Page 33 of Break My Heart (The Haydon Falls #2)

‘I’m on the road. Heading to Chicago for a brewer’s convention. I wanted to stop by and check on your cider.’

‘When?’

‘Right now. Can you open the door?’

‘You’re here? At G’s?’

‘I just pulled in. I’m at the front. You want me to meet you in the back?’

‘No. Just wait there. I’ll be there in a minute.’ I go in my office and drop off my purse, annoyed that Ryder didn’t tell me he was coming. I’m grateful he’s helping me, but I don’t know why he can’t call and tell me he’s coming here instead of just showing up.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ I ask as I let him in.

‘I wasn’t sure I was going to. It’s kind of out of the way, but I knew you’d want a second opinion on the cider before the competition, so here I am.’ He smiles and pulls me in for a hug. ‘I miss you, kid.’

‘I’m not a kid,’ I mutter.

‘So how’s it coming?’ he asks, letting me go. ‘Have you tasted it today?’

‘Not yet. I just got here.’

‘Late night? You look tired.’

‘I was with—’ I stop before mentioning Sawyer. I haven’t told Ryder I’m dating him and I’m not going to. If I did, he’d tell me I’m crazy and stupid for dating my competitor and then we’d start arguing.

‘With who?’

‘Aria. She came to my place after we closed. She’s having issues with a guy. We talked until four in the morning.’

It’s a lie I know he’ll believe because Aria and I have done that before when we lived in Green Bay.

‘Come with me to the back,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll get the cider.’

‘Hey.’ He steps closer and puts his hand on my arm.

‘I just want to say, I know how hard you’re working to keep this place going.

I’ve been there and I know what it’s like.

If you need me, you know I’m here for you.

’ He’s staring into my eyes like he did when we were dating. It’s making me uncomfortable.

The door opens behind him and Sawyer walks in, stopping when he sees us.

‘Gina?’ He sounds hurt, and confused .

I yank my arm away from Ryder. ‘Sawyer. What are you doing here?’

‘I brought you breakfast.’ He tosses the paper sack on a table and huffs. ‘I knew it wasn’t over with him.’ He turns and storms out.

‘Sawyer, wait!’ I race after him to the parking lot.

He turns to me. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me? Why did you even start something with me when you’re still with him?’

‘I’m not! He just showed up here. I swear!’

‘At seven in the morning? And you just happened to set your alarm for six.’ He shakes his head. ‘Now I get why you were in such a hurry to leave my apartment.’

‘Sawyer, I’m telling you the truth. I had no idea he was coming here. He said he’s on his way to Chicago and just decided to stop.’

‘He’d take the highway to Chicago, not country roads. He wouldn’t come out this way unless he was coming to see you.’

‘Ask him.’ I point to the door. ‘Go in there and ask him if you don’t believe me.’

‘And you think I’d believe anything he says?’ Sawyer turns and walks to his car. ‘I knew this was too good to be true.’

‘You really want to end it this way?’ I yell. ‘Because of some stupid misunderstanding?’

He opens his car door but doesn’t get in. ‘What do you expect me to do, Gina? I caught you lying about him twice now. You wouldn’t do that if there was nothing to hide.’ He gets in his car and leaves.

‘Everything okay?’ Ryder asks as he comes outside.

‘No, it’s not okay!’ I storm up to him. ‘My boyfriend just broke up with me because of you!’

‘Boyfriend?’

‘Yes.’ I put my hands on my hips, wanting to strangle Ryder for the trouble he’s causing.

‘Sawyer’s my boyfriend, or he was until a few minutes ago.

And yes, I know you don’t approve and that you think I’m stupid for dating my competition, but I really don’t care what you think. You don’t get to tell me who to date.’

‘Gina, I wasn’t—’ He sighs. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’

‘Are you?’ I ask, looking up at him.

He doesn’t answer.

‘I can’t believe he just left like that. He wouldn’t even listen to me.’ I take a deep breath, trying to calm down because my heart is still beating like crazy.

‘C’mon.’ Ryder takes my arm. ‘Let’s go inside. We’ll try the cider.’

‘I don’t care about the damn cider!’ I say, yanking away from him. ‘I may have just lost Sawyer for good!’

‘Then he wasn’t the right guy for you.’

‘Are you kidding? Sawyer was perfect for me!’ I toss my hands up. ‘He’s everything I’ve ever wanted. He’s smart, funny, we like the same things, and he’s just as competitive as me. I finally found a guy I could see a future with and now .?.?.’ My voice trails off.

‘So you never thought I was the guy for you,’ Ryder says, pretending to be hurt.

‘Don’t make this about you. You’re not going to make me feel bad for saying that. We both know there was never a future for us. What we had was a friends-with-benefits thing. That’s it.’

‘Doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been more. We didn’t give it a chance.’

‘We dated for two years. That’s more than enough time to figure out if we wanted a future together.’ I walk past him and go into G’s.

‘This place is everything you have,’ Ryder says, following behind me. ‘Are you really willing to give it up just because you’re upset about some guy? ’

‘He wasn’t just some guy.’ I turn back to face Ryder. ‘He was the guy I was falling in love with.’

‘If it doesn’t work out with him, you’ll get over it. You’ll eventually move on. But if you let this place go out of business, then what?’

‘I never said I’m going out of business.’

‘If you spend all week crying over that guy and forget about the competition, there’s a good chance this place won’t make it.

You need this, Gina. You need to win, or at least place high enough to get some press out of it to draw tourists here.

If you don’t, you’ll be relying on the locals.

You really think that’s enough to keep you in business? ’

‘They came here before,’ I say, standing up straighter. ‘Opening week, this place was packed.’

‘Because it was new and you were practically giving away the beer. Now that’s over, and the town’s going to support a guy who was born here, not some woman who just moved here to open a brewery.’

‘So you came here to what .?.?. tell me I’m going to fail?’

‘I came here to help you, so you don’t fail.’

He sounds sincere, but I don’t trust him. I believe he wants to help me stay in business, but I feel like there’s something else going on.

‘Let’s just go in the back and try the ciders,’ he says. ‘And if that’s all the help you need from me, I’ll leave.’

We go to the back and I take the ciders from the storage room, setting them on the tasting table. I’m down to three batches, each one slightly different.

‘This one’s way too sweet,’ Ryder says, tasting the first one.

‘Yeah, I thought it might be.’ I move it aside. ‘Try this one.’ I give him a sample of the second one, then pour myself some.

‘This is better, but it’s lacking something. The flavor is flat.’ He points to the final batch. ‘Is that the one you made last time I was here?’

‘Yeah, it’s had the least amount of time to ferment.’

He tastes it and smiles. ‘This is it. This is the one you need to enter.’

I take a sip of it. ‘It’s good.’

‘It’s more than good. It’s light and fresh, but the flavor is there. It’s more complex than the last batch. It’s not too bitter, not too sweet. Another week of fermenting time and it’ll be perfect. I think you have a good chance of winning with this.’

That’s a huge compliment coming from Ryder. He doesn’t say something like that unless he means it.

‘The color’s good,’ I say, holding up the glass.

‘Gina, I’m telling you, this is it. This is the winning cider.’

I hope he’s right. Winning this competition might be the only way I’ll stay in business. I put everything I have into G’s and I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want to lose Sawyer either, but I don’t know how to get him back if he refuses to believe me.