Page 4 of OctoBEARfest

A twitch went through Bill's…soul…at the phrasebig man,and he was pretty sure a blush hit him for the second time in fifteen minutes. Gwen's grin got wider. Much, much wider. Bill blushed harder, until he was sure he would no longer embarrasshimself if he stood up. That was something, at least. "You're…are you real?"

She's real,his bear said happily.She's our mate. She's exactly what you need.

Bill was almost certain that was true. He loved his family, all of them, but not even his parents were as take-charge as Gwen Booker seemed to be, and it felt like Bill had been transported to the Twilight Zone. He'd just been desperately wishing thatsomebodyin his life would want to get things done as much as he did.

He just hadn't expected that person to be a wrong hire who came bursting through the door, destined to be the love of his life.

Gwen made a show of pinching herself in a couple places, then raised her dark eyebrows at him. "Pretty sure I'm real. C'mon, let's get that update out to everybody who's bought tickets. Do you know how to make a QR code? Obviously not," she said to his expression. "All right, let me at it." She sprang out of her chair, rubbed her bottom, and made a face at the chair as she came around to Bill's side of the desk. "Up. Or let me sit in your lap, your call."

Bill scrambled out of his chair so fast it was embarrassing, but he would absolutely not be responsible for his body's responses if she sat in his lap, and this was enough of a disaster already. He had no idea how he would explain to this literal rock star of a woman that he, boring old Bill Torben, brewhouse master and general stick-in-the-mud, was meant to be with her for the rest of their lives. Or that he could turn into an incredibly enormous grizzly bear, for that matter, but honestly, that seemed less unlikely than her wanting to stay with him forever.

Gwen plonked down in his chair. "Oh, that'smuchmore comfortable. My ass isn't going to be perforated by springs, in this chair. Okay, what's your computer passwo—" The questiondissolved into an 'uh' and a burst of laughter and Gwen pushed back from the desk, waving at the computer. "Sorry, I'm not actually that rude. Or I am, but I caught myself in time. Mostly. Please put your password in?"

Bill lurched forward and typed his password in with the largest, clumsiest hands that had ever existed. It took him four tries. It wasn't even a hard password. He stepped back again, actually shaking with effort, and with the warm, slightly spicy scent of Gwen Booker in his nose. She smelledsogood. He wanted to put his nose in her neck and just breathe for about a week.

Instead he pretended he was a perfectly normal human being who didn't do weird things like that, and said, "There?" hopefully.

"Great, okay, let me just generate a coupon code to link the QR code to, and then…no, just a one-off, you piece of electronic horseshooooe." Her gaze flickered to him as she avoided swearing, as if he might be horribly shocked by her using an actual curse word. He sucked his cheeks in, trying not to laugh, and her gaze darkened with obviously-mocking threat before she turned her attention back to the computer. "Okay, look, I'm going to associate it with the brewpub's website, okay? You've got one, right?" Gwen's hands flew over the keyboard, filling things out, creating stuff Bill had no idea how to do, typing notes and drafts and finally sitting back with an, "Et voila! All right, we've just got to send it to the ticket vendor to propagate. You want to take a look at what I've done first?"

"I can see you've spelled everything right," Bill said faintly. "I'm not sure there's anything else I'm capable of doing besides gawking in appreciation."

She laughed and submitted the draft she'd written. "Okay then. That's stage one of 'Save Oktoberfest' underway. Stage two is seeing what this town's got to offer and where we can advertiselocally!" She stood up with the same energy she'd demonstrated doing everything else, and Bill had a sudden, vivid interest in how she would express that energy in bed.

Which was so far from an okay thing to be thinking he actually kicked himself in his own shin. His bear, startled, said,Ow!even though it hadn't really hurt, and Bill mumbled a silent, half-hearted apology to the offended animal. Gwen, having seen the whole kicking himself thing, blinked at him in confusion, and Bill shook his head. "Nothing. It's just that you're the most amazing women I've ever met."

Gwen Booker looked him up and down with a smile that bordered on a leer, then winked. "Oh, honey, you ain't seen nothing yet."

CHAPTER 4

Gwen wasalmostcertain—by which she meant absolutely totally certain—that Bill hadn't kicked himself because she was amazing, although he wasn't wrong: she was pretty damn cool. She was also certain he wasn't going to tell her whatever it was he'd really been thinking, although from the way he'd blushed and blushed andblushedat her 'big man' comment, she bet she had some pretty solid ideas on where his mind had been in general.

She hoped so, anyway, because her own mind was trawling the gutter like it couldn't get enough innuendo to save its life.Lord, but he was a good-looking hunk of a man. Ahugegood-looking hunk of a man. Gwen usually went for skinny rocker boys with soulful eyes, bad hair, and worse personal baggage. She wasn't, by nature, an "I can fix him" girl, which meant those relationships tended to burn out fast and hard, but man, she had a hard time resisting the look.

Which was clearly because she had never met a look like Bill Torben before. She would have rearranged her personal aesthetic to be nothingbutsix-foot-five mountain-men types, if she'd ever met anybody like him before. She hadbadlyhoped he wouldn't get out of the chair and she would get to sit in his lap,which was even more forward than Gwen generally thought of herself as being, and she rarely wasted much time dilly-dallying with guys. They were either into her or not, and she preferred finding out up front.

She was pretty sure Bill was into her, but for the first time in her life, she felt very slightly hesitant about asking. It would be too disappointing if he wasn't. Maybe just this once, living in hope would be better than being crushed.

Besides, it looked like in order to save his festival, they were going to have to spend the next few days mostly in each other's company. If he wasn't into heryet, Gwen decided, she would by God do her best to make sure he was by the end of the weekend.

"All right," she said briskly. "You said your brothers knew about some music venues? Text them and see where's good. We'll start with their recommendations and go from there. Is there somewhere I can leave my guitar? I was going to check the sound from your stage, but it looks like we've got more important stuff to do right now. I'll do that in the morning."

As she spoke, Bill's phone began to ding and buzz with incoming text notifications, and he grimaced from the bones out. "That'll be my family just reading the update about how good ol' Bill blew it and booked the wrong talent. I don't even want to look at it." With a sigh, though, he took his phone out, shoulders bowed as he unlocked it and skimmed through texts.

Gwen's heart went out to him abruptly. He looked tired, like he was carrying too much weight, and she had the impulse to hug him and tell him everything was going to be all right. "Hey. Bill. Hey. Look at me."

He did, a hangdog expression in his brown eyes, and she shook her head. "If they're going to get to you, don't look at it right now. We're working on fixing it, which is clear from the update I sent out."

"Well, I can't just not respond," he said blankly. "They're expecting me to."

"As it turns out, youcanjust not respond. Ask me how I know." Gwen gave him an encouraging smile. "And if you can't get an answer out of your brothers about the music venues without dealing with the rest of their questions, then we'll figure it out without them. Online reviews are there for a reason. C'mon," she said with a tilt of her head toward the door. "Give me a place to store the guitar, and we'll blow this joint."

"You can leave it here, if that's okay? The door locks and I can give you a key." He gave his phone another guilty glance, but put it in his back pocket and went to the filing cabinet to take a key out of a drawer labeled K.

Gwen grinned as he handed it to her. "Subtle."

"You would be amazed at how my brothers can't remember K is for key," Bill said with a sigh. "Sometimes I think itissubtle." His phone buzzed again and he winced, reaching for it.

Gwen grabbed his hand. "Half an hour. Give me half an hour to get you out of here and to a local jam session before you look at that."

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