26
THE TAVERN DOESN’T offer a huge beer selection,” Lydia Lipin said, referring to the restaurant associated with the hotel she managed, “but I think we can add one more of yours to our taps this winter. That’ll make my sister happy.”
Ian sank back into the chair in Lydia’s tiny office at the Bay Song Inn, hoping the relief he felt wasn’t entirely visible on his face. Nor the desperation.
A couple more Lipin-affiliated businesses had canceled their orders since Saturday, adding to the already impressive list of restaurants, bars, and stores in town that had decided they couldn’t do business with Northern Charm Brewing for one reason or another. Micah had been busy over the past several days searching for new opportunities outside of Helen, while Ian had been working on a plan to adjust their production. The stress of it had left him lying awake in bed at night.
Although not all of that stress was brewery-related. Hell, not even half of it was. Every time he closed his eyes, it wasn’t his spreadsheets or the bank statements that he saw. It was Kelsey, her big blue eyes gaping at him as he’d told her he needed to end things between them. It was the red-tinted anger on her face when he’d told her she put her job above her relationships too. And it was her voice he heard, the pain, honed to a razor’s edge in the way she’d said Fine before kicking him out of the car. That Fine had left him bleeding internally.
Ian didn’t believe he’d been wrong about her prioritizing her job the same way he did, but he regretted his words—how he’d snapped. He hadn’t wanted to end things between them at all, and he’d done so in the worst possible way.
Not entirely your fault, a desperate voice in his head reminded him. And it was true—he had tried to leave open a possibility for the future. One day, he hoped, the brewery would be successful enough that Helen and its feud wouldn’t matter as much to the bottom line, and then being with Kelsey wouldn’t be as big of a deal.
But Kelsey had shot down that option before he’d finished getting the words out, and given how upset she’d been, Ian couldn’t blame her. But it still stung. He’d wanted to close the door just for a moment, but Kelsey had slammed it shut, locked it, and boarded it over.
They’d only owned up to the emotions between them for just over a week, but he missed her with all the longing of the entire time he’d known her. More, really. She’d fit into his arms and his life so perfectly it was like they’d kindled their weird non-relationship for years. Breaking up with her was supposed to allow him to focus on work, but so far he was focused at least as much on missing her as he was on the brewery.
Since that part of the plan hadn’t worked out, Ian reminded himself that this was what was best for her. If they were together, Kelsey would be expecting to spend time with him. She’d put demands on his attention that he couldn’t meet, and she’d be hurt because of it. Yet here he was, wishing he had her around to hold at night so he might be able to sleep, dreaming of her kissing him to distraction, and craving her wicked sense of humor, which might have helped him laugh at the things that otherwise made him want to howl with frustration.
Damn it, he even missed her dogs. They were part of the Kelsey experience, and there was nothing about that he’d change. Romeo, in particular, worried him. At some point, the husky had decided Ian’s lap was a good place to rest his head, and Ian recalled Kelsey saying Romeo got anxious if separated from his people. Ian had assumed he’d become one of them.
Still, Ian was not ready to consider the possibility that he’d made a mistake. No, the mistake had been letting himself take his eyes off the prize in the first place. He would succeed. The brewery would not go under before it had truly begun. He would not fail.
In the end, that was what mattered.
So he’d always believed.
So he’d continue to ignore the pain and doubt that crept into his heart.
“Ian?” Lydia was twirling a pen around in her hand, a cool trick that was mildly hypnotic, and Ian realized he’d spaced out.
He’d been doing that a lot since Sunday.
“Sorry. That would be fantastic.” Despite his best efforts, there was no way Lydia could have missed the relief in his voice. The Tavern buying more beer wouldn’t solve all their problems, not even close, but every bit helped.
Perhaps even more helpful than the purchase itself was the meaningfulness of the sale. Lydia wasn’t simply one of the many Lipins in Helen. She was the mayor’s daughter and the granddaughter of the woman behind the Save Helen Society. A series of framed photographs on the wall behind her showed the hotel and her family over the last five decades. The Bay Song and this branch of the Lipin family tree were formidable. Ian hoped Lydia’s continued willingness to do business with him would send a message to the other Lipin businesses that had backed out.
“Not a problem,” Lydia said, setting the pen aside. “Honestly, I felt kind of bad when I heard some Porters were throwing a fit because of the marketing deal we signed. I should have anticipated something like that would happen, and I didn’t, so I didn’t warn you. I was too excited by the idea. Tay has that effect on me. She’s great with ideas, but not always with the gritty details for implementing them.”
The Tay being referred to was obviously Lydia’s sister, Taylor, who was dating Josh. Ian wondered if her sister’s willingness to cross feud lines had influenced Lydia’s willingness to overlook his (former) relationship with Kelsey. He was also afraid to ask.
“The feud is a weird thing to have to take into consideration when doing business,” Ian said, choosing his words carefully.
Lydia laughed as though she’d read his real thoughts. “That’s a kind way to put it. I try to keep my head down and stay out of the fray, but it has its way of finding you. As you’ve discovered.”
“I’d guess staying out of it would be hard when your sister is dating a Porter.”
“Taylor’s relationship with Josh quite literally brought it to my doorstep.” She frowned. “If you don’t mind me asking, how are you holding up?”
Not wanting to take any more of Lydia’s time, Ian had been starting to get up, but her words made him pause. “Holding up?”
“I heard you and Kelsey broke up.” Lydia’s face was sympathetic. “I wouldn’t usually intrude, but I’m afraid to ask—was it because of my family?”
“I . . .” Ian didn’t really want to discuss his breakup with Kelsey with anyone, and he certainly didn’t know Lydia well enough to feel comfortable talking about it with her in particular. But seeing as he had broken up with Kelsey because he needed to get Lipin businesses back on board with the brewery, knowing the news had spread should have been a positive sign.
While he faltered for a way to exit the conversation without being rude, Lydia plowed ahead. “It was my family, wasn’t it? Damn it. I’m sorry, Ian.”
“It was my fault.” By some miracle he didn’t fall back into the chair, but the hollowness he’d felt since Kelsey had driven off on Saturday was more intense than ever, a growing pit in his gut that could swallow him. “I should have known dating a Porter would be problematic.”
“You shouldn’t have had to worry about it.” Lydia’s pen went accidentally flying across the desk in her agitation.
Her reaction surprised Ian. Yes, Lydia had been the easiest Lipin to work with, and the fact that he was here in her office said a lot. But there was a bitterness in her voice that suggested her anger was personal. Maybe it was simply concern for her sister, but Ian wondered, and curiosity gave him the will to speak more.
“I shouldn’t have; you’re right. But I don’t have a choice. I have to put the brewery first. There are too many people depending on me, and I can’t let down my aunt and uncle, who have invested so much.” Bitterness or not, Lydia ran the Bay Song. As one business owner to another, she should understand his decision.
Ian needed someone to understand his decision. It would go a long way toward validating his choice.
“I get it,” Lydia said, and strangely, the words did not have the effect on Ian that he’d hoped. “I probably would have made the same choice. I admire Taylor and Josh for what they’re willing to do, but I don’t think I could handle that kind of pressure.”
Ian nodded. That kind of pressure, right. But wasn’t Lydia saying that while she’d have made the same decision he did for the business’s sake, she admired the ability to make the other choice? That was absolutely not what he’d wanted to hear.
“Taylor and Josh aren’t in the same situation as either of us would be,” Ian said. He was willing Lydia to agree with him.
She acknowledged the point with a shrug, but her gaze went unfocused for a second, again leaving Ian to wonder what she was thinking about.
“You weren’t put in an easy or a fair situation,” Lydia said at last. “I thought things might calm down around here. Like Tay and Josh being together might bring people to their senses. But the way you guys have been dragged through the feud by both sides doesn’t give me hope. I have a bad feeling shit’s picking up again. It’s going to be a long winter.”
Aren’t they always? Ian wanted to ask, but he couldn’t dredge up the humor. Kelsey had said something to that effect once—winters were long and dark, and he needed to find indoor hobbies to entertain himself. But lately, he’d been counting on her for that, and he’d lost her.
None of this boded well for the future.
KELSEY WASN’T SURE she was ever going to be able to walk her dogs again. She didn’t know who had spread the news about her Ian and dating, and she didn’t know how the news that they’d broken up had spread, either, but it hardly mattered. Small towns would be small towns. Anyone who didn’t know yet would tomorrow or the day after—especially considering she was Porter royalty, Ian was the interesting new guy, and their relationship was what had gotten the Lipins all riled up in the first place. Their star-crossed romance and subsequent implosion was the stuff of Helen tabloid dreams.
She felt the town’s eyes on her as she walked, and for that she was grateful that she’d put in some effort before leaving the cozy confines of her house. It wasn’t easy being dumped, and it was even harder going out in public not looking like you’d been dumped. But while Kelsey might have spent the last several days bingeing on sugar and wearing pajama pants, she wasn’t about to let anyone know it. She had a reputation as the take-no-prisoners, suffer-no-fools Porter alpha bitch to uphold. And damn it, her pride required it of her.
Her pride was especially stinging this evening after her visit to her parents’ house. Her mother, predictably, had wanted to coddle her and stuff her full of dessert. Her father, on the other hand, had mostly ranted through dinner. Somehow she’d endured it. At the time, Kelsey had thought that made her strong, but in retrospect, as she made the half-mile trek back to her house, keeping her mouth shut no longer felt strong. Hence, the wounded pride.
Her father was furious at Ian for the breakup, and even more furious at the Lipins for being the cause of it. Kelsey hadn’t been able to help but notice that her own feelings posed little concern for him. When she’d gently reminded him that he’d instigated a campaign against the brewery himself because of the Bay Song deal, he’d repeated his earlier insistence that it was different. She’d been able to ignore that, mentally rolling her eyes.
But when her father had asked her if she’d written the article about the brewery for the town paper yet (she had) and subsequently suggested she pull and revise it, that was when she’d almost lost her temper. No one was getting any more free work from her. Even if she didn’t want to see her own words in print, Ian wasn’t worth the effort.
She’d brought this on herself, though, by never telling her family the truth about her career. Kelsey hated to admit it, but it was true, and Ian’s accusation had been haunting her the way Anthony’s commentary on her bedroom skills used to. Every time she got upset, she tried channeling her pain into anger. And every time she tried doing that, she had to contend with Ian’s voice telling her she acted no differently than he did.
It was slowly dawning on Kelsey that there was only one way she was going to be able to shake Ian’s ghost. By healing herself—the same way she’d shaken Anthony’s ghost.
Sex with Ian had helped with that, but before Ian, she’d done the hardest work on her own. Years ago, she’d channeled the pain and humiliation Anthony had caused her into reading and writing, and she’d turned the writing into a successful career. Anthony had never written that “great American novel” he’d talked about in college. But her? She was making money doing something she loved, and she owed that to him. Success really was the best revenge.
But success was also one of her biggest sticking points in dealing with Ian’s accusation. The more Kelsey had thought about what he’d said, the more she’d come to realize that if she kept quiet about her writing—if she wasn’t openly proud of it—then the lies she told were about more than just her career. She was lying about who she was and the person she’d worked for years to become. And at the same time, she was making assumptions about how her friends and family would react to that person. Not to mention that there were readers out there who were devoted to her genre—some who were huge fans of her books—in spite of society telling them they should be ashamed of what they loved. By needlessly hiding her truth, she contributed to that message. In essence, she was lying to everyone and assuming the worst to protect a career she ought to be proud of.
So that was that. If Step 1 of healing from Ian had been to put on pants, Step 2 would be to stop the lies. It wasn’t only the right thing to do. It would also let her reclaim the moral high ground, and it would be a lot easier to maintain her anger at Ian if she had that. Maybe she’d even get a good night’s sleep again.
Kelsey had failed the chance to reclaim that position by opening up to her parents tonight, which was why she was kicking herself, but her parents had never been the right people to go to first. Possibly Josh was for the family side of things, and Maggie for her friends.
Raucous barking snapped Kelsey from these thoughts, alerting her to the fact that she was almost home, since the barking wasn’t from her dogs but from Mr. Silvester’s terrier. The huskies regarded the tiny ball of brown fluff with something like pity as it bravely defended the Silvester property from behind its fence.
Two properties later, the barking died down as Kelsey opened her door and let her dogs inside. “I’m so glad you guys are usually quiet.”
Romeo’s expression was one of pure disdain, as if to say dogs only had to resort to barking if they couldn’t look intimidating.
Or maybe she was projecting, given she snarked a lot precisely because she knew she couldn’t look intimidating herself.
Kelsey wasn’t sure it was Ian’s fault that she was now comparing herself to a terrier, but she’d find a way to blame him eventually.
More barking erupted, this time coming from the phone in her pocket. Kelsey grabbed it, seized by an irrepressible and irrational hope that it might be Ian. Then she cursed herself. She didn’t care about Ian anymore, and more to the point, she’d blocked his number for the sole purpose of trying to kill that bit of hope. So much for that plan.
Nate’s name showed on the caller ID. My, wasn’t her older brother being chatty these days? Two calls in one month. Usually they texted a couple of times a week and that was it.
“Did Dad put you up to this?” Kelsey asked by way of greeting. It was the only reason she could think of for her brother calling.
“Hello to you too,” Nate said, entirely unfazed. “I haven’t spoken to Mom and Dad for days.”
“Oh. Then what’s up?”
“I wanted to check in on you. Kevin told me what happened.”
Kelsey flopped on the couch. Of course her twin brother hadn’t been able to help spilling everything to their older brother. And people claimed women were the gossipy ones. “I’ll be fine.”
So she kept telling herself on multiple fronts. In truth, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be fine again.
“You sure you don’t need me to kick this guy’s ass?” Nate sounded doubtful. Possibly she hadn’t put much force into her answer.
“I’m quite capable of kicking ass myself, you know.”
Nate was silent for a second, and Kelsey was getting ready to be offended, but then he finally spoke up. “I know. It’s just that there are times when it’s appropriate to stand back and let other people do the ass-kicking. I’m good at being the mean older brother, and you can have the satisfaction of knowing that an ass was kicked while claiming you were so over it and it was totally unnecessary and Ian-who, you barely remember him anyway. It’s a double win.”
Kelsey laughed in spite of everything. “I appreciate the offer, but that would mean you need to come home for a visit.”
Nate sighed. “Yeah. It might have to wait until Christmas, then, assuming I can make it.”
With Nate’s schedule, there was no guarantee. When he wasn’t fighting fires, he volunteered for rescue missions with the Humane Society, and he could end up being sent out on short notice. Her older brother did not do well with inactivity. While Kelsey admired his dedication toward helping people and pets, the idea of living that way was beyond her understanding, and she hated how little she got to see of him.
On the other hand, his not visiting often gave her an idea. Why not let Nate be the first to know about her secret? Josh had been her first thought, since they were close, but Nate’s physical distance was a point in his favor. That, and Nate wasn’t a big talker. His speech about kicking ass was the most words she’d heard him string together in a long time. Combine those two things, and Nate wasn’t likely to spread the gossip. Plus, Nate was far more chill than most members of her family. If anyone was going to take the news in stride, it was him. She could tell Nate, see how it went, and move on (or not) from there. Her brother’s protective streak was a mile wide. He’d beat himself up if he told anyone after she’d asked him not to.
“You’d better make it.” Kelsey ran her fingers through Puck’s fur. The husky had settled on her feet, and she appreciated the comfort. Her mind was made up, but her stomach twisted with what she was about to do. “Change of topic. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“You already killed the brewery guy, and you need help disposing of the body?” Her brother didn’t pause a second before coming up with that.
Kelsey had put her phone on speaker, but she wished they were video chatting so Nate could see the what-the-hell face she made. “That’s what your mind jumps to?”
“You sounded serious.”
“I am, but no murder and no help required. I have entire files filled with ideas for how to make murders look like accidents and how to dispose of bodies.”
Nate snorted. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“It’s research. I’m a writer.” She braced herself. “That’s what I wanted to tell you, by the way. I write books.”
A brief silence followed. “I thought you wrote magazine articles.”
“I’ve been lying.”
“To me?”
“To everyone. You’re the first person I’m telling the truth to.”
“Okay.” Nate sounded confused. “Why are you telling me now? I mean, thanks for no longer lying, but I’m confused.”
Yeah, she’d figured that out. Kelsey swallowed, vowing to keep her voice steady, and gave her brother a quick overview of what had transpired between her and Ian and how she’d reached her decision to tell the truth. She also filled him in on her books, leaving out the part about Anthony and why she’d started writing romance. She wouldn’t put it past Nate to track down Anthony and give him a belated ass-walloping.
“I haven’t been fair to anyone,” Kelsey said, “and besides, now I can prove Ian wrong.”
Nate chuckled. “I figured spite had to play a part in there somehow, but I appreciate you telling me. And telling me first. I knew I was your favorite. But romance? Really? I’m actually not surprised you write books, since you always had your nose glued to one growing up. But I’d picture you writing something with blood and maybe swords. Something violent.”
Kelsey looked down at the dog snoozing on her feet, wondering if she’d done too good a job of convincing everyone that she was heartless.
“They’re paranormal romances,” she explained. “They have swords and knives, and sometimes guns. There’s lots of blood and probably as much fighting in them as there is kissing. You should try one someday. You might be surprised how violent a romance can be.”
“I’m trying one now. I just downloaded your first book.”
She almost jumped off the sofa, to Puck’s displeasure. “I didn’t mean mine! You can’t read mine. There’s sex in them.”
“So? You mentioned sex and violence. Honestly, Kels, you were pushing these pretty hard for someone claiming you don’t want me to read them.”
Kelsey flopped back on the couch. “Why do I feel like I just made a horrible mistake?”
“I have no idea.”
She could hear him grinning, and her cheeks flushed, but overall, she supposed the conversation had gone well. Embarrassment aside, it was nice to know her brother wanted to support her.
“I’m still wary of how this might affect the feud,” Kelsey said after enduring a couple more minutes of Nate teasing her. “But I’m also sick of letting the feud dictate my life.”
And she was super sick of Ian letting it dictate his, but she pushed that thought aside. She’d managed to go more than five minutes without thinking about him.
“Yeah.” Nate’s tone changed, drained of all the good-natured humor. “So it’s still going strong despite what Josh is doing, huh?”
“Yup. You okay?” she asked when Nate had fallen silent again.
“I’m okay. I was just hopeful when I heard about him.”
Nate had been hopeful that the feud was waning? That was interesting. As kids, he’d never been as into it as she’d been, but Kelsey had always written that off to Nate’s live-and-let-live attitude toward life. Before she’d been forced into the role, Nate had been the peacekeeper.
“I didn’t realize you cared that much about the feud,” Kelsey said. “Especially since you don’t live here anymore.”
“I care.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but it seemed like her brother had used up all his words for the day. “And?”
“And what?”
“That’s all you’re going to say about it?”
“I think so,” Nate said. “Maybe I’ll tell you more one day, since we’re sharing secrets now.”
“You have a secret?”
“Got to go. There’s a fire somewhere. Bye.” Nate hung up on her.
Kelsey glared at the phone, 100 percent positive the only fire had been in Nate’s head. She hadn’t even had the chance to threaten her brother with bodily harm if he told anyone about her books.
“One down,” Kelsey said, ruffling Puck’s fur. The gesture made her think of how she used to do that to Ian’s hair, and her throat tightened.
Kelsey gritted her teeth. Nope. Her body had to stop with that nonsense. She was healing, damn it. One more day down. One person given the truth. Her heart didn’t hurt any less, but when she thought about it, her shoulders did feel lighter.
The heart, she hoped, would eventually follow.