Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87367 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“Are you serious?” Cohen asked, his mouth agape as he clearly heard the news for the first time.
“Yup. But don’t ask me none of the details. Big Daddy don’t talk about it, and all the reasons she ran off are so varied, you’re probably the only one who has a chance of knowing what really happened that far back.”
“Feels like I’m learning more every day,” he said. “I know even less than you thought.”
He seemed to be struggling to absorb everything I’d just shared, which I more than understood, so I offered a compliment in hopes of distracting him from the shitbag of history he’d just gotten a stiff taste of. “I like the way you pour a shot.”
That green-eyed gaze looked right into me as he offered his killer smile once again, assuring me the distraction had worked to ease him up a bit.
“Must be some bad combination of you and liquor that does something to me,” I confessed.
“Is it a bad combination?”
“Depends. How bad do you want to kiss me again?”
I was sure my eyes were about as wide as his. What was I fucking saying? I wasn’t that drunk yet.
Cohen Mitchell just did something to me, though, sparked some sort of misfire of my genetic hatred toward his family.
“I wouldn’t think a straight O’Ralley would be interested in kissing his Mitchell nemesis.”
I leaned down, resting my elbows on the bar, looking him right in his beautiful mug. “Well, you got one confused O’Ralley thinking a little too much about those Mitchell lips.”
Cohen eyed my mouth, then assessed my expression, like he was trying to figure out if I was joking. Hell, I was still trying to figure out what the fuck I was feeling—what, in a way, felt like he was making me feel.
“But you’re not gay?” He eyed me curiously.
“Well…at least not as straight as I’d believed I was.”
He chuckled. “That’s something I’m willing to drink to.”
He started to pour some more whiskey into our glasses when I noticed the bottle was already half-empty.
“I can do one more, but then I got to get back to work.”
“Just one more,” he assured me. “Wouldn’t want to tempt you any more than I already have.”
We took the glasses in our hands, our gazes lingering a little too long before I said, “To temptations and rivalries.”
He snickered, his eyes practically glistening with a reflection of sunlight coming from behind the bar.
“To temptations and rivalries.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cohen
I didn’t leave the distillery with Brody. Honestly, I was still reeling over what he told me. The Mitchells and O’Ralleys had started out as friends? Had gone into business together? Had been illegally running alcohol through the South with a lady of the night, who’d then come between them? Christ, I’d traveled across the country and onto the set of a Hollywood movie.
It was crazy to think these things happened in real life. Nearly a hundred years of feud between our two families over a woman and a recipe? And, well, maybe something between my mom and Big Daddy too. Life was stranger than fiction sometimes. But then, I thought about someone stealing my business secrets—thought about the betrayal I felt when Teddy asked Isaac and me to help him get off the ground, only to take all the credit for himself and hang us out to dry—and I understood it better. Christ, I really fucking hoped my great-grandfather hadn’t done that. I wasn’t sure we would ever know, one way or another.
I walked around the tasting room, examined the photos on the walls. In one of them, captioned The Mitchells, three men were standing together, arms wrapped around each other: my biological dad—Harris—with who I assumed were my grandpa—Bobby—and great-grandpa—Arthur. The latter two had smiles stretched across their faces, ear to ear.
But my father…my father didn’t. Maybe he just didn’t smile in photos? Maybe he’d had a bad day? Whatever the reason for his obvious melancholy, it was no skin off my back. It wasn’t as if he’d ever cared about me. Then why did he leave me Mitchell Creek? Why didn’t he contact me before he died?
I shook those thoughts from my head. I had a family that loved me, even if they weren’t blood. Harris Mitchell didn’t matter.
I continued my self-guided tour, first through the tasting room and then the rest of the distillery, taking the time to examine the equipment Brody had pointed out to me.
From what I could tell, most of it looked in working condition, not that I knew a damn thing about distilleries. Everything was fairly clean, which I figured had something to do with Byron, who’d been taking care of the place since Harris passed. There were also things that needed to be replaced and fixed, according to Brody. Obviously, though Harris had closed down operations, he’d kept up on most of it. Again, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering why.