Page 40 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"Small towns don't do subtlety. I should've mentioned that before you signed on for any of this." I hand her the coffee, and our fingers brush longer than the transfer requires, which is exactly the kind of thing that got us caught in the first place and exactly the kind of thing I have no intention of stopping. "By lunch she'll have a guest list started."

"By lunch she'll have a caterer."

"Give her until two. She's thorough."

"Should we be worried?" Jenna threads her arm through mine without seeming to think about it, easy in a way that undoes some of the low key resolution we made this morning.

"About Dot? No. About everyone else finding out because of Dot? Absolutely."

"Gunny already knows."

"Gunny knew before we did." I hold the door for her at the corner, more habit than chivalry at this point. "I'll give him credit. He never actually said anything until I looked happy enough to have earned an interrogation."

"That's oddly generous of him."

"He likes being right more than he likes being nosy. It's the only thing keeping this town's gossip network from moving even faster than it already does."

We walk back toward the brewery slower than the errand requires, and for a few blocks the whole complicated math I've been running underneath the good mood quiets down enough that I almost manage to forget it's there at all.

Back at the office, the part I picked up sits on the desk unopened for exactly as long as it takes my phone to ring, an unfamiliar number with the area code from three states over, and something in my chest drops half a degree before I've even answered it, old habit recognizing the call before my conscious mind catches up.

"Rafe Montgomery."

"Afternoon, Mr. Montgomery. Denise, from the accounting office." Her voice is brisk and familiar in the particular way of someone who's made this same call at the same time every month for years running. "Calling about the Castillo Fund. This month's transfer processed clean, same as always. I wanted to confirm the amount before it goes out."

"Same as last month. That's fine."

"It usually is." A pause, papers shuffling somewhere on her end. "Given the season the brewery's had, I wanted to ask what I ask every year around this time. Any interest in increasing the disbursement? Nothing's required. Some years you say yes, some years you don't, and either way it's your call entirely."

I think of the shelf in my loft, the frame that's sat there face down for longer than I've let myself think about, and the answer comes the same way it always does, quiet and immediate and not up for debate.

"Increase it. Same percentage as last year."

"I'll get that processed today." Denise doesn't ask why, never has, this many years into the same call and she's never once pushed past the amount and the confirmation, which is exactly why I've kept the same accounting office this long. "Anything else I can help you with?"

"That's it. Thank you, Denise."

"Take care, Mr. Montgomery."

I hang up fast, faster than the conversation actually requires, and I'm halfway through resetting my face into something ordinary when I catch movement in the doorway and realize I'm not fast enough.

Jenna's standing there with a stack of invoices in one hand, close enough that she had to have heard some part of it, and the careful blankness on her face tells me she heard more than none.

"Sorry," she says. "Didn't mean to walk in on anything."

"You didn't." It comes out too fast, clipped in a way I hear a half second after I say it, and I watch her clock the speed of it even as she doesn't say anything about it directly.

"Something about a fund. A wire." She sets the invoices down on the corner of the desk, careful not to make it look like she's fishing, though we both know exactly what she's doing. "Everything okay?"

"It's fine. Just a standing thing with the accountant. Nothing that needs your attention." I hear how thin it sounds even as I say it, a door closing a half second too fast to read as casual, and something flickers across her face, there and gone, the specific expression of a person deciding this particular door isn't hers to force open.

"Okay." She says it simply, the same way she said it in the loft the night of the storm when I told her the photograph wasn't ready yet. No argument in it, just acceptance, and I know she'll bring it up again eventually. "I'll leave these here."

"Thanks."

She goes, and it isn't ten minutes before Gunny finds a reason to stand in the same doorway, dropping off a delivery slip that could have waited until closing.

"You look different," he says, propping a shoulder against the frame.