“I…” She fumbled for an explanation but none came to mind.
He took pity and answered for her. “It’s no big secret, Mrs. Fitzgerald. Hannah and I both come from Sweetheart and I know her sister. She calls me Dr. Dancy Pants.”
“Hannahcalls you Dr. Dancy Pants?” Kendall asked, wide-eyed and incredulous. She gave Hannah a thumbs-up of approval under the table.
Hannah didn’t need that rumor spreading all over Grand. “No. My sister does.”
“Hannah calls me ‘honey’ or ‘darling,’” Dallas offered.
“You’re fired, honey. Go home,” she said.
He balanced the tray on one arm and patted her shoulder. “I’ll bring over a vegetable tray for the table. You know how cranky you get when you drink on an empty stomach, babe.”
It amazed her that he could participate in this conversation with such a straight face. She wished she cared as little as he did about other people’s opinions.
As soon as she thought it, she knew she was wrong. He cared what people thought about the things he believed were important. He cared a great deal about the opinions of the nursing home residents and staff, in fact. They loved him for it, too. Eleanor, Sue Anne, and Kendall were being equally charmed at this very moment.
Meanwhile Hannah, for her part, couldn’t honestly claim to be immune. The buzzing in her head wasn’t entirely due to the drinks she’d consumed.
It had begun earlier, upstairs, when she’d kissed him.
She’d kissed him the night of the wedding, too.
She’d known what would happen the moment he invited her to go for a walk. He was a romantic. A gentleman. He insisted she wear his jacket for warmth. He told her silly jokes to make her laugh. He gave her his arm because her shoes weren’t meant for long walks in the dark on gravel pathways, and noticed when they became uncomfortable. She wasn’t beautiful like Alayna, or smart like Claire, and yet this gorgeous man, with the tangle of dark curls and the beautiful eyes, who thought nothing of performing a barely decent dance routine for two hundred wedding guests, made her feel special.
She’d wanted him so much that a bolder, less inhibited, Hannah emerged.
Then, the next day, reality returned. Her life was a mess. Her heart had only recently been broken and hadn’t yet healed. All Bold Hannah had done was complicate things.
But now, things were different. Her life was on a new track. The Grand Master Brewery was off to a great start.
Best of all, her heart no longer hurt.
She was ready to move on. Dallas would be a great place to start.
Sue Anne’s eyes tracked him all the way to the bar. Blood pulsed against the top of Hannah’s skull. She shot back half of her snifter and waited in fear for Sue Anne to ask her if she knew whether or not he wore a cup. Heat licked the underside of her belly. She had no idea, but if he did wear one, there’d be no reason to pad it.
Sue Anne sighed. “That is one fine man. If I were twenty years younger, I’d pad his cup with twenties.”
Eleanor picked up the card deck, cut it, and shuffled with a skill that didn’t bode well for the rest of the table. “I think you meant to say forty years younger. But then, math skills are the first to go.” She smiled brightly. “Okay, ladies. Let’s get down to business.”
Luckily, Hannah had no real money on the line because, for the remainder of the evening, her head wasn’t at all in the game. She lost every card hand for the rest of the evening.
At ten o’clock, husbands, boyfriends, and teenaged children with driver’s licenses began arriving to collect those who’d arranged for their own transportation. Eleanor, armed with her six-pack of winnings, accepted a lift from a neighbor. Dallas helped Kendall and Sue Anne into one of the cabs Hannah had booked.
He closed the taproom door behind the last departing guest and flipped the dead bolt into position. Bessie Smith belted out “St. Louis Blues.” He picked up a half-empty glass someone had left on a table.
“How much alcohol is in this beer, anyway?” he asked, holding the thick cocoa brew to the light and examining it as if it might somehow talk.
Hannah bounced her bare heels off the rung of her stool. She’d discarded her shoes at some point—she wasn’t sure when. “Twelf percent.” That didn’t sound right. She tried again. “Twelve.”
There. That was better.
“Twelve?” Dallas goggled at her.
“I aged it in Canadian whiskey barrels to get the maple flavor,” she explained, defensive. “I told everyone that.”
“Yes, but did everyone understand that the beer soaks up alcohol as well as the flavor?”