Hollywood on Tap (3 page)

“That
man
.” She wound her fingers around her pearl necklace and twisted, her body primed with annoyance—and something more that started a warm, lazy southward wave from her lips to the juncture of her thighs. Damn, she needed to get laid.

Miranda shook her head, a teasing grin curling her lips. “Sean’s great.”

Oh yeah, great at driving her to distraction. “He’s a pain in my ass.”

“But he has a cute ass, something you used to appreciate in a man. Remember that hot football coach you introduced me to the last time I came to visit?”

Max. God, she really should have taken him up on that offer for goodbye sex.

Natalie started pacing again. Max hadn’t ever made her lose her cool. She’d always been in control with him. Cool. Calm. Collected. Just like she’d always been, until Sean and his beard of mystery rocked her world.

She flopped down, landing with a thud on a chair next to her sister at the kitchen table. She swiped the half of the sandwich her older sister hadn’t eaten yet and took a bite. “Why can’t Sean just do what I want?”

“You mean like everyone else does?”

She shot Miranda a dirty look. “You don’t. Neither does Olivia.”

“We’ve built up a tolerance to your steamrolling ways.”

Her spine stiffened. “I don’t—”

“You’re my little sister by a whole three minutes and I love you. But you can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes.”

“Said with love, I’m sure,” she grumbled. The truth of the statement stung more than she cared to admit.

“It is.” Miranda reached over and covered Natalie’s hand with her own. “You’re a list maker and a plan maker. It’s who you are. But not everyone is like that and you can’t always control what other people do.”

Sean’s words echoed in her head loud enough that she couldn’t help but repeat them. “Controlled change.”

Miranda cocked her head, her eyes—the same sky–blue shade as Natalie’s own—darkening with confusion. “Huh?”

Natalie shrugged off the almost–epiphany whispering from a dark corner of her mind. “Something
that man
said.”

“He has a name.”

She withdrew her fingers from her sister’s grasp and crossed her arms over her belly. “He does.”

“Say it.” Damn, the stubborn set of Miranda’s jaw meant trouble.

Normally, Natalie would have placated her or distracted her Type–A sister from the topic at hand. Wasn’t that what every middle child’s role in life was, especially when it came to their siblings? But for some reason, the situation with Sean tangled up her insides like a pair of earbuds languishing in a knotted mess at the bottom of her purse.

“Why should I?”

Miranda arched her perfectly waxed eyebrows and shrugged. “Because you’re going to have to get him on your side if you want to make changes.”

Her chest tightened at her sister’s assertion. “We own the brewery. He’s an employee.”

“And in all the research you’ve done, you’ve discovered that making changes by fiat as opposed to getting your team on board is the most efficient way to do things?”

“Well, no.” Natalie shifted in her seat and tried to quash the uncomfortable feeling of being wrong with the unmovable mountain of her stubbornness. “But I’m right.”

“I’m not the one you need to convince.” Miranda paused, sneaking a side–eyed glance at her sister. “Unless you just want to get rid of Sean.”

“Fire him?” The question came out as a squeak and she ran her fingers across her necklace, counting sixteen pearls one way and then working her way back to her starting point. The old habit didn’t help calm her. She’d made two revolutions in quick succession and her pulse hadn’t slowed from all–hands–on–deck emergency mode.

“We do own the place.” Miranda grabbed the chipped blue–stoneware plate and strode to the sink. “Of course, I never thought you were the kind to back away from showing someone the light. I didn’t think convincing Sean would be that much of a challenge for you.”

She fisted the necklace tight enough that the pearls made circular indentations in her palm. “It’s not.”

Miranda rinsed the plate and popped it in the ancient avocado–colored dishwasher before slamming it shut. “So untwist your pearls and make him a convert. It is the Sweet
Salvation
Brewery, after all. Aren’t we all supposed to understand things better in Salvation?”

That had been Natalie’s original intention when she’d pulled up stakes and moved back home. If she couldn’t persuade Sean to see the light, what chance did she have of enlightening herself?

Working on about four hours of sleep thanks to the ever–present image of Natalie Sweet burned on the inside of his eyelids, Sean slouched against the wall in the Sweet Salvation Brewery break room in a nearly comatose state, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.

The allure of closing his eyes and catching a few Zs tugged at him, but he knew as soon as he did, all he’d see was Natalie. The pearl necklace circling her throat, drawing attention to her soft, creamy skin. The ever–present cardigans that drove him nuts wondering what was hidden beneath. The tightly pulled–back hair and skeptical demeanor that fueled the resurgence of every librarian–inspired fantasy he’d never known he had.

Even after a night of tossing and turning, he could still feel the slight weight of her across his shoulder and the surprisingly muscular length of her thighs. Her sweet honeysuckle scent had stayed with him long into the night. For as tightly wrapped a package as she was, Natalie Sweet offered more temptation than the Playboy Mansion ever had.

And she was completely off limits.

The Sweet Salvation Brewery had saved him. He’d worked his way up from night cleaning crew to head brewmaster in a few years, and when he perfected the latest stout recipe, he’d solidify his position at the brewery with a blue ribbon win at the Southeast Brewers Invitational.

Julian Sweet had taken a chance on Sean despite him showing up as a man without a high school diploma, his real Social Security number, or the truth about who he was and where he’d come from. Sean sure as hell wasn’t going to repay Julian by banging the dead man’s niece as if she were a groupie who’d followed him into the bathroom at a movie premiere.

“Yo, Sean.” Billy poked his head into the break room. “Some dude called for you.”

He eyeballed the younger man. “Name?”

“Rupert Something–or–Other.” He sauntered into the room, grabbed a coffee mug from the cabinet and rested a hip against the counter. “Talked too fast to get it all down. He said he’d call back.”

Sean’s gut clenched, sending his breakfast surging up the way it had gone down. He clamped his jaw shut and willed the bile into submission.

“What the hell kind of first name is Rupert anyway?” Billy asked.

The kind of name that brought back memories of dark closets with locked doors and warnings delivered with a backhanded swing.

The Styrofoam cup crumpled in Sean’s grip. “Where was he calling from?”

He’d croaked out the question, but Billy didn’t seem to notice. Instead the gangly, Southern version of a hipster grabbed the coffee pot and poured himself a cup of dark roast. “Sunny California.”

The other side of the country. The black clouds of dread gathering around the edges of his vision cleared a bit before his gut twanged with suspicion. “How do you know he was in California?”

“Caller ID is a beautiful thing. If you ever talked to anyone on the phone, you would have realized that technology kicks ass. Damn man, you still use a pre–paid flip phone.” Billy held out the coffee pot toward Sean before his gaze dropped to the crushed cup in Sean’s fist. Shrugging, he slid the glass carafe back onto the warmer.

Sean had to play this close. If anyone at the brewery realized his name was Sean Duvin and not Sean O’Dell, there’d be more trouble than he ever wanted to deal with. The only thing worse would be if Rupert showed up on the brewery’s doorstep with a camera crew and a mic.

Trying to maintain his facade of disinterest, he forced his fist to open and dropped the broken chunks of Styrofoam into the garbage. “And he asked for me?”

“Well, I thought it was a telemarketer, because it sure sounded like he’d said Sean Duvin or Darvin or Dugin instead of O’Dell, but I must have misheard because he got all chatty about how he hadn’t seen you in years.”

Almost ten, to be exact. Sean had walked off the stage, away from the cameras, and handed his bastard of a father his Oscar, saying he had to take a piss and promising he’d be right back. Instead, he’d stolen the first car he could hotwire and driven it as far as the gas in the tank would take him, shaved his head, traded in his tux for some Wrangler jeans, and hopped a Greyhound.

“Number?”

Billy dumped about a pound of sugar into his coffee cup. “Didn’t leave one, but I wrote down the caller ID number.” He pulled a crumbled piece of paper from the pocket of his worn jeans.

Sean held out his hand, and Billy slapped the torn corner of a fast food sandwich wrapper into his palm. One glance confirmed it was the number to the
Hollywood and Vine Reports
offices in Malibu. He’d seen the number enough in his formative years to know it by heart. If Rupert had stumbled onto his trail that meant his father wouldn’t be far off, and if he never saw that bastard again in his life it would be too soon.

The blood in his veins turned to frozen sludge. “Message?”

“Nope.”

That didn’t mean Rupert didn’t want anything. The sleazebag had spent most of the past decade writing about the “bright young talent who had disappeared off the face of the Earth.” He wasn’t about to stop now.

Sean yanked the brim of his Sweet Salvation Brewery baseball cap down with more force than was necessary. He needed space to figure out what—or more accurately,
where
—his next move was.

“And on less–happy news, the fermentation tank is leaking, but the fact that Natalie has spent the morning shut up in her office balances out that bit of bad news.” Billy smirked at what he no doubt thought was a funny swipe at the boss. “You know, so she’s not running around getting into everyone’s business.”

“Not funny.” Sean glared at the skinny little twerp until he bounced nervously on his toes. “How bad’s the leak?”

Billy shrugged. “Clyde’s fussing with it, but it’s gushing at a good clip.”

The fermentation tank held more than twelve hundred gallons of not–yet–drinkable beer. If they couldn’t fix the leak they’d lose nearly seven thousand bottles of beer. That would be the equivalent of using a flamethrower to light a cigarette in terms of damage to the brewery’s bottom line. “Shit. Why didn’t you tell me this first?”

Not bothering to stick around for the explanation, Sean marched out of the break room, took the first left and pushed through the swinging door leading from the offices to the brewery floor, where all the action took place.

Sean made a beeline toward the small crowd gathered around the stainless–steel tank with the cone–shaped bottom, the pointed end of which stopped a few feet off the brewery’s cement floor. Clyde, the chief maintenance man, had folded himself nearly in two as he twisted his body to get a better look at the damage while avoiding the amber–colored geyser rushing out of the tank.

The whole mess got worse with each step Sean took. By the time the crowd parted for him, there was a river of beer surging out of the bottom of the fermentation tank. “Oh, fuck.”

“You said it.” Billy agreed.

Sean crouched down beside Clyde. The older man had enough lines on his forehead to double as a highway map, each one made even deeper with worry. That meant it was so bad it couldn’t even be registered on a Richter scale.

“What’s the verdict?” As if he needed to hear the words to know.

Clyde stood and every joint in his body cracked loudly in protestation as he straightened to his full height. Not one to be hurried by man or beer, he pulled a red bandana out of his back pocket and used it to dry his hands before folding it twice and stuffing it back home. “The fermenting beer is coming out of the bottom outlet hole.”

“I see that.” Sean managed, just barely, to keep the no–shit–Sherlock sarcasm out of his voice.

Clyde pointed a long, bony finger at the bottom of the tank. “That there bolt for the tri–clamp connection is shot.”

The seriousness of the situation became crystal clear. “Which means the tri–clamp and the reducer connection are less than useless.”

“Pretty much.” The grizzled veteran of all the things that could go wrong at a brewery rocked back on his heels. “This,” he pointed to the beer flowing down into the floor drainage trench, “is going to look like a drizzle before it’s all said and done.”

Sean followed the beer creek until his gaze hit the reference room. He looked longingly at the place where he had spent every night for the past few months trying to find just the right combination of yeast, hops, barley, and more for a stout beer to win the invitational. He wouldn’t be locked behind that door anytime soon by the looks of the shitstorm in front of him.

He rubbed the back of his neck, hoping he could erase the niggling worry making his short hairs stand on end. They’d replaced the fermentation tanks not that long ago and adhered religiously to the maintenance schedule. “The tank is only a year old, how did this happen?”