Page 2 of Dirty Ginger

1

Two weeks later…

At a little after nine o’clock in the morning, Amelia stepped out of the Uber, feeling like a different woman than the one whose life abruptly took a rattling sharp left into the trash fourteen days ago. “Thanks,” she said to the driver, who had already gotten her luggage out of the trunk.

“Take care,” the driver replied before getting back in his car and driving away.

Amelia faced the big, white, colonial-style farmhouse located in the small town of River Rock, in the gorgeous Colorado countryside, before she began climbing the porch steps. The house always held so much life. First, when her grandmother and her pops took her, along with her two sisters, in to raise them after their parents died in a car crash. Then when she lived in the house with Clara, Maisie, and Mason after their grandparents passed away. But now, as she opened the front door, she only met silence. Gone were her grandparents. Gone was Maisie. She had moved in with Hayes. Gone was Clara and Mason, living with Sullivan. Within the heavy silence lived the reminder that Luka had planned to move in here with Amelia. Now it was only her.

Refusing to allow the embarrassment and unbearable sadness to fill her again, she slammed the door shut on those thoughts. Literally. When she’d boarded the flight for their honeymoon to Saint Lucia the morning after Luka broke off their wedding, she’d done so with the intention of running away. Only, the lush forests, sunny skies, and the delicious rum for a whole two weeks had pulled her out of her despair and forced her to recognize a couple truths. She couldn’t run any longer, and she had to face the fact that Luka hadn’t been totally wrong – even she had doubts about their marriage. So she allowed herself three days of hiding in the hotel room dying of embarrassment and grieving the loss of the life she thought she was going to have with Luka before she spent the rest of her trip figuring out her new normal, thinking about what went wrong. But when she’d landed late last night and fell into the Denver airport hotel’s bed, she decided that, now that she was back home, she’d have an open heart and an open mind, no more bitterness or shame.

Determined to pick up the pieces of her life, she set her suitcase down by the big wooden staircase, where a gallery of framed photographs displaying happy family moments hung. She took her cell phone from her purse and then headed back outside, approaching the brewery. She only reached the barn’s double doors when she heard gravel crunching against tires. A quick look back revealed a big black truck with Rocky Mountain Beer Distribution written on the door.

The truck stopped, and Ronnie Keene exited with an unusually soft smile. He was a couple inches taller than Amelia and had light green eyes that always looked hard, serious in a way that unnerved Amelia most days. She wasn’t a businesswoman like Clara, who usually dealt with Ronnie. He wore a Red Sox baseball cap overtop his bald head, supporting his nephew, Sullivan, who played for the team. But that smile as he approached, that soft, pitying smile, was all for Amelia.

“Good morning, Ronnie,” she said, chipper. “Thanks for coming to meet me.” She’d sent him the text on the drive back from Denver this morning, wanting to keep busy today. Especially since he’d sent her an email asking for a meeting with her as soon as she felt ready to have one.

“Mornin’,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets when he reached her. “Are you sure you’re up to this meeting? Like I said in my text, we can wait—”

“I’m up for it,” she said, giving him a bright smile in the hope of easing his worries. “I’ve spent two weeks relaxing, being spoiled rotten, and having fun. I feel refreshed and rejuvenated and totally ready to get back to work.”

Ronnie gave her a nod and looked upon her with something akin to pride. “Clara was saying you went on a trip.”

Amelia nodded. “To Saint Lucia.” What she thought would be two weeks to sulk had turned into fourteen days of healing. She’d even had some fun. “The trip was exactly what I needed, so please, truly, let’s get back to work.”

Another nod. “All right, then.” He waved out toward the brewery. “Let’s get back to work.”

Good. One person had accepted her healed heart. Now she needed to get the rest of the nosy, overbearing town to get onboard too. She unlocked the barn doors, whisking them open, and her heart broke a little bit more. She’d had four batches of beer fermenting that she should have checked before leaving for the airport. She had intended to give instructions to her sisters to care for the beer while she was gone, but that had been the last thing on her mind. She could smell the rancid grain the second she walked through the doors. The state of her brewery was terrible, and that fell on Amelia’s shoulders. “Ronnie, I apologize for this. Clara and Maisie don’t know this part of the business, and I just left—”

“Don’t,” Ronnie said firmly behind her. “You don’t need to apologize.” He stepped in next to her and gave a reassuring smile. “I’ve got no doubt you’ll get things up and running again and will meet all your quotas.”

“Thanks for understanding,” she said, leading him through the brewery into the back storage room to show him all wasn’t a total bust. “We will definitely hit the quotas for this month.”

Ronnie stepped into the room, scanned the already bottled cases of Foxy Diva, their top selling beer that Ronnie and his distribution company had recently picked up to distribute into every bar, restaurant, and store in North America. A huge feat for a small brewery owned by three sisters. “You always have this much stock on hand?” he asked, looking back at her with wide eyes.

She nodded. “I always make sure I’m ahead of the game.” She didn’t know what it said about her that she always planned for the worst. A result of losing her parents in a car crash and having her heart broken twice. She knew to stay ahead when things were good, because things always got bad again.

“This is good, Amelia,” Ronnie said, turning in a circle. “Very good work.” He returned to her, and she shut the storage room’s door behind him.

“It won’t take me long to get the brewery back in shape,” she said, trying to breathe shallowly as to not inhale the sour aroma.

“I’ve got no doubt that’s true,” Ronnie said, walking next to her down the aisle between the tanks. He stopped at the barn’s double doors again, visibly breathing a little deeper now too, crossing his arms. “The reason I sent you the email for the meeting is we had a marketing meeting while you were gone. Foxy Diva is doing well. Really well. But we’d like to draw more interest for the brewery next year. The team suggested we put out a special beer each quarter.”

Amelia’s mouth went dry. “Wow. That’s an amazing offer.”

Ronnie nodded. “It’s something we’ve seen work very well with another brewery we’ve got. The only hitch is we’ve only got one spot for this type of distribution and three breweries in our roster competing for the spot.” He paused, pressing his lips together before continuing, “I realize the pressure this would put on you. If you’re not ready, or up for it—”

“I’m up for it,” Amelia sputtered before even considering it. Maisie had made their little brewery successful in the beginning by traveling to beer festivals and getting their name out there. Clara was the very reason Ronnie picked up Foxy Diva and distributed it. Now Amelia needed to prove her worth.

Ronnie laughed softly and gave a small nod. “I figured you would be ready.” He glanced back into the brewery, tapping a cowboy boot against the ground. “Take a couple months. Brew six different ale samples. After that, we’ll run some tastings and see what four come out as the leading contenders.”

“Totally doable.” Amelia smiled, her pulse racing over the idea of creating some new beers. She hadn’t stretched her mind this way since she took Pops’ home brew recipe and adjusted the ingredients, turning the beer into Foxy Diva. Yet at the same time, the little voice in her head worried that she couldn’t take on such a huge undertaking. Six beer samples on a sound mind was hard, and her mind felt… shaky. “Thank you for your trust is our product, Ronnie.”

“No thanks required,” he said. That pride was back in his eyes. “You’re a talented brew master, Amelia. You’ve got a good thing here. Don’t forget that, without your talent, the brewery would not be where it is today.”

Leaving her speechless at his kind words, he strode away. Ronnie rarely offered praise, and she knew it came from trying to boost her confidence after it had been so publicly depleted. Appreciating his kindness regardless of his reasons, she waved as he drove away. Then with the heaviest sigh of her life, she faced the tanks. Never in her life had she ever left her brewery in this condition. Her teacher, Graham Neal, would drop dead if he set foot in her brewery. “Sanitize. Sanitize. Sanitize.” had been his motto. Dust was in places it shouldn’t exist. A tank was left open, obviously one of her sisters wanted to clean it and then changed their minds. Likely Maisie.

“You’re home.”

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