Foolproof, page 14
Grace narrowed her eyes. “How come your name didn’t come up?”
“I like to keep my distance.” After Seattle, Elliot had downplayed her law-enforcement background. She didn’t want to get caught up in another Shaw incident.
“That’s too bad. You’re a natural.”
“Just because I can doesn’t mean I should. Besides, I like to drive the boat. Boarding is dangerous. You never know what you’re walking into.” This was an old argument, and she didn’t know if she needed to hear it or if Grace did.
“True. Have you eaten? I’ll buy you lunch, and we’ll catch up.”
“Careful, sir. You wouldn’t want to be caught fraternizing.” She was only half joking. She’d never seriously considered Grace dating material, but everyone had always assumed they were together. And those rumors got very ugly after Shaw’s takedown. Yet another reason Elliot had kept her distance. But the rumors had started to die down in the past year, except for Weiss. And Elliot had missed Grace.
Grace slung an arm over her shoulder. “Then it’s a good thing you don’t report to me. Come on, I’m driving.”
Elliot laughed. While the Coast Guard didn’t forbid friendships among officers and enlisted, they did frown on those between superiors and subordinates. That artificial distance had actually made this friendship easier. There was never any “are you or aren’t you” interested. Both Elliot and Grace had been at the same points in their careers in Seattle and had bonded over that connection. And then they’d put Shaw away together. Grace had moved up, and Elliot had moved on.
Grace took her to a barbecue joint where smoke curled up from the pits out back, and the smell made Elliot’s mouth water. The sunlight reflected off a white concrete building that was plastered with signs for various drinks as well as a “no air-conditioning” one. After grabbing their platters, Grace picked a picnic table under an oak tree, and Elliot sat opposite her.
Within ten minutes, they’d filled in the blanks and Grace asked, “And how was Antarctica?”
“Long, cold, beautiful.” And mostly drama-free, which had been the real reason she’d requested the assignment. She’d gotten tired of defending her actions and had wanted nothing more than to ship out to sea. By the time rumors started circulating about Seattle, she’d established enough of a reputation that her shipboard friends had ignored them.
Grace laughed. “Well put. How’s work?”
Elliot shrugged. “Pretty standard for a tourist spot. Mostly recreational accidents and violations.”
“No LE?”
“Oh, there’s some of that, too. But nothing like Seattle.”
The past sat between them for a minute. Grace broke the silence. “You did the right thing. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I do, but…” Elliot sighed and shook her head. She regretted bringing it up. She didn’t want to talk about it. She’d spent the last few years putting it behind her. Being right hadn’t made living with the consequences any easier.
“You could always come work with me.” Grace smiled with a hopeful look, one that she’d repeated often enough.
But Elliot preferred the open water and short missions. Drawn-out investigations and divided loyalties chafed against her sense of honor and integrity. Not that the work Grace did was less than honorable—rooting out corruption and other illegal activities both within and outside the Coast Guard—but the duplicity required for that kind of work didn’t sit well with Elliot. “I appreciate the offer.”
“But you’re going to say no. Again. I get it.”
But there was more to her “no” this time. She liked Key West, and she liked what she had with Martine. She wanted to see where it was going. Moving away was not an option. She smiled and changed the subject.
Chapter Twenty-one
Martine came downstairs to check the temp on Ernie, the potbellied copper still she’d chosen for her second distillation. Bert, the column still, had already distilled it once. The still was coming to balance, and she’d make her first cut soon. Under normal circumstances, she’d know exactly what she wanted from these cuts, but this batch was different. She’d been distracted from the start, doubling the mix in the fermenter the day after she’d slept with Elliot. She’d had to adjust the times and tinker with the stills, and she still didn’t know what to expect. She’d been on edge all week because of it. She’d been so unbearable that Chloe had shifted her hours on either ends of the workday to avoid her. Ana Sofia had told her to stop being a pill.
She tried, but clearly, something was missing, and by the middle of the week, she knew it was Elliot. Even when they worked opposite schedules, Elliot was still around in the form of coffee in Martine’s thermos or leftovers in her fridge. But this absence bothered her, and she wasn’t sure why. They were still in this fragile place, and Martine hadn’t heard a word from her. Not that she expected to, but it made her anxious.
“She’s right in here,” Chloe said behind her, and she turned.
Martine took her first deep breath in a week as Elliot sauntered in with a sheepish grin on her face. “You’re back.” Martine tucked her hands in her back pockets, oddly shy. She wanted to wrap her arms around Elliot and kiss her hello.
Elliot leaned in, the smell of sunscreen, salt, and coffee accompanying her. “I’m back. I was thinking of grabbing brunch at Blue Heaven. Wanna come?”
Barely a hint of sexual innuendo in that question, and Martine wanted to ditch work and drag her back to the house. Her cheeks got hot. “Uh.”
Doing a quick check of the room, Elliot moved closer. “Miss me?”
Not until Elliot stood in front of her did she realize how much. “Yes.”
Martine jumped away as the salesroom door banged open, and Ana Sofia popped her head in. “Oh, hey.” She smiled at Elliot, then looked at Martine. “Can you work the floor for a bit? I got a call I need to take.”
Martine shook her head, too flustered by everything around her to deal with customers. “I can’t. I’ve got to make cuts. I think Chloe’s in the barrel room. Want me to get her?”
“How close are you?” Martine’s alarm went off, and Ana Sofia waved her hand. “I’ll get her. Stay. Work your magic.”
Pulling her attention back to work, Martine hustled to the still and checked the spirit safe. She opened the first bin, where a steady stream poured into it, and the smell of nail polish and vinegar wafted up. Not yet, but close.
Elliot followed, coming up behind her. “Cuts?”
She wanted to lean back and revel in Elliot’s closeness, but work called. She quelled her carnal thoughts and brought her senses back in line. “Smell that?”
Elliot took a whiff and coughed. “Yeah, that’s terrible.”
Concerned, Martine touched her arm. “Careful. Those are heads. Methanol. It’ll clean out your sinus.”
Taking a step back, Elliot shook her head. “Isn’t that toxic?”
Martine quipped, “Only if you drink it.”
Elliot looked confused. “Isn’t that the point?”
“Do you know how distillation works?” Warming to her subject, Martine linked their arms and gave her a quick overview of the fermentation process and distillation while keeping an eye on the heads.
Elliot listened and asked thoughtful questions. As Martine wrapped up, Elliot spread her arms. “Where did you learn all this?”
Martine usually got this question at some point of the tour, and her answers varied depending on the crowd. But Elliot’s tour was personal, so she opened up. “Remember that woman I followed to Barbados? Well, I worked at her family’s distillery for a few years. Her brother, Louis, had contacts all over the rum world, and he sent me to Jamaica, Martinique, and Guyana.” She smiled as she shared her stories. She put so much of herself in her rum, and Elliot’s interest touched her. While she talked, she kept an eye on the heads and occasionally smelled it.
When they got to the stills, Elliot smiled. “Love the names.”
Martine preened under the compliment. “I came up with them.”
“Do you always use both of them?”
“Usually. It depends on the flavor I’m looking for.” She explained the role of copper plates, alcohol, and evaporation in creating flavors. She veered into more technical details before she caught Elliot’s eyes glazing over. Reeling it back in, she walked back to Ernie.
The nail polish smell had diminished, signaling a change in the distillate. When dipping her finger in the alcohol coming straight out of the still, she caught only a slight whiff. Just enough to impart a citrus and cream taste if she cut over to hearts right away.
Holding up her hand, she said, “Let me do this first.” She shut down the head lever and opened the heart valve. She shuffled past Elliot, brushing up against her and enjoying the heat of her body. She loved this part of the cut. If she got it right, it was amazing. If she got it wrong, well, a lot of time and effort went to waste. With Elliot beside her, the cut took on a different feel, more visceral and emotional than she’d ever experienced. This could be the one. And she had no idea if she meant Elliot or the cut.
Elliot spoke and burst her bubble. “What did you do there?”
Martine fell back to her earth and scolded herself for her wandering thoughts. Distraction caused errors. She grabbed the distiller’s log and made detailed notes about the cut before she came back to their conversation. Pointing at three blue valve handles, she tapped each one. “I switched the flow from tails to hearts. Now they’re going to collect in the next bin. Heads. Hearts. Tails.”
“What happens to it after this?”
All business now, Martine detailed the next steps, discussing the why and how behind the process and the way aging factored into how close a cut she made. “This one? I’m going for a tight cut because I’m not looking to age it.”
“We’ll be able to drink this today?” Elliot seemed surprised.
She shook her head. “No. I’ll have to proof it with water. Then let it sit for a few months before we bottle it.”
“Oh.” Elliot’s shoulders sagged.
Preoccupied with the cut and Elliot’s presence in her space, Martine had forgotten the reason people visited her distillery. A bit nervous, she asked, “Did you want to try something else?”
“That you made? Yes.” Elliot grinned, her delight obvious.
Martine’s stomach fluttered. All of the rums were a reflection of hard work and emotion. What if Elliot hated it? She swallowed her nerves and said, “I’ve got a few more hours here. Let me finish up, and then I’ll give you a tasting.”
Elliot’s bright smile and enthusiasm dispelled some of her hesitation. “Since you’re stuck here, why don’t I go run a few errands, get us something to eat, and we can do a tasting then?”
“That would be awesome.”
Elliot took her order and left. Nervous and excited, Martine renewed her focus. Lots of people wanted to try her rum. And their opinions mattered in a cerebral and marketable way. Did they think it was good? Would they buy it? She could name off all the flavors and the way she wanted them to taste in someone’s mouth, but that final bit where the rum met their tongue remained uniquely personal. She had no control after that, and she’d made her peace with it.
But Elliot bridged that gap between personal and professional. Having Elliot taste something she’d spent the last decade perfecting felt distinctly intimate. Fear shivered up her spine and settled in her gut. She poured her heart into her work, and letting Elliot taste it left her unguarded. What would she see? Martine hadn’t even known she was this vulnerable. Maybe she should back off, but she knew it was already too late.
And what if Elliot saw something Martine wasn’t ready to share? She couldn’t be more exposed if she was lying naked on their kitchen table. Again. But physical intimacy and emotional intimacy had never been the same for Martine, and she couldn’t pretend they were.
She almost missed the Queen’s share with all her obsessing, and she finally put it to rest. It was just rum—important rum, but not enough for all this energy. She needed to get a grip, so she tamped down her fears and turned her attention back to the work. And if every now and then a stray thought popped up, she quickly corralled it. By the time Elliot texted to check in about food, she’d managed to shift those emotions into anticipation and excitement. If all went well, maybe she’d show Elliot the blend she’d been working on for the past few months. That would be special.
* * *
Elliot came back in the early evening with takeout from a Caribbean restaurant on White Street, excited to taste Martine’s rum. Martine greeted her at the door. “Let me give you the grand tour this time.”
The building belonged to Ana Sofia’s family. A converted cigar factory, the fourteen-foot ceilings allowed tobacco to dry in large stacks. The front half of the building housed the tasting room and the stills; the back half of the building housed the barrel rooms and the bottling line. A plate-glass window between the tasting room and the stills let the customers watch the rum being made while they drank it.
In the tasting room, Martine poured from four different bottles, only one of them was the clear white Elliot associated with rum.
“All of these are rum?”
Martine grinned. “Yes. Let me give you the rundown. We have four main expressions. Cochin, aged three years. Bantam, aged one year. Crèvecoeur, aged five years. Sebright, unaged.”
“What do the names mean?”
“They’re chickens.”
“What?”
“Breeds of chickens. Like the ones you see all over town.”
“The same kinds?”
“No. They’re mostly Cubalaya. And whatever breeds worked for cockfighting. They’re all mixed up now.”
Elliot smiled, tickled by the names and enjoying the one-on-one attention. “I see. Do you have a sheet of paper telling me what flavors to look for?”
Martine waved her off. “That’s for helping people decide what they might like. Tasting’s so subjective. One person’s vanilla notes are someone else’s caramel. You don’t need that. Try them first. Then I’ll tell you how they’re made.”
And she did. But Martine also revealed another side of herself that had Elliot hungering for more. Watching her distill that afternoon, Elliot had seen a detailed, clinical, and precise individual. But as Martine shared her rum, she shared her history, and another, more familiar side emerged—passionate, dedicated, and connected. She’d never think of rum the same way again, nor taste it without hearing Martine’s voice.
Martine’s roots went deep, and she celebrated them in her work. Elliot had no such history. Her entire life had been transitory. Her parents’ families were distant relatives she’d grown up seeing once a year at Thanksgiving or Christmas. She’d never wanted something different. For the first time, she imagined a different future, a community around her. Not a work community like the Coast Guard but the one Martine had here in Key West.
“Am I boring you?”
Worried that she made the wrong impression, Elliot quickly reassured her. “No, not at all. I was just thinking…” That she wanted her life to feel like Martine described. That she loved the sense of belonging she heard coming from Martine’s lips. How much she envied her.
Martine gave her a long look, as if she wasn’t sure what to say. Then she abruptly leaned in and said, “Can I show you something?”
Already enthralled, this new intensity sucked Elliot in. She’d do almost anything Martine said right now. “Sure.”
Martine held out a hand and brought her back to the barrel room. Not air-conditioned, the room retained the day’s heat, and the humidity clung to Elliot’s arms. Martine led her to a low table in the middle of the room. Several small jars with handwritten labels littered the space. It was the first unorganized part of the distillery she’d seen. Martine waved her arm over them. “These are called marques. I take various ones and blend them together to create something new.” She grabbed a short jar and poured it into another jar. “I want you to try this.”
Elliot took the jar and reeled as the high alcohol content burned her nasal passages. “Whoa.”
“Shit. Sorry.” Grabbing the jar back, Martine fished a water bottle from under the desk and diluted the mix.
This time, when Elliot put it up to her lips, the fumes didn’t overpower her. She took a sip and suppressed the urge to spit it out.
Martine watched her intently, her eyes narrowed. “You hate it.”
Forcing herself to swallow, she said, “It’s a bit…raw.”
Martine took the jar and sniffed. “Yeah. It’s still a bit off.”
“How can you tell?”
She gave her a slow, sexy smile. “Want me to show you?”
Not exactly sure if she meant rum or something else, Elliot nodded.
For the next few hours, Martine showed her how she blended her rum. They mixed and matched, pulled rum from casks. She taught Elliot how to taste for structure and texture. Was it open and supple? Or linear and firm? Was it silky and smooth or rough and gravelly? By the time the sun set, Elliot no longer cared about the terroir of the rum. With every lesson on taste, Martine touched her face, her arm, her shoulder. The intimacy of the work and the humidity of the room heightened Elliot’s arousal. Every touch ignited tiny sparks from head to toe.
With a triumphant flourish, Martine put the bottle down. “There. That’s it.”
In that moment, when Martine was so in her element, Elliot could no longer hold back her desire. She gently spun Martine around and kissed her. Softly at first, barely there, enough for Martine to back out. But she pushed forward, pressed harder, reciprocated and demanded entry. Their tongues touched and stroked, charging and retreating. Elliot let go of her shirt and clutched her shoulders, wanting more, needing to get closer. Her world narrowed to this moment with Martine in her arms and was only broken when Martine’s voice, low and breathless, set shivers up and down her spine. “Let’s go home.”
