with the times, Cam. Not all kilts are plaid wool anymore.” Gus drained the rest of his beer. “And I gotta tell you, they’re a helluva lot cooler for a Texas summer.”
He wiped his shining forehead on his sleeve. He was sweating in the unheated brewing room in a Texas January. It didn’t bode well for when it actually was summer in Texas.
“The ladies do like a man in a kilt,” Gus informed him. “Now, I know what’s running around in that head of yours.”
Probably not, Cam thought.
“But here’s the way I see it—on our next Saturday tour, you put on a kilt and flash those dimples of yours—”
Cam hated his dimples.
“—and maybe a little more—” Gus twitched the hem of his kilt and laughed uproariously, holding his belly. He looked like a Scottish Santa Claus. “And every female in the room will buzz right on over to you.”
“Cut it out, Gus.”
“It’s true!”
“Then why would you want me to wear a kilt?”
“To get it over with. You take your pick of the girls and free up the others for the rest of us mortals. The women will be disappointed, but then they’ll see me in a kilt and if they squint real hard, and sample enough of the beer, they’ll be reminded of you.”
“I must be getting tired because that makes a weird kind of sense.” Cam arranged curly wood shavings around the bottles for padding. He’d remove the bubble wrap and fluff everything up for a nice presentation after he got to Seattle.
“And it solves another problem.”
Cam reached for the crate’s top. “That would be?”
“You don’t have a woman in your life.”
“Gus...” They’d been over this, although why Gus felt Cam’s love life, or the lack of it, was his business escaped Cam.
“I know. You don’t want a girlfriend. You don’t have time for a ‘relationship.’” Gus used air quotes, which Cam ignored. “But you being unattached gives all the lassies hope. And if they have hope in their hearts for you, they aren’t going to fully appreciate my magnificence.”
“I apologize for the fact that my lack of a girlfriend is impacting your love life.” Cam fit the top onto the presentation crate and admired the MacNeil logo burned into the corner. Without Gus’s face. That had been one argument Cam had actually won.
Gus set the empty bottle on the table next to Cam’s box of samples. “It affects more than that. And more than me. We’re all well aware you don’t have a woman in your life. You need a woman.”
“I need to hire help at the brewery.”
“Why hire someone when you have your family? I’m not talking about a relationship.” Gus moved his arms in a big circle. “Just a short acquaintance. A night or two, even.” Cam picked up a rubber mallet and Gus backed off, palms outstretched. “That’s all I’m saying.”
It probably wasn’t, knowing Gus.
“A woman might even be able to change your outlook. You might see things a little different and not want to expand the brewery and take on all that extra work. You’re already complaining about the work you’ve got.”
“Expanding shouldn’t cause much extra work. Not with all my brothers and cousins around to help.” Cam was being sarcastic, but he didn’t expect Gus to notice.
“Cam.” Gus touched his arm. “Leave things be.”
“I can’t.” He faced his cousin. “MacNeil’s is too big to be a family hobby, but we’re not big enough to get any kind of regular distribution. We grow, or we fold.”
“You have to relax, Cam. Enjoy life.”
If he did, there wouldn’t be a MacNeil’s, a point he hoped to make while he was gone next week. “You mean I should stand around and drink beer and spout clichés in a fake accent while wearing a skirt, like you?” Cam immediately regretted his words—not because they weren’t true, but that he’d indulged himself by saying them.
Gus didn’t take offense. “And didn’t that nonsense you blathered just prove me point about you needing a woman?”
Let it go, let it go. But he couldn’t. “It was a little harsh, but it wasn’t nonsense.”
“Och, laddie.” Gus shook his head.
“Fake accent.”
“It’s the excess man juices bubblin’ around in yer blood talkin’.”
“You did not just say ‘man juices.’” Cam whacked at the metal fastening staples. They sank into the wood and started a tiny split. Great.
“It’s the truth. Your juices are all backed up with no place to go, so they’ve spilled over into yer blood, where they’ve been bubblin’ and fermentin’.” Gus illustrated this by wiggling his fingers.
Cam whacked another staple into the box.
“Until one day, you’ll see a female and you’ll blow your top, just like that batch of summer ale the first year.”
“Gus.” A corner of Cam’s mouth twitched.
“It’s why men make poor decisions with the wrong women.” Gus took the mallet from him. “Or they let the right one get away ’cause they’ve got no finesse and scare her off.” He expertly pounded in the final staples and tossed the mallet onto the table. “Or they go begging to some Sassenach for ‘expansion’ money so he can share in the profit after we’ve spent years establishing ourselves, doing all the hard work, developing and testing recipes and pouring free beer down the gullets of the public so they’ll get a taste for it.”
Cam clapped. “Very dramatic.”
“But true.”
“Agreed. But now that they’ve got a taste for our beer, we’ve got to supply it to them. Here’s the thing. The Beer Barn in Wimberly is getting rid of their tanks. They’re outsourcing the house brew.”
Gus gasped. “That’s sacrilege!”
“That’s opportunity. For us.” He gestured for Gus to hand him a foam cooler. “I want to buy the tanks and then lease the space so I can leave them there for now. We brew more of our two bestsellers there or we brew one of ours and make a pitch to brew the Beer Barn’s house label in the other.”
“Och, laddie, yer a crafty one.” Gus waggled his finger, then turned shrewd. “Who’s our competition?”
“It doesn’t matter if we slip in with a cash offer.”
“Ah.” Gus gave him a long look. “But we don’t have the cash.”
Cam shook his head. “Not yet. But if my meeting in Seattle
