Page 41 of Legacy

Before I could glare at the kid, he was already out the door, probably to be the town crier of my bad date.

“Yeah. At least this beats the whole laughing-at-me thing.”

“What?” Callum asked.

I waved him off. “Anyway. I’d love to hear about the whole house thing, and I will. But I’m going to eat this Danish and cry.”

“Felicity. Don’t cry. He’s not worth it. No man is worth your tears.” Callum took my chin and met my gaze. “Nobody is worth your tears,” he repeated.

I swallowed hard and took a step back, forcing him to let me go.

“You’re right. But some days are just worth a Danish.”

“It’s on the house,” Lorenzo whispered, and that time I nearly did cry. Instead, I took my Danish, went back to my table, and calmly had myself a solo date.

That was all I was good for at this moment. And I ignored Callum’s pitying gaze until he finally left with his sister’s coffee, and I could finally breathe. Getting over Callum Ashford was going to be harder than I thought.

Chapter 6

Callum

Though Ashford Brews wasn’t a multinational corporation, at any moment in time, we had at least three or four things happening at once.

Today, we were in the malting and milling stages of our IPA, where we would spend enough time that my eyes would begin to cross. The large steel barrels took up a majority of the room, and I was grateful that we’d expanded our warehouse in the past couple of years. At the moment, though, our grains were being germinated and would soon dry so that way they could activate the enzymes that would convert any starch into sugar. Then, it would be milled so we could get to the next stage, mashing.

When I had gone to school for business, I’d had a few friends in the chemistry department, mostly because they were helping me pass gen-chem, and they’d had home brews in their bathrooms. It seemed to be the thing of the moment for many a Colorado college kid—to try to figure out how to make their own beer. There’d been a few explosions, the taste of vinegar that could coat your tongue and never let you go, and enough bad beers that I’m surprised none of us had ended up in the hospital. But I had fallen in love with the concept of making beer and trying to figure out the perfect recipe. While I wasn’t in business with any others, those initial friends that I had worked with still received a few of the profits. Not much, since I’d worked with so many to figure out my own taste and recipe, but enough that it was a thank you.

And every single one of them had tried to return the money at first.

Ashford Brews was proprietary in their recipes, but I could say thank you to those who had gotten me where I was.

This was the legacy that I wanted my family to have. The legacy of innovation, progress, and damn good beer. And between the rest of my family pursuing their own avenues of their legacy, one day, when people thought of the Ashfords of Ashford Creek, they wouldn’t think of the failed dynasty. They’d see what happened with this generation.

Finnian’s girls, as well as Briar’s daughter, would have a nest egg for them when they were ready. They would have a sturdy foundation of family lore that had nothing to do with their grandfather.

That bitter taste coated my tongue again because, no, I did not want to think of my father. He had never met Briar’s daughter and had only accidentally met the twins a couple of times.

If I had any say in it, they’d never meet the dumbass again, but that Ashford continued to creep around town, loitering.

And no matter how many times I cornered him, no matter how many times I worked with the sheriff and other avenues, they couldn’t figure out where our stepmother had gone and couldn’t pin him for my own mother’s death.

Eve Ashford had been an amazing mother. The light in her eyes had died over time, and I had even seen that as a young kid, but she’d raised her children with as much love as she could before she passed. Sterling and Finnian had been babies when Mom had died. They didn’t even remember her face, didn’t remember her laugh. Didn’t remember the fact that she had held them both close to her heart, humming sweet lullabies to keep them content.

When Julie had married my dad, she’d come in and taken over. She had been a sweet woman but without a spine. Maybe that’s what my dad had been looking for. She’d helped raise the younger kids to the best of her ability, but Teagan and I had done our best to make sure that we were the ones the youngest looked up to.

But Julie had been the first one to give Malcolm drumsticks and to lead him down the road that would eventually make him an international rock star behind his kit.

Part of me wondered if Malcolm and our mother, wherever you ended up after you died, were singing and playing along together. And maybe Julie was with them, watching the man, the boy she had helped raise, become a talented musician.

Julie had run away after five years with us. Fourteen years ago.

Dad had said she had taken all her things and left us because she couldn’t handle us anymore.

I wasn’t sure I believed that.

But what else was I supposed to think?

That Dad found a way to kill both of them? He’d gotten away with it the first time, and maybe he’d truly gotten away with it the second time too.