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“No. I’ve wanted to, but I’m usually working weekends.”
“Where?”
“MacNeil’s Brewery.”
“Right! It’s outside San Marcos. I’ve been there.”
His face lit up. “One of the Saturday tours?”
Zoey laughed. “More than one. In fact, I helped my friend Pam throw a birthday party for her husband there.”
“Yeah?” His dimples deepened. Wow. When had dimples become sexy? “I’m the one who handles the event scheduling.”
“Maybe we spoke on the phone!” The idea made her absurdly pleased.
“When was the party?” Cam asked.
“Oh, it’s been a while. A couple of summers ago. I don’t think the brewery had been open all that long.”
“Then I definitely would have been manning the taps.”
“Really?” Zoey could feel herself grinning, but then, so was he. For the first time in a long while—and for the first time in years with a guy who didn’t have a J name—she experienced that glorious, fizzy euphoria of first attraction when you’re sure the other person is experiencing the same thing.
“Do you remember the date?” Cam asked.
“No, but it was in July. It was a Harley-themed party because Pam was giving her husband a motorcycle. She wanted it to be a surprise, which meant we had to get it there. Neither of us had ever driven a motorcycle before, so we took turns driving it while the other followed in the car.” Zoey laughed. “You should have seen us!”
She assumed he’d laugh with her, and he did, but the fizz had gone flat. “Then once we finally got to the brewery, we had to find some place to hide the bike.”
“And you hid it in the beer cooler.” He was still smiling, but neither his teeth nor his dimples showed. She missed them.
“Yes! You remember!” Zoey said way too brightly.
“Hard to forget.”
Okay, there was definitely an edge to his voice now. What on earth had she said? She’d babbled but not all that much, had she?
“It was a really hot weekend,” he added, and Zoey knew he was referring to the temperature and not all the girls in their skimpy black-leather biker-chick costumes.
“Good thing there was a lot of cold beer because let me tell you, black leather in the sun is something else!”
He smiled—a polite, impersonal smile. It was such a contrast from his earlier expression that Zoey actually felt a pain in her stomach.
What had gone wrong? Had they drunk too much beer at the party? She tried to remember...no, and anyway, MacNeil’s would have stopped serving them before they got to that point. She and Pam had cleaned up some afterward and had even returned with a couple of friends the next day to finish taking down the decorations and gather any trash.
Zoey couldn’t figure out what had made Cam stop looking at her with that intense, hot, I-wish-we-could-do-something-about-this gaze and instead withdraw into mere politeness.
Whatever, it was gone. She should end the conversation. But did she stop talking? Did she say, “Small world” and shake her head, thank him again, and wish him luck with the baggage handlers? Oh, no. She kept talking. She kept talking because only minutes ago, this guy, this top-tier looker, had been gazing at her with serious interest—and it wasn’t last call in a bar, so he wasn’t wearing beer goggles. But now he’d lost that interest, and she wanted a clue as to why. A hint.
And so she kept talking about the stupid motorcycle. “Speaking of cold, when we rolled the motorcycle out of the cooler, the heat made the bike’s metal fog. It was all slick and wet and the chrome wasn’t shiny, so Pam sent me to find some rags so we could...”
A hazy memory surfaced.
“...could, uh,” Zoey gestured with her hand. “Wipe the condensation off.”
The memory sharpened into a crystal-clear image of a man—one who’d looked just like Cam—mopping up a pool of beer. She remembered watching as a couple of bottles popped their caps and beer fountained into the air. The man she now recognized as Cam had thrown down the mop in frustration before catching sight of her. They had stared at each other from opposite ends of a long, open-ended hall for a few seconds before Zoey had ducked into the ladies’ restroom, where she’d grabbed a handful of paper towels.
For the first time, she made the connection between the exploding beer and the bottles she and Pam had moved out of the cooler the day before to make room for the bike.
“We did meet,” she admitted. Might as well get it over with. “You were cleaning up beer.”
He nodded. “The bottles got too hot. The batch was fresh.”
They stared at each other just as they had then. “That was the beer we moved out of the cooler to make room for the bike, wasn’t it?” Hiding the bike had been her idea.
“Yes.”
“The red-headed guy said it was okay.”
“Gus probably forgot what happens to metal walls in the afternoon sun.”
It had been cool and shady when she and Pam had moved the beer outside, which was why they’d chosen the spot. It had also been morning. “I don’t think he knew where we’d moved the beer.” And to be honest, she’d forgotten all about it once the party had started. Zoey closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. That was a big mess.”
“It’s not your fault. Gus should have paid closer attention.”
“Yes, it was my fault.” She exhaled heavily and opened her eyes. “Did you get into trouble because of it?”
“No.” He denied it firmly but not before a telling hesitation.
No one but Zoey would have noticed, and she noticed only because she’d become an expert at recognizing when people were hiding the true extent of her mistakes from her. Didn’t they realize it only made her feel worse?
“But you had to pay for it, didn’t you? Don’t.” She held up a hand when he started to speak. “I know you’re not saying everything. People always do that when I mess up.” She had a horrible thought. “Did Gus get fired? Please tell me nobody got fired.”
“Gus can’t get fired,” he assured her quickly. “He’s one of the owners. And so am I.”
That was so not what she expected to hear. A name from the brewery’s website popped into her mind. He’d said his name was Cam. “You’re Cameron MacNeil!”
“Yeah.” His smile flashed. “So it’s all good.”
It was not all good, or he’d still be showing her those dimples. “Not until I reimburse you for the beer you lost that day.”
He was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “That was two years ago. Forget it.”
“A year and a half, but that’s not the point. I want to make it right. I can’t give you back your beer, or the time you spent cleaning it up, but I can pay for the damage.”
“I appreciate the offer, but it’s not necessary.” Cam looked down at her and a little of the interest he’d shown earlier returned to his expression. “Gus should have moved the bottles or shown you where to put them,” he said. “We learned a lesson, nobody got hurt and it’s never happened again, so forget about it. Seriously.”
But she couldn’t. “Why? You haven’t.”
* * *
CAM HAD TO ADMIT she was right. “Only because Gus tells that story a lot. He thinks it’s funny.” Cam’s jaw tightened as he remembered Gus had claimed that he’d had no idea how the beer ended up outside the cooler. And now here was Zoey, close to two years later, offering to reimburse him the moment she’d learned of her mistake. It was refreshing when people accepted responsibility for their mistakes. It spoke to a depth of character Cam found very appealing.
He gazed at her determined face. Honestly, when he’d realized she was behind the Great Exploding Beer affair, he’d written her off as a pretty but thoughtless party girl. Cam met a lot of that type at the brewery, and they weren’t worth the bother.
But glad as he was to know he’d been wrong about her, Zoey had become dangerously attractive.
The original idea had been to enjoy flirting with her while they were stuck in the airport and then they’d both walk away afterward. The danger was that he wasn’t sure he’d want to walk away. He didn’t want to walk away now.
“But you don’t think it’s funny. You’re still mad.”
Cam realized he’d been frowning. “Not at you.” He smiled. “You apologized, so we’re good.” He suspected they could be great, though, and he wanted to find out.
The timing? Horrible.
The logistics? Impossible.
The chances of a successful relationship? Not high. Especially when she should be looking at him with relief and gratitude.
Except she was not looking at him with relief and gratitude. More like anger and something else. He couldn’t figure out what. Maybe it was just anger.
Why was she angry?
He’d expected her to say something like, “That’s really nice of you. At least let me buy you coffee.” Or dinner because what else was there to do while they waited?
Instead, she said, “We are not good. If we were good, I’d be seeing your dimples right now. But you’re dimpleless.”
He blinked. “Dimpleless?”
“Yeah. As soon as you realized I was the one who broke your beer, you turned colder than that blizzard outside.” She gestured toward the doors and her hair whipped around, almost close enough to brush his arm. His skin tingled anyway.
He couldn’t exactly tell her he was “dimpleless” because he’d felt a real connection with her and then was hugely disappointed when he’d thought she wasn’t worthy. But now he’d decided she was more than worthy and was mentally complaining to himself about the timing. No, he couldn’t say those things unless he wanted to sound like an arrogant jerk. A little arrogance never hurt anybody, but he wasn’t a jerk. “I’m over it. You apologized. I accepted.” He smiled until he felt his dimples. “See?”
“I see fake dimples.”
Cam’s smile became genuine. “Why are you mad?”
“Because you won’t admit you’re mad!”
“Because I’m not.”
Her cheeks were flushed, but her eyes were a cool green that called him into their depths. Cam was so ready to answer that call. If she weren’t glaring at him, he would.
The seconds ticked by without the heat fading from her cheeks. “How much?” she asked.
“How much what?”
Her arms stole around her middle and she hugged herself. “How much was the beer worth?”
“I have no idea,” he said with exasperation. “But it doesn’t matter. Breakage, bad batches, faulty bottling—it’s all part of the cost of doing business.”
And yet she was still glaring at him. “I don’t believe you. You are exactly the type of man who would know the loss to the penny. Not only that, I’ll bet you broke the damage down by actual cost and retail value.”
“I wouldn’t be much of a business man if I hadn’t. But it’s been so long, I honestly don’t remember.” A movement behind her caught his eyes. Casper had raised his head. The dog probably sensed the tension between them.
Zoey saw Cam glance behind her and followed his gaze. “Hey, Casper.”
The dog thumped his bunched tail and laid his head down again. Zoey moved closer to Cam, close enough that he smelled the sweet, lemony scent of her skin. Like lemonade. “I want the retail value.” She nodded toward his jacket pocket. “If you really can’t remember, call and have somebody look it up. Right now.”
Oh, for— “No.”
She seemed momentarily startled before resolve settled on her features again. “I’m still going to send you money, so you may as well give me a figure.”
This was about more than some exploding beer, Cam finally understood. People always do that when I mess up, he remembered her saying. “Why is it so important that you pay me back?”
She exhaled and looked away. “People get weird when I don’t. They say it’s okay, but the way they act around me is never the same.” She met his eyes. “So I always cover the financial loss and hope for an opportunity to make up for any other wrongs.”
Forget the money. Cam was more interested in the “other wrongs.” “Are you saying you’re accident prone?”
She shook her head. “I make mistakes.”
“We all make mistakes.”
“Yeah, well I make a lot of them. Big ones. And I’m getting tired of it, I can tell you.”
Cam started to laugh but wisely reconsidered. “Don’t you learn from your mistakes?”
“Of course. Don’t hide motorcycles in beer coolers. Lesson learned.”
Now Cam did laugh. “It probably seemed like a good idea at the time.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s going on my tombstone.” She traced imaginary words in the air. “Zoey Archer. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
He laughed again as he mentally filed away her last name. Zoey briefly smiled before saying, “So give me your contact info—or I’ll just send payment to the brewery.”
Cam heard a history of soured friendships and broken relationships in her voice. He was a complete stranger and she could easily avoid seeing him ever again, but she was insisting on reimbursing him anyway. He admired her for it, but he wasn’t going to take her money. They needed to get past this.
She’d been waiting for his response and now gave a little shrug before turning toward the snoozing Casper. “The brewery it is.”
“Wait.” If she walked away now, they’d never be more than two strangers who met at an airport.
Zoey hesitated before looking up at him.
As he met her eyes, Cam tried to come up with a way to convince her to spend time with him. “Rather than paying me back with money, you could help me instead.”
Her eyes narrowed. “With what?”
“I’ve got a box of samples that I’d rather have with me instead of trusting they won’t get frozen in the warehouse.” Cam was thinking on the fly. “It’s heavy, we’re going to be here for hours, and I don’t want to drag it around with me. Not only that, the MacNeil brewery logo is printed all over the box and this is an airport full of bored, stressed people.”
