“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.
I couldn’t make sense of any of it. This cloud of mystery surrounded my family, Brody’s, and the distillery, giving me a fucking headache.
The smart thing would be to take the money and run. To sell Mitchell Creek, maybe to the O’Ralleys to end a ridiculous feud, and take my happy ass back to San Francisco, where I belonged.
My thoughts flashed back to Brody, to the way his lips curled when he spoke, the flush of his skin when he was nervous, and, well…to be honest, I wanted more of him. Wouldn’t be so bad if I found a way to make that happen before I left.
Forcing myself out of the warehouse, I locked up and started the walk back to the house.
The property was prettier than I wanted to admit. I looked out in the direction of Brody’s place but couldn’t see it from here. Did he live in the same house as his father? Did all the brothers live there? What would he look like on his knees with my cock in his mouth? Okay, so that last one made me smile and had nothing to do with anything other than said cock, but it was a fun thought.
I was sweating from the fucking humidity in this state by the time I made it back to the house, still feeling a slight tingle beneath my skin from the shots I’d taken with Brody.
Isaac was back in the office with paperwork and a laptop when I came home—back, when I came back. This wasn’t my home.
“How was he?” Isaac waggled his eyebrows.
“What do you mean, how was he? I didn’t fuck him.”
“Sucks for you.” He winked. “Kidding. What did he say?”
Groaning, I sat down in the office chair and recounted everything Brody had told me about the feud.
“Shut the fuck up!” Isaac’s eyes went wide. “You’re shittin’ me.”
“I wish I were.”
“Do you think your ancestors stole their secret recipe?”
My gut clenched. “How would I know? I really hope not. If so, all this is a lie, isn’t it?” And it meant the O’Ralleys really did have a reason to hate us—them, a reason to hate them.
“Wow. This is crazy, Cozies,” he mused, using his familiar nickname for me. “We really did find ourselves in a good ole Southern mystery. How are you holding up?” The question was spoken with concern in his voice.
“I…don’t know.” It was weird. As far as I was concerned, I had two parents back in California. They’d always been open about what they knew about my past, which obviously wasn’t much. I’d had a single mom and no father on the birth certificate. She didn’t have much history, making them wonder if she’d changed her name. She got into a car accident. Her last words had been about me, about taking care of her son, and then she died.
Now I had a legacy, and a distillery with a feud, and a mystery along with it.
“Things would be a whole lot easier if the only thing I had to worry about here was whether I was going to fuck Brody O’Ralley or not. Christ, he’s fucking hot.”
“So hot. I would even watch,” Isaac teased. “Being serious, though, it’s okay if you want to figure this out; you know that, right? It’s okay if you’re curious about your history. That doesn’t mean you love your adoptive parents—”