Cherry knew already which would fill her heart more. But she wasn’t used to being under the small-town microscope. The big-city lens was what she knew best.
A short time later, a quarter of a mile outside the village, on the other side from Sean’s home, she hummed a tune as she walked to Butler’s cooperage in the early afternoon sunshine, brown paper bag swinging by her side.
How strange that a few weeks ago she was sitting under the sickly lights of a casino, staring at a limp pair of cards. Now here she was on the Kintyre peninsula, excitedly approaching her husband’s workplace with a sandwich.Some might say it was lame to get such satisfaction from such a thing, but if this was being lame then it felt pretty good.
The first thing that struck Cherry about the cooperage yard was the sheer number of whisky barrels. Casks were stacked in huge pyramid formations, others scattered in various states of repair. Some appeared freshly made with their pale, clean oak; others were darker and more weathered, with dulled metal hoops.
The second thing was that it wasn’t as quaint as she had imagined. Sure, there was a mid-size rectangular stone building, with a gable roof, which might have been the original cooperage. But set back from this was a larger, steel-clad structure, most likely the industrial heart of the operation.
The smell of earthy oak, charred wood and faint whisky fumes lingered in the air.
As Cherry stood in the yard, her ears became attuned to the rhythm of the work – the ringing of metal, the low thud of mallets, voices rising and falling, the soundtrack of sweat and grit and toil. Of men working.
Her husband was one of them.
Stepping further into the yard, she moved towards the hammering, banging and bursts of shouted instructions. The testosterone was already thick in the air. Then, as she crossed over the threshold of the main building, the July heat was replaced by the cool interior of the cooperage.
The space inside was large – nearly half the size a football pitch – and a strange combination of rustic and industrial. Whisky barrels were everywhere, and tools and machinery were scattered in what could be a random fashion but doubtless was not. The setup meant nothing toCherry, but she sensed that art of coopering was far more complex than one might initially think.
Men in worn-in jeans and grime-smeared t-shirts, some wearing Perspex safety shields, were hammering hoops into place, rolling barrels in plumes of steam, firing things in the searing orange heat of a kiln.
It was a hub of steady manual labour – a place of hot, sweaty men lifting seventy-kilo casks as if they weighed no more than an acorn.
She scanned the space for Sean. In an instant, she found him.
Cherry had no idea what exactly Sean was doing, but the concentration his expression held, the way the strong angles of his face were more defined than usual, suggested he was deeply focused on his work.
Was there anything more beautiful than a man concentrated on something he excelled in? Wearing heavy industrial gloves, Sean was wielding a hefty mallet and hammering the side of a whisky barrel, the corded muscles running down his tattooed forearms flexing with effort. Those rock-solid shoulders would be getting a hell of a workout inside his polo shirt.
She’d grab onto those during a workout with him.
Cherry was pinned to the spot. There was something about this man. She barely had the brain space to try to work out what it was. The warrior energy combined with the piercing green eyes was a lethal combination that knocked her into next week.
But without the person inside, she would have walked out of that wedding in New York alone.
Because Sean unlocked something else inside her. Unchecked a load of boxes she had checked as ‘no’ in her life.
Making rash decisions. Moving back to Scotland. Making herself vulnerable.
With his enthusiasm for life, his good-humoured energy and his emotional openness, he had her over on a barrel.
If only.
It was dangerous to think like this. If he was merely hot, it would be one thing. But he was so much more.
He was her match. In so many ways.
And this here. It underscored something else she suspected about him. A strength, a solidity, a stability. Something she’d sensed from that very first dance.
And he’d told her to act like she was madly in love with him. For two months. To help raise money for fighting the illness that had stolen his father.
Cherry did a lot of faking it in her line of work. Hours were spent disguising her inner feelings or thoughts so her opponents couldn’t work out what cards she was holding. She was skilled at pretending, adding in fake tells to throw them off the scent. It was almost second nature now.
It won her a stack of money.
But acting like she was madly in love with Sean Butler would be the easiest faking she ever had to do.
And it was nothing to do with her years of playing poker.
