Hollywood on Tap (6 page)

Unsettled and annoyed, he jerked his hand away and shoved it into his jeans pocket. “Billy was cleaning a beer spill.”

Natalie cleared her throat and trailed her fingers across the line of pearls circling her delicate throat. “Because the fermentation valve malfunctioned for reasons we’ve yet to determine, but I’m telling you now I’m pretty suspicious about it.”

Epson’s face remained stubbornly neutral and he kept quiet despite the pause in the conversation. The deputy might think he had the silent treatment’s intimidation factor down pat, but he failed to deliver the underlying current of aggression that had always made Sean’s dad’s quiet explosions so much more deadly.

“Billy hooked up the hose to that line there to clean up the beer mess on the floor after we got the formation tank leak contained.” Sean pointed to where the three–inch brass fitting was screwed onto the line labeled water.

Natalie squatted down by the valves and ran her long fingers across one knob. “But if you look closely, you’ll see someone swapped the labels on the water valve and the carbon dioxide valve.” She flicked the edge of the masking tape and pulled it back an inch to reveal the water droplet etched into the metal behind the handmade carbon dioxide label. “He hooked up to a carbon dioxide line instead of the water line. The pressure ripped the hose from his hands and the nozzle caught him right between the eyes.”

Epson scribbled in his notebook. “And another man was injured?”

Sean nodded and glanced at the clock above the deputy’s head. “Mike got clipped by the hose too.” Both he and Billy were at the Salvation County Medical Complex. Hailey had promised to call as soon as the docs got done with them.

“What makes you think this is foul play as opposed to…” The deputy paused and pursed his lips, as if trying to think of an appropriate way to phrase the rest of his question. “A sloppy operation?”

First Natalie and her flowcharts, and now this. Did everyone think he ran a shoddy shop? Sean clenched his jaw tight enough to crack his first molar. Tension throbbed in his shoulders and the corded muscle in his neck twanged like a banjo in a speed–playing match.

“It’s part of a pattern.” Natalie clamored to his defense—or at least the Sweet Salvation Brewery’s defense. “We’ve had dropped deliveries, the fermentation tank leak, and now this.”

Epson quirked an eyebrow. “You have internal reports on any of these problems?”

Sean slid his gaze toward Natalie, whose face had gone from pale to pink to cherry in about three heartbeats. “We’re working on gathering that now.”

“No problem.” The deputy took three steps toward the door leading to the offices. “Let me see what you’ve got so far.”

Sean pictured the papers flooding every available flat surface in his office and wanted to kick himself in the ass for letting it get that bad. “We can’t.”

The deputy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why not?”

“We were in the middle or an organizational overhaul when all this started happening, and our files are in a bit of disarray right now.” Natalie’s normally honey–smooth voice came out twisted and strained.

“That seems to be the case for a lot of things around here,” the deputy deadpanned. “You folks keep in touch, let me know if anything else happens.” Epson slid his notebook into his shirtfront pocket and sauntered over to the door.

Sean watched the deputy disappear through the swinging doors, knowing that despite the circumstantial evidence, the local sheriff’s office wasn’t going to expend many man hours over a problem at the brewery run by the most disliked family in Salvation. The Sweets weren’t exactly pariahs anymore, but that didn’t mean the townsfolk welcomed them.

Natalie crossed her arms and gave him a hard stare. Without her seemingly ever–present clipboard, the move squeezed her tits together until the top button on her fuzzy cardigan looked like it was about to wave the white flag. His dick twitched behind his zipper.

Yeah, he was a real bastard for checking her cleavage out at a moment like this, but he was also a man who’d become a little too intimately acquainted with his right hand lately.

“My face is up here, Sean.”

Natalie’s declaration blasted him back to the here and now.

Busted. Smooth move, dude.

Heat throbbed in his cheeks, but he managed to raise his gaze to her icy blue eyes. “We’re going to have to find the bastard on our own.”

She nodded. “Agreed, but we need to make a plan.”

“Come by my house tonight.”

“Why your house? Why not here, now?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the commotion picking back up on the brewery floor. “Because we don’t know who’s listening.”

She looked around at the staff members getting back to work. No matter what might happen, she had to know the beer wouldn’t wait, a fact even the most nervous of workers knew. “Point taken.”

“Come by after work.” Feeling like he’d just made a deal with the sexiest devil there was, Sean jammed his hat lower over the last scar his dad ever gave him and followed the deputy’s path out the door.

Chapter Six

Four hours and sixteen minutes later, Natalie rested her cheek against her desk’s cool laminate and felt her eyelids flutter shut. The chill soaked into her overheated flesh. Her sigh of relief was as heartfelt as that of a sorority girl nuzzling up to the porcelain god during rush week.

She could handle problems of the organizational kind without getting a single hair out of place. But when it came to probable sabotage and the prospect of being at Sean’s house tonight, her insides turned all wibbly–wobbly.

Growing up as the quiet, contained one in the wild bunch known as the Sweets of Salvation, she’d always been snowed under by her family’s brashness and crazy ways. Every time she’d gone with her sisters to bail her parents out of jail for one crazy protest or another against the powers that be, anxiety had tightened her entire body until the darkness threatened to eat away at her vision. All of that culminated in Natalie not being able to leave her college dorm room for two weeks until Dr. Kenning had given her the tools to deal with the overwhelming thing called life. So it made sense that all the goings–on at the brewery had her on edge.

Worry that there would be more mishaps accounted for seventy–nine–point–three percent of the discombobulated mess swirling around her. She attributed a solid twenty–point–seven percent to the man who expressed himself through grunts, clipped sentences, and strong muscles that made her weak in the knees.

“You don’t look so hot, sis.” Miranda’s tone broke down into one part exhaustion and two parts concern.

Natalie snapped into a sitting position and slid her hands across her hair, ensuring every strand was in its proper spot, then patted her flushed cheeks.

“I feel plenty hot.” And bothered. Too much time had passed since she’d had sex and relieved all the stress build up. Way. Too. Damn. Long.

“Will it make you feel better to know that I completed the safety check on the brewery while you were talking to the ever–helpful law enforcement officer?” Miranda asked, rolling her eyes when she mentioned Deputy Epson.

“He’s just doing his job.”

Her sister held up a piece of paper. “You haven’t seen what the sheriff’s office just e–mailed me.”

It had only been a few hours. This didn’t bode well. Natalie fought the urge to let her shoulders slump in defeat. “God, what now?”

“A police report that says, and I quote—” Miranda cracked the piece of paper dramatically “—‘Not suspicious in nature, but most likely due to slipshod maintenance’.”

“Don’t let Clyde hear that, his head would pop right off.” Natalie gave in and sank back into her chair. Well, as much as she could with the extra–firm lumbar support cushion. Was a little let–bygones–be–bygones too much to ask for in Salvation? Apparently so.

Her landline rang and the dread slithered straight down her spine. She really needed to chill out. It wasn’t like the receiver was going to explode a la
Mission Impossible
as soon as she picked it up.

Hopefully.

She pressed the speaker button. “Sweet Salvation Brewery, Natalie Sweet speaking.”

“Holy shit, what is going on down there?” The familiar voice of the youngest Sweet triplet, Olivia, made Natalie smile despite everything. “Ruby Sue Jepson said all hell’s breaking loose at the brewery.”

“What are you doing talking to Ruby Sue?” Miranda asked, moving closer to the desk so she didn’t have to shout the question.

“Begging for some of her pecan pie.”

“You need comfort food enough to call and try to pry that recipe from the woman who’s sworn to take it to her grave?” Natalie’s hand shot to her pearl necklace, each warm orb a reminder of the advice Dr. Kenning had given her about accepting that there are some things you can change and some you can’t—the ultimate frustration of every control freak in the world. “Forget the brewery, what’s going on in your world?”

“Nice try, sis, but I won’t be distracted.” Olivia laughed. “Fess up. Now.”

Miranda sat down on Natalie’s chair, nudging her sister aside so they each had a butt cheek on the white leather seat. “We’ve had some problems,” Miranda said.

“You call five people going to the hospital ‘some problems’?” Olivia’s voice crackled through the speakerphone.

“It was only two,” Natalie responded. “And that was two too many even if the paramedics said the wounds were minor.”

“What happened?”

Natalie glanced at Miranda, who gave her a go–ahead shrug. “One of the guys was cleaning up the fermentation leak and connected a hose to the carbon dioxide valve instead of the water valve. The end result was two guys down after getting hit in the head with the hose.”

“Why do I have the feeling there’s more to this?” Olivia asked.

“Because there is.” Natalie surprised herself with the harsh certainty in her voice. “The valves were mislabeled.”

“Sloppy work?”

Miranda shook her head, as if Olivia could see her over the phone line. “We don’t think so.”

“Keep going,” Olivia drawled.

Natalie unfurled her pointer finger. “We’ve had deliveries get canceled when they shouldn’t be.” Her middle finger went up. “The fermentation tank leaked because someone tightened the bolt too much or whacked it.” A third upraised finger joined the other two. “Then the hose accident that sent Billy and Mike to the hospital.”

“So who’s got a hard–on for the Sweet Salvation Brewery’s failure?” Olivia asked.

“Not as many people as when Miranda first got here,” Natalie quipped. “But they’re still out there.”

“I wish I was there to help.” Something more than sisterly solidarity leant a bitterness to Olivia’s wistful tone.

Twins weren’t the only ones with that whole otherworldly–connection thing, and Natalie’s triplet alert was letting off a low–level vibration in the back of her head. Flighty and dramatic since birth, Olivia was the wild child of the three. The true Sweet who had never given a damn about what others thought—at least that was the image she projected. Still, something was off, Natalie was sure of it.

Wishing she was better at the touchy–feely stuff, she tried to figure out what to say to get Olivia to open up, but before she could, Miranda leaned in close to the phone’s speaker.

“You know we love you,” her sister said. “But there’s not much more that can be done than what we’re already doing.”

“Still…”

“Forget it, Olive Breath,” Miranda said, smiling as she used their baby sister’s most–hated nickname. “You just started a new job that doesn’t involve swimsuits in January while wearing feet–destroying stilettos. We’ll see you in two months for your vacation.”

Olivia giggled, the familiar sound silencing the warning bells in Natalie’s head. “Man, some days I wish I was still modeling. Taking off to come see you two whenever I wanted was so much easier.”

“Two words to reinforce your decision to retire from the runway: pecan pie.” Natalie’s stomach rumbled as soon as she spoke the words.

“Excellent point,” Olivia said in mock seriousness. “And now I’m hungry again. I don’t suppose I could get either of you to overnight me a pie from The Kitchen Sink.”

“Forget it.” The realization that she’d skipped lunch made Natalie’s stomach fold in on itself in agony. “If I make it down to the diner today, I’m eating all the pecan pie Ruby Sue has myself.”

“So much for sisterly love.”

She rubbed her abdomen. “Exactly.”

“So Natalie,” Olivia said. “If the cops are a no–go, have you figured out a plan yet, or are you wearing the pearls down to nothing?”

Natalie clasped her hands in her lap and raised her chin. “I’m going to figure out who did it.”

“That’s it? No flowchart? No sixty–six point plan?” Olivia teased.

“I’m not without street smarts,” Natalie shot back. The silence from her sisters that followed her pronouncement spoke volumes. “Anyway, Sean is helping.”

A plotting gleam lit Miranda’s eyes. “The, and I quote, ‘monosyllabic Neanderthal’, end quote, who is the most annoying man in the world?”

“Oh, I like him already,” Olivia said. “Tell me more.” Natalie could just imagine Olivia’s face taking on a devious shine at the mention of a boy. Some things never changed. “Is he cute?”

She locked her hands together so tightly that she nearly lost circulation in her right hand. “That’s not important.”

“Damn, I practically see the blush over the phone line,” Olivia teased. “He’s that hot, huh?”

“Oh shut up.” Natalie flipped the bird at the phone.

“Stop stirring up trouble.” Miranda stood up and walked to the door.

“Very funny.” Natalie toyed with her pearls. As if she could get any more stirred up than she already was. She straightened an already neat stack of folders on her desk.

Olivia let loose with a wolf whistle. “That all sounds like code for office nookie.”

Natalie’s hand slipped and she knocked one of the folders to the floor. The contents spilled out like a waterfall.

“No!” She rolled out her chair too fast and one wheel went off her plastic mat, lodging the chair in place. “We are simply meeting at his house.”

“
That
location is definitely more private,” Miranda said, amusement turning up her mouth.