Real Men Will (21 page)

“Have I?”

“Yeah.” Eric slipped his fingers beneath her underwear, then he cupped his hand over her sex. “But I still say you’re using the wrong word.”

She was sensitive from too much sex already, and when his fingers slid along her, Beth gasped at the shock of pleasure. Suddenly, her mind was working again. Moving too fast. The sex wasn’t mindless anymore. It was…
full
. Of emotions. And worries. And fears that it meant too much. Because she didn’t want it to stop tomorrow. She didn’t ever want it to stop.

As he stroked her, she slid her leg along his, opening herself to him, letting herself feel the pleasure and the anxiety all at once.

Tomorrow, if she called Luke and lied to him, Eric wouldn’t understand. He wouldn’t forgive. And she’d never feel his fingers slide inside her again. She’d never arch into his touch with a whimper.

His thumb strummed her clit and she cried out. “Is that comfortable?” he murmured.

Beth shook her head. It wasn’t. It was wonderful and awful and too much.

“I don’t want to be easy to you, Beth.” He slipped free of her and his strong hand curled over her hip to turn her over. She went willingly, laying her cheek to the bed, closing her eyes against the bittersweet anticipation.

He didn’t understand. She couldn’t tell him.

His hand shaped her ass, his fingers pressing rough into her flesh when he squeezed. His other hand wound into her hair, and this time when he slid his fingers along her sex, she sighed his name.

She loved him like this. Intense and in control. She loved it that he held her still and stroked her until she begged. “Please,” she whispered.

But she had no idea what she was begging for, because even after she came, even after she cried out and arched up and her body clenched around his fingers…she was still whispering, “Please.”

“R
OLAND
K
ENDALL CALLED
.
He’s ready to deal.”

Eric dropped the hose he was using to clean a tank, slipped off his gloves and switched the phone to the other ear. “Are you serious?” he asked Luke.

“They seem pretty intent on talking. He and his lawyer are heading over to the D.A.’s office right now, and I’m on my way to meet them. I think the pressure finally worked, and just in time. We were working up the arrest warrant on Monica Kendall and we made damn sure he was aware.”

“Great news. Call me as soon as you know.”

Eric hung up and got back to his cleaning with a smile. This year was finally starting to shape up. He’d been at work for two hours, and things were falling into place. The two grocery accounts had been fine with waiting a week for their shipments, the mechanic had called and said the piece would be in a day earlier, and the microbatch Eric had started was almost ready for second fermentation. He was thinking he’d probably age it just for kicks, but he could make that decision later. Hell, he was free to do whatever he wanted for a few more days. Wallace had finally called to say he’d be back on Tuesday.

In the bigger scheme of things, Graham Kendall might be coming back to the United States to face trial. It wasn’t as if he’d murdered anyone, but damn, it would feel good to see him get time for the hundreds of people he’d stolen identities from.

And then, of course, there was sex with Beth. Secret, smutty, comfortable sex with Beth.

Eric grabbed a broom and swept soapy water over to the drain in the center of the tank room, grinning like a madman the whole time. There must be something in the ventilation system at the brewery. He was just as lovesick as everyone else.

Startled by the thought, he froze, the broom still poised above the floor. That wasn’t what she’d meant by
comfortable,
was it? It wasn’t about falling in love. Sure, he liked her. A lot. What was there
not
to like about the woman? She was gorgeous and smart. Soft and sexy. And maybe even comfortable, despite the fact that he still wished she’d chosen a different word.

“No,” he said aloud, resuming his sweeping. He wasn’t lovesick. He was just obsessed with the best sex he’d ever had in his life. Totally normal. It’d be weird if he
wasn’t
walking around with a smile.

Nodding to himself, Eric hung the broom up and headed to his office. Jamie would be in soon, and Eric wanted to talk to him before he got too caught up in his plans to bring in a chef to interview tomorrow. “Tessa?” He stuck his head in his sister’s door.

She covered the phone with her hand. “Yeah?”

“When Jamie comes in, would you two come to my office?”

She frowned at him, but nodded as she got back to her call.

The strange calm he’d felt for the past twelve hours was still with him. When Jamie knocked on his door a few minutes later, Eric looked up with a smile. “Hey.”

Tessa pushed past and dropped into her chair with a glare. “What’s going on, Eric? I don’t like this.”

“Don’t like what?”

She pointed at him. “This.”

“Everything’s great.”

Tessa’s green eyes narrowed and she shook her head. “Whatever you think you’re doing, don’t do it.”

“Calm down. I just wanted to apologize to Jamie.” He looked at Jamie, who’d taken a seat in the other chair and seemed much less concerned with the meeting. “What you said the other day… You were right. I haven’t been truly supportive of the changes you’re making. I’ve spent the past thirteen years trying to do exactly what I thought Dad would’ve wanted for the brewery. Every decision I’ve made has been about his vision, what he planned, what he valued.”

Jamie stiffened. “I care about his memory, too.”

“I know. What I’m saying is the only motivation I’ve had is doing things the way Michael Donovan would’ve done them.”

“Why? I don’t get it.”

Eric sighed. “Yeah, I know. You don’t get it because you don’t have to. You don’t need to constantly wonder what he’d do, because you’re his blood, Jamie. You come by it naturally.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jamie grumbled.

“I’m talking about this.” He pushed the sketches forward. “He never talked about this. Not with me, anyway. But it turns out Dad had the same ideas you did, Jamie.”

Tessa picked up the sketches with a frown. “What are these?”

“I went through some of Dad’s old things last night. I haven’t looked at them in more than ten years, and the last time I did, I was just searching for help on keeping the brewery afloat. I wasn’t thinking about expanding. But he was.”

Jamie took the papers that Tessa offered and frowned down at them as he paged through. “Okay,” he said, obviously not as blown away as Eric had been.

“Look at the plans, Jamie. They’re rough and simplistic, but some of his sketches of a dining area look almost exactly like your plans.”

“I guess.”

“Don’t you get it? He was considering adding food. Not pizza, but an actual restaurant. I’ve been thinking that it’s wrong to change the brewery this way—to change
his
brewery—but I’ve just been stubborn. I’ll stop resisting. I’ll completely support your ideas for changes from here on out. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking maybe we haven’t gone far enough.”

Jamie looked up from the sketches, his eyes hardening. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I think you’ve come up with a great rollout plan. Artisan pizzas cooked in a real stone oven. It’s a great idea. Better than anything I could’ve come up with. But if it goes well, maybe we should think about expanding next year. We could add more items, extend the hours. Heck, we could even consider adding a sun-room that we could use in the winter and the summer. I could oversee a second expansion while you run the restaurant.”

Jamie set the sketches down, taking the time to carefully align the papers with the edge of Eric’s desk. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve finally decided that my idea doesn’t suck and won’t ruin the brewery.”

“Yes,” Eric said with a smile. “Although I wouldn’t quite put it—”

“And at the very same moment you decided that
maybe
I have a decent plan, you also decided it isn’t good enough.”

Eric’s smile faded. “What?”

“You’ll let me have my little pizza joint while you work on something bigger and better.”

Tessa touched his arm. “Jamie.”

“What? That’s what he’s saying.”

Eric huffed out a humorless laugh. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying you were right. That even without knowing it, you still understand what Dad wanted.”

“Jesus, this isn’t about Dad. Why do you always turn it back to him?”

“Stop,” Tessa cut in. “The important thing here is that Eric is supporting you, Jamie.”

Jamie laughed. “By telling me he can do it better?”

Eric leaned forward, his shoulders tightening to rock. “I’m trying to compliment you, damn it. Why is it so hard for you to see that? I’m saying our dad would’ve been proud of you.”

Jamie’s jaw turned hard. “That’s not up to you to decide. It’s not up to anyone. He’s dead, Eric. I can’t get his approval, even if I deserved it.”

“Fine, but lucky for you, you don’t need it. You don’t have to work for it at all. Even when you’re just doing things your way, you’re a lot closer to staying true to him than I could ever be.”

Tessa shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Jamie shouted. “I can’t live my whole life wondering what Dad would think about it. He’s been dead for thirteen years! What is your goddamned obsession with this?”

“Obsession?” Eric snapped. “It’s been my fucking job since he died. To step in and do what he would’ve wanted. To try to take his place in this world, as if anyone could. Not that you ever fucking appreciated a
moment
of what I’ve done for you.”

“Oh, for godssake. Is that what this is about? You being a martyr?”

Tessa hit Jamie’s shoulder. “Stop it. He gave up everything for us.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Eric said quickly. “I love you. It’s just that—”

Jamie laughed again. “That you expect us to do everything your way for the rest of our lives because you put in a few years when we were teenagers?”

“I put in
a few years?
” Eric snarled. “I gave up my whole fucking life so I could keep the brewery going for you two. It was five years before you could even wash a goddamned glass in here, Jamie. And seven for Tessa. Do you think my dream was to push papers around on a desk forever? To be a father before I’d even grown up? I gave up my life so I could move back home and try to fill Dad’s shoes the best I could for an ungrateful little shit who resented everything I did for him!”

Jamie’s smile was tight and angry. “You aren’t Dad, Eric. And it drove me crazy that you pretended you were.”

Eric surged up, shoving his chair so hard that it crashed into the wall and tipped over. “Jesus, I know I’m not Dad! I’m not even his fucking son, am I?”

Tessa stood up, too, but Jamie just leaned back in his seat, looking bored.

“Eric, don’t say that,” Tessa pleaded.

“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not true,” she said, anger in her eyes. “It’s not true at all.”

But Eric looked down at Jamie’s flat expression. He wanted to hit him again, as if he could beat into Jamie how much he loved him, how much he’d do for him, how desperate he was for him to have a good life. “I wasn’t even working here when he died. Did you know that? I got a place in Denver and I was working at a bottling plant for experience. And you know what? He didn’t care. You two were the ones who were supposed to take over.”

Tessa shook her head. “He left the brewery to all of us, Eric. He wanted you here.”

“No, he needed me here for you. When I told him I was thinking of going out to one of the old breweries in the East, he didn’t raise one objection.”

“Did you need him to?” Jamie sneered. “He was a great dad to you, but you needed him to ask you to stay? Maybe he felt like you didn’t give a shit about him because you wanted to work anywhere but here.”

Eric swallowed hard against the frustrated rage wanting to escape from his throat. “That wasn’t how it was,” he growled.

“If you don’t want to be here, if you don’t think you belong, then you sure as hell don’t need to stay here and give up your life for us, brother.”

“Jamie,
stop it,
” Tessa yelled.

“Are you not hearing him?” Jamie said. “He gave up everything for us. He never wanted this job or this family.”

“Fuck you,” Eric snarled, stalking toward the door. “Do whatever the hell you want with this place. It’s all yours.”

“Eric!” Tessa screeched.

“Leave it alone,” he muttered as he walked out.

“No. No, I won’t leave it alone!” She chased after him. For a moment he thought she was going to leap right onto his back, but she just stomped her foot. “You stop right now, Eric Donovan.”

Eric sighed and stopped halfway through the kitchen, but he didn’t turn around.

“You promised me you wouldn’t leave. You told me just a few months ago that we were a burden—”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Okay,
I
said we were a burden, and you said you didn’t want to be free of us. So you’re stuck.”

Jesus, she could make him smile even when he felt like his heart was being pulled out of his chest. “Tessa…” He turned to face her, his hands up in surrender. “I don’t want to be free of you. I don’t know what I’d do without you. But I’m tired.”

“Tired of what?”

He shook his head. He didn’t know what it was. He just needed a break. From being the responsible one. The good one. The guy everyone could count on. It felt like his whole identity. It was all he knew about himself and it felt like a suit that didn’t fit.

“You’re wrong about Dad,” she said, her chin edging out to a stubborn line. “He didn’t think of you as any different from me and Jamie.”

“Then maybe Jamie’s right. Maybe he saw that I felt different. Maybe I broke his heart. All I know is that I’m not him, and I can’t keep pretending I am. I’m no good at the stuff he was good at, Tessa.”

“That’s not true, Eric. But if you really feel that way, then do something different. But don’t walk away. I won’t let you. I swear to God, I won’t.”

Eric tipped his head back and stared up at the industrial lights above him. He’d meant to walk out, just to get some space and time to breathe. To think. But he’d meant what he said. He didn’t want to be free of them. He didn’t have anywhere else to go.

“The mechanic will be here this afternoon, and Wallace will be back tomorrow. I’ll man the tank room today and the bottling tomorrow. And then maybe I need a few days off.”

She threw herself into his arms and hugged him hard. “Yes! Take a vacation. I told you to take a vacation this spring, but you wouldn’t. That’s all you need.”

“Sure,” he said, but Eric didn’t think a vacation could fix him. He wasn’t sure anything could, but he’d give it an honest shot for Tessa, because he didn’t want to be that man she couldn’t trust. Not again.

E
VEN THE TANK ROOM COULDN’T
offer comfort today. Eric wanted to rage at someone and that someone was Jamie. After everything they’d been through together, they should’ve been close. Eric couldn’t understand why Jamie seemed to hate him sometimes. Had Eric really screwed things up so badly? Even if he had, why couldn’t Jamie give him a break?

He was still fuming an hour later, and when the tank room door opened, Eric looked up with a scowl.

Luke gave a perfunctory wave.

“Oh, it’s you.” He’d forgotten all about the hearing. Jamie and Tessa would probably be pissed he hadn’t said anything. “How’d it go?”

“Pretty well.”

“Kendall was ready to deal?”

“Actually, not quite. He came in acting like his usual arrogant self. Monica looked downright smug, as a matter of fact.”