Hemingway & IPA

  Hemingway & IPA

  A Tales & Ales Cozy Mystery

  Copyright by Angela McQuay, All Rights Reserved

  Prologue

  I’d sure hate to break down here, nothin’ up ahead or in the rear-view mirror…the lyrics to Julie Roberts’ 2004 hit had never meant as much to Noelle Kane as they did now.

  Out in the middle of nowhere knowin, I’m in trouble if these wheels stop rollin’. The wheels in question were on her just-purchased 2003 Jeep Wrangler, which was undependable at best, but that really wasn’t what she was worried about.

  So God help me, keep me movin’ somehow. Don’t let me start wishin’ I was with him now. Yep, like most country songs, Ms. Roberts’ greatest hit wasn’t really about getting a flat tire. It was about a man.

  I made it this far without cryin’ a single tear. I’d sure hate to break down here. Okay, so that last part wasn’t the truth. She’d cried more than her fair share of tears, though she still wasn’t sure how many of them were for Nick and how many were for her parents.

  Wiping away another tear that had sneaked down her cheek, Noelle checked her GPS and saw she was still more than an hour away from her hometown of Manchester, Nebraska. The drive from Kansas City took almost eight hours, and even though she’d left at the crack of dawn, the sunset was already looming. She supposed the two hour stop she’d taken in Omaha to have a very unsatisfying hamburger and a prolonged crying jag had not helped her make good time.

  As the song on the radio faded, so did her radio station. Noelle figured it was for the best. Her Jeep, which she had traded her Lexus in for two days before, did not have Bluetooth, so she was at the mercy of her antenna. It also did not have cruise control, a reliable heater, or a speedometer she could count on, but that was a different story.

  She wondered if the silence she’d have to endure before she could locate another station would help her mood or make it worse. She really didn’t need to be alone with her thoughts right now.

  I still can’t believe they’re gone. Her parents, Felicia and Lewis Kane, had been hit by a semi on their way home from vacation in the Black Hills three weeks ago. She’d flown in for the funeral but had barely been able to function and had hardly spoken to anyone except her brother Kellen before escaping back to Kansas City and sinking into a black depression.

  She wanted to blame the collapse of her relationship on her grief, but she knew it had been on shaky ground far before the tragedy. Though she and Nick had loved each other, they’d mostly been going through the motions for the past year. Her parents’ death was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  And now here I am, with a janky Jeep packed full of all my worldly possessions and a hare-brained plan to take over a bookstore in small-town Nebraska.

  Her parents had owned Manchester Books since Noelle had been a child, though she had always thought her dad had helped her mom start it just, so she’d have something to do. He was a rancher and Felicia really had no need to work, which turned out to be a good thing. Apparently boring-named bookstores in towns of 6000 were not bringing in the big bucks these days. When she’d looked over the financials her parents’ estate attorney sent over, she saw that the store had barely been breaking even since it opened.

  And now, it was hers. Her brother had inherited the house and she had inherited the bookstore. And both had come with provisions. Kellen couldn’t sell the home until he’d lived there for at least five years and Noelle had to make a go of the business for the same amount of time. The attorney had gently told them both they could easily get out of the stipulations as there wasn’t much legal backing to the requests, but Kellen had immediately agreed to the terms and Noelle had said she’d think about it.

  Besides, it was time for me to make a change anyway.

  She’d achieved her dream job in Kansas City working for a satellite office of a literary agency based in New York, but she’d been questioning her life choices. Not only was her relationship failing to live up to her expectations, but her career was also losing its luster.

  Maybe you’re just one of those women who is never happy. Those were Nick’s words anyway, said again and again over the past six months. In her darker moments, she thought he might be right.

  To her relief, a radio station crackled to life and distracted her with the pounding tempo of 1980s Def Leppard. She was able to keep her mind on the music for the next hour until pulling off the interstate and onto the main drag of Manchester.

  As she stopped at the first stoplight, she contemplated her next move. She hadn’t even told Kellen she was coming yet. As far as he knew, she was still thinking about her options. When the light turned green, she spotted a familiar structure down the street. The Dilly Bar, which the owners had thought was an ingenious pun on the Dairy Queen treat, had been one of her parents’ favorite places to eat. They had enormous chicken fried steak dinners on Friday nights and Noelle remembered many a happy evening there playing pool with Kellen or her friends.

  Though the name had been changed to the Dilly Dilly Bar, probably due to the new Bud Light commercials, it was still the most familiar thing she’d seen in weeks and she pulled into the parking lot.

  “Well if it isn’t Noelle Kane!”

  The door had not even closed behind her when she heard the familiar old man’s voice. “Bernard?” she asked, straining her eyes as they adjusted to the dark environment. “Is that you?”

  “It sure is, honey!” Bernard Stevens stood up slowly, massaging his kneecaps, and wobbled over to give her a hug. “Sure was sorry to hear about your parents. Everyone in town loved them.”

  “Thanks, Bernard.” To her alarm, Noelle felt tears coming to her eyes. She didn’t have any time to deal with it, though, as Bernard was walking her over to his table and pulling a chair out for her. “Gentlemen, look who it is!”

  Noelle almost laughed when she saw Wallace Moran and Jerry Fuller seated at the table. It seemed they hadn’t moved in the thirteen years since she’d graduated high school. The three old friends met at The Dilly every afternoon for gossip, makeshift games of craps, and cup after cup of coffee. “You’re all still here!” she said with delight.

  “Yep,” Wallace confirmed, nodding his bald head. “We ain’t dead yet.”

  “I didn’t mean that!” Noelle was appalled. “I meant here. At the Dilly.”

  “It’s Dilly Dilly now,” Jerry informed her. “But that don’t change anything. Still come here every afternoon so these fools can absorb some of my wisdom.”

  “Now, don’t let us corrupt you with our evil ways,” Bernard said, indicating his coffee cup as the waitress approached. “It looks like you could use a beer.”

  “You have no idea,” Noelle said. “Do you have any IPAs?” she asked the waitress, a woman named Irene Babcock who had worked at the bar ever since Noelle could remember. Irene had certainly aged since the last time she saw her, but was still attractive with her short, bouncy girls and good-natured smile.

  Expecting to hear they had nothing but Busch Light, Bud Light, and Miller, she was surprised to hear Irene say, “Sure do, honey. We have a new one right from our local Bootstrap Brewing. Wanna try?”

  “We have a brewery?” Noelle asked the men after putting in her order of the IPA and a burger with fries. “When did that happen?”

  “Oh yeah, we’re all cosmopolitan now,” Wallace affirmed, taking a slurp of coffee. “That young’un Jackson Blackwell started it…oh…bout three years back now?”

  Noelle blinked. Jackson Blackwell. There was a blast from the past. The two had gone to high school together and had dated for a total of three weeks. That had been just enough time for Noelle to fall hard for the local bad boy and for him to break her heart by showing up at the senior prom with
a 20-year-old community college student from two towns over. She hadn’t spoken to him again.

  “Here you go, sweetie.” Irene set a frosty mug of beer in front of her. “Tell me what you think. Jackson’s always stopping in here and loves to hear what newbies think about his brews.”

  “She ain’t a newbie, Irene!” Wallace boomed. “This here’s Noelle Kane! Valedictorian of the class of 2005!”

  “I consider everyone a newbie if they’ve been gone over a decade!” Noelle blushed as Irene bent to give her a hug, then offered her condolences for her parents. She took a sip of her beer and, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, thought it was one of the best IPAs she’d ever had.

  The next hour was one of the happiest she’d experienced since she’d gotten the call about her parents’ accident. When she was full of beer, burger, and good company, she finally found the courage to text Kellen.

  I’m home. Be at your place in 10.

  Chapter 1

  Noelle

  “Well, here she is.”

  Noelle followed her brother through the front door of Manchester Books. It was the next morning, and though Kellen had wanted her to take a look at it when she’d gotten to his place the night before, Noelle just hadn’t had the energy.

  When she’d finally arrived at her brother’s converted barn that sat on 10 acres a couple miles outside of Manchester, she’d been half drunk and exhausted. She’d ordered another Bootstrap IPA at the Dilly and it had proved to be one too many. That combined with the drive and the stress of recent events had almost been enough to make her pass out at 8 pm, something she hadn’t done since she was in college.

  Kellen’s normally cheerful and easygoing demeanor hadn’t been on display when she’d walked in his door, and it had initially thrown her for a loop. She was so used to depending on her little brother to calm her down, make her see the bright side of things, and ensure she never took anything too seriously.

  Their parents’ death had apparently knocked the free spirit right out of him. At 6’4”, Kellen had always been marked by his lanky frame and infectious grin. With the signature Kane black hair, jade green eyes, and ears that stuck out just a little too far, he may not have been traditionally handsome, but there was something about him the girls could not resist.

  Noelle could count on one hand the times she’d seen her brother down in the dumps throughout their entire lives and she admitted to herself that one of the big reasons she’d wanted to come home was so he could help pull her out of the dark hole she’d fallen into.

  The look on his face the night before, though, had not been what she’d been picturing. Though she’d thought she’d be in bed early, she and Kellen had ended up talking until almost eleven. They’d reminisced, hugged, and cried together. Though it hadn’t been what she was expecting, it had been exactly what she’d needed.

  Kellen flipped on the lights and turned around to look at his sister. “Well, what you think, NoNo?”

  Noelle smiled a little at the nickname. He’d been calling her NoNo since he was two years old and couldn’t pronounce her name correctly. For a while, she’d played around with calling him KeKe, but it never stuck.

  “I really don’t think Mom updated the décor since 1982,” Kellen said with a grimace. “You know she’d just get in here and get absorbed in some book and not even notice her surroundings. Sometimes she didn’t even realize a customer had come in until they hollered at her.”

  Noelle walked around the shop, laying her hands on the dark mahogany shelves. Kellen was right. The cozy atmosphere that had been perfect when they’d opened the shop twenty years ago now looked outdated, though that was nothing new in Manchester.

  The shop was made up of three rooms, all lined with bookshelves, and a small back office. Her mom preferred to sit at the counter in the front room so she could greet customers and see out the large windows, though Kellen was right that she often got so wrapped up in a book that she’d forget she was actually working.

  In the second room, there were three comfy chairs and a large sofa along with several coffee tables so customers could sit and read and enjoy a cup of coffee. Their mother’s one nod to modernization was the Keurig coffee pot that sat in the corner, a gift from her children a few years back.

  “It needs some help,” she finally said. “I’m not in the same financial position that mom and dad were. If I’m going to take this thing over, I need it to be profitable.”

  Kellen nodded. The two of them had discussed the finances of Manchester Books the night before. The building was paid for, but they still needed to worry about taxes, inventory and the eventual help Noelle would need to run it. With the money from her parents’ life insurance policy, she could afford to invest in an upgrade, but she’d need to turn a profit pretty quickly to stay on top of bills.

  “I think the first thing you should do is change the name,” Kellen suggested. “It’s gotta be something…sexy.”

  Noelle snorted. “Sexy, huh? This is a bookstore, Kel. If I give it a sexy name, people might think I’m selling something other than Hemingway in here.”

  “Knock knock?”

  She and Kellen turned around when they heard the voice at the door. Though Noelle hadn’t seen him for over ten years, she found herself looking into the unmistakable eyes of Jackson Blackwell.

  “What’s up, Jackson?” Kellen greeted him.

  “I saw lights on in here, just wanted to make sure nothing shady was going on,” Jackson replied. He smiled at Noelle, crinkles forming around his dark eyes. “I heard you were back in town!”

  Dammit, why couldn’t he have grown a pot belly and lost all his hair? Unfortunately, Jackson was still as attractive as he had been in high school. Solidly built at six foot one, his dark hair and eyes gave him a roguish air and his smile could still take her breath away.

  “Yep, I’m back,” she said. “Heard you’d started a brewery?”

  “That I did!” Jackson clapped his hands together. “Decided to turn my love of hops into a business!”

  “It’s doing really well, too,” Kellen added. “People come from miles around to visit it and he’s got beer in twelve different cities.”

  “Thirteen now, actually,” Jackson said. “Two bars and one grocery store in Lincoln have agreed to carry it.”

  “I had one of the IPAs last night,” Noelle told him. “Pretty good.” And now you can leave, she thought. She still didn’t know why he was in her store and it was starting to make her uncomfortable.

  “Hey, thanks! I appreciate it. You know, I’ve been wanting to open a little tasting room here in town since the brewery is out in the middle of nowhere, but I keep getting backlash from the city council.”

  “That’s a shame,” Kellen said, shaking his head. “I think a tasting room would do really well here. Bring in lots of people who don’t want to make the twenty-minute drive and help with your brand recognition.”

  “Look at you,” Noelle said, lightly punching her brother’s shoulder. “A regular old entrepreneur.”

  “Yep, I think so, too,” Jackson agreed. “It’s that Mark Dingwell that keeps holding me up. The man hates me.”

  “I think that man hates everyone who’s more successful than him,” Kellen pointed out. “Hey man, good to see you. I’ll bring Noelle out to the brewery sometime soon so she can see it.”

  Taking the hint, Jackson bid them both good-bye and ambled back out to his Ford F-150.

  “What was that all about?” Noelle asked.

  Kellen looked at her and winked. “I think ol’ Jackson wanted to see you in person. Maybe he’s still carrying a flame.”

  “A flame?” Noelle asked incredulously. “The jackass broke up with me by bringing another chick to our prom! I believe that flame has been out for some time.”

  “Hmmm, seems like someone still has feelings!” Kellen danced out of the way when she tried to hit him. “All right, I’ll stop. I gotta go get the horses fed before I head out. Meeting a guy about a stalli
on he wants me to break. Not sure what time I’ll be home, but Rex is usually around in the evenings.”

  Rex Becker was Kellen’s roommate and one of the newest members of the Manchester police department. He was also apparently an avid cook, which was one of the reasons why Kellen hadn’t kicked him out after he came to bunk with him six months earlier after a bad breakup. He’d been working the night shift when Noelle had arrived the night before and she hadn’t had the chance to say hi to him yet. As one of Kellen’s good friends, he’d always been a staple in Noelle’s life and she was glad that the two of them had stayed close.

  “Thanks, Kel. I’ll see you later.”

  After he left, she wandered around the store some more, picturing her mother sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs, reading one of her favorite authors. She’d always been a fan of romances and had read everything by Danielle Steel, Judith Krantz, Fern Michaels and Barbara Taylor Bradford. Clearly her tastes also influenced her buying decisions as almost half of the shop was dominated by sappy romances.

  “That’s going to have to change,” Noelle murmured. “Sorry, Mom.”

  ***

  At noon, Noelle had about all she could take of sitting in the bookstore and brainstorming ideas of how to make it more successful. When she realized she’d been sprawled on the couch with a copy of Debbie Macomber’s Blossom Street Brides for over an hour, she knew it was time to get out.

  Fortunately for her, the Dilly Dilly was only two blocks away, and she decided a brisk walk in the crisp September air would do her good. She hoped to see her trio of old men when she walked in, but their table was empty. She took a seat at the bar and asked for a glass of water and a menu.

  “Noelle Kane? Is that you?”

  Noelle turned to the voice on her right and saw a short woman about her age with curly chestnut hair and startlingly blue eyes. Though she recognized her, she couldn’t for the life of her put a name with her face. “Yes?”

  “It’s Jessica Witters,” the girl said with a tentative smile. “We went to high school together?”