Recipe for Eagle Cove, page 7
It was hurting badly by the time she remembered she was supposed to stay ahead of the pain. She popped a pill and tried to cheer it to action before it could possibly have reached her stomach.
Food, she was supposed to have food with it. But again, there was nothing here on the ground floor. She’d never really used the kitchenette, just the mini-fridge for cold sodas.
The recipes in the journals were blurring together. Two bushels in the mash, but scrape off the skins early? Or should she core them to avoid any bitterness from the seeds? Maybe…
There were no maybes. Not until she got the product unloaded and had the malt headed into the mash tun.
But she had no product.
It was in the van.
It would be here soon. It had better be or Jessica was going to be out one brother-in-law and Becky didn’t care if it was during her friend’s honeymoon.
And when the van finally did show up, she’d need help unloading.
Zander was her best bet. Normally she’d just call Peggy. They went back and forth across the hundred yards separating the barn and Peggy’s hangar all the time to give each other a hand lifting a wing, installing a new fermenting tank, or just to share a meal. She was as close to a second mom as a girl could have. But this was getting past friendship and family. There was hard work to be done and there would be more to follow. And if he wasn’t available—
She reached for the phone…and swore for the hundredth time today. She couldn’t call anyone; her phone was still in the van.
When she finally heard the tires crunching on the gravel, she grabbed her crutches and bolted for the door. Then almost did a face plant crossing the high threshold.
From fighting to stay upright her leg was screaming as Harry pulled up in front of her with a wave.
The crutches were wobbling and her knee almost let go despite the brace.
As the van stopped, Becky knew what was about to happen and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
She was about to utterly humiliate herself.
Harry scrambled but he was too slow.
Becky collapsed to her knees. Tangled in the crutches and with one leg out of commission she went down hard on the grass. The retching sound that ripped from her had him rushing forward.
He pulled her hair clear barely in time and did his best to support her as she heaved long past dry before collapsing against him.
“Wow, Becky.” Harry didn’t really know what else to say.
“I’m done utterly barfing my guts out now.”
“Yeah.” He never met a woman who could laugh at herself when she was in complete misery—not that he usually hung around for such moments, but it was still impressive. “Yeah.”
“Sure. Fine. Whatever.” She flapped a hand indicating the mess she’d just made.
“Nothing a hose won’t fix. Let’s get you back on the couch,” he scooped her up into his arms.
She curled there and he could feel the shivers coursing through her as her body reacted to the abuse. He seemed to be holding and carrying Becky a lot in the last forty-eight hours. He resettled her on the couch, found a damp cloth and a glass of water, but she wouldn’t look up at him. While she cleaned up he fetched her toothbrush from upstairs, loaded it up, and handed it to her without comment.
“So,” he did his best to keep his tone light, “what was that all about?”
“I don’t like those pills,” she mumbled.
He eyed them and noticed there was only one bottle. “Where are the others?”
“What others?”
He started looking around and found them under the edge of the counter on the far side of the living room as if she’d heaved them there, “These. Anti-nausea.”
“Now they tell me.”
“With food,” he lowered his voice into that I’m-a-lawyer-so-don’t-mess-with-me register.
“The only food was upstairs and my knee was hurting too much to try the stairs.”
And now he was the one who felt like eight kinds of an idiot. “How long ago?”
“An hour, maybe.”
“That means most of it’s in your bloodstream,” he hoped, he wasn’t sure. “Let’s give you a buffer of some food anyway.”
He went back out to the van and grabbed the bag that the Judge had prepared for him. It had been a real surprise. He’d cleaned up the front of house at the diner as the crowd tailed off, but he really wanted to get back to Becky. However, he didn’t want to leave the Judge high and dry again as there was no sign of Peggy.
“Here,” his father had held out a bundle of small bills. “Half tips from yesterday and today. Actually one-third from yesterday as I felt that Peggy earned her share.”
There’d be no argument from him on that judgment. Harry had riffled through the wad of crumbled green. Nice for a breakfast place he supposed, but not much more than he was paid per hour, which was a quarter of what his firm billed him at per hour. “Greg makes a living on this?”
“He also receives free rent and utilities at the house along with a small salary. And he now serves fancy sit-down dinners Friday and Saturday nights.”
Then his father had handed over a bag warm and heavy with food. “Lunch for two. It’s a good thing you’re doing, helping out Becky.”
And his father knew what Harry was doing because there were no secrets in Eagle Cove. He hadn’t known what to say other than “Thanks.”
On his way back into the barn with lunch, he gathered up her crutches and set them inside the door.
“No!” Becky called out without even raising her head. “Not way over there, Slater.”
It took a moment to realize what she’d meant, but it took him no time at all after that to feel like an utter idiot. He’d left her without food and without crutches.
He sat down across from her, “Are you ready for some food?”
Becky smiled at him, “You are so cute, Slater.”
“I am?” He’d earned “handsome” often enough that it had become a meaningless non-sequitur. “Cute” was new.
“I barf my guts out all over you—”
“Actually you missed. Better luck next time.”
“—and you have the decency to be the one acting guilty about where you put my crutches.”
“But that was unforgiv—”
“Like I said, very cute.” She took the to-go container.
Inside were bags of chips and egg salad sandwiches built on thick slices of Cal’s sourdough bread. He didn’t think after a second morning working at the diner that he’d ever want to face an egg again, but the sandwiches tasted even better than they looked.
“Your dad can make a mean sandwich.”
“He can.” He also wasn’t quite the person that Harry was expecting. He was as gruff and dictatorial as ever with all of his little rules. But he’d also paid Harry for his troubles and it sounded as if he’d worked out a fair deal with Greg. And he really cared how Becky was doing. Not enough to ask outright, but enough to make a nice lunch for her.
“Once we’re done eating, I need my cell phone from the van.”
“You couldn’t even call for help?” He dropped his sandwich and rushed out to grab it right away. Couldn’t he do anything right around Becky?
She took it with a simple, “Thanks. I need to call around and find a pair of hands to hire. Nothing good is happening to all of the supplies in the back of my van by baking them in the sun.”
“Who are you—” Wrong question, Counselor. “How about if I help you?”
“I thought you were on vacation? Frankly, I kind of expected you to be gone by now. You never visit Eagle Cove for long.”
“I’m rather surprised myself.” His normal limit was forty-eight hours. Some visits he spent longer in transit than he actually did in Eagle Cove and that suited him just fine. “This trip I don’t seem to be in a hurry to leave.” He’d actually planned to fly down to Vegas for a couple days and have a hedonistic week before heading back into the grind.
Becky was looking at him and he could see she was thinking hard.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he asked her.
“Cheapskate.”
“I’m a lawyer. Why are you surprised?”
“A lawyer who drives an SLK350.”
“I’m not a stupid lawyer, just a cheapskate.”
“Well, I can’t pay more than minimum wage. Maybe a bonus for good behavior.”
“Good behavior, huh?” He’d certainly liked the way she thought about court orders last night and fines for contempt the night before. “Bonuses sound very tempting.”
“This will be really awful for you, so just know you can call it quits at any time and I’ll start calling around.”
“Deal. Where do we begin?” Her radiant smile of relief was payment enough right there. A beautiful woman who smiled at him like that not because she was manipulating him, but just because he made her happy. It was quite a charge to his system.
“Open the big door and back the van in.”
Becky had never appreciated the benefits of having a willing man-servant before. Especially not one who looked so nice after he worked up a sweat and stripped off his t-shirt.
“Whatever you do down there in New Orleans, it suits you well, Counselor,” she called from her couch. He was heaving fifty-pound burlap bags of malt and hops out of the van and stacking them in piles by the malt hopper. She hated not having her hands on her own product, but watching a real-life Harry Slater sweat on her behalf was better than Bradley Cooper in the movies.
“Racquetball mostly. Some gym time,” he grunted out as he dropped another bag on the pile. And he’d been surprisingly kind after she’d barfed all over him, or at least right in front of him.
Her knee was starting to hurt again. She reached for her crutches and Harry materialized in front of her and squatted down until they were eye to eye.
“What do you need?”
“Well I’m done with that,” she waved her hands at the bottles of drugs. “Over the counter for this gal.”
“And I’m guessing that they’re upstairs, so nope. Put those crutches down.”
He was so close that she could smell him. The hint of new clothes from the t-shirt had left him, and there was a small tear in his khakis that he hadn’t noticed yet but would probably give him apoplectic fits when he did. He wasn’t ugly sweaty, just sort of heated and glowy and smelled so positively male that she wished she could brew a batch with just that heady scent. She wouldn’t sell it, she’d just crack a bottle on rare occasions when her spirits needed bolstering after he was gone. His breathing was hard enough from the workout to have his chest and flat gut doing their own beautiful workout. Tempting the fates, she leaned in.
“I’ll get them.” And he was gone, trotting up the stairs in what he probably thought of as his slumming around shoes, two hundred dollars’ worth of Nikes.
He came back down, tossed her a bottle, and kept going.
All she could do was gape. She wanted to be holding a gorgeous chunk of man and instead she was clutching a little white bottle that rattled when she shook it.
Those fates had a nasty sense of humor. She should know that garden gnomes must never tempt the fates.
Of course, Becky Billings wasn’t a girl to give up so easily.
“What’s next?” Harry didn’t know the last time he’d felt so jazzed. Each of the fifty-pound sacks individually had almost done him in, yet now that they were unloaded and stacked in neat piles, he couldn’t wait to do more.
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“I must have,” he collapsed back into the armchair and knocked back most of a cold bottle of water that felt so clear and good going down. Water never tasted like that in New Orleans. A cold bottle of water there was bitingly cold in contrast to the thick heat—more likely to give you stomach cramps than soothe a thirsty soul. And as soon as it was out of the refrigerator, it grew thick with condensation that then dripped onto silk ties and Ike Behar suits.
“You are going to be so sore tomorrow.”
He flexed and knew she was right, but it didn’t mean he wanted to stop.
“The next step starts a process that I have to monitor closely for two to three days. It’s not something I can just stop when you decide you get bored. I’d better try to call Zander.”
“No. Wait,” he rested his hand on hers. She’d already grabbed her cellphone. He always told people in the Big Easy that they knew nothing about moving slow if they hadn’t been to small-town coastal Oregon. Becky was the clear exception to that rule. Everything about her was so fast and focused.
“What?”
“Just…” he didn’t know why, “…wait. Okay?”
Becky didn’t huff in exasperation or roll her eyes. She simply sat like a princess propped on the pillows of her beater couch.
He looked at her for a long time and she let him. Beneath that buxom and flouncy exterior was a very sharp woman. It wouldn’t surprise him if she’d assembled every single piece of equipment behind him herself. And maybe done the rebuild upstairs somehow making it comfortable rather than utilitarian. And if he was looking for a woman who was nothing like the sharp-edged women who prowled New Orleans bars and jazz clubs hunting lawyers, doctors, and oil magnates, she was sitting right in front of him.
He should be out of here. He’d timed his arrival Sunday morning to just a few hours before the wedding. It was now Tuesday night, twenty-four hours after his planned departure.
Harry had never considered himself to be a particularly deep guy, but the fact that he hadn’t bolted out of town at the first opportunity must mean something. He hadn’t caught up with Cal except a little at the wedding. They needed to sit back and crack a few brews. He knew a couple other high school friends still lived in town, maybe more that he didn’t know about. Really, Bethany Garber was as often out of marriages as in them. If he remembered, her social media said that she was over in Salem and between men at the moment. It might be fun to revisit some of that for old time’s sake.
But he knew that wasn’t why he was still in Oregon.
The reason he was still here was the fragile, broken, beautiful, and tough-as-nails woman sitting across from him. Fragile? Who was he kidding? If he hadn’t been here, he’d wager that she’d have tackled unloading the van herself despite the drugs and blown knee.
“Your look of angelic innocence and patience isn’t fooling anyone, Billings.”
“Rats! And I was trying so hard.”
But she wasn’t. No, erase that. It was clear that she worked harder than anyone he knew. But she made it look easy. Around her he felt…good. Like there was hope and purpose above and beyond the daily grind of the law and how far could it be bent. It was a game he excelled at, but one that he’d wager Becky wouldn’t like at all.
He wanted…
Just that. He wanted Becky. Not just the way he felt around her, but the way she’d felt against him too.
“Okay. I’d like to cut a deal with the court.”
“The court is listening.”
“Three days you say?”
Becky nodded.
“Okay. I’m willing to trade three days, except for the hours helping the Judge. My question is: what does the court have to offer in exchange?”
Becky’s face remained unreadable as she considered his offer. She always seemed to be so open and outgoing and…obvious. Most women were the last no matter how they thought they hid it from him. He could read a blond within three seconds of entering a bar and a brunette before she had time to cast a second glance his way. But he was rapidly learning that Becky Billings was anything but obvious.
What surprised him was quite how much he was vested in her pending answer.
“The court notes,” her tone was worthy of any trial judge, maybe even his father, “that she is partially incapacitated by a leg brace.”
“So noted and entered in the record.”
“The court therefore inquires if the counselor is willing to bear one more burden this evening.”
“He’s willing to take it under advisement,” Harry couldn’t stop himself from smiling. No matter the verdict, because it was Becky he knew it would be fun.
“If the counselor would help deliver the court to her bedroom so that she might freshen up, because she rather suspects she smells like a herd of swine, our conference could be continued at a more suitable…” She finally broke and blushed a brilliant red.
“The counselor,” who was suddenly having problems with the fit of his slacks, “would like to file a Motion for Change of Venue.”
“Passed without objection,” Becky managed to gasp out.
Harry strode over and scooped her once more into his arms and headed for the stairs.
“Hey!” She protested.
“What?”
“You’re supposed to kiss the court before you drag her away and have your way with her.”
“I’ll take your pleading under consideration,” he continued up the steps. “But due to purported odor similarity to swine, that will take long and careful consideration.”
She thumped the side of a fist against his shoulder, then wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled against him. He buried his nose in her hair as he reached her upstairs apartment. To him she smelled like heaven.
Then he spotted the clawfoot tub and realized that her brace couldn’t be immersed.
That meant…a sponge bath. Now that was a judgement he was truly going to enjoy administering.
Chapter 5
Harry’s creativity with a wet and soapy sponge had started out incredible and expanded greatly with practice.
For three days he had completely lived up to his word. Together they had made a mash, cooked it, and run it through whirlpool filters and heat exchangers before getting it run into the fermentation tanks.
And the payments had been…breathtaking. She was supposed to be giving payment, not taking it, but her new lover gave her little choice.
Modesty had never been one of her issues, but that first sponge bath had pushed her limits. He’d put a chair in the tub, propped her bad leg on one rim, and then taken what felt like hours to unclothe and wash her.
