“Tessa.” He sighed. She heard a door open on Jamie’s side of the line, then the faint brightness of birdsong. She pictured him outside on his deck, looking out over his yard. She hoped he’d put pants on. “What the heck’s going on with you?” he finally asked.
“Nothing! I just don’t want you two fighting! And I don’t want to move. And I don’t want five new people taking over our offices. Things are fine the way they are.”
“Are they?”
Her heart dropped so quickly she put a hand flat to her desk to steady herself. When her pulse found its way back to her chest, it beat so hard that it invaded her throat and her skull. Oh, God.
“I can’t go on just being the bartender for the rest of my life. Is that what you want for me?”
“No! Of course not. Eric wants to hire someone to do distribution full-time. Maybe you could take on more of that, and we’ll hire another bartender.”
“Maybe,” he said.
Tessa rubbed her eyes. “Do you think we should be making this move with High West?”
“You’re asking me this now?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to give me a damned ulcer.” She heard him collapse into one of his deck chairs, and Tessa held her breath. “No, I don’t think we should be involved with these people. I don’t like them. But Eric wanted it, so you wanted it. What was I supposed to do?”
Tessa gasped. “Did you sabotage the deal by sleeping with Monica?”
“That is not what happened,” he ground out.
“All ri—”
“I don’t sleep with women to… I’d never… Jesus.”
“I’m sorry. Really. I shouldn’t have said that.”
His breath left him on a long hiss. “This has become crazy, Tessa. All of it. I should’ve taken my knocks. We should’ve let this deal go. I don’t like these people. Any of them.”
“It’s not final yet,” she whispered.
“He’s got the contract. It’s done. We’ll deal with it.”
“Yeah,” she murmured.
“It’ll be okay, sis. Don’t worry.”
Tessa agreed, but she couldn’t shake her bad feeling. And a few minutes later, her bad feeling became even more justified.
Henry knocked on Tessa’s door. “There’s a guy in the barroom to see you. Says his name is Graham.”
She popped up so quickly that Henry jerked back. Good thing or she would’ve had to push him out of the way when she rushed past. Eric’s door was closed, thank God.
“Graham,” she whispered as she approached him. “What are you doing here?”
He had his hands stuffed in his pockets and was looking over the barroom with condescending good cheer. “I like your place. Very homey.”
“Thanks. But what can I do for you?”
“I sent you another email.”
“I know. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to respond. I’m afraid the answer is still no. We can’t afford that kind of sponsorship, and even if we could, we’d need more time.”
“You’re making a big mistake. There won’t be another tournament for a whole year, and in the meantime, you’re going to miss out on all that networking, all those possibilities….”