Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
At once, Gracen seemed to understand.
After all, what were best friends for?
“Okay,” her friend said, all thoughts of sleep gone as she had more important things to focus on now, “so tell me everything.”
Chapter 14
Lucas rolled into the brewery’s employee parking lot with a grin on his face on Monday morning. A change from his usual mood lately. A welcomed change, really. He was even willing to overlook the fact that his good nature didn’t stem from the fact he was heading into work, but rather, the last string of text messages on his phone.
It had nothing to do with beer.
Or work.
Delaney owned his smile entirely.
Lucas pulled the Bronco into the parking spot designated for him without a concern in his mind about the day that lay ahead of him. He barely passed the plaque with his name and COO title engraved on gleaming bronze a glance as he put the car in park, already thinking about something else that he had to get back to.
Delaney’s last text, that was.
He couldn’t risk texting and driving—more for the safety purpose than the ticket he could surely afford. She’d left him on a bit of a cliff-hanger from her last message when he had just stepped out of his apartment to start the day, and it deserved an appropriate response.
She deserved his attention, rather.
Lucas climbed out of the SUV with his phone in one hand that he worked to unlock while he slid his tan leather commuter bag over his shoulder with the other. He was already scrolling back down to the end of a conversation that had bled over from the late hours of the night before when he slammed his car door shut, not even concerned about locking it with the keys he’d tossed into his bag.
Likely lost at the bottom, and he couldn’t be bothered to dig into the bag to find out when he had left the apartment fifteen minutes later than usual. Not to mention, when he came up behind the city bus on the east end that had seemed to have a penchant for refusing to move over into the designated bus lane.
Oh, well.
He’d send Nola, his secretary and assistant who tried to keep his days on track for the most part, on a coffee and donut run for the morning meeting, anyway. Every employee in the offices upstairs, from accounting to the design department, were far happier and much more willing to sit through the more boring parts of their standard mid-month regrouping when sugar and caffeine were involved in the process.
Nola could lock the Bronco for him on her way. Hell, sometimes she took the Bronco to get the food, if the roads were particularly icy; his vehicle certainly handled the weather conditions better than her Buick.
Lucas had better things on his mind.
Delaney, of course.
His grin widened again as he reread their attempts to come to an agreement about another date and time they could get together. In between tangents where she—or even he—had offhandedly mentioned something that took the two down a rabbit hole of conversation in the form of text messages.
He typically spent his night with a glass of spiced rum and the Telegraph Journal opened to the most recent news stories featuring their province, but not over the past couple of nights. Instead, he spent them distracted by a black-haired beauty an entire city away who snuck him phone calls in the evening when her cousin wasn’t close to listen in and snoop.
Lucas blamed Delaney for his distraction.
Wholeheartedly.
Not that he had any complaints.
He typed out a response to Delaney’s last message as he strolled the recently salted walkway around the side of the brewery to the front entrance. Sending it through as the automatic doors slid open to welcome him into the smell of wood from the paneled walls of the reception gallery and the distinct aroma of hops in the air, he faintly heard the woman behind the front desk say her usual good morning to the boss.
A faint “Beautiful day, Mr. Dalton.”
Maybe he waved?
Lucas didn’t even realize his own distraction until he glanced up to find neither of the two elevators leading to the upstairs offices were open for him. Because he hadn’t actually pushed the button.
Not really bothered by his sudden absentmindedness, Lucas chuckled it off, and pushed the red button between both panels. The one on the right opened instantly, and he stepped inside at the same time Delaney’s response came through.
He punched the appropriate button to head upstairs, and then went back to Delaney’s most recent message.
“What do you mean?” she had asked.
His question?
Are you adverse to flying?
Their attempts to come to a day and time when he would be in her city when she was also on her days off from the salon that kept a rather strange schedule didn’t seem likely. He had all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted when it came to his time in Saint John. Less if he had to work it around her days off in Freddy. As it stood, a random couple of hours on a midweek day before he’d probably be jetting out again didn’t seem like enough.