Second-Chance Seduction. Kate Carlisle

care what Maggie was wearing or whether she was depressed or flipping out. They just wanted food, and Lydia and the other girls needed to be milked. The milk had to be weighed and recorded, then taken to the local cheesemongers to be turned into goat cheese and yogurt. The goats demanded fresh water to drink and clean straw to sleep on. Their hooves needed trimming. The newest goat babies needed special care and eventually, weaning.

      They couldn’t do any of it by themselves; they needed Maggie to help them survive. Maggie soon realized that she was dependent on them for her survival, too. The goats gave her a reason to get out of bed every morning. She had priorities now, in the form of a flock of friendly, curious goats.

      For the next six months, much of Maggie’s energy was spent tending the goats. She filled out her days by preparing meals for Grandpa and taking long walks along the cliffs and down on the rough, sandy beach. She grew a bit healthier and happier every day.

      Eventually she was able to acknowledge that Grandpa was perfectly able to do most of the work with the goats himself. Thanks to Grandpa, Maggie was nearly back to being her old self, which meant that it was time for her to find a real job and make some money. Sadly, the idea of working in town where she could run into her former friends was just too daunting. That’s when Grandpa suggested that while she was figuring things out, she might enjoy dabbling in her father’s old family beer-making business.

      The microbrewery equipment lay dormant in the long, narrow storage room next to the barn. Her father had called the room his brew house, and it was where he used to test some of the beers they served at their brewpub in town. The storage room had been locked up for years, ever since her dad died.

      Maggie had fond memories of following her father around while he experimented with flavors and formulas to make different types of beers, so the idea of reviving his brew house appealed to her. Within a week, she was hosing down and sanitizing the vats, replacing a few rusted spigots and cleaning and testing the old manual bottling and kegging equipment her father had used. She spent another few weeks driving all over the county to shop for the proper ingredients and tools before she finally started her first batch of beer. And it wasn’t half bad.

      That was three years ago. Now Maggie could smile as she tapped one of the kegs to judge the results of her latest pale ale experiment. She had entered this one in the festival and fully expected, or hoped, anyway, to win a medal next week.