Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek #1)(81)

To my beautiful sleeping Valentine:

Happy 16th Valentine’s Day. I tried to find something as dainty as you are but I’m afraid such a thing did not exist. So I had this custom made—something you can keep on you that’ll hopefully make you smile whenever you look at it.



Dani didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when she saw the delicate little silver anklet with its gorgeous dangling charms of juniper and hops. It was stunning. These weren’t generic charms either. They were exact replicas of the design she’d had carved into the photo frame she’d given him. He must have paid a jeweler to handcraft each of the intricate charms.

Smiling, she slipped it on and secured the tiny silver clasp. She’d never worn an anklet before—it was so dainty and feminine against her skin.

She loved it.




“SHIT!” CURSED DANI, spitting out the small sip of almost fully aged beer she’d just tasted. It wasn’t horrendous. But it wasn’t exactly beer either.

Mike, her main brew manager, cringed. “I tried to tell you. I think something happened to it during the fermenting stage. It came out way too fruity—totally bizarre since I’ve been keeping tabs on the heat throughout. I didn’t think it was going to turn like that.”

Granted, the little brew system they used for recipe experimentation, lovingly named the Baby D system by her dad, wasn’t equipped with the temperature regulators their newer, bigger fermenters had. Still, the beer shouldn’t have turned out this odd. This was Dobson-curse odd. Dani glowered at her tasting cup and dumped the rest of the pale liquid down the drain. “I just don’t get it. The flavors should’ve balanced out nicely in this recipe.”

“Maybe it’s the water?”

Dani shook her head. “I researched the brew logs at an old California brewery for a similar recipe, a rare non-cider European pear brew I tasted once.” She checked her notebook to confirm. “Yep. I added the right salt and gypsum formula to the water to match.”

Jim, her other brew man, came up behind them. “Dobson curse strike again?” he asked sympathetically when he saw Dani’s befuddled expression. He reached over and filled a tasting cup to see the damage. A reluctant swallow later, he grimaced. “That’s like a bad wine cooler.”

Dani let out a frustrated breath. “I shouldn’t have used Asian pears—too subtle a flavor. I could have another run at white nectarines...” The men exchanged pained looks, which caused Dani to flop her head back dejectedly. “You’re right. That one was worse.” Blowing her hair out of her face with a disgruntled huff, she shut the cooling tank down. “Back to the drawing board, boys.” She scribbled some notes in her notebook. “So no-go on the pears. Hmmm, I did hear of a new berry that’s supposed to fruit late in the spring…” Her narrowed gaze looked right through the two men as her brain ran through the few spring fruits left she had to experiment with.

Mike patted his bear paw of a hand on her shoulder. “Man, I haven’t seen this stubborn look since your dad brewed that crazy recipe he tried back when we did the brewery extension. Remember that one, Jim? Horrible spring beer, just awful. But later that year, he did a one-eighty and made a double red IPA instead.” He smacked his lips. “Now that was one tasty brew.”

Dani’s shoulders slumped at the memory. Yet another inexplicable case that could only be explained by the Dobson curse.

Jim nodded at her. “Is that it? You aiming to break the curse this year, baby girl?”

“There is no curse!” She crossed her arms mulishly. When the two brewers—lifelong uncles by beer, not blood—said not a word, she leaned against the wall with a weary grunt.

Mike’s brows stitched together sympathetically. “Okay, say we ignore all the damning evidence that points to a curse. Could it be that the kind of beer you and your dad always try to make in the spring just isn’t a good fit?”

She looked up. “What do you mean? There isn’t a specific ‘kind.’ Dad and I have tried all different recipes in the spring. None of them worked.”

Jim and Mike exchanged another look. “Baby girl,” said Jim pulling her brew notebook from her hands to flip through some old recipes. “Lookit your notes there. Sure the ingredients may change, but you two have always tried for some sorta new fruity pale lager.”

Really? Why had she never noticed that before? “Well, it is for spring.” She shrugged. “A fruit beer is a logical choice.” The sentence came out more question than not.

Mike tilted his head. “Remember the other year, how you wouldn’t even listen to me when I said you should try to make a barleywine beer with the fruit instead?”

“It wouldn’t have been good for the spring. Too intense,” she insisted. Suddenly, Dani flinched at a flashback of her mother making the exact same assertion, only it’d been in reference to the deeper bocks they brewed year-round. She rolled her eyes. Her mother had never liked their darker brews. Come to think of it, her mother hadn’t been a fan of their pale beers either, though she tolerated them better. She’d been a wine person through and through, just like Derek.

Dani blinked in surprise. How weird. She couldn’t believe she even remembered all that. How many ten-year-olds knew their parents’ drinking preferences that well? Then again, a Dobson kid wasn’t just any ten-year-old. Everyone used to say her father had more beer than blood in his veins. Looked like she was born the same way.