move one step darker in the ales.”

“So long as you leave the Chuck beer in easy reaching distance, I’m game,” Kate said.

“Dragonfly Amber is the first of my beers to place in judging at the Great American Beerfest,” Matt said.

“What’s Beerfest?” Kate asked.

Travis’s face was heavy with awe. “It’s like the Olympics,” he said.

Matt poured Kate a sample. “Caramel malted barley, smooth finish, and dry hopped to eliminate bitterness while keeping the dryness in place.”

Kate tried a sip and found she had no problem at all with the Dragonfly. “Okay, now this is the nectar of the gods,” she said.

Travis pumped his fist. “Another beer hater bites the dust.”

They moved on to stouts and porters, and Kate loved them all. Clearly, she had misremembered her earlier beer encounter.

Once the guys had finished up with the tasting, they started discussing Travis’s recipes. Kate tried to follow the conversation, except she didn’t have the background to know whether his autumn pumpkin ale was “cutting edge,” as Travis claimed, or “too out there to coutthe baturn a profit,” as Matt contended.

“Is it getting warm in here?” Kate asked.

The men paused in their conversation.

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Matt said.

“Okay. Carry on.”

Kate wandered over to the small tasting bar and began leafing through Travis’s beer notes and advertising materials. The editor in her quickly returned.

“Does anyone have a pen?” she asked.

All she received in response were blank stares. They had moved on to addressing the level of nutmeg in Travis’s brew. No big deal. Her purse, which always held a fistful of pens, was in the truck.

When she returned, she asked the guys, “Mind if I grab another Dog Day?”

“Go for it,” Matt said. “We shouldn’t be that much longer, though.”

She pulled a beer from the cooler and went back to flyspecking Travis’s notes. She’d finished her first mini-glass and was pouring her second when Matt joined her at the bar.

“Sorry this is taking so long,” he said. “I need to take advantage of the time I can be up here. Travis isn’t hot on listening to Bart, so I have to be the enforcer.”

“No problem.” She slid Travis’s brochures closer to Matt. “I’ve been keeping myself busy. I cleaned up the copy and kicked up the language.”

Matt gave her a funny look. “Your face is kind of red. Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

Or at least she thought she was. Kate touched a hand to her cheek. She was hot. Like a core-temperature-reaching-lethal-range kind of hot.

“I think I’ll step outside for a second,” she said.

Whatever Matt had to say in return was left in the dust as she bolted toward the door. Once outside, she climbed into Matt’s truck and flipped open the passenger’s vanity mirror.

“Oh, man!”

The whole beer issue was coming back to her now. That youthful flirtation had ended not because she’d drunk too much and made herself sick, but because beer was her Kryptonite, something akin to severe lactose intolerance.

She wasn’t red. She was Chet-colored.

Kate sat back and fanned her face. She knew what was coming next. Her internal temperature would kick up even higher, her stomach would begin to ache, and finally she’d emit a rumbling last heard at Mount St. Helens. She had an hour and more in the truck with Matt on the way back to Keene’s Harbor. No way could she pretend for that le cd fe, and fngth of time that she had no idea where those noises might be coming from.

Damn.

Kate hopped from the truck to catch the October wind. If she could cut the heat, maybe she could kill the whole vicious cycle.

“Calm thoughts, cool thoughts,” she coached herself as she headed upwind. “You can beat this.”

Once she’d made the outer edge of Horned Owl’s parking area, she pushed up her long sleeves and held out her arms for optimal wind exposure, slowly rotating like a deranged wind turbine. Still, she could feel sweat collecting between her breasts.

“I am so screwed.”

She shot a look at the brewery’s door. Thank heaven all was quiet and still. The guys could talk while she cooled. She returned to the truck and used the open passenger door as shield.

Kate pulled her arms from the sweater’s sleeves. Inside the sweater’s protection, she reached back and unhooked her bra. Those miserable years of middle school gym class had served a purpose, after all. She could still remove her underwear without showing a square inch of skin.

One hot-pink bra with black lace overlay was history in three seconds. Kate chucked it onto the truck’s seat, then jammed her arms back through her sleeves.

“Please, please, please,” she murmured. Just who outside of her own rebelling body Kate was begging, she didn’t know.

Her digestive system emitted a groan that silenced the chickadees up in the trees. Temptation grew. One polite burp that no one other than her feathered friends would hear might fix the whole issue. But then she flashed back to her last beer episode. She’d been sucked in by that whole “one burp” theory, and the aftermath hadn’t been pretty.

She pulled on her sweater’s neckline until she got some good air between herself and the knit fabric. Then she took the sweater’s bottom, looped it up through the top, and drew it back down. The rig held, even though her posture made a gargoyle look good. She turned and just about smacked into Matt.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asked.

“Long enough,” he said. “Do I even want to know?”

“Probably not.”

“You’ve been gone awhile,” he said. “Bart and Travis wanted me to come out and check on you.”

Which was a lie. They were negotiating the terms of a winner-takes-all arm-wrestling match over the pumpkin brew recipe. A rabid fox dropped into the middle of the room wouldn’t have distracted them.

“As you can see, I’m kind of having a problem.”

“Either that or you’re into some voodoo ritual. What’s up with your face, though?”

“My face?” Kate’s voice rose an octave in alarm. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“You’ve gone from red to spotty. Is it possible that you have an allergy to something in beer?”

She clamped her hand over her mouth in what he would have said was an expression of shock, except for the way her chest and shoulders heaved.

“You’re not going to hurl, are you?” he asked.

Hand still over mouth, she shook her head no.

In Matt’s estimation, whatever else was about to happen appeared to be equally bad.

“Hang on,” he said. “Let’s get you back to town.”

She nodded her head a frantic yes.

MATT RETURNED to the barn, where Bart and Travis were going mano a mano.

“I upped the stakes,” Bart said without turning his dead-eye glare from Travis. “If Travis loses, he’s spending the next month of Wednesdays coming to Keene’s Harbor for poker night and then he works for me on Thursdays.”

“Sounds good,” Matt said. Adding Travis to poker night would bring a new, if warped, dynamic. But Matt had more important stuff to deal with right now. “I’ve got to head out now. Bart, I’ll catch up with you on Monday. Travis, you’re not going to take him in any kind of match. And even if you do, when it comes to your beer, he wins. Got it?”

“Dude, that is so not fair,” Travis said.

“When you can pay me back, we’ll talk about fair. Until then, it’s all about leverage.”

Bart slammed Travis’s hand to the tabletop, winning the match and illustrating Matt’s point.

“Just like that,” he said.

Back outside, Matt found Kate waiting for him in the truck. As he climbed into his seat, a pink-and-black bra went flying into the back. He’d witnessed a bra toss before, but not in these circumstances.

“I think it’s the hops,” he said rather than comment on the projectile. “I’ve seen it happen to people before-the redness you started out with, at least-just not this bad.”

Kate snorted, or maybe wheezed. “Great. Put it on my tombstone. Kate Appleton. Went to hell in a hops basket.”

“So you’re not feeling any better?”

“I’d give that a no.”

He started the truck. “Let’ cC;Ldiv›s get a move on, then.”

“Gently, and unlock my window control, could you?”

They started down the road, Kate with her head out the window and hair rippling in the breeze. And Matt feeling really bad she was so sick but thinking how great she looked with her hair wild, blowing all around her face.

KATE NEVER thought she’d be so grateful to work for a man who’d bought a kitschy, not to mention mostly dilapidated, motel.

“Are you doing okay in there?” Matt called through the bathroom door in the manager’s tiny apartment.

Kate was still toweling her hair from the long and chilly shower she’d taken. “Better.”

“I’m glad I had the utilities turned back on this week. Sorry there wasn’t much hot water.”

“It was perfect.”

Actually, it had taken a while before she’d felt safe to go near the shower. First had come the belching with enough gusto to win a frat boys’ contest. From her side of the bathroom door, she’d heard Matt saying that he’d be taking off for a while. Kate had figured he’d been engaging in chivalry or self-preservation. Either way, he’d missed the worst of the episode.

“I’ve brought you some stuff I thought you might be able to use,” he called.

She opened the bathroom door enough to reach out her arm and grab a plastic sack. “Thanks. That was really nice of you.”

Though, again, it still could have been self-preservation. Keene’s Harbor remained over an hour away, and her stomach still sounded demonically possessed. Kate riffled through the bag. Antihistamines, as promised, plus antacids.

So much for Matt Culhane ever being tempted by her again, she thought. She was gross-inside and outside. Arms wrapped around her bloated midsection, she regarded her spotty reflection in the bathroom mirror. This was what she wanted, right? Not to have to worry about any hot and messy sexual entanglement that took place outside the privacy of her imagination. Now that she faced that reality, the answer came back an edgy maybe not.

“Can I bring you anything else?” Matt called.

“No, thanks.”

After antacids, what was left?

MATT BELIEVED in choosing his moments and in letting others choose theirs. When Kate decided to stick on her bug glasses and pretend to sleep most of the way back to Keene’s Harbor, he’d respected that choice.

“Hey,” he said when she finally stirred.

“Hi.”

“Feeling any better?”

“Yes.”

“Are you up to having a conversation longer than one syllable?”

“No,” Kate said.

“All the same, can I ask you something? Did that happen to you the last time you drank beer?”

She didn’t answer immediately. “Kind of, I think. I mean, I sort of recalled discomfort, but it wasn’t this bad.”

“In that case, I’m sorry. I never would have asked you to try it if I’d known this was what happened to you.”

“My fault. Even with that vague memory, I shouldn’t have risked it, except…”

“Except what?”

“Except I also did it because I wanted to, and because it seemed important to you. I mean, this is what you do. You’ve got great reason to be proud of all you’ve accomplished. Then, here I come and turn up my nose. I wanted to be… I don’t know…”

“Nice?”

She sighed. “Yes, nice. You deserve that.”

“So do you, Kate.”

“I know, but it’s been so long. It’s like I can hardly recognize it. That long without nice in your life… and I don’t mean that I was abused or anything… it was just the absence of nice. But, anyway, you forget how it feels.”

He didn’t know where she’d been, other than geographically, before she’d landed in Keene’s Harbor. All he knew was that he liked it when she was happy.

“Okay,” he said. “So, nice it is. And I’m moving you to the taproom on Monday. I need to have you someplace where you can keep an eye on Jerry when I’m not there. You were right. He takes off, and I don’t know what he’s up to. And Laila’s going to be out a minimum of this next week with her ankle sprain.”

“I can do that,” she said.