Page 48 of Tore Up

Was she serious right now? Did she honestly believe I’d let her get on a bus and work a job? She was carrying Crosby’s baby. She didn’t need to do shit that could hurt my nephew.

“Your job is to keep my brother’s son safe. Do whatever you can to make sure this pregnancy is healthy and he is thriving. That’s your only job,” I told her, then took my coffee and got the hell out of that damn kitchen.

Those eyes of hers were a weapon. The damn sky on a clear day couldn’t even compete.

Twenty

Halo

“Why does it smell like oatmeal?” I asked Than as we walked past wooden barrels.

“That’s the mash,” he told me. “Corn, malted barley, and rye.”

I pointed to the large building to our left. “What’s in there?”

“That’s the distillery. Not sure the fumes are good for you. We are going this way,” he told me, waving a hand toward a log cabin to the right. “The offices.”

My eyes were everywhere. I was amazed at all the different things going on around me. “Are those barrels full of whiskey?”

“Not yet. They’ll be taken inside and prepared. Their interior has to be toasted, so to speak, among other things. Once they have whiskey in them, they are kept inside.”

We started up the steps to the cabin he called the offices.

“For how long?”

“Depends on the batch. Our minimum is eight years, but we have a fifteen-year one that costs more.”

I was fascinated. I’d never thought about how whiskey was made.

When Bane had left the kitchen this morning, I’d been deflated. My hopes for a better day were snuffed out as he stalked out of the room. He hadn’t even mentioned showing me how to watch the ultrasound on the large screen. I’d been left there, feeling my day already spiraling downhill.

Than, however, stepped in and said he needed someone at his family’s distillery to answer calls and go through the mail. Ransom gave him a hard look, and I worried that his brother didn’t agree. But my desire to get out of the house and have something to do had overridden that.

“Welcome to Carver’s Bootleg Whiskey,” he said with a grin.

“Bootleg?” I asked, looking up at him.

“My grandfather wanted to give a nod to how it’d all started. My great-grandfather was a bootlegger back in the ’20s, as well as an illegal gambler. It’s how he got involved with the family.”

“Than!” a man called out.

“Yeah. Be there in a minute,” he replied, then turned back to me. “I’m late for a marketing meeting. New firm we hired.”

I followed him behind a desk that had a U-shaped counter around it. There was a stool on this side of the counter, along with a computer screen and a phone. The desk that sat in the center had a larger computer, another phone, a lot of files stacked up, and a basket full of mail.

“Until I’m done in there, just worry about the phone. When it rings, you answer it like this. Check the line that is lit up, in case you have to transfer it. Right now, we are all unavailable, so whoever they ask for, take a message.” He slid a book over to me. “Message book. Write it down here.”

I nodded, feeling slightly anxious that I was going to do something wrong.

“Oh, and when you answer, say,Carver’s Bootleg Whiskey.This is Halo. How may I help you?”

Okay, I could do that. Easy enough. “Got it.”

He rapped his knuckles on the desk, then motioned toward the back. “If I don’t get in there, Ransom will get pissy.”

“I’m good,” I assured him.

He seemed hesitant, but walked away, leaving me with my task to answer the phone.

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