Page 61 of Golden Touch
NASH
The security upgrade turns out great, but it sets me back half a day. That means my father is blowing up my phone asking to taste this week’s brews.
So, after a quick lunch meeting with the brewhouse staff, I ask Livia to help me prep some bottles to sneak into my father’s room. “It worked so well the last time.”
“Sure. Am I going with you to Serenity Hills?”
“Nah, I’ll man up and go alone. You’re more useful here.”
She gives me a bashful glance from underneath long eyelashes. I wasn’t lying when I said she looked hot today. Kinda makes me want to find out whether the office door locks. “All right,” she says quietly. “Give me ten minutes to set you up with samples.”
A short while later, I’m striding into my father’s hospital room, fake kombucha under my arm. I find him sitting on the bed, hooked up to his IV full of antibiotics.
He scowls. “Took you long enough.”
“Dad,” I say with a sigh. “I’m a busy man.”
He looks away, defeat on his face. “I know, because it ought to be me out there. I shouldn’t be here on my ass. I should be cooking up a new seasonal brew. Summer’s almost here. Wish Icould rip this thing out of my arm and just leave. Sitting around is how you become old and irrelevant.”
The disappointment in his voice gives me an unwelcome flash of empathy for the old grouch. “I’ve seen the lines out front during tasting-room hours. Pretty sure you’re not irrelevant yet.”
“It’s a small comfort,” he grumbles. “Now let’s taste.”
I close the door and uncap the first brew.
He sniffs the top. “Goldenpour. Gotta be day eight. Well, let’s see how you did.”
It’s stupid, but I find myself holding my breath while he tastes.
“Mmm. Not bad, kid. Not bad at all.”
A very unwelcome spark of pride zings through me.
“We’re back, eh?”
“Yeah, you’re back all right,” I say gruffly.
He tastes the rest and declares them all acceptable, and I rinse the bottles in the sink. Then I sit down in the visitors’ chair. “Look, I have to get back to it, but we had a little excitement at the brewery, and there’s a couple of developments I need to catch you up on.”
“What kind of excitement?” he grunts.
“Turns out that Livia has a nasty ex. He and a buddy have been scouring Vermont looking for her. This week her luck ran out, and they found her.”
My father blinks. “She okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Shoulda led with that.”
He sits back against the pillows and strokes his chin. “I can see it. That girl is wary. Never talks about herself. Doesn’t leave the property much, and she refuses to work in the taproom. So what happened?”
“Dude recognized her POS car in the lot. I was working in the tasting room when he came inside asking whether a woman that looked like her worked there. I lied, because I wasn’t born yesterday.”
My dad grins.
“She spotted him and practically had an aneurism. I hid hercar and talked her off the ledge. But the asshole didn’t buy my story. Came back in the middle of the night to poke around. When I went outside to scare him off, he threatened Livia, me, and the brewery. In that order. Said if I protected her, he’d burn the place down.”
The grin slides off my father’s face. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
