Page 38 of Break My Heart (The Haydon Falls #2)

Sawyer

‘You think you can find out who it is?’ I ask Jeremy. We went to high school together. He does tech work for small businesses. He helped me set up the computer system for my brewery and is the only person I could think of who could find out who’s posting that stuff about G’s.

‘I probably can, but I’ll need some time. When do you need an answer?’

‘As soon as possible. If we can find this person, maybe we can get the account shut down and G’s can stay open.’

‘I still don’t get this. Why are you trying to keep your competition in business?’

‘I don’t want people coming to my brewery just because some asshole is spreading lies online about G’s. If Gina and I are going to compete for customers I want it to be a fair competition, and right now it’s not.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. If I can track down the IP address I should be able to find out who’s behind this.’

‘That doesn’t sound easy. ’

‘For you it’s not, but I do stuff like this every day.’

‘I’ll check in with you later to see how it’s going.’

‘Sawyer, you need to go take your seat,’ Nick says, coming up beside me. ‘They’re starting soon.’

‘Yeah, I’m coming,’ I say to Nick, then talk in the phone. ‘Jeremy, the cider competition is starting. I’ll talk to you later.’ I end the call.

‘Any news?’ Nick asks.

‘No, but he’s working on it.’

This morning I went to my parents’ house for another one of my mom’s family breakfasts and told everyone what was going on.

My family was just as angry as me, and just as confused about who might have done it.

I can’t think of anyone in Haydon Falls who would do something that shitty to someone who came here to open a business.

The people here are usually supportive of new businesses.

The only people who aren’t tend to be old and set in their ways.

They don’t like change and don’t like new people coming to town.

But I doubt those people have social media accounts, or use them.

‘I’d like to welcome everyone to our Annual Hard Cider Competition,’ my dad says, standing in front of the microphone wearing his red Kanfield Orchard sweatshirt and a Kanfield Orchard baseball cap.

The panel of judges is seated to his left.

The first two rows of folding chairs are where the contestants are sitting.

I’m in the first row. Gina is too, but she’s three seats down.

She hasn’t looked at me once since she got here.

‘As many of you know,’ Dad continues, ‘my wife and I are usually on the judges’ panel, but we won’t be this year since our son, Sawyer, is one of the contestants.

For those of you who don’t know, Sawyer owns Kanfield Brewery, located downtown.

I’d also like to mention another local brewery, G’s Brewhouse, owned by Gina Slater, who is also a contestant in today’s competition.

If you’ll be staying in town, I encourage you to visit both breweries.

You won’t be disappointed.’ He smiles at the judges.

‘I think it’s time we begin the tasting.

’ He looks back at the audience. ‘Randall Beemeier will be running the competition and will take over from here. Thank you all for coming.’

Looking behind me, I see people gathered behind the taped-off area to watch the tasting.

It’s Saturday, so we have the usual crowd of people who come here to buy apples and baked goods, but also all the people who showed up for the food trucks, which are just outside.

There’s also a cookout with burgers and brats.

Jason and Brody are manning the grills while Lyndsay and Callie take the orders and handle the money.

Nash is running the tractor rides to the orchard and Nick is helping with the competition.

As the judges taste each hard cider, I watch to see if they like it or not, but they’re not giving me any signs.

They take a sip, make some notes, take another sip, write down more notes.

Each sample is numbered and I don’t know which number is mine so I guess it doesn’t really matter that I’m not getting a reaction from the judges.

I look over at Gina, but she won’t look back.

Does she really think I hired someone to write those posts?

If she does, she doesn’t know me as well as I thought she did.

I mean, yes, I’m extremely competitive, but I’d never stoop to that level to win.

If it’s not a fair fight, the win doesn’t mean anything.

It takes almost an hour for the judges to taste all the samples and make their notes.

When they’re done, Randall, the guy overseeing the competition, takes the judges’ scoresheets to the back room, which is also the kitchen where we make the baked goods.

Mom moved her baking to the house today so the back room could be used to tally the scores.

After a few minutes, Randall appears again. ‘I need to speak to the judges. ’

The judges get up and follow him to the room.

‘What’s going on?’ the guy next to me says. He’s from a microbrewery in Milwaukee.

‘Maybe there’s a tie? I don’t know.’ I glance down at Gina and see her staring at me. She quickly looks away.

My phone dings and I see a text from Jeremy. I think I found him.

Who is it? I text back.

I don’t have a name yet. Just the IP address. I’ll keep working on it.

The judges return and take their seats as Randall goes to the microphone.

‘It’s time to announce the winners!’ he says with a big smile. ‘Let me start by saying we had a wonderful selection this year. The judges agreed that all of the entries were quite good.’

I feel like I’m back in third grade when we had an art contest and the teacher said all of our art was good when half of it sucked. Mine was really bad. I drew a dragon, but it looked more like a green blob with eyes.

Randall starts announcing the winners of each category. The heritage ciders are first, followed by the modern ciders, and then the traditional. Gina and I both entered our ciders in the traditional cider category.

‘And the first place winner in the traditional category is .?.?.’ Randall pauses for dramatic effect. ‘Mark Hanley of Hanley Family Brewery.’

I didn’t win, at least not first place. I didn’t think I would. But I thought Gina might. I look over at her and see her clapping for Mark as he goes up to get his trophy, a small silver statue of an apple. He’ll also get a plaque mailed to him in a few weeks that he can put up in his brewery .

Randall continues. ‘Second place goes to .?.?. Linda Ditmeer, owner of Bluetop Hill Brewery.’

She goes up to get her certificate. She’ll get a plaque too, but no trophy. Only first place gets the trophy.

‘And our final winner, coming in at third place is .?.?.’ Randall pauses. ‘Gina Slater, owner of G’s Brewhouse, right here in Haydon Falls.’

I clap for her as she goes up to get her certificate. She’s smiling as she turns to go back to her seat. I’m happy she won. I’m not surprised her cider was better than mine. She has more experience than me and she spent more time on it.

Maybe now she’ll be able to keep G’s open. Winning first place would’ve helped her more, but third place has got to get at least a few people wanting to go there.

‘In addition to the trophies and plaques,’ Randall says, ‘the Kanfields have generously offered to give each winner a $50 gift card to use here at the orchard. I thank you all for coming today and I hope to see all of you again next year.’

People get up to leave. I look over at Gina, but she’s not there. Glancing behind me, I see her making her way through the barn.

I hurry to catch up to her. ‘Gina!’

She doesn’t look back.

I race past some people and get to her just as she’s going out the door.

‘What do you want?’ she asks, walking to her truck.

‘I want to congratulate you. Third place! That’s great!’

‘Not great enough to save my business.’

‘You don’t know that. Just give it some time.’

‘I don’t have time. I’m running out of money.’ She gets in her truck.

My phone rings. It’s Jeremy calling.

‘Gina, hold on!’ I yell as she backs up her truck .

She ignores me and drives away.

I answer the call. ‘Hey. Did you find out anything?’

‘Yeah, but it doesn’t seem right.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Are you sure you had nothing to do with this? I won’t tell anyone if you did.’

‘No. I swear. I had no idea it was even going on. So who is it? Who did it?’

‘I traced it back to a cellphone and a laptop. The cellphone belongs to that guy who works for you.’

‘What guy?’

‘The one who’s always behind the bar. The older guy.’

‘Wade?’

‘Yeah, that’s him.’

‘It can’t be. Wade’s great. He’d never do that.’

‘Then he let someone use his phone because that’s where some of the posts came from.’

‘That can’t be right. Why would he do that?’

‘I don’t know, but it was definitely his phone.’

‘What about the laptop?’

‘It’s yours. Well, the one at the brewery. Does Wade have access to it?’

‘Yeah, he uses it to do orders and track inventory.’

‘He was also using it to post about G’s, unless someone else there has access to your computer.’

‘No, it’s just him and me.’

‘Then it’s gotta be him.’

‘Okay, thanks for your help.’ I end the call and storm to my car, furious at Wade.

It’s bad enough he did this, but it’s even worse that he did it using my laptop.

Gina will never believe me now. Those posts came from my own damn computer and the guy that I hired.

It looks like I set the whole thing up .

It’s noon when I get to the brewery, which is when I scheduled Wade to come in and take inventory and do the orders. I find him in the stockroom, music blaring from his cellphone.

‘Wade!’ I stalk up to him.

He smiles. ‘Hey boss! How was the competition?’

I point to his phone. ‘Turn off the fucking music!’

He turns it off. ‘What’s wrong? You lose the competition?’

‘I lost more than the fucking competition. I lost a friend, a competitor, the girl I fucking loved!’ I get in his face. ‘Why did you do it?’

‘Do what?’ He backs away.