Janet Evanovich: Love in a Nutshell

AT A quarter to nine on Friday morning, Kate parked at the far end of Depot Brewing Company’s lot. She exited her ancient, beloved green-and-slightly-rust-spotted Jeep and pocketed her keys. Since she had the luxury of a handful of minutes, and Mother Nature had granted Keene’s Harbor yet another blissfully sunny day, she checked out in more detail her new place of employment.

If Kate could whistle-which, sadly, she couldn’t-this place would merit a nice long and low one. Small wonder the tourists flocked here like it was nirvana. An outdoor patio, now closed for the season, was surrounded by evergreens that must have cost Matt Culhane a fortune to have transplanted onto this sandy spit of land. She could picture the patio full of people, laughter, and music in the summertime. And she could picture Culhane here, too.

As the microbrewery’s name implied, this had once been Keene’s Harbor’s railroad depot. Kate’s dad, who was a history buff, had told her that this town had been built on the lumber trade. In a few decades, though, most of the area was logged out. A few decades after that, the rail spur to the harbor was abandoned. All that had been left was a wreck of a building that Kate recalled as a prime spot for the underage summer kids to drink a few super-sweet wine coolers.

Since she hadn’t been alone at this party spot, she’d bet she wasn’t the only one who got a kick out of Matt Culhane turning it into a microbrewery. He’d obviously added on to the small depot, but whoever had come up with the design had made sure that the original architecture still shone through.

Kate was unsure whether it was okay to go through the “employees only” door near where she’d parked, since there was a huge semi backed up to an open garage-type door next to it. She opted for the public entry.

Now that she wasn’t wrapped in a haze of determination and desperation, she noted the mosaic in front of the entrance. Set into the concrete was the Depot Brewing logo-a steam locomotive surrounded by a bunch of whimsical items, including what looked to be a happy three-legged dog.

Kate stepped over the image, feeling that the dog had suffered enough without being trod upon. “You’re a pretty cool dude, three legs or not.”

“His name is Chuck, and he’s my dog,” Culhane said, suddenly standing in the open doorway. “Well, the real one is. That one’s tile, so I don’t think he’ll be answering you.”

She couldn’t work up a single word in reply. The man was flat-out gorgeous. A muscled, dark-haired, blue-eyed, one-dimple-that-he-could-apparently-produce-at-will kind of gorgeous. She’d noted this yesterday, too, but anxiety had kept her on her game. If she’d babbled in the face of male hotness, she would have walked away empty-handed. Today, she had a job and her words were fleeting.

“I-I like dogs,” she finally managed. She thought of her former dog, Stella, and felt a little lump forming in her chest.

“Good. And I like dog people. Why don’t you come on in?”

Kate did, trying hard to cut back on the staring. She was sure he was wearing the same slightly faded chambray button-down shirt and pair of well-fit jeans as yesterday afternoon. New to his features was the shadow of a beard. His dark brown hair looked either tousled with sleep or the lack thereof.

“You’re seriously tall,” she said.

He laughed. “To you, maybe.”

Pull it together, Appleton, she thought. Get a grip!

“Point taken,” she said. “From the vantage point of just over five feet, pretty much every guy’s a giant. You look tired, too.”

Matt ruffled a hand through his hair. “We pulled an all-nighter.in?nighter01D;

“An all-nighter doing what?” she asked, immediately wishing she hadn’t, because the answer might be personal. Her long-dormant libido stirred at the possibilities.

“Come this way and I’ll show you,” he said. “It’s not all that exciting.”

Cross orgy off the list.

“We just got into bottled beer in addition to kegs and growlers, so we don’t have a regular bottling line yet,” he said. “That means we have to rent a portable line every couple of months until I think sales justify the expense of a permanent one. It will take another addition or a move of the whole facility to do it, so for now, we make do. And we also do it after hours so that our regular business can cruise on.”

Matt ushered her past his office, through a set of glass doors to a room with enormous stainless-steel tanks, and then through another door into a brightly lit storage room with a truck well. The kind of industrial orange, temporary lighting she’d seen sold in building warehouse stores shone up the ramp and into the back of the semi.

“A bottling line on wheels,” Matt said.

“Very cool,” she said, thankful to have something other than Matt to focus on while she regained her business manners. That done, she turned her attention to the people busy checking her out. About twenty exhausted-looking souls sat at tables someone must have dragged in from the taproom.

“Everyone, this is Kate,” Matt announced. “Kate… everyone.”

“Hey, Kate,” a few of them said. Most just raised a glass of beer in a weary greeting.

Kate fought hard not to gag at the thought of beer as a breakfast staple. She liked the idea of herself as a yogurt-and-fruit girl, but the reality was she was more the cold pizza type. Especially when she was PMSing.

“Kate’s coming to work with us as a floater,” Matt said to the assembled crew.

That brought on a little more enthusiasm.

“Good, a new victim,” a midnight black-haired young woman said.

Kate thought the employee looked too young to work with beer, except for the tattoo of a bare-chested cowboy riding a neon-colored dragon wrapping its way from her wrist up her arm. Either she’d forged her mother’s signature for that beauty, or she was at least eighteen.

“Does this mean that Hobart and I are breaking up?” the young woman asked Matt.

“For this weekend, at least.”

She squealed, then ran and hugged her boss.

“It’s up to Jerry if Kate stays there, Amber,” Matt said, gently unwinding her and taking a step back. “But you worked hard last night, and I know you’re sick of Ho=”1e sick bart.”

Who the heck is Hobart? Kate thought, scanning the crew for a guy who looked remotely like he might have the misfortune to be named Hobart.

Matt turned to Kate. “Let’s go to my office. We might as well get the paperwork out of the way. Then you can report to Jerry.”

“So he’ll be my direct supervisor?” she asked as Matt ushered her back the way they’d come.

He nodded. “He manages food services, which will include you for the time being. He’s the guy you met out front during our unscheduled job interview yesterday afternoon.”

“Oops. I sort of bulldozed right past him. I probably didn’t make the best first impression.”

“Jerry can be pretty forgiving, and you’ll like the rest of the crew, too. About half of the people you saw back in the storage room work for me, and the rest are temps who come in for the bottling. We finished up over two hundred cases just a little while ago. Most of the other employees, except the summer staff, you’ll meet today.”

Matt opened his office door. “Come on in. It shouldn’t take long to get this squared away, then we’ll get you a uniform.”

Kate glanced around, taking in the framed photos on the cubicle-style walls, which didn’t quite make it all the way to the ceiling.

“My family, mostly,” Matt said. He waved one hand toward another shot of a pack of helmeted and uniformed men bearing sticks. “And my hockey team.”

She smiled. “That, I’d figured out.”