I definitely can’t tell my family the reason I’m on board with Tank’s proposal is The Woman. They will lose their ever-loving minds. They’ll flunk this idea based on me. I’ll have to keep this under wraps as long as I can. Which, given my inability to keep a secret, probably won’t be long.
Harper raises one brow, and that look has the power to make me feel like I’ve been instantly mummified. I'm now a withered and shriveled and dusty old skeleton. “That’s really your excuse?” she asks. “Tank took your phone?”
“It was more like a half-kidnapping. I was under duress.”
“How does that work, exactly?” Chase is grinning. “Duct tape? Did he slip something in your drink and tie you up in the back of his SUV?”
“I wouldn’t put any of that past him. But no.” I sigh, running a hand over my face and mumbling the answer.
“What was that?” Harper said.
“Dad let me drive the Aston.”
They all groan.
“Such a low price for your loyalty,” Collin laments.
“Shut up. You’d have done the same thing.”
“No. I would have gotten behind the wheel in the Aston and driven straight to one of you to talk some sense into the old man.”
Why didn’t I think of that?
Oh. Right. Because Tank filled my head with nonsense about me being the glue and the one with vision. Then he mentioned Sheet Cake, I thought of Lindy, and I was kind of a goner.
“What do you think about his idea, Patty?” Harper asks, and the fact that she’s asking my opinion stuns all of us into silence again.
I examine the cigar in my hands, slip off the paper band, a little loose from the humidity, and put it on my finger. My pinky, because my ring finger is too big. Premature though it may be, I’m thinking about Lindy, wearing my ring and a white dress.
And I thought Tank had lost brain cells buying a town. Joke’s on me! I’m Tweedledum to his Tweedledee.
“Are you still with us, Patty?” Collin asks.
“Yep.”
At least half of me is. Because I left the rest in Sheet Cake. I’m crumpled up in Lindy’s pocket like a forgotten receipt or a bit of dryer lint. But I don’t plan to stay that way. I don’t have a strategy YET, but I’ve already got ideas popping up in my mind like moles needing to be whacked with a toy hammer.
“So,” Harper urges, “what are your thoughts?”
Even Smoky and Brutus seem to be watching me like I’m wearing a shirt made of bacon or something. I consider how I can answer this honestly, but also without revealing anything about Lindy.
“I thought Tank was joking at first. Then I thought he had a vitamin or brain cell deficiency. The jury’s out on that.” I rock back in my chair a little, staring down at the chips and cards strewn around the wooden table. “But … I’ll confess, something about the idea intrigues me.”
“Would this town”—Collin says the word like he’s talking about cow patties—“even work for Dark Horse? I mean, if James is willing to consider it with a level head.”
I scratch my chin. “It would be … a project.”
“The potential brewery location is a project? Like, the building is run down?” Harper asks.
I find myself giggling. Not chuckling. Giggling. Of all the stupid nervous tics to have, mine is one shared with little girls.
“No,” I say through my giggles. “The whole place is a project. It’s basically a ghost town. The Walking Dead without the zombies. Or without people fighting the zombies.”