Apparently, she had some history around town, and she also looked to be in the general ballpark of his age. Still, it was no surprise their paths hadn’t crossed earlier. He’d stuck with hi jutuck wis townie pack. In his high school days, the summer girls weren’t worth the snobbishness some of them had thrown at the locals while sunning on Lake Michigan’s long stretch of beach.

“So you’re a summer person,” he said. He wasn’t into line-drawing anymore, but he couldn’t resist teasing just a little, trying to provoke the same little flush of emotion to her cheeks he’d seen when she first walked into his office.

“Thanks, but I think of myself more as a Citizen of All Seasons.”

“Works for me. Where’s your parents’ place?”

“It’s on the lake about two miles north of town. It’s old, big, and drafty. And it’s a huge money pit, which brings us back to the aforementioned skunky beer,” she said, obviously trying to drive the conversation to a set destination.

Matt was curious enough to give her the room to run. “I’ll agree that Harley serves my beer, but I’m not going any further than that. The keg could have been bad for a lot of reasons, including dirty tap lines, bad tapping, or the fact that it was past its expiration date. But the bottom line is that I didn’t tell him to fire you.”

“Just the same, honor compels that you give me a job.”

Another surprise bombshell. “A job?”

“Yes. And I’m available to start immediately.”

Lucky me, he thought. The woman was clearly crazy, and yet strangely appealing in her overly earnest, convoluted reasoning.

“Supposing, for the sake of discussion, that we were hiring right now,” he said. “Other than a couple of weeks at Bagger’s, what’s your work experience?”