Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek #1)(4)

Completely thrown, Luke just surveyed the deafening good cheer all around in amusement and raised a questioning eyebrow at the Sullivan brothers for an explanation, seeing as how they’d been friends with the owner of Ocotillos for years. But the waitress lowering a platter of food onto their table beat them to it.

“It’s a tradition here,” she said with an affectionate smile. “The whole thing started about fifteen years ago with Vince, the original Dobson brewmaster.” She pointed to the big, framed photo of him in its place of honor on the wall. “For every new seasonal brew he created, he’d have customers try it for a night on tap before he launched it officially. And if folks didn’t fall head over heels during the tasting, the crazy man would scrap it and start from scratch, throwing months of work down the drain.” She paused her story when a perfectly harmonized singing of the chorus rang out from the staircase, courtesy of the musicians who’d been performing upstairs. Everyone in the brewpub spun around to see the four rocker guys holding their beer mugs up in salute toward the bar; and like a surge of thunder, the crowd stomped their feet and raised the singing decibels in the place even higher.

“But in the cases like tonight,” she continued with a grinning shout, “if the customers downright loved the new beer, he’d call back to his guys and tell them to ‘have a drink’ to celebrate the birth of a new Dobson beer.” Tucking her food tray under an arm, she nodded her head over at the animated brewery workers who’d all removed their caps in respect while singing the drunken lyrics. “One year, back when this brewpub had been at the tail end of financial crisis, good ole Vince decided he wasn’t gonna go down without a fight. So, bless his heart, he poured every bit of his soul into one more brew...that ended up winning the biggest craft beer award around.”

She smiled with the far-off look of someone who’d been there. “When we found out, he and the brew boys broke out in song right there in the brewery. And this was the song they sang. From that day on, the song became an unofficial anthem, a tradition the baby of the Dobson clan, the new brewmaster here, still carries on whenever a new beer is born.”

Luke looked around the thriving brewpub with newly appreciative eyes, which riveted right back onto his mystery woman moments later when she hopped on the counter behind the bar to write Warm Winter Rye—Red Ale up on the chalkboard with all the other Dobson beers listed on tap. A symphony of applause rippled across the brewpub and the look of pure joy on her face vaulted straight into Luke’s chest, lodged itself pretty deep in there considering he’d never even had an actual conversation with the woman beyond the one time she’d rung up his lunch order the other week.

“Wow, you’ve got it bad,” murmured Isaac, thoughtfully evaluating the emotions running across Luke’s face with annoying accuracy. He didn’t comment further, however, which Luke appreciated. Like all his close friends, Isaac knew all about Luke’s take on love. It was a mirage.

Always just out of reach.

Blinking back the unwelcome demons from his past, Luke shrugged and quietly admitted to himself as much as Isaac, “There’s something about her.”

“Well if you’re going to go meet her, can you put in a good word for me with her hot friend, too?” prompted Isaac, casually giving him a little nudge and downplaying the significance of his meddling in one houndish swoop. “Look, now’s your chance,” he nodded over at the bar.

Like a first-time addict going from zero to sixty on a rush, Luke immediately swung his gaze around to find the brunette again.

God, she was pretty. And intriguing. And so impishly sweet a person couldn’t help but smile upon seeing her. Of course in his case, it was growing painfully obvious that smiling wasn’t the only reaction he’d be having to the woman.

Hell, anyone with eyes could see the hard time he was having keeping his reaction to himself; and it didn’t help one bit when her lips parted on a soft breath at just that moment.

Good grief. A brain simply couldn’t be expected to function with all its blood racing to command central south. His brows dipped low in reflection as he adjusted his jeans. Had anyone ever affected him this way before?

This wholly, this swiftly?

He shot to his feet. Nope, never. Fixing his gaze on her with an intensity that made it clear this wasn’t just aimless flirting for him anymore, he saw her eyes fire wildly for him once again.

Now altogether myopic about meeting the woman, he cut a path straight for her.

…Only to have his ego take a hit when she jerked her attention to the invisible watch on her wrist as reason to retreat away from the bar.

Undeterred, he picked up the pace.

Equally stubborn, so did she.

And this round went to her. She vanished behind a door to the back just as he reached the spot she’d vacated beside Isaac’s exotic bartender.

“Where’s she going?” he demanded.

The bartender extinguished a delighted grin and tilted her head with an innocent double-blink. “Who?”

His normal easy-going patience strangely on hiatus, he replied with just a smidgen of impatience, “The other worker you were clearly pointing me out to earlier.”

She shrugged, now visibly entertained. “That other worker had work to do.”

Luke’s lips thinned warily. “What game are you two playing at here?”