Hemingway & IPA Page 2

  “Oh, Jessica! Of course!” Though they’d been in the same grade, she and Jessica had never been friends. Noelle had run with the brainy types while Jessica had gravitated more to the party crowd. “How have you been?”

  “Not bad.” She looked at the seat beside Noelle and gave her a questioning look.

  Oh jeez, she wants to sit next to me. The last thing I want is to spend my lunch reminiscing about high school. She really couldn’t see a way out of it without hurting the woman’s feelings, though, so she said, “Would you like to join me?”

  “That would be great!” Jessica’s face lit up as she took the stool next to Noelle. “Everyone is really excited you’re back in town.” Her face fell. “I mean, not because of the reason…I mean it’s awful that your parents…I didn’t…” she trailed off. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Noelle assured her. “I know what you meant.”

  “Is it true you’re going to reopen Manchester Books?”

  “Yep. It’s what my parents wanted.” Noelle glanced at the menu. It hadn’t really changed since she used to come in for a burger and a coke after school got out. “Those chicken strips still good?” she asked the bartender, who gave her a nod. “I’ll take those, please, with onion rings.”

  Jessica giggled. “If I ate that, I’d instantly put on 10 pounds. I’m going to have the grilled chicken salad.”

  Noelle had never had to worry much about her weight. Even when her friends in Kansas City were hitting the gym or cycling classes every morning at 5 am just to stay in a size 6, she’d indulge in beer and fried food and never gain an ounce. She’d learned not to brag about it, though, as it was usually a source of resentment for other women.

  “That looks good, too,” she told Jessica kindly as they put in their orders. “So, what have you been up to since high school?”

  “Wow, that’s a big question!” Jessica took a sip of the iced tea she’d ordered. “I went to community college for a few years before transferring to UNK and getting my teaching degree. Then I came back here and now I teach English at the high school.”

  Noelle waited. That’s it? She thought. You sum up the last 13 years of your life in two sentences? Something about it seemed incredibly sad. “Married?” she asked. “Kids?”

  Jessica looked at the counter. “Divorced,” she said softly. “No kids.” After a moment, she looked up. “What about you? I heard you got some great job in KC!”

  “Well, I don’t know how great it was, but it was fun for a while. I was an agent for Radiate books, so I got to read a lot and help promote authors.”

  “That sounds amazing! I remember how much you liked to read. You always seemed to have a novel in your hands and I’d always look to see what it was.” Jessica blushed. “I was so envious. The only thing I read back then was Sweet Valley High.”

  Noelle smiled at her and felt bad that Jessica recalled such a vivid memory about her when she had nearly none of her classmate. “I guess it makes it a great fit that I take over the bookstore.”

  Jessica bobbed her head. “It sure does! Everyone always loved going in and talking with your mom, though I rarely saw anyone walk out with a bag.” She again looked like she’d just put her foot in her mouth. “I mean…I’m sure she sold stuff? Maybe I just didn’t see it?”

  Noelle was about to once again reassure her she’d said nothing wrong when the door swung open and a man walked in. He sauntered over to them and said, “Well hello ladies.”

  “Hi Mark,” Jessica greeted him.

  “Hi Jess.” He gave her a wink. “Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Noelle Kane,” Jessica said, fiddling with her straw and avoiding both of their eyes. “We went to high school together and she just moved back to town.”

  “Ah, Noelle Kane!” Mark held out a hand. “I’m Mark Dingwell. The city council has been talking about you and how you’re taking over Manchester Books.”

  It’s the notorious Mark Dingwell Noelle thought. Even if she hadn’t been predisposed to dislike the man from what Jackson had said, she’d still think he looked like a pompous ass. At a shade under six foot and a shade over 200 pounds, the man was wearing a three-piece suit that his belly strained. His florid complexion looked like it was no stranger to hard liquor and his coiffed hair had more product in it than both Noelle’s and Jess’s combined.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said coolly, shaking his proffered hand. “I hope the city has nothing against me doing some remodeling and rebranding of the shop.”

  “Of course not!” he boomed. “We’re all for progress here in Manchester!”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Well, I just wanted to come over and say hi. I’m having lunch with the chief of police.” He waved to the corner where a man in uniform was seated and perusing a menu. When he didn’t look up, Mark cleared his throat. “Well, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you ladies again soon.”

  “Huh,” Noelle said when he’d swaggered away. “He’s…something.”

  Jess looked up from her tea. “He sure is.” There was something behind her words, but Noelle couldn’t put a finger on it. One thing was certain—Mark Dingwell was someone she already knew she’d like to avoid in this town.

  Chapter 2

  Jackson

  Just another day in paradise, Jackson Blackwell thought at he looked out over his brewing operation from his second-floor office. He’d worked hard to build what he had and, when he let himself think about it, he was pretty damn proud of himself.

  Not bad for a kid everyone thought would end up in jail. When his mother died, and his father had run off, Jackson had been left to be raised by his grandparents at the age of 12. He’d been an angry kid, and he knew he’d been a handful. If it hadn’t been for his natural affinity for sports, he doubted he would have had much luck graduating from high school, let alone going to college.

  However, a full ride scholarship to play for the Huskers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln had not only gotten him a business degree, but it had also instilled in him a deep need for achievement that he never thought he’d possessed.

  When his grandparents’ health had started failing, he’d had to put his budding career in real estate management on hold and return home to Manchester.

  When he’d first arrived back in his hometown, he’d spent the first six months moving his grandparents into an assisted living community and untangling their finances, which were a mass of strange investments, land deeds, and convoluted life insurance policies. By the time he’d straightened everything out, his grandmother had suffered a fatal heart attack and he knew he wouldn’t be able to leave his grieving grandfather alone and he’d formally resigned from his firm in Lincoln.

  That’s when he came up with the idea for Bootstrap Brewery.

  He’d always had an interest in beer, though he’d never thought about actually brewing it himself until one of his real estate buddies had showed him his basement microbrewing operation. In the three years Jackson had worked in Lincoln, the two friends had brewed everything from stouts to lagers and had held so many unveiling parties that their group of friends had started to refer to them as the BroBrewers. It just made sense that he’d start his own brewing company now that he was living in the middle of nowhere and good beer was hard to find.

  He’d used the money he had in savings from a big real estate deal to buy an old factory that had once been used to make missile parts for the military and convert it into a beer-making mecca. The name Bootstrap had come to him one day while he was helping to install new storage vats. What better name for a business started by someone who’d never had a cent to his name and who everyone had thought would end up the town loser?

  “What’s up, boss?” Boyd Fletcher, his right-hand man and best friend, poked his head in the door. “You up for getting some lunch? I’m starving.” Boyd was a transplant from Estes Park and still had the air of a ski bum about him. His blonde hair always looked shaggy and his wiry frame looked ready to hit the slop
es at any moment. Though he’d moved to Manchester when he was a sophomore in high school, he’d always looked more at home as soon as the snow started to fall.

  Jackson gave him a wide grin. “Now when have I ever been known to turn down a meal?”

  Boyd pretended to think for a few seconds. “Umm…that would be never.”

  “Exactly.” Jackson got up and stretched his arms above his head, catching a reflection of himself in the large window that separated his office from the brewery floor. At 29 years old, he still had the physique that had made him a standout fullback football player in college even though he tended to eat meat and potatoes for nearly every meal and indulged in his own product a bit more than was probably advisable. He ran his hand through his sandy brown hair, which was thankfully not thinning in the least, and turned back to Boyd. “Make the drive into Manchester?” The only bad thing about having a brewery twenty minutes from the nearest town was how long it took to get a good meal.

  “Yeah, unless you happened to pack a gourmet picnic this morning we can take part in,” Boyd said with a smirk. He’d obviously been watching his boss check himself out and was getting a good kick out of it.

  “No such luck.”

  They made the drive in a shade over 10 minutes thanks to the souped up motor on Jackson’s Ford F-150 and his complete lack of regard for the speed limit. Owning a brewery had many perks, and one of the more useful was relationships it had allowed him to build with many of Manchester’s finest. They were wrong about cops and donut shops—the true way to their hearts was beer.

  “The Dilly?” Boyd asked when they reached the city limits.

  “Nah, we’ve eaten there every day this week,” Jackson told him. “I can almost feel my cholesterol levels rising. I was thinking the new café over on Lancaster.”

  “You sure about that?” Boyd asked. “Looks like there’s a hottie going into the Dilly.” He pointed out the window at a woman who had just gotten out of a Jeep with a slightly concerning rust issue in front of the bar and grill.

  Jackson’s heart jumped when she turned, and he saw Noelle’s face. His thoughts drifted back to their encounter that morning. He’d heard she was back in town from one of his bartenders and he hadn’t been able to stop himself from barging into her store to see for himself. Though he hadn’t seen or heard from her since high school, he had to admit she’d crossed his mind more than once over the years. Noelle Kane, the one and only girl he could ever label as ‘the one who got away’.

  “Hey, is that Noelle Kane?” Boyd asked, pressing his face to the window. “Yeah, I think it is! We should go in. I bet she’d love to talk to you some more about that floozy you brought to prom.” He chuckled. “And by ‘talk to you’ I mean ‘throw a drink in your face.’”

  Jackson opted not to tell him about their encounter that morning. “You honestly think she still cares about that?” he asked instead. “It was like a hundred years ago!” Though he was tempted to stop at the Dilly just to get another look at Noelle’s gorgeous green eyes, he decided to keep driving.

  “Women tend not to forget stuff like that,” Boyd said. “Remember Marlene Mason? The chick from Davenport that I invited to prom and then dumped the night before when I scored a date with Roxanne Bevins? She still shoots me daggers every time I see her in town!”

  Boyd continued to ramble as Jackson parked his truck in the café parking lot, but he’d stopped listening. His thoughts were dominated by the green eyes and black hair of Noelle Kane, the one girl in his life who had ever really made a true impact on him. Was she back to stay? If so, his life just got a whole lot more interesting.

  Chapter 3

  Noelle

  “I can’t believe they’re really gone.”

  Noelle walked from the living room to the dining room and back to the living room again, where Kellen was sitting on the enormous sofa their parents bought when they’d both been in grade school. After getting a text from her brother saying his meeting had been cancelled and that he was going to head over to their parents’ place, she’d decided to meet him there so they could go over more details.

  Kellen nodded and took a deep breath. “It’s kind of hard to be in here, isn’t it? I keep expecting Mom to come busting out of the kitchen with another of her failed baking experiments or Dad to yell from the yard that he butchered the bushes again.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be able to live here?” Noelle asked, sitting on the couch next to him. “I’m not sure I’d be able to. All these memories….”

  “I’m going to try because I know it’s what they wanted. If it gets too tough…well, I guess I’ll think about that if it happens.”

  “What are you going to do with your place?”

  “Rex asked if he could rent it,” Kellen answered. “Which is perfect because then I can still keep some of my horses there.”

  “Are you going to keep all of Dad’s animals?” Their family home was on more than 500 acres and had over a hundred head of cattle, five horses, and a huge population of farm cats whose number kept multiplying since their mom had always fed them and snuck a couple into the house at night.

  “I think so. I’ve already talked to Hank, Dad’s hired man. He’s going to stay on and help me. He took care of almost everything since Dad hurt his back anyway.”

  The two sat in silence for a minute. “They’d really like that you’re keeping the ranch,” she finally said softly.

  “And they’d also really like that you’re keeping the bookstore,” Kellen replied, putting his arm around her and pulling her into a hug. “We’re gonna be okay, NoNo. You’ll see.”

  ***

  Interior design had never been one of Noelle’s strong suits. She knew she needed some help with modernizing the bookstore, but she wasn’t exactly sure where to turn. She considered bringing in someone from Kansas City, but knew the cost would be too much for her limited budget.

  Maybe I could start out small and then do more remodels as we start making money? She contemplated that as she drove back to the shop. Her thoughts were interrupted by sirens, and her heart jumped as she looked in the rearview mirror and saw a police car with lights flashing.

  She immediately glanced at her speedometer and saw that she was going well under the speed limit. What the…? She didn’t have time to finish the thought as the cruiser sped around her, quickly followed by two more and an ambulance.

  I think that’s the entirety of the Manchester police force she thought. I wonder what happened?

  She pulled up in front of the store and got out, looking down the street to see if she could see where the cops were going. They were already out of sight, though, and she quickly forgot about it as she got absorbed in the store and her plans for turning it around.

  Two hours later, Noelle felt completely lost. What was I thinking? I don’t know anything about owning a business!

  In Kansas City, her sole responsibility at her job had been identifying whether a book would sell. In the beginning, it had been fun, like finding a diamond in the rough. But as time went on, she’d seen too many amazing books get thrown into the reject pile in favor of poorly written commercial crap.

  She remembered one book in particular, a heartbreaking memoir about a woman losing her husband while also dealing with her mother’s decline into dementia. She had brought it to the weekly meeting to declare she’d found a truly touching book that needed to be read by the world, just to see it shot down because there had been ‘too many tear-jerkers published in the last six months. It had been rejected while a poorly written humor book by a hot new blogger had been pushed through.

  She clearly recalled leaving work that day and buying a bottle of red wine on her way back to her loft apartment. She’d called her mom and drank the entire bottle while they’d been on the phone.

  The thought of that conversation, along with thousands of others with her mother, brought on a fresh round of tears. She was doing her best to get them under control when the front door opened, and Geneviev
e Russell walked in.

  “It’s true!” Genevieve had been of her mother’s best friends, a whip-smart woman who had relocated to the small town in an attempt to focus on her painting. Never married, Genevieve had achieved some modest success and often took her mom to art shows and gallery openings around the country. “You’re really back!”

  The two women embraced, which immediately made Noelle start crying again. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed as Genevieve patted her back. “I’m just a little emotional today.”

  “Do not apologize to me, honey,” Genevieve said, pulling back and dabbing at her own eyes. “I miss you parents terribly every single day. But when I heard you’d come back to take over the store, I just had to come in and visit my favorite girl.” She straightened her neat black pageboy and ran a hand down her jean-clad legs. Among her other attributes, Genevieve was always impeccably groomed and dressed.

  “Did you hear all that commotion out there?” Noelle asked. “I saw almost the entire police force blaze by me as I was on my way to the shop.”

  Genevieve’s eyes widened. “You haven’t heard? Why, it looks like little ol’ Manchester has experienced its first suspicious death in years.”

  “What?!” Noelle asked. “Who died?”

  Genevieve bobbed her head. “It was that awful Mark Dingwell.” She put a hand over her mouth. “I guess I’m not supposed to speak ill of the dead. But he really was awful.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “The rumor is it was a shotgun wound to the chest. Could have been some sort of hunting accident, but the word around town is that it was no accident.”