Page 5 of Rhett & Moses
He turned to leave, and panic surged through me at the thought of letting him walk away again without saying what needed to be said.
“Rhett,” I called after him. He paused, looking back over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “I was thinking of doing a private gin tasting when you have your free time session. Maybe some new items I’m considering for the bar. If you’re interested…?”
I let the invitation hang in the air between us, heart hammering in my chest. He studied me for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
“What time?” he finally asked.
Relief washed through me. “Three? Before the bar opens and registration at the high school?”
He nodded once. “I’ll be here.”
And then he was gone, pushing through the growing crowd toward the exit, leaving me to wonder if I’d just made the best decision of my life or another colossal mistake in a long line of them where Rhett was concerned.
“Well, that went better than expected,” Bronwyn commented, materializing beside me with an infuriating smirk.
“Shut up and help me prep,” I grumbled, but there was no real heat in it.
Because despite everything, the tension, the unresolved past, the uncertain future, seeing Rhett again had awakened something in me that I’d thought long dead. Something dangerous and thrilling and terrifying all at once.
Hope.
CHAPTER 2
RHETT
I arrived at Timbers& Tallboys twenty minutes before our scheduled tasting, hoping to collect my thoughts before facing Moses again. The bar wouldn’t open to the public for another hour, and the early evening stillness gave the place an intimacy that both comforted and unnerved me.
The rustic wooden interior was bathed in amber light, highlighting the craftsmanship that had gone into transforming, what I remembered as old man Morley’s hardware store, into this stylish establishment. Large windows captured the fading sunlight, casting long shadows across the polished floor. Behind the gleaming bar, bottles of gin, dozens of them, caught the light like liquid jewels.
And there was Moses, arranging glasses with the same meticulous precision. He hadn’t noticed me yet, giving me a rare moment to observe him unguarded.
Time had been kind to him. The gangly teenager had filled out into a broad-shouldered man with confident hands and a strong jaw, now covered in a neatly trimmed beard. His dark curls were shorter than he’d worn them in high school but still rebellious, a few spirals breaking free to fall across his forehead. When he reached up to adjust a bottle on a high shelf, his navyHenley rode up slightly, revealing a strip of skin that sent my thoughts careening in directions I wasn’t prepared to explore just yet.
“You’re early,” he said without turning around, and I realized with a start that he’d been aware of my presence all along.
“Occupational hazard,” I replied, approaching the bar. “I was raised to believe that being on time means being fifteen minutes early.”
He turned then, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Some things never change.”
Something about the way he said it, a hint of fondness wrapped in melancholy, made my chest tighten. I slid onto a barstool, resting my forearms on the cool wood of the bar top.
“I’ve set up a flight of five gins,” Moses explained, gesturing to an arrangement of small glasses. “Different styles, different botanicals, different stories.”
“You always did have a flair for the dramatic,” I teased, unable to keep the warmth from my voice.
He arched an eyebrow. “Says the man who once designed a building shaped like a violin for a Symphony Orchestra.”
I blinked in surprise. “You know about that project?”
A flush crept up his neck as he busied himself arranging the glasses. “It made the architectural journals. Hard to miss.”
The implication that he’d been keeping tabs on my career sent a flutter through my stomach that I firmly tamped down. I was here for closure, not to rekindle something that had burned out spectacularly twenty years ago.
“So—” I gestured toward the lineup of bottles. “—educate me, Gin Master Morley.”
His eyes lit up at the challenge, reminding me of how passionate he’d always been about the things that captured his interest. “We’ll start traditional and move toward more experimental expressions.”
He poured a measure of clear liquid into the first glass and slid it toward me. “London Dry. The classic. Juniper forward with citrus notes. The foundation that all other gins build upon or rebel against.”
