the US. How much proof do you need? Dad, listen, if it flops, it’s because we can’t make enough.”
Emerson leaned forward, frustration bubbling in her chest. “We’ll be sensible. Not overextend. Although, if we did take out a loan at the same time, we could do a faster renovation . . . perhaps take a loan out over a longer term. We’d increase production immediately, there would be a significant bump in sales. Dad, we’re turning away orders.”
“And scarcity helps build—”
“Please don’t tell me scarcity drives interest and prices, Dad,” she begged. “We could have prices and volume. Enough businesses want the product. We even got an inquiry from a pub chain in the UK.”
“Emerson,” her dad said with a tone she was familiar with. Exasperation. He’d used it when she’d begged him for six months for a dog. He’d used it when she’d desperately wanted to go to Disneyland instead of camping in Yosemite. He’d used it when she’d insisted that the distillery should continue to be a family concern and hence she was skipping college. Skip, their golden lab, had been a loyal friend for ten years. Disneyland had been the trip of a lifetime. The diploma from her degree in economics hung in her office down the hallway. Two out of three was a good success rate, but she knew when her father wasn’t going to budge.
Her temples had begun to pulse. He’d died of a heart attack less than twenty-four hours later. Thankfully, they’d made their peace, but the knowledge of that argument being one of their last conversations sat in her gut like lead.
Channeling the upset that thinking about her father had caused, she opened the company’s most recent bank statement. They had enough to call the service engineer out, but not enough to buy a new still. That would require the insurance or a loan.
The phone weighed heavy in her hand. She hated making phone calls. Hated the way they asked questions she didn’t have the answer to, making her feel inept.
Just get it done, Em!
She dialed the number and made the call, hanging up quickly once she’d arranged for an engineer to come.
Not feeling remotely sociable, she debated messaging Connor to let him know something had come up at the distillery and she couldn’t make it. But the idea of doing that made her feel even worse. Connor had been the one little spark of joy that had made her feel human again.
As she considered, a message popped up on her screen from Ali.
Wear the green dress…makes your boobs look good! Have fun. Ax
It made her laugh, and maudlin thoughts weren’t going to achieve anything. Emerson set a timer for an hour and threw herself into the weekly distillery orders.
And when the sixty minutes were done, she intended to drive home and get dressed up, promising herself that once she’d left the building, she’d do everything she could to find the old Emerson and have fun.
With Connor Finch.
Connor sat at the bar and sipped on ice water. Tonight was about getting to know Emerson as a woman, not as a Dyer. He knew his reasons were complex. Sure, he was curious about the family that had the ability to send his father into a spiral of despair. But he was also curious about the playful, witty woman he’d sparred with. In his mind, he managed to compartmentalize the two.
Catching sight of himself in the mirror that hung behind the bar, he straightened the collar of his black shirt. He’d offered to pick Emerson up, but she’d been adamant about meeting him there. She’d dismissed his chivalrous attempts with a simple No, thank you, and he admired her straight-talking ways.
When the door finally opened and Emerson walked in, his gut relaxed. For some reason, he’d been nervous she was going to bail, and he was sure it was some throwback from his father’s conditioning that anything with the name Dyer attached to it was incredibly unreliable. It was almost as if he expected her to let him down right off the bat.
She wore a sundress in dark green, with thin straps and a skirt that flowed just above her knees. Long, gold earrings reached her toned shoulders. Connor watched as the greeter pointed in Connor’s direction.
A momentary tug of guilt fluttered through him at the deceit of knowing a lot more about her than she knew about him. When her eyes found his, her smile was so genuine and bright it almost burned, and