“Why would I do that when the perfect person is sitting right in front of me?” He leaned back in his chair, his eyes warm with approval. “You pitched with me at the tech con. You brought Liam to help save us. You pushed for Mia and Zoe’s proposal. And now . . .” He tapped the folder. “You’ve done this, when it would have been easy for you to walk away. Those are leadership qualities, and right now the company needs a young, dynamic female leader, someone with the passion, drive, and commitment to see this through. That’s you.”

If anyone had told her two months ago that one day she’d be asked to lead a pitch to save Organicare as the company’s CEO, she would have laughed. But two months ago, she’d been stuck in the past, nursing old wounds, afraid to embrace her life and move on.

She wasn’t that woman anymore.

• 30 •

LIAM parked his motorcycle in the distillery parking lot. He wasn’t surprised to see gleaming yellow backhoes, dump trucks, and wrecking balls lined up side by side. He’d met with Ed McBain and explained that since he wouldn’t be able to meet the terms of the trust, there was no point wasting time. Ed had authorized the demolition, and today the distillery was coming down.

“Thought you ran away to New York to become a big shot partner at your firm.” Joe blew out a puff of smoke from his favorite seat at the top of the front steps. He was smoking again, but at seventy-five years old he’d earned the right not to quit.

“I did, but I had to come back to deal with some loose ends.” Liam joined him on the step and they looked out over the parking lot and the green fields beyond.

“Was this one of them?”

“Brendan invited me to come and take one last look around.”

“You still have a week left before your birthday.” Joe gave him a hopeful look. “What about that girl you brought to meet the family?”

Liam sighed, feeling empty inside. “Didn’t work out.”

“I’ve got a niece . . .”

“Thanks, Joe, but there’s only one woman for me.”

After a few quiet moments with Joe, he headed into the visitor center, where Brendan was talking to the contractor. Jaxon saw him walk in and jumped up to greet him.

“Uncle Liam!” He ran over to give him a hug. “Can we go see the distillery again? Can we see my name and fly a plane in the stills?”

His throat tightened. “I don’t think so, bud.”

“Joe’s outside,” Brendan told Jaxon. “He’ll take you around if you want to have a last look.”

Jaxon pushed open the door and ran outside calling Joe’s name.

“Lauren’s working today and I couldn’t leave him at home,” Brendan said, watching Jaxon go. “I thought he’d like to see the heavy equipment at work, but’s he’s more interested in flying his plane in the field.”

“I would be, too, if I had this much wide open space.” Liam looked around at the polished wood bar that their great-great-grandfather had shipped over from Ireland intact. “Should we have a last drink?”

“Sounds good.” Brendan turned to the contractor. “You can get started. The paperwork is in order and we’re ready to go.”

“So that’s it.” Liam poured from one of the open bottles. He thought he’d feel sad or even angry with Brendan, but he was numb inside. “The end of an era.”

“Or the beginning of a new one. It depends how you look at it.” Brendan took his glass. “I know you were worried about the employees. I’ll make sure they’re all taken care of. There will be more than enough money after the sale to be generous.”

“I appreciate it. Some of them have been around for over twenty years. I can’t even imagine how it felt to hear the distillery was shutting down. It must have been quite a shock.”

“Kind of like finding out your brother left town with your mom without telling anyone what was going on,” Brendan said with a hollow laugh.

Whoa. Liam’s breath left him in a rush. Where did that come from? He’d come home thinking maybe there was a chance he could repair his relationship with his brother, and giving up the distillery had been a big part of that, but it was clear Brendan still carried a lot of resentment. “You didn’t see her that night.”

“I was at college over thirteen hundred miles away.”

Liam drained his glass, one hand fisted on his knee. “I didn’t have time to call you. She was in bad shape. And it was my fault. She’d given me money to rent a tux to take Daisy to the prom and—”

“Daisy?” Brendan froze, his hand on his glass. “That story about knowing her in the past was legit?”

“Yes. We reconnected at a tech conference. She’s Sanjay’s little sister.” Now that Brendan was actually talking to him, he didn’t want to share that it had started exactly as Brendan had suspected, because it was now that mattered, and now that was real.

“Stuff happened the night of the prom that meant I didn’t get the tux back to the rental place in time,” he said. “They couldn’t get in touch with me, but the owner of the store knew Mom, so he called the house. Dad answered the phone . . .”

“Oh Christ.” Brendan’s jaw tightened.

“He went ballistic because she’d given me the money without asking him.” His voice wavered, cracked. “Bren, I can’t even tell you what it was like to walk into the house and see her like that, lying in a pool of blood.” His hand closed around the glass, squeezing it so hard his knuckles turned white. “I thought she was dead.”

“Jesus.” Brendan muttered under his breath. “She was always doing things like that, always trying to help us out when she knew she would suffer for it.”