Sammie blinked. She could not do this.
“Sure,” she said. “If you don’t need anything else, I’m gonna get back to work.”
“I’ll actually need you to get the rest of this mess cleaned up.” Robert waved a smooth hand at their surroundings. “I’ve got some people coming by.”
Some people? Sammie wanted to ask questions, wanted to know who thesepeoplewere that were going to be intruding on her space. And they were coming bynow? Sammie had a grain delivery set to arrive any minute, and she really needed to get Luz and Carson going on their canning run. But Robert’s strict tone stopped all of the questions flooding her mind.
It took everything in her not to throw Carson under the bus for the moist state of the brewhouse. “You got it,” she said, slinging a hearty thumbs up in his direction. “Carson, take over for Luz on the vac until this place is dry.”
Robert disappeared while Sammie, with a heavy sigh, set her crew back to work.
“Hello?”
Kieran McCullough knew his voice was lost over the sound of running machinery. He stepped into the brewhouse, careful to avoid the hoses and buckets littering the floor. Faint voices echoed from back by the canning line, so that was the direction he headed.
He knew his way around at this point, after delivering grain to Everly on his father’s behalf for the last two years. Ever since he’d moved back to Illinois.
“Carson!” A voice he recognized, one he’d known since childhood. Dry, just a hint of a rasp that colored her words. “Toss me the box that was delivered earlier.”
Kieran rounded a tank just in time to see a red-faced white guy pointedly looking away as Sammie Mills tore into the box she’d just caught out of the air. She wore a white tank top with overalls tied down around her waist. Sweat dotted her skin, and her dark hair was pulled into two thick braids that brushed just past her shoulders. She was focused on her work, and thus failed to notice Kieran’s arrival.
He was hesitant to break her concentration. When she still failed to see him, though, Kieran let out another greeting, loud enough to finally be heard.
Sammie whirled around, storm cloud blue eyes flying wide.
“Delivery’s here.” Kieran shrugged sheepishly, offering a smile as his gaze fell to the small object she had just pulled out of the box.
“Oh, thanks.” Sammie hurriedly stuffed the item back into the tissue paper it had been wrapped in, her own face nearly as red as Carson’s. “I’ll come help you unload. Carson, get this taped on the whale tale so we can see if it helps to keep the cans moving.” She tossed the box back, and Carson nearly missed it, snatching it out of the air and holding it as though whatever was inside might bite him. He finally moved away toward the front of the giant, metal machine as Sammie led Kieran back outside.
“Sorry, didn’t hear you come in.” She was still not quite meeting Kieran’s gaze. The flush on her cheeks suited her, even if Kieran was clueless as towhyshe was blushing so much..
Sammie squinted against the sun, pushing her braids back behind her shoulders, showing off the long lines of her neck.
“I wasn’t waiting long.” Kieran popped down the tailgate on his truck, tugging a fifty pound bag of grain forward. Sammie didthe same, and Kieran couldn’t help but notice the way she lifted it as effortlessly as he did, slinging it over her shoulder easily.
“What’s with all the water on the floor?” The question seemed to ruffle Sammie’s feathers, and Kieran chuckled as her cheeks puffed out with a sigh.
“Carson.” She didn’t need to say more. Kieran had heard her complain about the guy before. “How’s your dad?” She asked, switching subjects as she pulled another bag forward.
“He’s good right now. Tried to help me load all this up, didn’t want me to make you wait for it.” Help that Kieran had firmly refused, after seeing his father limping more than usual the night before.
“He needs to be careful.”
Something in Kieran’s chest tightened. Sammie knew his family. They’d grown up together after all. She always remembered to ask about his parents, especially his dad, whose hips had been bothering him more and more lately.
“Try telling him that.”
Sammie grinned, bright and genuine. “Maybe I will. I’m going down there to check on the house soon. Grant never tells me no.”
“Must be nice.” Kieran huffed another laugh. His parents were like family to the Mills twins, had always viewed them as an extension of Kieran himself. But while Grant McCullough might be more willing to listen to the kids that weren’t related to him by blood, he was still stubborn as an ox, especially when it came to his work.
They dropped their bags down on a pallet just inside the open garage door. Sammie laughed, turning back toward the truck. Her smile was brilliant, lighting up her stormy eyes. Kieran focused on grabbing another couple of bags.
“You don’t need to rush,” she said. “I’m not using this batch until the next brew.”
“It’s not a problem.” Kieran continued to haul the remaining bags into the brewhouse in silence. A thought nagged at him, an impulse to keep the conversation going as Sammie followed him back and forth carrying her own bags.
It was always this way with her. Sammie was, well, intimidating. Commanding. She ran her operation with a skill and expertise that Kieran hadn’t expected from the volleyball-brained girl he’d known in his teen years. And Kieran was quite literally just a guy. A guy who hadn’t outgrown the volleyball-brained phase, and who thought someone like Sammie probably had way more interesting things going on in her life than talking to him.
