Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek #1)(62)

“Oh, that’s not true at all. Until you met this Luke guy, your life was way too boring.”

She punched him in the arm. “I am not boring. Keep up this abuse and the bottles of wine I keep for you in the back are going to go right down the drain.” Her eyes widened in mock dismay. “Then you’ll have to drink beer with your meals here!”

“You are a cruel, merciless woman,” laughed Derek, approvingly. “I’ve trained you well. Okay, I take it all back. Xoey and I did nothing but talk about you while you were dull as a doorknob but as soon as you got interesting, we didn’t gossip about you at all!”

“Actually, that’s the closest you’ve ever come to apologizing to me. Good doing business with you.” Chuckling, she called over a waiter and ordered the plate of fancy tapas that Javier always made especially for Derek whenever he came in along with the secret bottle of Spanish wine she’d picked up recently and stashed in the kitchen in honor of his return.

Derek sighed. “I still say it’s a crying shame you don’t serve wine here.”

Dani swallowed back the lump in her throat, startled by her visceral reaction to even the thought of wine in conjunction to Ocotillos now. But she held her guilty conscience in check. Valentine’s Day was hardly the right time to tell Derek the sad little tale of a brewpub-winery merger that was not to be. Finding out they'd been closer than ever to achieving his long held dreams but still not nearly close enough would be a hard blow to take...and deliver.

Next week, she promised herself.

Shining a bright smile at him, she laughed as she always did at his wine remark and gave him the response he’d come to expect. “You know where I stand. Beer is far superior for the stronger Latin American and Mediterranean flavors on our menu.”

“Spare me. You’ve given me the same beer speech with delicate Asian dishes too.”

Very true. She grinned and lifted her palms unapologetically. “That’s why I’m a brewmaster and not a sommelier. Honestly, I still can’t understand how the beer bug totally skipped over you. It left you completely unvaccinated for that nasty wine virus.”

“Oh please, you beer elitist. Don’t forget who you’re talking to. Remember, I have firsthand knowledge that all Dobsons know their way around a wine cellar too. You may not like it, but your palate rivals that of a seasoned wine connoisseur.”

“Shhh! Keep that dirty little secret to yourself!”

“Speaking of dirty little secrets.” Derek’s mouth tugged up at the corners. “What’s this I hear about you having kinky loud sex in the office?”

Dani’s hands clapped over her mouth in horror, her cheeks burning. “Xoey is DEAD!”

He laughed and hugged her to him. “Oh, don’t go killing Xoey for news I would’ve pried out of one of the other workers anyway.”

Keeping her face buried in his shoulder for a few seconds longer, she asked worriedly, “Did she say she literally ‘heard’ me and Luke in the office?”

“Actually, she only speculated; you just confirmed it for me.”

“Older brothers are evil,” she muttered, lightly jabbing an elbow into his gut.

He chuckled unrepentantly. “Okay, so now that I know you and this Luke guy are at least semi-serious, tell me more about him.”

“I’ve told you plenty.”

“Boring facts I could find about him online. I want to know the deep, juicy stuff. Major flaws, skeletons in the closet, plans for world domination. And it would be nice to know if I’m going to need a tux and speech ready soon. Details, baby sis. I need details.”

Dani conveniently chose to ignore the question she knew her brother most wanted the answer to. “Other than the fact that he’s a hopeless romantic? No other flaws that I can see.”

“Hey, I’m a romantic, and so is Jonathan. Being a romantic man is not a flaw.”

“If you say so. How’d you get like that anyway? Dad wasn’t romantic at all, and neither am I. How come you’re the only one with romantic genes in the family?” After thanking the waiter for bringing the food and wine, Dani slid the plate over to Derek and poured him a glass.

Derek looked at her like she’d already had a few. “Are you kidding me? Dad was the worst offender in the romance division.”

“No he wasn’t,” she scoffed. “I remember mom used to complain about that very fact about dad, that he wasn’t romantic enough.”

“Dad was plenty romantic, I assure you,” defended Derek with an underlying current in his voice. “Mom had just passed the point of being able to see it.”

Dani gave him a sidelong glance. “Sounds like you know some things I don’t.”

His look became hooded, entrenched in secrets. “Comes with being the older brother.” He broke eye contact and switched their focus to the plate of food in front of him as he quickly took a bite and groaned at the savory flavors. “I swear, I would give Javier my shares in the brewpub if he could teach Jonathan to cook like this.”

At the abrupt, not so subtly dismissed discussion about their mother and father, Dani’s head clouded with more thoughts than she’d had about her parents’ relationship in a while.

“You okay, sis?”

Turning her troubled eyes up to his, she attempted to get the words out. “I feel like I can’t...” She bit her lip, suddenly feeling very much like the baby sister she knew Derek still saw her as. Finally she blurted out, “Do you think I’m abnormal? When it comes to love?”