Janet Evanovich - Love in a Nutshell

“Hold that thought.”

They walked up a stepping stone path to the microbrewery’s entrance.

Inside, a taproom of sorts had been partitioned from the work area by low walls made of silvery barn wood. Above the dividers, Kate spotted a couple of tall stainless-steel tanks back in a corner, much like the ones she’d seen at Depot Brewing. The beer-making end of the business remained a mystery to Kate. Bart Fenner, Depot’s brewmaster, was notoriously protective of his portion of the domain. For all that Kate knew, fairies and elves made the be cs mt..r.

Matt scanned the room. “Travis? You guys back there?”

“Yeah, hang on.”

Travis emerged, and Horned Owl’s issue number three was obvious. Kate doubted that Travis meant to be scary, but the nose and eyebrow piercings and a squinty-eyed stare did the job. The full-sleeve tattoo on his right arm actually served as a happy distraction. He appeared to be younger than Matt, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t old enough to have done some hard time.

“Travis, this is Kate, my newest employee. Kate, this is Travis Holby, owner of Horned Owl Brewing.”

Travis fixed his stare on Kate. “What’s Culhane got on you that you ended up working for him?”

Kate laughed. “It’s more what I have on him.”

Travis smiled, and the tough guy aura disappeared. Kate noticed for the first time that once you looked past the piercings, he had a true baby face, complete with pudgy cheeks.

“This is a beautiful place you have here,” she said.

“Thanks. I’ve busted my a-, uh, back, putting it together. Why don’t you have a seat?” Travis gestured to one of the three rustic-looking tables with low stools that served as seating in the taproom. “Hungry? Thirsty? Can I get you anything?”

Kate took the offered seat, but turned down food and drink.

“Hey, Bart,” Matt called. “Why don’t you come out here for a minute, too?”

Bart entered the taproom, and Kate thought there was no way she’d ever seen him at Depot Brewing. He wasn’t the sort of guy a woman forgot. In fact, he nearly gave Culhane a run for the money in the looks department. But where Culhane was a rugged kind of hot, Bart had the exotic thing going. Looking at him was like taking a sexy trip to the South Pacific. He was tall and seriously muscled, with dark skin, soulful brown eyes, and black hair.

“I heard you sing last night,” Bart said. “You’re really good.”

“Thanks,” she said. “It had been a long time since I sang in public like that.”

Matt smiled at her and her heart skipped a beat. The smile was intimate, as though they were the only ones in the room. She couldn’t help fantasizing just a little about what she might do to enhance the moment if it wasn’t for Bart and Travis’s presence.

Bart sat down next to Travis but turned his body toward Kate. “I hear you have some issues with beer.”

“It’s more like beer has issues with me.”

“When was the last time you tried it?”

“When I was in college.”

Bart smiled, showing even white teeth. “So it’s safe to say that it’s been a couple of years?”

“Absolutely.”

“What kind of beer?”

Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. What kind do they typically serve in fraternity basements out of red plastic cups?” Why was this beginning to feel like she was being set up? “I try not to think of that night. But even though the details are fuzzy, the lasting impression is that it wasn’t good.”

Travis shook his head. “You know, you seem like the open-minded type. You put up with Culhane, you’ve stopped staring at my piercings, and yet you’re judging all beer based on one bad, unfortunate game of beer pong.”

“Believe me, I’d do the same with a rattlesnake, too.”

Bart laughed. “It can’t have been that bad.”

“Okay, no, because I’m still alive.” Kate glanced at each of them. “This is some sort of non-beer-drinker intervention, isn’t it?”

Nobody answered, but the light of hope continued to shine in their eyes.

“Come on, Kate, what you drank was goat pi-, uh, urine, compared to what we make,” Travis said. “This is craft beer, the nectar of the gods.”

“Nectar?”

“Try my peach beer,” he said.

The hair on her arms rose. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“No peach, then, but at least try something while you’re here.”

She was, to some degree, a captive audience. And not wholly unwilling, either. It had been a lot of years, and there remained the remote possibility that the whole beer incident had grown in her mind. Maybe it hadn’t been that truly awful.

“And consider this,” Matt said. “I can’t move you to the front of the house until you’ve learned to speak beer. So unless you and Hobart really do want to establish an exclusive relationship, you should give this a shot.”

Kate had come to see the downside to dishwashing. Running Hobart meant standing at Hobart. To be a good secret spy, she needed more mobility.

“Okay. Let’s do this thing.” She looked across the table at Matt’s co-conspirators. “I’m assuming you already have this arranged.”

“It’s going to be an experience to be savored,” Bart said as Travis left the table.

Kate looked doubtful. “On my planet, that would be lounging in a Jacuzzzi with a glass of wine and a good book.” She c.d t could feel Culhane go still next to her, and she thought she should probably stop mentioning anything even remotely involving nakedness. Her imagination had already tossed the book and substituted her boss stripping down and making the tub blissfully crowded.

Matt gently touched Kate’s hand. “All beer is made of four basic ingredients.”

She drew on her last memory of beer. “Is skunk spray one of them, because that would explain the smell.”

“Not even close. We’re talking water, barley, hops, and yeast.”

Travis returned to the table with a cooler bearing the Depot Brewing steam locomotive logo and a plastic cup. He set the cup in front of Kate and then got busy in the cooler.

“Those are hops,” Bart said.

She squinted into the cup. “It looks like rabbit food.”

“Check out the scent.”

Kate took a whiff and immediately regretted it. The hops smelled like a mix of cheap perfume, soggy dog, and grass blades. She wanted to sneeze, and possibly gag, but could do neither with any measure of diplomacy. Instead, she rubbed the tip of her nose and tried to blink back the extra moisture in her eyes.

Matt fought back a grin. “I get the feeling you’re not fond of hops.”

Travis lined up three smaller cups. Each was filled with the same grain, but of varying shades. “This is all barley,” he said.

“Barley is good. My grandmother made soup from barley.”

Matt smiled at her, and she began to relax again.

“Note the lighter and darker colors,” Bart said. “Different degrees of roasting will add varying aspects to the beer. When we boil up the wort-”

“The what?” she asked.

“The wort.”

“That sounds a little creepy,” Kate said. “Like something on a witch’s nose.”

Culhane laughed. “That’s what the boiled mix of barley, hops, and water is called. Brewers make wort. After that’s done, the yeast will make the beer.”

That, too, brought images to Kate’s mind she would have been happy to skip. “Before I get too much scary input, how about if we move along to the tasting?”

Bart reached into the cooler, brought out a bottle of beer, and set a small glass in front of Kate. It was taller and bigger than a shot glass, but not by much. If this was all she had to drink, she just might survive.

Bart handed her the bottle. “This is Dog Day Afternoon. It was one of Matt’s first beers and is still one of the brewery’s most popular.”