Mal tried to take the document. “Colt, I need to—”
Colt yanked the papers out of Mal’s reach. He was no longer smiling, and he wasn’t teasing. “What the fuck? You hire me to do public appearances, and now you think I want to steal your company!”
“No, Colt, of course not. But I mentioned before there is a board of directors and stockholders, and that means we have to—”
“Shut up,” Colt shouted and scrambled to his feet, still holding the sheaf of papers. He stormed toward the path, then turned long enough to shout, “You kept telling me you’d take care of the board. This is taking care of it?”
“Where’re you going?”
“Home.” Colt stopped and whirled to face Mal. “Or a hotel since I might try to swipe your house too.” He turned on his heels and started to run.
“Dammit,” Mal spat. He gathered everything and threw it in the cooler, scooped up the blanket, and ran after Colt. That went really well.
When Mal reached his truck, Colt was nowhere to be seen. His first inclination was to panic. It was getting darker and colder. If Colt left the trail and ventured into the woods, the situation could become dangerous very quickly. Colt didn’t know the area and had no weapon in case of predators. Mal had a handgun in the cooler and a rifle in his truck, neither of which Colt likely knew about.
Mal was about to grab his rifle and a flashlight from the storage compartment behind the back seat of the truck when he spotted the papers lying on the vehicle’s hood. “Shit!” He backtracked and grabbed the papers, climbed into the cab, and started the engine, peeling out and down the road.
“Please have gone the right way.” Mal gripped the steering wheel and pressed down on the gas pedal. If Colt had gotten his directions confused and tried to follow the road going away from the distillery in the dark, it was possible he’d walk off a cliff. “I should’ve shown him more of the territory.”
Blasting around a bend, Mal nearly ran Colt over. He’d slowed to a brisk walk, head down and arms hugging himself. When the truck’s tires squealed, Colt jerked sideways.
Mal put the truck in park and rolled down the window. “Colt, you can’t walk all the way back.”
“Oh, bullshit. I’ve walked across a city before.”
“There are bears and coyotes and cougars.”
“I lived on the streets for ten years and dealt with gangs. I’ll survive,” Colt snapped.
“For God’s sake, Colt, you smell like roast beef sandwiches and three types of cheese. Every carnivore for a hundred miles is going to want a piece of that,” Mal shouted.
A deer bounded out of the woods and darted in front of Colt, then bolted across the road and into the woods on the other side. Colt yelped and jumped to the side.
“Whatever is chasing that deer isn’t going to be so picky as to pass up you and chase it,” Mal called. It was a mean and crappy thing to do, but he reasoned Colt wouldn’t know any better.
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Whiskey and Moonshine by Elizabeth Noble
Contemporary Romance
Drunk on love.
Like a well-aged whiskey, master distiller and old-money entrepreneur Malone Kensington is elegant and refined. Unfortunately he’s also a perfectionist who is more dedicated to the success of his generations-old company than his own love life.
That company needs a public spokesman.
What Colton Hale lacks in sophistication, he more than makes up for with the charisma that’s allowed him to survive on the street from a young age and charm his way into the lucrative—if overwhelming—public position at the Kensington Distillery. When Mal takes Colt under his wing, hoping to polish off his rough edges, opposites attract and a passionate romance blossoms despite the differences in age and background. But can it survive a Kensington Board of Directors who believe Colt is nothing but a gold digger and a kidnapper determined to profit from the love of Mal’s life—dead or alive?
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