Page 81 of The Pack Next Door
“If it’s looking after the sheep, we’ve got this.” Dammit, Mads grabbed the bit between his teeth and ran with it. “We spent enough time on our grandparents’ farm in the summer to know our way around a flock.”
“The trials—” Gideon said.
“So?”
Mads stepped up to our brother and I just rolled my eyes, ignoring them and focussing on what mattered.
Briar.
“If you need something, you tell us,” I said. “Maybe just to vent?”
Her eyes were wide and shining, making clear the effort it was taking to stop herself from crying and they were missing all of it. Their bickering faded away as I nodded to encourage her.
“Tom made this massive shipment for me.” Her lip quivered so she thinned her mouth down to stop it. “He was never one for making large production runs. This is his passion.” Her voice broke as she shrugged. “I thought he was like me. Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life, right?” She shifted focus, staring out the big window at the end of the guest house. “But that’s not how it works for him. He likes sheep farming to make money. I guess it takes the pressure off and allows him to be more creative.” Her feet moved across the floor, pacing faster and faster. “And I put him in a position where all that joy evaporated.”
“Hey.” I intercepted her, taking her hands. “I only met Tom yesterday, but I can say with all confidence that old prick? No one’s making him do anything he didn’t want to do. You assumed he’d feel the same way about making bowls as you do your job…”
That forced me to pause for a second, realising what that meant. There was no way in hell Briar was ever going to relocate her business to Moon River. The way her face lit up when she spoke about it, even if she tried to hide it behind a cool mask, I smelled her scent sweeten. It was everything to her.
Which meant it was on me to find a way forward for her.
“And you put a proposition to him.” Mads stepped forward. “He didn’t have to say yes, didn’t have to make that commitment. Unless you were here, cracking the whip, forcing him to make pots every day, he did that.”
A little snort had a tear rolling down her cheek, but the smile was genuine.
“Pretty sure even that wouldn’t work. Tom never does anything he doesn’t want to…”
And there it was. The end result might not have been what Briar had hoped, but the process? There was no way to anticipate what had happened and she knew it.
“OK, fine.” A glance at the wall closest to the studio, then back at us. “He’s old enough to be my dad, so that makes him the master of his own destiny.” Her fingers raked through her hair. “And I need to do the same. The emails…” she groaned.
“I sent them out,” Mads protested.
“I know, and that’s the problem. Why the hell did I say I’d get replacements for them when I hadn’t even spoken to Tom?”
“Does he have a history of replacing damaged items for you?” Gideon’s cool voice had me frowning, but Briar dropped her hands.
“Yes.”
“So you made an assumption based on established practise. What are the consequences for notifying your customers that they won’t be getting their items?”
“Lack of trust.” Yeah, that frown was back, as was the burnt smell. “My next preorder is likely to be a bust. If I can’t be trusted to deliver, why bother?”
“Because you have a valuable product in limited numbers.” I stared at my brother, wondering where this was coming from. “I assume if selling en masse is not something Tom wants to do, he’s funnelling all his stock your way.”
“Yes.” She blinked. “He gets annoyed by craft fair people. Thinks there’s too many tyre kickers and not enough buyers, though Honey says he likes catching up with other makers.”
“You’re not McDonalds. What you sell isn’t cookie cutter homewares sold cheap. You’ve built a reputation with your regular customers for selling one of a kind items,” he said. “Leaninto that. I noticed you did a lot of storytelling on your blog to help people engage with the products. Tell them this one.”
“About my failure…?” He had her for a bit there, but that last part she rejected. With a shake of her head, Briar stepped away from us, then pulled her t-shirt up and over her head. “I need to run.”
Stripping down in seconds, I knew this wasn’t about her heat. Sex couldn’t have been further from her mind, and so it killed any ideas I had about making lazy love in front of the window.
Love…
I stared at her as she tossed her bra aside, not seeing only the lush body, but the woman too. One that was feeling overwhelmed, forced to carry too much, and that would stop right now. In seconds, a grey wolf stood before us where the woman once was. I was tugging my clothes off when I heard the wolf bark, demanding that we follow.
Then she was off.
