Chapter 7

I'm in a shit mood.That isn't new, but this particular sunny disposition I find myself in managed to seep in deep. It has my guys keeping a wider berth than usual.

A voice clears next to me. "Boss? I think there's something off with the machine. I've been trying to table the staves from this morning, and nothing's fittin' right."

I glance up at my new guy as he looks at me over his shoulder.

Sure enough, we have an audience. Jimmy must have picked the short straw to bring this to me.

As I stare at him, I try to get him to figure out on his own what he should be doing instead of me explaining. "You need me to do your job?—?"

His neck ripples as he swallows.

"Jimmy," he stutters out. "It"s Jimmy, sir."

I know his name is Jimmy. His dad, Jimmy Senior, runs Dugan's Hardware. He went to school with my parents, and as small towns go, he knows our story. But I'm not friends with people just because they know my last name or work for me. I'd been friends with almost everyone I worked with in the Fiasco PD. That ended up being a fucking joke. They just ended up giving me pitying looks and talking about me behind my back. I'm over that kind of "friendship." I have no interest in being friends with any of the men or women who work here now. I have my brothers. I have Griz and the guys from poker. Here, I'm their boss. That's enough.

He looks back at the crew as they all watch the exchange. "It felt wasteful to scrap all of it. I read the report that was posted about this season of white oak trees."

I move away from the hoop I was fitting and have a look. He's right, scrapping all that wood would have been a waste. There are shortages we need to be mindful of and making sure every stave has a purpose is one way to do that. Barrel making is like any job that requires manual labor. There's going to be hiccups. But these are the kinds of things I'm confident about fixing. Wood that doesn't sit right. A leaning barrel. Small adjustments that will have our output hitting the numbers we need for the day. I've always been good at solving problems, finishing puzzles, and finding answers. It's what made me a good cop–until it didn't.

When the lead cooper position opened, Ace wanted me to fill it. "You're a Foxx. This is your family's company, Grant. And you're good at this." I knew what he wanted, but I didn't have the energy to tell him I was nervous to have a team of people counting on me. I didn't want to fuck up that responsibility. I had done that already, and it cost a life. But he didn't want to hear it anyway. "If you want to be here, then you're running it, not just treading water anymore."

That was over a year ago now. I preferred just doing the job, but now I have people working for me. I assigned roles to each guy and trusted that they did what they were supposed to. I didn't hover. They're getting paid to do a job. It's that simple. If they don't do it, I fire them. Jimmy, apparently, didn't know that yet.

I nudge my chin toward the table. "Raise 'em."

Jimmy blinks at me.

"Stack them in the skirt." He looks barely old enough to drink what we make, but he jumps into action.

I never say much here, but it's more than that. Today, I'm distracted. The trip to the waterfalls didn't give me what I had expected, and then I ran into a fucking pin-up girl wandering around in a goddamn t-shirt. I tug off my work gloves and rub the back of my neck. Why the hell had my body woken up for her? I knew it wasn't going to be good the moment my cock twitched. I was hard the second my eyes hit the tops of her thighs.

"It's not always going to line up on the table. If you've got a few not cooperating, you can bang it out."

"Sir, it's the whole pallet that's not lining up," Jimmy says as he stacks.

I look over his shoulder, raising my eyebrow at the three who are watching Jimmy stack. "You sent the new kid to ask for help?"

I haven't given the new guys a full overview yet. I suppose now is as good a time as any. "Alright, listen up."

"That's definitely a tourist," one of the older guys, who's been here long before me, murmurs. I don't bother looking. Plenty of groups of women and men walk through, grabbing attention, but not much catches my eye. Frankly, I'm annoyed I don't have my crew's attention.

"If all of these aren't sitting right on the table, then you need to start stacking." I point at what I want. "You two, work those staves into the skirt. And then I want everyone adjusting their roles. We need them fired and steamed. Jimmy, you're taking lead on banging them to fit."

Around the space, I hear some of my guys adding to the chatter.

This is the only drawback of making barrels on site. Having a cooperage on the same premises as the distillery means plenty of onlookers from our distillery tours. While Foxx Bourbon sits on the farthest end of the bourbon trail, there are plenty of people just about any day of the week looking for a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the magic of this place. "There's a shortage, which means we need to make every stave count for us, even if that means we fit them this way from here on out." Not a single person answers, which has me looking up. Sure enough, the four guys huddled around me have their attention focused on something over my shoulder. Even Jimmy's wide-eyed, smiling like an idiot.

Another one of the guys firing up the barrels whistles. I already know I'm not going to like whatever it is. Maybe even a part of me knows what or whom I'll see.

As soon as I look up, it's like a punch in the gut. "Jesus Christ," I say under my breath.

She has on more clothes than this morning, but not enough to cover the shape and length of her legs or the way her tank top hugs her curves just right. That strawberry-colored hair that somehow looks like it has gold woven through it, flows wildly behind her. And her lips–I have to clear my throat and swallow because my mouth waters just seeing them tipped up and smiling at Hadley.

Ripping off my gloves, I grit my teeth. "Get back to work."