Page 1 of The Pretenders of Copper County
CHAPTER ONE
CHRIS
Some days,I was really freaking tired of being boring Chris Winowski.
“Hey, Chris? Can you swap out the Heady? It’s running slow.” Van set the pint he’d just pulled in front of Norm Avery. “Crowd after the town meeting must’ve cleaned us out last night.”
I straightened from where I’d been unloading a bunch of freshly washed glasses onto a rack under the bar, wiped my damp hands on the leg of my baggy jeans, and pushed up my glasses. “Me? Heck yeah. I’ll do it right now!”
Was it ridiculous that my pulse leapt at being asked to change out a keg—a messy job that meant yanking around a container nearly as heavy as me and arguably the worst of all the tasks involved in being a barback?
Low-key yes.
But I’d been working at the Bugle, the centuries-old tavern in Little Pippin Hollow, Vermont, for almost half a year now, and after one teeny, tiny, barely memorable keg-changing incident last spring, I hadn’t been asked again, so this almost felt like?—
Van put his gnarled hand on my thin shoulder and squeezed lightly. “I didn’t mean you, kiddo.”
“Oh.” I frowned at him. “But?—”
Crys—aka Crystal, aka Original-Crys, even though she hadn’t lived in the Hollow much longer than I had—slouched in from the back room wearing thick boots, cargo pants, and a flannel shirt she’d cropped herself last week with her pocket knife, not to purposely show off her amazing abs but because the extra material was “freaking killing my range of motion, man.” Her messy hair, which looked like it had been hacked off with the same knife,framed a pretty face, a friendly smile, and dark eyes that reminded me of a caged tiger I’d seen at the zoo as a kid.
“On it.” Crys’s voice was confident as she clomped back off to get her tools.
My shoulders slumped, but I could hardly complain. I mean, of the two of us, I’d have given her the job, too.
“Guessing Van doesn’t want a repeat of the Great Beer Baptism.” Norm gave me a wink. “You remember that, Chris?”
“Yes, sir.” I tried to muster a polite smile. “Yep. I was there, so…”
“I thought we were calling it the Keg-tastrophe,” old Mrs. Graber teased. “It was like a geyser of beer erupted right here in the bar. Lord, I never saw such a sight in all my born days.”
That covers a lot of days, I thought uncharitably, my fingers toying with the frayed blue cuff of my sweater, but I nodded along and kept my smile plastered in place. Nothing worse than a man who can’t take a joke, Uncle Danny always said.
“You talking about the Ale-pocalypse?” A man I’d never met before set his empty glass on the edge ofthe bar and rubbed a hand over his bald head. “I heard about that. The way they tell it over in Keltyville, beer ran down the sidewalk in a wave.”
I leaned a hip against the bar and closed my eyes with a sigh. It had taken me less than six months in Vermont to become a small-town urban legend. That had to be some kind of record.
I was fairly certain this wasn’t what Uncle Danny had in mind when he’d sent me north to stay with Van to “relax awhile” and “find myself” while helping his old army buddy out.
“Not quite,” Van said dryly. He darted a glance at the bright white section of new plaster on the ceiling and patted my shoulder again. “It was a hell of a mess, but it could have happened to anyone. Besides, Ernie’s been meaning to replace that ceiling nearly as long as he’s owned the place.”
I wasn’t sure about that. Norm didn’t look convinced either.
“I didn’t mean to get distracted. I disconnected the old keg, like you showed me,” I explained. I could feel my cheeks heating, and though Uncle Danny’s voice in my head reminded me that uncontrollable babbling was a really inconvenient stress response, the words kept pouring out. “A-and I started screwing the coupler into the new one. But then the Sunday family came into the bar, and everyone was making toasts to Webb and Luke, and someone was asking if it was true that they’d gotten married, and then… well. It just sort of happened,” I finished lamely.
“Sure. Like I said.” Van shook my shoulder gently one last time before wandering off to help Crys with the keg.
Mrs. Graber leaned toward me over the bar. “You were thinking about making ’em one of your charcoochie boards, weren’t you, sweetheart?” she asked in a sympathetic voice.To the bald stranger, she confided, “Chris does the boards for the Little Pippin Hookers Knit-Ins, you know. They’remagnificent. All different themes. So colorful. And so pretty, too! Meats, and cheese balls, and even those… whatjacall’em? Edible flowers? This man does amazing things with a salami.”
I felt my face go even hotter and gave her a genuine smile. “Thanks, Mrs. Graber.” I felt a little guilty for my unkind thoughts about her earlier, so I picked up her mostly empty glass of seltzer and lime and grabbed the soda nozzle to refill it.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t blame charcuterie boards for my distraction the day of the keg incident. It hadn’t even been the horde of Sundays that distracted me—though lord knew they were difficult to ignore, especially when gathered in multiples. According to town gossip, four out of the five brothers were gorgeous, green-eyed, gargantuan lumberjacks, even the one who worked in Washington as an accountant or something. I hadn’t met them all, but I could say for sure that the ones Ihadmet were capable, kind, and devoted to their family. Webb Sunday in particular gave off a total John Ruffian vibe… and that wasnota compliment I gave lightly since I’d been aJohn Ruffian: Pretenderfan since the day the show first aired and could quote nearly every one of its seventy-two episodes from start to finish.
In fact, the day of the incident, I’d seen Webb grin down at his brand-new husband, wrap him up in his beefy arms, and give him a kiss so pure and loving that all my breath had left my body in a sigh… andthathad gotten me thinking about the episode where John pretended to run an ice cream factory to save a woman’s dairy farm from financial ruin.
After the dairy lady had given him a tearful thank-you, John Ruffian had said, “No need to thank me, baby,” in his deep, gruff voice. Then, he’d wrapped one huge hand behind her neck and bent her backward—literally, no kidding,backward—and kissed her like she was the only other human in the universe, a lot like the way Webb had kissed Luke.
Since this was in my top seven all-timeJohn Ruffiankisses, naturally, I’d replayed the whole scene in my head… and then I may possibly have started imagining what it might be like one of these days when I found someone of my own to kiss and wondering whether he’d call me?—
