"Me neither."
He smiled then, soft and genuine, and kissed me again.
Outside, thunder rolled, and rain poured down, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this was going to complicate everything.
But right now, wrapped in Wyatt's arms with the taste of him still on my lips, I couldn't bring myself to care.
Thirty-One
Tessa
"This is so boring," Maddy announced, staring at the fermentation tanks with undisguised disinterest. "No offence, Dad, but beer making is not as cool as you think it is."
Wyatt looked mildly offended. "It's a craft. There's science involved."
"There's also yeast," Maddy said. "Which is fungus. Fungus beer. Still boring."
I bit back a smile as Wyatt ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.
"Fine," he said. "There's a public tour starting in ten minutes in the taproom. Go join that one. Maybe their guide will be more entertaining."
"Anything would be more entertaining than listening to you explain hop varieties for twenty minutes," Maddy said, but she was grinning. She looked at me. "You staying with him?"
"Someone has to," I said.
"Good luck." Maddy headed toward the taproom, pullingout her phone. "Text me when you're done with the fungus lecture."
Wyatt waited until she disappeared around the corner before turning to me. "Fungus beer. My daughter just called my life's work fungus beer."
"She's not wrong," I said, trying to keep a straight face.
"You're not helping."
"I'm not trying to." I walked over to one of the tanks, running my hand along the cool steel. "So. Private tour now that you've lost your other audience member?"
Something shifted in his expression. "You actually want the tour?"
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"You're here because Maddy begged you to come keep her from dying of boredom while I worked today.”
That was true. Maddy begged me at breakfast, and since I was technically still a prisoner on the Hargrove ranch because Wyatt hadn’t been able to track down Colin, I couldn’t say no to big pleading eyes.
But I said yes for other reasons too. After the strip poker and sex in the barn two days ago, I wasn't ready to examine too closely why I couldn’t stay away from Wyatt.
"So now you're stuck with me. Might as well make it worth my time."
Wyatt's eyes darkened slightly. "Worth your time."
"Yeah. Impress me, Hargrove. Show me why you spend all your free time making fungus beer."
He moved closer, and the air between us suddenly felt charged. "You want the real tour or the public tour?"
"What's the difference?"
"The public tour stays in the main production areas. The real tour." He gestured toward a hallway I hadn't noticed before. "Goes places most people don't get to see."
My pulse quickened. "Show me."
