Lightstruck: ( A Contemporary Romance Novel) (Brewing Passion Book 2) Page 11

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Traveling light these days?” Austin eyeballed Ross’ duffel bag as he shouldered it off the luggage-go-round in the airport.

  “Yeah. I’m very Egyptian that way,” Ross said, unwilling to admit that all he had to pack were his few clothes, a laptop and a toothbrush on his way out of Colorado. He’d been tempted to track Holly down and have a not-so-friendly conversation with her—especially once he’d looked up that fucking blog with photos of his sky-high, naked, self on it. Bitch hadn’t even given him a good angle. Nor had she shown his full face, he supposed, to her credit.

  But he was disinclined to give her credit for anything other than costing him a job at that moment. So, he’d run into the professor’s house, thrown a few things into the single piece of luggage he owned, left the bike—also the professor’s—in the garage with a full tank of gas and caught a taxi to the airport.

  Light as air, that was Ross Hoffman. Never connected or tied down or otherwise attached.

  Until now, it would seem.

  The ride to the brewery from the airport was made in total silence. Austin kept a death grip on the wheel and Ross kept his gaze out of the window. He’d forgotten how desolate Michigan could be, even in the early spring months. It was still mostly iced over, it seemed. Old, dirty snow was piled in drifts everywhere. Brown tufts of grass poked through in forlorn patches. He sighed and pressed his forehead against the window.

  “Don’t sound so excited,” Austin quipped as he pulled into the Fitzgerald Brewing parking lot.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “That’s sort of my point.” Austin parked and sat, fingers still wrapped around the wheel, staring out the windshield as if in a trance. “This has been a nightmare. I don’t even know if it’s a good idea for you to jump in the middle of it.”

  “No, it’s fine.” Ross put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “It’s what friends do.”

  Austin shot him an odd look. “Right.”

  Ross’ anger flared. “Listen, I know it’s been hard. I know I bolted. I realize all of this. But I’m here now. Let me at least have a shot at making it right.”

  Austin’s shoulders slumped. His forehead touched the steering wheel between his hands. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Fucking mother humping fuckstick.”

  “Wow,” Ross said. “You’re quite the poet these days.”

  “All right, so here’s the deal,” Austin said, leaning back and turning to face Ross across the SUV’s console. “I’m gonna let Bryan go. He’s too unreliable.”

  “Okay,” Ross said, letting his friend take his time.

  “We have to get up and running, like, yesterday. I’ve committed to export deals on the IPA and stout to start and we’re something like twenty thousand barrels behind already.”

  “Twenty thousand…”

  Austin closed his eyes. “I know. It’s a mess.”

  “Twenty thousand…” Ross’ brewer’s mind was already calculating man hours, ingredients, all the details. He was excited about it, truth be told. It might even allay his looming anxiety over being around Evelyn again. “What about the gun-slinger?”

  “What? Oh, right, Elle. She’s here—in there.”

  “Out on bail? Headed to trial? Can I work her into the schedule?”

  “Likely won’t be a trial, if my lawyers get their expensive way. And she owns the schedule. You’re here as a consultant to help her out. She’s the head brewer now.”

  “Fine.” Ross opened his door, then turned back to Austin. “Well, shit, man, I’ve got work to do. What are we waiting on?”

  “Thank you. I know getting away from Brad’s operation is no mean feat.”

  “Yeah, well, it was easier than you might think.” Ross averted his gaze. He wasn’t ready for that true confessions moment yet. “Down to business—what’re you paying me for this little vacation?”

  “Your usual fee,” Austin said. “Plus a bonus if you get us to the export barrelage target. Same as Elle’s.”

  “Great.” He hesitated. “We going in there, or what?”

  “You should know that Elle is, um, off-limits.”

  “Who? Oh, the gun-Frau? No sweat. I’m swearing off chicks. One of them cost me my—”

  Austin raised an eyebrow when he hesitated.

  “Never mind. Tell ya about it later. Let’s go. I need to get my hands dirty. I have a bonus to earn and a boss-lady to meet.” Unwilling to engage in any more heart-to-heart, he jumped out of the truck, shouldered the bag containing everything he owned in the world, and grinned at the smell coming off the building. He took a big sniff. “Ah, I love the smell of a mash-in in the morning.”

  “It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, dumb ass.” Austin walked by him and opened the metal door. The odors of the second shift of a brew day got stronger. “Come on. Let me introduce you to your new boss. She’s eager to get going, too.”

  Ross nodded, ducked inside, squinted through the steam rolling from the huge brew kettle and spotted the small figure, above him on the catwalk between the brewing vessels. She was facing away, hands on her hips, yelling something that it took him a half second to register was in German. He was reminded of her petite stature from that hospital horror but now, dressed in her sweat soaked brewery T-shirt, cargo shorts and rubber boots—the usual brewer’s uniform—he saw the strength in her wiry arms and legs.

  The steam cleared some, giving him a better view. The noise of the busy brewery faded from his ears as he caught sight of that bizarre mass of blond dreadlocks, currently piled up and tucked under a loose cap. He took a step forward, trying to ignore the strange, tingly sensation in his scalp as he watched and listened to her bark orders in mixed English and German while she marched back and forth on the raised metal path.

  Someone shouted her name. She turned and looked down, meeting his eyes. Hers seemed to shine out from the steam—the oddest mix of blue and gray. Ross stumbled backward at the force of her exotic beauty and the realization that he had, indeed, been obsessing since meeting her the first time.

  The small-featured, perfectly proportioned face that should have been overwhelmed by that bizarre hair-do was, instead, complemented by it. Her tight, compact body was likely a full foot shorter than his, if not more. She frowned, as if trying to place him, then stood straight, arms crossed. The light caught the small gem in the left side of her nose. When she tilted her head, he caught sight of the barbell in her eyebrow.

  A shiver of raw, terrifying, primal lust shot down his spine, making him stumble forward a step or two. He’d bet his first consulting payment from his friend Austin that she was pierced in other places—places on her that he wanted to see, to taste, to feel so badly at that moment he realized he was breathless.

  He could make out the tatts on her arms and knuckles—oddly matching his own. As well as a slash of black around her long, porcelain-skinned neck. The sight of that made his chest hot and tight. The full effect of her made him feel so completely weird—somehow dizzy in a way he didn’t like at all.

  He heard Austin clearing his throat somewhere to his left and realized he and this creature had been staring at each other for a full minute in silence. He dropped his gaze first.

  “Elle,” Austin called up to her. “This is Ross. Ross Hoffman. He’ll be…”

  “Your humble assistant,” Ross barked, needing to move or speak or something to shake the way his body had reacted to her. “As of now.” He grinned up at her. Her frown deepened. His dick stirred at the sight of it.

  Well, that’s just great. I’m obviously losing my mind. She’s the opposite of everything I like about the female form—short, wiry, angular and hard-looking and that hair…

  “Hoffman,” she said, her voice as sharp as she looked. “Welcome to Fitzgerald Brewing Company. It’s about time you got here. Now, move your sorry ass and get to work. We’re behind, in case you haven’t been informed already.”

  He blinked up at her like a dolt. She’d spoken clearly enoug
h, but in citified, Berliner-accented German. His smile widened. She smiled back for a brief second, then moved away from the railing. Something about that—her sudden, almost reactionary shift out of his line of vision—caused a strange sort of protectiveness to surge through him.

  Yep. I’ve gone ‘round the bend for sure. Or I’m suddenly so homesick for the Fatherland, the sound of some chick speaking German is making me horny.

  “Ugh,” he muttered under his breath as he re-shouldered his duffle and looked at Austin. “All right, boss man, point me toward a computer so I can figure all this shit out.”

  Austin was staring at him, fully noting the strange exchange, Ross knew.

  “What? She’s weird-looking, all right? Plus, she’s trigger-happy? God. I’ll avoid her like the plague.”

  “Right,” Austin said, shaking his head as he walked away. “Come on. We’re in for a long set of weeks.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “God damn you, Hoffman,” Elle growled under her breath, in her snooty Berliner accent.

  “Fuck off, bitch,” he said, cheerfully, in his native Bavarian.

  After a few days of establishing that while she might be head brewer, he was just as in-charge as she was, he’d continued using their native tongue, figuring she couldn’t pretend not to understand him that way. She glowered down at him from the top of the platform where she was supervising a batch of stout. “You overshot the ingredients,” she insisted, crossing her arms. “I told you that was too much crystal malt. But you’re an asshole male human. I should know better than to tell you anything.”

  He held up both hands. “Ach! Don’t shoot!”

  She rolled her eyes, and turned away, giving him a pleasant view of her tight little ass in well-worn jeans. Cursing to himself, he headed to the lab to prep the additives before they moved the wort to the kettle.

  In a way, settling in at Fitzgerald Brewing hadn’t been as hard as he’d thought. Evelyn was busy with the kid and the export plan. He and Austin had worked side by side the first couple of days, planning the aggressive brewing schedule. And Elle had proven to be one of the most naturally astute brewers he’d ever encountered. She was so small in stature it surprised him, given that she was German. But her attitude more than made up for it. She was equal parts irritating, amusing and alarmingly sexy.

  He’d tried to go easy with her—to be funny, friendly, unthreatening. But she either saw him as an interloper for a job she was more than capable of handling alone, or as some kind of lame-ass ‘friend of the boss’ know-it-all determined to make her life a living hell.

  Either way, they clashed from the get-go.

  “Hey, Hoffman,” she called across the brew house platform. “Get up here and you’ll see what I mean.”

  The rest of the staff had fallen into line. The incident with Tim, and Bryan’s subsequent firing, had rattled the tight-knit group. They knew Ross’ reputation and seemed to be grateful for his help—or at least they made a show of acting like it. He didn’t really care. As long as everyone did what they were supposed to do, when they were supposed to do it.

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” he said. He’d admit that dropping back into German was a relief. Even though he spoke flawless English, he still translated in his head. Not having to take that extra mental step made him feel more at home. Even if it was mostly insults woven in around the brewing terms.

  He smiled as she muttered, “Trantüte” under her breath as he stalled.

  Once he’d satisfied himself with the original gravity calculations, he climbed the metal steps, hip bumped Elle aside and opened the mash tun lid, filling the air around him with the rich, malty odors of a Fitzgerald stout in the early brewing stages. “What?” he said, looking over at her and trying not to pay too much attention to the long, slender line of her neck, or the way her odd, blue-gray eyes flashed.

  “Look. There.” She shone her flashlight into the huge vessel of dark liquid and grains. With a grunt of frustration, he grabbed the light from her so he could reach deeper into the tank. “Do you see it? Are you blind, or just stupid?”

  He sighed and held out a hand. “Safety glasses?”

  Once he had had them on, he stretched farther, gripping the edge of the open door with one hand. “Holy shit,” he said. “Are you serious?”

  “I told you,” she said, from somewhere to his left. At that moment, the condensation caused by the steam they were releasing through the open door made his hand slip. For a split second, he pictured himself boiling alive inside the one hundred twenty-some-degree mash. And his thought wasn’t for his safety, but for the ruination of this critical batch. If they could get this one through the process in time, they’d almost be caught up to the export goals. Almost.

  “Mother fucker,” he blurted out in English as his fingertips let go and his brain tried to readjust to the sudden shift in his equilibrium.

  A strong hand grabbed his forearm. Fingers dug into his muscle, gripping tightly, yanking him free of certain deadly burns. He found himself pressed against Elle’s compact form, her fingers still wrapped around his arm as she leaned back against the railings at the top of the brewing platform. She was so small, he thought, apropos of nothing at that moment.

  So small and…so gorgeous.

  He allowed himself a few moments to feel her body against his. She was strong as a damn ox. She’d managed to haul his hundred eighty-five pounds of mostly muscle right out of that kettle. But her strength was subtle, and sexier than he’d ever encountered.

  “Get the hell off me, you bloody oaf,” she shouted, shoving him away. Which allowed him to squelch the sudden urge to kiss her.

  He stumbled, still staring at her, still wearing the safety glasses. She frowned, causing the cutest little crease between her eyes. He itched to touch it, to ease her stress.

  Good Lord man, you need to get laid and get over this chick.

  “So, before you nearly ruined all that future beer, did you see the problem?”

  He blinked, then stood up straighter. “Yeah,” he said, swiping the sweat off his face. “I saw it. Speed up the sparge,” he said, pointing to the keyboard attached to the computer. “That should unstick it.”

  “Can this equipment do that?”

  “Yeah, it’s top drawer. Just try it. I’ll keep an eye on it.”

  She raised a pale eyebrow. “Without falling in, bewegungslegastheniker?”

  He grinned. That was the thing about German—the insults were so much more poetic. “I may be bewegungslegastheniker, but I know how to work this machinery. Go on. Do what I asked for. There.” He pointed to the computer again.

  She turned from him and started punching in the commands to increase the sparge—the speed at which the water was tossed on top of the concoction of nearly spent grains and almost-beer in hopes that it would filter through faster, and loosen a section of stuck mash that she had, indeed discovered. Once again, Ross found himself fantasizing about her. Her small but firm-looking breasts. Her slim waist and hips. Her nice, rounded ass. Her pert, Cupid’s-bow lips. Her compact, deceivingly strong arms and hands and legs that would wrap very nicely around him.

  “Hello? Anyone home up there?” Elle snapped her fingers in front of his face. “I’ve been talking to you for the past ten minutes, but you seem to have checked out.”

  Ross startled, and turned away from her so as to hide the clear results of his brief imaginings of her pale skin under his hands and lips.

  “Off-limits,” Austin had said, without further explanation. There hadn’t been time.

  Evelyn had hinted that there was something bad in her past but she hadn’t gotten around to expanding that, either. And in the meantime, he’d been mostly put out with her bullshit attitude, anyway.

  Once he had his half-hard dick back under control, he turned to face her again. Her attention was focused on the computer screen. He fixated on the odd tattoo circling her neck, fully revealed as she had her crazy-ass hair bundled up on top of her head and
covered with a hat.

  The black ink seemed darker than usual this morning. It was ugly. Like a scar. For the first time since meeting her and being rocked back on his heels by her unique, compelling, beauty—so unlike his usual, more obvious, over-the-top type—he studied all the ink he could see on her.

  Ross had his own tatts, of course. He had hop flowers on his right knuckles, too. There was an intricate hop vine snaking up his biceps that wound across his upper back and down the other arm. He’d also recently added one. His daughter’s name, Rose, in a small heart. It was on the left side of his ribcage, hidden and private.

  But that thing on Elle’s neck right above the angle of her collarbones seemed somehow evil. As if it were dug deep into the delicate skin there. Meant to be painful upon application and remain that way, as a torture. Without thinking, he reached out, wanting to touch it and see if it felt as hot as it appeared to be. They were only separated by about eight inches up on the tall metal platform between the brewing vessels so it wasn’t a huge gesture. But to Ross it felt mammoth, a life-changing move.

  His fingertips grazed the nape of her neck, near the soft curls under her thick blond dreads. Her skin was ice cold. Strange, since there were up here amidst all this steam and she’d just literally dragged his klutzy ass away from potential disaster. She must not have noticed his first touch.

  When he let his finger trail along the ugly ink across the back of her neck, she yelped and whirled to face him, her eyes wide with something his brain refused to process. Since it was an expression of abject terror.

  He stuck the offending hand into his jeans pocket as his face flushed. “I’m sorry,” he said, lapsing back to English as he turned away from her again. Her breathing was loud and rapid, but not in a sexy way. He worried her heart might explode from fear. Of him?

  No. But someone had harmed her badly enough to make her as skittish as a rabbit, pinned and frozen under the shadow of a hawk through an open field. Ross had never considered himself particularly protective of anything. He kept things separated in his mind and heart—at least until he’d met Evelyn, of course. He squeezed his eyes shut, cursing himself and that particular weak period of his life.